The DWmegawad Club plays: A.L.T.

[gaspe]

MAP01: A very interesting opener that sets well the weird nature of the wad. You start facing a dying marine that will disappear after few second and after you lose some health you are ready to properly start to play the level that is set on a plane. There are some dead bodies on the seats, I think that the SS troopers are invading the plane (it could explain the nazis that roam on the wings outside). The first areas of the plane are normal, with nothing so strange but when you go deeper where the cargo is stocked you can see the horrors that will come, with the mysterious Absolute Life Transformation device and demoinc signs and blood that appear here and there. The end is a death exit back to the starting position, again in front of a dying marine. Try to keep this scene in mind if you can.

 

MAP02: So our plane crashed and parts of the wreck are scattered in a sort of valley. All around we have many buildings that suggest that we are in a city. The level seems that can be split in two parts: the first is in the outdoors, with some parkour to do on the hills and the debris of the plane. You can also take a good look at the shadows to make a daylight effect, it's used only in the first episode but you'll see in the next levels how it will create a rather impressive atmosphere. For the second part we finally enter inside a building and make our way into it to the exit. It isn't as charming as the first part but it has a nice contrast to the outdoors area.

[rehelekretep]

lets see what has given @Spectre01 and erection for the last few months. only joking, i like him and his presence in the club very much :)

glboom+, uv, pistol starts, cl9 so i can save if i want to, lets..... GO!

map01 fda max

whew already this is weird as heck. i like it. the weapon sound replacements less so. never understand why people think the default doom sound fx arent the best ever: what are people smoking? the hell-ish stuff in this map is beautiful, midi is haunting and cool. very good scene setting. the combat is generally crap but this is map01 so ill give it a slight pass as it has a lot of other stuff done well.

 

Edited January 2, 2019 by rehelekretep

[Bauul]

2 hours ago, Finnthemapmaker said:

Hey i am new to this , how can you play with other players in doom ? Isn't multiplayer dead ? And what if other players are using diffrent engines like GZDOOM or SkullTag or whatever ?

 

The idea of the DWMegaclub isn't necessarily to play with other players in multiplayer, it's simple to play through a megawad at the rough same time as them and then chat about it.  It's just a way to help you choose what megawad to play next and be confident there are other people playing it too so you can talk about it.

 

It's like a book club: you don't have to literally sit next to someone and read the book at the same time, you just agree to read it roughly the same time and then chat about what you thought of it.

 

The general idea is you play one map of the megawad a day, and then post about how you found that map on here.  You can play more if you like, but you're not allowed to post about the maps ahead of time on here (to avoid spoiling them for others).

 

If you want to take part, just download the megawad, load it up in whatever source port you choose, play through the first couple of maps, and let us know what you thought of them on here!

[rehelekretep]

map02 fda 1 secret missed :(

+ love the sector art here. the crashed spaceship stands out but the dark meat room, the weird dark window hallway to the megasphere secret, the alleyways. cool stuff

+ i can find the secrets! just at my level :)

+ slightly better combat, specifically the chaingun on zombie horde bit near the end and the SURPRISE rev. more fun.

 

- the secrets involve dropping down or circling back which pads out the time unnecessarily and is quite dull. i saved before the megasphere because i was going to reload if id had to backtrack again. luckily this secret actually has a teleporter :D

- combat is still dull as. i thought things were looking up when i saw the chaingun but no, its just sawing meat in a hallway.

[Korikon]

ffasgdfgfd

Edited December 18, 2020 by Korikon

[Capellan]

MAP03

We have a new "that door".  It must have taken 30 attempts to get it open far enough to leave the starting area.  Not an auspicious start, and I can't say things improved much after that.  The level is pretty well put together technically speaking ... ugly and a bit blocky, but solid ... but it veers way too deeply into "FLICK THAT SWITCH!" territory for me.  I have no idea how many buttons I pressed with little real indication of what I was doing, but it was probably almost many times as I tried to open that door.

 

There are some fun moments and cleverly designed areas sprinkled in here, but this is easily my least favourite so far.

