The DWmegawad Club plays: Three is a Crowd

[Egg Boy]

Map06: Great map. Despite this WAD's simplistic visuals, the opening wows. Seeing that castle raise from the ground (which appears to be done by lowering the ground rather than actually raising the castle, neat effect) may turn out to be a defining moment for this WAD. Really iconic stuff. Beyond that, its a shorter, non-linear map, reminding me a bit of a miniature Citadel from Doom 2. I'd say the lamest moment is the ending, the fight with the cyberdemon is a bit of a bore since he'd rather fight the cacodemons than myself. Even if the cacodemons were not there, the area is so open, circle strafing is a breeze.

[golbeeze]

Maps 06 and 07

Map 06 was pretty cool. That opening emergence of the fortress was fantastic. The level was fun and fast paced. I think this is my favorite level of the wad so far.

Map 07 was ok, but mostly just a tough arena map. It was simple and I don't have a lot to say about it. I was hit two or three times where I had no idea what hit me. A chaingunner took way more out of me than was reasonable, too.

[Phobus]

MAP07: The Pinnacle

As is often the case in the older-school megaWADs, we've got a bit of an arena on MAP07. Shame, really. We were so set on breaking conventions, and then this! Anyway, it's not too bad. Doesn't drag on or have a slaughter section, which is nice. On the other hand, it's very heavily weighted towards a pistol start experience, which meant I, with my continuous loadout, could laugh my way through the initial symmetrical setup. On the downside, I had to pick up a soulsphere when it was only worth 20hp to me in order to continue. After allowing myself access to the blue skull key, I had some inconvenient shotgun guy damage from the ones that warped in below, and died once in a failed 2-shot BFG attempt on the Cyberdemon. After grabbing the blue skull key, I ended up rocketing myself on a surprise Arch-Vile. This didn't kill me, so I just carried on and got through the map.

 

The next map looks like a revisit of the first, so that's going to be a bit more interesting of a concept than this was.

[Omniarch]

MAP07: The Pinnacle - 100% kills 100% secrets

Frankly, I don't really have anything to say about this one, except maybe note the presence of a couple of potential softlocks.

 

Otherwise, @Phobus said it best:

11 minutes ago, Phobus said:

As is often the case in the older-school megaWADs, we've got a bit of an arena on MAP07. Shame, really. We were so set on breaking conventions, and then this! Anyway, it's not too bad. Doesn't drag on or have a slaughter section, which is nice.

 

Anyway, since the last couple of maps have been relatively short, I've taken the opportunity to play ahead to the end of Episode 1, and I have a lot to say about the next few maps.

[Scypek2]

MAP06: Emergence

All the obvious things have already been said about it, so I'll just note some stuff I haven't seen mentioned before:

1. Besides obtaining the BFG, going around the back of the castle also lets you access two side rooms, which have some supplies but primarily exist to let you eliminate some enemies prematurely. One gives you invisibility to deal with an army of zombies, and another lets you easily dispatch a bunch of revenants who'd otherwise sandwich you between themselves and the other monster closet upon pressing the northeastern switch.
2. I think the blue armor secret is the most interesting of the bunch: it requires pressing on a completely unremarkable wall, but you can glimpse it if you run over to the right side of the castle before it rises too high.
3. I made a few efforts to make the upper and lower floor of the castle consistent: there's a giant pile of skulls in the corner of the tower, and the megaarmor is on the other side of that pile. The teleport between floors and the big pipe you jump into are also in consistent locations. The only deviation from that is the southeastern switch room, containing a few illogical windows... but it's hell, so I have an excuse for anything!
4. The southeastern switch room is also kind of a reprise of the entrance hallway... with an arachnotron in the front and shotgunners behind columns, except this time, the shotgunners stay in place to ambush you.
5. For a long time, there was an exit in that dark room with the Icon of Sin. But the next level is floating up high in the red void again, so it felt inconsistent to have the exit down there in a giant cave after plummeting down a long pipe. So instead I just had you collect a key (that forces you to look at the Icon of Sin) and get back up on the rooftop. Now, 3IAC tends to use the traditional abstract exit switches... but there's still elements of logical progression.

MAP07: The Pinnacle

Yes indeedy, it sure does contain some arachnotron and mancubus fights. But I think it's visually interesting, at least! I'm really proud of that tunnel made of silver bars, and I'm surprised I even managed to pull it off in vanilla.

 

As you may guess, it was heavily inspired by a similar feature of Doom 64's MAP31, except Doom 64's engine is much better suited for this kind of thing. Vanilla Doom can't even have sectors with sky on both ceiling and floor! But somehow, I made it work. On a related note, conventional wisdom dictates that teleport closets should be far enough from the map to be inaudible, but in this case, I think it makes for some great foreshadowing to hear the Cyberdemon's footsteps as you approach the switch.

 

Another bit of the map I like is the two side rooms, where stepping on an item-filled balcony lowers a nearby cliff with monsters, which lets them chase you instead of sniping and even teleport on the other side of the map to get you more effectively.

 

And is it just me, or is there something off about that exit teleporter?

