Cave Complex

it's an alright level, cramped as most cave levels can be, combat is alright and layout actually is nonlinear for the most part. a few traps, like the three-door room, and the god-awful crusher area (please never do this newbie mappers), everything else is pretty much alright in my book. i don't care about the map format.

Not awful, but nothing too exciting either. Simply average.

As much as I enjoyed playing this map, the requirement of playing the wad in an advanced port which supports UDMF is pretty baffling to me, as it could very easily be simplified down to Vanilla or Boom while losing basically nothing. The only things I could recognise were a few out of place stealth imps (which aren't inherently bad, but are poorly utilised here), along with some scripting at the end of the map for one particular fight. Otherwise, this map could easily be part of any given old-school vanilla mapset and I wouldn't bat an eyelid.

One aspect of this 'old-school' feel is the texturing, and the fact that Yummy Pie goes for the almost Wolfenstein 3D-esque approach of having most areas have their own wallpaper of a single texture throughout, and a few supporting texture variants for detail. This works for most parts of the map, with the exception of the opening area - its use of brick being too repetitive and garish, and making me wish that some different textures were also incorporated to support said bricks visually. The 'old-school' feel is also enforced by the fairly ordinary architecture within the map - the most dynamic changing of architecture you're going to see here is some doors being opened and a few blocks being raised out of lava. While this isn't a problem, it does continue to raise the question of why the mapper would choose UDMF as their map format of choice if they aren't going to experiment with what UDMF is capable of. Because of this, the map feels very safe, artistically - too by-the-numbers.

Some final points about this map, and keeping on the topic of it feeling too safe: the monster placement and general gameplay progression also falls into this same feel. The map is quite nicely paced, with gameplay difficulty ramping up at points where it feels like it should, and the map ending at a satisfying point. (it doesn't end too abruptly, or go on for too long once you feel you've experienced everything it has to offer) This is definitely the strongest part of the map's design. Unfortunately, the final areas is too by-the-numbers and generic as a final boss fight that things go from "natural" to "predictable" once you reach the final areas. As for the map's 'multiple paths and branching areas', it was not something I particularly picked up on until reading the wad's description after the fact. While there were multiple areas that had some additional areas, they usually amounted to single off-shoot rooms or pathways that gave me either a few monsters to fight, or some goodies to pick up. Again, unfortunately, it feels very safe. It would be interesting to see the mapper move into some more experimental non-linear design, if they're interested in including it in their maps going forward.

Lastly, I felt that the final baron "fight" was laughably bad, and I simply sunk 40 cells into it before leaving. For some reason it's not a scripted fight, and I can just lower the bars to avoid it and walk into the exit. Once again, this raises questions on the use of UDMF, as the fight before this does use scripting for what is essentially a very similar fight, fundamentally speaking (kill a thing, then be allowed to leave). The baron encounter is a strong sign that a similar approach could have been made in the previous fight too. Again: baffling.

Very nice map. I would play more from this author.

Some good stuff here. The level consists of an elaborate cave system with geometry that can be described as an entangled web of beads. There's also a swastika look-alike in north-eastern corner of the map.

The layout doesn't belong to the non-confusing ones, but it's nevertheless manageable. When reaching some points, you will be provided a convenient way of arriving at the next point-of-interest, Skyrim style. Action is constant, with some moderate switch hunting. Nothing too bad. Difficulty is also moderate.

Visuals are brown and gray then some more brown and gray plus some extra colors other than brown and gray here and there, with sufficient amount of detail to not suffocate you with all that brown and gray.