John Romero has released his first Doom level in over two decades | Hacker News Reader

John Romero has released his first Doom level in over two decades

gamasutra.com

187 pointsImpossible40 comments

All of the Daikatana and Ion Storm jokes aside, what Romero was able to achieve from a level-design perspective in 1993 with Doom, given that such an engine had never existed before, was pretty mind-boggling.

I wish I had a chance to take game design classes with him now that he's a professor at my alma-mater (UC Santa Cruz), especially after seeing his walkthrough of Knee-Deep In The Dead on YouTube recently[0].

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUU7_BthBWM

Double Fine's Devs Play series might be interesting to you. The first season includes a bunch of videos featuring John Romero talking about Doom. Here's a playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIhLvue17Sd6u2akeZZdY....

There are also a few videos where a guy does some live ROM-hacking on the original Zelda.

One of the major precedents to Doom's level design was probably Dungeons & Dragons. IIRC, the id Software guys were pretty heavy players and people like Sandy Peterson and Jennell Jaquays were working for id.

I really miss the old school of FPS design, where you have hub-based levels that branch out into a bunch of different areas and eventually loop back on themselves. I haven't seen a game using one of those in many years, with the possible exception of the Rise of the Triad reboot.

Maybe these granddaddy designers should get together for a few more games. In my opinion, the advent of linear, cinematic FPSes have ground design work in the genre to a halt. Nowadays, it's all about refining the core game loop and adding eye candy at the expense of broader level design and environmental exploration. Last year, I went back to play Duke Nukem 3D and it was as fun as ever; can't say the same for many of the FPSes that came out over the last decade.

For what it's worth, team-based FPS games use a similar style of map design. For instance, in Counterstrike, most popular maps have a middle area of contention. This area can be used to reach each of the objectives. Teams have the option to attack the objectives directly, or take control of mid and decide where to go. There are almost always multiple paths between each of the contention areas, and the player spawns, so it's often difficult to predict what enemies will do because they have so many options.

These maps are much smaller than interesting FPS maps I remember from my childhood, but the principle is the same.

I would like a game that is neither a hallway to walkdown (albeit twisted) nor a flat open plane with objects on it.

That is, complex geometry and architecture that seems like it wasn't just designed for the current mission; an open world that isn't full of doors that don't open and windows that don't break. I want a million functionally unnecessary ways to do things.

I feel like the original Deus Ex was heading in that direction. The levels were very large and very well-connected, and you felt like you could be creative with your solutions without the whole thing feeling loosey-goosey.

I recall a Doom II level that created, as much as was possible with the engine, a "downtown" feeling (it may have been simply called "Downtown"). Many of the buildings were enterable, monsters could shoot you or lob fireballs at you from the windows, etc. In some ways a richer and more interesting design than even the "huge city full of textured solid parallepipeds" that many "open world" games feature.

It is "Downtown", yeah. One of my favorites :)

Yes, to me the sense of exploration is lost with modern games.

Modern games feel like the equivalent of sitting on an interstate highway and seeing where it takes you vs taking the twisty backroads where you can get lost and end up going in the wrong direction.

That said, a lot of the smaller/independent companies are producing really good games, but you really have to seek them out and avoid a lot of garbage there. For example I found Path Of Exile a couple years ago and it really quenched the modern take on a diablo style game.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting the type of level design you're talking about, but the Souls games follow a similar pattern, where areas branch off from a "main path" (such as it is), and different branches connect with each other and loop back on themselves.

True! But I think those are more on the metroidvania side of things, a genre that follows this pattern on a macro level. The shooters I'm thinking of had level-based, compact environments that nonetheless tangled up in interesting ways. There were also tons of secret areas and easter eggs to find.

In other words, this: http://i.imgur.com/BITmX.jpg

Having wanted to finish the WAD before commenting:

It's excellent. Not just the technical bits: all the textures perfectly aligned, lots of tight indoors/outdoors, etc., but how Romero uses just a few shotgun guys, pinky and imps for most of the damage. You don't need Cyberdemons everywhere or a hundred bad guys on screen at once, you can get by with clever teleports.

Quite a few times I fell back, hearing the teleports behind me, then realised I needed to fall back more because multiple stuff was coming from multple directions now.

I still didn't get the rocket launcher behind the monitor/poison symbol.

Mac users: I recommend Doomsday Engine, and the Doom High Res Texture pack: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/k67w2ezieodzmap/index.ht...

> I still didn't get the rocket launcher behind the monitor/poison symbol.

Where was this? I missed it altogether.

Near the high area with windows, and the room with the boxes. there's a indented monitor in the wall.

ahh. I see now. Still don't see a poison pill just "TCI Tenor".

Here it is. You go down into the slime area accessed by the room with boxes. Stepping outside triggers a door beside the blue key, on the back of the elevator you just came down, to open/close. So step outside, allow the door to close then run inside and hit the switch.

The elevator to your left will descend and you can get the rocket launcher.

A bit off topic, but JP LeBreton, who is mentioned in the article, is also making a very interesting looking ASCII game. I can recommend his video devlog where he shows some of the tools he's made to create the game, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syFT1cZF_w8

I wonder what engine he'll use to demo the finished wad? Will he stick with the Classic Win95 Doom engine, or using something more modern like jDoom?

This is what makes Hacker News great. I'm learning that Doom has new game engines for the old game files from someone who uses the alias AdmiralAsshat.

> what makes Hacker News great.

you spelled "reddit" wrong there.

Readme says he tested on ZDoom and Crispy Doom.

I rather enjoy Zandronum (http://zandronum.com/ ).

Favorite add-on campaign: Whispers of Satan (http://www.paulcorfiatis.com/wos/HTML/wos_index.htm )

Found about Brutal Doom recently, and it's really quite good.

He used jDoom in his recent walkthrough of E1

Classic Doom engine was DOS4GW, not Win95

From the readme:

>My previous Doom levels were made in 1995 for The Ultimate Doom (e4m2, e4m6), so this is a warm-up.

Cool guy who influenced entertainment and technology greatly. Everyone should read Masters of Doom.

I mistook this for being about John Carmack on first pass, and was both extremely excited and extremely confused.

Having corrected this, I am still moderately excited and slightly confused.

Wow, this is a pretty tough level! I'm liking it so far.

It works really well so far in the Doomsday Engine, which runs pretty great on my Macbook.

Obligatory Penny Arcade: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/1998/11/25

https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/1999/11/22/ is more apt.

Sigh. I feel so old right now.

40-somethings get momentarily nostalgic and excited!

50-somethings turn on God Mode and go sight-seeing, with a bit of mayhem.

I'm late 20s and I played doom on DOS.

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