IronEagle Competition 23: Spectrum

[Pegleg]

Welcome to the next monthly installment of the IronEagle Competition, the ironman competition that welcomes everyone who wants to join. Additionally, streamers and non-streamers alike are welcome. Come on in, the water's fine!

 

This month, participants will be challenging themselves against Spectrum, a full Episode 3 replacement for Doom released by the inestimable Adam Windsor (aka @Capellan) in 2019. He set out to make a mapset that did not use the color brown (there are few instances of brown here and there: dead trees, shotgun, rockets, pixels here and there, etc.), instead showing off the full spectrum of colors present in Doom.

 

Spectrum begins at E3M1. Survival is completion of E3M8. There is a secret level, accessible from E3M6 (as normal). This wad uses complevel 2 3 or Doom (strict).

 

 

The winners for this month (further details are in the post below):

 

UV: @golbeeze (runner-up: @Pseudonaut)

HMP: @Horus (runner-up: n/a)

HNTR: Pegleg (runner-up: @kalaeth)

 

 

If you want to use complevel 3 you can; it shouldn't make too much of a difference. The DeHacked file is included in the wad if your port supports that, and it is separate if your port does not support included DEH files and you have to run the file separately.

 

EDIT: Per the author's statement on the matter, Spectrum should be run with complevel 2.

 

EDIT 2: Per the author's response, the intended complevel setting for Spectrum is complevel 3. If you have already played with complevel 2, that's allowed.

 

Spoiler

 

• Template for Chocolate/Crispy:
  • -iwad doom.wad -merge spectrum.wad -deh spectrum.deh -skill <x> -warp 3 1 -record <IEspectrum>

 

• Template for PRBoom+:
  • -iwad doom.wad -file spectrum.wad -complevel 3 -skill <x> -warp 3 1 -record <IEspectrum>
    • or complevel 2 is acceptable

 

• Template for ZDoom:
  • -iwad doo2.wad -file spectrum.wad +compatmode 2 -skill <x> +map e3m1 -record <IEspectrum>
    • it is possible you may have to use +set skill <x> for GZDoom

 

For the command lines, x = 2 for HNTR, x = 3 for HMP, and x = 4 for UV. Also IEfracture would be replaced by whatever the name of your demo is.

Obviously, remove the angled brackets.

 

 

The rules are basically the same as they have been. Either demos or streams are permissible. If you are creating a demo, post the demo. If you are streaming, post a video of the stream. Even if streaming, you can still submit a demo, if you want to.

  

Rules:

The basic rule is that you submit a demo/stream played at a particular difficulty level (HNTR, HMP, or UV) and you play without saving and reloading, ending your run when you die (or survive). Further, more specific, rules are below.
 

Spoiler

 

• Submissions (except for streams, as described below) must include a demo from one of the listed acceptable ports. The first actual attempt must be submitted, there are no do-overs (with very few possible exceptions, which I will address as they arise).
  • You may practice a mapset if you want, but these practice runs should not be submitted as your official entry, and your run would be Category 2, unless there are exceptional circumstances (such as described below).
• A run must be done in a singular sitting with no saves. (With room for breaks. This will be addressed below.)
• Streams and video runs are accepted provided you post a video of the stream/run or a link to the video.
  • If you post a video of the stream, you may post a demo if you want, but it is not mandatory. You may also post a demo if you, for some reason, do not want to post the video or a link.
• Secret levels are treated as extra credit. In other words
• Freelook is allowed. Jumping and crouching must be disabled.

 

 

Any port is accepted provided it will actually run the mapset. There is no preference. Of course, if you want to try a Boom map in Chocolate, your run may be over rather quickly.

 

Category System:

Category 1: Blind run.

This explains itself. You have no knowledge of the wad and have not played/seen it before.

Category 2: Non-blind.

If you have played the wad before and/or possess any foreknowledge, your run is non-blind. Basically, anything that is not Category 1 is Category 2. The exception to this is if, for example, you do something like die in the first or second room or two of Map 01 and then decide to play again for your run. Call that Category 1.

 

If you're unhappy with your blind run, feel free to record a new run, and submit that run instead. If you want to submit your first run, no matter how you perform, by all means, go ahead and do it. You just shouldn't feel that you HAVE to submit a run you're dissatisfied with, just to preserve a "Category 1" status. If you want to go back and submit a second run, you're welcome to do so, but, at this time, it won't be counted.

 

Difficulty System:

You may submit a demo/stream for only one of HNTR, HMP, or UV. Choose only one, because subsequent submittals will be rejected (i.e., if you submit a HMP demo, the HNTR demo you then submit will be rejected). We're not using the 1CC rule set here. And your first submission is what counts.

 

Only runs from the same difficulty will be pitted against each other. Each difficulty will be graded separately.

