Secrets you would never make
Mar 25, 2023 12:31:51 GMT -5
Post by 40oz on Mar 25, 2023 12:31:51 GMT -5
I was playing through a little bit of TNT Evilution today. I got up to Nukage Processing, which has an odd secret in it.
A large portion of the map has this big outdoor area that eventually reveals itself to you about halfway through the map. Nukage Processing, I think, is probably one of the better maps in TNT.wad, and if you go through the natural path the map seems to guide you through, then the map starts off pretty easy with some basic imps and zombie brothers, and progressively gets tougher as you go through it. This is the expected natural difficulty curve of any decent Doom map.
The part that's weird to me is that inside the starting room of the map, there's a crate that you can use which will lower and take you directly to the outside of the building, shown in the screenshot below. This secret isn't very beneficial right away, but it allows you to completely bypass the beginning of the map.
In mapping, it can sometimes be difficult to correctly anticipate what the player is going to do in a map you've designed. Sometimes the designer really wants players to experience their map the way it was designed for. And if they do experience it the way you expected, this can be really cool. It can be really cool for the player too, unless they die and have to do it all over again.
What I find very interesting about what the level designer did in Nukage Processing, is they added this very trivial secret immediately in the start area which can very much capsize the natural progression of the map immediately and lets you play the map however you want to. It almost feels broken. Why would a level designer that made a good start to their map put this in here? Well, it definitely feels very liberating as a player playing this map. I don't have to use it, but the option is available if I want it. Seeing as though I've already played TNT Evilution enough times, I tried the intended route first, accidentally got blown up by some barrels, and then went this secret route on my second try, which quickly relieved the drudgery of having to do the same thing all over again to restore my progress (which many maps in TNT evilution often do.)
I find build engine games like Duke Nukem 3D often have secrets that can be accessed pretty early that reveal interconnecting parts of the map. As a kid i found much of the level design in Duke 3D to be pretty confusing, but when I watch speedrunners they can beat the entire game in less than 18 minutes, and watching it gives me a headache. I don't often add secrets that let players skip parts of my maps. In my mind, if the map is any good, they should want to experience the whole thing. So I often just make my maps kinda short and not too difficult so that they don't feel robbed of what they accomplished if my map suddenly kills them somehow.
As a mapper, would you naturally get the idea to add a secret like this one in Nukage Processing that skips a large portion of your map? Why or why not?
doomwiki.org/w/images/3/36/Evilution-map13.png
A large portion of the map has this big outdoor area that eventually reveals itself to you about halfway through the map. Nukage Processing, I think, is probably one of the better maps in TNT.wad, and if you go through the natural path the map seems to guide you through, then the map starts off pretty easy with some basic imps and zombie brothers, and progressively gets tougher as you go through it. This is the expected natural difficulty curve of any decent Doom map.
The part that's weird to me is that inside the starting room of the map, there's a crate that you can use which will lower and take you directly to the outside of the building, shown in the screenshot below. This secret isn't very beneficial right away, but it allows you to completely bypass the beginning of the map.
In mapping, it can sometimes be difficult to correctly anticipate what the player is going to do in a map you've designed. Sometimes the designer really wants players to experience their map the way it was designed for. And if they do experience it the way you expected, this can be really cool. It can be really cool for the player too, unless they die and have to do it all over again.
What I find very interesting about what the level designer did in Nukage Processing, is they added this very trivial secret immediately in the start area which can very much capsize the natural progression of the map immediately and lets you play the map however you want to. It almost feels broken. Why would a level designer that made a good start to their map put this in here? Well, it definitely feels very liberating as a player playing this map. I don't have to use it, but the option is available if I want it. Seeing as though I've already played TNT Evilution enough times, I tried the intended route first, accidentally got blown up by some barrels, and then went this secret route on my second try, which quickly relieved the drudgery of having to do the same thing all over again to restore my progress (which many maps in TNT evilution often do.)
I find build engine games like Duke Nukem 3D often have secrets that can be accessed pretty early that reveal interconnecting parts of the map. As a kid i found much of the level design in Duke 3D to be pretty confusing, but when I watch speedrunners they can beat the entire game in less than 18 minutes, and watching it gives me a headache. I don't often add secrets that let players skip parts of my maps. In my mind, if the map is any good, they should want to experience the whole thing. So I often just make my maps kinda short and not too difficult so that they don't feel robbed of what they accomplished if my map suddenly kills them somehow.
As a mapper, would you naturally get the idea to add a secret like this one in Nukage Processing that skips a large portion of your map? Why or why not?
doomwiki.org/w/images/3/36/Evilution-map13.png
