Strangest bits of design in official DOOM packs?

On 9/1/2024 at 7:01 AM, Fernito said:

This room in Spawning Vats, while rather cool looking, always felt so pointless to me.

I always pause to stop and look around this room while replaying Episode II.  Not sure if it qualifies for a "liminal space", but it's so oddly uncanny yet calming.  Perhaps because it was initially inspired by the bridge from Star Trek (just guessing), the nostalgia creeps in too.

I can't for the life of me remember which map it's in but Sandy made a big computer with evil eyes and a crusher that's chewing on corpses. You know which one, it's iconic. 

That's such a fun bit of design. You can feel the childish joy that went into making it. 

Or the red cross you walk through that hurts you in the other map (i just can't remember any of these, sorry). All these little spontaneously cool ideas "hey what if," they could just do because the implementation is so fast and easy. 

1 hour ago, Sneezy McGlassFace said:

I can't for the life of me remember which map it's in but Sandy made a big computer with evil eyes and a crusher that's chewing on corpses. You know which one, it's iconic. 

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/E2M4:_Deimos_Lab_(Doom)

1 hour ago, Sneezy McGlassFace said:

Or the red cross you walk through that hurts you in the other map (i just can't remember any of these, sorry).

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/E2M1:_Deimos_Anomaly_(Doom)

I'd add the tiny damaging sectors in front of MARBFACEs decorations, in both Deimos Lab and Command Center. This "evil aura" is not really something that has been kept.

Those two 'buildings' in Doom 2 Map16 (Suburbs) with a mancubus/shotgun on one and a mancubus/soul sphere on the other. Anders J had a great name for this. A Doom construction (meaning is slightly different in Norwegian). Something that you would only see in Doom and never in the real world. Something constructed purely for game play reasons, with has no other plausible reason for existing, something abstract.

That building has a set of stairs a Mancubus can't realistically scale. The buildings are extremely cramped and the shape and texture choices are odd. The mancubii are incredibly vulnerable, and they cannot efficiently utilize their weapons from that location.

Honorable mentions: The plasma gun location in Doom 2 Map10. This is a puzzle of sorts, and the whole thing is very nonsensical. The elevator roller coaster section on Map09. Many of the blocking obstacles on Doom 2 map29.

Pretty much all of Doom 2 Map21 Nirvana. It consists of random section cut and pasted together with teleports between them since they don't match up layout-wise. With a more consistent theme and more detailed rooms, that map could work much better.

Sometimes a floor hurts to walk on in one map, but not in another... Map18 maze VS map15 moat etc.

On 9/3/2024 at 1:26 PM, TheRealLotica said:

The entireity of Fortress of Mystery, the secret level of Episode 2 in the original DOOM. It just feels like something that was put together in an hour. Also, what was even the point of the keys? They only led to doors with switches that were only a few inches from each other.

I always thought it's to slow the player down if they felt overwhelmed and tried to simply dash for the exit - so that they are still in danger of getting hit by a fireball.

On 9/3/2024 at 11:33 AM, Gez said:

I'd add the tiny damaging sectors in front of MARBFACEs decorations, in both Deimos Lab and Command Center. This "evil aura" is not really something that has been kept.

Wait, there's one of those in Deimos lab? I can't believe I've missed it

35 minutes ago, Maximum Matt said:

I always thought it's to slow the player down if they felt overwhelmed and tried to simply dash for the exit - so that they are still in danger of getting hit by a fireball.

Yes. Nowadays, mappers would use a 16384-unit-tall platform slowly lowering to block the passage until combat is over.

I think the three keys lock thing is better.

On 9/1/2024 at 2:47 AM, Stabbey said:

The mandatory shoot-switch in MAP 18 of Doom 2, "The Courtyard" - it looks like a standard press-switch, no switch like that has ever been shootable before, and you've never had to shoot anything to open it before. So they had that one single shoot-switch at the start... and it wasn't even a tutorial for "shoot these to activate them" for later switches, it's just a one-off. Bizarre choice on many levels.

I agree on this and as a kid I just used to IDKFA my way out because I didn't know shootable switches were a thing, until accidentaly I took the shot one day .. Mind blown.

And I guess, MAP05 of D2, the dark "disco" room right next to the spawn area. Idk why but it's weird yet very comfy for me.

On 9/7/2024 at 10:57 AM, Maximum Matt said:

I always thought it's to slow the player down if they felt overwhelmed and tried to simply dash for the exit - so that they are still in danger of getting hit by a fireball.

