The DWmegawad Club plays: Three is a Crowd

[kalaeth]

MAP 18 : A corridor is ahead. Barrels and rockets and the exit door can be seen. A lonely imp dies, awakening a few more, shotgun in hand they present no problems. As soon as we reach the end of the corridor the exit door gets locked behind bars and a rev+caco pair wake down the corridor, opening a switch, that turns down the lights and lowers a bit of the floor, a new way to progress and more imps. Fall, kill, grab goodies, climb stairs, switch and I once again gaze down the corridor, the bars gone, but as soon as we walk towards the exit, it goes further away, once, twice, thrice and a fourth time finally! But now the door requires a yellow skull key, so back it is, into a newer path, an opening on the wall where a rev waits to unleash shoulder rockets into me, but my chaingun talked louder. Into the vents and onto a room with two exit doors, both closed by bars. Two paths lead to currently impassable bars, yellow and red, and on the second one, a switch that open yet another path, into a square room that has another square room inside that has a door, on the opposite end from the one entered from. Open door, kill pinkie, grab RL which opens wall, releases more pinkies, a imp and even a baron. On the other side of the square, a SSG, that releases a rev. Inside this inside square there's also a secret with health and shells. With that room cleared there are 2 options, and I picked the lift. Door opens to a few zombieman and two more doors : It's the top of a building and another secret. There are two paths to leaving : back through the doors or fall into the side of the building. I decide to back off and go see where the other door in the square room leads, finding myself in a grey cement labyrinth. Navigating it means getting rid of zombiemen, chaingunners, specters and even a caco. There's a room with two blue thingies that lead into the same platform to where one could have fallen from the top of the building and a small pinkie massacre. A few more minutes of navigation and I reach the yellow key and I'm now ready to backtrack and backtrack I do, to the river path with the yellow bars, and even further back in a quest to discover how to open the bars. The exit door once again disappears and reappears a bit further down the corridor, and when it ends, two revs are right on top of me and the door now requires the red key. Once more, a switch is pressed, so back to the river path where now no bars block my way. Hell knights and a spider and pinkies do. A manc was hiding a plasma gun from me but I was too clever and rockets revealed that which was hidden. A blood stained room, a switch that uncovers a switch that lowers a floor so I can reach another switch that lowers another floor, and the red key is mine. A BFG stands outside, waiting. It will wait more, since I'll have to return here with a blue key, so. Backtrack time it is. By now I already expect the door to go further away. What troubles me is that a trap is certain.. A cyberdemon, far, far away. And due to a disregard for care, my first death in ages. Second run went better, and now, back to where the red bars were. Scrolling walls with barrels, I can see the blue key and the automap from here. There is but one entry into the weird building : from behind (feel free to feel like a 12 year old while reading this line). Opening the door zombiemen and pinkies and lost souls swarm me, which proved to be a bad idea for them. Removing a manc from the way and grabbing the key releases barons! Now, to go back, as usual however this time there are more barons! Not a problem since I already have a BFG and a healthy amount of cells. Now, back to that secret BFG, not too hard to figure out with the automap. That blue door has a sweet message about sacrifice and a death exit. But before that, I've got to go and check the fake exit we saw at the start, then run back to sweet message after discovering a brick wall behind the exit door! The final secret, deviously hidden, takes me outside! And it's a huge secret by area and a really really cool room that I'm sorry to say sees no action. And done. 1 death ( damned be you cybercow! ), 100% K/S/I and 36 minutes 58 seconds.

 

Totals : 4 deaths, 5 hours 36 minutes and 50 seconds!

 

New episode tomorrow.

[Scypek2]

MAP16: Risk Factor

Include 37 chaingunners in a single level!  Precede their appearance with an image of the number 37... and include at least one other reference to the number 37 somewhere in the level.

 

And so I did. 37 is also a factor of 666, so I decided to go with the theme and have 111 enemies, 3 powerups and 2 secrets. The enemy roster consists of 37 chaingunners, 18 cacodemons, 9 imps, 6 mancubuses, 3 pain elementals and 1 archvile. All of those numbers being a factor of 666. Originally, it was just 37 chaingunners, 37 cacodemons, and 37 spectres - a pretty deadly mix of the meatier monsters holding you in place while you get perforated. The level also features 37 clips, 37 shells and 37 stimpacks.

 

Aside from the gameplay, I'm quite fond of this map's aesthetic. It uses a different texture palette from most of the episode, with the techbasey doors and screens mixed with PANELs, TANROCK and even some STUCCO.

 

(check out that ceiling light, with a side texture made from PANCASE shifted two pixels up. That's the kind of detailing I like to do!)

 

In vanilla, one of the chaingunners at the start somehow manages to see you through a solid wall right away (nodebuilder error?). It was a strange but not entirely unwelcome surprise, putting some pressure on the player right away.

 

MAP17: Deadlift

Create a level with a lift that you keep encountering, but that if you get on, you die. Bonus points if you actually have to ride the lift or one that looks just like it at the end of the level!

 

Just like your friend on MAP08, you find yourself in a seemingly unwinnable scenario. Besides the starting room, there's nothing here but the exit lift, and the exit lift plunges you towards certain death. There's nowhere to go.

 

It reminds me of Wolf3d's E3L8, which starts you off in a room completely devoid of doors. It's not exactly a challenge, since being clueless in such a confined area means there isn't a lot of wrong guesses you can make before finding the solution. But it sure does feel hostile and foreboding, and so do those two maps of 3IAC.

 

I iterated a lot on the lift trap design. The main trap used to be a lot more free-flowing, with a lot of archviles and other enemies out in the open. But I wanted to be sure that it's

 a) impossible to survive with a megasphere and IDKFA on skill 1, and

 b) not too difficult to survive with an invulnerability on skill 4, without a lot of supplies.

