DGC Map Pack Collaboration

[sorceress]

#9475

I was chatting with @Tijn earlier about Doom month, and he suggested the idea of us (DGC) creating our own map pack, as a community effort/collaboration.

While I don’t have a lot of experience with doom map creation, I know some other club members do have good experience with the tools and the general knowhow.

The question is, is there enough interest in our community to create something like this?

I recall a similar communal project was attemped on the doomworld forums a couple of years ago, and what should have been a 1 month collaboration ended up taking almost a year… and those people knew what they were doing!

So I think a full pack of ~30 levels would be very ambitious for DGC to pull off in 1-2 months, and a smaller pack would be a more realistic goal for us.

Reply with your thoughts, ideas, volunteer or whatever. I’m interested to see what we can do together 🙂

[dr_st]

#9477

On Doomer Boards they frequently create a map pack in a month, but it’s usually ~10 levels, not 30, and those are some very experienced and talented designers.

As much as I would love to be capable of creating maps, I don’t think I am anywhere near even thinking of it. 🙁

[patrick_wd]

#9479

This idea has been discussed on IRC a bit as well, and it sounds great to me. I agree that a full megawad is overambitious by far, but a smaller doom 1 style single mini-episode is more viable.

I used to do some mapping a long, long time ago, and the tools and tech have come a long way since then. I’m definitely down to attempt to make a map for this.

My personal favorite style of map are the episode 1 style techbases, so I’ll probably do one of those. If there are more volunteers with different preferred styles we could probably arrange them into a loose arc.

[Wesbat]

#9482

Sign me up 🙂

I love me a good tech base.

I agree about a smaller map set. What time-frame did everyone have in mind? In time for the episode release?

It can still be a success even if it’s a work in progress when the episode airs, plus the added stress of a deadline is not always fun.

Of course you don’t want to get stuck in a never-ending cycle either. I will post some tips later to help inform us on avoiding this 🙂

[TigerQuoll]

#9483

If this goes ahead you could pencil me in. I haven’t done much Doom mapping, but many moons ago I used to make a lot of Duke3D levels, and I’m sure those skills would transfer pretty easily.

[patrick_wd]

#9484

The Build engine used by Duke 3D is way more complex and janky than Doom. If you have experience wrangling that, Doom should be no problem at all.

[Wesbat]

#9486

Some tips to save time mapping, these are editor agnostic and nothing here is absolute. Take what you will.

The basic steps of building a level:

1) Create the foundation: rooms, locations, and the connections between them.
2) Do a few test runs, adjusting rooms as needed.
3) Populate with monsters and items.
4) Do a few more test runs, balancing as needed.
5) Add flourish, detailing the aesthetics.

* It’s easy to change or reshape rooms, but it gets more time-consuming the more details you have to deal with (lines and vertices). Save time by leaving the fine details for last, allowing you to make rapid changes while the structure of your level is coming together. Also if you start detailing before the foundation has settled, it becomes too easy to lose momentum: your level feels unfinished (there is no exit?) despite all the time you spent making it look good.

Approach: Start with “broad strokes” and create rooms and locations first, optionally apply wall and floor textures where they act as visual reminders of a room’s purpose. Structures that have an effect on gameplay (stairs, lifts, keyed doors, nukage pits) all fall under broad strokes.

* Balance to make sure there is enough ammo and health for the player, and that monsters do not overpower the player. Maps are usually designed for “pistol start”: players who die and restart the level, players who record demos or do speed runs. Balancing also involves setting the easy/medium/hard flags on monsters so accommodate the difficulty level the player has chosen.

Approach: Place the initial monsters for what you consider the medium difficulty level. Play it a few times. How many times did you die before reaching the exit? Do you exit with 100% health every time and a fully stocked backpack? Add/remove monsters & items so you exit with barely enough ammo, and you picked up at least half the health bonuses.

Catering for the easy skill: When you are happy with the medium monster difficulty, select every second or third monster and remove the “easy” flag, this will give less monsters on the easy skill.

Catering for the hard skill: add one extra monster for every 3 medium monsters, setting only the “hard” flag for this new monster.

Balancing is by far the trickiest, I would be happy to assist with this, I’ve done a lot of it 🙂

[dr_st]

#9491

Balancing for hard skill, approach #2 – replace a bunch of Hell Knights with a Spiderdemon! 😛

[kdrnic]

#9509

Since those collabs have an habit of turning vaporware I am going to propose a CONCRETE PLAN OF ACTION.

1. We strive to make at least one episode
2. It has to be DOS Doom compatible
3. Each person shall make one level ideally
4. Level pong is still an idea, then a duet can work two levels at once
5. It is no issue if the level is unfinished – another volunteer can finish/retouch the level as happened in real Doom after Tom Hall left
6. I suggest that we “remake” one of the original 3 episodes, not necessarily an actual area by area but to give a rough idea i.e. E1M2 is nuclear plant
7. I suggest that the first and last maps, which are most prominent, are made last, or by the best mapper(s), or by team effort
8. I think the bar can be held quite low, no need to avoid participating just because you aren’t good at it
9. An idea for map shapes is to make a shape like a letter such as a K shape for KDRNIC

Also, unless there is more PARLIAMENT QUICKLY REACHING CONSENSUS, here is the DEAL:
We will make at least Episode I(1(one)).
DRAMATIS PERSONAE (all that have mentioned willingness to participate, each shall make one level):

kdrnic
Wesbat
sorceress
voxel
TigerQuoll
patrick_wd

Also THIS VERY POST has a line as such:
“March 3, 2025 at 9:00 pm #9491”
I will append to this string a space and the nickname as above, and hash, and sort. This will then be an ordering of maps, from M2 on.

[kdrnic]

#9510

So here are our lots.

E1M2 381d3f1a386e77f55c62a5e15365f64943f30f0d05e0512d79ae847d66382a6f March 6, 2025 at 11:10 pm #9509 voxel
E1M3 57bbe8127208187098fddc6710d40f41d001a5be9a38f264eec0f8c4838a3bcc March 6, 2025 at 11:10 pm #9509 kdrnic
E1M4 72cfc1b5cd126a06d8937dbbb2ed123c6099fa5a6e07eb38f3aa1ba6716bf673 March 6, 2025 at 11:10 pm #9509 sorceress
E1M5 c9e1e69a7730c289eb43dc29e5d7124a762888814eec0fd5c405e7cbb73697b1 March 6, 2025 at 11:10 pm #9509 Wesbat
E1M6 dbf929e6398509a2f60abbefbc61c6b0f6669b68de22962de0bc664f3c975907 March 6, 2025 at 11:10 pm #9509 patrick_wd
E1M7 f110b1cec17f3c06a8b1f71762462795e897a888334c16b5ecb7fc808fd47c6c March 6, 2025 at 11:10 pm #9509 TigerQuoll

I suggest that we discuss at most until March 10, and then necessarily start work with whatever the plan is at such time.

[TigerQuoll]

#9511

Wow, I like your quick, executive decision making, kdrnic!
Can you just explain the hash string a bit more, what it’s for and how it’s used? I’ve never been part of a collaborative software project like this, and these sorts of procedures are pretty alien to me.

[TigerQuoll]

#9512

Patrick_wd: yes and no.
I’ve tinkered with Doom and Hexen mapping, but never very seriously. Only enough to make some simple two or three room maps and see what it’s all about. This was quite a while ago, mind you, with some of the early DOS based tools, so take this with a pinch of salt.

My impression was it’s a lot more hands-on than Duke3D. The Build editor did a lot of things for you, such as automatically creating/assigning sectors, texturing, and fiddling about with which is the outside/inside face of a wall (forgot the proper terminology). It felt a lot more like you could just create what you had in your mind without having to worry about the nuts and bolts.

Mind you, I imagine a lot of the newer tools for DOOM do this too, so it might not be an issue.

But the other thing was Build didn’t require you to fluff about with WADs and nodes and all these other filesystem level things. It just spat out a map file which you could launch straight into the game.

That said I’m sure all those things are not a steep learning curve. It’s just an extra little thing for me to reorient my way of thinking. I’m sure I can clobber together something playable, but I’m glad I’m not assigned one of the more iconic maps!

[patrick_wd]

#9513

Yeah, modern Doom mapping tools are much more streamlined now. They even have 3D live-previews so you can move around in your map as you edit it and see your changes in realtime. It’s actually quite nice now, nothing like the “2d lines on a canvas until you run the game and hope it looks right” workflow of the 90s.