 

When you submit your run, please the include the following information:

• The category (1 or 2)
• The difficulty
• If you survived or what map you died on
• The time elapsed when you survived/died (even if it's only approximate)
• How many kills you had on the map where you died
• The port you used (if you included a demo)
• A link to the stream/video (if you did a stream)

 

You may include a commentary about the maps or details about them, if you want to. If you do include specific information about the map (e.g. "The demon trap in Map 08 is rough"), please put it in a spoiler, so that people that want a completely blind experience won't be tipped off. In you're just putting in a general comment (e.g., "Pro tip: don't get hit"), then no need for a spoiler.

 

 

Breaks:

Everyone gets tired. Sometimes people survive longer than they expected. Nature calls. Every now and then, there are family emergencies. Needing to take a break shouldn't necessarily end a promising run. While you should try to complete the run in a single setting, this isn't always possible. If you have to take a break, try to make it quick.

 

Attempting to max the maps is not necessary to win.

 

Ranking for this mapset will be determined by:

1. Survival +1 (found secret level)
2. Survival (did not find secret level)
3. Map of death (in descending order: E3M8, E3M7, E3M9, E3M6, E3M5, E3M4, E3M3, E3M2, E3M1)
4. Total time for survival/death
5. Kill count at death

 

All mods used during play must be merely cosmetic.

If you die, please wait a few seconds before quitting.

 

Happy Dooming!

 

 

 

Previous IronEagle Competitions

 

2018

 

Spoiler

 

Scientist 2 (Winners -- UV: leodoom85   HMP: n/a   HNTR: Liberation)

Vanguard (Winners -- UV: Bdubzzz   HMP: n/a   HNTR: Liberation)

Crumpets (Winners -- UV: NoisyVelvet   HMP: n/a   HNTR: Pegleg)

 

 

2019

 

Spoiler

 

Dark Covenant (Winners -- UV: kmc   HMP: n/a   HNTR: Pegleg)

Brood of Hatred (Winners -- UV: Bdubzzz   HMP: Crusader No Regret   HNTR: Pegleg)

Riot Control (Winners -- UV: Bdubzzz   HMP: Walter Confetti   HNTR: Pegleg)

Scimitar (Winners -- UV: Bdubzzz   HMP: Crusader No Regret   HNTR: Pegleg)

Bauhaus (Winners -- UV: vdgg   HMP: Crusader No Regret   HNTR: Pegleg)

Bloody Steel (Winners -- UV: Bdubzzz   HMP: n/a   HNTR: Pegleg)

The Brotherhood of Ruin (Winners -- UV: leodoom85   HMP: n/a   HNTR: Pegleg)

Flashback to Hell (Winners -- UV: kmc/Bdubzzz   HMP: n/a   HNTR: Pegleg)

A Taste for Blood (Winners -- UV: Bdubzzz   HMP: n/a   HNTR: Pegleg)

Back to Basics (Winners -- UV: Bdubzzz   HMP: Horus   HNTR: Pegleg)

Whitemare (Winners -- UV: Bdubzzz & NaZa   HMP: Crusader No Regret   HNTR: Pegleg)

 

 

2020

 

Spoiler

 

Thy Flesh Turned into a Draft-Excluder (Winners -- UV: Bdubzzz   HMP: n/a   HNTR: Pegleg)

Fava Beans (Winners -- UV: NaZa   HMP: n/a   HNTR: Pegleg)

Beyond Revival (Winners -- UV: Bdubzzz   HMP: n/a   HNTR: Pegleg)

Absolute Dishonor (Winners -- UV: Veinen   HMP: Crusader No Regret   HNTR: kalaeth)

Ever Shrine (Winners -- UV: Bdubzzz   HMP: Dieting Hippo   HNTR: Pegleg)

Operation: Biowar (Winners -- UV: Veinen   HMP: Austinado   HNTR: Pegleg)

The Attraction of All Things Uncertain (Winners -- UV: Bdubzzz   HMP: seed   HNTR: Pegleg)

Fracture (Winners -- UV: Bdubzzz   HMP: Horus   HNTR: Pegleg)

 

 

Edited October 3, 2020 by Pegleg
Correcting complevel setting and then correcting it again. Added winners and runners-up.

[Capellan]

Ooh!  Very excited to see this.

 

[Pegleg]

9 hours ago, Capellan said:

Ooh!  Very excited to see this.

 

 

Will you be joining us for the fun? It's always nice to see the authors take on their work.

[Capellan]

I'll try to. I start a new job on the 14th so this is a somewhat hectic month.

 

Also, it will be terrible :)

[Steve D]

2 hours ago, Capellan said:

I'll try to. I start a new job on the 14th so this is a somewhat hectic month.