I moved the barrels around, I added more archviles (there were some in the main watery area, and also behind a couple of windows, and some inside the elevator too, and teleporting behind you...), I tried to somehow avoid letting the player cheese it all with a rocket launcher from up high. Finally, I had to compromise and give up on the idea of the player getting plunged into a deathtrap immediately after pressing the lift switch. Now you get stuck further on, in a less dramatic and more artificial setup. But still! Invulnerability sphere required for progression! I managed that.

 

In one of the iterations, the lift actually had two buttons, and pressing the other one would raise you up (to the red door with no corresponding key on the map) and crush you against the ceiling. But I figured it would've made things too confusing.

 

The deadly lift aside, this level might be the most mono-textured level in the megawad... well, maybe not the most, but in the top 3 at least. It works quite well, though I'm not a huge fan of the brown corridors before the yellow key. Somehow, austere texturing seems to fit better with the brick buildings of the blue key area and the rocky caverns of the hub.

[Phobus]

MAP18: Nowhere Fast

This episode ender goes all in with the visual trickery and making you go back and forth to represent a pointless struggle against what is inevitably your character dying.

 

Large areas of the map are pretty average tech base sections that don't do much special, but eventually wind up at a key. This key lets you trigger more of the main corridor gimmick before heading off to the next section. The map doesn't squander the main benefit of the setup, however, which is to let you go all in with the weapons, and also provides you plenty of them and a decent amount of opposition to use it on. The first Cyberdemon could be highly threatening, but in GZDoom his rockets don't make it past the impaled stuff decorating the corridor, whereas I was happy to sit back and shoot over them. The second Cyberdemon seemed to have a bit of a hard time seeing me under the overhanging ICKWALL, so he got a similar treatment, but did occasionally fire something I had to dodge. I found most of the encounters fairly safe, all told, and I think being heavily armed and having carried over a blue armour helped me out immensely on that front. I got five of the secrets, too, so was never in any danger of getting low as long as I was careful.

 

The ending is pretty well-executed and the transition to the next level works seamlessly... As long as you don't fuck up and press "use", loading your last save on death like I did. I then had a couple of needless deaths against the second Cyberdemon as I tried to 2-shot it with the BFG and ultimately quit properly. A nice enough map with downbeat music and a story arc to match.

 

 

This second episode is a bit stronger than the first, for me, working a little less hard on being "weird" and following a more traditional difficulty curve. I'm interested to see what the third episode is like, but a little wary that there's more levels that try a little too hard to be clever ahead. Let's see what NoPants2 #3 can achieve...

[tmorrow]

map19

Our third hero begins in the same starting location as the first 2 heroes but this time the blue doors are inaccessible. Instead, doomguy has to head through the southern door and take a lift down to a new area we haven't seen before. He just has time to collect a plasma rifle and open a door before all hell breaks loose.

This map is all about a mean arena fight with several waves of enemies, each with an archvile or two thrown in to cause total chaos. Once you head outside and use the first switch, the party begins. Imps are roaming outside of the barred perimeter, revenants perched on pillars are firing homing missiles, arcachnotrons are stomping around while demons, mancubi and archviles are emerging from the rooms holding the red and yellow keys. Meanwhile yellow bars block doomguys path back to safety.

Picking up the red key spawns in 2 more archviles out in the courtyard. Using the red key switch raises the bars blocking the yellow key but also brings in more enemies and 2 more archviles.

You can break the fight up into segments with clever movement after using each of the switches and collecting the keys or you can use the time honored yolo approach to the fight. Your best weapon is the plasma rifle and there is plenty of ammo for it as long as you don't let the archviles get out of hand.

There is an invulnerability secret to find. Since the yellow bars block you from reenetering the build for quite a while, it turns out that you can only use the invulnerability for either the first wave or the last, your choice. I elected to save it for the end when my health was at an all low.

[golbeeze]

I don't have a lot of positive commentary here, so I'll just let my videos stand alone.

[Egg Boy]

Map18: This map didn't really do it for me, it felt pretty generic with the only gimmick being the mario 64-style moving exit, which was neat, but doesn't save the rest of the map from being your average tech base. It doesn't play bad at all, but I felt I was just going through the motions, rather than experiencing an episode-ender. I think the best moment is the narrative hook at the end, it makes me wonder what the building raising means, who is talking to this 2nd protagonist? Overall, This episode wasn't quite as interesting or unique as the first. Stand out maps are Map32 and Map15.

 

Map19: An all out slug fest. Not reaching slaughter-status, but having a good number of enemies to test your plasma rifle on. It's a really basic episode-starter, but lets you know this episode is going to be a step up from the last.

[Gez]

Map 1, 10, and 19 all feature a trolly computer switch that makes something move - and you hear it - but it's a red herring. I figured it would eventually play a role, but nope!

[kalaeth]

MAP 19 : back to where it al began.. again. This time the other door opens and the floor doesn't fall, but since we have no blue key, it's through the other side, which leads us to an elevator that you can trick into lowering alone. I love that the room has tons of other doors that can't be reached, making this feel way bigger. Cells and a plasma gun just gifted to us, and now doors. Always go left! Not that it matters, two doors lead to the same courtyard and two other to the same room. Visiting the room first is a good idea since it gives us a blue armor and a shotgun. A couple imps and an arachnotron roam outside, but as soon as you press the switch behind the barrels, all hell breaks loose. My approach was  : get rid of the snipping revs, then move over to remove the archies, the roaming mancs and revs after, leaving cleaning up imps to the last before triggering anything else. With everything down, we move to the garage on the right and grab that red key just lying there. The one arch shows up and he's easily removed, so red key in hand we press the switch, releasing a pair of spiders, and then move to the other garage and grab the yellow key and.. We are done. Only found the secret thanks to the automap, weird unannounced secret, not common on this maps.

so, 100% K/S/I, 11 minutes 46 seconds.