[Wesbat]

#9516

+1 to @kdrnic for the outstanding Plan Of Action, I like it.

I’d briefly like to mention a few of the map editors available. Don’t take my opinions as canon, I am sure there are many others and I’d also like to hear your recommendations 🙂

I mainly use “Eureka”, a cross-platform map editor. As much as I love it, there are some caveats: not being as prolific as some of the more popular editors, searching for tutorials and help online can take some digging. Also the latest v2 release has some instability issues, I suggest sticking to v1.27b

The more popular editor is called “Doom Builder”, and was also used by Romero when he created his Sigil episode in 2019. This editor has more tutorials, videos etc online, and would likely be a better candidate for new mappers. There are a bunch of video tutorials on its website.

I am going to use Doom Builder for this project as I’ve always wanted to try it.

https://www.doombuilder.com/
https://eureka-editor.sourceforge.net/

[voxel]

#9517

I seem to have been volunteered. If I participate, what files do I need to provide? I.e what do I export and send to you? If everyone’s using different editors, there presumably needs to be some common format for collating maps. Also as I mentioned on IRC I’d like to at least experiment with including some custom textures – how does that impact the files I need to provide for the finished map?

[patrick_wd]

#9518

All editors support working in Doom’s native WAD format, so files should be interoperable without issue. Some modern source ports have other formats like “doom in hexen” or “UDMF”, but we don’t need to worry about any of that, just pick standard, vanilla Doom format and it should be fine.

As for adding custom textures, that’s a bit harder if we want to keep compatibility with vanilla. Only the textures from the last loaded WAD are available, which means if we try to add custom textures we lose all of the vanilla ones. This can be fixed by importing all of the vanilla textures into our WAD, which will bloat it significantly, but is doable.

[Wesbat]

#9520

@voxel you only need to provide the WAD file containing your level. When all levels are done, we use Slade, a game resource editor, to compile them all into one single WAD file.

[sorceress]

#9523

I did actually start putting together my own ideas for a level pack. Coming more from a Doom II background, my ideas are a bit more inspired by that, but only loosely. Take it or leave it. :p

level 1: base station
– a short introductory level with an iconic design.
– pistol zombies and imps only
– easy navigation with 0 keys
– pistol only, shotgun may be found in a secret area
– no hazardous floors

level 2: storm the castle
– introduce shotgun zombies and demons (pink monster)
– easy navigation with 1 key
– give shotgun early on
– no hazardous floors near to the action

level 3: castle gardens/ruins. mostly outside areas.
– introduce chaingunners
– two areas that can be done in either order, giving 2 keys to enter a final area/bunker
– get chaingun from chaingunners
– rocket launcher in secret area
– no hazardous floors near to the action, but non-damaging water floor is ok.

level 4: tunnels/sewers
– introduce spectres (invisible monsters), lost souls, and a lone hellknight as a practice miniboss mid level. (he’s relatively weak)
– less easy navigation with some backtracking, with 2 keys
– give super shotgun mid-level, which can one-shot demons + spectres at close range.
– have some poison floor areas where the action is, and give radiation suits for them.

level 5: the baron’s lair
– introduce baron of hell as a miniboss at the end of this level
– perhaps make it clear early on where the miniboss will teleport in, to build up a sense of foreboding. like an arena. a vision trigger might lure the baron into a teleporter, and so into the arena. but a switch might first be necessary to make the teleporter accessible to the baron.
– last of the “easy” levels. 2 keys
– give rocket launcher. beware of giving the player too many rockets prior to level 10. they should feel in limited supply.

level 6: the hell maze
– introduce cacodemons, and bring hellknights back as a regular unit.
– medium difficulty. more complex map layouts. 3 keys
– some hazardous floors you have to cross, without radiation suits.
– hard to find secret areas. include a map reveal towards the end, so that you can locate them. reward backpack in one of these secrets, red armor in another, and heath packs in another, to bring you to full health.
– starve the player of ammo towards the end, so that we start fight club with very little.

level 7: fight club
– introduce revenant
– revenants use their fists at close range, and it’s quite fun to engage with them 1v1 in close quarters like this.
– plenty of berzerk packs to encourage the player to reciprocate the fist fight in the early game, combined with ammo starvation from the end of the previous level.
– revenants use homing missiles at distance, so ensure you only meet them close up by keeping them hidden out of sight around corners etc, or starting with their backs to you.
– later on, you need to find cover from groups of revenants because you can’t out-strafe their homing missiles at a distance. and you should be given ammo for that (and cover).
– i think it would be fun to design one level around engaging this special unit.
– medium difficulty. 3 keys

level 8: mecha-spider lair
– introduce arachnotrons
– arachnotrons can create bullet-hell stages with their endless barrage of slow moving projectile. they’re fun to out-strafe though, so design the level around that.
– continue to starve the player of rockets, so they can’t solve it that simply. must rely on shotgun + chaingun.
– a bit of a maze with tunnels, chambers, lairs, and lots of spiders. it wouldn’t be much of a spider lair without some traps either.
– include a couple of invul spheres so you can break through deliberately tricky areas.
– medium difficulty. 3 keys
– reward plasma gun near the end

level 9: bridge over the river styx
– introduce pain elementals
– pain elements (and the lost souls they spawn) are not particularly fun enemies to deal with, so have them but don’t focus too much upon them.
– there is a cap on the number of lost souls active in a level, and you could design the level around this – a knowledgable player might opt to leave an area with lost souls until after they’ve dealt with the pain elementals. or to trigger some pain elementals into spawning their lost souls, so that others in a more tricky area will not.
– include a dark area, and give vision glasses.
– medium difficulty. 3 keys
– give plasma gun

level 10: temple of fire
– introduce mancubus and archvile
– mancubus throw lots of fire, and archviles like to burn the player at range via a channeled spell. they also resurrect the fallen. this is a good recipe for a chaotic and deadly level!
– hard difficulty. 3 keys
– give bfg and plenty of rockets. fight fire with fire.
– include deadly lava floor areas
– include a couple of invisibility spheres so you can better position yourself for engagement, or sneak past the enemies to get essential ammos.

level 11: the library
– bring baron of hell back as a regular unit (earlier miniboss)
– hard difficulty and longer, with more close quarters combat. 3 keys
– give plenty of rockets now, despite them being hard to use in close quarters. the player can use them where they feel confident or if they enjoy the gamble.

level 12: finale
– introduce cyberdemon
– boss arena. 0 keys
– plenty of chaingun ammo + some rockets. defeating the cyberdemon with the bfg is unrewarding, but with shotgun alone would be painful.
– DGC lettering cut into the ground, which you can look down on from a higher platform when you’re done.

[Wesbat]

#9525

@kdrnic I totally agree with you, the first and last maps should be a team effort, that sounds like fun!

You didn’t mention E1M9, the secret level. Perhaps that can be on reserve for anyone else wanting to join the fray? Otherwise it can either be skipped or become a team level.

We can also use the number of weapons, items & monsters of the original levels as a *guideline* when placing them in our levels. This ensures play at a similar difficulty than the original game, and saves time fussing with balancing. Totally optional.

(List of Things for each level is at https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Knee-Deep_in_the_Dead – click through to the level, then scroll to the “Statistics” section)

[patrick_wd]

#9526

I agree that it’s a good idea to keep difficulty roughly in line with the original, at least for normal difficulties. The Doom community has been around so long at this point that many community projects tend to be extremely high difficulty with massive arenas and huge waves of monsters that can be quite fatiguing even with save-scumming. Vanilla style monster density should make it accessible to most any player, while we can always reserve UV as a more challenging option.

[patrick_wd]

#9529

Here’s another idea to add to the pile. It’s possible to make a single player level double as a deathmatch map by adding a region disconnected from the rest of the map. Placing the deathmatch spawnpoints and multiplayer-only items there makes it effectively 2 maps in 1. Romero did this for his Sigil maps and it works quite well.

We could all add simple deathmatch arenas to our maps and use the DGC map pack for a tournament or something. It doesn’t need to be anything more complex than a big square with some walls and pillars in the middle, but feel free to add whatever unique twist you want.

[kdrnic]

#9537

I suggest a timeline where we have a rough level by 21 March at the latest so the remainder of March can be used in glueing the levels together, finishing touches, possibly some style of “level pong” (as in code pong)

I think I can’t stress it enough, that if time or inspiration seems short we can just lower the bar, since the fun is in having made such a thing at all, rather than having made a PRO QUALITY thing, as in a game jam.

