Dance on the Water - five maps [update 18.12]

[El Inferno]

This is a WIP thread for my boom compatible project "Dance on the Water". List of maps:

 

Map 1: Dance on the Water

Map 2: Another Red Nightmare 

Map 5. Caves and Embers 

Map 6. Tower of the Forlorn Child

Map 31: Faithfully Flat Descent

 

Todo: Map 3, Intermission map 4, secret guest map 32.

 

Download link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/g2hhgc5ju7e6czu/dotw.18.12.wad?dl=0

 

Screenshots:

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All my other stuff:

 

Change log:

Spoiler

v2: slight balance changes on ITITD and IMP. Plasma -> BFG, simplified platforming as in Violence.

v3: HMP (Violence) difficulty balance tweaking

 

... who needs change log?

 

v4: little things in maps 1, 2, duo cyber fight debuffed significantly

v5: added map 3, a small tweak of map 1 on lower difficulties.

v51: something for map 3

v52: added difficulty settings on map 3

v53: fixed textures, UV is harder now

v54: tweaks to map 3

v6. added maps 4 and 31, cleaned up OP

 

first update since forever. removed stuff from OP, new wad link

 

Edited January 20, 2022 by El Inferno

[Arbys550]

Awesome! I'd highly recommend this for anyone looking for a good challenge. It's fun stuff!

[Silhouette 03]

Looks really good, man! I love the visuals and that sky texture looks incredible.

[El Inferno]

A small update to lower difficulty levels (IMP and ITITD). It should be more manageable now (I recorded a demo beating IMP in 23 minutes). 

[El Inferno]

Now a small update to HMP (Violence) difficulty: most of the fights are now somewhat easier on this level (not to say that platforming is still disabled).

 

Still hoping for some more feedback! 

 

[El Inferno]

New version!

A lot of changes to map 1 after @Lucky_Edie's playtest. Some of the cheese strats are sorted out. UV is somewhat harder in the new version. 

 

Added a bonus map. I'm planning to make another 2-3 maps for this wad as well.

[El Inferno]

Map 2 update. It now has a secret. Hopefully you can find it!

Some platforming is pretty obnoxious, you can turn jumping on if you don't feel like doing it properly.

[Arbys550]

I do like the concept of map02 but I'm hopelessly stuck with 4 out of 30 health bonuses. I haven't been able to figure out what the point of the area with the timed section accomplishes. I guess it's just a bonus map, so it doesn't matter too much I don't think.

[El Inferno]

2 minutes ago, Arbys550 said:

but I'm hopelessly stuck with 4 out of 30 health bonuses.

 

Spoiler

Look around in that section more closely. Embers should give a hint

 

[El Inferno]

It doesn't really matter if you finish the map, indeed. But I think you'll like the ending section if you get to it)

[Arbys550]

1 hour ago, El Inferno said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Look around in that section more closely. Embers should give a hint

 

I've tried shooting the distant small ember and trying to platform to the other big ember, maybe I'll try again. Maybe I'll just cheat and look in the editor.

 

Edit: I've cheated my way through the map. The end with the cool effect on the rocks was nice. I'll be honest though, some of these jumps I don't understand how they are even possible, but props if you are actually able to do them. Also I don't know how I feel about having to press an unmarked wall towards the beginning, but whatever, it's a bonus map.

Edited March 27, 2021 by Arbys550

[Csucskos]

NO! Fr*ck you dude!

 

Ok, now that I let out my frustration let's talk about the map. I really enjoyed it, the visuals look cool and the fights more or less consistent. BUT have I said I hate platforming? And inescapeable pits? Now the map is littered with this. And not that it's hard but it's so unforgiving, it's not even funny. When you have to start over the fight, because you fell down. I'd say 90% of my loads were because I fell down (either because I'm bad or when someone pushed me off.) - btw I played on UV and spammed the saves like a true scummer.

 

I like that it's challenging and the ammo is scarce but I did not enjoy redoing parts because of one single mistake.

 

And one other big problem in general, I was lost quite a few times. Like after the baron fight I gave up and just idclipped through the door because it was obviously the way but I just could not find the button. (After the arch-vile fight I was lost again and ran around a couple times and finally found the targets in the distance but it was absolutely not obvious.)

 

So now let's have a run down about the individual fights in order:

-The first is quite easy but the platforms... are waaay to small. At least they got me in the mood.

-The second with the mancubi was quite easy.

-Revenant fight... big BS, I tried to do it, but I ran out of rockets so just telefragged the cyberdemon and ran into the yellow skull key area.

