COMMUNITY CONTEST!! Romero-signed D!ZONE Collectors Edition

My opinion too. Your prize and prerogative of course but I think that's why there was little interest.

purist said:

My opinion too. Your prize and prerogative of course but I think that's why there was little interest.

Lol, I requested nothing more than a classic DOOM style map? Not sure what you guys read, or thought you read, or read too far into, but really.. it was that simple :/

https://youtu.be/BHIxZVomZ3o?t=3m17s

Heck, I thought it was a lot of fun having such an open ended goal to achieve :) The reason many communtiy projects don't appeal to me is because of their rigid rules, and that's totally fine of course, but for me this was a great basis to work with.

Chris' map is very different from mine, and it is great - That's why only having a few basic guidelines and rules can work well. But hey, everyone works best under different conditions!

Buckshot said:

I even suggested if anyone had a prior unreleased map or WIP they had worked on or were working on to submit it had it met those requirements... didn't even have to start from scratch. Honestly, that really shocked me. It was an easy attempt at something pretty sweet (imo, anyway).

This. And my map's proof of it, because it's a very old, crappy map of mine, which I just revamped quite a bit. That's why I managed to finish it in such short time and one of the reasons why Doomkid deserved to win (at least his was new from scratch afaik).

I thought the lack of interest was because a relatively unknown guy started this thread. I'm sure same contest by esselfortium would get 20 entries.

I considered it but I'm busy with my own project at the moment. And I'm not much of a collector type of person so a copy of a disc I already own with an important signature on it would probably accidentally end up in the trash.

Adding absolutely nothing to this thread, I wanna say that Doomkid's wad is pretty dang fun to play and y'all should try it if you want what the contest is asking for! It's got great visuals and flow with fun fights; some of which try to punish you for running away. A "gauntlet" area about 3/4th of the way through was my favorite section, and felt as grueling and awesome to go through as my nickname for it suggests. The final battle was a little underwhelming due to the invincibility sphere though.

Hansen's wad is also pretty fun and perfectly does what the contest asked for. It seems that you have to run over a large damaging sector in order to progress at one point, though, which can make your first playthrough impossible if you don't have enough healing items leftover. My only other real complaint is that I'm pretty sure it doesn't have door tags on an essential door's linedefs, either that or I'm just not bright enough to figure out how to open it. (It's the door leading to the blue key area and to the doors that you can open with the red key.)

I think I might have joined just for the challenge had I not seen the thread after the completion date. But I don't think anything I could make would have beaten out Doomkid's entry. Congrats to the winner!

I wanna try the maps the contestants made. I like classic maps.

@joe-ilya: Download links are right here.

EDIT: I've played both maps and I liked them. Neither of the mappers could deny his specific style, but at the same time, the maps had IWAD-esque texturing, design and gameplay. Chris Hansen's map was a little cramped and the monster usage encouraged skipping fights (at least I felt so), and the heavily linear progression with many switch triggers wasn't exactly Doom1-IWAD-like, but other than that, pretty good. Doomkid's map was open and slower (but well, casually) paced, and I got slightly lost once or twice, but I've enjoyed the map and considered it great. Doomkid's map had more IWAD-esque atmosphere out of the two, and I slightly preferred this one.

Doomkid really excelled at the centralized "hub" area that connected each of the showrooms, while it's clear Hansen seemed very comfortable with more open terrain... though while there was a lot of space, there was quite a buildings of stuff to visit.

Some parts of doomkid's map felt really bad, even though I survived the map without dying once, I was walking with low health and armor blasting barons and cacos with just the shotty and the pisstol while I had to be careful not to step on the nukage. It was more forced than Darth Vader's force. But then after the crappy encounters I found myself with a better arensal and cooler encounters and more balance. Those crappy encounters I mentioned were that hard even finding all the secrets didn't help.