Edited June 29, 2021 by Scypek2

[ElPadrecitoCholo]

MAP07 (The Pinnacle):

 

Status:

*Deaths: 0

*Saves: none

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A kind of very interesting Mansion, quite large and very curious, the textures throughout the place are not as varied as one would expect, although there are slight exceptions, such as the area below the mansion, with those large red cubes and with certain technological parts that can be seen, and in terms of structure, the one that stands out the most is the place where the blue switch is located, with a really unique structure throughout the map, in terms of architecture, the map is really good Everything around it is extremely cool and it does not get bored to be visiting it many times for the good architecture that was used here. Now with the difficulty, here the difficulty could be said to be really acceptable, there are few enemies on the entire map, but in turn the vast majority of these enemies are a bit resistant to gun fire, as an example of this we have the mancubus, the Revenants, the hell Knights, the Cacodemons, the Arachnatrons, and finally 1 Archvile, and the other portion is made up of the Hitscanners and the Imps, finally, as the head of this area, we have the great Cyberdemon, but unlike the encounters with this monster in previous maps, here it is really easy to kill it, just be on the second floor, and use any weapon at your disposal, in case you don't want to spend the BFG on that boss, simply use Chaingun ammo to kill him, or you can also use shotgun ammunition, since both weapons have a lot of ammo on this map, which is very appreciated, so, to finish, I will say that the map was very entertaining, never m I got bored in no combat, again I liked the visual aspect a lot, and it is good to know that in this kind of maps, at least there is some consideration with the player to prevent him from dying very quickly leaving a "Mega Sphere" made up of a Soul Sphere and a Mega Armor in different parts, very well done.

[Egg Boy]

Map07: Best thing about this map is the chandeliers. Its a bit of a bland Dead Simple clone, nothing special. Not terrible. The mansion setting is the only real thing that separates this from any other clone. Cyberdemon was a surprise, a bit more threatening than the last, but quickly dispatched by getting on his level and throwing a few BFG cells his way.

[tmorrow]

map08

A void map with transparent walls. It is difficult to remain oriented and keep track of where the enemy and attacks are coming from. I found it necessary to use the automap to keep track of my movement. This map really messes with you too. There are enemies behind transparent walls that can waste your ammo and confuse you. The crusher protecting the 2 soulspheres once killed me when I got disoriented. Various markers are used to assist like candles, heads on a stick, dead bodies, that help with the platforming required to collect the two keys.

Once you can enter the blue key area, you need to find 2 switches to start some offmap zombies teleporting onto invisible platforms. Their dead bodies and the bullets they leave behind help mark the platforming path you need to take to reach to blue key. Hopefully their random teleporting places a zombie on each platform so you have a completely connected platforming path to follow.

The yellow key pickup I found much easier. The main trick is to work out what sector is lowered when you press the switch in the toxic waste.

The next gimmick is the bloodfalls and darkness area. Damned imps taking pot shots at you while the bloodfalls block your view of what's behind them. I found an aggressive approach worked well, chasing the imp bullets to their source.

The exit is booby trapped with an archvile, revenants and some lost souls but there should be enough rockets littered around to take care of business.
 

[golbeeze]

Map 08 with its invisible walls nonsense was a "Nope!" from me. Not a good time

[ElPadrecitoCholo]

Map 08 (Under Control Still):

 

Status:

*Deaths: 0

*Saves: none

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A very, very uncomfortable map to play, the truth, when arriving at the beginning of what had happened from the first map, I thought that this was going to do a kind of "Remake" or a visit to another dimension but with the same bases That in the first map, the truth, I suppose that the second has touched, and I was a little disappointed when I saw what had to be done, the way the entire map should be played, everything really seemed horrible to me, from the textures or the structure / architecture at the best level, I don't even go into detail, you can literally only see the background with organs and yellow eyes that appears in the sky from the second map, the only thing that stands out here, it would only be the area with blood cascagas, and the final battle that has an interesting structure used in the distance, but hey, time to talk about the difficulty. Here is the fort of the entire map, not only because of the enemies presented on the screen, but also part of the fault lies with the map itself because of the walls that are invisible, but that you cannot see the enemies on the other side of these walls, with a few slight exceptions to some Lost Souls, but in general, you can't see any enemy like that, by the way, there's also a Crusher Trap that stores 2 Soul Spheres inside, but luckily, if you played one of the Previous maps, you will remember that almost at the end, there was also a trap like that, so you just have to look to the sides, or in front to determine when the Crusher will lower. Another thing to note is the strange use of the keys, as it turns out that the blue key unlocks the yellow switch, and the yellow one unlocks the blue one, and as if things couldn't get any more uncomfortable, when entering a very dark area and very narrow, with minimal noise, a good set of Imps will start attacking the Marine, and if you're not careful, they can drain your health / armor very quickly, by killing those bastards and by killing 2 Pinkys that are in a room on the other side of the darkened path, they will descend the walls until revealing a teleporter around the center, there are enemies that are behind these walls, but if you decide to take cover in that dark path or go further back, at least you will be with more security, something I forgot to mention is that this map has all the enemies of Doom 2, so, it is quite a job to have to guess the places where each demon is to kill them without taking the Marine by surprise a, and already ending, the final battle can be easily won if you bring the BFG, but if you are one of those who made "Pistol Start" on this map, I'm sorry to tell you that you will have to fight using rockets, which... is not very Recommended if you don't know how to defend yourself on a single pillar that avoids an Archvile attack while other enemies shoot you from a distance. In conclusion, this map is not remarkable or memorable at all, it really is very uncomfortable to play due to the high difficulty it has, I mean, I barely managed to survive the encounters due to the constant use of the Automap.