 

Totals : 4 deaths, 5h48m37s

[Phobus]

MAP19: Crossfire

As pointed out by Gez, in this map, you've seen your two Scrabble buddies come to terrible fates and decided that, actually, you'd rather be elsewhere. He's also fallen afoul of the same thing as me - that computer panel with the blinking light at the start still doesn't seem to do anything useful. How vexing...

 

So you grab a plasma rifle and then have to make heavy use of it to actually leave. Thanks to tmorrow I was aware of the secret Invulnerability Sphere, so wall-humped a bit and found it (not too sure how you legitimately get to that), but it was a bit of an early deployment, as the soulsphere and mega armour kept me decidedly safe from the initial assault. After a while, Arch-Viles are the main feature, dropping in after each significant achievement and bringing back a few heavy hitters before being put down. It's a perfectly serviceable map that advances the plot and provides plenty of plasma spraying action.

 

This feels like as good a time as any to mention the plasma rifle firing sound. It's a low buzz, so nowhere near as loud or annoying as the base game sound, but not very punchy either. I'm more of a fan of the Doom 3 sound as a replacement, personally, but it addresses the main complaint I have with the original, at least! Along a similar line, I quite like that each episode starts with a Doom episode M2 MIDI before heading off in it's own musical direction.

[Snikle]

I'm still here!

 

MAP07 – The Pinnacle

Fucking hell I’m behind. This was one of the symmetrical levels I was told was coming, and like I thought, it was pretty fun regardless. There were the standard MAP07 triggers, but it was far from the entire map. The cybie was fun to play with, but other than that, I don’t have much to say. Plus I’m trying to catch up as fast as I can.

 

MAP08 – Under Control Still

What in the hell was this? I assume that’s what was going through doomguy’s mind here. His mind got screwed, and so did mine, I must say. This is probably what hell is, abstract nonsense where nothing makes sense (Real hell doesn’t have IDDT either). I didn’t dislike this map, but I didn’t have much fun in the weird sky areas either. The blood rooms were awesome, and the final area was pretty neat as well. The beginning of the map was pretty cool too.

 

MAP09 – The Futile Ascent

This was a fun one. Each little setpiece was creative, my favorite being the one with the invisible walls drawn in the floor. Door number 1 was a nail-biter, with a spidey and a cybie. I lucked out and eventually got the cybie stuck on top of the very platform that revealed him moments before, rendering him immobile. This was after he killed the spider all “Gotcha” style. The second door was my favorite, like I said, real imaginative and fun. Door 3 was the most conventional, but I still enjoyed it. Lots of worrying about my rockets in that confined space. The final door was quite a treat as well, especially when I finally got my sweet, sweet SSG. And also a vile jump to the megasphere. And also a rocket to the face the nullified most of the megasphere, but let’s not talk about that… Anyway, then there was the IOS room and a yellow key that killed me and ended the level. Does this mean the first of our 3 protagonists has failed? Judging by the start of the next map, it does.

[Scypek2]

MAP18: Nowhere Fast

 

"One of your next five maps must contain an unexpectedly long corridor."

 

The 6th map I made. "Long corridor" is simple enough, but how could I make sure the player will be surprised by the length? Ultimately, I came up with a pretty good solution, and it set the tone for the whole map.

 

MAP18 is the culmination of episode 2, in which the second protagonist wanders around looking for a way to save his loved one, after witnessing him fall into a sudden crevice that sealed itself back up as soon as it opened. The fruitlessness and uncertainty manifest in the exit door right at the end of the very first corridor you're in. The first time you approach it, it gets barred up - not terribly unexpected from an exit door that's sitting right there at the start, but that's only the beginning. When you take a trip back to the other side of the corridor to remove the bars, the lights go out, and mask a newly opened hole for you to fall into... you get out quickly, but then the door itself runs away from you. By the time it stops moving, it has gained a new lock.

 

And so you have to venture away... but once you obtain a key and return to the door, it retreats yet further, and changes its lock to another color. Then you look for the next key, find it, and it happens again. If this was ZDoom, I'd probably add 15 more key colors just for this level. But it's all the same - at the end of the day,

Spoiler

The actual goal turns up in a sidepath somewhere and the door turns out to have nothing at all behind it. You can even shoot the newfound brick wall to make it break and reveal nothing but a solid wall of dirt behind. (one of the few 3IAC details I haven't seen anyone mention in the thread before!)

 

The eerie megasphere secret is also meant to amplify the feeling of being lost and aimless. I'm really glad at least a few people found it and had their heads messed with. I tried to make that area really look like a place you're not meant to be in. No gameplay, no visuals, just plain utilitarian walls built with a single purpose that's not for you to understand. Eventually, you can find your way to a grand and imposing structure, which may lead you to believe that this weird detour is about to yield some satisfying results. Instead, you'll find that both of the lengthy staircases lead to doors that won't open. I think I might have captured the feeling of urban exploration quite well in that area - you may find some exciting sights along the way, but most of the time there will be no grand conclusion.

I tweaked that area a few times to maximize the intended feeling. I made sides of the staircases impassable so that you have to awkwardly walk back down from the unusable doors, instead of harmlessly leaping off great heights as if you're playing some kind of videogame. This might have been inspired by Aliens TC, which has a number of tall ledges marked impassable despite no midtexture or practical reason for it - I wonder if that had anything to do with an attempt at realism, too.