 

Also, it will be terrible :)

 

Do it, Adam!!!!!! I did Abcess for the Ironman League. I made it all the way to the last map before I successfully died. Would love to see you cruising through Spectrum.

[Capellan]

"cruising" is not gonna happen, except maybe on map01 :)

[Pegleg]

3 hours ago, Steve D said:

 

Do it, Adam!!!!!! I did Abcess for the Ironman League. I made it all the way to the last map before I successfully died. Would love to see you cruising through Spectrum.

 

Steve! You should join in, too, for all the colorful vanilla fun!

[Steve D]

27 minutes ago, Pegleg said:

 

Steve! You should join in, too, for all the colorful vanilla fun!

 

I'll give it some thought. Even though I was a playtester for this mapset, there is absolutely no way I'll survive. Adam is really good at killing me. But I might make it through a couple maps, and get crushed with an amusing Quality Death. ;D

[Pseudonaut]

Category 1, PrBoom+, UV, dead on E3M3 with 112/177 enemies killed after about 24:20.

 

iespectrum-pseudonaut.zip

[Suitepee]

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/730387414

 

Starts at the 2:30:00 mark. Category 1 run, UV, died on E3M3 to a wall of shotgunners.

 

Turns out that removing all the imps means more room for hitscans. Thanks Capellan.

[FrancisT218]

Oh yeah. That E3M3 room. I'd better not say more to give others any knowledge. I've only played the first three levels to date and instantly expected to see some runs come to a close there.

[Capellan]

1 hour ago, Suitepee said:

shotgunners

 

Genuine contenders for the most dangerous monsters in OG Doom, those guys.

 

15 hours ago, Pseudonaut said:

Category 1, PrBoom+, UV, dead on E3M3 with 112/177 enemies killed after about 24:20.

 

 

I watched this a few minutes ago (will check out Suitepee's run shortly).  Comments in the spoiler block.  Don't open the spoiler if you intend a Category 1 run.

 

Spoiler

As soon as I saw this thread I thought to myself "Self, there's gonna be some blind runs end on map 3."  That is not a nice room, and unless you find all three secrets, you have to face it.  It's also probably my 2nd favourite thing about the WAD.  Map04's multiple progress options is #1.

 

Map01 in particular was interesting to watch - it felt like you humped almost every wall except the actual secrets :)  A couple of times you were looking right at a secret and I thought "OK, now Pseudo will notice ..." but nope. Mind you, I am awful at finding secrets myself, so I'm certainly not criticising here.  Was just amusing to watch!  Also interesting to see how differently various scenarios played out compared to how I normally engaged with them.

 

Seeing you struggle with secrets made me even more confident that the "wall of shotgunners" was going to end things, and so it was no surprise to see that happen.  You reacted as well as could reasonably be expected, overall.  I do try to hint that the RL might be a good idea by putting those rockets right in front of you.  If you backpedal sharply there's enough room to splatter quite a few of them without Good-At-Dooming yourself.  Better, of course, is to find the secrets and shoot them in the back!  It also didn't help that you missed picking up a 25% health in the nukage - if you'd got that you might have lasted long enough to grab more health in the shotgunner room and stayed alive.  (probably not, but maybe)

 

Thanks for playing!

 

[Capellan]

@Suitepee run comments - same disclaimer as before

 

Spoiler

Died at the same place as Pseudonaut, which is not really a surprise.  Going into that room with 37 health is not going to end well! :)

 

Much like Pseudo, you struggled with secrets (I know how that feels).  That cost you a lot of health - a supercharge on e3m2, the berserk on e3m3, for a start.  You also skipped quite a lot of health on e3 - there's a stimpack right near the central tower that you never grabbed, and a medkit in the nukage.

 

Watching you scrounge around on ultra-low health was great fun.

 

Thanks for playing

 

Edited September 4, 2020 by Capellan

[Horus]

HMP

prBoom+ cl2

Category 1

Died on E3M3 

Monsters killed: 134/159

Total time elapsed: Around 23 minutes

 

That makes me the third person to die on E3M3 heh :D

00ironeagle_horus.zip

[Capellan]

2 hours ago, Horus said:

prBoom+ cl2

 

Note that explicitly setting CL2 when playing back is necessary for this not to desync at start of e3m3.

 

Don't read if avoiding spoilers.

 

Spoiler

Congrats on being the first person to brute force the Wall of Shotgunners, albeit it on HMP :).  Nice demonstration of how the hint to have the RL ready can be utilised.  Of course it helped that you went in around 100/100 - good effort to recover after e3m2 roughed you up quite a bit.  Unfortunately you got hemmed in by the pinkies shortly thereafter (which of course is exactly what they are supposed to do), and e3m3 goes three-for-three on blind runners.