Edited November 8, 2020 by ElPadrecitoCholo

[Omniarch]

MAP08: Under Control Still - 100% kills 100% secrets

This map is pure, unhinged genius. It is also immensely frustrating. Why is it that these two qualities so often correlate?

 

Perhaps it has something to do with the meaning of the word 'genius', which implies lateral, non-conventional thinking, resulting in leaps of logic that befuddle the observer. To be ingenious is to break with convention in a bold, daring and deliberate fashion. However, convention exists for a reason, and in Doom mapping, in most games actually, it serves to maximize fun and minimize frustration. Thus, a deliberate break with mapping convention often involves discarding simple fun, and prioritizing something else entirely, usually some higher concept or experience.

 

That is what Under Control Still does.

 

The opening of the map is, in and of itself, profoundly odd. The concept of returning the player to a map (or section thereof) is hardly uncommon (my personal favourite example is E2M9 from No End In Sight, which involves a return to a fiendishly subverted version of the wad's E2M1), but starting the player at the end of said level and scattering high-end weapons on the floor around them is definitely unusual.

 

Spoiler

The room looks a little darker than before

 

When the player returns to the scribble room, they are confronted by two chaingunners instead of the friendly faces of their comrades. The outer wall then sinks into the ground, revealing an endless sea of hellish sky. This is where the map truly begins.

 

Spoiler

Uh oh

Nice reference

I still love this skybox

 

The first thing the player notices is the lack of a clear progression route. Figuring this section out essential teaches you the rules of the map: you cannot distinguish the floors, walls and roof from eachother. You will have to use a combination of the automap, roving monsters and decorations to orient yourself. This is a bold, unconventional design choice, which creates an extreme sense of alienation and confusion in the player. Needless to say, this mechanic is frustrating as all hell, though I personally found the novelty of the situation more than compensated for any irritations.

 

Spoiler

The cracks on the automap really help with navigation

As do the various decorations

 

Fundamentally, Under Control Still is composed of four parts; the opening area, the central path and its optional and non-optional offshoots, the two bloodfall structures and the final arena. The second of these is where the player will spend most of their time, and also where the map's genius truly shines.

 

This area essentially defines the map, containing the majority of its gimmicks, like the transparent wall through which you can see a horde of pinkies and specters, or the sky crusher room. It is also the only area to make use of the ruleset established in the first area.

 

Spoiler

 

The main objective is to find the blue and yellow keys, both of which you can easily see but not reach. Honestly, the progression in this area is probably its weakest aspect: I literally had to open the map in UDB to find out where the switch to lower the afore-mentioned transparent wall, so I could finally get to the blue key.

 

Speaking of the blue key, the puzzle that must be completed in order to acquire it is probably one of the most imaginative I have ever seen. Since only a few of the invisible stair poles are marked, it would be prohibitively annoying to figure out the correct route. There is, however, a switch hidden in the area which teleports a zombieman onto each of the poles. This induces an 'Ah ha!' moment in the player, so their first instinct is to mow the zombiemen down, marking the poles with their bodies. This is when the second part of the puzzle kicks in . As soon as one of the zombiemen dies, its teleport spot is opened, so as soon as another zombieman crosses one of the teleporting linedefs on its pole, it takes the place of its fallen comrade. This turns the puzzle into a timing challenge, giving the player smaller and smaller windows of opportunity as the number of zombiemen decreases and the rate of teleportation increases. You only have so many zombiemen to kill and mark the poles, so the stakes are high and the punishment for failure is more frustration.

 

Spoiler

 

That puzzle blows me away. It is simply genius. I could never even have imagined using vanilla Doom in such a fashion. Of course, once the poles are marked, the platforming part is fiddly and annoying, but that is more or less inevitable.

 

The rest of the progression in this area mostly just consists of switch-hunting, not really worthy of comment or examination. The bloodfall area is also not especially interesting, though it does remind me a bit of Doom 2 MAP24 "The Chasm".

 

Spoiler

 

The final arena, in which you fight a rather paltry band of revenants and lost souls lead by a lone archie, is visually quite interesting, though not really noteworthy beyond that.

 

Spoiler

 

Actually, the most notable parts of this map only comprise about half its area, though do take the majority of playtime. The striking opening and sky-wall areas are fascinating, with many interesting ideas and gimmicks, while the latter half feels odd but not really that intriguing. That's not to say the latter half is bad, mediocre or unoriginal. Its just that the bar was set extremely high early on, and it feels as though the map ran out of steam toward the end.

 

TL;DR

Very interesting and unique first half, with possibly the cleverest puzzle I've ever seen, but the second part is not as interesting and there is a high frustration value throughout. A very good map overall, despite its warts.

[Phobus]

MAP08: Under Control Still

First off, congratulations on subverting my expectations! Really good reveal (YOU WISH) and surprise. Unfortunately after this the main gimmick (that you simply can't see thanks to the void and, later, bloodfalls and darkness obscuring your vision) is immensely frustrating. I ended up using IDDT to get to the blue skull key, as I never found the second switch to trigger the wave of zombies mentioned above by @tmorrow. The automap helped, a bit, but not enough to redeem the map for me. As is often the risk with being very niche or creative, a more general player like me won't necessarily have fun or embrace your ideas. Still, 6 maps out of 8 have been good so far, so I'm in no danger of wanting to drop out yet!

