I agree, the weapons are just too weak. We will be making adjustments in the final product. I also really need to add armor but I ran out of time. As for the mapping, we were really cramming in the end. My sister gave me drafts but I had to cut corners in order to make it on time. In the full game, Level 1 will be fixed, with all the things we had to cut added in, and maybe a few more NPCs to talk to.
Which version of GZDoom were you using? Aside from the packaged LZDoom, I also tested it on GZDoom 4.42 so it should work on that. I'll have to look into testing it on newer versions.