BarefootMapMaker

Alright, since I got map 6 complete, I've been devoting some time to going back over the previous maps.

Balance work, oh my!

I've been very carefully scrutinizing ammo and health pickups, very aware that the maps tend to really load you up on ammo, especially when you find the secrets. That kind of skews the challenge, making the maps a bit too easy. So I've been going through, playtesting, and determining where lesser ammo pickups would be more conducive to a challenge.

Not with a mind to make the maps an absurd challenge, but decidedly a challenge, nonetheless. Think Knee Deep in the Dead with a bit of extra backside kicking thrown in, and you'll pretty much have what I'm going for. I want the maps to be a challenge, but an enjoyable challenge, very much indeed, yes.

I've also been aware where some areas put a real taxing on CPU usage. I've been giving that a good looking over, too.

For instance, just today, I completely reworked the lighting in the final water area in map02. The setup now uses half the dynamic lights it used to, which lets you have a look out there without your game turning into a momentary slideshow.

I plan to do the same with map04 next, hoping to achieve the same results. I am also going to be working to do way with all those techno lamp sprites that Doom2 used. It is going to be a process, as there are a lot of those in use across the maps right now, but I intend to slowly replace all of them with 3D lighting structures and dynamic lights. It will look a lot better, doing away with those dated sprites, and it will help the maps stay better in theme across all the maps.

We're hoping to have another update for you guys, within the next couple of weekends.

We've been doing a lot of other work, too. DarynS has been revisiting his codework, improving a lot of things and making sure everything works with as little CPU impact as can be achieved. All in all, it's going to be a nice update package. Something to look forward to, definitely.