 

 

[TheOrganGrinder]

MAP03: Dies Irae

 

This map feels like it's been created and map-slotted in defiance of convention, a big, sprawling cityscape with obtuse progression and a somewhat intractable layout, and while the opposition isn't particularly heavy (a hair under 200 enemies on Hurt Me Plenty, heavy on the imps and zombies) the level otherwise feels like it's a Downtown-esque mid-progression map rather than one that belongs just three levels into the set.  There's plenty of supplies to be had (I think a megasphere, a suit of blue armour, and something like three soul spheres?) but just as many opportunities to lose what you've accumulated, and I often found myself surprised at just how much health I'd lost in an encounter that didn't feel particularly taxing - sloppy play on my part I suppose.

 

The melancholy atmosphere established by the preceding map continues here, and although Dies Irae is a bit too lively to be called a ghost town, it does feel quite sparsely populated, with enemies (often great mobs of former humans) taking to the streets only sporadically, preferring instead to stay huddled up in the various buildings and chambers, awaiting the player's intrusion.  There's quite a variety of environments to be found here, and some of them are pretty open to interpretation; my favourite is probably one that appears to be a butcher's shop at first glance, with an attached meat locker/slaughterhouse a couple of floors above, but just a few rooms away is some kind of lecture hall or classroom and you're left wondering if maybe instead it's some kind of anatomical demonstration theatre?  Plus the usual assortment of warehouses, living spaces, and nondescript machinery/electronics rooms so often found in city maps of this type.  The arrangement is just a bit too warped, the disarray in the juxtaposition of spaces just a bit too jarring, for the environment to be a comfortable or familiar one; again there is that creeping sense that something is not quite right amidst all of this.

[gaspe]

20 hours ago, bioshockfan90 said:

EDIT: After a second playthrough taking my time to explore everything, I can appreciate the atmosphere this map sets up THAT much more.

It was the same for me, I still liked it on the first play playthrough but it's when I replayed it that I enjoyed it a lot more and payed more attention to the various details.

 

MAP03: So we start in the alley that we reached at the end of the previous level, and near the start you can also have a brief view of the plane tail wreck. The start doesn't put you at ease as you are welcomed by an explosion that will damage a door that won't open easily then. We can explore some more of the world in which we ended, in particular this city (or what is only a part of a city). For the layout this isn't so different from the classic city level with buildings to explore and some action on te streets. There are quite many things to do to unravel our way to the exit. Combat is mostly sparse with few more dense moments, or awkward encounters in closed spaced. It's a very cool atmospheric piece, with a nice moody music and the daylight shadows give a cool touch to the look. The city has the usual variety of places you can see in this kind of settings: there are living quarters, stores, offices, storages, hardware stuff, a conference hall(maybe?), or at least they are presumably so. There's a contrast of the familiarity that some places can give while this town feels more like a place where the demons live, rather than being a human city overrun by them.

 

I still had to comment about the custom sounds. I like them and it was a very good choice to include them in the wad. It gives more personality to the wad and it enhances its strange feeling, the monsters are the same but at the same time no. You can dislike them of course but you can be thankful that the author(s) didn't put obnoxious sounds, like those of HEROES.WAD.

[Scypek2]

So, I'm playing it on HMP continuously with saves.

 

And before I start, that's a pretty sweet title screen! I guess it was mostly a matter of finding the right photos and putting them together, but it's arranged really elegantly. It's better than Final "graphic design is my passion" Doom, at least!

 

Also, whoever recorded the demos was reeeeeal subtle about getting killed quickly on purpose.

 

MAP01 - Seele

Now that's how you grab my attention! An unsettling death vision that cuts your health in half, and a plane under Nazi attack. I quite dig the custom sounds, they create an unique vibe right away. The ambient wind sound contributes to the atmosphere particularly well, and the chosen music fits really well too.

 

Gameplay-wise, hitscanners are an unique challenge to do right... and they aren't very fun to fight here, with just the pistol against fairly beefy Nazis who shoot faster than you, and the wingmen are situated at just the right level to shoot the player while it's barely possible to see them. Fortunately, the whole thing goes by fast enough to not get too annoying.