[P41R47]

5 hours ago, Phobus said:

Still, 6 maps out of 8 have been good so far, so I'm in no danger of wanting to drop out yet!

Hope you not drop it, pal!

Spoiler

I think that the most obscure and confusing part ends with this map.

 

 

[Snikle]

Damn, still behind, and I have so much work the next few days I won't be caught up for a while.

 

MAP04 – The Mantle

God, I loved this map. Like a modern Mt. Erebus. It really had a charm to it that maps these days often don’t have. I love modern maps, mapping is an art form that’s been evolving for over 25 years and modern mapping is the greatest it has ever been, but all the biggest mapsets these days are missing out an a certain element of weirdness and experimentalism that defined the mapping scene of the ‘90s, and even the original games. 25 years of refining what people like in a map has left some things to the wayside, such as 20% damage floors, pairing rockets and lost souls, FIREBLU, etc, and this map has all of those, and you know what, it’s a damn fun map. On top of that there were a lot of optional areas, lots of goodies, and overall lots of fun. The otherworldly visuals are amazing in ways I don’t really understand. Like, I can look at most modern maps and say “I know why this looks good,” but this map just looks good to me in some sort of weird, raw way that I can’t put my finger on. I like this map for the same reasons I like Sandy Petersen maps, just this map does it all even better.

 

MAP05 – Murder Machine

Another really fun map. Less weird than some of the others so far, but still had that otherworldly feel to it. At first I was worried I was in for a symmetrical map, but ohh boy I was pleasantly mistaken (Although with how well the other maps so far have been fun despite “unpopular” design elements I trust that if there were to be a symmetrical map in this set anywhere I’d still enjoy the hell out of it). I wound up getting the red key first, although I probably would have been better off with the blue one, since that’s the path that gives the rocket launcher. I’m really glad that platforming section in the large room with the red door was optional. Not expecting a Spider there at the end, but I had fun with her anyway.

[Scypek2]

5 hours ago, Snikle said:

(Although with how well the other maps so far have been fun despite “unpopular” design elements I trust that if there were to be a symmetrical map in this set anywhere I’d still enjoy the hell out of it)

 

There's about four of those in the wad, one of which has already been reached by the club... so I guess we'll find out!

 

MAP08: Under Control Still

With a keen enough eye, you might have noticed the inverted cross exit on MAP07 not looking quite like the one you entered from... instead of a big and flashy wall of fireblu, it has a boring old teleport circle nestled inside. It's made out of bricks instead of a solid slab of fireblu. The journey through is a lot less explosive. And if the cave cross didn't take you to another cross in Hell, why should this one take you back to the cave?!

 

Well, anyway, you do end up in a familiar place (with a familiar name), and you get to pick up all the gear you dropped on MAP01, so that seems promising. But as you climb your way out, more and more things turn out wrong.

 

The overlord of Hell just played a trick on you, by putting you into a replica of your old workplace. In order to make it more akin to a replica (as opposed to, say, Hell corrupting the entire world around your actual workplace), I recreated the whole place from memory instead of copying and pasting. And so, while the layout remains mostly the same, the floor and table look different, one of the doors is wrong, and the geometry in general is not quite the same. Then, once the facade falls apart, you're stuck on an island in the middle of the void, with seemingly no way out - because you've been caught in a trap, and you're not meant to leave. But of course, you're better than that... perhaps your tormentor assumed you'd be too afraid of losing the last shreds of normalcy, and you won't dare to stray too far from the tiled floors of the facade?

 

Most of the story bits, I've thought of way ahead of time and implemented as soon as possible. But this one was totally spontaneous, and I'm so glad I came up with it. It enriches the story greatly, and gives a better reason for the rest of the level to be what it is. So far, you've been traversing the regions of hell you've been personally invited to by its host, but after staying alive for way too long and making eye contact, it was the beginning of the end. He saw you eyeing that vantage point on the other side of the window, and decided it was time to wrap it up. So he trapped you in the middle of nowhere... but you didn't give up, and strayed into places you were never meant to reach - and now, you don't even get the luxury of walls.

 

The entire idea of the invisible walls was heavily inspired by ArEyeP's Wolfendoom - the best take of the "Doom in Wolf3d" concept I've seen, even despite being a vanilla wolf3d mod with no code changes at all, and all the hitscan imps that entails. That's because instead of trying to cram as many Doom assets into Wolf as possible, ArEyeP took care to give the mod its own unique feel, distinct from either of the two games. One of such unique details were the void sections, demarcating the borders between Earth and Hell. It was fresh, interesting, atmospheric and frustrating - and I feel I've managed to capture that experience quite well.

 

If I was to change anything about this map... I'd make the blue key platforms considerably wider, at least 96 if not 128 units in diameter. There are many intentionally frustrating things about MAP08, but falling off a platform due to overshooting is not one of them. It honestly sucks, it's supposed to be a mental puzzle first and foremost. Besides that... well, if the switch that unlocks the blue key area is really THAT hard to find, maybe I could one of the automap cracks form an arrow towards it. But only after wandering around for a bit. I already changed it a bunch, ever since @joe-ilya played it! It used to have no automap at all (besides the bits that are visible anyway), there was much fewer decorative things placed around the corners guiding the way, and the torch hinting at the hidden switch was even harder to see, and red instead of blue.