-Yellow skull key fight: it was all right. Had to try it a couple times but after focusing the archies it worked out.

-Tried to do the baron fight but the revenants sniped me so grabbed the 40 rockets, and went back on the poles without turning around. I'm so proud of myself that I did that. Finished off the revenants and went back to the baron fight. After figuring out the tactic it wasn't that back though got cornered a few times. And I fell down so many times it's not even funny. Those pinkies can't stay in place! (And btw why do the teleports hurt? After that I tried a couple other monster teleports but they do not hurt... Just fascinating)

-OK as I said I just noclipped through the door, and went back to the lost soul fight. It would have been easy if I did not fall down in the middle a dosen times. And there's the big yellow paravan so I was screwed. And the lava hurts on the platforms but that's just insult to injury. Then killing the arch-viles was a cake walk.

-Yellow key card section: It was quite easy but got sniped by the ladies a fewe times. But as I said it was easy. But oh boy, after that... I got lost not knowing what to do, ran around, went back... Finally found those tiny targets but it wasn't easy.

-Platforming... It was quite challenging, but there were no enemies so after mastering the course I did it.

-Post yellow key door fight. It was too easy.

-Cyberdemon fight: It was laughable. One lonely cyberdemon? Yeah the lava hurts but I did it first try. (Not true I fell down a couple times but I did not get hit a single time.)

-Post cyberdemon fight: It was quite easy.

-Arch-vile fight: It was very challenging because one single miss spelled my demise but I really enjoyed it. I've never seen oneshot archies before. Best part ever! Yeah with the barons it was a tiny bit overwhelming but after I managed to make them infight with the cyberdemon it wasn't that bad.

-Big oof. I got totally lost. I saw the sign that I need every key, but I still jumped down to get the BFG. I was not able to. So this was when I started to revisit every single "room", when I finally found the pinkie targets... But I gave up. I saw the blue key, noclipped to it but I was still unable to find out how to get there. After half an hour I said screw it let's get that invulnerability. And then I realized the layout but it was far from obvious. I tried the final fight many times but I failed. In my best run I got both keys but without the BFG I had no chance to kill the archies on the platform. (I ran past everyone so I had to chance jumping down.) I'd have given the BFG to the player, that would make that fight manageable, but at this point I just gave up. The floor hurts, I have no weapons to fight back (the rocket launcher hurts me more than them, and the plasma is just not fast enough to cut through them, if I get stuck I'm dead.) and there's only one invulnerability. That's why my best idea was to just skip everyone, push the buttons and grab the keys but then I get overwhelmed. Probably could do it, run past everyone, grab the keys, jump down, grab the BFG and finish off the remaining baddies, but just too luck dependent. And let's not talk about the pain elementals after that invulnerability grab. Without freelook I had no way to shoot them, just to spam rockets into the poles and prey. And because of the limited time if I did not get out after a few seconds I was screwed and had to retry. Just another luck based fight.

 

So no, I did not finish the final two fights (if we separate the lava and the platform fight), it was just too much. And it's a shame, because it would have been enjoyable if not for the absolutely punishing design. As I indicated a few fights were too easy, the last one was extremely hard but overall nice map.

 

Second map. I just did not find it enjoyable. I can't see anything and I don't know where to go. So it's just blindly running around. No thanks. And not that I was unable to make the jumps, I just did not see where to go or what to do. This map is not for me for sure.

[El Inferno]

5 hours ago, Csucskos said:

NO! Fr*ck you dude!

 

Hello! Thanks for checking my map again! I'm glad that you liked that AV gimmik :)

UV is indeed extremely punishing and that's why HMP exists (though it allowes for a bit too much room for mistake to my taste). Say, floor damage is reduced and in most places there are platforms to get up. By anyway, challenge is a challenge, right? 

 

6 hours ago, Csucskos said:

why do the teleports hurt?

so you don't block teleport destination. pretty useless, but I love it, maybe I should make other teleporters damaging for more consistency...

 

I haven't really thought that you can skip killing all revs and then use rockets before barons to finish them, but I guess that's fine. In the rev fight there just enough rockets to kill all of them yourself but if you manage to infight them with cyber then you'll save quite a bit.

 

These shootable switches seem to be pretty confusing for people... don't really want to change it though, the map is pretty linear in general and on UV there's literally no way to go other than finding those shootables (in SMM and barons platforms).

 

6 hours ago, Csucskos said:

Post yellow key door fight. It was too easy.