 

Theme-wise, it only gets more peculiar the more you think about it. The tiny stars passing by outside make sense as long as you don't look or think about them too much. Are we flying through the sky, or are we slowly rotating in outer space? I suppose either could be the case... Using nothing but a bunch of opaque walls that slowly scroll their texture left feels like a terrible design choice, but the first time I played it, I noticed no issues and was 100% immersed. In fact, it still doesn't hurt my immersion all that much after all! This is some refuge in audacity. I wonder about the story, too. Why are the zombiemen packed in a box, are they a shipment of victims to be sacrificed in the Absolute Life Transformation? Maybe they're shooting at me because the marines (who were in charge of the plane, going by the corpses in the cockpit) are the real bad guys here? Setting up a portal in a plane and kidnapping people until some kind of special forces unit in blue shows up to save the day? Who knows. At most, the story in the text file only mildly contradicts my theory.

 

Last but also least, I like how that one crate contains all keys, including the currently useless ones. It enhances the feeling of the world not revolving around the player, and it's a nice break from the convention in general.

 

 * * *

 

MAP02 - Dead by the Down

More hitscanners and ammo scarcity, but this time things are much more pleasant. The zombiemen are a perfect fit for the pistol, and there's plenty of space to move around. The amount of intended platforming really surprised me here - in most mapsets, I tend to climb decorative geometry only to find myself disappointed, if not breaking maps. Here, it's outright mandatory a couple of times, which stumped me for a while. But ultimately, it wasn't that hard to find my way around. I couldn't find all secrets though, three of them were fairly obvious but I still have no clue about the other two.

 

The music fits really well again, and I get to hear some more custom sounds... most of them being similar to original ones but more moist, I guess. Meanwhile, there are some more peculiarities. Why is the waterfall flowing out of a cave stuffed to the brim with corpses? Why is there a door high above the floor, blocked with crates from the other side? Someone changed the building layout, but didn't bother bricking up the door? An architectural Thomasson in a Doom map, that's new. There's also a number of classic crate staircases that frustratingly don't lead anywhere... of course they don't lead anywhere, they're just stacks of crates! Way to toy with savvy players, though.

 

[bioshockfan90]

MAP03: Dies Irae | 96% kills | 80% secrets |

 

I don't know if I can put this in words, really. The map is so goddamn massive and there's so much going on, each individual building has its own personality and look and level of detailing to it, but just to sum it up:

 

this is a very, very E2 styled level done in the style that only this WAD could deliver on. Also, since we see most of the rest of the D2 monsters in this map, we're treated to some new sounds for them and what appears to be a cool new death animation for the revenant. Progression is INCREDIBLY nonlinear, there are a lot of paths you can take to beat this map but I have a feeling that no matter what path you chose, you're not going to be TOO confused on what to do. I'll admit that towards the end I was feeling a little lost on the RK section but it was just a matter of finding a switch I hadn't flipped yet. I suppose your difficulty experience varies on how you tackle this beast as well. In my case, I got really tight on ammo for a bit but I ended up rebounding after finding a few key ammo cases and shotgun shells.

 

I could go on for paragraphs about each individual building or a lot of the weird mechanics going on, or how the layout tightly wraps around itself and it's just really fucking clever, but... like I said earlier, I wouldn't be able to tell you all of it and doing so would require another playthrough. I don't have time for that today. A few highlights that stuck out to me however would be how the doors open in this strange futuristic manner when you're trying to find which room contains a teleport, the pentagram(?) barrel section with the SSG, and the clock tower building. Definitely not a map you're going to absorb 100% the first time through.

[TheOrganGrinder]

MAP04: Death From Above

 

So.  I arrived, checked my map, noted the considerably reduced monster count and thought to myself, "Okay, after a couple of big, sprawling levels with lots of exploration to do, what we're getting now is something smaller, quicker, and more intense."

 

Then I went hunting for secret doors and guess how long that impression lasted?

 

And this is a map that's going to leave an impression on its players, though there's a bit of trickery involved there, and I feel as though the design creates the perception of threat more than it does actual danger.  Which is fine!  We're only four levels into the WAD, after all, it wouldn't do to drop in a brick wall of difficulty for players to smash their heads against at this early stage.  I'll cop to being less impressed by the unmarked point-of-no-return, which denied me the opportunity to go back and hunt for the secret that I'd missed; by the time you've neutralised the walking obstacles that has dogged your footsteps all the way across the map and earned yourself a breather, it's too late to go back and enjoy the benefits on that.  I'll certainly keep that more in mind if and when I replay the map.