( @sorceress I think we agree on making a Doom WAD so avoiding Doom II stuff )

[kdrnic]

#9538

Here are my humble beginnings

Attachments:

1. 

   humbleBegin.jpg
   

[patrick_wd]

#9542

Nice! I like the idea of sharing teasers of our maps, so here’s a quick screenshot from the first area of my map

Attachments:

1. 

   pwd_e1m6.jpg
   

[kdrnic]

#9549

Another teaser zoomed out to not spoil much

I have made all sectors, now I <i>only</i> need to texture, place monsters, health and ammo…

Attachments:

1. 

   preview2.jpg
   

[Wesbat]

#9551

A teaser from e1m5

Attachments:

1. 

   DOOM01.png
   

[TigerQuoll]

#9553

Oh man, you guys’ maps look so good! And you’ve all made heaps of progress!

I’m still wrapping my head around the editor and regrowing my map editing brain, and I’ve only managed a few very ugly sectors so far…

I was looking for inspiration for a layout, and for some reason I thought the cover image of Douglas R Hofstadter’s book “Mathemagical Themas” would be good because it looks kinda maplike.

Google it and I’m sure you’ll wonder how I could be so deluded…
I’m thinking of treating it as a learning exercise and starting again with something that has the occasional right angle and respects euclidean space.

[voxel]

#9555

Nice to see some accomplished mappers contributing – I’ve started on mine and I think it’s going to be a bit more humble than some other entries 😀

Attachments:

1. 

   Screenshot_Doom_20250316_002657.png
   

[kdrnic]

#9557

I have added monsters and items, balancing is not perfect but is already quite fun

It is about 5min long in play time

Attachments:

1. 

   uv100.jpg
   

[Wesbat]

#9561

This is only a suggestion, but can we use a shared document to leave testing feedback on each other’s levels?

This is also to collect the level download links in one place, to make it easier for when the time comes to package them into a single WAD.

I am hesitant to make the doc publicly editable. For now use the “Request Access” button. Apologies for this hurdle, I’m open to other means of coordination too (or not) 🙂

Edit: link removed in lieu of @kdrnic’s excellent suggestion

[kdrnic]

#9562

@Wesbat I am not sure it is necessary, since we can aggregate all discussion/feedback within this forum thread. I hate those 2000s forums with dead links to long gone interesting information.

Since posts are editable, I can make a post such as a table, and edit to include further updates.

I have my own level complete/ready for testing… I tried to make an industrial style area to fit the REFINERY theme. It took some more time than I expected, but at the same time the level is a bit longer than I thought it would turn out.

I am not sure whether it is best to release each level to be tested one by one – I thought of having a deadline. I suggest no later than Friday, March 21. So we have the last 10 days of March for “glue up” and finishing touches.

@patrick_wd has mentioned also being almost done, so maybe we can discuss starting a collaboration on E1M1 as planned, and E1M8/E1M9, which went unclaimed.

Some ( @sorceress @voxel @TigerQuoll ) have mentioned getting-used-to-editor troubles, I hope and urge all can at least make something small; being the intention that matters, and someone else, if desired, can volunteer to retouch or lengthen the contributed level.

Lastly, I think we can add some small DGC flavour – either a DGC-styled room, or maybe a custom texture – to every map. For a custom texture, I think it is possible to replace (but not to add?) a “texture patch” (rather than a “texture”) in a vanilla PWAD, without necessarily importing/merging all default “texture patches”. So we could pick a “texture patch” which is unused in any of the contributed levels, and reskin it.

[kdrnic]

#9563

INDEX LIBELLARUM
Permanent link to this table
Last updated: 16:36 Saturday, April 5, 2025 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)

E1M1
Assigned to: rnlf
Status: Ready for testing
Link v2: https://data.base13.de/pub/dgc_e1m1_rnlf-v2.wad
Link v1: https://data.base13.de/pub/dgc_e1m1_rnlf.wad

E1M2
Assigned to: voxel
Status: Ready for testing
Link v5: https://thomaspurnell.com/notes/voxel_e1m2_20250320_4.wad
Link v4: https://thomaspurnell.com/notes/voxel_e1m2_20250320_3.wad
Link v3: https://thomaspurnell.com/notes/voxel_e1m2_20250320_2.wad
Link v2: http://thomaspurnell.com/notes/voxel_e1m2_20250320.wad *
Link v1: https://thomaspurnell.com/notes/voxel_e1m2_20250319.wad *

E1M3
Assigned to: kdrnic
Status: Ready for testing
Link v2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1E658uXp44sLJlDSnNy0g0eEmetwX7EXd/view?usp=sharing
Link v1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BlBH8Hfx7QMbAm-YOYgGaYgYn5WaMyr9/view?usp=sharing

E1M4
Assigned to: sorceress
Status: Ready for testing
Link v3 (RC1): https://app.box.com/s/wstynrq6lyhu9esq37894s6xwwx4a3ri
Link v2: https://app.box.com/s/xlk477xzz5sygg5hrdeygxu2xcx4iix2
Link: https://app.box.com/s/c1avl8v8l6j6240g6z0zj7ppqsev5mfv

E1M5
Assigned to: wesbat
Status: Ready for testing
Link v2: https://mega.nz/file/PXpEBKLZ#4rj5yloepjLOLFxysOKNuRhNjF7P18izKCUvmCmsYAA
Link: https://mega.nz/file/HbZTWIIL#f7g6K89UMMSWD7_8KlCl5iDrtcyfIAXtCjUv2ssmQtw

E1M6
Assigned to: patrick_wd
Status: Ready for testing
Link v2: https://mega.nz/file/O1QRVZZZ#aUcmUl2eFQnxM7lcRPCSblmm11Njg2xzuMK2SLq2CI8
Link: https://mega.nz/file/L9hT0Qpa#YrVmCQNACU23XIIQx4lcQca3arciQdywY7utGZ09LfU

E1M7
Assigned to: TigerQuoll
Status: Work in progress
Link: (pending)

E1M8
Assigned to: watchful
Status: Ready for testing
Link v2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eGNlm9t8Z4nUb3ZVsHrxYLVre7lEILmv/view?usp=sharing
Link v1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KdyGJGsyUTOIgNaWmpb5HM6dbOLd6KTI/view
Link v0: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V2WXGY9ru2wZ1hhSYzFkNQNvdFkBY7YM/view?usp=drive_link

E1M9
Assigned to: Collective effort
Status: Work in progress
Link v3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bR_gJeVLK1KAdISrI1BJZ0O2szQ2q9BN/view?usp=sharing
Link v2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Qb2ncNmH0BSFgwsNde1w9jVO2zHB1SeD/view?usp=sharing
Link v1: https://mega.nz/file/WexAHDyJ#0rqzqujuN4odmKM_vbHTGY1OlxphzgthnQDFfa3AM9g
Link v0: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19-bLoaOtvpqV0jt72fduUHapni6Zv2dw/view?usp=drive_link

[Wesbat]

#9564

Well put @kdrnic, I cannot argue with link rot 🙂

As for custom patch/textures, one requires the PNAMES and TEXTUREx lumps, this applies to new patches and replacing existing ones equally.

This adds around 20kb of book-keeping overhead to the WAD (not counting your image of course). Without these, the engine will seek the graphic data within the IWAD and overlook our PWAD.

Did you have the DGC logo in mind? Sounds a fun idea. Need any help with this? 🙂

[Wesbat]

#9565

Here is my E1M5, all skills implemented and equal the original game’s difficulty.

E1M5

[patrick_wd]

#9566

Here’s mine: E1M6

Difficulty is slightly harder than vanilla. Many secrets are available to help, but the map is still reliably beatable with 0 secrets on HMP or below. UV is significantly harder to provide more of a challenge.

[watchful]

#9567

I’ve got an idea I’m working on. Shame I cannot use Dehacked or any other modifiers. But I’ll try to make it work.

[sorceress]

#9568

I can confirm that i am working on a map, but i haven’t used E1M4 as a guide at all. I was actually hoping we’d make a Doom 2 map pack, but it looks like that idea now has been rejected 🙁

I couldn’t even remember what E1M4 was, tbh, But i have played through it, and I will endevour to produce something similar in size, content, and hopefully quality.

I aim to have it done by the weekend. 🙂

Attachments:

1. 

   sorcbase.png
   

[kdrnic]

#9571

I have updated the index and added a link to my own map.

Out of several attempts the lowest time was 02:19 (UV speed).

