Norman Door Design of Map 28 (sst)

[Snakezz]

Hello I just watched a video on "Norman Doors".

I thought this phrase perfectly encapsulates the design of a map I made some years ago.

This map (map 28 on superskulltag) throws you into many different areas of size and "ambushability" Typically a player will choose to do the most basic thing first, and that is to shoot first and ask questions later.

Almost every area is in fact designed for you to leave some or all of the monsters behind.

The opening mountains have monsters on top of cliffs that are particularly hard to snipe from where you are, because your not really supposed to spend time killing them, yet some people waste countless ammo clearing enemies that can barely land a shot on the player.

There are multiple zones where your put up against large armies of demons all at once, and intense and deadly battles ensue. One might find these battles obnoxiously hard, but in fact, there is always a way put in place for you to just keep going without suffering a scratch, you just need to find it.

There are 2 mindsets that take place in most areas, there are people who want carnage, and a lot of things to shoot, and there will be some who will try to get through killing and taking as little damage as possible. You can be both, or have to be both really to take on all the challenges.

Unfortunately, further design is out of my hands, or some changes would have been made to some areas. Such as the puzzle everyone complains about dying at, and probably forces some people to stop playing altogether. Personally I wanted the whole thing to be one long "speedrunable" map you could just fly through if you knew how, but meh, at least the first two thirds of the map can be ran through without stopping.

I also put a secret in the map really early on in one of the first areas. It is a skull switch behind a fake mountain wall. This secret was made purposely difficult and almost impossible to solve. It only lets you hit the switch once, but the secret it activates only lasts mere seconds. I put this secret in there so that the only way to figure it out was by either reading this forum post, or looking at the map in an editor (not very easy to do) This switch lowers a platform at the other end of the river valley and can lift you to the top of the cliffs where you can kill the monsters and obtain a soulsphere. Once atop the cliffs a new wave of demons spawn on the valley floor (dark imps, lost souls) and start attacking you from down below.

I had planned on posting something about this map along these lines earlier but needed an interesting title hook I guess. Like the length of the map, I wanted to make a nice long informative post about it, a long time after I made the map, so that perhaps a long time from now, people will discover the mysteries within, or won't, I do not care.

Thanks for reading.

[Ænima]

That was an awesome map. It was always one of the players' favorite maps when we used to host SST survival. The puzzles were great, the gameplay pace was really smooth, and the backtracking was never tedious (which can be common in maps as big and epic as yours). And SlimeDweller really nailed the detailing. It was probably my favorite of the SST "hell" maps.


You should re-release your map as a standalone.

[Snakezz]

Unfortunately I don't have the particular file anymore. I wouldn't mind seeing it in the editor again though, it's something I think about quite often sometimes. But i recommend getting Super Skulltag hosted again, I would love to get on there with some folks. As for having the map as a standalone, wouldn't be a horrible idea :p, but I also like having it alongside the work and code you and slime did,