The DWmegawad Club plays: Eviternity

[Tristan]

MAP29: Elysium - Someone + Dragonfly

 

First off, here's a map of who designed what here.

Spoiler

Virtually all of the monster placement is Dragonfly. I did the majority of the layout and visual work, as well as the flight pads and overall concepts, though Dragonfly made a few places look a lot prettier because I hadn't gone over them myself when I handed over the map.

--

I've mentioned my TNT project a couple times already while talking about Eviternity. It was when I made that ambush of launching imps over a cliff towards the player that I realised what I wanted my thing to be in mapping, use of Boom features to do things maybe sillier or more impressive and elaborate than what you see in the average Boom map. This approach made its first public appearance in The Game Never Ends, my map for MAYhem Orange last year, where the self-building, self-decorating bridge I made for it attracted a surprising amount of attention, even finding its way to doom_txt and somewhat overshadowing the sillier gimmick at the start where the start room of Entryway collapses to reveal the actual map. This map I guess is what got Dragonfly's attention, I'm not really a mapper and apart from the mixed reception of my D2INO map back in 2014, nothing particularly substantial has come from me, but TGNE was surprisingly a very well received map.

 

As such it's even more surprising to me that Elysium even exists at all. I joined the team as a musician but was invited to make a map as well, and I picked the heaven chapter because it sounded the most interesting to me, and so I was given MAP29. Elysium seemed like the perfect name, being a part of the afterlife in Greek mythology, as well as being the title of a Stratovarius song and album, the same album that has The Game Never Ends so it was a fun little bit of continuity to throw in. I began work on 15 July, using this picture as a starting point:

Spoiler

 

ukiro had just added the huge angel iconography texture, so it was the perfect time to start bringing that into use.

 

The concept for this map was very different when I started to what it eventually became and this was ultimately down to me simply not having enough time between my other projects and my move to university in September. The premise of Elysium is that since the forces of Hell were never supposed to come to Heaven, the constant fighting has made the whole place unstable, it begins corrupting and falling apart, and you can see a fair bit of the corrupt nature throughout with the use of tar, and I'm glad folks here are picking up on it because I'm aware of some who are like "Evil black liquid? That's a weird choice for a Heaven map, geez game designers, get with it!"

The falling apart aspect is less evident apart from the little vignette at the very start where you see the architecture of MAP28 slowly collapsing (that was a pain in the ass to get working properly btw), and there's only a very brief hint of ruins elsewhere, found on the corrupted island.

I imagined Elysium as being actually very light on monsters overall, and aimed for it to be more of a puzzle/exploration-based adventure, wandering among a crumbling town surrounded by dense forests, all of which sit under the shadow of an immense clock tower that we had to travel to, where MAP30 would take place. This clock tower was planned to be absolutely ridiculously tall, and would sit at the summit of a huge mountain at the far end of the map, the ascent of which would be the last challenge. To aid in the navigation between the islands and what would have been incorporated in some of those puzzles are the map's primary gimmick - the flight pads, where red torches mark the launcher and distant blue torches showed where they would take you, but perhaps sometimes you might have come across a switch you can't reach but you can see the blue torches next to it, and it would be the quest to find the pad itself. This manifests itself in the very first flight pad which is in the throne room, I imagined this as the tutorial room you had to escape from before you could take on the islands. The flight pads were so difficult to get working properly in GZDoom and PrBoom+ because they don't handle conveyor belts in the same way. In GZDoom the angle of the line vector is absolute, in PrBoom+ there's some rounding that takes place and to this day I still haven't figured out what the fuck it really is so there was a lot of trial and error involved to make these things stay on target.

I suppose it wouldn't be unfair to say that Elysium is something I imagined as my own take on dobu's The Given, though monsters would at least have some presence throughout - but it was the pockets of corruption where I intended to really make shit hit the fan. Between the slaughters of MAP28 and 30, I was going to have 29 feature mostly light combat against small numbers of low/mid-tiers, but at crucial points the player would come across an area diseased by the black tar where Hell would quite literally break loose, something seriously brutal to really hammer home the idea that the tar is pure evil in a liquid form - though I never wanted it to be damaging, I wanted the brutality to come from the monsters that would be associated with it.

 

The aforementioned corrupt island is the first area I designed and it deliberately has no monsters on it to add weight to the use of tar here, as well as the crater - when Josh took over the map, the only monsters I asked him to get rid of were the ones he put up here. The caves you drop into aren't as fleshed out as I imagined. I made the tar cave you enter, as well as the first bit of the contrasting water cave and the general design of the wooden structure that forms the staircase you travel up here, but I pictured a network of caverns, tunnels and ruins - an underground heaven is a theme that the other maps didn't explore, and I wanted the player to spend a fair amount of time down here, ultimately making their way back to the surface to get the red key after they were fortunate to survive the tar cave, you would escape by eventually reaching the bottom of a crater and using a flight pad to launch yourself almost vertically out of the crater and back on to the red key island. This didn't happen, but instead Josh added the astral cacoswarm as the main fight of this area and I love it. After RC1, I made the big waterfall and the surrounding liquid in his half of the cave turn to tar, because that was exactly the sort of thing I had in mind for the corruption aspect.

 

The blue key is something I never really managed to get anything done for myself, so that one is all Dragonfly. It was going to be some kind of motte-and-bailey design of a high up castle looking over the town below but the one thing I tried to make for this was embarassingly awful. This would also have its own tar fight, though the one present in the end is a bit on the tamer side than I would have gone for myself.

Once you had the blue and red keys, you would go to the north end of the central island and the yellow key would warp in, allowing you to access the final flight pad, which launched you on a massive distance towards the last island with the clock tower, but you would get abducted mid-flight. This hasn't changed so much, except with the demise of the clock tower idea, the abduction didn't make much sense. Conceptually this was still all me but credit goes to Dragonfly for that epic black hole in the middle of the ocean, as well as the golden rings that we fly through first.

 

Something silly I did when I first started making Elysium was replace every texture in the initial throne room with the OTEX waterfall, even the sky. It actually looks really cool, and I'd love to do a full map around that concept, but I figured I had to incorporate some unconventional liquid fall usage somewhere in this map because the OTEX liquidfalls are just so nice that you can really get away with it. I copy-pasted MAP01 into Elysium and set its sky to be the tarfall - bingo, this is definitely how the map is going to end, having already encountered brutal fights associated with tar, the foreshadowing that you get from coming into a familiar location where the fucking sky is tar would instill some sense of dread and I hope that hasn't been lost on people in the final product. @dac is right, this could have had a lot more to it, I definitely wanted there to be more of this part in particular - I imagined MAP21 would look pretty insane in this deadened style, and perhaps some other maps would feature too, but again it was just a matter of time, sadly.

