He seems to have another rule in: "Show the reward before they can get it". Be it showing keycards, weapons or power ups, Doom often would show the player the reward before they can get to it or they may have already passed a secret access point they can now hunt for.
krulty Be careful with that one though. I’ve seen quite a few wads that try to emulate this but lose sight of what is trying to be achieved by this. For example, Doom the Way id Did does a ton of this. But the levels still feel rather linear, and that thing which you saw earlier isn’t from a diverging or tangential section of the level the player had to discover himself, but rather a necessary locale that came about simply by playing the game normally. So after a while the player catches on to this and stops caring when he notices a key card for example, because he knows he is going to find it later on anyway. The point of those sections is to highlight some powerup or secret location the player might not otherwise have been aware existed, and puts it in the back of the player’s mind, so they’re on the lookout for a possible entrance that will lead to that secret. It’s not meant to be a preview of what’s going to happen inevitably, but rather an open possibility of what the player could discover, if he’s fortunate or skilled enough.
@@UnchainedEruption Doom TheWayIdDid was a great concept, but they didn't always get it quite right. Difficulty is generally quite a bit higher than the original levels, and some of the levels are just frustrating and unfun to play.
E1M3 did this so well. You see a soul sphere but have to figure out how to get it. You can open a window looking down into a room that you later find a way into. You can see a box of rockets up on a ledge and it tempts you to collect it. I remember when I was little, figuring out all the secrets in that map and feeling so satisfied.
It's always good to break habits and utilize the new technology. Creating variable heights and non-orthogonal walls was surely a new tool that was hard to start thinking in terms of when they moved from Wolf 3D to Doom. What's the point of the new tech if you're not using it?
That's a good rule. The reason I like Quake more than Doom is its more 3D level design, with rooms above rooms, bridges and all that. Adds a whole new dimension to the game. And a big reason Doom is so superior to all the early 90s Doom clones is that it uses height levels effectively, while most of its clones are as flat as Wolfenstein, which obviously limits level design heavily.
After playing so much Wolfenstein 3D in '92 '93, it completely blew my mind that you could "see" outside in Doom...and then later when playing discovering that you could actually go outside, nuked my mind! It's little things like that back in those days as games progressed that I miss.
I've taken notes on what Romero said in interviews. Only things that I can add are: 1. Begin the level by asking yourself, "What would be a cool first thing to see?" or, "How can I open this level in an interesting way that makes the player want to explore?" 2. While having landmarks to help with navigation in circular level design, make sure to keep the level somewhat unsymmetrical. It is okay to have small parts symmetrical, but it becomes boring if he whole level is symmetrical. This factors into the contrast of space and lighting mentioned in the video. 3. As soon as your fps becomes too predictable, it is boring.
The only predictable part of DOOM is the unpredictability. Basically, you walk into a level and you think, "I'm boutta get fucked." Yet it still leaves you wondering _how_ you're getting fucked. Teleporting demons in? Teleporting into demons? Armies of hitscanners? Or, the timeless classic, one massive arena where you're attacked by a wave of demons and you decide to take that one invulnerability in the middle only to find out not long after that there's actually a second, much worse wave and you definitely should've saved the invulnerability. Essentially, you expect something unpredictable to happen yet again-- but you don't know what, nor when, nor how bad it'll be, nor how many save slots you should utilize.
Three other great Romero rules I heard from him directly when building content for Quake and Doom: 1) Always build your first level last. At that point you completely understand your game's mechanics and strengths/limitations of your engine. 2) First levels should always be a horseshoe shape (see Doom and Quake e1m1, both Romero levels) 3) Always keep the player in a safe spot at the start of a level. Never start a level with monsters that can hurt you before you move.
"Make sure that if the player can see outside, he can somehow get there" I feel like this is the vital rule when making a difference between a current gen FPS and a "retro" FPS
A lot of these rules seem like common sense, but I’ve played waaay too many custom maps (yes, including some of mine) where a lot of these tips have been blatantly disregarded. Otherwise fun and playable maps can be ruined by misaligned textures and inappropriate lighting. Those who design maps need to remember that this is YOUR world. You are the master of everything within it, from the teleporters to the tiniest vertex.
I'm gonna go back and audit all of my Minecraft worlds with these rules. If I built a base and it doesn't follow these rulesets, it's not only bound to look ugly, but also be confusing to move about.
@@alexanderstephens822 A lot of these ideas seem like common sense now because there's been over 20 years of learning on game design. Look at some of the shitty Doom Clones that came out in the mid 90s and you'll see almost all of those 'common sense' rules broken.
@@matthewgagnon9426 Yes, these concepts were new and not obvious at the time. But there's still people treating them as groundbreaking today, just because they like John Romero. It's okay to remember how he influenced gaming back in the day, nothing can take that fact away, but we've also moved on from those times.
SinCity2100 has (or had) a problem with both of those aesthetic flubs. The first iteration of his mapset Good Morning Phobos crutches extremely hard on his combat design. And then there's Mechadon. Just look at, for example, Unstable Journey. 😍
Romero’s level design rules still should apply to modern games. I freelance game design on my campus (even though i don’t have the courses) and if someone makes a FPS for their senior project i always point to these rules.
I remember him saying that he would beat each stage starting with just the pistol to make sure it was fair. That being said he did use guns he picked up in the stage and he is a pretty good player.
@@oliverlane3705 Tbh, a lot of things went out the window for that one (which explains a lot). Shame too since the movement and weaps in that game feel pretty fun. The pacing, early enemy types, and claustrophobic levels that gimp movement hindered it, and the fact that it was mostly structured as a long series of escort quests with buggy AI probably screwed it on launch.
I remember about 100 years ago when I tried my hand with a Doom editor (I think it was called DoomEd), I started out a level with a circular room with one door leading out, a spawn point in the center or the room, and had placed two or three demons. As I went further into the level design itself, without having actually fired up the level for testing, my friend walked in and wanted to know how my progress was. I grinned, and decided to show him what I had so far. *I completely forgot,* at the very beginning of the level, right in that circular spawn point room, I had placed a few nasties in there. As soon as I rezzed up in the room, I was chomped by hungry demons within seconds. We were laughing our asses off. "Impressive," he noted. "Well, you at least know how to make levels tough right off the bat." LOL! Ahhh...the good ol' days. Oh, Good Lord, the Hall of Mirrors effect got really annoying if you didn't watch your vertex placement.
I guess it depends on the editor. I know, I am an amateur and started a few days ago, but for me it isn't a problem unless I'm trying to make self-referencing sectors.
episode 1 of doom is still one of my favorites. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the fact that I played it first, but his levels designs are so iconic
Here’s an important one to add: Never have your rooms shaped like rectangles or boxes. If they’re like rectangles, they’re boring to run through and uninteresting to look at. For example, take literally any vanilla map from Knee Deep through Plutonia and look at the level layout from the map view. You will never see any portion have straight lines. Lots of crooked paths that interweave with each other and branch out. Having a linear path is also a mortal sin. The player should be able to explore the map, not follow a single obvious way to go. Another good one (also from Romero himself) is to never use symmetry. Symmetry is lazy because it’s in essence copy/paste, but moreover it’s always better to do something different, to surprise the player.
That symmetry rule seems to apply so well with prog music also. The music I listen to the most has sort of an anti-symmetry mentality to it. Without being wacky and messy of course. That's an interesting point you have there!