I think the megasphere was initially either in the big circular area, or in the middle of the tunnel leading up to it - but either way it would make the place feel like a payoff, and the megasphere like the purpose of its existence. And so I've placed the megasphere right at the beginning instead. I also considered making the circular area one of the places you momentarily teleport into on MAP32, but again, that would imply the place is somehow important to you. It's most certainly not.

 

One more thing I like about this level is the bridges. They're designed to give the impression of being thin walkways with plenty of empty space underneath, but instead of meddling with missing textures or self-referencing sectors, I just made it impossible to look at them from the side, ever. That's one way to go about it!

 

At last, you find the actual blue door, only to end up right where you began 8 levels ago. But then you get to bargain... and open a new portal to hell where your loved one is trapped. The new portal happens to be in the middle of a nearby town, forcing your other companion to embark on a whole another trek to reach it. This level concludes with the only non-instant death exit, required to let you watch the portal rise from the ground. Or, technically speaking, watch everything else around it lower.

 

MAP19: Crossfire

 

The 10th map I made. You take control of the third and final protagonist, leaving this wretched compound to follow the instructions of his loved one, whose heart is now beating on the pillar in front of you, and heading off to find the second portal in a nearby city.

 

This map was initially supposed to play out in a fairly mundane way, with the player fighting a number of normal-sized battles while going from one end of a courtyard to the other to get a card and unlock the entrance gate. The courtyard was also going to surround the recurring starting room from three sides, possibly having some windows outside. But since the first two appearances of the recurring room are on MAP01 and MAP10, that means they're using the first sky, which is the hellish sky in this mod. So that just wouldn't do.

 

And so I decided for the starting room to be located deep inside the facility, with a somewhat long and dramatic way out. Thus the technical gimmick of the level came about: the platform that lowers alongside a rail, made out of lower unpegged midtextures above thin untextured holes. The idea that the platform would normally move vertically in addition to moving horizontally along the rail, granting access to any of the side tunnels seen during descent.

 

Spoiler

It's fun to experience the first time, but less so for someone who's playing without saves and replaying the level. And that was actually the main motivation behind the secret, which in addition to granting an invincibility sphere is also faster than taking the lift. This secret is quite special in another way, too: it's hinted at, but not in this map. In the first three appearances of the starting room (MAP01, MAP10 and MAP18), one of the computer consoles is blinking, but trying to use it only produces a lift-lowering sound somewhere being the door that can't be opened. On MAP19, that door is finally openable, and the console will now let you access a secret passage where you've been hearing it all along... but on this level, the console does not blink, so a bit of long term memory is of essence! That, and... just trying a bit harder in general? I'm not sure what exactly made both @Gez and @Phobus fail this one, but it was certainly disappointing to see this little bit of continuity conclude so anticlimatically for them. You can hear the lift sound in the exact same area every time the console is available, but on MAP19, you can actually go there. Is the impossibility of finding the secret on the previous two occasions so lethal to a player's motivation to figure it out?

 

The great big fight initially had mancubi on the sidelines instead of imps, but their less predictable attacks combined with the vastly higher damage dealt was a little too sadistic... plus they were much more of a slog when trying to score 100% kills. Also, originally there used to be 8 or so archviles all released at once from the side doors. An interesting challenge for sure, and not quite impossible... but yeah, nope. Not the right kinda megawad for that.

 

By the way, the plasma gun sound (from Freedoom) is the only new sound in the megawad, and I added it after playtesting episode 3 for some time. That can give you an idea of what to expect.

 

 

 

It's really interesting how wildly different people's outlooks on different levels here can be. @Phobus considers Episode 2 to have a better balance of fun and weirdness than Episode 1, while @Omniarch finds himself mildly bored and yearning for more of the hellish uniqueness. I wonder what their impressions of Episode 3 will be!

 

For what it's worth, I think E2 is the least visually unique of the episodes. 3IAC boasts an impressive number of 14 custom textures, including 3 skies and 8 non-sky textures that get used more than once. E3 uses them the most prominently, while in E2 they're strictly situational. If nothing else, that should make E3 memorable enough!

Edited November 19, 2020 by Scypek2

[tmorrow]

1 hour ago, Scypek2 said:

The eerie megasphere secret is also meant to amplify the feeling of being lost and aimless. I'm really glad at least a few people found it and had their heads messed with. I tried to make that area really look like a place you're not meant to be in. No gameplay, no visuals, just plain utilitarian walls built with a single purpose that's not for you to understand. Eventually, you can find your way to a grand and imposing structure, which may lead you to believe that this weird detour is about to yield some satisfying results. Instead, you'll find that both of the lengthy staircases lead to doors that won't open.

 

Thanks for reminding me. I'd forgotten to mention this area in my write up. In my first failed attempt of the map I fully explored the area and spent a good 5 minutes finding nothing after 2 long climbs!

 

Regarding the invulnerability secret:

 

Spoiler

1 hour ago, Scypek2 said:

This secret is quite special in another way, too: it's hinted at, but not in this map.

 

Unsurprisingly, I totally missed this clue but being a "click everything" kind of guy in my game play, I found this alternate path within 30 seconds of starting the map anyway. There's also a clue if you only found the secret by wall humping near the plasma rifle. When you lower the walls, one side has a teleporter exit pad as a ceiling texture. I probably shouldn't have mentioned the long lift ride in my review as I now see it could be misleading but I didn't want to outright spoil your secret.

