D3XP Single Player: The Nightmare Burrows

[Zombie]

Hello all!

I present to you a new Single Player level for Resurrection of Evil: The Nightmare Burrows.

This map was meant to be an exercise to give level design creation a bit of a twist.

What I ended up doing was sitting down with my wife and we'd take turns in adding a room to the whiteboard, each having 10 seconds to add a room.
I then showed her all the monster and the weapons in the game and we chose a bunch randomly to add to the level.

http://i.imgur.com/OLNmWgX.jpg this is a photo of the white board with our first initial design.

Afterwards we tweaked it and polished what we wanted to do, where monsters should roughly be and the flow of the level. Naturally throughout the development I had changed and improved a few things.

I also tried to limit myself to how many textures I could use, which was initially a 512x2048 and make modular meshes that I could reuse. I ended up using a few more textures in the end, but it wasn't a bad limitation to work with. I also tried to complete the map in under 40 hours, but I ended taking about 56 hours to create the level.

In the end it turned out to have classic level design influence.

This level requires Resurrection of Evil the expansion for Doom 3

screenshots: http://i.imgur.com/hiBRmIs.jpg http://i.imgur.com/GuLqA2b.jpg

Download: http://from-beneath.com/garthhendy/site_files/wicky01.rar

I hope you like it,  please leave constructive feedback!

[The Happy Friar]

Like the concept of how it was designed.  I downloaded it and will give it a try later. 

[bkt]

Played it last night.  Great fun little level!  The old school exploration was a good change of pace.  And damn... that atmosphere!  The music, the scripted events, particle effects, lighting... it all gelled so well together to suck the player in. 

The only real criticism I have is that after collecting the red key and the final weapon pick up, there wasn't much in the way of resistance between the exit and I.  It was a shame to get fully kitted out and not get a chance to use the new tools.

[Zombie]

Played it last night.  Great fun little level!  The old school exploration was a good change of pace.  And damn... that atmosphere!  The music, the scripted events, particle effects, lighting... it all gelled so well together to suck the player in. 

The only real criticism I have is that after collecting the red key and the final weapon pick up, there wasn't much in the way of resistance between the exit and I.  It was a shame to get fully kitted out and not get a chance to use the new tools.

I agree with that.

Out of the 5 play tests at work, only one guy was like WTF at the end, he grabbed the Blue Key mid battle and tried to rush towards the exit, only to be pounded

Thanks for the feedback!

[motorsep]

@Zombie: Quick question, if you don't mind.

As a level designer, when do you step into the process (at what point of game's readiness), if you are hired as contract level designer?

[bkt]

As a level designer, when do you step into the process (at what point of game's readiness)

Not to derail... but, really?

[motorsep]

Lol, there are like 5 people on these forums, and that's is Level Editing forum. But oh well..

[Sir Blackington]

Was I supposed to try and find the blue key? Ended the game without it

[Zombie]

Was I supposed to try and find the blue key? Ended the game without it

There was a bug I didn't fix where you didn't need the last key, you could just crawl underneath the bar

It's OK.

That's one of the downsides to trying to complete something complex in a short amount of time, you make mistakes

I'll upload a fix at some point.

[Sir Blackington]

Well I was pleasantly suprised with how fun it was. I didn't get the blue key cause Im not that bright and I had to get to bed so I missed out on the content, but the level design and how things were orginised in that doom 1-2 style did bring some interesting things to light. The challenge of letting the player roam and figure things out on thier own without drifting into tedium is a tricky one and I think u mostly pulled it off. In order to make it mazelike, yet navigateable, especially without a map means you have to make rooms (and hopefully hallways if possible) unique so you can differentiate between rooms easily. You did a fine job of that when it came to room dimensions, ( your rooms weren't all simple boxes) and some of your hallways were well done ( really liked the room with the pouring lava and the large tipping vat with molten metal in it ) but say keeping certain assets in a room and not reusing them in many others could have helped. Now keep in kind I am pretty poor at mazes so take my getting lost with more then a grain of salt. I could let you know about the things I found really well done if u like, but this post is already very long

[Zombie]

Thanks for the feedback.

You can tell me what ever you think you feel you want to tell me

All feedback is very welcomed!

[Sir Blackington]

Probably the best thing about your map was how well the scripted events went with your map design and also thier execution. As of late I have grown VERY tired of the use of scripted events to. most fps's, but here it works great.

CONTAINS SPOILERS

I started playing, wandering the map, taking in the surroundings (good work on the audio btw, nice to know someone out there thinks its important), and generally getting immersed in the setting (even with the textures as they are), when I decide to pull a somewhat unasuming lever. Music changes, ominous sounds start, and I get curb stomped by a mancubus and his mates. So then after taking them on again and winning, which allowed the game to progress.

Now what this whole ordeal did for all subsequent scripted events is
1. Search for, and be initially excited with a feeling of accomplishment when I get a scripted event, becuase your map design makes simply finding your way and progressing part of the challenge
2. Fear that has been legitimized from my previous experience from that pasty bastard mixed with the difficulty of overcoming the challenge even after I'm expecting it

Co.pare this to most fps's I've played recently where the entire map is stringed in one very obvious line, so progression is merely walking forward. The scripted events are usually triggered soley by your location, which again, due to linearity, is dead easy to come across. The events themselves, in gameverse many times are things you woulfnt have any control over, yet they are obviously being triggered by you, and to put the nail in the coffin, many times thehy aren't lethal, hard or even dangerous, so there is no fear on the part of the player. I find even a lot of indie horror games miss that last part hard, show you trippy imagry but forgt to have it hurt you, so u quickly stop fearing it

[Sir Blackington]

Also the pacing you set in the beginning on my playthrough was spot on, the difficulty was also pretty good, something I found with 2 of the later encounters though is (again out of fear which is a good thing) I would start backing away from where the monsters started spawning and I'd be out of the woods for the most part. They didn't come in behind me so nothing was stopping me from turning tail, and once I'd goten around a corner, I could pick them off one by one.

[Zombie]

Thanks for the kind words.

I'm glad someone enjoyed it, brings me great pleasure in hearing it

I'm knee-deep in to the next map, which should also be just as fun!

My comment in regards to your feedback: It was intentional to reuse art, it was one of my challenges to create as little art as possible, but reuse it clever ways. I think I did OK, but I do agree it got a little bit reused too much.

Next level I am using the same content, but I am making many more wall variations and a few more textures to break it up.

Thanks!

[Sir Blackington]

Well I look forard to it, the required playtime for ur first one was about good fir someone trying to do it in one sitting and had to go to sleep to be able to work that same night. And it seems pretty clear that u already recogniz the asset diversity thing. I should note though, what u had was completly satisfactory for the job. By no means were the rooms identical, and thus navigatable if the player was paying close attention and keeping track. So u still managed to do a good job, even compared to the old school 2.5d that were built in a similar light. U asked for a critic, so there it was