I can share the demo but if some adjustment becomes necessary it won’t matter.

[kdrnic]

#9572

I have finished both on UV. Great maps.

—

I recorded each first finishing on demo files, and I suggest other playtesters try this.

The enchantment is as follows:

crispy-doom -iwad D:\wads\doom.wad -file DGC.wad -skill 4 -warp 1 3 -record mydemo

Where 1 3 is E1M3, skill 4 is UV, etc.
You also add -longtics for official speedruns IIRC.

—

@Wesbat ‘s map, having played his other WAD, has a distinctive Wesbat style, which is much to my taste. Probably everyone has a distinctive style, when mapmaking.
I did fall once into the cheeky trap – but I can’t say there was a lack of warning.

—

I am very impressed with the size of @patrick_wd ‘s map – entertainment for 19 minutes!
At one point I was a bit lost in a computer/cubeish area – maybe something can guide the player’s eye.

—

THE DEMOS

I present those timidly – they will display my poor Doomplaying:

E1M5/Wesbat:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16dPO2udr4wO1CueHL3MiYgRL-GEFtIO0/view?usp=sharing

E1M6/patrick_wd:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qLZB5FDYOGLHp82hLWCULtskS_db_uvQ/view?usp=sharing

[patrick_wd]

#9573

I actually really enjoyed watching that; very suspenseful finish! It also illuminated a few issues that I’ve since addressed in prep for the final release.

[Wesbat]

#9574

@kdrnic thanks for the demo!

I am sorry about the teleport death-trap. That was very cheeky (and borderline troll). I have removed it from my map 🙂

@patrick_wd, I love your map! I died on my first attempt, I will record a demo on my next play and share it here.

[kdrnic]

#9575

@Wesbat put it back!

[patrick_wd]

#9576

Unfortunately I didn’t even think to record blind demos of my playthroughs, but I kept a notes document as I was going. Here’s what I have so far:

E1M3:
Really sells the industrial/nuclear waste facility vibe quite well. All the barrel clusters and piston elevators are a nice touch.
Item pacing is a bit tight and sparse. Some more stimpacks and bonuses dotted around here and there would help a lot. Bonuses are also a good way to guide the player like coins in Mario.
Once you reach the primary exit, there doesn’t seem to be a way back to the rest of the map. Once I secure the exit I like to go back for secret hunting, but I had to noclip back out to do so. It’s possible there is a way back and I just missed it.
-EDIT-: Forgot the mention that it feels like the chaingun is a secret, but it isn’t marked as such. Perhaps it’s intented to a “soft secret” instead.

E1M5:
That central room with the nukeage pit and 3-point shadow is really striking; great stuff.
The green doors in the green area seem to use the fast open action from one side, but the slow open action from the other. Not a big deal at all really, but it’s something I noticed.
Noticed a bit of oddness in the automap with some parts of certain rooms were invisible while others were not. Perhaps intentional, but worth mentioning.
I actually got a good laugh out of the death teleporter. I knew it would kill me but I couldn’t resist and took it anyway. Nobody to blame but myself. A shame to see it go, but I understand why.

[Wesbat]

#9577

@patrick_wd here is my second attempt demo. I still haven’t found all secrets yet, and I really enjoy playing it. The Hurt Me Plenty difficulty plays more like Ultra Violence. I did not spot anything odd, but will have a few more run throughs, taking my time and paying more attention 🙂

e1m6_wb_playtest.lmp

A general note to everyone: you have to play back demos on the same map revision it was recorded against, otherwise the demo goes out of sync. For this reason its a good idea to keep copies of each revision you push out.

[Wesbat]

#9578

@sorceress looking forward to play your map. And depending how this project goes, who knows … we may be keen for a Doom II edition in the future 🙂

[Wesbat]

#9579

@kdrnic here’s a demo for you, HMP e1m3_wb_playtest.lmp.

I like your use of heights. The exploding barrels provided a good amount of careful damage control. I found myself hunting for health halfway through, perhaps a few more health packs wouldn’t go amiss but that is hardly a flaw and I really enjoyed it!

[sorceress]

#9580

After playing through E1M4 a couple of times now, I’m trying to think of ways to modify my design to more closely reflect the “Command Control” theme. So that’s my task for tonight. I’d like to get the bulk of the mapping done by tomorrow (wednesday), so that I have all of thursday and friday for balancing (monsters + pickups) and general polishing.

I’ve been also been having a lot of trouble with triggers while crafting this map (among various other editing woes). For example, the texture of switches doesn’t seem to update automatically when operated, and I can’t figure out how to swap them. Getting the exact behaviour i want is also taking a lot of guessing and giving up.

Eureka doesn’t explain the triggers at all, and the huge list of them i found on doomwiki is both unreadable and lacks important behavioural detail such as sounds and things. A (visual) scripting system would have been much better than what we have to work with here. I hope someone else can fix these things for me after I upload.

This is my also first time making a doom map, and I’m finding it a lot slower, and a lot less intuitive than I had expected. But I’m determined to cobble together something half-decent this week!

[patrick_wd]

#9581

I got hit with the switch texture problem, too. To fix it, make sure only ONE switch texture is used by the linedef (as in only the lower, middle, or upper texture). If, say, both the upper and lower texture are a switch, then it won’t work.

The linedef actions are indeed a bit of a mess. They were basically iD adding whatever they needed at the time in an ad-hoc manner, which is how we end up with some of the more strange actions like donut. One thing that really helps is to open the vanilla maps in the editor and inspect which actions they use and how they’re set up. I used E1M9 as a reference a few times to figure out how to do certain tricks.

[Wesbat]

#9583

Sorry to hear you are having troubles @sorceress.

We can certainly fix these after you upload, or help guide you, if you want to do it yourself? Feel free to describe what you are trying to create, and I will gladly give an example map with steps; it could highlight what the trouble is.

For switches, in addition to the good tips from @patrick_wd:

– Use textures that start with “SW1…” (switch #1), the engine will swap its texture out automatically by replacing SW1 with SW2. We can’t control the swap behaviour, it’s hard-coded in the engine.

– “S” actions (Switches) only work from the *front* of the line (the little “handle” on the line faces towards the front). In Eureka the W-key flips the line front-to-back.

– Make sure to pick one-time (S1) or repeating (SR) switch actions accordingly, and that the switch and target sector have the same tag number.

Most map editors don’t explain how the Doom engine works, which only creates a barrier of entry, very silly indeed. The wiki is only useful insofar as as quick reference. The main source of truth is the “Unofficial Doom Specs”, a technical document by nature. But we don’t expect newcomers to read through it, it is a dry read. Please ask us question, we will be happy to help 🙂

[1]: https://www.gamers.org/dhs/helpdocs/dmsp1666.html

[kdrnic]

#9584

I have made a slightly updated version addressing a few concerns:
-You can now go back from the exit area, this is an useful convention.
-Added a tiny peppering of health on HMP and lower.
-Marked the chaingun as a secret.
-Added one extra barrel to help with one speedrunning bottleneck.

[voxel]

#9586

Calling it a day on my map. It’s probably far too easy for you DOOM pros but it’s just about right for me, and I figure E1M2 in a mappack doesn’t have to make players sweat. I’ve tried to limit the available weapons to allow for *some* progression through the episode, but I’m not going to cry if you stuff every single weapon into E1M1 and the player arrives at my level having already attained godhood. Much.

It was fun learning my way around the tools (I used SLADE) and working with the DOOM engine restrictions – and I’m interested to see how my limited DOOM experience causes my map to differ from the output of veterans of hell. In particular I was unaware that ‘real’ DOOM has no jumping other than ‘run really fast and hope you make it to the next platform’, so that really limited my initial plans. Also why is there no water texture for use on walls? Ridiculous! In protest I have animated a grill sideways, live with it.

https://thomaspurnell.com/notes/voxel_e1m2_20250319.wad

Attachments:

1. 

   doom_1.png
   

[TigerQuoll]

#9589

I’m still way behind. It’s been a crazy busy week at work. But I’m getting the feel for the editor now, and hopefully I should make some good progress over the next few days.

I agree we should add some little DGC touch, but not sure what that should be…

[Wesbat]

#9593

That is a really good looking map @TigerQuoll. Nice teaser 🙂

@voxel your WAD has a few minor problems preventing it from playing in Chocolate/Crispy/Vanilla Doom.

– missing bsp node data. usually your map editor of choice creates this during save, but I guess these were removed? I opened + hit “save” in Eureka to generate these.