The last fight is certainly brutal enough, I've heard some say it's a bit too much, to which I would say "good," but I'm kinda annoyed that it's easily cheesable. I was told about this and I thought I fixed it but I guess I altered the wrong megasphere secret... I did toy with the idea of backtracking, actually I was going to add a segment of MAP02 in its expected place where you could find a teleporter to go back, but never got around to it. In RC1, Dragonfly's exit was just a step into the golden void at the end of the MAP01 section, but I fleshed it out a bit to make it join directly to MAP30, and also made it into a death exit as common complaints about MAP30 were basically solved by forcing pistol-start. I basically just ripped off Going Down MAP26 for this bit.

 

So yeah, Elysium is very very different to what I imagined it to be, but Josh did an absolutely fantastic job at finishing it up - I do agree that it could have been more fleshed out in places, because ultimately that was always the plan, but that's all on me for not handing it across sooner, and not being efficient enough with my time whenever I did get a chance to fire up GZDB. I was actually also supposed to write a MIDI especially for this map, but again time was a bitch to me. Can't complain about any of it though, it's about time Jimmy's Godhood Suite appeared in its entirety in a Doom map, and I've seen a lot of people call this one of their favourite maps in Eviternity. Considering what the rest of the WAD has to offer, that means so much to me, sure Dragonfly is the one that turned it into something playable, but it doesn't feel like it stopped being my map, and to have such high praise when I don't consider myself a mapper, that's awesome, and "officially," this was my final Doom map, so while I still open GZDB occasionally to do some stuff, if this is the last map I release, I'm ok with that.

 

Spoiler

 

[Budoka]

MAP26: Transcendance by Xaser
----------------------------------------

 

This level is amazing. Well, you all saw the breathtaking vistas, I don't think I need to expand too much on that. As others have alluded to already, this is a beginner-friendly slaughtermap. But not in the same sense as the Rambo-slaughters which Skillsaw offers in Vanguard for example. No, this one is more subtle and alludes to the tricky nature of more modern slaughtermaps that are on the hard side of things.

 

Much like "Viscera" and some earlier maps, this one is all about choosing which challenges to tackle first (you can go for just about anything going from the start with the exception of a couple fights), so as to then use the leftover spoils in order to tackle the rest. You can also mix-and-match them somewhat thanks to how open-ended everything is. This is encouraged by how scattered the Berserk packs and Rocket Launchers are around the map, meanwhile the BFG is quite close to your starting point. It's also very interesting how your only tools are the Berserk, the Rocket Launcher, the BFG and enemy infighting, forcing player who usually rely on a tried-and-true, conservative playstile to get creative and experiment in order to make it through the level.

 

Also, having to break three giant chains in order to sink the giant temple that's blocking the way to the exit is a very cool concept, but I wish there was an easier to actually see it happen in real time, not just because as things stand it can be hard to notice how the puzzle actually works, but also because one misses the sheer spectacle.

 

Honestly, this one might well trump 29 as my favourite level in the entire set, although I'm going to reserve my judgement on that for the time being.

[Catpho]

MAP27: "Heliopolis" by Dragonfly

Filling the music slot with "Imaginarium" is a brave move, considering that the track is practically synonymous with the unbridled creativity and joy of Kassman's unforgettable offering for Ancient Aliens. Dragonfly rose up to the challenge, however, and what is delivered captures the same spirit quite well. In a different take, the first destination on the divine lands trip is not the usual "heavenly bling" aesthetic established in the introduction. Rather, it's combination of surreal, alien yet oddly calming pseudo 3D architecture (the weird suspended edifices are a highlight), lush, pleasant greenery and nature and the occasional Roman inspired houses decorating the landscape. It's all stunning, evocative and elating, an excellent construction from angel architects for sure. Would be nice to see someone picking up this theme and expanding it further, because the limited appearance, exactly one map before returning to a more familiar heaven look, doesn't give the setting enough appreciation and the surrounding maps kinda turn it into a black sheep, as mentioned by the club.

 

The gameplay also somewhat downplays the visual splendor. It's not one of Dragonfly's most engaging fight set-ups, at least in my taste. Ton of big hordes are unleaded through every weapon acquired, but the less generous and tighter supply control doesn't allow for the most daring gunplay. Maybe I'm just spoiled after Xaser :P

 

Some screenies:

[VanaheimRanger]

 

[DJVCardMaster]

I'm back!, and this is so sad, I think I won't be finishing this one because of my time constaints with studies, but I'll try to do the most I can in these two last days of the month. Let's see how much I can keep up!

MAP20 "Convolute" - Joshua O'Sullivan (105%K /66% I /80% S):

This is a lovely map, but personally, I think MAP19 was more of an episode finisher than this. However, this map I truly liked, it's another semi-linear key hunt on an abandoned tech base. The part I really liked was at the end when the base gets infested by creeps, a really hard last bit.
I loved the redish things contrasting on the dark areas of the map at some places, I felt like being on the red side of any modern CTF maps for some reason.

Also, that Cacodemon/Chaingunner trap at the BK spot was nasty, I've spent quite a while mowing down creeps in there.

MAP21 "Imperishable" - Joshua O'Sullivan (77%K /85% I /0% S):

I pay now the price of not being up to date with Eviternity, and I get sent to hell.
Lovely slaughtery map with sweet hellish aesthetics, and this leaves me with a question: how the fuck did Dragonfly make those chains on the big stronghold? There is a section in it with some plasma gun action.
This was the perfect map to rush through, and I'll need to do some serious rushing to keep up 'till the end of the megawad

Death counter: 349
 

Spoiler

MAP15 (Perfect)
MAP32
MAP18 (Great)
MAP21
MAP13

MAP20
MAP06
MAP04
MAP14
MAP07 
MAP10
MAP31
MAP03

MAP16
MAP01
MAP02
MAP19 (Ok)

MAP08
MAP17
MAP09
MAP05
MAP11
MAP12 (Bad)

 

I'm still sad since I'm really far behind, and the last 10 are probably the best acording to most reviews, so I hope I won't miss any of them on those two days. More levels later!

