[MBF21] Chain Reaction - A barrels-themed Doom II map

[Horus]

Chain Reaction is a barrels-themed single player WAD for Doom II (Map 01) that I created in the last few weeks, like many of us making use of the extra time at home this past month or so. The central theme of this map is barrels, combining them with other Doom features such as crushers, scrollers, platforming, and combat scenarios. The map is roughly of medium length, and makes use of vanilla Doom II textures only. The map is very challenging, hence you may prefer to start on HNTR or HMP, unless you prefer the extra challenge of UV.

 

All feedback, be it in the form of verbal feedback in this thread, a demo, or a video playthrough, is very much welcomed! :D

 

Map download: 

 

Summary:

- Source port requirements: DSDA-Doom, GZDoom (complevel 21)

- Settings: No jump, no crouch (freelook is down to player preference)

- Difficulties: HNTR, HMP and UV are all implemented. Lower difficulties have more health/armor, fewer monsters and more favourable barrel placement (e.g. there is a barrel crusher maze shown in the second screenshot for which timing is less tight on lower difficulties)

- MIDI: One of Jimmy's awesome collection of MIDIs, namely Everything Explodes (what can I say, the MIDI name ties perfectly to the map :P)

 

- Screenshots: In spoiler

Spoiler

 

 

CReaction.zip

Edited August 20, 2023 by Horus

[Horus]

I made some updates following Austinado's playthrough on his stream (new zip in OP):

- Texture fixes

- Made HNTR and HMP a little easier. UV unchanged :P

- And some other minor changes

[SleepyVelvet]

Loved it.  The world needs more goofy barrel maps.

Also, works in boom compatible ports fine. (edit: or maybe not.  saw Austinado play it for a few seconds. some triggers work differently in zdoom apparently, but the map is still completable in boom, interestingly enough)

Also, there are at least 4 softlocks, mainly with one-time teleporters and positioning of impassible decorations.

Also, here's an FDA: noisy_chain_reaction_v2.zip

Edited April 25, 2020 by NoisyVelvet

[Austinado]

 

[Horus]

2 hours ago, NoisyVelvet said:

Loved it.  The world needs more goofy barrel maps.

Also, works in boom compatible ports fine. (edit: or maybe not.  saw Austinado play it for a few seconds. some triggers work differently in zdoom apparently, but the map is still completable in boom, interestingly enough)

Also, there are at least 4 softlocks, mainly with one-time teleporters and positioning of impassible decorations.

Also, here's an FDA: noisy_chain_reaction_v2.zip

 

Thanks for your playthrough! I updated the OP with v3 fixing the softlocks and removing the middle crackle textures that shouldn't be there. I kept the teleporters as one-time because re-entering them would be a death trap with the pain sectors, but I moved the BK further back so the issue of teleporting without picking it shouldn't happen anymore.

 

Yes, the map is in the Boom format so is technically completable in prBoom+ (but without the intended experience except for in the last two areas), but I deliberately didn't have it amongst the list of source ports because in non-ZDoom ports, barrels gib when crushed rather than explode (a fact I did not know until this map), whereas it was the latter behaviour I was targeting in my map. Hence I did not look to fix the crushers themselves in Boom.

Edited April 26, 2020 by Horus

[mArt1And00m3r11339]

I have 2 play throughs of your map.

 

[Horus]

@mArt1And00m3r11339 Thanks a lot for the vids, they were very helpful! Great timing too as I was about to start the process of putting this on idgames soon. Especially interesting was watching the exploits that you had found. I have fixed these to a certain extent, plus a couple of things I noted from HAK3180's playthrough, in the updated version v4.

[Stabbey]

I haven't played this, but I did watch the playthrough and I noticed there's a part where you use barrels on the two cyberdemons which come out of the walls, and I have to say that just plain doesn't work. They don't take splash damage, so barrel explosions do nothing to soften them up. I did a test map with a barrel-crusher explosion, and the Cyberdemon didn't even notice the barrels exploding.

[Horus]

1 hour ago, Stabbey said:

I haven't played this, but I did watch the playthrough and I noticed there's a part where you use barrels on the two cyberdemons which come out of the walls, and I have to say that just plain doesn't work. They don't take splash damage, so barrel explosions do nothing to soften them up. I did a test map with a barrel-crusher explosion, and the Cyberdemon didn't even notice the barrels exploding.

 

I am aware (or to be more precise, I became aware after designing the encounter and elected not to change it)

[Caleb13]

Honestly, this should be named "Moving Floor Hell" and not "Chain Reaction." Because I died mostly in crushers and acid pits behind the blue door...

[Suitepee]

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/693594412

 

I play this at 1:22:57 into this livestream. Barrels of some fun, but sometimes awkward too.

[Horus]

A bump after three years as I finally got round to doing what I wanted to do for a while and convert this to complevel 21 so that it would run on dsda-doom (yay for generalized crushers!). Updated link is in the OP.

[Sarawut]

I couldn't get past the scene with the grinder from above.

It was great fun.

Thanks!

[Sarawut]

Just now, Sarawut said:

ฉันไม่สามารถผ่านฉากที่มีเครื่องบดจากด้านบนได้

มันสนุกมาก

ขอบคุณ!