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/usr/playtesters
  Maribo
  Phoenyx
  Petyan
  Meowgi (ish)

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/dev/audio

Title/Secret: UFO - Enemy Unknown: Story
Intermission: Darkseid II: Danger
Map01:        Tristan Clark: Sombre Visions
Map02:        Tristan Clark: Library of Nightmares
Map03:        Jared Boice: Dark Seige
Map04:        John Weekly: Outer Darkness
Map05:        Kingdom Hearts: Dearly Beloved
Map31:        Super Metroid (SNES): Entrance to Tourian
Map32:        Super Metroid (SNES): Item Room

Plasma sound from Doom 3

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/dev/video

Title pic by Pavel Neznanov (edited)
  https://unsplash.com/photos/silver-and-gold-round-accessory-w95Fb7EEcjE
  Unsplash licencse
Interpic: Antikythera mechanism from Wikipedia (edited)
Corruption: 
  https://www.gillware.com/data-recovery-services/fix-corrupted-video (edited)
Endoom screen courtesy of Peccatum Mihzamiz
Textures from 32in24-15 texture pack
Trees from Sacrament and retres.wad
Item recolours by Petyan
Fireblu key from Gateway to Shangri-La
Other graphic recolours/edits by me
  
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/sys/bugs

* Several things don't render correctly in GZDoom. In particular the blue side
  elevator in map04 has a number of graphical glitches. This appears to be an
  issues in GZDoom with moving ceilings combined with 242 floors.
  
* GZDoom timings are different to the classical Doom engine. Some floors and
  ceilings move at different rates than intended. For example, the platforms
  in map03's secret fight move faster in GZDoom. 

* The blue key in map31 will appear in a random place when playing with no
  monsters.

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/lib/maps

I love reading design notes from other mappers, so mine are included below.
I strongly encourage playing the maps before reading these since they may
include spoilers.
  
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/lib/maps/map01 (Welcome to the Machine)

This map and the exit map were the final ones created for the set. The opener
is intended to help visually set the story. Tristan Clark's Sombre Visions
really helps set the tone too. This one came together fairly quickly. I just
doodled some areas out and put some fights in. I don't think any areas went
through any major changes.

I did toy with the idea of using normal/secret exits to go to either the red 
or blue map first, but umapinfo isn't really flexible enough for that if you
want to ensure linear progression from there.

===============================================================================
/lib/maps/map02 (Fulcrum)

This map was made second. Originally I was trying to design map31, the main
open area had groups of barrels and a perched cyber where the exit door is.
I wasn't happy with the gameplay, and the only things that really stayed are
the rough shape of the main arena and texture theming.

The keys gimmick came about because I'd decided that the red/blue maps would
only have the keycard (no skull keys) of the given colour. I kept moving the
blue key around because I wasn't sure exactly where to place it, and was also
trying to figure out how to create a non-linear progression with the various
areas. Eventually I just decided to put multiple keys in and let the player
choose any two. It also makes for an interesting secret exit.

The map name came from a craft beer that was on sale at one of my favourite
lunch spots.

===============================================================================
/lib/maps/map03 (Core Memory)

This map took a long time to come together. The final room was created first,
and was heavily inspired by the memory terminal in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I
spent far too long trying to work out engine portable sector lighting tricks
for the shadow monsters before realising that mbf21 allowed me to just create
a second set of monsters with all black sprites. I wrote scripts to quickly
create them.

Most of the fights in this map went through multiple iterations, especially the
dual cyber hallway. I wanted the first part of the map to be non linear, with
optional areas. You can basically just head straight to the red key fight after
the opener, or explore a bit and load up on resources. Players who don't care
about maxing have some choice in which fights are mandatory.

The secret fight was something that I'd had sitting in an ideas folder for a
while, and it found a nice home here. The lift exit to the secret map was fun,
but timing consuming to create.

===============================================================================
/lib/maps/map04 (The Mechanism)

The first map created for the set. The genesis for the map was a set of moving 
floor mechanic ideas including the red side incrementally raising pit fight, 
and the blue side multi-floor elevator and vile pistons. The final arena was
designed early on (though the enemy selection went through several iterations).
The map was intended to be a standalone release, but the layout around the
final arena naturally created two wings. I started adding in the comp red/blue
textures and created the comp switches and power lines which fleshed out the
wider concept for the set. The colours for the two wings swapped once or twice
during development.

In hindsight the map is a bit more of linear sequence of fights than I'd like
it to be, but I'm still happy with the end result. 

===============================================================================
/lib/maps/map05 (Neo Luddite)

Imagine a world without computers or machines: glorious!

Also, boat!

===============================================================================
/lib/maps/map31 (Barrel Shifter)

This map started with the name and worked backwards from there to find some
barrel based gameplay mechanics. I struggled a bit initially to design this
one. The opening area was created while I had mappers block with the rest of
the map.

I tried a few different ways to implement the main barrel mechanic, but most
of them ended up a bit janky where you could break the map if you stepped on
a teleport destination at the wrong time. Turns out the simplest solution
works well. The barrel shifts use Ribbik's randomiser tech so the difficulty
of the individual fights changes between playthroughs.

The midi track complements this one well with the weird gurgling liquid
ambience.

===============================================================================
/lib/maps/map32 (Memory Corruption)

The shadow monsters from map03 were so much fun that I wanted to explore them 
a bit more. I feel like this map will be a love it or hate it type experience,
but its one of my favourites in the set.

The cyber arena is basically unchanged from my original sketch (it did get
rotated 45 degrees to make the exit teleporter texture aligned, and it also 
looks cool in the automap) I half expected it to be complete bullshit, but it
turns out to be surprisingly navigable and fighting all black enemies in
basically pitch black conditions isn't as ridiculous as it sounds.

The final area took a while to build to get all the lighting correct. It makes
use of silent line teleporters which maintain the distance from the ground to 
have cacos float in from the holes in the ceiling. I'd tried using this trick
in other maps (I tried having the centre of the mechanism in map04 poop out
cacos as it lowered for example) but occasionally a caco would just appear in
the middle of the air. You don't notice it so much when you can hardly see
anything to start with :-). The cube in the centre silent teleports the cacos
back out to the edges which keeps them drip feeding in, and makes it harder to
just herd them into the middle and circle strafe.

I spent a while searching for a midi which fit the description of "unhinged
beep boop computer music". The item room from Super Metroid fit the bill
perfectly.