– sectors #66 and #208 incorrectly uses *textures* PIPE2 and BROWN96 as *flats* (sadly these are not interchangeable).

– sectors #223 and #330 are missing tags (switches and their target sectors must have matching tags).

Not sure which editor you use. Eureka (F9) and Doom Builder (F4) can check for and report map problems, this helps pinpoint mistakes easily.

[kdrnic]

#9594

I fixed the @voxel WAD a bit in DB2 and did a playthrough

I think I may have accidentally skipped some content? Maybe some walls/boxes lowered that weren’t supposed to.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dEe5LsIjyFjUXv0StqoViZxHo9pddUPz/view?usp=sharing
Demo file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18VW8QJY6rhz-U3yjD3txEp3wc36ALE1w/view?usp=drive_link
Video recording: https://youtu.be/5R4e65TBlLo?si=V8IFe1Z5yv84hJhC

[voxel]

#9595

@Wesbat thanks! I’ve managed to find the somewhat hidden mapchecker in SLADE and found the issues you mentioned (and more!). I even installed zdbsp for node building, you spoiled babies. Back in my day we pulled out a pencil and paper and built our nodes by hand each time we wanted to play a map.

I just played through the map in chocolate doom (where the fov is slightly different to gzdoom’s default, making the claustrophobic sections even more so), and all seems OK to me.

(edit: I guess the nodes weren’t in the wad. I’m not sure how this works but *this* wad definitely plays for me directly in chocolate doom)

Updated wad: https://thomaspurnell.com/notes/voxel_e1m2_20250320_2.wad

[kdrnic]

#9596

I still had to load and save the WAD to run it in CrispyDoom

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y7Iy_s-TqTyd_mjtKV0_UDD-DxQ6jpw5/view?usp=sharing

Here is a new playthrough demo, with the new WAD

I think you made a very successful map, specially with your sometimes pessimistic messages in IRC
(it does have an episode 2 or even Doom 2 vibe, but as you said, you were looking for that, to defy me)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q9Zyad0knh3o-FTodJI3_qMAUAKBu8tX/view?usp=sharing

[kdrnic]

#9597

Here is a starting point for a collective effort E1M9:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19-bLoaOtvpqV0jt72fduUHapni6Zv2dw/view?usp=sharing

(it is vaguely reminiscent of default E1M9)

I figure if everyone is willing,
we can use this central hub model,
I can have the East wing,

@Wesbat the west bat can have the West wing,
and @patrick_wd the South wing.
(or some similar arrangement as long as @Wesbat keeps West, if he is in).
If someone chickens out or joins in we can just re-distribute.

This also potentially allows us to “merge” the map, if two people work on it at the same time.

We can use some wacky system of tags such as:
kdrnic 100-199
Wesbat 300-399
patrick_wd 400-499

There is an open position for the NORTH WING, tags 200-299.

Attachments:

1. 

   Captura-de-tela-2025-03-19-213717.png
   

[voxel]

#9599

Switched from SLADE to EUREKA and made a pass to fix ‘medusa’ and ‘tutti-frutti’ textures. I’m going to wait until the pack is ready to be compiled before playing through the other maps, I want to be able to play through the episode ‘legitimately’ free of prior knowledge

https://thomaspurnell.com/notes/voxel_e1m2_20250320_3.wad

[watchful]

#9600

Could I ask to use E1M8? I was hoping to reuse tag 666 to trigger something on the death of a baron

[kdrnic]

#9601

Maybe you can swap with @Tijn, you get E1M8 and he gets E1M1?
Talk with him on IRC

[Wesbat]

#9602

@voxel your map is great! I love the subterranean mood at the start, and the traps got me good 🙂 I recorded a demo on ultra-violence.

@kdrnic here is a link to version 2 of my e1m5:

– Added a way to get back out of the exit room
– Fixed mapped lines & doors opening the same from either side (thanks @patrick_wd)
– Added a deathmatch arena!

Edit: Count me in for the west wing of E1M9 🦇

[voxel]

#9603

haha thanks @wesbat. originally the lift in the first room was a ‘use once’, and I hadn’t realised until watching you play that you could skip half the map if you simply walk back to it after getting the red key.

I made the change to make deathmatch more feasible, but as far as single player it’s a massive design error on my part, doh!

edit: updated with anti wesbat shortcut measures https://thomaspurnell.com/notes/voxel_e1m2_20250320_4.wad

[patrick_wd]

#9604

Idea for E1M9: 3 of the wings have a keycard to obtain, and the final wing requires all 3 keys to reach the exit. In the original map, the south wing contains the blue key, so I’ll add that to mine.

EDIT: Also, since this is the secret level, I’m going to try something weird and experimental. I encourage everyone to do something crazy you’d never do in a “normal” map.

[sorceress]

#9608

i completed my map tonight. it’s just a matter of finding a suitable upload/hosting service.

it’s a shame we can’t upload files like this directly into the forums here, rather than having them scattered all over the internet.

rev02 — https://app.box.com/s/c1avl8v8l6j6240g6z0zj7ppqsev5mfv
(md5: 9D1695B844F1793BA56FDB5D0DA8BFF6)

I’m quite pleased with what I’ve put together this past week, and it feels as fun to play through (for me) as some official doom levels.

It takes me ~9 minutes to do a 100% run on UV, and ~2 minutes to speedrun it.

I’m hoping someone (or two) will put a let’s play up on youtube. I’ve love to see my map get a good playing! 🙂

[Wesbat]

#9609

@kdrnic I completed the west wing of E1M9. I followed patrick’s lead and placed the yellow key in this wing to match the original’s flow.

DGC_E1M9_west_v1.wad

@patrick_wd I fell short on inspiration and couldn’t think of anything crazy to add. I’m passing my crazy card on to the next person, maybe some havoc will ensue 🙂

[kdrnic]

#9610

your link is asking for a decoding key @Wesbat

[kdrnic]

#9611

I tested the @sorceress map

I think it is possibly slightly broken?
Did you test with Chocolate Doom?

The very first door refused to open, until I modified the sector slightly in Doom Builder 2 (see pics).

At the very end, after opening the exit door but before pushing the exit switch, I got a hall of mirrors effect.

At the start, the map was a bit short on shotgun ammo.

Here is a demo, I accidentally played on HMP:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mFU2VZ5Jg5o_brhuw-lALZwxHNyjh_Gn/view?usp=sharing

Attachments:

1. 

   Captura-de-tela-2025-03-21-214326.png
   

2. 

   Captura-de-tela-2025-03-21-215311.png
   

[sorceress]

#9614

The shortage of shotgun ammo early on is intentional, as i’ve tried to create a steady build-up of tempo, and have the player be mindful of how they’re spending their precious shells. The early game should leave you feeling a bit timid, but progress rewards and emboldens you. You shouldn’t be short of pistol ammo, unless your aim with the pistol has been lousy. :p

[kdrnic]

#9615

Right, the pistol is traditionally entirely skipped

I managed to almost finish at UV but got stuck on the exit:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GjdgN5sTUMxwh62xA7V6GoCQpc9-fOc0/view?usp=sharing

Both this and the other demo use this “fixed” version
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ncf9ryauEGaqWQftlqagY4lIEOioVI5W/view?usp=sharing

Edit: I found the issue with the exit door. It is at a different height inside vs outside.

Edit 2: actually changing this didn’t fix it either.

Attachments:

1. 

   Captura-de-tela-2025-03-21-221949.png
   

[watchful]

#9617

Is the deadline still 03-21? I finally worked out the mechanics I was going for. But now I need to balance the items and polish up placement and decorations.

[Wesbat]

#9618

Apologies for the broken link @kdrnic, I corrected it in my post.

[Wesbat]

#9619

E1M4 looks great @sorceress! I love all the secrets and traps, and it gave a good feel for a base of operations. I recorded a demo on ultra-violence.

“Hurt me Plenty” plays hard though, I can see it frustrating casual players. Sixty percent of the monsters in your map use hitscan (bullet) attacks, which make play harder as the player cannot dodge these attacks. The average in vanilla Doom is 34%

You can leave the difficulty as is for the Hard skill, but for Easy and Medium skills consider changing a third to half of the shotgunners to Imps (or removing them from those skills altogether).

It’s just a suggestion of course. Casual players will carry weapons from previous levels and also have save games, so I dare say you could get away with this difficulty. It may just feel out of place amongst the other maps.