It's interesting you say that with the linear aspect. They designed it so well that when you stumble on a linear path, it was so unnatural that the only thing that went through your mind is: *How many Pinkies are going to pop out of the walls?*
I never experienced Doom and Wolf3d back in the day they were released, and now I'm checking them out. And I have to say, unlike Doom, Wolf has a huge problem. Technical limitations like similar rectangular rooms with same textures and lack of map = Gamedesign limitations and waaay less fun than Doom brings. Because of this, Doom remains a very great game even by todays standarts exactly because of level design. The design that was impossible on previous generation game engine.
The exception to the linear path I think is some kind of map that isn’t beaten such as a multiplayer map or especially zombies map where you’re supposed to gradually open up parts of the map to begin your survival
Examples of deliberately not having a way out best shown in Tricks & Traps (Doom 2). But there's a couple in Ultimate Doom, one in Pandemonium but only if you fall off the wrong side of a bridge (think it's where the Yellow Key Door is)
I wish modern level designers would take a good long look at number 7. There seems to be this mentality that the player should be always moving forward. "Backtracking" isn't a four letter word. It's important that the player get the opportunity to become familiar with the level and be allowed to explore it rather than just have it be a complex but 1 dimensional hallway of enemies.
It's funny, the rendering technology is 3D... but the level design is often 1D, or almost 1D. They use the 3D for eye candy, rather than for gameplay. Commander Keen has more depth than a whole slew of "modern shooters" :)
One exception is past the green armor. You can see outside, but not able to get out there. And the E1M3 secret with the cage and monsters just below you
There are a lot more examples than that. E1M2 outside the chainsaw room, E1M5 has the window by the rocket launcher secret area, E2M1 behind the start area, E4M5 has a window near the start point, and I’m sure there are others.
The rules show how important exploration is to the Romero style of level design. Rules 5-8 are all about giving the level good exploration gameplay. One particular thing about Doom is the fast player speed means that you can backtrack a lot without getting bored. It's so dull to backtrack in games where you move slowly, which hurts the exploration experience.
I want to know how did Romero happen to be one of the greatest level designers right ouf ot the gate. He must have learned a few things during Wolfenstein but it's uncanny how Doom, the first FPS with levels that had realistic shapes and contours had such amazing design. Romero must have been thinking about nothing else during that period. Rule 4 about contrasts is particularly insightful.
DSDuddles Wolfenstein 3D has all the same genius level design that Doom has, so does Quake. You have to remember he and id had a lot of experience with many different games before putting out Doom. He knows what is fun to play and puts in the game the things he himself likes to see.
Playing a lot of DnD, having a great mind for imagination and also lots of skill prior to ID. He's done plenty of design as a kid/at Softdisk with the guys, so I wouldn't say it was right out of the gate. But I admit, his talent surely gave him a flying start.
It's funny, back in 95 when used to make and play maps with my friends, I'd be following these rules! Of course I was very influenced by the design of the originals. I was obsessed with texture alignment in a way my friends weren't. They could crank out 2 or 3 maps in time I could do one because everything needed a border, everything lined up, the textures would make sense. Same with Duke3D. lol nostalgia. It's very impressive that Romero pioneered the rules whilst Doom itself was new and nothing like it had come before. Geniuses! There's actually three additional rules I followed: 1) Never have an essential switch that needs to be shot to activate, that can't be reached by the player to be "punched" Basically never rely on a resource that might run out to complete the map. 2) If falling into a pit, either have away of escaping, or so much damage it kills you quickly. 3) Always make sure the player can get from the start point to the end point without _requiring_ them to traverse environmental hazards eg Lava - there's a few nasty examples of this rule breaking in E3, Limbo and Mt Erebus. If you should run out of medkits and have really low health you're trapped. This also doesn't really apply to games with recharging health.
I know ive fallen into pits and places in some of the official doom wads (maybe within tnt or plutonia) where I fell into a pit and was just stuck. Had to load to get back to where I was
ikagura I like the one in Episode 2 (forget which level) that misleads the player. There’s a hazmat suit that you can use and nearby nukage to cross to reach the door. However, the nukage is very small and can easily be crossed without taking much damage. And if you were perceptive, you may have noticed a couple rooms back there was a very long passageway of nukage which leads to a secret area. If the player is on his first run, he may use the radiation suit for the short nukage right next to it, but a more experienced returning player would be smart enough to realize the most obvious path is not the best one to use the rad suit for. I really appreciate things like that which twist the player’s expectations and break level design conventions, forcing the player to think outside the box.
ScottishAtheist toxic floors...oh the horrid memories of having to go down that one secret to a super shotgun in zpack ep1 map 03.and for some fucked up reason the acid pool kills you much faster than it should,its a gimmick level with a timer to add salt on the wound.its still a great map though...
Thanks so much putting this together - I'm coming from the "illustrator that likes to play games" camp so most of what makes a Doom level "feel right" is a mystery to me, but it's starting to click. (unrelated, but it always makes my day hearing other Southerners online 😁)
Thank you for having such vision and creating my favorite game. It has brought me so much entertainment and value over 20 years. Endless mods, deathmatch, speedruns, and lore.
Very interesting, the bordering is something that I always make sure. Even back then I would encounter poorly made maps that wouldn't do one of any of these things that you mentioned. "If the player can see outside they can somehow get there." YES, that's exactly what games of this generation do too much, that's like John Romero giving the middle finger of inaccessible outside areas that are used as decoration and it reminds me of your Foundry playthrough in DooM 2016 saying "all of this is walkable and NOT just decoration or window dressing".
Episode 1 of Doom hits a sweet spot for me, I was in middle school when Chromebooks became a common school item and I remember playing episode one over and over again during class on the flash port that and mega man X both total classics.
You're entirely correct, every rule on the entire list is absolutely top tier advice that never became outdated. It's all as good today as it was then. The only possible exception being breaking up floor textures without height changes, but that's only because we have the tech and memory to shuffle several compatible floor textures and break up flow. But as general advice, it's still good.
So when I started building my megaWAD back in 2017. I really wanted to follow the design philosophy of Ep1 in Doom. But thanks to this helpful video, it made it much easier to narrow down the elements that really defined Ep1, without the need to limit the levels' assets to what's only available in shareware Doom. Fast foward to today, my megaWAD (which is now called "DOOM ZERO") is finished, and the feedback has been really positive. 🙂 If you guys want to play it and want to see a megaWAD that sticks to these 8 design rules, head over to the Doom Zero ModDB page.
Great set of rules, or dare I say, guidelines to follow. I've been thinking about the topic of rule number 2 for a long time. I was looking for ways to make everything seamless, but not only is it potentially harmful for the level design, it's usually not like that in real life either! Glad to find that the master himself addressed this.
Wanna add my own: - There should be no doors/platforms that makes the players wait because of its slow opening, raising, or lowering animation. If you want to preserve the epicness of it, they should be able to bypass it or at least cut the waiting time simply by running really fast, jumping, or crouching through it. - Large decorations, landmarks or those that involve using sectors (i.e. furniture, machinery, pillars) should be placed in a way to also serve as cover for players from projectiles from monsters. - There should always be a designated room where others often lead to in that is filled with health and ammo for players to recover in each level. Small pickups should be scattered in the rest of the map, and large ones are either hidden or placed in this.
I think so. Nothing has quite matched the mystique and combo of Badass Johnny R., Professor Johnny C., lawyer turned "thief' Bobby P. and endless supplies of pizza and soda (and strippers). Simple yet complicated. Not that big, yet complex and thorough. Easy to pick up, hard to master. Half FPS, half strategy game and inventory management. Recognizable design and look, presented by pizza money millionaires in shredded jeans with Ferraris. If not the best game, surely the best making of.
i like your videos. they have helped me with quite a few things i needed to know to get better at my first levels. i have two finished and a third almost done. its so fun.