[7hm]

Map 2: I remember this one, I really love the platforming and the weirdness of it.  Everything is so big and far away.  It took me a while to catch on to the path forward the first time I played it, and just as long this time.  We also get to see the start of the really small ledges for mandatory progression.  I remember dying in the second half when I played it the first time, but no real issues this time around.

 

Map 3: God, this one took me like 6 attempts.  All my failures are included in the attached zip. I grant that I'm a sloppy player, and this type of map really highlights that.  I can luck my way through a few tough encounters, but the constant grinding incidental combat just wears away at me and I inevitably screw up.   That said, I loved it.  There's just so many options to pick from; I think I tried a new route each time, finally landing on one that worked for me on the successful run. You know a mapset is going for something different when you have a map 3 that takes 30 minutes to beat.  Not sure what issue people are having with the door, worked for me each time without fail.

 

Map 4: Jumping the gun a couple hours here, but it's the fourth somewhere.  Well then. Now for something completely different.  When I first loaded this one up it took me a while to figure out what was going on, but this is a fantastic map.  Running the obstacle course beside, towards, and away from the big guy is a great way to give weight to otherwise fairly simple platforming challenges.  As @TheOrganGrinder says, this is a map that will leave an impression on players - the kind of map you remember long after the set is finished.  For as much as I think Map 3 was the best map in the set thus far, it's the other three that are more weird, more memorable.

 

I'm a couple tries into map 5 now, not sure if I'll actually get a successful clear of it before moving on to 6 and beyond.  I think that after giving each of the maps the old college try I'll either just drop it and move on to the next, or drop the difficulty.  Not sure.  To be honest I'd rather just leave it and come back to it on my next try through the wad; that's normally how I play megawads like this.  Record everything, keep the clears for posterity, and dump the rest when the set is otherwise done.

alt_2.zip

alt_3.zip

alt_4.zip

[ella guro]

my feelings about Map 03 compared to the other Azamael maps are a little mixed, though i think the map has grown on me. it's a bit more conventional than a lot of other maps in A.L.T., but it also has a lot of little interesting bits that reflect the narrative well too. i guess it only makes sense that there would be a more traditional-ish Downtown type map with a twist in this set, because it seems like kind of an obvious place to go. a lot of maps in A.L.T. can be pretty linear as well, so it's kind of nice to have something much more sandbox-y in there. i feel like the contrast between this map the ones surrounding it show how much this set can go all over the place in terms of length. this contrast will get more dramatic a little bit later on, but it i think it really adds to the feeling that you don't know at all what's coming next with any given level in this set.

[7hm]

I think what gets it for me more than anything is just that it comes so early in a set like this.  I'd have expected it from a teen #, there's just a lot of running around looking for the next switch to pull and it's rare to see progression like this.  The map itself is fairly conventional, outside of some weird moments like the explosion behind the door, or the AV, but it's the context that surrounds the map that presents the twist.

[Spectre01]

MAP03 - “Dies Irae” by Azamael

This is probably the map that sold me on playing the rest of the wad. I'm a sucker for city maps with lots of non-linear exploration, and this level perfectly fits that mold. There are a bunch of different paths you can take along the streets and alleyways, or explore one of the many buildings. It also fits well as a direct follow-up to map02, with you starting in an alley visited before and being able to see the tail of the crashed plane beyond the fence. Many visuals themes are used here, and every building has its own distinct interior setting that stands out. Like this gore pile near a church room with a Baron preaching to a large groups of Imps and Dudes. Or what looks like a torture chamber on your way to the roof, with some really cool wall decals. Unlike the first two-maps that featured some legendary pistol gameplay, the combat and weapon progression is quite standard here. I like to grab an early SSG from this hellish altar, which has a quirky barrel maze over a pain sector. There is a decent number of mid-tier demons, and the occasional double-Revenant surprise. The non-secret Computer Map also helps with navigation and grabbing the secrets, though I don't remember getting stuck or lost here before. But yeah, huge fan of the gloomy and desolate cityscape in this map. Fitting midi too. Also, since it looks like nobody's mentioned the super-secret, there is a very hot picture of Duke Nukem in a bikini after shooting a switch in the room with the beds. I assume it's some kind of inside joke, as it makes some memorable appearances throughout the wad.