That was a bad joke: my intention was to make that fight look like something you will see in some casual map. Those 4 imps for example :) 

 

Final fight... That key sign indicated that you need all keys to get the bfg, not to enter the fight. That's indeed not clear at all that the last 2 keys you have to collect during the fight, but I don't know how make it more clear at the moment. 

The 1 blue key indicates that you actually can find one of the blue keys before the fight. It can be found somewhere on the far away tower. But that key is not required of course and just makes the fight a bit easier. And I think you can do the whole fight even without bfg if you fall into the arena before collecting all keys but that's much harder for sure.

About the actual fight. There's a big puzzle-y part to this one. The only working strategy is to quickly lower all the megas in a very specific order (which you figure out by trial and error). For example you start with opening pinkies to get the BK quicker, but release barons and cacos at the end so they don't block you on your way back. I like to take invul at the moment when the only remaining mega is the one near the bfg, I rush to the last BK (note that you have to lower all but one megas to be able to collect that key) and then quickly rush to bfg and try to kill as many PEs until invul runs out. Then just run through the mess to the raising platform with the remaining invul and after that the fight is getting pretty easy. 

And yeah, those PEs after grabbing the invul you just rocket by shooting into pillars. I didn't want to give the invul for free :)

Generally, there's some rng factor to this fight but it should be not that bad with an optimal route.

 

I hope that some time I'll be able to record a UV-Max run for this map... But that's gonna take a lot of attempts. 

 

You may try to play the map on HNTR btw, it's not hard (except for a couple of places) but provides a completely new experience. And the final fight is closer to what I initially wanted on this difficulty. 

 

Map 2 is not for everyone for sure. Some kind of "thanks for playing!" type of a map but with some actual gameplay if you look more closely (and this map has an exit btw).

But I started making map 3 for this wad and it's going to be much more combat oriented. It will probably take me several months to make, though. 

 

[Csucskos]

Oh. Now I feel stupid. I was trying out different routes and finally landed on the clockwise rotation with skipping the first two. (The cyberdemon and the caco one.) But NOT getting the invulnerability... Have not though about it.

 

Just tried Violence and it seemed that the arch-viles take more than 4 shots. Or I just got unlucky like 5 times. I don't think that's even possible that they take more on that difficulty but that made sure that I will not try this map again. But then I checked your post and realized you said HNTR. So I'll go and imp them.

 

I realized that the second map was about platforming but it just does not fit with the previous map for me. And the fact that I don't even know what to do. I'd say put some candles to indicate the way but that would ruin the exploration part of it... So dunno. But if you ever make another map I'll be sure to check it out.

[Csucskos]

OK, I got imped. Saying it's a different experience is an understatement. As you said it was quite easy, but still got overwhelmed a couple times. Though encountered some problems. The red key cyberdemon-imps did not summon, so it effectively break the map, softlocking the player. Did a little testing but was not able to confirm my suspicion that the linedef to raise them is somewhere in the towers around the invulnerability. But for sure it can be skipped with the "let's not platform" mode. Just something to look out for. And after that the door opens to the BFG room, but I'm not too sure about it, as you can literally do the other red key room backwards. I don't know on violence but maybe it can cause some problems. And once the red skull key teleported in early but was not able to reproduce it, so probably it was a fluke but still, it would be something to look out for as then the red key button can be pushed early (when it's still underground), opening the door behind the cyberdemon. Yeah, that's all I found. With your strategy I was able to make the final fight work on HNTR so maybe there is to it. (Or that's the adequate difficulty for me.)

 

Keep it up!

[El Inferno]

Some WIP shots from map 3:

 

 

[Blip]

Damn these maps are pretty cool. I really, really liked map01. The fights are puzzles and are creative af, its a breath of fresh air honestly. Played it on UV with saves and didn't care much about the difficulty of the fights due to how much I liked the concepts, but I really didn't enjoy the fact that a fall is basically a restart. Also wasn't a big fan of the cryptic nature of some switches.

 

The last fight is freaking amazing. It kind of reminded me of Dark Tartarus with the precise routing and the enemy placement (even if there aren't like 20 archviles and 5 invulnerabilities on the arena).

Surprisingly the megasphere thing isn't as trial and error as you made it seem.

 

Spoiler

I just ignored the first megasphere that spawns the cyberdemons and then went counterclockwise before pressing the cyber switch and finally I went to grab the invul.

  

Regarding the bfg at the end

Spoiler

It really isn't clear that the bfg is unlocked in the arena. I thought the keys were in a secret so I didn't want to drop down. It also isn't clear that the megasphere switches also raise the platform to grab the blue keycard.

 

Maybe I'll try completing the 2nd map but I wasn't sure how to progress so I sort of gave up.

