This week on Doom Diaries, our project involved creating brand new textures for Doom that we would then implement into a newly crafted level in Slade. Since the project was due on Halloween, I decided to create a haunted house themed level, with the title, “Head Like A Haunted House,” continuing my latent idea of making a Doom level for each song from the Queens of the Stone Age album, Villains.
(The map layout for my second level, Head Like a Haunted House)
I knew going into this level that I wanted to make it a more complete experience as opposed to my previous attempt at a custom level. “The Evil Has Landed” was a very rough and, in my opinion, mediocre level, due to my inexperience with Slade costing me a lot of valuable time that could have been put towards enhancing the visuals and ambiance of the level. With this new wad, I put a lot more time into making the level look exactly how I envisioned it in my mind, within my own realm of possibility. This is why I chose to hand draw every single texture I used in my level. I felt that creating all the visuals on my own added an extra layer of authenticity to my work, in addition to capturing the theme I wanted to convey, which involved a lot of music references and strange scrawlings on the walls, to induce an uncomfortable feeling within the player.
(An example of my use of lighting and artwork to produce a spooky environment)
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(The inspiration for the art on the door at the end of the last .gif)
Overall, I was much more satisfied with how this project turned out relative to the first mapping project. I was able to include every aspect that makes a complete level, in my opinion: Environmental storytelling, progressive difficulty, easter eggs, and dynamic tutorials.
(An example of how I used the artwork to convey a message: RUN FROM THE ENEMIES)