I also fixed your exit door, it needed a tag as its operated as a switch. I used the WAD linked by @kdrnic so it has all his fixes too.

dgc_sorceress_command_control_rev02(fixed).zip

Attachments:

1. 

   2025-03-22-20_08_07.png
   

[sorceress]

#9621

Hi Wesbat, thanks for your feedback 🙂

Firstly, I’ve been testing the map with zdoom, and I was unaware that different engines have different rendering & physics limitations.

I’m not sure how to load custom maps in chocolate doom. I’ll have to look that up.

– Difficulty

I was aware that HMP plays a bit hard, but I decided to leave it as is for first submission. I mostly tested the map on UV, and I’m quite happy with how that plays, even if it is numerically a bit different from classic Doom (as per your analysis).

I’ll consider your advice though with the hitscan types. Either reducing their numbers a bit, or replacing them with Imps.

– Ammo

I’ve tried to leave the player with a bit more ammo by the end than what they start out with (the 50 bullets). I’d agree that if a player starts this map short on ammo, they might struggle to survive the first third of it. I’ll also think about that.

I agree that you can’t dodge hitscan attacks, but you can limit your exposure, by taking cover. Not even I would brave running out of the tunnels into the middle of those shotgunners!

It’s important to note that hitscanners are more a source of ammo than a drain, and in my map they adequately make up for the lack of placed ammo pickups.

The interaction with balance and pacing of the game is also complicated, since hitscanners are easier kills than imps – You can often down 2 hitscanners with 1 shotgun shell, whereas an imp may take upto 2 shells if you don’t hit it square on. This affects pacing, and thus the damage the player is taking over time.

I’ll continue some fixes this weekend.

– Map Making

I think I spent about 25 hours on this map over the past week (3-4 hours each evening), which has been quite a challenge.

I had a hard time with Eureka though. Part of that may be inexperience with it (plus inexperience with Doom map making in general). But there were inexcusable bugs like the text entry boxes losing focus when my mouse drifted away from them, causing my keystrokes to be interpreted as hotkeys, creating all manner of unintended changes in the map. I’ve literally lost over an hour to that alone. Switching between modes to select things is also painful, and I’ve never used Ctrl-U so much in my life before :p

There were three rooms that I removed due to quality concerns, which were some of the first areas I made, despite them playing well.

The exit room was one of the final additions, so I’m not surprised it didn’t connect properly.

I just tried to search for this analysis tool you’re using, and I found something which looked like it – dmon on github. Then I noticed the author’s name… would that be your good self? 😀

[kdrnic]

#9622

@watchful it was a “soft” deadline or a suggestion

we still have a bit over a week, but the sooner we pack it up, there is more opportunity for people to play the WAD, before DGC attention turns to the next, less remarkable, game.

[kdrnic]

#9624

I made my wing of E1M9:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Qb2ncNmH0BSFgwsNde1w9jVO2zHB1SeD/view?usp=sharing

I did use a “gimmick”, as suggested by @patrick_wd

Soon we merge in @patrick_wd ‘s wing, and the North Wing can be the sector with 3 keyed doors ? Any volunteers for this North Wing with the exit?

Attachments:

1. 

   Captura-de-tela-2025-03-22-151825.png
   

[watchful]

#9626

Can someone help me debug the exit on my attempt at E1M8?

I can’t find any reliable way to get it to exit, except damage to 20% (action 11). I was hoping to have a linedef walk exit at the edge (52).

Maybe sectors are too large, or too many moving sectors, or my editor being buggy (Ultimate Doom Builder), or CrispyDoom quirks? IDK.

EDIT: Nevermind, I just had a oversized sector.

[patrick_wd]

#9627

Ok, I think I’ve finished my M9 wing. I make no apologies: E1M9 South

Also, I’ve revised my other map based on feedback and I think it’s ready for final release barring someone finding a major bug or softlock: E1M6 RC1.

[Wesbat]

#9628

@watchful gosh that certainly is a curious problem you encountered. It had me stumped for a while!

I looked up the static limits for map Coordinates:

> In practical terms, it is safer to keep the map
> boundaries between -16384 and +16383.

Moving the sectors of your final boss area to within these coordinates fixes your problem.

@sorceress yes indeed I created the dmon tool 🙂

[watchful]

#9629

@wesbat much thanks!

I stumbled into that by downsizing my largest sector. That said, I appreciate the precise number of the limit.

EDIT: If folks want to test my map, here is a functional copy. It lacks some decorations and probably sign posting. For the curious, I’d call it “Ashes over Babel”. There are some visual glitches on wide monitors, or if folks travel out over the water but it works well enough for me on CrispyDoom. Please LMK your thoughts!

[kdrnic]

#9630

Alright, I’ve merged the South/East/West wings of E1M9

Now we need a North Wing that requires all 3 keys to open

Any volunteers?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bR_gJeVLK1KAdISrI1BJZ0O2szQ2q9BN/view?usp=sharing

———

Also, there was the idea of the DGC touch.
Could be one of those things:

-A patch/texture hidden in every map.
-A “DGC room”, maybe with DGC written in the carpet floor, we add to every map.
-Could hack the sprite of one unused decoration, to be that DGC computer, we add it to every map.

At any rate it needs doing SOON. What are the opinions of all?

———

We are nearing a first release, as soon as we have E1M1/E1M7 and a more finished E1M8! Hurrah!

[voxel]

#9631

Replace all grunts with a Tijn sprite and all Cacodemons with rnlf?

Or less effort, replace one unused environment texture with the DGC logo as suggested and either include it as a secret or perhaps put it next to the exit of each map?

How about compiling the forum avatars of all the mappack authors (and their names, if it fits) into a single wall texture, and then with some careful setting of x/y offsets we can each stamp our own map with our beautiful visage, as well as including the full texture in the final (or secret?) map as a kind of group credits. I.e something like the attachment, shown here ingame (obviously I’m using vertical mouselook, you’d probably want to have a larger room for Real Doom rendering) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE9P3XFFnmc

Attachments:

1. 

   dgc.png
   

[Wesbat]

#9633

Just a demonstration using the DGC computer as a wall texture, and a DGC carpet design.

DGC.WAD

If you include this WAD as a resource file while editing, the texture DGCTEX and flat DGCFLAT will become available.

Edit: to use the resource during testing list it as an additional parameter “doom.exe -file DGC.WAD yourmap.wad …”

Attachments:

1. 

   DGC_resdemo1.png
   

[sorceress]

#9635

I think any dgc logo(s) should go into E1M1 (which was initially slated to be collaborative) and perhaps also at the ending of E1M8.

I don’t want it anywhere on my map :p

[watchful]

#9638

Updated E1M8 with coop and DM starts. If folks add coop starts to theirs then I can host the map pack on Odamex or Zandronum, to play coop together.

EDIT: Also, I’m open to adding the DGC computer texture in a secret to E1M8.

[sorceress]

#9640

alright, before i fall asleep, here’s an update to my map:

rev06 – https://app.box.com/s/xlk477xzz5sygg5hrdeygxu2xcx4iix2

features:

– fixed the glitch on the start door when played in chocolate doom. it was apparently caused by an unrelated trigger being too close to the start location. who would have guessed this stops a door opening!

– fixed the missing texture above/behind the exit door.

– fixed the tutti-frutti textures. mostly via replacement, some by changes of geometry.

– fixed some annoying bits of geometry, and moved some triggers.

– slightly reduced the number of scanline shooters, to help address @wesbat’s concerns.

– reduced the imp count in the early game. this makes the limited shotgun ammo go a bit further, as well as creating a more gradual ramp in difficulty.

– increased the imp count in the mid and late game

– increased the number of deathmatch spawn points to 6, and placement of deathmatch weapons.

– changes to placed items, to rebalance the game after the monster changes. the rockets are also more accessible midgame.

– prevented monsters from discovering secret areas.

– tested all three dificulty modes, including a zero ammo start on UV. all runs were readily doable and felt correct difficulty to me. and with all runs i had a bit more ammo carried at the end than i started with, which is how it should be i think.

[watchful]

#9641

Apparently DOS (vanilla) Doom won’t work without the DCG.wad if those textures are used on a map. So here’s two latest copies of my E1M8 map:

• E1M8.wad — no DCG textures
• E1M8DGC.wad — with DGC textures

May also help if the DCG.wad sample map were placed into a different map slot, perhaps E2M1, so it won’t overlap any real maps.