[FrancisT218]

You can always catch up into the next month if you want. :)

[Magnusblitz]

MAP24: Gossamer

99% kills, 2/8 secrets

 

After a map each I'd put in the 'gore' and 'alien' category comes one that's back to hell theme I'd say, though more of the old-school hellish brick-and-wood castle variety, with some vines and plenty of bodies/guts strung up as decoration. Truth be told, I was actually a little disappointed at the aesthetic because it felt so IWAD-y, and reading @Eris Falling's post apparently that's because this was a retextured map with some textures made specifically to echo the IWAD stuff. After so much of the WAD (and OTEX) doing such a good job creating unique-feeling textures it definitely feels a bit like an outlier. 

 

Despite the relatively beefy monster count the fights are actually pretty small-to-medium scale for the most part, just taking a nice stroll through the castle (which I'd say by Mechadon standards is actually on the smaller side). The use of the custom monsters feels a bit perfunctory or experimental perhaps, but that might be due to being a repurposed map. The real treat here is how seeing how everything moves around and unfolds to reveal the path ahead, though the last couple fights were pretty fun too. Tons of rocket ammo throughout so the map really lets you let loose.

 

(Also, FWIW, I got a weird bug on the invuln sphere at the end... picking it up made my vision completely pitch-black! I was playing on software true color mode in GLDoom, and that might be why, since switching it back to OpenGL accelerated mode fixed it. Though giving myself an invuln with IDBEHOLDV had no problems on either mode... very strange).

 

MAP25: Slave

100% kills, no map secrets

 

Capping off the hell episode is a bare-knuckled arena fight in a figurative phone booth ("MAP05's more punishing twin", indeed!), but first is a really great vista of an intimidating fortress, complete with invisible bridges and such that I shudder to think of how long it took to setup properly. Then the actual fight itself, with a metric ton of monsters dumped in your lap. No Arch-Viles as @dac noted which really does help, as you can pretty much loop around in circles making the only real threats the homing revenant missiles and eating a burst from the former captains (who I'd say have been placed in easy-to-fight locales for most of this WAD, usually as far-off snipers, but putting them on ground floor up close makes them very dangerous). A good closing map to the episode.

[dobu gabu maru]

6 hours ago, DJVCardMaster said:

I'm back!, and this is so sad, I think I won't be finishing this one because of my time constaints with studies, but I'll try to do the most I can in these two last days of the month. Let's see how much I can keep up!

You're totally allowed to post in the thread after the month finishes—I'd rather have authors see your write-ups than worry about any kind of artificial restraint.

[Pirx]

1 hour ago, dobu gabu maru said:

You're totally allowed to post in the thread after the month finishes—I'd rather have authors see your write-ups than worry about any kind of artificial restraint.

 

Heh, that's exactly what I'm going  to do, as I've been lost after map10 or so thanks to real life's superb graphics with shitty gameplay. Started watching DotW's Map15 fda 2 or 3 times and fell asleep every time, and that's certainly not to say he was  playing badly.  Now I hoped that the ESP 2 crew would get its wish so I could focus on finishing Eviternity  (while I do appreciate the occasional slaughter map, I prefer something like Eviternity). However  Avactor seems to be leading, so I guess I'll keep bumping both threads... 

[tmorrow]

chapter: Hallowed, map30: Eternity, by @Dragonfly
uvmax, 100% k/i/s obtained

Meet Archangelus, the final boss of Eviternity. Archangelus lies at rest in the center the arena (romero's head replacement). He becomes animated after you either fire a shot, move toward the center or wait about a minute for the outer walls to lower. He's a winged archvile, former captain and a double mancubus rolled into one with tremendous speed. This winged monstrosity has 2 phases, phase 1 where he is beefed up with 10,000 hit points where he can bitch slap our marine with his attacks and then phase 2 where he has 5,000 hit points and his speed is increased even further so he can more quickly rofl stomp our marine, laughing his ass off.

In phase 1, Archangelus likes to float above the mobs gathering in the middle so our marine can't target him and to repeatedly spam his archvile blast attack to keep our marine running for cover. Then to vary the routine, Archangelus swoops at our marine and alternates between firing off a devastating spread of mancubus fireballs and the former captains bullet projectiles while he darts from side to side to avoid most of our marines return fire. If our marine is unluckly, Archangelus will summon adds when his pain state is triggered to add to the 666 starting monsters. Fortunately his pain chance is very low, half that of an archvile with a probability of 5/256 (1.95%) in phase 1 and 4/256 (1.56%) in phase 2. Archangelus is extremely difficult to target with the missile weapons due to his speed alone and of course our poor marine has to try to target the boss at the same time as avoiding damage from the 666+ mobs trying to tear him limb from limb during the fight.

In phase 2, Archangelus becomes enraged and with demonic speed chases down our marine for the kill with his attacks going off in rapid succession. Picking up any remaining health becomes difficult and there's no time to take care of the adds unless they incidentally get in between your marine and Archangelus. You don't want to linger in phase 2.

If Archangelus adds new foes to the battlefield, it increases the difficulty of uvmax'ing the map in the same way that monster spawners do on icon of sin maps. The problem in prboom+ is that you can't distinguish between monsters that appeared initially and count toward the final monster tally and adds that spawn later and don't. In gzdoom the problem is that the counts are dynamically updated when any new enemies appear (pain elemental generated lost souls, archvile resurrections, Archangelus spawns). Whatever source port you use, to be safe you will want to take out all adds prior to the boss to ensure your uvmax. Of course your ammo is limited and can become a factor too.

Our marine attempted the map around 5 times using mostly the "panic approach" before obtaining his first exit with k/i/s = 98%/100%/100% and had him jumping for joy. I suggested to him that a change to a more scientific and systematic approach might yield a uvmax. "howzat" asks our marine, immediately suspicious and skeptical. "What if you just hide and run from Archangelus and concentrate on clearing all the mobs during phase 1 when he is easier to avoid and save enough bfg to totally wipe Archangelus in phase 2". Our marine thought about it for a bit, smiled and said "Yeah, why don't we just do that"! Another 5 tries to refine his newly developed strategy and our marine is heard yelling out "Take that you mofo" as he pumped repeated bfg blasts into phase 2 Archangelus, sending him back to the hell he came from. I was able to note our marines new strategy, I've detailed it below, hopefully it is helpful for anyone that is having trouble with this boss.