I think you are spot on here. They could have done it with a lift though :)

I think it's a strange choice that the only enemy placed in Doom2 map30 is a revenant 🤔

17 hours ago, Sinshu said:

I think it's a strange choice that the only enemy placed in Doom2 map30 is a revenant 🤔

Not really. Without any monsters you run into the risk of a divide by zero issue, 37 kills out of 0 possible is how many percent? That could have been a problem in early builds (pre-release). A revenant doesn't take too long to kill, and their attack is among the more efficient ones from that location, without being too punishing.

Map30 was a rush job they did since they didn't have the budget for any boss monsters. I think other cheap solutions could have been better, but hindsight is 20/20.

The revenant was performing brain surgery on the Icon of Sin.

22 hours ago, zokum said:

Not really. Without any monsters you run into the risk of a divide by zero issue, 37 kills out of 0 possible is how many percent? That could have been a problem in early builds (pre-release). A revenant doesn't take too long to kill, and their attack is among the more efficient ones from that location, without being too punishing.

Map30 was a rush job they did since they didn't have the budget for any boss monsters. I think other cheap solutions could have been better, but hindsight is 20/20.

MAP30 only has a revenant on UV/NM skill level, though, so it doesn't prevent any division by zero issue.

Edit: Didn't see that you mentioned pre-release; I wonder what would happen in older versions of Doom like v1.2?

5 hours ago, Shepardus said:

I wonder what would happen in older versions of Doom like v1.2?

Nothing at all. I just did a quick test in the original v0.99 shareware release, and a map with only an exit switch and zero monsters, items, or secrets has zero problems showing zero percent on the intermission screen. The guard against division-by-zero has always been present. (WI_initVariables() sets the total number of monsters, items, and secrets to 1 if they started at 0, which is why each additional monster spawned by the Icon of Sin increments the kill percentage by 100% when killed if no monsters are present at the start.)

Here's an old post I made on the subject. I add E3M7 back pool, E4M6 marble baron eyes near the blue key, TNT MAP12 red door room and Plutonia MAP28 end room.

On 9/3/2024 at 12:33 PM, Gez said:

I'd add the tiny damaging sectors in front of MARBFACEs decorations, in both Deimos Lab and Command Center. This "evil aura" is not really something that has been kept.

Not found in E2M4.

tons of the E2M7 blue carpet halls make me yearn for more of that style of lived-in architecture and cozy computer corners in the official games.

On the subject of E2M9 I just realized they tried to hint at the infighting solution with detailing. the Caco room has the crucified Barons behind bars which I never thought much of beyond being reused from Tower of Babel. But in the Barons' Cave - there's Cacodemon corpses. they're meant to mirror each other, act as environmental storytelling about the two species guarding territory from each other, and function as a silent gameplay tutorial. this was probs obvious to everyone else

On mercredi 11 septembre 2024 at 1:58 PM, ASD said:

Here's an old post I made on the subject. I add E3M7 back pool, E4M6 marble baron eyes near the blue key, TNT MAP12 red door room and Plutonia MAP28 end room.

Not found in E2M4.

Uh. Turns out indeed it doesn't.

Ever since the 1990s I have thought the baron face in the blue area did hurt you.

1 hour ago, FloofCollie said:

tons of the E2M7 blue carpet halls make me yearn for more of that style of lived-in architecture and cozy computer corners in the official games.

On the subject of E2M9 I just realized they tried to hint at the infighting solution with detailing. the Caco room has the crucified Barons behind bars which I never thought much of beyond being reused from Tower of Babel. But in the Barons' Cave - there's Cacodemon corpses. they're meant to mirror each other, act as environmental storytelling about the two species guarding territory from each other, and function as a silent gameplay tutorial. this was probs obvious to everyone else

That's actually a super cool detail and one I did not notice at all!

Everyone beat me to the punch about "Suburbs", but goddamn what a weird-ass level. I mean that in a great way.

That whole north-eastern part of E2M4 with the weird corridors and the ceiling crusher and stuff - that whole area is non-essential, and feels like it's supposed to be a secret area.  I dunno, it always felt very strange to me

episode 2 seems to be a running theme of this thread lol E2M2 has tons of optional areas as well as the lights floor that hurts you. The wolfenstein level design really shows on this map imo

e3m9 warrens confused me greatly as a kid