Edited January 4, 2019 by Spectre01

[Spectre01]

MAP04 - “Death From Above” by Azamael 

This is a fun, short map as you dodge a Cyberdemon while platforming over rooftops and other obstacles. Although it probably doesn't always play out as intended, since falling off and running around at street level (should've been a damaging floor, IMO), can make the Cyber teleport to later parts of the map and reduce some of the threat level. There is also a secret pretty much right at the start which allows you to skip like 1/3rd of the map. Also, just like that Arachnotron-themed map at the start of Ancient Aliens, you can simply remove the Cyber threat playing continuously with all the SSG ammo from map03 earlier. So it kind of, sort of, doesn't really work unless you pistol start. Also, it appears that some of the rooftop zombies are not shootable with regular Doom autoaim, so I guess UV-Maxers get their plums twisted.

 

With that roast out of the way, I think it looks cool and the midi is quite rockin'. I remember having a lot more trouble with platforming when I first played it, without much prior platforming experience. There is also an amusing maze room with a Revenant forever stuck in a teleport loop, with a Chaingun and bullets provided if you want to tap him down. I also like the exit sequence with explosion and a moving IoS face.

[wolfmcbeard]

So, I've done map 2 and 3 (GZD-HMP)

Map two was interesting, the plane level at the start has crashed and you need to work your way into a base that is conveniently next to the crash site and I had to do some platforming, it was interesting and on par with map 1 but not a lot was going on unlike map 3...

Now map 3 took me a while to get through but continues directly from map 2, it seems simple but from my point of view, there's a lot going on in a large area.
I constantly found new areas to run through, though I did get lost quite a few times before finding the exit by accident.
But over all, this was the best map so far, so I will push on.

[Capellan]

MAP04

Well.  That was ... something.

 

 

[DavitW]

MAP01: Seele

Starting off on an airplane, I usually like these kind of levels although they can be hard to do well considering the size and design limitations. This one did a fairly good job although the SS soldiers in a non-wolfenstein level makes this feel like a jokewad. Found the 3 key secret although had no idea what to do with them

 

MAP02: Dead By the Down

Continuing from the end of the last map and our plane crashed in a valley filled with zombies. Something about this map gave me an old school vibe, I suppose the big open outdoor areas and the rather plain texturing, although the map still looks really nice and there's plenty of little details around as well. Plenty of platforming to be done here both for secrets and to progress in the level, A few areas I figured to be secrets actually turned out to be the intended path through the level so less adventurous sorts may have a bit of troubole getting through this one. Unfortunately the killing part of the gameplay is pretty damn boring and once you get indoors the best part of the level's over.

 

MAP03: Dies Irae

A Large city map that's very non-linear, From a pistol start it took me a few tries to get a good idea of where to begin. Once again felt pretty old school as there's nothing too fancy going on here although once again some nice details around and not necessarily ugly. I usually don't enjoy these maps as my horrid sense of direction can leave me wandering around the city for hours, and god forbid you miss a switch tucked in a corner somewhere but this didn't go too bad atleast. Apparently there was one of those malfunctioning door gimmicks here but I either missed it or got lucky opening it.

Edited January 4, 2019 by DavitW

[gaspe]

MAP04: This is how you make a good map with the gimmick of the cyberdemon that follows you around, albeit it's a bit exploitable like Spectre01 already said. You can also take a bit of worldbuilding from here, this place feels more like the downtown with all the tall buildings, compared to the suburbs of Dies Irae that have a more intimate atmosphere. You have a surprise death-exit at the end.

 

5 hours ago, Capellan said:

MAP04

Well.  That was ... something.

And you did not see nothing yet

[Capellan]

MAP05

Well, this was exhausting and no mistake. I was ready for it to be over well before it was, especially after a couple of places where I got stuck for a while and nearly tossed the whole thing in. The first was a shootable switch buried in the middle of a computer panel, which took a long time to spot. The second the berserk jump, where it took me a good while to realise where I was meant to jump from. Thankfully I didn't get stuck at the door that had DOORBLU trim, but was not actually a blue door. If I hadn't tried it just in case, that probably would have been a major rage moment later on.

 

Actual combat – with the exception of the final courtyard – was mostly pretty thin, with the greatest difficulty coming from the occasional large cloud of hitscanners and some monsters that were so high the autoaim struggled with them. And then there are the chaingunners in the exit train cart, which were frankly more than a little bit cheeky.

 

While I didn't like map04, I can appreciate that they put something different between this map and map03, to break up the switch hunts.

