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5. Place a trap in the corridor before the doorway - once the player sees the monsters they're unwilling to backpedal into a nailshooter or pit of death.
Another good one. It doesn't have to be a literal trap, just a hazard that you can only navigate slowly and carefully, and therefore can't just backpedal through at full speed. awesome, thanks everyone - this is a goldmine of ideas!
interesting point that a vertical fall-off is another variant of the same basic pattern. In zendar, I really enjoyed the func_illusionary window that you can jump through down into a room where you're ambushed by a fiend. This is an optional side area, though, so the ambush didn't feel cheap - and you get a bunch of rewards for finding that area and surviving the trap. IMHO Quake is about traps, ambushes and locked areas, if you take that away you are left with just a standard FPS game. In Quake the environment is trying to kill you, with crushers, spike shooters and large pits of lava/slime. Quake is about the fear and dread of what is around you in all directions and being thrown into difficult situations.
I think it is perfectly fine to have locked areas if the visual language is right, single items on Indiana style plinths, floors covered in blood where traps trigger or dark ominous holes in walls around powerful items to collect. Creating visual clues for the observant player is all part of the charm of the setup. "Knowing where the trap is - is half the battle won" The key to designing good ambush areas is there should be plenty of cover (destructible or moving), multiple routes around the space and it should be obvious where all supplies are or going to be. Ideally a player should be allowed to explore the area first, let the player feel the moment, the silence before the storm. Eric said: I'm thinking of the horde of Zendar, sock used this at least twice (the cathedral, and the final fight before the exit unlocks) @Eric, The Cathedral is just a trigger on the alter, the doors do not lock, the player can move around the room and even exit out to the central hub if they want. I saw plenty of demo's where players did this. I originally had the doors lock but I felt it was unfair, so I did something different. I had all the monsters ready in the room (up high on balconies, which the player can access early) and let the player explore the room before anything happens. The final fight is the ONLY locked area in the map, but it is very large with all the monsters spawning from specific locations. There is even a side area with supplies that the player can go to if they don't want to move around the central hub. All of the monsters are setup to wake up on sight of the player (not other monsters) and there are counters on all waves to allow the player to control the pace of the fight. I think the "locked in" final fight in Zendar works because the player knows this area already, they have passed through it several times and understand where everything is. The environment is a known quantity, the only thing that has changed is not knowing where the waves of encounters are going to initially spawn. Locking players into confined areas is a good game mechanic if used sparely and with good supporting visual language. Traps and ambushes are the life blood of Quake and IMHO think it would be unwise to ignore this fact if creating new maps. Just counted, Antediluvian has 6 drop-downs and 5 wind tunnels. Total: 11! And almost all of them drop you into a place with immediately-alerted monsters. Does this make it a masterpiece or the worst map of all time? (Strangely, no self-locking doors.)
You could combine the drop-down and trapped-retreat-route to create a soft obstacle. Have a series of short drops, like little cliff face things, where you can jump back up each time, but you can't just walk back up like steps. That way it's slow to retreat and requires some concentration to pull off, but you maintain two-way flow through the level to return for ammo or health. Obviously this is much less effective if the enemies at the bottom are melee-based, as you can escape them in a single jump.
Needs sources and it should really be re-worded into an actual article. The wiki is supposed to be licensed GFDL as much as possible. Copypasting other people's posts is not "legal".
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