EDIT: Sadly now that I’ve tried DOS, the large ocean sector is still too big. Here is a DOS-playable copy which also had to drop the DGC text in the secret. Sorry everyone, I just don’t have time to polish/fix this any more 🙁

[Wesbat]

#9642

Thanks @watchful. I like how you put the texture in a secret!

Maybe we can focus on collecting all the maps into a pack first? Then add a custom texture when all else is done. Failing textures aside, we should at least have a pack of playable maps ready to go 🙂

Notes: 1) the sample map in DGC.wad is just that, it won’t feature in the final pack. 2) If we choose to use a custom DGC texture, it will be embedded within the final wad; it will be self-contained.

[rnlf]

#9663

Checking in! I haven’t read all you people wrote here, wow, what a thread!

I’m doing E1M1 and well, I guess my concept doesn’t work quite the way I intended it to. I should have learned about drawseg and visplane limits first 😀

Attachments:

1. 

   2025-03-27-001542_832x808_scrot.png
   

[TigerQuoll]

#9668

For the record, I’m still plugging away at my level. Getting faster as I go, learning the shortcuts, and getting a feel for what textures to use etc.
I might still be working on it for a while. But I’m happy to hand it over to a more accomplished wadder if we get too close to some kind of deadline.

[Wesbat]

#9673

Oof that’s rough @rnlf. I feel your pain, when an idea doesn’t fit within the limits it’s the worst. Sorry 🙁

@TigerQuoll it’s all good, surely we have a little more time before the episode is recorded, and a few of us can help out if you need. I wouldn’t want to rob you of the experience to finish a map unless you agree; it’s quite gratifying 🙂

[Wesbat]

#9705

@watchful I played your e1m8 and beat it after a few attempts. It provides a good challenge! Attached is a demo.

e1m8 wesbat uv.lmp

[Wesbat]

#9706

Hey @kdrnic,

> Now we need a North Wing that requires all 3 keys to open

I will volunteer if this is still open? 🙂

[Tijn]

#9709

Congrats on this effort everyone! This is easily DGC’s biggest collective project yet, I’d say! Very impressive!

Please feel free to go ahead with the north wing btw, Wesbat. I was going to offer to take this up, but really I’m just learning the ropes still and have no idea how to make a Doom level, so it seems silly to wait until I have figured this out.

[Tijn]

#9710

I spent the whole afternoon trying to figure out how to edit Doom levels, and all I was able to put together was a single corridor haha

E1M9

Now I’m even more impressed by all your work!

[sorceress]

#9711

i did a couple of test plays of E1M9. Here are my thoughts, with a spoiler warning 🙂

The central room is reminiscent of original E1M9, but with barons instead of imps. The fire pit makes it feel all the more intimidating. I clearly don’t have enough ammo starting out to defeat them, so I’m running around the pit to check out the 4 corridors instead.

The imps on the balconies are an interesting addition, but i’m not sure if they are needed, because I’m not hanging about here anyway, and shooting them doesn’t give me anything in return.

West Corridor:

This was initially a bit of a puzzle, how to get inside, but eventually figured I might as well try shooting the switch, which worked. This feels unconventional. Decending the steps we find a room with imps and shotgunners. We have enough ammo to defeat them, and there is some infighting which helps. We pick up 20 more shells and proceed to the pentagram. I’m expecting teleporting monsters as happened in the original E1M9, and that is what happens. I’m already at 100% health, but I pickup the rockets as I run back to the steps, while being followed by imps, demons and spectres. I my rockets to destroy most of them at range, and shotgun to clear up what’s left. Shooting down the steps felt a bit weird, both because the angle was awkward and the monsters were kind of hidden through the doorway. I return to grab the yellow key and exit the room, requiring both health packs. A secret room is discovered at the base of the stairs with health and ammo. This registers as two secrets because it has two sectors, which I suspect is a bug. Visually, this wing is beautifully crafted. Completing it doesn’t require much agility, but being familiar with how it works feels essential to surviving it.

South Corridor:

The door won’t open. No key card is indicated, so it must be opened elsewhere.

East Corridor:

I approach a slime pit along a narrow ledge and can see imps through a barrier as well as imps across the slime shooting at me. I defeat them all with my shotgun, and I take a little damage, down to 65%. Apparently the only way forward is to run across the slime bridge, taking 20% damage. It becomes clear I have to do this 5 times, flipping 2 such switches. Unless I’m missing something this is impossible to do without armor/supercharge or health pickups, which we don’t seem to have. :/ Using iddqd, I get to the exit corridor and collect a red key. A doorway briefly opens back to the main room. Should we fail to step through it, we’ll have to run across the slime bridge a sixth time. Visually, this wing feels rather minimalist, and doesn’t feel finished. Completing it seems to be not currently possible using normal movement. Perhaps strafe running can cross the slime bridges with less than a 100% chance of getting a damage hit, which would technically make it possible, albeit at the mercy of RNG, and this doesn’t take into account damage taken from monsters. I don’t think strafe running should ever be essential, as it is hard to aim.

North Corridor:

I think this is Tijn’s corridor. I first notice missing textures on the floor below the lights and at one end of the corridor. It’s hard to judge at the the moment, but it’s a start!

South Corridor Revisited:

The door still won’t open, so I noclip through it, and it does open from the other side. I expect this is a faulty trigger, not a feature. Ok, so there are three rooms marked I, II, III. Activating the switch in the first room produces an imp, which proceeds to walk around a spiral, before teleporting away. Room II has the same thing, but there is a puzzle to lure the imp to the white teleport, while the red teleports take him back to the start. This takes a couple of attempts, but is relatively easy. Room III is more complex with platforms that have to be lowered to allow the imp to pass. This room is more annoying than anything: the switches block view of the imp and room, and it’s too long and trecherous a path to get him to walk. After 5 attempts I give up. Visually nice, and the “gameplay” was ok upto but not including room III.

Conclusion:

The design of this map currently feels incoherent and lacking any overall vision. The east and west corridors both seem to expect the player to enter with high health, which is likely not happening. Perhaps the imp platforms in the central room could be lowered to reveal medikits/armor/supercharges, to restore player stats between tackling each wing. I also want adequate ammo to defeat those barons in the central room, which I don’t currently have.

[kdrnic]

#9712

It is possible to cross the slime as many times as you want, as slow as you want, no strafe, even walk, with guaranteed zero damage.

Damaging floor mechanics are explained in a video by decino:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iBlwsh8I2g

As to lack of coherence, and difficulty, this is a secret map, which are hard, unusual, and we agreed to have “gimmicks”.

I do like your idea of lowering the imp-latforms one for each wing.

[Wesbat]

#9713

Thanks for the detailed notes @sorceress, it’s much better than I could have worded it! I will fix the mentioned bugs, and balance health & ammo for the map as a whole, to address your points.

@Tijn of course I’d be happy to to the final north wing in E1M9, given this is the exit room I will keep it simple.

[sorceress]

#9714

Here’s RC1 of my E1M4 map:

https://app.box.com/s/wstynrq6lyhu9esq37894s6xwwx4a3ri

Main changes:

– Giving more appropriate rewards in the secret room. This actually feels useful to tackle early on now, because the reward is shotgun ammo that players like to have, plus early access to rockets. The economics of this area on Ultra-Violence are closer to zero-sum, but you’re basically trading bullets for shells, which can still be a plus.

– Putting more monsters on ambush mode, particularly in the main corridor, so that they don’t swarm the player and leave an empty corridor in their wake.

– Moving the end demons. It was a bit silly I think, shooting fish in a barrel. So now they’re out of the barrel.

– Changing the route for the end game. I’ve chosen to change the door colours here, to lead the player through more monsters rather than through empty/cleared areas. I’ve also fleshed out the teleportation center a bit, making it a more fun shape. This plays more fun imo, reversing the anticlimactic end game that I had. I’ve managed to do this without changing the total monster count too.

All being well, this will be my final edit. I’m finally happy with it. 🙂

[Wesbat]

#9721

@sorceress that plays great! The ambushes add suspense and the level has a rather nice flow to it. I still miss some secrets despite having played a few rounds, they are well hidden and adds great encouragement to replay this level 🙂

[Wesbat]

#9723

I compiled all our maps together (sans E1M1 & E1M7 for the moment) as an early *Test* to see how it plays together, and also play in DOS to test for any game-breaking issues.

I gave it it once-over on easy skill and didn’t find any major problems. Maybe I’m biased but I think it plays rather well!

I’m sharing it in case anybody is curious to give it a good old go. We can add in the missing maps in due time.

