Catpho

Looking through my bookmarks, here are some threads with specfic practical advice: ^ Read posts by rd and RJD to start ^ Lots of detailed guides

^ @Liberation is the person who compiled it.

That is pretty interesting! Now I'll have to go back to check to see how the progression is handled (how new areas are introduced, how ambushes were done). It seems that whenever possible he would like it to be done via switches instead, probably to lend to the idea that you are diegetically interacting with the world versus the more convenient but more game-y keycards, which has always been a shorthand for "trap goes here" (which is neither a good or a bad thing). This does backfire in a couple of maps. Notably, 06 and 07 features switches way too far from their intended objective, with little visual foreshadowing. 06 is fortunately short and small enough, but the door that needs the switch is a giant brown metal gate with little indication of what might open it (ironically, the very function of keys), either mechanically (a teleporter, a shortcut) or visually (the switch can't look any more different than the gate). This is repeated for 07, a vastly larger and non linear level which is why a lot of people here (incl. me) found it very unsatisfying to navigate. (edit: although adding keys wouldn't have made the map much better, i must add. These maps just fundamentally need more connectivity in layout and visuals) The idea itself is fine and intriguing; it's just that like pretty much every other gameplay decision in Equinox, BPRD is a bit too green to implement well consistently.

MAP07 The first (only?) Equinox map that isn't a room-by-room crawl (tastefully-disguised they were), and it's mostly undone by sloppy Doom mapping. As noted, lots of conveyance errors (switches whose use is not broadcasted by proximity or visual) and needless distance between objectives, which includes a lot of backtracking through empty rooms just to get to a door on the other side of the map. Monster placement might as well be random. Very weak to play, and there's little atmosphere to soak in too besides the justly-praised last leg. I love the design motif of those large rectangular lamps, and the fact that illumination for a long stretch of the level only comes in the form of geometric pools of light and the lamps as a physical object themselves. Terribly gloomy, that. Mostly, though, it's not too evocative of a place, replete with boxy, sparse architecture, and kinda annoying to traverse and fight in. Detour - BPRD's sign game BPRD maps feel paradoxically lightweight, gentle and even a little whimsical in the face of all the morbid events that transpire in his maps. Grove is the "serious" map from him with the most intriguing blend tongue in cheeky jabs while maintaining its mysterious fairy tale quality, but it's apparent in all of his works. Equinox treats all of its dark moments with the requisite gravitas, and this mapset is pretty good at that lonely Doom melancholy, but it's never, should I say, crushing with it. Instead, a persistent wonder always runs through, sometimes with a slightly amused flavor. Here's an example. BPRD uses signs occasionally as a way to do "wordless" storytelling with words. It's always witty (spoilered for images!):

@Plerb I know the feeling :P See you again when the mood strikes :) MAP06 Y'know, I always thought that black ocean is meant to be regular water, but since there's barely any light it reflects darkness. For all this set's reputation for casually scaled-up maps, you spend a curious amount of time in the Genome labs arc crawling around spooky maintenance mazes, perhaps to emphasize the subterranean and secretive nature of the setting, with the big set pieces carefully staged and paced as punctuations and climaxes. The sheer airyness of MAP06 signifies this will not be the case going forward. Airy it is: both Plerb and Roasterock have made note of the defining characteristic of the level, that is to introduce a sense of a vast horizon. Taking place in what is not yet the storage, but rather a port-like transitionary area for the first half and what is presumably the entrance in the second, the space is marked by its commitment to impress the sheer monumentality of the world. All windows point to a seemingly endless ocean, the Equinox storage facility the only sign of life in an infinite void. This is reinforced by the deep sense of twilight, as the darkening Equinox sky, being granted a full view for the first time since the opening, casts what remains of its light onto the large supports and frames, creating these gigantic directionally lit shadows crashing all over the base. This includes one of the my favorite views in the map, where the massive light strips along with the unmistakable scale of the offshore Equinox Storage impresses itself onto the port by the large, thick shadows it casts on the powered down base — that's an introduction if there was ever one. A fairly short and straightfoward map in all other aspects, and completely drops the ball on anything resembling reasonable enemy placement once you get to the second half, but mood-wise it's a fine piece of Doom isolation born from grandeur.