Yeah, most of those rules are still relevant, and those which kinda aren't can be updated: wall texture transitions - put a divider texture in between could be made into - wall changes (corridor to room, change in room width/height/shape) don't just have them as plain geometry edges or connectors of two straight wall prefabs - put some kind of nice and kinda plausible/natural joint/divider on that spot. that's what door frames are in reality, for example. notice how many of the transition textures in doom are precisely that. also, then, turn it up a bit, because you will also notice in normal buildings in reality things like this are rare, most corners are clean... but games are not reality, they are hyperreality, so to feel as real as reality, they must exaggerate everything.
On the point about creating memorable landmarks, this is very relevant to modern games. I've heard the concept called "weenees" before, but I think that more often refers to large landmarks that the player can *see* from most places on the map, rather than a location the player *remembers* to return to.
After playing his recreation of E1M8 - He has stepped his game way up to match those in the modding communities abilities as of today. I mean, he had too! DOOM runs entirely under a 3D recreated engine now such as Gzdoom, zdoom, Jdoom etc. I must say, his recreation was quite good. And the attention to detail was great. I expect no less from Sigil, and look forward to it. I just am sad I didn't get to buy a Limitedrungames version of Sigil in time.
Excellent video. One thing I've always loved about the first episode is how the great deal of windows and rooms without ceilings contribute to a sort of open floor plan spacious feeling while contrasting it to smaller, darker and more cramped spaces. I think the bright overcast sky texture helps alot, too. It'd be a totally different tone if it opened with one of the darker sky textures.
DOOM never ceases to give me that nostalgia hit whenever I see it. The sounds, the layout, the timeless graphics. It is such a beautiful piece of gaming history. It makes me think back on the mid 90's when when I was 7 or 8 and first experiencing this game at my neighbors house. The eldest kid there was some 7 years older than me and I envy him how he got to experience the 90's as a teenager. It was a magical time.
Joel from Vinesauce is running a competition on Doom maps and mods. 240 .wads in this competition and he's running through them all. With the new advancements in the Doom engine, people have been creating some really cool maps even while completely disregarding these rules. One major mistake I see people do all the time is that if you are going to have non obvious weapon pickups, make sure you eiter place them clearly visible from the player's path, so he can hunt for the entry, or you put many weapon pickups throughout the map. Many times I've seen Joel reach the end of the map with a full complement of ammo, but withouth the weapon to use it, because it was in that obscure room he had to backtrack for.
Great vid! Level design really is the unsung hero of so many great games. You almost never consider good level design when you are playing, but will be painfully aware of bad level design.
The first EP of Doom is still probably hands down my favorite EP out of the bunch. It also helps that it was shareware, hence distributed for free (or for a small fee via compilation discs) so i'm sure that many people remember playing this episode a TON as i did (even though i didn't actually play it in the 90's). Great video too man :)
All of these are things I naturally figured out on my own over the course of making my level. It all stems from the basic question “Is this fun for the player?”
I recall DEU - written in C and available on BBS terminals for download. We used Borland Turbo C to make changes to the source so we could get better resolution in DOS. And we added it back to the community. It was a pretty buggy, but usable vector editor for building wad files. Speaking of old Bulletin Board Systems, that's how I also got the game the night following DOOM's first release - and then I played the dumb thing for a few months straight. It supported null modem PC to PC multiplayer. I was in college at the time and we took over a computer lab (covertly of course). After building a bunch of null modem cables we connected as many machines together as we could and went crazy. The computers were 80386 processors with 8 megabytes of ram. That's a serious flashback. When quake came out it started all over, then unreal, and here we are today.
I remember Romero once said another tip is to make level 1, or in other words the first level of your WAD (if there’s more than one map) last. I think this tip stretches beyond just Doom, and could be applied to designing a game of your own. The first level is every players first experience with the game. It needs to suck the player in to keep them going for the rest of the episode.
Some people grasp these rules intuitively without even thinking about it. Since Doom's level design follows these rules, well, anyone wanting to make their levels "like those in Doom" would end up following those rules intuitively, even if they didn't have them consciously in mind. (Though having these rules consciously in mind does make things easier.)
Tight corridors with strong enemies at the worst possible locations to screw you over as well as death pits everywhere to punish circle strafing, sigil and sigil 2 at least.
As someone who designs level mods for an indie 3D platformer (and only just recently got into Doom), the loop and landmark rules are the most vital in my opinion.
I would like to add - NO JUMPING PUZZLES, but he doesn't subscribe to the belief of that momentum-killing unending source of frustration that devs _still_ put into fps games even now. Also anything that is an insta-kill which doesn't allow the player to react properly without prior knowledge of said insta-kill.
Jumping puzzles can be fun as long as you don´t overdo it with the difficulty. Platformer level structures can even be used to take advantage during combat.
Nice breakdown, Chubz. What's shocking is that these rules feel totally natural. In following them, you inevitably end up creating areas that feel like real spaces. That's what John's levels were able to do, even with the limited resources of Vanilla doom at the time. Knowing these rules though, also lets you tactically break them where the situation warrants. Been using your tutorials as reference material to get myself up to speed again. They're coming in handy in making the transition from the last port we used to GZDoom. Peace.
Dead End Yeah it’s only difficult if you make the mistake of playing Ultra-Violence on your first run. That’s fine for vanilla Doom 1, but not for any other of the iwads.
Thy Flesh Consumed is pretty fun and beatable for me with the exception of E4M2 which is the most annoying level in Ultimate Doom for me.... i really don't like E4M2
@@majamystic256 ugh that level makes me cringe. I try every so often to learn the speedrunning path for Thy Flesh Consumed, but I usually quit on the second level.
These are all vital and in particular, distinctive landmarks are a huge part of level design that some games forget about. Doom and Doom 2 were really good about creating memorable "set pieces" throughout the maps that would stick in your mind after the fact.
For modern game engine level design, I think the two major rules that still apply are: have landmarks, and have areas that contrast. Landmarks are great for navigation and having parts of the level be memorable, and contrast keeps things interesting, makes you feel like you're progressing and discovering (rather than feeling like you're seeing the same corridors over and over again).
As an architecture student this kind of design theory is facinating to me. He also had a philosophy of abstract level design. Where levels resemble their name in texture but are not laid out according to function. I.e. Suburbs consisting of many small structure that recall a cluster of houses but clearly are not
The texture alignement may sound a bit obvious, but we have to consider: back then they didn't had a fancy doom builder with 3d viewing and autoalign functions, they had to manually type the offsets values for each linedef, save, close the editor then open the game and test it live. So aligning textures was more of a pain and methodic procedure than what we have today.
It didn't take long for auto-align to show up. Ken Silverman included it in the BUILD editor just a couple of years later. Point at a wall in 3D mode and hit '.' and it'll align the textures of walls to the right of it if they have the same texture.
Remember when designing levels: You need to assess the load-bearing capabilities of structures! Unless you can determine the material/s, mass, geometry and strength of each and every brush a level is made of based on their textures and dimensions, and how they interact with each other, you may inadvertently create structures that would COLLAPSE! In addition, you need to predict local weather conditions and seismic activity based on the game lore and skybox texture, and design your levels accordingly! If your structures aren't up to good engineering standards, or at least local building codes, you could endanger the lives of space marines/demons inside and get ARRESTED! This is why level design takes so long, guys.
Wasn't Doom set on Phobos, where there is no atmosphere, the gravity is about two thousand times weaker than Earth, it's tide locked to Mars and solid rock all the way through? Just saying, you don't really need to worry about load bearing capabilities, weather or seismic activity on Phobos, you got a whole different set of engineering challenges though, like how to make sure people don't run faster than the escape velocity.