1. Avoid Archangelus in phase 1. Use the pillars for cover, they are lonely and need love. As difficult as it can be, try to keep track of the boss at all times and be prepared to dart behind the nearest pillar whenever he lines up an archvile blast.
2. Learn the cell locations. There are 23 bfg shots or 920 cells available (7 energy cell packs, 6 energy cells, plasma rifle, bfg, backpack). Use at most 8-10 bfg shots in phase 1 to thin the crowd in the outer part of the arena then switch to rockets and collect the remaining cells so you have 13-15 bfg shots left.
3. Use rockets to methodical clear all the adds, staying on the move and kiting Archangelus all the while until you are alone with the boss.
4. Kill phase 1 Archangelus. You can use any remaining rockets or super shotgun or even a few bfg shots but keep around 10+ bfg shots remaining for phase 2 Archangelus.
5. Kill phase 2 Archangelus. It's time to bfg blast the boss to oblivion. Get to near some pillars that aren't that far away from a soulsphere or even better, a megasphere. Don't unleash bfg until Archangelus is fairly close so he takes the full effect of the secondary bfg tracer cone but where you can quickly strafe behind a nearby pillar for protection. Now bfg blast that mofo out of here (marines words).

My summaries follow in a separate post.

Edited March 31, 2019 by tmorrow
fixed some grammar

[tmorrow]

Summary of Map Difficulty

The way the Eviternity maps went down for our marine was an initial pass resulting in 29 uvmax'es, with map32, map19 only played with saves and only a first exit for map30. In my excitement I'd gone at the wad fairly hard and the first pass was completed by the 11th. With the rest of the month in hand I decided attempt uvmax'es for the remaining 3 maps. Map30 went down fairly easily after studying the map and boss a bit harder. Map19 took 2 attempts after some further strategising. Map32 was the last one and I gave it one attempt per day. It took me 4 attempts to uvmax with my limited skills, completing the wad on the 18th. With a final tally of uvmax'es on all 32 maps with 100% k/i/s our marine was ecstatic but exhausted. He's now licking his lips, thinking about a well earned, ice cold beer to celebrate!

I know that difficulty is subjective due to numerous factors. My take on Eviternity difficulty is based on uvmax, I can't speak for lower difficulties or game styles. I found that with the exception of 3 maps, the difficulty rises from map01-14 being easy and then plateau's at what I regard as medium difficulty and remains steady there or arguably slightly increasing after that. If you can manage the first 15 maps, you're likely to be able to get through the rest. You may have to analyse and practice certain sections of maps for a short period to be good to go. In summary Difficulty Chapter1 < Chapter2 << Chapter3 ~= Chapter4 = ~Chapter5 = ~Chapter6 (<< means "much less than" and ~= means "approximately equal to"). The 3 exceptions are difficulty spikes up to what I regard as the only 3 hard maps in the wad:

1. map32 due to extreme length and difficult final arena fight.
2. map19 due to extreme length, but no section overly tricky.
3. map30 due to Archangelus phase 2 boss difficulty, but the map is short so retries are not so onerous.

Summary of Favorites

 

Usually I do a top 3 favorites, but with an all star cast of mappers for Eviternity the bar is set high on quality and I've had to extend it to a lucky top 13. Even a top 13 leaves out many great maps, maybe I should have a top 32!

1. map29: Elysium, by @Eris Falling & @Dragonfly - wow! epic and gorgeous in all ways with an innovative means of travel. Launch pads = whee!
2. map32: Anagnorisis, by @ukiro - a masterpiece, amazing, picturesque and dangerous right throughout and so extremely long it wears this old man out (in a good way)!
3. map19: Dehydration, by @StormCatcher.77 - a map subject to controversy, i found it to be a wonderful techbase, beautiful to behold, carefully balanced to keep the pressure on right throughout.
4. map24: Gossamer, by @Mechadon - a satanic fortress in wood and stone but can your marine survive its horrors?
5. map15: Cryonology, by @AtroNx- a majestic palace in the ice with the most incredible clock arena you've ever seen!
6. map31: Imperator, by @skillsaw - a menacing fortress designed to kill, built over sulphurous toxic waste and rocks.
7. map21: Imperishable, by @Dragonfly - a desperate climb out of a ravine in angry red and evil gray with an intimidating sky.
8. map14: Frimaire, by @antares031 - caverns and buildings in the ice, with 2 intense arena slaughter encounters.
9. map20: Convolute, by @Dragonfly - a nonlinear fortress in stunning red and gray with some pain sectors and evil spawns everywhere.
10. map26: Transcendence, by @Xaser - a first glimpse of heaven with an evil pentagonal satanic structure that is removed in the most remarkable manner. Bfg, rocket and berserk all the way.
11. map13: Pathfinder, by @an_mutt & @Dragonfly - an estate in the snow with traps and ambushes everywhere, even the secrets aren't safe.
12. map10: Creation, by @Dragonfly & @Afterglow - automation ends in a huge warehouse with a slaughtery finish, enter the annihilators with rockets and chaingun.
13. map09: Decrepitude, by @Jimmy - a lethal labyrinth of slime falls, tunnels, caves and caverns etched into a rundown tech base, the ghostly astral cacodemon makes his debut.

Overall Summary

Some background. I was delighted with the RC1 release of Eviternity but I held off playing due to bugs and balance and having other commitments at the time. Anticipating a quick follow up RC2 release, I was chomping at the bit for 2+ months (Dec 2018-Feb 2019). RC2 never arrived but instead a final Eviternity release was delivered on 11th Feb, 2019. I was convinced DWMC would vote Eviternity for March so I waited 2+ more weeks to join the club. Then at the last minute my plan almost came unstuck when some unanticipated work came up but I was able to free March in the end for an uninterrupted month of recreation devoted to Eviternity. As you can imagine I had high expectations!

Well, Eviternity exceeded those expectations. The sheer beauty of the layouts and textures are astounding on their own. But Eviternity adds much more. There's challenging gameplay, episodic evocative themes and an innovative set of new and changed enemies to breathe a fresh breath of life into doom. All the maps are memorable for me and those with a discerning eye will observe clever mapping techniques at play throughout. Eviternity has done its part in keeping doom alive in the 21st century, it's an outstanding work of art that is adored by many in the community and I expect will be recognized among the most popular and best wads of all time.

I'd like to see the Eviternity team patch some of the more glaring bugs and exploits, particularly the exploit to bypass 2 of the 3 keycards on map32 and the removal of some of the more blatant cheese strategies on map 17, 23, 24 and 29.

Like all works of art, Eviternity has its critics, particularly on specific maps, usually more over gameplay than aesthetics. In my case, Eviternity really hit the spot for me and the personal lens through which I saw Eviternity allowed me to appreciate all of its maps, despite its flaws. It is without hesitation that I award Eviternity my highest rating of 10/10.