DGC-T1.WAD

[patrick_wd]

#9727

I just tried the combined M9 and it looks like my wing got a little scuffed in the merge. I fixed it up a bit and it should be OK now: M9 south fix.

[Wesbat]

#9728

Awesome, thanks for picking that up @patrick_wd. I downloaded your fixed map, it will be included in the next pack.

[rnlf]

#9737

I finally have an RC of my map, ready, too!

Grab it while it’s hot: E1M1.

There may be one or two spots where drawsegs overflow, but I hope nobody notices 😀

Thanks @patrick_wd for playtesting the very first version!

[patrick_wd]

#9738

This new version is very good; I especially like the broken door pieces in the red key area.

A few minor issues I noticed:
– red key lights on the “early” version of the red door are misaligned.
– mega-armor and plasma secrets are marked as a secret multiple times.
– A pinky seemed to be trapped in the monster closet in the red key area. Presumably he’s meant to teleport into the hall like the other monsters.
– Southeast tower monster closet should probably be marked invisible so the player can’t see it on the map
– door track texture is missing on the southeast tower door
– switch that opens the locked southeast tower door has a broken texture (make sure the linedef only uses a single switch texture to fix this).
– Part of the ground near that door is marked as a damage sector even though it’s outside the nukage
– The exit area is inescapable. This isn’t technically a “bug” but it’s generally considered good practice to allow the player to backtrack and look for secrets once they’ve “finished” the map

But minor issues aside, this version is much improved and pretty solid now I think.

[kdrnic]

#9740

I played rnlf’s E1M1 – here is the FDA:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SBp6NYnl_3dFs2IRffeeQFL7-eCuUnez/view?usp=sharing

Very unusual architecture – perhaps the most unusual of the bunch so far

Two issues:
-I noticed one door has the sides not unpegged correctly, meaning they slide together with the door
-In the zigzag-over-nukage area one bit has a red skullkey texture, probably unintentionally

—————————————-

Also an opportunity to ask @TigerQuoll for a version of his level.

[rnlf]

#9741

Which door exactly? There are too many to find the right one 🙂

And no, the skullkey texture is intentional as a warning, to make it more visible that the floor is sinking.

[kdrnic]

#9742

You will see it in the demo, it is highly visible.

[sorceress]

#9743

i played @rnlf’s map to the end.

it’s a very big level, especially for an intro level e1m1 😀

it also exposes the player to the more advanced monsters, that would normally be introduced gradually through the episode.

i get that you’re trying to replicate a huge hangar, roughly to scale. but that makes it slow to get around, and with super long corridors there’s lots of space between the action, that make it time consuming to backtrack (and for example to get back up onto the walls if one jumps off trying to find one’s way).

it reminds me of some of the ‘modern’ maps posted on the doomworld forums, that choose to take a larger than life approach, presenting grand and sprawling architecture, and so deviating wildly from classic doom map design.

I didn’t find any secrets, but I didn’t really spend time looking for them, feeling that it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

i noticed some bugs but they’re already mentioned above, so no need to repeat them. 🙂

The map is playable, the end is reachable, and the health/ammo felt pretty much balanced for the encounters played on UV.

[watchful]

#9744

Alright, I managed to get an earlier idea working for E1M8: a keyed gate at the summit. This forces players to backtrack through/around/after the first horde.

I also tried making the ‘cloud’ dark, with flashing sectors, as if teleported inside a lightning cloud, instead of walking on top of a cloud.

Again I prepared too versions:

– E1M8DGC2.WAD: limit-removed version with DGC texture and secret

– E1M8DOS2.WAD: DOS compatible w/smaller ocean and no DGC or secret

EDIT: Made one last fix to the DOS version.
BTW: Please LMK once the map-pack is ready, and I can put it on the Odamex server as co-op for folks who want to give that a spin. Also, do we plan on doing a DOS-compatible version and a limit-removed version?

[rnlf]

#9745

Thanks for the feedback, everybody! I prepared a new version with all your suggestions implemented: V2.

[Wesbat]

#9751

@rnlf well I think your map E1M1 is great. Yes it’s sprawling but it wasn’t impossibly difficult, even on ultra-violence skill, or confusing to navigate. Great work, I enjoyed playing – here is a recording of your version 2.

Side note, I think its great that you kept the aeroplane portion for the death-match arena!

[Tijn]

#9752

I’m planning to make a custom MIDI track for this. I don’t know how to incorporate it into the level pack, but I’m sure one of you can figure that out 😛

[Wesbat]

#9753

@watchful the extra monsters at the end is a great addition, I particularly enjoyed getting them to in-fight. I also like how the key is floating in the boat 🙂

We didn’t really lay out our intentions to target both DOS and limit-removing, and have been testing all maps in DOS compatibility. I’m not sure, what does everyone else think? I’ll be happy to pack a limit-removing version either way.

Here is test pack #2 of all maps to date. I added Co-op starts to maps 1, 3 & 9. Putting it on the server for co-op is a grand idea! (lag on co-op also isn’t such a large hurdle, as opposed to death-match where milliseconds count).

DGC-T2.WAD

[Wesbat]

#9754

Custom music? wow @Tijn that would be awesome. The tool we use to manage the WAD (Slade) can import MIDI into our WAD, no issue there 🙂

Edit: Doom converts MIDI to it’s internal MUS format automatically, to keep it compatible with DOS/vanilla (I’m not too familiar with Doom’s handling of music so please correct me if I’m wrong?) it may be best to keep within these limits:

– Each track under 64kb
– 9 channels

[voxel]

#9755

@Wesbat I’m all for including a limit removing version if useful, but personally I think for DosGameClub the real wad should work in DOS. If there’s any reasonable set of limitations to stick to, it’s that.

[Tijn]

#9756

I think I can convert my MIDI file into a MUS, I’ve found tools to do that.

I’ve also found it uses channel 9 for drums (normally that’s channel 10 in General MIDI). But maybe the converter takes care of that idk.

I’ll have to try to import it into Slade and get it to play in Doom somehow, so I can hear how it sounds for real, especially using Doom’s OPL soundbanks, which I feel is the most common way for people to play music on DOS.

I currently have no idea how to do any of this, but I guess I’ll see how far I’ll get with google.

[sorceress]

#9757

This is sounding quite an impressive pack if it has custom music too 🙂

I agree with @voxel, that for DGC it should really be a DOS compatible pack. Many listeners of the podcast will likely want to play it on authentic 90s hardware, so that could be something else to test.

I floated the idea on IRC of us including a text file with the wad (in a zip), containing “developer notes” where the pack creators can write some words about what they’ve made, should they want to. It might also add some context to the pack, explaining that it was made for doom month, etc.

How do people feel about that?

[Wesbat]

#9758

I created the text file to accompany the WAD, “TBD” is used as placeholders we need to fill out eventually, please add or change anything you like, like your full name if you wish (not mandatory). Also a write-up for “Description” might be a fun addition. Anyone feel like making up a story? 🙂

DGC.txt

[Wesbat]

#9759

@Tijn if you did want to test it in DOS, it’s quite easy using Slade. You don’t have to convert them to MUS as Doom does that automatically (yes DOS Doom supports MIDI since version 1.5) when the game starts up.

1. Create a new archive, choose “Doom WAD Archive”
2. Import the midi files
3. Rename them in Slade (right-click them or use F2) to match with either the title music, a level or the intermission screen – you can find the list of their names here
4. Save your WAD and to run the game “DOOM.EXE -FILE TEST.WAD”

(attached a screenshot showing a WAD replacing E1M1 music).

Attachments:

1. 

   2025-04-06-02_06_37.png
   

[Tijn]

#9762

thanks wes, I’ll give it a try!

[patrick_wd]

#9764

@Wesbat perhaps one thing we can do for the final pack is add a dehacked lump that appends the author to the map name. Vanilla should simply ignore it, but most ports will pick it up.

[watchful]

#9765

Can the dehacked lump also let us name the maps? So they show in the map view?

[TigerQuoll]

#9766

I think I’m getting close…
Most of the map is made, playable and textured. Basically I just need to finish the last section, then add monsters and pickups.
And test test test of course.

I don’t think it’s a super huge level, but I’m reasonably happy with it. I tried to give it a “Knee deep in the dead” vibe, but I think it ended up just being some variant of my own style.

Should be completely vanilla compatible though (Ultimate Doom, not Shareware)

Haven’t played any maps you guys have made yet. Also waiting til they’re all complete and I can have the “proper” experience!