These seem like some very solid rules, and they're well illustrated by the video. I wish these rules were more well known back when everyone was making their own wadfiles. It would have greatly improved the quality.
They ARE simplistic. Being able to follow these rules only makes someone a half-decent beginner level designer. There is so much more that goes into making a fun level
They're not general rules of map design, they are specific to doom/quake style level design. They're also specific for single player maps. In a multiplayer map you'd have rules like _"make walls flat; all protruding parts non-solid",_ which is a rule Valve didn't know about when making TF2 stock maps...
Great video: I didn't know that he had a some sort of template but it all makes sense with this way since it all flows well from the beginning to the the end.
Yeah, I've used a lot of these principles when I've been mapping for older games like Doom and Descent. Mostly got them from observing the sorts of designers I wanted to imitate and analyzing what made their designs "good", but it's interesting to see it quantified like this. There's another one that's served me very well (and which I also see in Romero's designs) which is that when you're putting an important object like a door, or even a decoration texture, onto a square wall, it's useful to create a little indentation in front of it rather than placing it flush with the wall itself. It helps the object stick out to the player as "not just another wall panel" especially in older engines where the texture is otherwise the only thing that tells you "hey this bit of wall looks a door". I've found it particularly useful in Descent where, unlike in Doom, the doors themselves have no depth -- so the indentation serves an extra purpose of denying the player any reference frame for the door's "flatness" and making it look a little more convincing -- but I still see it done for most non-secret doors on Romero's levels and many others in Doom, and it does tend to make them look better and stick out as "important".
Backtracking was the best part of Doom because it forced you to solve the puzzle aspects of the game. Doom games did not hold your hand if you wanted out you had to really work for it. If it was just gun everything down the end it would have gotten boring fast.
So many people make maps and don't know there's a real science to it that ensures it is fun, playable, and feels like a real game instead of just a bunch of Legos.
Thanks for this video. Its easy to make a video about something sexier about doom, like its monsters or its origins but Ive never seen someone discuss something as innocuous as its level design rules.
One my map making rules is to use dynamic lighting to create special fx or use with very dark areas. I used the “colored light pillars” from realm 667 and changed its code to not display its sprites. Doing this allows me to make colored sector lighting, light emitting from computer monitors, colored light panels, and switches, or help to navigate through very dark hallways while a cyber demon is closing in on your position (which is actually kind of scary)
Thanks so much for the tut!! I'm just beginning to sketch out a complete game (starting small of course) using Doom Builder 2 and I was looking for vids like yours! I retired last year after 40 years as a programmer and have always wanted to make Doom games/levels. I have the basic story outline sketched out and I'm starting to work on each level/rooms. I'll pick your brain as I move forward.Thanks again!Oh, and I bought Sigil, waiting for it to arrive!
Maybe I wasn't paying attention closely, but I remember Romero saying that he avoids making symmetric level layouts. Either by strictly not having the layout symmetric or by changing lighting/contrast/decorations. This helps prevent the player from getting lost in progressing.
the rules on textures is something I followed during my years with the Source engine and something I still keep in mind as I get into Unity and even Unreal
![[DOOM] Sandy Petersen's Level Design](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/w9oG2LBuMwY/mqdefault.jpg)
Dr Phil talks about Doom level design.
LOL! I should get my own talk show where I counsel people struggling with map/game design.
Jared Bathurst I can't stop laughing. xD
Chubzdoomer I was just kidding by the way. Great video.
@@JaredBathurst I now want a talk show where Chubzdoomer gets up-and-coming mapmakers for Doom and corrects their map design. xD
lol. I wondered if somebody else had already mentioned that.
Guess it's a fairly obvious comparison. XD
He seems to have another rule in: "Show the reward before they can get it". Be it showing keycards, weapons or power ups, Doom often would show the player the reward before they can get to it or they may have already passed a secret access point they can now hunt for.
krulty Be careful with that one though. I’ve seen quite a few wads that try to emulate this but lose sight of what is trying to be achieved by this. For example, Doom the Way id Did does a ton of this. But the levels still feel rather linear, and that thing which you saw earlier isn’t from a diverging or tangential section of the level the player had to discover himself, but rather a necessary locale that came about simply by playing the game normally. So after a while the player catches on to this and stops caring when he notices a key card for example, because he knows he is going to find it later on anyway. The point of those sections is to highlight some powerup or secret location the player might not otherwise have been aware existed, and puts it in the back of the player’s mind, so they’re on the lookout for a possible entrance that will lead to that secret. It’s not meant to be a preview of what’s going to happen inevitably, but rather an open possibility of what the player could discover, if he’s fortunate or skilled enough.
It made searching for secrets actually fun because you know the reward!
@@UnchainedEruption Doom TheWayIdDid was a great concept, but they didn't always get it quite right. Difficulty is generally quite a bit higher than the original levels, and some of the levels are just frustrating and unfun to play.
@@Goldberg1337 So it's DoomNotTheWayIdDid, then.
E1M3 did this so well. You see a soul sphere but have to figure out how to get it. You can open a window looking down into a room that you later find a way into. You can see a box of rockets up on a ledge and it tempts you to collect it. I remember when I was little, figuring out all the secrets in that map and feeling so satisfied.
Also in Quake, he added: "If you can build the level in Doom, you've failed"
Yeah thats true. :)
It's always good to break habits and utilize the new technology. Creating variable heights and non-orthogonal walls was surely a new tool that was hard to start thinking in terms of when they moved from Wolf 3D to Doom. What's the point of the new tech if you're not using it?
Huh, I thought he is more creative type than a technical guy.
That's a good rule. The reason I like Quake more than Doom is its more 3D level design, with rooms above rooms, bridges and all that. Adds a whole new dimension to the game.
And a big reason Doom is so superior to all the early 90s Doom clones is that it uses height levels effectively, while most of its clones are as flat as Wolfenstein, which obviously limits level design heavily.
That's kinda funny how it's possible to recreate Quake in modern Doom engines now.
Also there were some Doom level remade with the Quake engine
After playing so much Wolfenstein 3D in '92 '93, it completely blew my mind that you could "see" outside in Doom...and then later when playing discovering that you could actually go outside, nuked my mind! It's little things like that back in those days as games progressed that I miss.
Haha that's cool, now the progress is mainly about game physics, engines and VR
@@YexprilesteR Physics are defenitly not evolving, maybe the optimisation of them, but in terms of good looks? they're de-volving
I was a Dark Forces guy myself. The LAPOGO cheat really made my imagination fly! Those were the days
I've taken notes on what Romero said in interviews. Only things that I can add are:
1. Begin the level by asking yourself, "What would be a cool first thing to see?" or, "How can I open this level in an interesting way that makes the player want to explore?"
2. While having landmarks to help with navigation in circular level design, make sure to keep the level somewhat unsymmetrical. It is okay to have small parts symmetrical, but it becomes boring if he whole level is symmetrical. This factors into the contrast of space and lighting mentioned in the video.
3. As soon as your fps becomes too predictable, it is boring.
His advices are universal, but his creativity has the same limits the Doom engine has.
The only predictable part of DOOM is the unpredictability. Basically, you walk into a level and you think, "I'm boutta get fucked." Yet it still leaves you wondering _how_ you're getting fucked. Teleporting demons in? Teleporting into demons? Armies of hitscanners? Or, the timeless classic, one massive arena where you're attacked by a wave of demons and you decide to take that one invulnerability in the middle only to find out not long after that there's actually a second, much worse wave and you definitely should've saved the invulnerability.