What an excellent way to celebrate Doom's 25th birthday! Congratulations to all involved in Eviternity's creation. You deserve all the adulation you receive.

Edited March 31, 2019 by tmorrow
fixed some grammar

[ukiro]

39 minutes ago, tmorrow said:

I'd like to see the Eviternity team patch some of the more glaring bugs and exploits, particularly the exploit to bypass 2 of the 3 keycards on map32

 

For those that don't know, only yellow key is needed; You then press that side of the triangular structure and can then press "through" the yellow key switch to the laser deactivation switch even though it's not yet revealed. This was not intentional, even though the behavior of the engine is well known and I should have caught this. That said, I have decided I am actually quite happy about this existing as a possible speed run strategy, since I was truly on the fence about making all three keys mandatory in such an enormous map. It's also quite unlikely that any casual player will stumble upon this solution, and for anyone wanting to truly beat a level—max style, like yourself—the existence of this trick doesn't matter.

 

Thank you for all your writeups here, much appreciated!

 

[Budoka]

MAP27: Heliopolis
------------------------------

 

I for one like the "classical temples with ethereal floating cubes" look of this map. ...Look, I really don't know how else to describe it. I guess that's what the City of the Solar Titan looks like. I mean, why the heck not. The level itself plays a little strange. It's a bunch of non-linear discrete fights, but even moreso than with the last map, the interconnected nature of the layout can easily make them bleed into each other. They're discrete, but they're not really, and if the player moves around too quickly or carelessly then they can end up not catching a single break during the entire level. The fights are all pretty good, save perhaps that final Spiderdemon which doesn't seem to be much use. This is decidedly not the easiest enemy type to turn into a proper threat...

 

MAP28: Judgement
------------------------------

 

There isn't a whole lot to say about this one, it couldn't be any simpler. It's a bunch of slaughter waves with two Cyberdemon snipers spicing things up for the first half. You can actually catch a break from them by facing the entrance portal. Two low points: I don't like how that secret Supercharge becomes inaccessible after a certain point, and there's way too much ammo on continuous play. Oh, and visuals are amazing as usual. I certainly appreciate how unusual this aesthetic is for Doom.

 

These two maps are strangely short and straightforward for being this late into the megawad, but I guess that's not necessarily bad. It's better keep it simple than overstretch eevrything when one doesn't have the actual inspiration to go along with it.

Edited March 31, 2019 by Budoka

[Tristan]

MAP30: Eviternity - Dragonfly

5:37, 104% kills

 

This is my first time fighting the boss since his post-RC1 upgrade. Dunno how to feel about that second phase - felt a lot like every attempt I was just hoping for an opportunity to hit him point blank with the BFG. It helps a lot with ammo conservation to get the astral swarms infighting with the boss for the first phase, but even they can't help once he goes full tryhard. The new sprites and sounds are really awesome though, and I love the use of MBF's A_Mushroom for his explosive death sequence, that's a new one to me.

 

The map itself is pretty neat, transforming itself from the golden void of the heavens we walk into from not-MAP01 into a small, simple, circular arena that later reveals itself to be something much more grand, surrounded by many pillars engraved with the icon of the angel, implied to be the same one we're fighting, and the same one that's been referenced in the story texts that have cropped up throughout the WAD. Though this nice continuity is counteracted by my biggest gripe: I said it a million times during development and I will say it again now, that water should be tar! Damn it, everything in MAP29 built up to that and the MAP01 edit existed before MAP30 was made, definitely feels like a missed opportunity when it comes to continuity to me.

 

Oh well, it's still an epic conclusion to an epic journey. Eviternity is a fantastic megawad and I'm really proud to have been a part of it, thanks to everyone who participated in the playthrough this month (and to everyone who's still going), it's been fun reading your writeups, and congratulations once again to Dragonfly and ukiro, creating something so polished and high quality in the form of a 32-map megawad in just 8 months is a very impressive feat, and OTEX is simply the greatest texture pack I've ever worked with, and even though I'm supposed to be done with mapping, it's OTEX that makes me want to keep going. There's so much more I could do with its versatility than just 1 specifically-themed map.

 

Archangelus, the traitor to the heavens, is vanquished and Doomguy continues on an eternal journey. But in my headcanon, the damage was already done, a trail of destruction left in the wake of the clashing of the underworlds. There's nothing left now.

 

--

Before I finish, there's one other thing I want to talk about: Despite joining the team as a musician I ended up only contributing a single music track, but there it is on the finale.

 

MUS30: Eviternity

So this was long planned to be an OGG track, foregoing the usual MIDI music to have something special for the final map. Way back in like May or June me and Josh were talking about this and he sent me tracks from Aion in particular for reference, the medieval/heaven theme of chapter six calling for a primarily orchestral feeling.

 

I started writing the track on 9 October, shortly after MAP30 itself was built, at the time it was using Jimmy's The Thaumaturge as a temp track, which influenced the fade-in introduction as well as the rest of the early structure. By coincidence, my MAP30 track and the MIDI on MAP29 both start in the exact same way, low strings fading in on a long C note, which is cool as heck, heh.

These kind of timed gameplay points that you see in MAP30 are a bit awkward when it comes to music because without ZDoom goodness we can't really have dynamic music changes to fit what's going on, so I tried to time the opening sections of this music roughly so that if you run forward as soon as possible when starting the map, you have the harp playing its little melody, and then the cellos do their staccato riff which crops up several times in the piece, and that should start approximately as the arena starts to build itself and the angel is revealed. There's a calmer break after this builds up which is roughly where the walls are lowering and then in the best case scenario, the piece explodes pretty much exactly as the hordes of monsters come into view.

 

To the best of my ability, I tried to do this as a almost-full orchestra piece, quite a few different instruments get their time in the spotlight - such as the oboe and clarinet doubling each other plus the former getting some of its own little melodies, the bassoon quite prominently plays the main riff during what I dubbed as the breakdown (I wanted something like a breakdown since Josh's mapping streams always have metal playing and it's fun to translate that to pure orchestra), the piccolo comes into prominence a few times near the end, and so on. Some instruments I didn't use because I didn't really have anywhere for them to go (sorry flute, sorry tuba), and I still need to work on my mixing a lot when it comes to orchestral pieces because I do think this could have been improved a lot, and melodically it's not my strongest work, but I'm...mostly happy with how it turned out.