Hansen's map was non-linear, sandboxy and balanced without any awkwardness. I would definetly vote for this one, but who am I to judge, I don't have the D!ZONE copy.

joe-ilya said:

Some parts of doomkid's map felt really bad, even though I survived the map without dying once, I was walking with low health and armor blasting barons and cacos with just the shotty and the pisstol while I had to be careful not to step on the nukage. It was more forced than Darth Vader's force. But then after the crappy encounters I found myself with a better arensal and cooler encounters and more balance. Those crappy encounters I mentioned were that hard even finding all the secrets didn't help.

Hansen's map was non-linear, sandboxy and balanced without any awkwardness. I would definetly vote for this one, but who am I to judge, I don't have the D!ZONE copy.

I think Doomkid may have noticed some of my other threads/comments around the forum, and did the math... I made a thread a few weeks back in regards to wanting "Bloodborne/Souls" extreme difficulty maps. I also made some comments on a Doom 64 thread at how I admired DOOM 64 over PSX Doom, and how I particularly like some of the later design in 64's levels. It felt more like a punishment at times for chosing the wrong approach or not watching your back/step/health/ammo... and that's the kind of challenge that I prefer.

Now that's pure speculation that he noticed my comments there, put 2 and 2 together, and got 22... but I think that's why his map was quite a challenge and really did give off a hell of a vibe. I beat it in my first run through on ultraviolence in about 35-40 minutes, but I came damn close to dying quite a few times.

Hansen's map was indeed more casual-friendly, and it was well balanced... but anytime I see those "wide open" areas, I think of hordes and waves of demons and hard to find powerups and ammo, but it seems he prefers tower and cliff baddies, and tight corner baddie suprises... where as I found the open area pretty empty of enemies. I really did admire his fort, cliff, and tunnel design... that was eye candy (at least to me).

Allie said:

Hansen's wad is also pretty fun and perfectly does what the contest asked for. It seems that you have to run over a large damaging sector in order to progress at one point, though, which can make your first playthrough impossible if you don't have enough healing items leftover. My only other real complaint is that I'm pretty sure it doesn't have door tags on an essential door's linedefs, either that or I'm just not bright enough to figure out how to open it. (It's the door leading to the blue key area and to the doors that you can open with the red key.)

Thanks for playing! Since I want to include the level in a new project of mine, I'm trying to adress some of the issues with the level. Luckily, the things you mention aren't bugs, I think I can help you :) In the big building with the protuding pillars, there's two teleports. The right one will take you to a platform with a "switch" on the floor. Walk over it and the door in question opens. Ohh, and the lava isn't mandatory to cross in order to progress. It leads to a secret teleporter that will take you into a room, which you can also reach in another, and more appropiate, way. What you did wasn't wrong, it was just kinda the roughest of two choices ;)

Crap, now I see that I've confused the maps in my previous post. What I referred to as Doomkid's map was actually Chris Hansen's one, and vice versa. Sorry, shame on me, particularly since I've mentioned the mapper's "specific styles". Chris's was actually my favorite, then.

scifista42 said:

Crap, now I see that I've confused the maps in my previous post. What I referred to as Doomkid's map was actually Chris Hansen's one, and vice versa. Sorry, shame on me, particularly since I've mentioned the mapper's "specific styles". Chris's was actually my favorite, then.

I was almost positive that you did by your descriptions, lol. I was actually writing a reply to say "hey man, I think you've got those authors backwards", but then I'm like "eh... he'll figure it out." :P

Chris Hansen said:

In the big building with the protuding pillars, there's two teleports. The right one will take you to a platform with a "switch" on the floor. Walk over it and the door in question opens.

Well, now I feel like an idiot. When using that teleport, not once did I even think to turn around or look at the minimap. It's funny, too, since I would often look at the level feature it teleports you to and wonder, "How do I get up there...?"

Entirely my fault! Erase those concerns I had with the map, I quite like it!

I guess, that's what you might call replay value, Allie! ;)

Although both maps were good, they were two very different ways of interpreting the call to action. Others have already said about all there is to say, but I enjoyed Chris' map better. IMO it would have fit in E4, no problem. And that is pretty good praise.

Damn, if the deadline were the end of the month, I totally would have joined this. I think most of my maps are Doom 1-esque.