 

[Scypek2]

MAP03 - Dies Irae

 

So here it is, first in the line of maps that just keep going... But this one's not that bad all in all. By the second playthrough, I wasn't even confused. Or at least, not that much. I guess the lack of clear direction makes it feel more of a real location...

 

But first of all, the beginning got to be the weirdest case of seamless level progression I've ever encountered. We finally reach the exit door... only to loop back to where we already were and discover that the few zombies along the way are back from the dead, and the previously dead end in the dark alleyway (one that's already been accessible much earlier) has inexplicably turned into a path to the town. It feels like a story with an indecisive unreliable narrator... "I saw that the room was now damaged by an explosion, which allowed me to, uh... actually, there was no dead end in that alleyway, I got those eight shells from somewhere else."

 

I dig the midtexture trees, by the way. They're elegant and spice up the place well without using up any sprites.

 

Other points of interest include: What seems like a piece of writing in Standard Galactic Alphabet, but doesn't actually use letters from it. A demon classroom with Baron teaching ripping and tearing 101 (I mostly consider it a classroom/meeting room because of the big blackboard/screen thing in the front). Deja vu teleporters with fancy doors. A cacodemon hole that doesn't just open, but also closes, making it really harmless. Maybe it just wants you to stay away from its hole.

 

My favorite little place has to be the bloody room that flashes bright and fades out when you enter it. I really loved this trick as soon as I understood it, and I already used it in two maps.

 

I also made one more very interesting discovery...

Spoiler

there's no ambient wind sound. I don't think there's any dehacked at all involved. It's just zombies. Zombies, Mancubi and nazis emitting wind noises while looking for you.

 

MAP04 - Death From Above

 

Now that's some sudden intensity! It's really nicely choreographed, like something out of an action movie. Escaping between crates while they sink in the floor behind you, and then having to run back... floor in front of you suddenly contracting into a zigzag walkway... The cyberdemon following you everywhere, even into the indoors staircase. Finally, a face to face meeting in the great big room, and then it concludes by mass slaughter of zombies by blinking Icon of Sin twins, which is equal parts ridiculous and beautiful, and a fitting conclusion to the level.

Edited January 5, 2019 by Scypek2

[TheOrganGrinder]

MAP05: All Hightmare Long

 

(I don't know if that's a typo or a deliberate play on words, though given that this map isn't as vertical in its presentation as the preceding level, the latter seems like a stretch.)

 

MAP04 might not have been especially smaller than what came before but it was definitely shorter in its running time; with MAP05, the WAD returns to larger, more convoluted layouts.  Here, the player is tasked with working their way through an urban setting surrounding a railyard; there's cramped, dormitory-style housing with an attached dining area that might represent quarters for the workers here, a green area that might be a park, but all of it rubs shoulders with ruination and toxic slime, and the place is crawling with zombies, all too eager to play their own individual roles in your slow death by a thousand cuts.  Health is rather plentiful so progression through the map involves constant give and take, loss and gain, weathering a hitscan storm as best you can and hoping that there's a chance to replenish arond the next corner.

 

The map itself does some unconventional things in terms of marking, with an array of unmarked blue-locked doors right at the start of the map and a blue-trimmed but unlocked door placed in your path toward the end as you circle back toward the beginning; I'm not sure quite what is gained by the latter especially.  The marquee encounter is of course the railyard itself, which the player has repeatedly glimpsed from various directions and elevations while progressing through the map as this deserted, courtyard-like central space, only for a demonic invasion to occur once you actually reach it; I'll admit, given the amount of quite wearying hitscan combat the level had already inflicted on me, I felt no shame in high-tailing it back up the lift and running back and forth along the windows overlooking the courtyard from the west, taunting the chaingunners and letting infighting do the lion's share of the work for me.

[Catpho]

The title pic and intermission tracks are neat, esp the latter's lonely and piercing flute and guitar.

MAP02 - “Dead By the Down” by Azamael

The aftermath of Map01's hijinks. The level itself is another atmospheric narrative piece, though more emphasis on the mood and story-telling part and less on the off the wall surrealism. Azamael rendered the crash site quite strikingly, with very cool and detailed sector art of the wreckage (with a peculiar jolly roger flag on the plane's tail, dunno about it's significance yet but it seems to be recurring in A.L.T.) and a good use of the bright sky. There's also a bit of a eerie, post-apocalyptic feel with the city surrounding being... dead quiet. Another thing that stands out is the valley with the weird hole, whether it's created by the plane ramming into it or just reality calling a day off again is anyone's guess. The whole scenery gives off a very alien feeling. There are scraps and bits of a world we once knew, but when playing you can't help but feel the uncanniness.