 

Also there's a homage to Midnight Call - the MAP01 MIDI at 2:50. Literally no one notices it because 1) I inadvertently nuked the harp and piano during the louder sections when they're actually a big part of the homage, and 2) Fuck it, the chaotic sounds of the fighting drown out the music anyway x_x

 

I finished writing the track on 1 December, I think. It took such a long time because I had multiple uni assignments and my own remake project to work on alongside it as well as trying to get MAP29 into a shape where Josh could actually do something with it in time. Because of the large scale of the piece, the project became very demanding on my system - it would sometimes take 20 minutes after opening Reaper before I could even think about trying to do any work and even then sometimes it wouldn't play back properly. This was the piece that made me decide enough was enough and I invested in an external SSD and moved my samples over to that instead of having them being read from my internal HDD. The difference was ridiculous, although there's still the issue of CPU. There are actually a couple of rendering errors in the final track but they're very minor - the sort of thing probably only I'd notice. I also exported it at 48000hz, so if you're playing in PrBoom+ and using the default sample rate of 22100Hz, it sounds like shit (you can change this in the CFG file, 44100hz is good enough and probably what I should have used). I did actually send a new version before final release at 44.1khz and with the rendering issues fixed but it was forgotten to be included D:

 

Here's an editor shot (click for full size)

 

Edited March 31, 2019 by Eris Falling

[Budoka]

MAP29: Elysium feat. Eris Falling
---------------------------------------

 

 Sorry Xaser, but this wins. This map is breathtaking in every way possible. The sense of place that the structure itself gives is just humbling, and that incredible "flying" effect (HOW ?) adds a cool cosmetic touch, much like the Trail Of Health Potions(TM) and all the other contextual moments. The structure of the level needs no comment other than "it works well". I do wish there was an actual challenge for the Yellow Skull. A lack of time, no doubt?

 

 All the fights are good except perhaps the first one which is as harmless as is conveivable, my top 3 from best to worst being the Blue Skull fight(that's the one with the two posted cybers and the Hell Knight army, if you remember), the Astral Cacoswarm, and the final fight.

 

 By the way, having a death exit on MAP29 reminds me of Resurgence, but while in that WAD doing so was crucial to the gameplay balance of the final level, it doesn't do much for this one considering the player gets near fully-stacked as soon as the next level starts anyway, and obtains the BFG shortly afterwards. I also have to wonder about that A.L.T-style nod to the beginning of the maspet. I mean, the meaning of it was very clear in A.L.T(not spoiling it though), but not so much here. I guess it's supposed to be "symbolic" of something. But of what, really ? Oh well, if nothing else it adds to the sense of continuity, so that's something at least.

 

 In any case, amazing job. This map is always a joy to play through.

 

 MAP30: Eternity
 -------------------------------------

 

 This, Valiant's "Electric Nightmare", and Hell Ground's "Mystery of Hell"(do mind, that last one doesn't have a custom boss monster in the technical sense) are by far my favourite final maps of all time, including every PWAD I've ever finished. There are quite a few of those, mind you. And truth be told, of those three final boss fights, Archangelus is by far the most accomplished and interesting. Well, I don't seem to be able to get through the second phase without at least some save-scumming, but as tmorrow pointed out, that crazy movement pattern is just a beefed up version of the Astral Caco's, so it's not like it just comes out of nowhere. Not to mention, I've confirmed that some people can UV-Max this level on just one life. I'm just not one of them, or at least not yet.

 

 By the way, this is what I here when Archangelus's battle taunt plays: "Foolish mortal. Only your death... is... eternal." Is this right ? I'm asking, because whatever he says when using his flame attack is, on the other hand, completely unintelligible. It just sounds like gibberish, although I'm almost positive it isn't. Also, his death scene is pretty cool if you can catch it.

 

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  Eviternity is an all-around success. The OTEX texture pack succeeds, the custom ennemies succeed (yes, all of them), and the level design is for the most part top notch. I'd say this one deserves to be indicted into the famed Greatest 32-map Replacements Of All Time list. Truth be told, considering work like this or what Skillsaw does, I think some of them just don't belong anymore. I mean, how is one to put up MM1, Icarus, Requiem, either Hell Revealed, or even Kama Sutra against, well, this ? The gap in refinement is so wide that the comparison itself breaks.

 

  One thing however: while I'm very fond of the death exit based episodic format popularized by the Scythe series, as it helps avoid both the potential for monotony of something like BTSX and the completely non-sequitur theming of a Community Chest or a Nova, I prefer Valiant's approach to it, which implements episodes of slightly uneven length. It gives the entire thing a more organic feel, as opposed to gimmicky. This is pure nitpicking, just to be clear.

 

  Also, regarding the GzDoom effects: they're cool, but they're not worth the annoying changes that the Zdoom engine makes to the game. The title thing is a novelty that quickly wears off, and the exclusive visual effects are few and far between. I really don't think the Zdoom version is such a big deal here, unlike say, Skillsaw's megawads in which you lose all the MAPINFO text if you don't use it. It's just as well this way, since it means I can just replay Eviternity when I feel like it using my favored source port and pretty much get the full experience anyway.

Edited March 31, 2019 by Budoka

[Tristan]

21 minutes ago, Budoka said:

and obtains the BFG shortly afterwards.

This is the key thing - it was possible to rip through the boss in about 30 seconds with the BFG on continuous play and this led to complaints about MAP30 as people weren't even getting to see the full map. Granted the buffed second phase would make this a lot harder anyway but it's impossible for this to happen from a pistol start.

To address some of your points, the first fight is basically my fault since the design of that area doesn't really lend itself to combat since you can just walk out of the throne room. In the hypothetical Eris-only Elysium, there wasn't going to be a fight here, except for the epic reveal of the lone zombieman because that's the sort of silly thing I like to sprinkle into my maps every now and then. Similarly, there was never going to be a fight for the yellow key, the area speaks for itself with the foreshadowing of the tar spilling into the area and all the corpses, plus you go into the final fight straight after anyway. It's a bit like MAP15 where the combat completely fizzles out in the lead up to the clock fight, I wanted to lend more weight to the MAP01 segment - the emphasis of monsterless areas is a trope I'm particularly fond of and in this case Dragonfly preserved that.

[dac]

MAP 30 – Eternity

 

There it is, the grand finale. A last arena construct itself as the Archangelus is revealed, and waste no time trying to waste us. An entire demon army lies in wait, ready to be unleashed if the fight takes too long – for our angelic foe, that’s forty-five seconds or so. And if we are real trouble? A boost is but a transformation away.