MAP04 I haven't talked much about how Equinox plays, and it's mostly because everyone's here has got me covered. The conventional wisdom is that Equinox is not very good in a mechanical / systems sense, and this is demonstrated fairly thoroughly by our analysis here and the great many journeys before. The fact that Equinox is the only project of his mature style1 that is still structured gameplay-wise as a conventional Doom action-exploration mapset is the biggest thing holding it back in my personal ranking of this author's works.2 If there's any saving grace, it's that the project is far more comprehensible if one takes the Doom monster staging in Equinox in a visual effects way rather than a mechanical way. The opening of this level is among the most memorable scenarios in this wad just because it contains one of the coolest feeling (double!) cg vs fodder segments in any Doom wad, all because of the custom cg sprite and the large space-age halls filled with undead (I'm a bit miffed that BPRD couldn't discipline himself into not spoiling the cg's presence until this level. Could have been the coldest introduction to a weapon). Next up is the reason why I elect to talk about how the wad plays, because it does feel like gameplay does factor in the experience of the meat of the level: the maintenance tunnels. Outside some brief but memorable (right or wrong) detours, the level curiously spends most of its time in its dingy operational underbelly. The way the whole concept is handled does lead me to believe that it's at least somewhat intentional that there's supposed to be gauntlet, endurance feeling to the affair — like brute forcing a heavily fortified line of defense. It's in the famous ammo balance, and the fact that you can credibly call the layout of this portion to be one long straight line of fights, no pauses, draped in thick darkness. It looks and feels cooler than it actually plays, it's mostly frontal assualts and fairly repetitive, but there is the feeling of making a smashing breakthrough through a difficult, testing roadblock, goal within reach. I suppose that is suitably dramatic. Bruised, ragged, awkwardly executed drama, but drama nonetheless. 1: Give or take the clear gap in craft sophistication regarding the visuals. It's big and grand and memorable, but it's also a lot of times empty and awkward and visible in seams. 2: Although Mucus Flow might be more obnoxious on higher difficulties, even with all my admiration for its high concept fiddling.

:P 6 years is hardly the longest Doom wad development cycle

MAP03 Besides its role as the main obstacle of the level, I appreciate that BPRD opted to still give the central chasm itself some character, making the player memorize it as a physical being. The bright lava draws you down instantly, but thorough players can find some supplies stashed in the cavernous dark, with the terraced, vertical design, in particular one long drop to a backpack that somehow also doubles as a minor worldbuilding detail, making it pretty fun to carry out the task. The chasm also rewards inferences about its shape and placement, particularly the symmetry and its roadblock nature, netting a megasphere for those who've stopped and listened to its simple riddle.

@lavaimp A question that deserves a thread of its own, as this one is more for finding specific files. To answer your question, however, try E3M1: Chaotic Keep from Joy of Mapping 6 (GZDoom) and Creep Doctor from the BTSX E3 demo (Vanilla).

Well, imo there’s three uses to this approach: As mentioned by other posters, a breather, or adding a layer of respite and introspection. Mood-building. This is my favorite reason. Think of what this implies of the Equinox corporation. They have facilities and assets so vast that it isn’t reasonable for Doomguy to just stumble on them. Instead, there’s this convenient infrastructure, complete with a map. It drives home thematically the highly corporate nature of the wad’s setting. The presence of the organization itself can never be ignored throughout the setting. Not even the UAC ever felt this pervasive and inescapable, as the highly abstract id levels and the fact that UAC has long fallen for long stretches of Doom 1 (only E1 is a freshly defeated UAC) can make one forget about its power. Not in Equinox, however. Even you are, in a way, a product, judging from the HUD. Kinda cyberpunk-ish despite the glossy silvery spacebase aesthetic. The short length very much underscores the procedural nature of this visit. This isn’t a level — it’s a thing that needs to be done in order to get anywhere in Equinox. A ritual it is, although the music track gives it an enigmatic, detached mood. Last but not least, the “what happens next”, as you said. The contrast of the safe zone becoming… something else is quite affecting. Of course, I wouldn’t mind if it could be made even more elaborate. Even in its simple form, however, it is effective.

If you've played ahead, you will have seen those bio tank textures that have been staple community texture ever since it's been used for DVII (other memorable uses are in Valiant and Epic 2), and there's probably others that I'm not recognizing right now. A lot of BPRD stuff is part of the DNA now, so to speak.

Huh, so tomorrow 02 and 03 will be played together? Weird to have a day dedicated to a less than 20s map.

Mostly using carryovers for Equinox. MAP01 For a mapper who's best known for his larger than life spectacles, and his levels here tend to be the ones where scale of both the journey and the physical setpieces is most overtly felt, I always thought of Equinox as being impressive for how alive it is on a minute level. The narrative ellipse of the hideout near the beginning, the little storytelling textures and sprites, the fact that there is a weird sidequest to the building's electrical maintenance: positively jam packed opening on an environmental-informational level. This sort of eye for the accumulation of little tidbits of life in the midst of such a grand canvas is what sets Equinox (and, indeed, a lot of BPRD's works) from its era. Only realized this on this playthrough, but for all the fancy SHAWN & lightstrips geometry, it's the blue carpet that is doing so much work in making the base seem snazzy.

Ignore the memers, play DyingCamel's Demons #3 MAP31.