 

The remainder of the map is a lot less bizarre, I suppose. The only standout things about it, besides the not so normal texture choice, are the imps hiding in the darkness before the berserk, and the yellow key switch being marked with blue skulls and vice versa. That's right, the key marking switchup is a very deliberate and meaningful choice on my part, and I most definitely didn't just find out about it after reading this thread.

 

 

[Egg Boy]

Map08: One of the oddest, and most creative maps I've played. This map plays with a stark lack of vision, the skybox filling most of the player's field of view, broken up, intermittently, with monsters and candles. This map has a foreboding atmosphere, but a playful vigor with how it uses the player's lack of sight against them, invisible pillars signified by candles, crushers that only the keen eyed will observe, are indicated by a bloodfall. Its disorienting, but kind of genius. I really liked this one, an oddity among oddities.

[tmorrow]

map09

This is the end of the first episode. You have to beat 4 rooms before you can unlock the way to the exit. Of course the rooms are weird and full of unexpected challenges. The rooms can be taken in any order. The first 3 rooms have switches that raise a platform in the 4th room by one notch each time.

It's worth taking the sequence of teleporters right away to pick up the bfg near the door to the 4th room. The only trick is to work out the best places to use it. There isn't a lot of cells, so you have to make your shots count.

The first room consists of a "Gotcha" fight in cramped quarters. It is easy to cause infighting, you just need to stay out of the way of the stray cybie rocket and the concentrated stream of SMM chaingun fire and get ready to pounce when one of the mighty foes bites the dust.

The second room is full of transparent partitions with several chaingunners, some revenants and cacodemons. On the far side are 4 archviles that you want to keep confined to their U shaped cubicle as much as possible and be ready to act according whenever one of them escapes the cubicle area. After working the room a few times, you will get used to what angles you can fire to hit the foe and what paths the enemy typically will take to reach you.

The third room is a setpiece you are locked into once you take the lift up. The gimmick here are the 6 scrolling partitions that block your view but lets the enemy missiles pass through. The room is initially populated by imps and the fireballs start coming through the partitions fairly quickly, letting you know what to expect. The next wave is several revenants. My approach was a single, well placed bfg blast followed by some circle strafe. The next wave consists of 2 archviles, each protecting a switch.

The 4th room is easy enough to clean out the first time but once you take the lift up and hit the switch above, the room get repopulated by 2 cybies and 2 archviles. My approach here is to wait up top until the 2 archviles have been taken out by splash damage and then dropping down to take out the 2 cybies, using the central obstacle to block cybie rockets.

The exit area is guarded by 4 archviles on raised platforms that are easily avoided by getting directly below them. This large round blood room and the set of stairs in the middle leading  up to the icon of sin is quite important to the story and you will see this area again in the later maps. The yellow key pickup is a death exit. Scypek2 wants to take away all doomguys weaponry once again.

[golbeeze]

Map 09

This was a fun level that I probably did backwards, but maybe didn't matter. I started at the top and worked my way down. Death exits always bother me because I like continuous play with all my precious things, but ah well.

[tmorrow]

2 hours ago, golbeeze said:

Death exits always bother me because I like continuous play with all my precious things, but ah well.

 

It can be done although it's probably not in the spirit of the story since the yellow key pickup further on is supposed to cage the player which is how things play out later on.

 

There is an alternate exit. You should have 10-30 spare rockets (there are 152 on the map but 35 are below in the blood and 2 are in a coop only area). You might have even more since you are playing continuous. You need to shoot 10-30 rockets to kill the icon of sin and end the map. The splash damage is minimal because it is placed around the corner to the right behind the flames and is only just barely in reach of rocket splash. Aiming centrally takes closer to 30 shots while aiming a bit to the right of center takes closer to 10 shots. You will want kill the 4 archviles that appear when you first climb the stairs so you aren't killed or knocked off the stairs (the lack of a yellow key and the green marble block prevent getting back up the stairs).

Edited November 9, 2020 by tmorrow

[Omniarch]

MAP09: Futile Ascent - 100% kills 100% secrets

I like this map. Its like Going Down but inverted (or not), or perhaps a vertically-stacked Sandy Petersen level.

 

The basic premise of Futile Ascent, an illusory 'tower' with a different challenge on each floor is one that appeals to me personally, since I always like to see how many variations a given mapper can spin off a single generic room. While this map has only four floors, each one is distinct and unique in its own right. But before I go over my thoughts on each encounter, I must first discuss the repeating 'inverted hub' of the map.

 

Creating the illusion of room-over-room architecture is tricky in vanilla, due to the lack of silent teleporters or any of the more advanced techniques found in GZDoom. So I was surprised by how natural the exterior staircase felt. Perhaps it has something to do with the general standard of weirdness found throughout the first episode, to point where seeing a teleport pad and a pile of skulls on every other corner of the staircase simply seems normal. In any case, I really like this 'hub' area, especially the large open space beyond the play area. I think I said in my writeup for MAP05 that I wanted more of this, so I am happy about that touch. I also like the fact that the BFG, which is extremely useful for the first room, is sitting at the top of the staircase. Nothing stops the player from grabbing it save a potential lack of imagination.

 

The fact that you can do each room in whatever order you choose is a nice bonus, but in both of my runs I tackled the tower in ascending order, like a boring person. As such, I will cover the rooms in that order.