 

 

Edited November 19, 2020 by tmorrow
adding spoiler

[P41R47]

17 hours ago, Gez said:

Map 1, 10, and 19 all feature a trolly computer switch that makes something move - and you hear it - but it's a red herring. I figured it would eventually play a role, but nope!

Its not a red herring. There is a secret on the starting room of map19, it gives plenty of adventage for the upcoming arena.

Edited November 19, 2020 by P41R47

[tmorrow]

map20

An excellent rocky mountain map with some toxic waste and two main areas, one to the blue key and the other to the yellow, in that order. The traps can be quite nasty if you aren't prepared for them but all them can be managed once known, especially if you pick up the secrets. The invulnerability secret is the most important one and makes the archvile fights in the yellow key area much easier. One secret allows you to choose between taking the chaingun or a rocket launcher with ammo. I picked the rocket launcher. The other 2 secrets provide a megaarmor and soulsphere.

The main gimmick is in the yellow key area. There is a corridor with 8 moving partitions that you need to move through, impeding both your and the enemies movement. There is a pattern to the partitions and you can stand on any one of them to give you two partitions worth of space to work with during your fights. Once you go past the 8th partition, walls come down within each partition section, revealing even more enemies, so the fight can become quite chaotic. All this is a prelude to opening up access to the outer area which is where the nastiest encounter takes place with several enemies, including arachnotrons and 4 archviles.

After picking up the yellow key, beware the path to the exit is booby trapped with a nasty crusher. Fortunately you can use the crusher to your advantage to kill half of the enemies in the area before realeasing them.

There is one aspect of the map I didn't understand. There was an offmap demon that did not spawn onto the map from his narrow corridor closet S255. I'm not sure if this happens every time or not. I was reluctant to take the teleporter marked exit because of the missing enemy and spent quite a while hunting around for him. When I finally took the exit teleporter, I arrived at a tiny cubicle which started up a remote crusher to kill that demon. I'm not sure if the map always unfolds in manner and if so why it's been set up this way.

[Scypek2]

13 minutes ago, tmorrow said:

There is one aspect of the map I didn't understand. There was an offmap demon that did not spawn onto the map from his narrow corridor closet S255. I'm not sure if this happens every time or not. I was reluctant to take the teleporter marked exit because of the missing enemy and spent quite a while hunting around for him. When I finally took the exit teleporter, I arrived at a tiny cubicle which started up a remote crusher to kill that demon. I'm not sure if the map always unfolds in manner and if so why it's been set up this way.

 

Show him some respect, he's the guy who's been making all those partitions go up and down in a timely manner! It's all vanilla, so there's no voodoo doll conveyor belts to do that job.

[P41R47]

3 minutes ago, Scypek2 said:

 

Show him some respect, he's the guy who's been making all those partitions go up and down in a timely manner! It's all vanilla, so there's no voodoo doll conveyor belts to do that job.

The sheer and simple smart behind that and the map that made me feel sorry for a demon are only two of the best things you made among all this crowded brutal ride of raw creativity non stop.
 

[tmorrow]

16 minutes ago, Scypek2 said:

Show him some respect, he's the guy who's been making all those partitions go up and down in a timely manner!

 

If I'd have known I would have idclip'ed to exit so the poor little beggar didn't suffer a crushing defeat after all his hard work. On the other hand, being doomed to a never ending back and forth hamster wheel doesn't seem all that great either. The life of a demon can be tough!

[ElPadrecitoCholo]

Sorry for the long delay I made to post my progress but I was busy with some school matters, although I know that no one would be interested in this, I only comment on it to make some things clear.

.

.

.

 

MAP12 (Adjustable Diode):

 

Status:

*Deaths: 1 (killed by a Arachnatron)

*Saves: none

 

 

A really normal map, with quite a few rooms, all in a totally strange sense of normality, although hey, it's not really a big deal either, they are just small "surprise" rooms at the beginning, then there is a huge pond of toxic green liquid, and finally we find an area that has on the outside a curious background that seems to be a forest or something similar, which gives us to understand that this place we are in is in a forest? Now on to the difficulty, because there is not much to say here, for the most part we have enemies such as the Hitscanners, the Imps, the Pinkys, and the Lost Souls, although we also have other enemies such as the Cacodemons, the Revenants, the Arachnatrons, The Mancubus and 1 Pain Elemental, although they are not a big deal, in certain parts they can cause problems, to the extent that they can kill you if you are not careful where you walk, but in general, if you go with caution, and not The ammunition obtained is wasted, and you avoid receiving a lot of damage, everything will be fine, besides that in the part of the yellow key, you get an Invensibility Sphere that can be used not only for the combat that is presented there, but is also useful for the encounters that the departure has prepared for the Marine.

 

 

MAP13 (Outpost Facility):

 

Status:

*Deaths: 0

*Saves: none

 

 

A really varied map, it doesn't have much linearity and it feels really interesting to be exploring it, in a structured way, the map is really great, it is not boring to be walking the corridors to be looking for the enemies with the interesting decorations that were placed on it. In certain parts, even if only in a few places, however, having closed areas, others open, and areas with different types of decoration with special ornaments, gives it a very interesting touch. Now with the enemies and the difficulty, in a way if it presents a challenge with the placement of enemies in each area, and with a large number of extremely irritating creatures, such as Hitscanners, Imps, Pinkys, and others with more resistance such as the Revenants, the Cacodemons, 1 pain elemental and a surprise Archvile in the end, but despite that, having enough ammunition and health can prevent many things, among them, certain death, although that does not mean how great it is. looks the map visually.