 

It’s a good final boss fight, with just the right attacks and moves to be dangerous in every situation. The one lovely part? Ammo is kind of tight. Sure, you get a near complete arsenal and a full backpack of ammo, and a BFG once the horde appears, but there aren’t that many refills, there are a LOT of demons, and the Archangelus is very healthy. Play your hand wrong, and you might have to go fight with a super shotgun, which isn’t ideal, especially so in the second phase.

 

 

POST MORTEM

 

That was well deserving of the hype, all in all. Both Dragonfly’s maps in general, consistent all the way, and guest maps in general, which gave us some amazing glimpse of what they’d do with the OTEX set. The latter might have been more memorable, but that comes with the mappers making their one shot count. Don’t worry, I still have a a lot of Dragonfly maps among my favourites.

 

Meanwhile, that completes a first time writing for the megawad club, and it was a blast too! In all senses: reading what others have to say about the maps, from both creators and players alike; writing about my experiences, even if my general prose isn’t as eloquent as people I assume have been doing it for years (; and also playing this mapset in a different, more attentive way, trying to find interesting moments in each map to write about. At times I was afraid of being a bit too direct with criticisms, but I guess I was fine. Can’t wait to get ready for the next session!

 

 

FAVOURITES MAPS

 

Map 03 – Drain (by Dragonfly)

Looking back, this is one map I loved more than my initial writeup would let you think. It embodies the best of Dragonfly’s non-linear works, in giving freedom while pointing you toward an ideal route, with a few distractions along the way.

 

Map 10 – Creation (by Dragonfly and Afterglow)

The invisibility sphere section is the best part of the map, but really, this is a beautiful non-linear arena, and a good closer for the tech chapter.

 

Map 14 – Frimaire (by antares031)

I’ll have to revisit map 15 one of those days to complete it normally, but meanwhile, antares’ Frimaire is my favourite of the winter set.

 

Map 31 – Imperator (by skillsaw)

Just saying “Skillsaw Map” would be improper, so I’ll mention once more how well designed the map is around the rocket launcher. Barely any frustrations, which is massive.

 

Map 17 – Segregate (by Dragonfly)

Okay, I liked this map SPECIFICALLY because I played it a certain way on a certain difficulty. No matter, I had a ton of fun in that specific fashion, and that’s what matter most, right?

 

Map 21 – Imperishable (by Dragonfly)

Relentless from the get go, terrain transformations, a strong introduction to what is the best chapter of the megawad, that’s the name of this map.

 

Map 24 – Gossamer (by Mechadon)

Once I find time to play a wad outside of the club, Counterattack will be the first. That’s how impressed I was by Mechadon’s map.

 

Map 29 – Elysium (by Eris Falling and Dragonfly)

Once I got past my expectation mismatch, I fell in love with this map’s experiments and Boom tricks. To reiterate, a map that could have gone for way longer without overstaying its welcome, if only Eris and Dragonfly had more time.

[Tristan]

13 minutes ago, Smight said:

This is top notch but will never be on the same  level of Skillsaw's pwads

 

So?

Edited March 31, 2019 by Eris Falling

[Krull]

.

Edited September 2, 2023 by Krull

[Scotty]

2 hours ago, Smight said:

will never be on the same  level of Skillsaw's pwads

 

What a scummy and rude thing to say. It's not a competition. 

Edited March 31, 2019 by Scotty

[leodoom85]

Quote

This is top notch but will never be on the same  level of Skillsaw's pwads

And this is the random, unnecessary and useless quote of the month. Thanks for watching.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP26: Transcendence

100% kills, 5/7 secrets

 

Really been looking forward to this last episode and it's 'angelic' theme, and this first offering certainly doesn't disappoint. As others have said, gorgeous map indeed, it's almost a shame it's filled with so much hellspawn because I think it'd be a fun one just to run around with -nomonsters. It seems slaughtery at first but it's not really that bad, as rockets and cells are doled out aplenty and the monsters in each area generally have trouble following due to the staircases and such (aside from the cacodemons). Health felt a wee bit too light, though that might have been due to me blowing myself up with the rocket launcher too much, especially since the software renderer was definitely lagging at points, should've switched to hardware. But I was able to pretty much just run around without a plan as I kept wanting to see more of the map, and was able to return and clear stuff out without too much trouble. I always love non-traditional progression goals (here, finding the blast switches to blow up the chains and sink the demonic tower) and I really love the multiple sky usage. Great map.

[Nirvana]

6 hours ago, Smight said:

This is top notch but will never be on the same  level of Skillsaw's pwads

 

This comment is top notch but will never be on the same level of Joe Ilya's comments.

[ukiro]

16 hours ago, Budoka said:

"Foolish mortal. Only your death... is... eternal." Is this right ? I'm asking, because whatever he says when using his flame attack is, on the other hand, completely unintelligible. It just sounds like gibberish, although I'm almost positive it isn't.

 

That is indeed what the opening phrase says, and the vile attack sound is not gibberish—but once you hear it it'll be hard to unhear, so choose wisely whether to reveal this:

 

Spoiler

YOU SHALL BURN!

 

I tried a LOT of phrases when recording these, including several inside jokes for the team. I wanted it to be somewhat meaningful and not just a random sound, but it also needs to sound cool enough even if you can't make out the words. Not sure this is a home run, but it's the least bad of all the attempts. I had at one point of Eviternity's development called @Dragonfly a "shart gargler" in some tongue-in-cheek battle of insults, and we very nearly had Archangelus' attack sound be this backwards: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0c5s800c6mn8vwv/DSBOSPN_Grw_003A.wav?dl=0

[Magnusblitz]

MAP27: Heliopolis

100% kills, 2/3 secrets

 

Yeah I know it's the new month but I still wanna finish this out. Absolutely adore the setting here, very nice garden and ancient Greco-Roman temple style here. Took me awhile to clue into the progression, at first I was hitting the switches for the items, then hitting switches and feeling the fights weren't worth the rewards (such as lowering a second SSG and unleashing multiple mancs and revenants) but then I finally spied the back of the temple and the invisible torch staircase. So a very nice interwoven non-linear arena that lets you pretty much unlock the fights at your own pace. Took me awhile to find that last switch (it was the one in the NW with just a medkit on it) and the SMM is a bit anti-climatic as MAP22's was, but still enjoyed this a lot. Could've maybe used some more rockets though.

Edited April 2, 2019 by Magnusblitz

[tmorrow]

1 hour ago, Magnusblitz said:

Yeah I know it's the new month but I still wanna finish this out.