 

Floor 1 is an interesting encounter, pitting the player against both boss monsters in quick succession, with a few cacos inbetween for good measure. What surprised me was how unsurprising lowering those bizarre pillars and finding a Spiderdemon on the far side was. Perhaps Scypek2's madness has finally gotten to me. Actually, I really like the way boss monsters have been handled so far in 3IAC. As a big Cybie fan, I really like it when boss monsters are used as semi-regular enemies. It is a difficult thing to pull off, but highly rewarding when done well.

 

I also appreciate the fact that BFG is so useful here in the first room, it feels like a good reward for bothering to explore the staircase in advance. I just wish trapping the Cyberdemon on its platform was less RNG-heavy, though sadly that is unavoidable. Another good thing about this room is that it can be solved in a number of ways. One for the things I tried was to get the Spider and the Cyber to infight, didn't work out that well since the former was too focused on killing cacos and getting stuck on the cyber-cube to do anything useful. If you could get them to go at it for real, you might be able to save a lot of rockets for later use.

 

Floor 2 sees the return of invisible walls. Hooray! Except this time they are merely transparent. Sad. It still makes for an interesting encounter, though. Like the last encounter, this one can play out in many different ways, and the BFG comes in quite handy here too. This room is also quite visually attractive, if simplistic. A fun little encounter.

 

Floor 3 is rather odd. The main gimmick of this room is the scrolling SP_FACE screens, consisting of impassable but double-sided linedefs, allowing the player and the opposition to shoot through them. This setup heavily favours the latter though, for obvious reasons. The encounter consists of three successive 'waves', the first consisting of Imps, the second of Revenants and the third of Archies. As I noted in my writeup for MAP04, I really like this approach to encounter design, allowing the player to begin the next phase at their leisure. Of these waves, the second is the most interesting, since fighting the boney bastards with limited visibility is quite challenging. This room is probably the most 'fun' out of the four, since it gives the player freedom of movement and fairly middling opposition.

 

Floor 4 is a bit of a doozie. Starting off, the player is faced with a bunch of arachotrons, pinkies and chaingunners, all of which need to be killed if you want to survive the next stages. This fight is a bit of a snooze since you are all but forced to whittle the opposition down through the doorway with whatever non-essential ammo you have left. It is only after you clean up the chaff that the encounter becomes interesting. Firstly, this room contains the map's only secret, a megasphere and backpack, which I'm fairly certain you have to archvile-jump to get (that was the only way I was able to acquire it on my runs). Normally, I don't like that sort of secret, but if it gives you a megasphere to repay the damage with interest, then I suppose its alright. I'm not sure if getting that secret is what wakes up the second Cyber, since I've grabbed it before climbing the central tower on all my runs.

 

The second stage of this encounter is the most interesting, pitting the player against two Cybers and two Archies. Thankfully, it is trivially easy to get both of the latter focused on one of the former, allowing you to fight the big bosses in peace. Cyber tag-teams are generally quite hard to get right, but I feel this one is executed well. I didn't find myself getting annoyed or overwhelmed, and the presence of the two archies kept things interesting, avoiding the feeling of useless grind that such fights often inspire.

 

The final area is the same (presumed) final boss room as seen in MAP06, except this time the player is free to explore it, after killing the final archie ambush that is. The player is tricked into thinking they need the yellow key to exit, and lured in a dastardly death exit, ending not just the level but the whole first episode.

 

 

So, that's first episode done! I must say, it was a fantastic experience. Truly exceptional. I already feel like I've experienced a full story, which I suppose was the author's intent. Anyway, since the last few maps have been relatively short, I have taken the liberty of playing ahead into the next episode, and I am must say this one is shaping up to be even better than the first!

 

TL;DR

Interesting level, with four distinct and memorable encounters, and high replay value. An appropriate highnote to end off a great episode.

[Phobus]

MAP09: Futile Ascent

Fake room-over-room, done Vanilla style. Kind of reminds me of an old JRPG, where going between the floors by stairs is functionally teleporting to a new level in the dungeon. My BFG usage was horrendous here, with some Cyberdemons managing to avoid seemingly the whole hitscan arc. No idea what was going on with that, but as I generally seemed to be doing a good impression of a shit player, I guess it could just be me struggling in tight spaces.

 

In any case, each floor was distinct and none were too bad, although I wasn't a fan of the SP_FACE1 things being impassable lines that could be shot through on the third floor, as that got me killed a couple of times. The final wave of AVs killed me a few times before I gave up on taking them out up there and opted to jump off and kill them cleanly. I got the secret going into the fourth floor, but the megasphere didn't survive the dual Cyberdemon encounter, which led to me not being able to tank many hits.

 

It's a good level and a nice end to the episode. I've been trapped with my hand in the skull key jar and that particular adventure is at an end. Let's see if my second NoPants2 guy can fare any better!

 

 

The first episode has been quite experimental and has generally remained enjoyable anyway, so that's been nice. The abstract visuals aren't my favourite, but it's a nice sky and the "Inferno" style architecture and texturing has worked well enough. I'm hoping for a decent change in the next episode to make for a more distinct adventure for the each character.