The gameplay is also an interesting part, though I enjoyed it more for it's worldbuilding value than the actual satisfaction of the violence. If we are using classic Doom gunplay to measure, then the banal (but oddly relaxing) zombieman pistol whipping simulator would surely get a F. However, when putting it into the context of the surrounding environment, it's quite chilling to think of the implications of the fate of the inhabitances. The map's progression method fits the "worldbuilding" part quite well too, with using the various scenery setpieces as platforms in a seamless and organic fashion. I was only irked by the final encounter, chainsawing pinkies is beyond my tolerance even for artsy mapsets >:(

Seems like another demon invasion is in progress, but one can't shake the feeling that something is different this time around. We are not in Kansas anymore.

Some screenies:

 

Edited January 5, 2019 by Catpho

[rehelekretep]

i played map04 and went into the room with the spectre and i seem to be stuck so i cant complete the map?

map04 fda DNF ???

map05 fda

really enjoyed this one

+ progression is intuitive but still feels surprising; i wasnt left fumbling around aimlessly but didnt feel like it was simply finding key, opening door blah blah

+ combat was more fun and sandbox-y (especially the end bit in the railyard itself)

+ good midi and atmosphere

- wouldve been more fun with some more rockets

[gaspe]

MAP05: So far there was a continuous progression from each level to the next, and this is broken here. Very early you can take a view of the train station and the map makes you loop around said train station until when you can grab the BK and finally descend there for the "slaughter"-esque finale. The use of the key is rather funny, the marked door at the start is actually useless. The first part you explore is a dormitory, with a cafeteria nearby. In one of the rooms of the dormitory there's an icon of Christ on the wall, and if you look closely behind it you can see a little opening to the refrigerating room and the corpses. Another place worth of mention is the rocky nukage pool, which seems to be a sort of dump of marble faces. Later on to go ahead on a damaged room you have to jump down on a mud pool and climb up on a very cramped passage in the ruins and the pipes to get up, it always gives me and unpleasant feel. With the final invasion the other standout part is the stair climb on the north. Very cool level, filled with nice and weird surprises.

[Capellan]

MAP06

I very much doubt I will reach the end of this megawad. While I can definitely see the effort put into creating the maps, enjoy some of the visual flair, appreciate the commitment to the unsettling oddness of the environments, and even acknowledge the cleverness of some of the progression elements, the basic design sensibility is so far removed from my own preferences – clear progression, action focus, lots of incidental/roaming monsters to augment the set pieces – that it's likely that sooner or later my regard for the stuff above will not be enough to keep pulling me forward.

 

We haven't quite reached that point yet, though, as I managed to reach the end of this map. There were some parts that felt like filler – the teklite corridor/maze is the worst offender – but I was impressed by other parts. The city section was solid, and the grassy section with the lake looked great, despite being marred a bit by the unfriendly-to-autoaim chaingunners.

 

I just blazed past the SMM and exit barons, relying on the megasphere to get me out of there with decent health. I guess you'd need to teleport back to grab an Invuln to actually kill the SMM. I probably could have done that and exited with 200/200 come to think of it, but that didn't occur to me until I was writing this! :)

 

 

 

[ella guro]

it's funny to me that the exact same stuff that is turning Capellan off about ALT is what really got me absorbed into it. for me, i get bored of the same design tropes over and over again and this set really showed me a lot of things that i never ever saw done like this before anywhere else. i mean, i guess i already knew that a bunch of different other stuff was coming after it. but i discovered this set it at a crucial time in 2012 coming back to following Doom wads after taking a break for several years and was looking for something new and different.

