A few posts ago, I mentioned that I installed Windows XP on my computer so that I could run Doom Builder.  I did manage to set up everything and even worked on some Doom stuff in the last couple of weeks.  And this time I have something to show for it — I will be releasing a new level, this weekend.

The past weeks, I've been taking stock of the incomplete levels I have with me.  There's Stygian_Nebula, on which I've finished most of the work.  Only one section of the map needs to be built (the section where you get one of the keys), but sadly that will take some more time to complete.  Sometime back I wrote about the E4M3 map that I had made for The Ninth Gate project.  This needs some tweaking but is otherwise largely completed.  There's also the discarded E4M1 from that project.  I am revamping this one and adding detail and new areas to it.  When complete, I will release both the new map as well as the original one together.  Then, there were two small levels that I had made in 2003 or 2004 and never completed (you could play the levels from start to finish, but the texturing wasn't done properly, and some rooms were just empty sectors without any detail).  What I did some days back is, I pasted the two levels together, and connected them up.  Essentially, a larger map has been created out of these two levels.  I got some work done on that over the last couple of weekends.

Then, there was a small level I made last year.  I was bored one weekend and just threw together a bunch of sectors in a short time.  Again, this was a level you could play from start to finish, but it was far from being in a releasable form.  That is what I corrected the last weekend.  And now, the map is done and I'm quite happy with it!  Here, have a look at some screenshots —

It follows a texture theme I haven't used in the past, so it was interesting for me while building.  It's a dark level, and uses a custom sky, which I edited from one of the sky graphics in Heretic.  Apart from that I used only the stock Doom II textures and nothing else.  It's a small level and very linear, but it's pretty well interconnected that you should be able to play a decent deathmatch game in it.  I tried that out a little using ZDaemon with bots, and that's what you can see in the fourth screenshot.

I need to come up with a name for this level and choose a music track to use.  Then one final round of playtesting is required (I will ask for Varun's help in running through it once more), and it'll be done.  The map will be released this weekend.  So stay tuned!