 

I'll try playing your other maps because this one is seriously impressive (even the platforming which I usually hate), disregarding some of the cryptic stuff and the lack of teleporters in lava.

[El Inferno]

15 minutes ago, BlipBlerp said:

Damn these maps are pretty cool.

 

Thank you! I'm glad you liked the map :) 

I linked my other maps in the OP if you want to play them. I also made a couple of speedmaps recently for Tenth Gear and Half Moon CPs if you are interested in such things :D Marble Dreams, Normal Map, Okay?, 

Tenth Gear, "Nothing to No One" (map 28)

 

 

Map 2 is a bit experimental. I had a lot of fun making it but maybe it's not the most enjoyable map to play for most players. 

Perhaps I made the progression a bit too hard at a certain point, so here's a hint:

Spoiler

To access later parts of the map, you should search in this area more closely (I suppose that you found it already):

 

[El Inferno]

Made a starting area for map 3 today:  

 

Also planning to rebalance some fights in map 1 (especially the cyber duo fight). In the meanwhile, I made another 2 speedmaps for the Half Moon project:

red.zip, untitled.zip.

Speedmapping made me feel much more confident at designing set-pieces. Excited to finish this map.

[El Inferno]

Doing a mapping stream of map 3 right now: https://www.twitch.tv/el_inf

 

[El Inferno]

An update to the first two maps. One particular fight in map 1 got significantly debuffed to reduce the rng-fest somewhat.

Some marking added to make the progression easier.

 

Picture from map 3 to attract attention:

[Jacek Bourne]

I may take a look at this.

[MajorRawne]

Hopefully I will get a chance to check this out tomorrow, although I am somewhat put off by the complaints about platforming. I find that in GZDoom it's like Doomguy is sliding around on ice and personally I don't think inescapable pits should ever exist in a game. However the screenies look good and you are clearly listening to feedback. Good luck with map 3, the screenshots look striking.

[El Inferno]

3 minutes ago, MajorRawne said:

Hopefully I will get a chance to check this out tomorrow, although I am somewhat put off by the complaints about platforming. I find that in GZDoom it's like Doomguy is sliding around on ice and personally I don't think inescapable pits should ever exist in a game. However the screenies look good and you are clearly listening to feedback. Good luck with map 3, the screenshots look striking.

 

Thank you! If you are not a fan of inescapable pits and platforming, choose HMP or lower difficulties. It shouldn't be a big deal then. I probably need to make a couple of adjustments to HMP so I'd appreciate some feedback.

[El Inferno]

 

 

Hmm, what is this? I promised green but here we go -- a new red map! I made this today, in one long 12 hour sitting... Anyway, the map features a relatively difficult platforming section and a big slaughter arena -- all what we love in doom! 

 

Ex-map 3 is moved to slot 5. Map 4 will be blue and somewhat different from these two.  

 

 

Edit: new version is up, see OP. Now with difficulty settings!

Edited May 9, 2021 by El Inferno

[Bryan T]

I can only speak for myself, but I don't want to play a wad that isn't finished. I think that's why you aren't getting more bites; because you are making so many changes to it.

When it's finished I'll give it a whirl.

[El Inferno]

40 minutes ago, Bryan T said:

I can only speak for myself, but I don't want to play a wad that isn't finished. I think that's why you aren't getting more bites; because you are making so many changes to it.

When it's finished I'll give it a whirl.

 

Understandable. This is a wip project and I'm still learning from this. You can take a look at my finished projects in a meanwhile. Not planning any major changes to map 1 anymore though. 

 

And I'm not patient enough to post only a finished product so there always will be a ton of changes in the process.  

 

[El Inferno]

After some playtesting by @Arbys550 and @Lucky_Edie, it turned out that map 3 is too easy. So I added a couple of cacodemons to make it slightly more challenging! Also made a couple of subtle changes to platforming. 

 

Link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z7fhz8hfmyd7d7t/dotw.v54.zip?dl=0

 

Let's pretend that this is the final version of map 3.

[Blip]

I haven't finished map03 yet as I'm not quite sure how to tackle the big fight, but I wanted to say the architecture is Beautiful (with a capital B). The platforming is pretty nice though I felt it was a bit long though its probably because I suck at it. I also love how the map starts.

[El Inferno]

9 minutes ago, BlipBlerp said:

I haven't finished map03 yet as I'm not quite sure how to tackle the big fight

 

Yeah, I don't see this fight being done without some serious routing but that's what I was aiming for. I'll record a playthrough video at some point (I'll die a lot for sure :D)