Essentially, you expect something unpredictable to happen yet again-- but you don't know what, nor when, nor how bad it'll be, nor how many save slots you should utilize.
Quake II has a great example to that second rule. I don't know what the level is called though. The one with four doors across eachother.
Romero would definetely agree with 2. He's talked about how much he hates symmetrical level design and finds it boring and uncreative.
John: don’t make your levels too symmetrical.
Tim Willits: *sweats profusely*
Three other great Romero rules I heard from him directly when building content for Quake and Doom:
1) Always build your first level last. At that point you completely understand your game's mechanics and strengths/limitations of your engine.
2) First levels should always be a horseshoe shape (see Doom and Quake e1m1, both Romero levels)
3) Always keep the player in a safe spot at the start of a level. Never start a level with monsters that can hurt you before you move.
"Make sure that if the player can see outside, he can somehow get there"
I feel like this is the vital rule when making a difference between a current gen FPS and a "retro" FPS
*invisiblewalls*
*Return to the battlefield!*
"See those mountains? There's an entity between you and them that will either block movement or kill you after a set duration. You can't go there."
a lot of these rules at the basic level still apply but in modern games with lighting and complex geometry they are just rudimentary guidelines
ok so how do I get outside that area where you go up the stairs to pick up the armor in e1m1
A lot of these rules seem like common sense, but I’ve played waaay too many custom maps (yes, including some of mine) where a lot of these tips have been blatantly disregarded. Otherwise fun and playable maps can be ruined by misaligned textures and inappropriate lighting. Those who design maps need to remember that this is YOUR world. You are the master of everything within it, from the teleporters to the tiniest vertex.
Yeah I'm watching this and it's like... no shit. Align textures? What a genius idea.
I'm gonna go back and audit all of my Minecraft worlds with these rules. If I built a base and it doesn't follow these rulesets, it's not only bound to look ugly, but also be confusing to move about.
@@alexanderstephens822 A lot of these ideas seem like common sense now because there's been over 20 years of learning on game design. Look at some of the shitty Doom Clones that came out in the mid 90s and you'll see almost all of those 'common sense' rules broken.
@@matthewgagnon9426 Yes, these concepts were new and not obvious at the time. But there's still people treating them as groundbreaking today, just because they like John Romero. It's okay to remember how he influenced gaming back in the day, nothing can take that fact away, but we've also moved on from those times.
SinCity2100 has (or had) a problem with both of those aesthetic flubs. The first iteration of his mapset Good Morning Phobos crutches extremely hard on his combat design.
And then there's Mechadon. Just look at, for example, Unstable Journey. 😍
Romero’s level design rules still should apply to modern games. I freelance game design on my campus (even though i don’t have the courses) and if someone makes a FPS for their senior project i always point to these rules.
I remember him saying that he would beat each stage starting with just the pistol to make sure it was fair. That being said he did use guns he picked up in the stage and he is a pretty good player.
Yes, you go for the pistol when you're bored playing it the easy way. Cyberdemon vs pistol
@@pkunkbwok You mean rocket launcher instead of bfg?
@@pkunkbwok “the easy way”? Have fun playing the game on nightmare without saving if you think it’s too easy.
He did NOT apply this rule for Sigil and specially for his levels in Thy Flesh Consumed lmao
@@Heymisterbadguy I bet some people have at least tried to pistol start everything in TFC. And everything in general, lol.
You missed the most important one: make the last levels first.
why?
@gurtb8tin which went out of the window for Dikatana
@@oliverlane3705 Tbh, a lot of things went out the window for that one (which explains a lot). Shame too since the movement and weaps in that game feel pretty fun. The pacing, early enemy types, and claustrophobic levels that gimp movement hindered it, and the fact that it was mostly structured as a long series of escort quests with buggy AI probably screwed it on launch.
i believe it is "make the first level last"
@@AXEL10000hp I guess it is because you last levels are the best since you gained experience making the previous ones.
I remember about 100 years ago when I tried my hand with a Doom editor (I think it was called DoomEd), I started out a level with a circular room with one door leading out, a spawn point in the center or the room, and had placed two or three demons. As I went further into the level design itself, without having actually fired up the level for testing, my friend walked in and wanted to know how my progress was. I grinned, and decided to show him what I had so far. *I completely forgot,* at the very beginning of the level, right in that circular spawn point room, I had placed a few nasties in there. As soon as I rezzed up in the room, I was chomped by hungry demons within seconds. We were laughing our asses off. "Impressive," he noted. "Well, you at least know how to make levels tough right off the bat." LOL! Ahhh...the good ol' days. Oh, Good Lord, the Hall of Mirrors effect got really annoying if you didn't watch your vertex placement.
I guess it depends on the editor. I know, I am an amateur and started a few days ago, but for me it isn't a problem unless I'm trying to make self-referencing sectors.
I dont know why so many people disregard Romeros maps when in reality I find myself (without knowing) to enjoy his maps the most
episode 1 of doom is still one of my favorites. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the fact that I played it first, but his levels designs are so iconic
I thought the consensus was that his maps are the best ones
I think I also heard somewhere where someone from iD said:
"Create your level, make sure you can run it blind folded and call that difficulty hard"
Here’s an important one to add: Never have your rooms shaped like rectangles or boxes. If they’re like rectangles, they’re boring to run through and uninteresting to look at. For example, take literally any vanilla map from Knee Deep through Plutonia and look at the level layout from the map view. You will never see any portion have straight lines. Lots of crooked paths that interweave with each other and branch out. Having a linear path is also a mortal sin. The player should be able to explore the map, not follow a single obvious way to go.
Another good one (also from Romero himself) is to never use symmetry. Symmetry is lazy because it’s in essence copy/paste, but moreover it’s always better to do something different, to surprise the player.
That symmetry rule seems to apply so well with prog music also. The music I listen to the most has sort of an anti-symmetry mentality to it. Without being wacky and messy of course. That's an interesting point you have there!
It's interesting you say that with the linear aspect. They designed it so well that when you stumble on a linear path, it was so unnatural that the only thing that went through your mind is:
*How many Pinkies are going to pop out of the walls?*
I hate symmetry maps in RTS games.
I never experienced Doom and Wolf3d back in the day they were released, and now I'm checking them out. And I have to say, unlike Doom, Wolf has a huge problem. Technical limitations like similar rectangular rooms with same textures and lack of map = Gamedesign limitations and waaay less fun than Doom brings. Because of this, Doom remains a very great game even by todays standarts exactly because of level design. The design that was impossible on previous generation game engine.
The exception to the linear path I think is some kind of map that isn’t beaten such as a multiplayer map or especially zombies map where you’re supposed to gradually open up parts of the map to begin your survival
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought one of Romero's rules was also to always allow the player to get out of a pit that he can fall in.
He left it out.
That was something they got wrong in some of the later episodes in DOOM 2. The level design got more unforgiving.
@@NicholasLaRosa0496 I like that kind of design. Many people hate The Chasm but I think that it is a really influential map.
Some pits are meant to be death traps. You fall in, you're dead. Which I find pretty interesting.
Simple straight foward trap like crushers.
Examples of deliberately not having a way out best shown in Tricks & Traps (Doom 2).
But there's a couple in Ultimate Doom, one in Pandemonium but only if you fall off the wrong side of a bridge (think it's where the Yellow Key Door is)
I wish modern level designers would take a good long look at number 7. There seems to be this mentality that the player should be always moving forward. "Backtracking" isn't a four letter word. It's important that the player get the opportunity to become familiar with the level and be allowed to explore it rather than just have it be a complex but 1 dimensional hallway of enemies.
