Building a level and exploring the design (Doom level Part 2)

[@damonhawkes2057]

I hope we get a part 3!

[@HouseTrapJay]

I 2nd this

[@CB66941]

"The point here is to see the process as an exploration of ideas and not just an exercise in blandly sticking to your plan that you went in with." I feel validated. I have never made a level where its final iteration resembled its first draft more than 60% of the time in terms of its layout.

[@admiralalin]

Looking forward to the next part of this series and your next videos. I think this channel is gold! I've just started watching your videos today, started with the "How to make a Doom level in 5 minutes", since it was relevant to what i was doing, trying to make doom levels, getting started, then looked for more info in level design, so started watching your videos from the first ones. I learned what scope is and your talk about logic, structure in levels, than randomness, and using text to plan the level. This doom series seems to help with the blank page problem that I have, using a plan and logic to make the level, then testing the ideas. This is also an example, on how to make a doom map, and i can learn by following this example, analysing it. It's high quality stuff what you're doing, to me at least, keep it up man! I will continue to watch the rest of your videos. There's a level design book that linked to one of your videos as well, also how i got here. Good job for making this series and your videos that i've watched so far, and the new information that you've provided! I've enjoyed watching! I'd like to see more videos like this, where you design levels, show the process, like this doom series you made, maybe you can make another doom level, with another theme or other goals, and more informative videos, like how you provided solutions to the blank page problem. Like, this is what i wanted to see, the design process of making a level, which is similar to design process of a game, what i wanted. Thanks! Keep making videos!

[@CodeStew]

Your videos on Level Design are incredibly insightful and have taught me some excellent design habits when planning out maps. Looking forward to your next video.

[@stevelee_gamedev]

Great to hear, cheers :)

[@Fancy_Raptor]

As somebody designing a map for the first time as a mod for GTFO, your process has been really informative!

[@stevelee_gamedev]

Good to hear, cheers :)

[@elloofficer]

The iterative changes really made the level more fun everytime you playtested. I was also wondering halfway why there wasn't any elevation changes and wrongly assumed limitations of Doom but like you said it's easy to implement later in this editor. Great vid, looking forward to the next one!

[@XSquidbeatsX]

I worked on level for 3 months and lost the fun. I’m gonna try this for my next level.

[@stevenisonline]

This is such an amazing series! Love your channel, thank you!

[@mo1zart]

uh the next part! nice nice nice!

[@MolotovEcho]

Nice level. Can we expect you in a quake mapping jam someday?

[@ilcanalechenonce]

Ah so there are actually more than 2 parts now 😛 the more, the merrier! Great videos, thanks for sharing!

[@stevelee_gamedev]

Haha, yep

[@Ails1234]

Nice video! Btw I noticed a lot of misaligned textures in the preview for the next part. In Doom Builder the shortcut ctrl+A is used to align connected textures (or just A for horizontal, or shift+A for vertical), based on the textures your cursor is pointing to. Also when you make a door or window, select the upper texture and press U to align it to the ceiling (upper-unpegged) and the bottom texture and press L to align to the floor (lower-unpegged), this makes it easier to then use the shift+A shortcut to align everything

[@leplubodeslapin]

super neat! I'm curious about progression gating, for the room with the surprise in the end (with the 4 powerful ennemies that opens up to the rest of the level, which i think is super cool idea), is there something stopping the players from running toward the end of the level ? Maybe, that's fine because people are rewarded for clearing the whole level with the scoreboard at the end, so the ones who don't really care can avoid them and flee (?) (The kind of question that I ask myself and count on playtesting to see more clearly if it's actually something to deal with or not, i'd love to know your thought insight on it)

[@Ails1234]

In the Doom community it's usually the norm to get 100% of the kills to consider a map complete. Imo just let people finish the map when they feel like it But in general I've seen maps that will put an enemy with a lot of health right in front of the exit so trying to squeeze past it is impossible. Even the original maps did that, filling the exit room with Pinkies in more than one occasion

[@leplubodeslapin]

@@Ails1234 Ok that's what I thought, in the end the people pick the challenge/objectives that works with them, that's cool (and I think it's better than giving hope to players that they can squeeze past but it turns out it's impossible, that can be frustrating). Thanks for your answer !

[@stevelee_gamedev]

Ohhh are you referring to the fact that I left the blue key in the corridor, the last iteration of the video? I should've clarified in the video that it's only there for debug purposes - I delete it in the later / final versions that you'll see in the next video :) So all player have to play through the whole level, etc!

[@leplubodeslapin]

@@stevelee_gamedev Oh no i meant for the first full draft at 15:00, when you open the blue door to reach the final room, the player quickly encounters the 4 final NPCs but I was curious if they could squeeze in and reach the final exit room without having to fight them.

[@leplubodeslapin]

(it was clear at 10:45 that you placed the blue key here to quickly test the final fight, no worries!)

[@malingou]

nice vid, you said you had one month to complete this map, now my question is, how long did it take for each one of the stages? i mean, planning, making the layout, correcting, rebalancing, final details

[@zohahs5276]

Nice one please do video on how to get a job a entry level artist as level designer for people new to craft or trying to make career change into gaming thank you.

[@coolTOM6547]

This was a great level, i just want to ask what course you took for college, i want to also become a level designer. Thank you in advance

[@R1zzio]

Hey steve what game/tools would you recommend to start making level design maps? i often see you recomend Half life tools, but as 2 years passed since then, would you still recommend half life? or any other good tool?