 

I urge everyone who has been unable to finish their Eviternity reviews for whatever reason to take their time and post when they can. There is still plenty of interest to read those reviews, watch those demos and enjoy the notable screenshots.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP28: Judgement

100% kills, 1/1 secret

 

Quick and dirty one here, a couple small close arena fights followed by a couple of bigger ones. Plenty of monster variety means plenty of infighting, and I was careful not only to ignore the cyber turrets at the start (which pleasantly lowered to ground level to really become useful in the red key fight) but also left them un-taunted to use in the final fight. Amazingly one actually survived until the end, when all I had left was the cyber and a few astrals (who are very difficult to make infight as they hover out of the line of fire for the ground-borne monsters and rarely fire at range, instead preferring to wait until they're right on top of your head). Not much to say about this one, it's a good palette cleanser before the end and looks nice enough. Also leaves me nicely full stocked for the last true map. Found the secret by complete accident backing into the corner. :)

 

MAP29: Elysium

100% kills, 3/3 secrets

 

Hmm, I'm actually a little down on this one. I suppose the main issue is that it never quite congealed for me, always feeling like a bunch of individual sections slapped together. Perhaps it felt a bit emphasized a bit by the jump pad transitions (which felt a bit hokey, though I did really like the descent into the underground section and the bit at the very end) but one thing I've definitely enjoyed about Dragonfly's mapping is that for the most part the levels feel like cohesive wholes, often being able to take a single path around a level, whereas this felt very piecemeal. It probably also doesn't help that the difficulty of the fights is all over the place, where you'll go from fighting cyberdemons and revenant swarms to fighting a handful of imps. I was happy to finally see the astral caco swarm, though, I gotta say I've been waiting for that one for awhile. The last section (where the first level gets Go2It-ized) felt especially out of place, @dac might be onto something where maybe revisiting multiple previous levels would've made more sense.

 

Reading @Eris Falling's comments, I think the 'hell corrupting heaven' idea did sorta go past me, or at least didn't make as much of an impact as it should... I did like the big mural switch in the western section, and noticed the tar, but ... eh, I dunno, just didn't quite click for me. I like low-monster maps so I wonder if I would've liked the original concept more. As it is, it's still great looking (that huge archangel mural is amazing) and has some good fights, but overall feels like it could've been so much more (which Eris seems to somewhat feel as well, and I can certainly empathize with being a slow mapper!)

 

MAP30: Eternity

 

I always thought a heaven theme ending with the player taking on some sort of warped archangel would be cool, so, pretty psyched to see this. It's a pretty good custom boss, despite having a couple of my pet peeves. One, never liked unending stream of monsters, though they actually are pretty easy to ignore once you clear out the main horde (all the hell knights got stuck in the middle and I just kept making loops around the outside). Two, I tend to dislike quick-moving flying enemies, because it can be really hard to hit them with rockets/plasma, but they're too beefy to try using the hitscan weapons on. I did end up using the chaingun quite a bit actually, though I also ended up switching to rockets and shells when I figured out he would sit in place and channel the manc fireballs (I had run out of cells by this point). Having two phases is a good idea, lets you know that you're actually making progress.

 

Welp, that's it for me (except for going back to play the secret maps eventually, I guess).

[frooben]

On 2/28/2019 at 4:18 AM, NuMetalManiak said:

fuck MAP19.

 

Also heads up, make sure you actually pick up the red key in MAP04, made that stupid mistake of going right next to the key and dropping down when I played and realized that I was not able to rereach the key there since the shelves went down.

 

+1 fuck this map

 

Yes it's VERY beautiful and very long, StormCatcher.77 did a great job on the architecture and the map is just absolute eye candy with it's laser fields and pressure plates, maybe one of the best looking maps of the entire megawad! For that reason alone I'd play though it again.

 

BUT! The flow is terrible, I found myself getting stuck two times, both times was when I didn't realize I could open a supposed door with a texture which looked like a wall. Also I ran out of ammo around the sewer part on HMP! Not UV... I was seriously struggling on HMP with ammo and had to melee enemies before I even reached the chainsaw. I had exactly enough shotgun shells to finish the Annihilator and that was it. This map needs to be tweaked.

 

The encounter here http://prntscr.com/n7jj8g was absolutely UV+ hard as fk, had to reload a few times to get both macubus spawn near me, kill them quick and then snipe the revenants before the hell knights and cacos could get me. All of this inside the small water area with the switch so I wouldn't aggro the Annihilators out by the river part. That is not cool at all... and I also tried running out to the annihilators in the beginning which is just suicide. It was way too hard for a level 19 encounter... I'd rather play through The Eye again on UV lmao.

[Dragonfly]

All of the above is fair criticism and a lot of it I agree with, though I'd perhaps suggest you use this encounter as a place to learn to do some more fancy footwork and bait the enemies into shooting each other - the encounter posted a screenshot of is actually relatively easy to cause mass infighting. Doing so kills off many of the tough enemies in the area, plus it saves you so much ammo in the process. ;)

[dac]

MAP 15 – Cryonology (Revisited)

 

It’s a combination of situations: me not being satisfied with my initial writeup, wanting to see all the parts of the map I missed, and everybody else raving about this map in particular. Also having a bit of downtime with this April’s Avactor run. So, back to Cryonology I go!

 

For starters, I’ll agree with Demon of the Well about the music being not that great. Pseudo-Christmas, featuring-on-Geocities-personal-webzone kind of mess, a rare miss from stewboy. Of course, it does not fit this map’s style very well either; in fact it actively harms the mood, and that is a complete shame because this map is so good otherwise.

 

With one caveat: getting the initial super shotgun secret makes for a way smoother opening. That, or the hidden BFG and rocket launcher. One of them, as AtroNx ramps up to mid-tier bestiary really fast.

 

Detail is the name of the game here, sometimes to the map’s detriment. As mentioned in my initial Cryonology write, the clock arena is a lot of small parts working together to achieve one hell of a setpiece. In the chaos though, not much was noticed by me, even when knowing it’s there. The entire Stonehenge finale is only seen from afar if you go for the secret exit and inversely, you cannot get an amazing view of the castle itself without going for the normal exit. And even in this run, there are secrets I missed, including an optional fight I couldn’t find.

 

But does it really matter when the details I DO find enhances my opinion of this map? It flows well (at least with the super shotgun), the fights are excellent even if the climax is a bit early, and the architecture is grand. As with everyone, I’ll keep an eye on AtroNx in the future.