 

MAP14 (Outpost Processing):

 

Status:

*Deaths: 0

*Saves: none

 

 

A very extended map, interesting in a structural way, has a very curious concept regarding how each room is managed, with which, that also leads us to the placement of traps, and the different things that we come to find, in that case I don't have much to say about how each of the places on the map looks like, they have things that were already seen in previous maps, therefore, I will move on to the issue of difficulty. The difficulty at this level is really great, I mean, there are parts that really tense you up, but there are other parts where you only play with the Marine's abilities, and they don't pose much of a risk, unless you are distracted and you let yourself be killed by an enemy that you did not know was behind you, anyway, in various parts there will be annoying enemies, and other resistant ones, it does not need to say much of which I am talking, but I will only say that this time there are no Archviles, nor There are Arachnatrons, no Pain Elementals, that I remember there was no Lost Soul, and there are no Hell Knights, Barons of Hell or Mancubus, there are none of those creatures here, only those that I have not named among those that did not appear, but as always , keep security first and foremost and also be at a distance from threats, look everywhere, and everything will be fine. Which by the way, something I want to mention is that the secret of the Mega Sphere is the strangest thing I have ever seen, it turns out to have a Crusher trap inside the path that leads you to the sphere...

 

 

MAP15 (Outpost refinery):

 

Status:

*Deaths: 0

*Saves: none

 

 

An extremely complex map, really complex, even more so the fact of wanting to find what has been the secret exit, I mean, to be a map that is in a total state of freedom, since the Marine is in a very large and expanded, with several places to visit, and a lot of slaughter to be done, the structure here was really good, in each place you were going to visit, the concept that was given to everything from places with spaces was really very interesting a little closed, places that have water and toxic green liquid, even places that seem like a total maze because you get lost very easily between areas that look exactly the same, or that you had already been there before (this goes more for the area with liquid toxic), anyway, it was very good to make this kind of maps, although the only complaint I have is the way everything is handled, how it should be done to go for the keys, press hidden switches or not you know your real function, and the way to find the secret exit that was what absorbed me even more time. With the difficulty it goes without saying, it is plagued by all the normal beasts of Doom II, without taking the fact that many of these creatures only have very limited appearances, such as the most resistant enemies, but anyway, there are enough ammo and health on the maps to deal with them, although the safest thing is to always find a place to prevent attacks and use barrels in favor of the Marine.

 

 

MAP31 (The way forward?):

 

Status:

*Deaths: 0

*Saves: none

 

 

I really have no comment for this part, just as the Marine appeared, the level was finished in less than 1 second.

 

 

MAP32 (Wrong turn):

 

Status:

*Deaths: 2 (1. Killed by a Chaingunner; 2. Killed by a Archvile)

*Saves: none

 

 

Dude, this was really a weird ride, I guess they were some kind of flashback memories the Marine had, or it might be something else, I'm really not sure, but what I can assure you is that the first room has a design taken out of the ass, and I mean the room where you get the red key, a design crap put there, for the rest, I really liked the fact that I was going back to previous maps, at least without enemies to which to fight, well, almost few enemies to fight, anyway there were so many trips that the Marine made and apparently, everything went back to a single place, map 15, which ironically is who took you to the secret maps in the beginning , but everything about it was fine anyway, I don't have to comment on more details, but having finished that section, now we will move on to the difficulty. It has a slightly high difficulty, which consists of putting stupidly annoying enemies to screw up the life of the Marine, among them are the Hitscanners, Imps, Pinkys, Cacodemons, Revenants, Mancubus, 1 Arachnatron, 2 hell Knights, and quite a few Archviles, and I have to suppose that among the screwed up lies in the room with the red key, due to that architecture as ridiculous as the lack of Cell ammunition for the BFG itself, and in the room where the lights blink, in those two parts comes the difficult thing, Since from there, things normalize a bit, although that does not mean that the marine is safe, but hey, at least the end is more peaceful than any other area of the map.

 

 

Next Post working on the march

Edited November 20, 2020 by ElPadrecitoCholo

[Gez]

10 hours ago, Scypek2 said:

Is the impossibility of finding the secret on the previous two occasions so lethal to a player's motivation to figure it out?

Now I've taken another look. It does close up fast, and after spending so much futile time trying to figure it out on the previous levels I figured it was just a running joke.

 

7 hours ago, P41R47 said:

Its not a red herring. There is a secret on the starting room of map19, it gives plenty of adventage for the upcoming arena.

It's not a secret. It teleports you to a hidden corridor that shows you there's an opposite hidden corridor which is, itself, the secret, and that allows to reveal the invuln. But you don't need to go through to find the secret, it's just that it's otherwise unmarked. You can find them by wall-humping. In other words, taking the scenic route of the big elevator does not lock you out of max secrets and items.

[Phobus]

MAP20: Rocky Road

A nice map, this. It looks good, thanks to the foliage mid textures and mixed environments, and it mostly plays well. Quite traditional, for the most part, although heavily leaning on the shotgun and plasma rifle (with either the rocket launcher of chaingun as good options, depending on what you do in a secret). I came into this on low health and armour, so had to play rather conservatively early on. After finding a few secrets (I missed one, which I think was an Invulnerability around the area with the four Arch-Viles) and beating about half of the map, I was in pretty good shape. By the end of it, my blue armour was mostly gone, but I live in hope of armour bonuses in the future!

 

I wasn't a big fan of the area with the shutters that open and close in sequence using a monster-activated lift mechanism, as it slowed play right down and added a lot of waiting. When the combat was on the relatively unpredictable cover and sight lines was interesting, but getting shut between them for several seconds at a time when going against the flow or after killing something at a bad time was pretty tiresome after a while. The map isn't too tough, particularly once you've healed up and got some armour, so most of the action is pretty free-flowing and enjoyable. Exploration is quite intuitive, too, which went well with the open rocky environment.

