Loved the level design, especially how the areas connect with each other. Compact and fast paced as well.
Since you mentioned is is a WIP I guess you may improve even more, and I hope you do. The core stuff is definitely there.
Just some tips. Make the secret area more difficult to find. The button that opens it up is super obvious. Try to not mix knights and ogres with regular soldiers in a medieval inspired castle, unless you have a context to put them into. Finally, the exit. Just work a but more on it, not just some hole in the wall.
It’s quite a good vanilla map, nice debut! Using grunts in castles is completely fine, as they can also be found in E1M2, which this map looks inspired by. The only thing missing is a slipgate the grunts would’ve used to come in, so I can see the criticism in that regard, but I’m completely fine with grunts in the map.
I like the E1M2’esque visuals that adhere to the source material quite faithfully. I’d say my biggest gripe would be the texturing on stuff like bars and grates, but otherwise very id-like. hearing Unreal music was a nice surprise. I also liked how the GL secret had been clued to the player.
My biggest criticism comes from the fact that the map is heavily front-loaded with spongy enemies before the player gets a chance to stock up that much on weapons and ammo. I had to make it past an enemy with practically no ammo left. Once the initial hurdle’s over, the map gets a lot easier. Oh, and I agree on the SNG secret being too easy.
All in all, a nice debut map, that I think I’d rate something like 3 or 3+. Looking forward to seeing more from you!
Only OK. It’s competently put together, but there is no logic to how the different parts of the castle connect, and no narrative to the exploration. Combat is over-dependent on corridor fights with damage-sponge enemies – much of it done with low-powered weapons. It feels like some relatively small tweaks (especially changes to monster placement) could have made this quite a bit better.