[kalaeth]

MAP 07 : A house! With mancs! And a floor that goes down where spiders wait. Kill spiders, press button, floor goes back up. And some new stairs! Corridors and oh look, a BFG. And revs. BFG+Rockets = splash. Next side : HKs and a backpack. Next room, the corridor in space! And the cyberdemon is here. Survived, but really low on health. Plenty of it still available, so not a big problem. Cacos get destroyed and it's done! 100% K/S/I, 7m53s

 

MAP 08 : oh, the plot twist! And now to find the invisible progression.. Ah, lost souls.And then it's "I'm lost! wait maybe? No, still lost". Invisible platforming? Not for me. I freely admit to cheating, I used fly to get the keys. I understand the desired progression but hell no. Now, inside the bloodfalls we find a fully dark room. This map has some awesome set pieces, including the slowly expanding room and this final void.. 15m11s, 100% K/S/I.

 

MAP09 : infinite stairway time! Cacos and a SMM on the first room. A blusphere and a blue armor as well. Oh, and a cow. First room : done. Second room has invisible walls! And an archvile. And done. Next floor! imps, HKs and revs. More buttons! More revnants! And the central switch is now reachable. Another floor done, next door. Spiders, revs, an arch, all dealt with swiftly and painlessly (at least for me). Up the stairs, press the switch, up the lift, press the switch, discharge BFG balls into the cow, go back outside for the secret, and now up the stairs and into the pit, all the way down to the IOS. We kill the archviles and go grab the yellow skull key for another shot at the IOS and... Plot twist! 12m12s, 100% K/S/I.

 

Totals : 3 deaths, 2h14m56s

[golbeeze]

8 hours ago, tmorrow said:

 

It can be done although it's probably not in the spirit of the story since the yellow key pickup further on is supposed to cage the player which is how things play out later on.

 

There is an alternate exit. You should have 10-30 spare rockets (there are 152 on the map but 35 are below in the blood and 2 are in a coop only area). You might have even more since you are playing continuous. You need to shoot 10-30 rockets to kill the icon of sin and end the map. The splash damage is minimal because it is placed around the corner to the right behind the flames and is only just barely in reach of rocket splash. Aiming centrally takes closer to 30 shots while aiming a bit to the right of center takes closer to 10 shots. You will want kill the 4 archviles that appear when you first climb the stairs so you aren't killed or knocked off the stairs (the lack of a yellow key and the green marble block prevent getting back up the stairs).

Whoa! I didn't expect that. After a few rockets and nothing happened, I figured it wasn't a real IoS. Too late for me now, though. 

[tmorrow]

map10

With our first hero succumbing to a cage trap at the end of the first episode, we now start the journey of our second hero.

Doomguy starts in the same place our first hero did but things have changed. The map has some extra rooms. It's worth while revisiting the original map01 section for couple of goodies before exploring the new rooms. Most of the areas are populated with tier 1 mobs but some of the traps can be nasty if unexpected, like the all sides attack when emerging from the elevator descent. The room below the yellow key is trapped with spectres and sergeants and can be tough with your limited weaponry.

[ElPadrecitoCholo]

Map 09 (Futile Ascent):

 

Status:

*Deaths: 1 (Killed by Cyberdemon in the first room)

*Saves: 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This map was really intriguing to me at the beginning, for not knowing exactly what I was going to face climbing the extensive bleachers that were in front of the Marine, but clearly there were many surprises waiting on each floor of the place, before going into detail, I will talk a bit about the structure of the site. To begin with, the place seems to be a kind of building that has 4 floors in total, plus a lower level, and a huge view towards the sky through the guts and eyes, but in each room there was a different type of structure, a different design which He made each one stand out a lot for what it offered, for example, the first room was a medium-sized space, which had several platforms that went down and up and formed a kind of wall with an elevator function, and it also had a huge red cube with a surprise inside; in the second room there were invisible walls; In the third room we have a small elevator that takes us to a very strange area with faces that were placed like curtains between 2 small pillars, and some steps that led to the generator in that area; and in the last room he takes us to a small combat place, with a tower in the middle and an elevator to one side, and as for the lower floor of that tower, well... everything is bathed in blood, and you can see the icon of sin in the center, and at this point I could not see anything else because I was trying to kill the Icon of Sin.

 

Now with the difficulty, because the truth is that the difficulty here is to be admired, since there are quite a few enemies here, almost all the enemies present from Doom II, with the exception of the Mancubus, the ghost Pinkys and the Pain Elemental, the Two bosses from the game are also here, so everything was a bit complicated from start to finish, but I was lucky to only have a single death on this map, which by the way, it is rare that the Icon of Sin has not attacked, I thought that It was a strange Bug or something like that, anyway that did not stop me from wanting to kill him, since he had many rockets for it, and well, in the end I ended up defeating him and then moving on to the next map, which apparently, The Marine victorious after killing a defective Icon of Sin, as a reward for such a feat, the next marine who was at the beginning of Map 01, he obtained the same benefits that his previous companion acquired, including his vitality and armor, so that See the hard work that the previous Marine cost him to defeat a good portion of evil and leave his legacy on the next chosen one who is ready to continue with the slaughter in the areas that the other could not explore.

Edited November 10, 2020 by ElPadrecitoCholo

[Egg Boy]

Map09: A few gimmick rooms tied together with a unique concept. I like the non-linearity, but it is a pretty simplistic map. I'd say the invisible walls in the second floor's gimmick were a bit of an inverse of the last map, you know exactly what you're going to encounter in the room and can plan accordingly. The other gimmicks aren't as interesting, unfortunately, but the way the concept ties it all together is good enough for me to have a fun time.