Agree.
It's funny, the rendering technology is 3D... but the level design is often 1D, or almost 1D. They use the 3D for eye candy, rather than for gameplay. Commander Keen has more depth than a whole slew of "modern shooters" :)
One exception is past the green armor. You can see outside, but not able to get out there.
And the E1M3 secret with the cage and monsters just below you
There are a lot more examples than that. E1M2 outside the chainsaw room, E1M5 has the window by the rocket launcher secret area, E2M1 behind the start area, E4M5 has a window near the start point, and I’m sure there are others.
Well I think the rule applies to huge "cool" areas, were the player wants to get outside, like E1M1.
Yea the rule should be: if you see (enemies or) items outside, you should be able to (kill or) get them.
I don't the exception is the rule is null if the windows are near an object that's meant to get your attention.
Petty much?
The rules show how important exploration is to the Romero style of level design. Rules 5-8 are all about giving the level good exploration gameplay. One particular thing about Doom is the fast player speed means that you can backtrack a lot without getting bored. It's so dull to backtrack in games where you move slowly, which hurts the exploration experience.
I want to know how did Romero happen to be one of the greatest level designers right ouf ot the gate. He must have learned a few things during Wolfenstein but it's uncanny how Doom, the first FPS with levels that had realistic shapes and contours had such amazing design. Romero must have been thinking about nothing else during that period. Rule 4 about contrasts is particularly insightful.
Yeah, it's incredible how far ahead of the curve he was compared to everyone else, especially artistically.
its mostly common sense, it just seems remarkable because its so lacking in the industry in modern times
DSDuddles Wolfenstein 3D has all the same genius level design that Doom has, so does Quake. You have to remember he and id had a lot of experience with many different games before putting out Doom. He knows what is fun to play and puts in the game the things he himself likes to see.
I believe working with 2D games before going 3D helped. Makes you think more in terms of systems, flow etc rather than "realism".
Playing a lot of DnD, having a great mind for imagination and also lots of skill prior to ID.
He's done plenty of design as a kid/at Softdisk with the guys, so I wouldn't say it was right out of the gate. But I admit, his talent surely gave him a flying start.
It's funny, back in 95 when used to make and play maps with my friends, I'd be following these rules! Of course I was very influenced by the design of the originals. I was obsessed with texture alignment in a way my friends weren't. They could crank out 2 or 3 maps in time I could do one because everything needed a border, everything lined up, the textures would make sense. Same with Duke3D. lol nostalgia.
It's very impressive that Romero pioneered the rules whilst Doom itself was new and nothing like it had come before. Geniuses!
There's actually three additional rules I followed:
1) Never have an essential switch that needs to be shot to activate, that can't be reached by the player to be "punched" Basically never rely on a resource that might run out to complete the map.
2) If falling into a pit, either have away of escaping, or so much damage it kills you quickly.
3) Always make sure the player can get from the start point to the end point without _requiring_ them to traverse environmental hazards eg Lava - there's a few nasty examples of this rule breaking in E3, Limbo and Mt Erebus. If you should run out of medkits and have really low health you're trapped. This also doesn't really apply to games with recharging health.
I know ive fallen into pits and places in some of the official doom wads (maybe within tnt or plutonia) where I fell into a pit and was just stuck. Had to load to get back to where I was
Yeah, I hate forced lava/acid passages
ScottishAtheist You can still do 1) and 3) so long as you leave ammo or health near the area that needs to be shot or traversed respectively.
ikagura I like the one in Episode 2 (forget which level) that misleads the player. There’s a hazmat suit that you can use and nearby nukage to cross to reach the door. However, the nukage is very small and can easily be crossed without taking much damage. And if you were perceptive, you may have noticed a couple rooms back there was a very long passageway of nukage which leads to a secret area. If the player is on his first run, he may use the radiation suit for the short nukage right next to it, but a more experienced returning player would be smart enough to realize the most obvious path is not the best one to use the rad suit for. I really appreciate things like that which twist the player’s expectations and break level design conventions, forcing the player to think outside the box.
ScottishAtheist toxic floors...oh the horrid memories of having to go down that one secret to a super shotgun in zpack ep1 map 03.and for some fucked up reason the acid pool kills you much faster than it should,its a gimmick level with a timer to add salt on the wound.its still a great map though...
DooM is just the gift that keeps on giving. I will never not watch a video about DooM.
Thanks so much putting this together - I'm coming from the "illustrator that likes to play games" camp so most of what makes a Doom level "feel right" is a mystery to me, but it's starting to click. (unrelated, but it always makes my day hearing other Southerners online 😁)
Thank you for having such vision and creating my favorite game. It has brought me so much entertainment and value over 20 years. Endless mods, deathmatch, speedruns, and lore.
this isnt john romeros channel he does have a website though at rome.ro
Very interesting, the bordering is something that I always make sure.
Even back then I would encounter poorly made maps that wouldn't do one of any of these things that you mentioned.
"If the player can see outside they can somehow get there."
YES, that's exactly what games of this generation do too much, that's like John Romero giving the middle finger of inaccessible outside areas that are used as decoration and it reminds me of your Foundry playthrough in DooM 2016 saying "all of this is walkable and NOT just decoration or window dressing".
Episode 1 of Doom hits a sweet spot for me, I was in middle school when Chromebooks became a common school item and I remember playing episode one over and over again during class on the flash port that and mega man X both total classics.
You're entirely correct, every rule on the entire list is absolutely top tier advice that never became outdated. It's all as good today as it was then.
The only possible exception being breaking up floor textures without height changes, but that's only because we have the tech and memory to shuffle several compatible floor textures and break up flow. But as general advice, it's still good.
So when I started building my megaWAD back in 2017. I really wanted to follow the design philosophy of Ep1 in Doom. But thanks to this helpful video, it made it much easier to narrow down the elements that really defined Ep1, without the need to limit the levels' assets to what's only available in shareware Doom. Fast foward to today, my megaWAD (which is now called "DOOM ZERO") is finished, and the feedback has been really positive. 🙂
If you guys want to play it and want to see a megaWAD that sticks to these 8 design rules, head over to the Doom Zero ModDB page.
Great set of rules, or dare I say, guidelines to follow. I've been thinking about the topic of rule number 2 for a long time. I was looking for ways to make everything seamless, but not only is it potentially harmful for the level design, it's usually not like that in real life either! Glad to find that the master himself addressed this.
Awesome! Recently I got back into map design so this was a nice surprise. good to see you're still at it Chubz!
Texture Alignment point is ironic when you remember at multiple points in E1 he forgot to set lower unpegged
Wanna add my own:
- There should be no doors/platforms that makes the players wait because of its slow opening, raising, or lowering animation. If you want to preserve the epicness of it, they should be able to bypass it or at least cut the waiting time simply by running really fast, jumping, or crouching through it.
- Large decorations, landmarks or those that involve using sectors (i.e. furniture, machinery, pillars) should be placed in a way to also serve as cover for players from projectiles from monsters.
- There should always be a designated room where others often lead to in that is filled with health and ammo for players to recover in each level. Small pickups should be scattered in the rest of the map, and large ones are either hidden or placed in this.
E1 of Doom is just legendary
Great video for level design. I've always wanted to make my own Doom levels. When I was a child I drew maps of the levels in Doom.
Mappvilla It’s really easy to get into. Takes a day to learn how to use Doom Builder 2. But it takes months or years to master it.
I started with Sonic Robo Blast 2 maps, then it was easy to transition to Doom (GZDoom, to be specific)
Texture alignment is something i took VERY serious when working on maps for Quake III Arena. It just had to feel as seamless as possible.