 

MAP 05 is a super deceptively clever map for me. it's mostly linear, and it's very grounded in a "real life" sort of space, and it's filled with a lot of design tropes that seem like they wouldn't work at all. from like the wolf3d-feeling dormitory at the beginning, to the computer area immediately after with the super cryptic progression on that one shootable switch. all of these feel like bad "my first map" type tropes. in other places, this map almost feels kind of more like a modern FPS game in design, because of how linear it is and how much you're in ostensibly "real world" environments. parts certainly reminded me of Half-Life 1 and 2. but then, this map opens up and does a lot of very strange and unexpected things to that. a lot of bits subvert and play with your expectations, like that useless key door at the beginning. i seem to remember an eye throne and then a switch that you have to shoot about 10 different times to activate it. also a lot of unexpected height contrasts that feel really disorienting. or the way that you see the trainyard at the beginning but only come back to it at the end via a very strange and convoluted path. a lot going on in this map, basically.

 

i'll talk about MAP 06 later, but it's also an early favorite for me. it's also the first map not by Azamael and could definitely easily derail the set at a crucial moment early on, but it feels like it keeps the mood remarkably well from something by an author (Nomad) who i've never seen anything else from outside this set.

 

i like those Bolonoa crates btw. is that another way of saying Bologna? i always just imagined they were crates of bologna

Edited January 5, 2019 by ella guro

[Brock]

Okay after i  played the first and second level (and third) i have to say i kinda enjoy it! 

Map 01 - It starts with you taking demage for some reason , and it's bullshit . Beware when you start to play , after sometime some SS soldier will spawn on the place you started , so if you are still there while taking cover from fire , be prepared for this bullshit cheap trick. That was bullshit hope i don't find this in the other levels. And for some reason there is a useless portal to hell where you walk around a red empty arena. Sadly there is only a pistol and a normal shotgun and it makes for a boring gameplay . Let's just say fighting hell knights with a stock shotgun ain't that fun. And for some reason i saw myself when i started the map , this ain't a problem or a nitpick i just don't see why should that happend. And for some reason Zombieman sound like they are cumming in their pants , and it's  funny. Let's say you are in a fight with 5 pinkies and then out of nowhere you hear Someone moaning like a twink in the distance. Other enemies also sound weird. But nothing problem making. Some gun sounds are also bad. The shotgun sounds like a Nuke. I don't remember how other weapons sound tho. But the Design of the map is very cool . Anyway it was a nice,short and simple level 

Map02- It's a good map. You started off  after the plane crashed (Yes the first level is in a plane)  and your main battles here is to snipe zombie men from a distance with a pistol.

 

Map03- (Stop reading if you don't want spoilers) It's a great and fun map. Great Map design , nice choice of music. Fun tight battles with enough space to move and dodge. You have to explore buildings to exit the level , and that is a cool and fun idea that works great here! (Hope more mappers start making city/buildings maps like that) Every building is interesting to explore and i even found a  funny easter egg.(Bikini Duke Nukem) . I am only on the third level but i have a feeling that every level the design and layout of the maps will get better.

Edited January 5, 2019 by Finnthemapmaker

[7hm]

Map 5:

 

A pretty linear affair.  Some odd progression choices as noted by others.  The shootable switch, the berserk jump (I went for it as a secret, not realizing it was just mandatory progression and that I'd have hit it anyways), etc.  My first attempt ended against early Revs... I was pretty tired and playing quite poorly.  The second ended in the railway station.  No excuses there.  Decided that rather than make a third attempt at a very linear map I'd move on.  The map is fine, but there's so little ability to define your own path that I don't think it could sustain my interest for many attempts.  It's not a modern level per se, but still very much a corridor crawler.

 

Map 6:

 

I liked this one a fair bit more than 5.  Yeah, it was linear as well, but it had some interesting moments, like the opening of the street when you first hit the apartment block, and the outdoor area with the viles that you return to for the rush to the exit.  Otherwise it was similarly linear but with lots of little pop up encounters.  Some potentially mean ones too, if you get unlucky with random shots, but nothing that you don't have the tools to handle.  I have to say that when I'm playing a map like this, I appreciate the author just dumping weapons and ammo on me.  This isn't a puzzle to solve, it's a level to clear.  I don't want to be wandering around looking for something to scrounge, unless there happen to be some interesting offshoot sections (like the second floor of the apartment).

 

At the end of the map I said screw it and skipped the AV, ran by the spider demon and the barons, and just rushed the exit.  No regrets.  I'm glad the tunnel was wide enough to allow that.

alt_5.zip

alt_6.zip

Edited January 5, 2019 by 7hm