[ElPadrecitoCholo]

22 hours ago, golbeeze said:

Mapa 09

Este fue un nivel divertido que probablemente hice al revés, pero tal vez no importaba. Comencé desde arriba y fui bajando. Las salidas de la muerte siempre me molestan porque me gusta el juego continuo con todas mis cosas preciosas, pero ah bueno.

 

  Revelar contenidos ocultos

 

 

 

 

Wait... Is there another ending for Marine 1?... Damn, it's good that I didn't go for the yellow key, I didn't imagine that it would be a trap that kills you instantly.

 

20 hours ago, tmorrow said:

Se puede hacer, aunque probablemente no esté en el espíritu de la historia, ya que se supone que la captura de la tecla amarilla más adelante enjaula al jugador, que es como se desarrollan las cosas más adelante.

 

Which means that this map contains 2 endings in one, which could be considered the good ending, and the bad ending for Marine 1, who spent most of his long life killing demons in weird, cool, confusing and ugly places for later. having to come up with two destinations that await you on Map 09.

[Omniarch]

MAP10: Down in the Dark - 100% kills 100% secrets

A new episode has begun, the middle installment of this epic trilogy. What deranged genius awaits me?

 

Down in the Dark is, as one would expect, a short introductory map, establishing a new set of themes both in terms of texture choice and gimmicks. How long the new episode will stick with these I do not yet know, but look forward to finding out.

 

The map opens with a familiar scene viewed from a different angle. You and your mate sit playing scribble, non the wiser about the fate of your third comrade. Apparently they have been gone for too long, so you rise from your interminable game to investigate.

 

Spoiler

 

Revisiting previous maps, in part or otherwise, is something I really like to see in a wad. It gives a strong sense of continuity when done right, and the opening of this map is a good example of this. The first thing the player sees after leaving the iconic room is the collapsed floor left by their comrade's passage. However, as the player approaches, the ground rises to meet them, restoring normality. The player is then given the blue key, and allowed to immediately advance to the new content.

 

Spoiler

 

However, a curious player may wish to explore more, to see if anything has changed. A casual retread of your comrade's corpse strewn path will yield two rewards, first a shotgun and then a secret chainsaw, both of which will come in handy later. I really like this touch, and it confirms that exploration and observation will be rewarded.

 

Spoiler

 

The first new thing the player sees is the lift beyond the blue door. Now, up until this point, the map has been (appropriately) devoid of hostiles, since the sitiuation is 'Under Control' as far as this marine knows. However, as soon as the player descends into the darkness, things quickly go awry.

 

You are immediately surrounded by a group of imps and zombiemen, and given precious little space to maneuver. This fight can easily kill you if you had not the imagination to explore and find the shotgun and chainsaw, which together make this encounter relatively easy.

 

Spoiler

 

The other thing that is established by this encounter is the strategic use of low light-levels, which persists throughout this level and the next, though I don't know beyond that. It also acts as an introduction to the kind of grimy, industrial texture scheme that will be a recurring theme throughout the episode.

 

The next two encounters build on the first, using limited space and a combination of imps and hitscanners to keep the player on their toes.

 

Spoiler

 

The series of rooms after this are probably the most interesting in the map, dropping the light-levels to near-complete darkness, with a few slivers of bright, artificial light for contrast. Even though you will only face a few imps and a cacos in this space, the darkness makes each one of them feel more threatening. The map's second secret is also located here, and would be incredibly obvious in any other setting, but given the situation I actually missed it the first time I came through this area.

 

Spoiler

 

The encounter after this is not especially noteworthy, and I don't really know what the deal with these midtextures is:

 

Spoiler

 

Enjoyable enough though. After this the level is basically done, though it does bite you one last time with a surprise revenant, which I somehow forgot about in my second playthrough.

 

Overall, a good introductory map with a nice sense of deja vu at the beginning and the solid establishment of new themes in the latter half.

 

TL;DR

Good opener.

[kalaeth]

MAP10 : the first map of the second marine. We start again in the game room but this time there are no big weapon handouts, just a secret chainsaw, and so armed with only the peashooter we go down a lift into a imp infested mini maze, followed by pinkies and lost souls and even a caco in this underground base. We grab the yellow key from behind some bars, go grab the secret not so secret bluesphere and back to the yellow door that opens to shotgunners standing dangerously close to exploding barrels, which means, shotgun! A button teleports some imps and lowers an elevator, we find the exit door and a surprise motherfcker revenant pops up, making the hellish themed exit door turn into a techbase-ish door. We leave the map.

level : 9m21s, 0 deaths, 100% K/S/I.

total : 2h24m18s, 3 deaths.

[Phobus]

MAP10: Down in the Dark

Thanks to GZDoom and having lights.pk3 and an enhanced set of brightmaps loaded, the main gimmick near the end here was rather heavily defanged. On the plus side, this meant I had a straight forward bit of Knee-Deep in the Dead styled action (with a hint of The Shores of Hell), which I like and was happy to play. I found both secrets and still haven't worked out what that blinking light at the start is for on the console. Maybe I never will?

 

The pop-up Revenant at the end was unwelcome, but nothing I couldn't handle.