[DOOM] Sandy Petersen's Level Design

Whoa! I'm humbled and embarrassed a bit by this. But thanks a million. You correctly call out that I was not an artist, but a designer, hence my less-gorgeous levels. But when I started, there was no such thing as a "level designer". I guess I was one of the first ever.

The fake exit was genuinely one of the scariest moments I've experience playing a video game. That was brilliant.

>MAP24: The Chasm the sound of a hundred angry speedrunners in the distance

Sandy Petersen is one of the most influential mappers of all time, and is still heavily criticized despite having half the game's maps dumped on him. I think it's actually extremely impressive he made so many memorable maps (especially in Doom 2) in spite of the time and amount of work he was given. Excellent video, thanks for the Sandy Petersen love!

It's ironic that the media said that Doom promotes satanism, but Sandy Peterson is a Mormon who did most of the hell levels lmao

This guy is responsible for over 50% of all Doom I and II content. You may criticize him for his maps artdesign, but he sure wasn't lazy... While John Romero enjoyed being a rockstar during Doom II development, Petersen just sat down and got back to work! Absolute Chad move if you ask me...

Map 28 The Spirit World is my favorite - and the music rocks, too! Sandy also basically redesigned how the BFG functioned, from a spastic plasma rifle to its new design! Arguably a good one that’s actually pretty complicated

The thing that people need to understand is that Petersen is actually a really good level designer. But the poor man only had 3 months! 3 months to not only learn how to build 3D levels for the first time in his life on the most unique and advanced game engine up to that point, but also be required to build the majority of the levels! That's why he used many of Tom Hall's levels as a launch pad to help speed up the process. Even though he had more time to work on the levels for Doom II, the amount however were still about the same as before and this time he would have to make all of them from scratch. So the question is this: What if he only needed to worry about building a small handful of levels in a larger space of time? Like...lets say: 7 levels over 7 months? Well, he did. He made 7 levels for episode 4 in Quake 1, which are not only some of the best levels in that game in terms of design and also in art style (proving that he can indeed make levels that aren't always ugly), but some of the best levels to ever come from id Software in my opinion.

Since Romero made a new set of levels for Doom called Sigil We should ask Petersen if he could make a set of new levels for Doom 2 if he wants to I kinda would like to play that

"God damn it Sandy" Petersen

I may not have vibed with Sandy's maps but I have a huge amount of respect for the sheer work he put in and the creativity he brought to the table. A key part of DOOM, for sure!

Sandy Peterson showed more than just a daring attitude in experimentation. He really showed of what the engine could do, as he understood very well what you could pull off with it. The lighting in the "Hall of the Damned", the endings in both "Hall of the Damned" and "Phobos Anomaly", monster infighting in "Fortress of Mystery" the puzzles in "Unholy Cathedral" and "Containment Area", the crushing floors, the slow infestation of demonic symbols in Episode 2 and the ingenious placement of secrets throughout. For me Peterson is what Doom needed to reach it's pinnacle. I would LOVE to see new levels created by him.

After watching Civvie 11's videos on Doom while I do agree with most of his criticisms with Peterson's levels this video did make me appreciate him way more then I use to. I really like E2M6's paths for finding the red and yellow skull keys, it was like a treasure hunt.

Mt Erebus is the bomb. It’s one of my top 5 doom levels

Wow, he basically made DOOM and DOOM II... Pretty much all my favorite levels of all time in gaming too. Way to go man... lolol You are a genius.

4:18 "arguably one of his greatest achievements is map 13,downtown" well when i played it first time,i was walking around for hours figuring out what to do and listening my favorite DOOM music

He made some of my Favorite levels and so did John Romero

Map 13 is my all-time favorite Doom level because of the sandbox feel and needing to plan out the order you want to take out enemy snipers and nests. Map 28 is also one of the best looking hell levels ever made. I'd love to see what Petersen could do with modern level design options and maybe some Lovecraftian monsters. Like, Quake-like, but in GZDoom instead.

4:26 "Downtown" The verticality in that level and others in Doom 2 is a bit of a prototype for what we'd later see in Quake. It really shows the evolution in id software's game design. I'm glad that id really doubled down on the interesting and mind-bending level design for Doom 2, with the story playing second fiddle a bit.

Badass. This gives new meaning to Into Sandys City