Doom is the greatest game ever made, plain and simple.
I think so. Nothing has quite matched the mystique and combo of Badass Johnny R., Professor Johnny C., lawyer turned "thief' Bobby P. and endless supplies of pizza and soda (and strippers).
Simple yet complicated. Not that big, yet complex and thorough. Easy to pick up, hard to master. Half FPS, half strategy game and inventory management.
Recognizable design and look, presented by pizza money millionaires in shredded jeans with Ferraris.
If not the best game, surely the best making of.
@@FightingForceSoulless That's pretty much the best description of early/mid 90s id Software I've ever seen.
i like your videos. they have helped me with quite a few things i needed to know to get better at my first levels. i have two finished and a third almost done. its so fun.
These games boosted my iq and imagination as a kid....it was very fun game with some kind of puzzles...thanks for making our childhood awesome
...what puzzles
You know it's a brilliant game when it still looks good 25 years after it was released
Yeah, most of those rules are still relevant, and those which kinda aren't can be updated:
wall texture transitions - put a divider texture in between could be made into - wall changes (corridor to room, change in room width/height/shape) don't just have them as plain geometry edges or connectors of two straight wall prefabs - put some kind of nice and kinda plausible/natural joint/divider on that spot.
that's what door frames are in reality, for example. notice how many of the transition textures in doom are precisely that.
also, then, turn it up a bit, because you will also notice in normal buildings in reality things like this are rare, most corners are clean... but games are not reality, they are hyperreality, so to feel as real as reality, they must exaggerate everything.
On the point about creating memorable landmarks, this is very relevant to modern games. I've heard the concept called "weenees" before, but I think that more often refers to large landmarks that the player can *see* from most places on the map, rather than a location the player *remembers* to return to.
After playing his recreation of E1M8 - He has stepped his game way up to match those in the modding communities abilities as of today. I mean, he had too! DOOM runs entirely under a 3D recreated engine now such as Gzdoom, zdoom, Jdoom etc.
I must say, his recreation was quite good. And the attention to detail was great. I expect no less from Sigil, and look forward to it. I just am sad I didn't get to buy a Limitedrungames version of Sigil in time.
Excellent video. One thing I've always loved about the first episode is how the great deal of windows and rooms without ceilings contribute to a sort of open floor plan spacious feeling while contrasting it to smaller, darker and more cramped spaces. I think the bright overcast sky texture helps alot, too. It'd be a totally different tone if it opened with one of the darker sky textures.
"When Jawn Romerow was desawning layvels for Dewm"
Spoken like a true hillbilly!
@@Chubzdoomer I dunno, you'r pronunciation ads some more sharm to your vids.
typical city boy.
DOOM never ceases to give me that nostalgia hit whenever I see it. The sounds, the layout, the timeless graphics. It is such a beautiful piece of gaming history. It makes me think back on the mid 90's when when I was 7 or 8 and first experiencing this game at my neighbors house. The eldest kid there was some 7 years older than me and I envy him how he got to experience the 90's as a teenager. It was a magical time.
Joel from Vinesauce is running a competition on Doom maps and mods. 240 .wads in this competition and he's running through them all. With the new advancements in the Doom engine, people have been creating some really cool maps even while completely disregarding these rules.
One major mistake I see people do all the time is that if you are going to have non obvious weapon pickups, make sure you eiter place them clearly visible from the player's path, so he can hunt for the entry, or you put many weapon pickups throughout the map. Many times I've seen Joel reach the end of the map with a full complement of ammo, but withouth the weapon to use it, because it was in that obscure room he had to backtrack for.
Rule #1 - Don't make "Blood Rooms"
@@majamystic256 There are entire megawads comprised of only blood rooms!
Great vid! Level design really is the unsung hero of so many great games. You almost never consider good level design when you are playing, but will be painfully aware of bad level design.
Still good tips. Thanks for the video, Chubz.
The first EP of Doom is still probably hands down my favorite EP out of the bunch. It also helps that it was shareware, hence distributed for free (or for a small fee via compilation discs) so i'm sure that many people remember playing this episode a TON as i did (even though i didn't actually play it in the 90's). Great video too man :)
All of these are things I naturally figured out on my own over the course of making my level. It all stems from the basic question “Is this fun for the player?”
I recall DEU - written in C and available on BBS terminals for download. We used Borland Turbo C to make changes to the source so we could get better resolution in DOS. And we added it back to the community. It was a pretty buggy, but usable vector editor for building wad files. Speaking of old Bulletin Board Systems, that's how I also got the game the night following DOOM's first release - and then I played the dumb thing for a few months straight. It supported null modem PC to PC multiplayer. I was in college at the time and we took over a computer lab (covertly of course). After building a bunch of null modem cables we connected as many machines together as we could and went crazy. The computers were 80386 processors with 8 megabytes of ram. That's a serious flashback. When quake came out it started all over, then unreal, and here we are today.
Always glad to see some doom content from ya...
I remember Romero once said another tip is to make level 1, or in other words the first level of your WAD (if there’s more than one map) last. I think this tip stretches beyond just Doom, and could be applied to designing a game of your own. The first level is every players first experience with the game. It needs to suck the player in to keep them going for the rest of the episode.
Nice! I actually followed every one of these rules without even realizing it when I made my 6 map wad :D
Some people grasp these rules intuitively without even thinking about it. Since Doom's level design follows these rules, well, anyone wanting to make their levels "like those in Doom" would end up following those rules intuitively, even if they didn't have them consciously in mind.
(Though having these rules consciously in mind does make things easier.)
Tight corridors with strong enemies at the worst possible locations to screw you over as well as death pits everywhere to punish circle strafing, sigil and sigil 2 at least.
This guy is from Texas.
As someone who designs level mods for an indie 3D platformer (and only just recently got into Doom), the loop and landmark rules are the most vital in my opinion.
Great video Chubz, really cool.
Who of us can't admit struggling over the non working door when we first started out? he he
wow idk why this doesn't have many views
DJ L3G3ND Because it just came out a few days ago?
well, I'm used to seeing most videos I watch blow up within hours somehow
Great video! They really focused on attention to detail with this game, which is a fantastic result of these rules.
I would like to add - NO JUMPING PUZZLES, but he doesn't subscribe to the belief of that momentum-killing unending source of frustration that devs _still_ put into fps games even now.
Also anything that is an insta-kill which doesn't allow the player to react properly without prior knowledge of said insta-kill.
Jumping puzzles can be fun as long as you don´t overdo it with the difficulty. Platformer level structures can even be used to take advantage during combat.
Nice breakdown, Chubz. What's shocking is that these rules feel totally natural. In following them, you inevitably end up creating areas that feel like real spaces. That's what John's levels were able to do, even with the limited resources of Vanilla doom at the time.
Knowing these rules though, also lets you tactically break them where the situation warrants.
Been using your tutorials as reference material to get myself up to speed again. They're coming in handy in making the transition from the last port we used to GZDoom.
Peace.
Can't wait to play Sigil. Hope its a little easier than Thy Flesh Consumed, but not holding my breath.
Mark Ridlen Thy Flesh Consumed’s got nothing on Plutonia.
Dead End Yeah it’s only difficult if you make the mistake of playing Ultra-Violence on your first run. That’s fine for vanilla Doom 1, but not for any other of the iwads.
Thy Flesh Consumed is pretty fun and beatable for me with the exception of E4M2 which is the most annoying level in Ultimate Doom for me.... i really don't like E4M2
@@majamystic256 ugh that level makes me cringe. I try every so often to learn the speedrunning path for Thy Flesh Consumed, but I usually quit on the second level.
