Comment on Quake 1 holds up really well!
Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months agoSure, the original Doom engine couldn’t handle multiple floors and complex geometry so the levels were fairly horizontal and labyrinthine, but I think that in a way that made it so the developers had to be even more creative and many of the levels in turn are just downright memorable to say the least. What I can say though is that I can easily remember most of the Doom 1 and 2 levels, meanwhile Quake for me is nearly a complete blank.
To each their own, I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
ZOSTED@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
I think you’re on to something. There’s something more “grokkable” about Doom’s 2.5 maps (some more than others, admittedly), both as a player and maker. And I think it shows in the incredible number of Doom maps people have made over the years.
Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
I think the limitations of the Doom engine work both against and in favor of the game, the enforced limitations kind of “distills” the levels to it’s bare minimum, pure creative level design, forcing the developers to work around those “barriers” as I’ve said, you can see this with older map packs like Scythe where the map makers were pushing the limits of what the engine could achieve. This is all somewhat lost nowadays with limit breaking source ports like GZDoom though.
ZOSTED@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
I’m with you - a really beautiful vanilla map, that pushes the visplanes, is much more impressive than a limit removing equivalent. I’m not saying that the latter maps lack artistry, but vanilla requires that you look at your map from every angle in almost excruciating detail. The result – to me – just feels that much more intentional/authorial.
OK now I’m definitely sounding pretentious :p