 

Leaving the map on a subway and heading to an area with the nice E3 sky is encouraging, and I'm feeling good about this last marine's journey so far.

 

 

The intermission texts vaguely talking about "loved one"s and "him" bothers me a bit, from a reading perspective. I feel like either naming the characters and referring to them explicitly would've been better, or using plurals more often may have helped. As things stand, it reads a bit like the second marine loves the first one (or maybe the third one), which drove the sacrifice and then the third one loves one of the other two, but not necessarily both. The first guy just blundered off into Hell without much care, so his motivations are... Harder to discern. I'm imagining an awkward love triangle of sorts here where there isn't much reciprocation. Nice to have a serious, story-driven map set where the marines seem to be explicitly gay, though, and have that integrated into the plot well. Either that or camaraderie hasn't translated too well and I'm completely missing the intention. Still, once your art is out in the world, you lose control of it and it becomes whatever the beholder sees...

 

My choice of skin (a shotgun guy with heart boxers on and no trousers) makes my interpretation of the story much more amusing - strip Scrabble is now a thing and demonic invasions evidently are more urgent than finding your strides.

[Scypek2]

Oh yeah, I did use some pronouns in the intermission text! I tried to make the details as vague as possible, but when it came to replacing the intermission text, I guess I decided to err on the side of gayness.

 

The floating MAP18 text initially used to refer to a "friend", but, as strong as non-romantic bonds may be, that word just seemed like an understatement. All three definitely love each other deeply, in some non-specific way. If the unmodified iwad graphics are anything to go by, it's brotherly love cause they're identical triplets... but gayness works just as well.

 

(I tried to work some zdoom magic to make the hud face change from episode to episode, but gave up on it eventually.)

[kalaeth]

MAP 20 : Out of that complex and into the wilderness! A plasma gun and a green armor are there for the taking and the blue key teases us from above. Entering the tunnel takes us to a chasm, a toxic river of nukage running down below. On this side we have a small building with a couple spider-guards, easily taken care of. Opening the door triggers a few imps to teleport, and another door opens a caco closet. We follow into a tech-like room that has a wall opening into a lower floor. Now, there's two almost identical rooms, except one has switch, that opens a wall on the other one. First step : removing the pinkies. Second step : run. Another room, more switches. We press both and run back to the first room, a teleport awaits now.. To a secret! A evil secret. You can pick the rocket launcher or the SSG. Not both. I choose... Poorly. But the RL is also good, I guess. Back to the bi-switched room we now open the main gate to find a path outside, and yet another switch that does a really cool thing : those stairs we took to come outside now go down and reveal another room! With the switch we needed to open the teleport, and the blue key is ours. this time I took the other tunnel, and arrived at the other side of the chasm. Not much to do here, but there is a not-secret secret berseker. Back to the first tunnel we took there's a second path on the chasm with a pair of bar locked teleports. Already having the blue key we open that one up and jump into it! Or we would if the bars opened. Instead we jump into the lava, grab the rad suid, teleport back up, jump again to grab the secret soulsphere and teleport back up. And then back at the bars to actually open them. Now follows a really cool corridor : several doors that lower one by one, and then raise back. each "room" is populated by harder and harder enemies. When you reach the last one, there's a room filled with revs and imps and each of the previous "rooms" has opened a side closet releasing more monsters, from zombiemen to hellknighs. Now, go all the way back, press a switch in the first of those "rooms" and we have opened a new path! On the one side, imps. On the other, pinkies and outside, spiders and cacos! There's also a pair of immortal shotgun guys in a little box in front of a soulsphere. A quick lap around for refuel and we hit another switch. This one opens a small alcove that triggers a closet of zombies and releases the archie that was ressurecting the shotgunner plus a handful of imps. We get rid of all that, press another switch and now, a new path into the chasm! And this time, on the yellow key level! Surprise manc and the key is ours! Back to the room with the 'ports behind bars, pick your own path, we open the yellow bars and step into the port! Opening the exit door triggers a trap! Deal with that and you are free to exit the level. But before! I'm 2 secrets down! One is at the end of the up-and-down-and-up-and-down doors, and useless by now. I actually found the switch at the time but didn't see what it did until now. And the other one I missed because I didn't even look at the walls, it's actually quite visible. And it has a blue armor in a place I think we will revisit later? And now unto the ending and what a great last room it is! That classic doom-cute setting : the subway station!

 100% K/S/I, 0 deaths, 25m26s

Total  : 4 deaths, 6 hours 14 minutes 4 seconds.

[Phobus]

1 hour ago, Scypek2 said:

(I tried to work some zdoom magic to make the hud face change from episode to episode, but gave up on it eventually.)

I'd have tried automated morphing, I think. No idea how well that would work map to map, though, or if you can keep a player's weapons when doing so. Worked well enough for me to tack a playable Virus experience onto the end of Persephone volume 2, so it must have some potential!

[tmorrow]

map21

This map consists of toxic waste canals interspersed with some buildings. There is also a menacing cybie with some supporting demons you release when you first enter the toxic waste area. Cybie wants to see how fast doomguy can run under a hail of rockets.

The map starts with doomguy presented with a choice, a chain gun or a rocket launcher. My doomguy leapt at the rocket launcher. It turns out that the weapon you didn't pick becomes available again later if you can find the secret blue key and blue room with a teleporter. Don't forget to pick up the free and uncontested plasma rifle just before the tunnel entrance to the toxic waste.