 

Thanks for playing

 

[SleepyVelvet]

Super dead: E3M1 noisy_spectrum.zip

Blind run.

UV

Prboom+ complevel 3

 

i've been playing other FPS's lately, and it's really trippy trying to go back to doom movement and mouse sensitivity, heh.

[Capellan]

Ouch!  Could definitely see you were having some issues while playing.

 

[golbeeze]

Dead: E3M3

Blind run

[Capellan]

17 hours ago, golbeeze said:

Dead: E3M3

 

Unfortunately your gamble at the end of E3M2 didn't pay off, which made E3M3 quite the up-hill struggle.  You did well to progress as much as you did on that map, I think.

 

Thanks for playing.

 

[Pegleg]

On 9/4/2020 at 12:33 AM, Capellan said:

Note that explicitly setting CL2 when playing back is necessary for this not to desync at start of e3m3.

 

To me, this implies that this mapset should be played on complevel 2. Assuming that is the author's intent, I'll amend the OP to require complevel 2.

 

Also, thank you for the review of each run. It's a nice touch. I'm glad that you seem to be enjoying the performances so far.

 

Hopefully, we'll get to see you provide an author's authoritative run (similar to what an_mutt did for his run of 2017 Collection for DWIL in August of last year). Commentary would only be necessary if you wanted to.

[Capellan]

22 minutes ago, Pegleg said:

 

To me, this implies that this mapset should be played on complevel 2.

 

Complevel 3 is the intended setting.  You need to use 2 with that specific demo or it will desync.

 

I have recorded a backup demo already (dying on e3m4) but will only post that if I don't find time to record and upload some YT vids w/commentary.

 

[Pegleg]

12 hours ago, Capellan said:

 

Complevel 3 is the intended setting.  You need to use 2 with that specific demo or it will desync.

 

I have recorded a backup demo already (dying on e3m4) but will only post that if I don't find time to record and upload some YT vids w/commentary.

 

 

OK. I'll be sure to edit the OP to correct my mistake. Thanks for the clarifications.

 

And I look forward to seeing those videos, so I hope you get a chance to make them.

[Capellan]

Uploaded a commentary on E3M1 to youtube.  Obviously if you watch it you won't be able to do a category 1 playthrough any more :)

 

 

[Capellan]

Uploaded a commentary on E3M2 as well.  Same disclaimers apply.

 

 

[Capellan]

E3M3 commentary.

 

[Pegleg]

Better late than never.

 

Dead on E3M4.

Difficulty: HNTR

Category: 2

Kills: 20/254

Time: 39:17

 

ie_pegleg_spectrum.zip

 

That was a nice touch, @Capellan, having the colors of the map names also correspond to the appropriate color (1st level = Red, 4th level = Green, etc.), in addition to the first letters spell out SPECTRUM. Admittedly, I didn't catch the second fact until I watched your video, and I only noticed the first fact because I was already clued in to you doing "nerdy" things with the map titles. Speaking of your videos, thank you for posting them.

 

Very good mapset. I enjoyed it.

[kalaeth]

(I had totally forgotten about the ironeagle until I saw the post today)

 

category 2,since I played the first level before to make it sure it worked, skill 2.

note that I played with freedoom (since I don't have the registered Doom1 iwad on this computer) 

 

dead on E3M2, 117 / 143 monsters, at 8m41seconds into the map. 

 

[will edit with demo soon, unlike last month where I ended up forgetting about it and playing over the demo -_-]

 

edit:

KAL_SPECTRUM.zip

 

command line:

gzdoom.exe -iwad freedoom1.wad -FILE spectrum.zip +compatmode 2 -skill 2 +map e3m1 -record KAL_SPECTRUM.lmp

 

Edited September 30, 2020 by kalaeth
adding demo

[Pegleg]

4 hours ago, kalaeth said:

note that I played with freedoom

 

That is completely acceptable. I've done that for TNT-based selections in DWIL because I don't have those iwads. They'll look different, but play the same.

 

I'm glad you were able to get it in just in time. It's nice to have company in the HNTR end of the pool.

[Pegleg]

Thank you to everyone who joined in the fun for this month, taking on the colorful world of Doom that made up Capellan's Spectrum! Hopefully, you'll be able to join us again next month when we return with a new challenge, and be sure to bring your friends.

 

Now, without further ado, here are the results for this month.

 

UV

1. golbeeze (E3M3)
2. Pseudonaut (E3M3)
3. Suitepee (E3M3)
4. NoisyVelvet (E3M1)

 

HMP

1. Horus (E3M3)

 

HNTR

1. Pegleg (E3M4)
2. kalaeth (E3M2)

[Capellan]

Heh.  If I had posted my LMP I would have actually won :)

 

I will do the remaining commentaries at some point.