Thanks, Flynn Taggart! I most likely wouldn't have found these rules if not for this video
Rule 4 should not be "see outside, he can somehow get there" but: "see an obtainable object he/she should somehow be abele to obtain it".
This is a good way to design levels that each look distinct so as to avoid players getting lost and keeping levels fun and intuitive.
Hey I didn’t know Dr Phil liked DOOM.
These are all vital and in particular, distinctive landmarks are a huge part of level design that some games forget about. Doom and Doom 2 were really good about creating memorable "set pieces" throughout the maps that would stick in your mind after the fact.
*texan accent intensifies*
Im not from USA, but I played team fortress 2 lmfao
so texan i can smell rub, bbq and cow branding.
@@bonciutalentadv7599 He's actually Southwest Virginian.
For modern game engine level design, I think the two major rules that still apply are: have landmarks, and have areas that contrast. Landmarks are great for navigation and having parts of the level be memorable, and contrast keeps things interesting, makes you feel like you're progressing and discovering (rather than feeling like you're seeing the same corridors over and over again).
I'm not a native English speaker can someone explain the 4th rule in a different way?
Basically, have clear/distinct differences in lighting and space ("space" meaning the size of rooms/areas).
As an architecture student this kind of design theory is facinating to me. He also had a philosophy of abstract level design. Where levels resemble their name in texture but are not laid out according to function. I.e. Suburbs consisting of many small structure that recall a cluster of houses but clearly are not
I had no idea dr. Phil ran a gaming youtube channel!
The More You Know 🌈⭐
The texture alignement may sound a bit obvious, but we have to consider: back then they didn't had a fancy doom builder with 3d viewing and autoalign functions, they had to manually type the offsets values for each linedef, save, close the editor then open the game and test it live.
So aligning textures was more of a pain and methodic procedure than what we have today.
It didn't take long for auto-align to show up. Ken Silverman included it in the BUILD editor just a couple of years later. Point at a wall in 3D mode and hit '.' and it'll align the textures of walls to the right of it if they have the same texture.
Remember when designing levels: You need to assess the load-bearing capabilities of structures! Unless you can determine the material/s, mass, geometry and strength of each and every brush a level is made of based on their textures and dimensions, and how they interact with each other, you may inadvertently create structures that would COLLAPSE! In addition, you need to predict local weather conditions and seismic activity based on the game lore and skybox texture, and design your levels accordingly! If your structures aren't up to good engineering standards, or at least local building codes, you could endanger the lives of space marines/demons inside and get ARRESTED! This is why level design takes so long, guys.
Wasn't Doom set on Phobos, where there is no atmosphere, the gravity is about two thousand times weaker than Earth, it's tide locked to Mars and solid rock all the way through? Just saying, you don't really need to worry about load bearing capabilities, weather or seismic activity on Phobos, you got a whole different set of engineering challenges though, like how to make sure people don't run faster than the escape velocity.
@@boggers The gravity's so weak there a single jump would get you into orbit.
I would binge on the Doom shareware back in the day. This is really interesting trivia.
This video oozes "30-year-old boomer."
[siiiiiiiip]
LOL
These seem like some very solid rules, and they're well illustrated by the video. I wish these rules were more well known back when everyone was making their own wadfiles. It would have greatly improved the quality.
These sound very simplistic to be honest. Then again he was the original Doom mapper in the first place.
They ARE simplistic. Being able to follow these rules only makes someone a half-decent beginner level designer. There is so much more that goes into making a fun level
Doom is simplistic, that's why it's still good today
splattenburgers Then what do you suggest as a non-“simplistic” tip?
They're not general rules of map design, they are specific to doom/quake style level design. They're also specific for single player maps. In a multiplayer map you'd have rules like _"make walls flat; all protruding parts non-solid",_ which is a rule Valve didn't know about when making TF2 stock maps...
Great video: I didn't know that he had a some sort of template but it all makes sense with this way since it all flows well from the beginning to the the end.
Would you play a 3 map wad I made
That, sir, depends on whether or not it's a Terry wad.
@@Chubzdoomer Oh jesus
Nobody wants a Terry WAD.
Yeah, I've used a lot of these principles when I've been mapping for older games like Doom and Descent. Mostly got them from observing the sorts of designers I wanted to imitate and analyzing what made their designs "good", but it's interesting to see it quantified like this.
There's another one that's served me very well (and which I also see in Romero's designs) which is that when you're putting an important object like a door, or even a decoration texture, onto a square wall, it's useful to create a little indentation in front of it rather than placing it flush with the wall itself. It helps the object stick out to the player as "not just another wall panel" especially in older engines where the texture is otherwise the only thing that tells you "hey this bit of wall looks a door".
I've found it particularly useful in Descent where, unlike in Doom, the doors themselves have no depth -- so the indentation serves an extra purpose of denying the player any reference frame for the door's "flatness" and making it look a little more convincing -- but I still see it done for most non-secret doors on Romero's levels and many others in Doom, and it does tend to make them look better and stick out as "important".
All the backtracking in the levels of Doom is probably its weakest design choice.
Backtracking was the best part of Doom because it forced you to solve the puzzle aspects of the game. Doom games did not hold your hand if you wanted out you had to really work for it. If it was just gun everything down the end it would have gotten boring fast.
I feel like people who have issues with backtracking have very small attention spans
Also, make the last map you make the first one in rotation. And make every level different from one another.
So many people make maps and don't know there's a real science to it that ensures it is fun, playable, and feels like a real game instead of just a bunch of Legos.
Awesome video man. I found this very informative.
As a newbie map maker I love this video.
Great video, this is some of the best fundamental Doom level design concepts I've seen.
John Romero is just a really cool dude.
DarlingDaily Can’t wait for his new Sigil wad to come out.
I know, right?
Kafferlord do you have a single fact to back that up?
@Kafferlord what a shame
Kafferlord Maybe you should get a job
Thanks for this video. Its easy to make a video about something sexier about doom, like its monsters or its origins but Ive never seen someone discuss something as innocuous as its level design rules.
I never noticed this before and simply felt that Doom was perfect. I would say John's rules succeeded.
DEU 5.1 was the best Doom level editor, PERIOD! It brought all my old D&D maps to life. I can teach a class on it.
One my map making rules is to use dynamic lighting to create special fx or use with very dark areas. I used the “colored light pillars” from realm 667 and changed its code to not display its sprites. Doing this allows me to make colored sector lighting, light emitting from computer monitors, colored light panels, and switches, or help to navigate through very dark hallways while a cyber demon is closing in on your position (which is actually kind of scary)
Thanks so much for the tut!! I'm just beginning to sketch out a complete game (starting small of course) using Doom Builder 2 and I was looking for vids like yours! I retired last year after 40 years as a programmer and have always wanted to make Doom games/levels. I have the basic story outline sketched out and I'm starting to work on each level/rooms. I'll pick your brain as I move forward.Thanks again!Oh, and I bought Sigil, waiting for it to arrive!
The sound of those doors opening still makes me shiver.
Maybe I wasn't paying attention closely, but I remember Romero saying that he avoids making symmetric level layouts. Either by strictly not having the layout symmetric or by changing lighting/contrast/decorations. This helps prevent the player from getting lost in progressing.
Thanks, gonna use some of these this weekend to make my first map
2019 and your posting vids on doom thats awesome dude. Never let old classics die. Thanks for the vid.
the rules on textures is something I followed during my years with the Source engine and something I still keep in mind as I get into Unity and even Unreal