Polar Excursion - A heart of cold [UDMF]

[despacito420]

[imgur]https://imgur.com/F2PIEkF[/imgur]
====== A Heart of Cold ======

Polar Excursion - an out of season holiday special.

I know I'm a bit late for Christmas and winter is almost over, but I've finally got around finishing this project I've been working on for quite some time now. Enjoy!

----------------- Info -----------------
Base game: Doom II: Hell on Earth
Maps: MAP01
Format: UDMF
Tested with: GZDoom 4.13.2
Jumping, crouching: Not allowed
Freelook: Allowed
Difficult?: Yes, lower difficulties are implemented

---------------- Gallery ---------------
[imgur]https://imgur.com/1qIjlgu[/imgur]
[imgur]https://imgur.com/1Atj1Yx[/imgur]
[imgur]https://imgur.com/rRkAWDG[/imgur]
[imgur]https://imgur.com/QNWpFEL[/imgur]
[imgur]https://imgur.com/hhphwFj[/imgur]
[imgur]https://imgur.com/s9FVKLM[/imgur]
[imgur]https://imgur.com/9fcGBEK[/imgur]
[imgur]https://imgur.com/cyW5VYU[/imgur]
[imgur]https://imgur.com/RHc466A[/imgur]
[imgur]https://imgur.com/3jkyWok[/imgur]

----------------- Music ----------------
MAP01: Bofu - Carnival of Fire and Brimstone
Title screen: Linkin Park - Pushing Me Away (MIDI cover from FreeMidi.org)
Cast sequence: Neil Young - Heart Of Gold (MIDI cover from FreeMidi.org)

Download (latest v1.2):
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/ly7tpswb4x9sc/polarex

Thanks for playing.

[Enjay]

Just reposting the images because despacito420 doesn't have enough posts for the tags to work yet.

[Shatter-Thought[V-4]]

This looks super cool. I'll be glad to try it out!

[TorrentialFire]

I got stuck in the blue keycard well of water. I think there might be several linedefs which lower the rings further down if the player walks across them. The floor got so low that the only jumping would allow me to escape.

[despacito420]

Yeah, it was intended that the well kills you if you go into it before you activate all four switches, so I didn't bother making a way to escape. Don't know if that is good game design though. Should I change that and maybe add a way to get out?

[Enjay]

Maybe a warning in game somehow/somewhere not to go into the well until you have flipped the switches?

It's not good game design if you end up in the well and die, but don't know why. If you know why, then it's fair enough. How to let people know why is over to you.

[Shatter-Thought[V-4]]

I just played your map a while ago, and it's got some great points, and a few troubles.

First off, love the general design, from the train that has a snowed under locomotive, from the vast main area with the various teleportation switches to "climb" back up, to the train station where the final showdown is.

Second would be about the soft lock you have at the end: if you click on the wall barring the final showdown without clicking on the sos computer, that final wall meant to go down after the fight is stuck and you can't exit. I would recommend the second to last wall barring entrance to the arena is also controlled by the yellow key computer, or the yellow switch brings up another switch near or in front of the wall for the player to click.

Next up *Spoiler*

---

When you get to the battle area with the mirrors and invisible pinkys, it's a cool fight that's tricky but doable, but then having an invisible archvile pop out WITH tons of other enemies, including hitscanners (Namely the heavy machine gunners) is a major pain. You are asking the player to essentially slow down if not stop next to a mirror to scan quickly for the archvile WHILE approaching imps,pinkys, shotgunners and most annoyingly machinegunners are approaching and tearing you apart, it's too much. I would suggest two things: One, make the Archvile visible, no need to have it be invisible with so many monsters crowding around you, just make it visible, or half-visible so keen players can still spot it.

Second suggestion is to get rid of the heavy machine-gunners, possibly the shotgunenrs too, at least dealing with the imps and pinkys is tolerable if annoying, but it's not so bad to deal with visible demons as you hide behind the mirror pillars so you can get a breather in to hit the archvile with some heavy firepower, IF you even have any at that point.

Other then that fight, I did like the map quite a lot and I love the custom work put into it's textures and some decor, very cool work!

[despacito420]

Thanks for the feedback, it is much appreciated. Yeah, I totally forgot that you can access the final fight even without pressing the "SOS" button. I will definitely tend to that in the future update. Good point about the invisible archvile, it was more meant as a joke to see how people would react to it , but I see how it doesn't actually enhance the experience in any way so I will change that fight also. Thanks again.