Ancient Gate

Perditions Gate Map12 – Ancient Gate:

We required a special teleporter pad for the transport from Earth to the Ancients world, a new type of teleporter geometry that the player would see all over the Ancients levels wherever a teleporter was present. Bob whipped up this design in Autocad (see sketch below) that would definitely look unique among all the other geometries seen previously.

Orignially the special teleporter pad was sitting outside on a grass covered structure, resembing some kind of ancient ruin tucked away inside a larger superstructure. Unfortunatally, since this map (and many of the other Ancients levels) had a skybox that didn’t really match what we were trying to accomplish with the telepoter pad, so the pad was placed in a black box instead – also giving the level the feeling of having two skyboxes.

This map is split into two parts, the star shaped teleporter pad section below created by Bob and myself, and the core gameplay section created by Jimmy Sieben.

Screenshots from Ancient Gate (click to enlarge)

Teleport Platform

Perditions Gate Map13 – Teleport Platform:

I love the look of this level, it was one of the first to leverage the new texture set created for the Ancients levels called the ‘TM-Alpha’ set.

I had sketched out this level while at work one day, primarily focusing around a structure that looked like it had some real support architecture up in the air, a look that was difficult to do in the Doom technology without some skybox trickery.

The level started on paper here, focusing on the staircase with heavy support beams running across the top, then upstairs to an area with continued heavy support architecture.

The other half of this level was created by Mackey ‘Avatar’ McCandlish.

Screenshots from Teleport Platform (click to enlarge)

Teleporter Center

Perditions Gate Map15 – Teleporter Center:

Teleporter Center was truly my masterpiece level for Perditions Gate. Maps in the Doom engine that actually felt like real buildings, or locations tended to always get my highest adoration, and this map was the one that felt most like a real place to me.

This facility sits on a large water base, with lots of multi-level pathways and staircases that added to the visual and gameplay complexities. Deathmatch was fun here because players had lots of high / low gun battles and tons of places to hide.

Also, in this level – the player returns to Earth through one of the teleporters and gets to see the Map 11 teleporter chamber purge sequence from the other side of the glass. I think this was one of the first Doom levels I had ever seen that brought the player back into a previous level to see another angle on an important event.

I’m going to have to remake this map in another engine someday…

Screenshots from Teleporter Center (click to enlarge)

Teleporter Power

Perditions Gate Map16 – Teleporter Power:

Teleporter power was a fun level that Bob had originally laid out on paper. This level consisted of 5 equally sized square rooms, connected in the middle by a central corridor.

I am particularly happy with how the first room turned out, a geometry for the ruins that I had never seen before in Doom, this level proved a good use of the TMAlpha texture set once again.

I remember while building the Archvile chamber, watching an horrible episode of Knight Rider where KITT was able to use his magical telekinetic supercomputer powers to seize the engines up on a few motorcycles from half a mile away. I am cursed for some reason to always see the same episode of these old shows, I think every time I see Knight Rider in reruns, I always turn it on to see this episode without fail.

Screenshots from Teleporter Power (click to enlarge)

Teleporter Junction

Perditions Gate Map17 – Teleporter Junction:

This map was originally a lot larger, consisting of areas from Map18 as well. I split this level up from Map18 since the gameplay in this small section alone was very long and rewarding. Not a lot of tricks in this level, just a few cool areas to see and a really challenging room with the Archvile throne.

This map was really fun in deathmatch since it was so small and fast.

In retrospect, this map was a bit claustrophobic and I think I should have expanded the outside area around the main tower to provide for a better shot of that tower geometry and a little more room overall.

Screenshots from Teleporter Junction (click to enlarge)

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