The cybie trap at the start of the canals is not that dangerous. If you make your way to the eastern room and clear it out and then take out poor cybie who has trouble firing up the steps. You should have enough firepower with a combination of plasma rifle, rockets and shotgun to do the job. If not, then ignore cybie and explore new areas and come back later.

There are 4 rad suits at a junction but they are not required. I ignored them, expecting to face a long toxic waste maze later on but that never eventuated.

After killing cybie, the rest of the encounters aren't all that threatening save for the 3 archviles you meet up with at various points.

The way into the room with the yellow door is unorthodox and unexpected and had me scratching my head for while.

Edited November 22, 2020 by tmorrow
misspelling

[golbeeze]

Maps 20 and 21

[Egg Boy]

Map20: A more naturalistic map than usual. I enjoyed this one quite a bit. There's a nasty trap after the sequence of doors that had me panicking and pulling out the plasma rifle. After that, the area opens up, allowing you to go outside the structure housing the encounter. You meet a few disposable archviles before making your way to the exit. A solid map with the area before the yellow key being the highlight.

 

Map21: After the extremely doomcute exit of the last map, we get a sewer map. I like that you have to choose what weapon you start with, it reminds me of map07 of scythe x. The episode 3 sky is also spectacular, especially when paired with those palm trees. Really nice touches. In terms of map design and enemy placement, the initial cyberdemon scare is great, wish he played a bit more of a factor, as cells aren't particularly hard to come by, and I ended up taking him out very early in my run. After that, the map opens up a bit with a looping layout with lots of unique rooms to visit. Really though, nothing stood out to me besides the barrel maze, which I found a bit dull.

[Omniarch]

Right, time to start catching up!

 

MAP19: Crossfire - 100% kills 0% secrets

Once again, a new episode begins! I have taken the liberty of playing ahead by several maps, and I think I know what episode 3 is going for, and I like it!

 

Crossfire starts, as all 3IAC episodes must, in the memetic scribble room. This time, however, the Icon has given the third and final marine a glimpse into the hell his loved one has endured. There is no mucking about this time. Our third  protagonist is taking no prisoners.

 

After passing through a cute little faux room-over-room doorway and a ride down a clever mid-texture construct lift, the player finally emerges from the possessed facility, and straight into action. There is no exploration in this one, just a plasma-fueled dance of death against increasingly heavy opposition. Ammo is of no concern, and space to maneuver is plentiful.

 

This map is short and fun, a good note on which to begin the most action-packed episode!

 

 

MAP20: Rocky Road - 100% kills 50% secrets

An interesting, fairly naturalistic map with pleasant visuals and great action.

 

Rocky Road sees our third protagonist descend the wooded mountains toward his final goal: the big city. The forces of hell will do their damnedest to make this roadtrip a rocky one.

 

The first thing I noticed about this map is how pretty it is. Both the outdoor and indoor areas are pleasing to the eye, aesthetically simple but effective. The bulk of the map's action takes place inside what appears to be a woodland mansion, built into the mountain itself. The combat here is tight, but moves along at a decent pace, and resources were not really an issue. I like how this episode contrasts with the last two in that department. It feels so good to be able to just blast away at the opposition without worrying too much about conservation.

 

I also like the way the outdoor areas feel in this map. It is so easy for open-air areas to end up being too large and empty to be enjoyable, but too bare to be visually interesting. Rocky Road avoids this problem in two ways: the first is to make the larger areas (mainly the canyon at the beginning) quite vertical, which is inherently more interesting. The second is to make a small space but give the impression of a larger one by getting the player's horizon just right in combination with the excellent skybox, like in the eastern area with the inverted stairway.

 

One last thing I want to note is the train station at the end, which is a very compelling piece of visual storytelling. I really like it when wads have a strong sense of visual continuity, and this sort of exit is a good way of establishing that.

 

In short, this map is attractive and fun to play. Bodes well for things to come!

[Phobus]

Bit of an uncharacteristically busy Saturday for me, but I've found some time for Doom now...

 

MAP21: Flushed Away

I like how the start of this map ties in with the end of the last map thematically, but also presents you the same choice at the start as the secret of that map did. I grabbed the chaingun this time, to add to my arsenal, but really the shotgun and plasma rifle are your main tools. So after the false start with the city theme presented by the gated-off subway, we hop into a sewer of sorts and have to tangle with some nukage canals. However, first I had to reload my save as I got splattered by that Cyberdemon who I wasn't ready for...

 

Coming in with plenty of plasma handy, I cleared a bit of a foot hold and then hosed down the Cyberdemon, treating myself to a reprieve from getting blown up again for the rest of the map. This is a good usage for him, as he's a persistent threat, but not completely free-roaming. The rest of the map is a mixture of rooms and corridors with nice lighting, decent techy visuals and plenty of looks at the awesome sky, that complements the palm trees so well. Threats are pretty sizeable, with plenty of Arch-Viles and other heavy hitters, but as plasma is one of your main tools, and has several large caches scattered throughout the map, it's really all about reacting to what's out there. I found both secrets, although nearly got tricked by the blue armour one, as I initially thought the longer/taller light might have been more of a clue, before realising what was going on. The blue key secret is cool, as it takes you back to the start to grab whatever you passed up on last time.

 

I made heavy use of rockets and my chaingun, so ammo for both ended up very low, whereas the lack of an SSG meant that my shells often got overlooked, despite the plentiful supply. All told, this is just a really solid map.

[Scypek2]

MAP20: Rocky Road

It's the third episode, but I'm still not done with the E2 sky... so I might as well do something interesting with it! It's a unique rocky area, heavily using the ROCK4/ROCK5 texure that's hard to mix with flats. ROCK5 is easier, but a texture this rich wouldn't look that good with something as plain as RROCK09... especially in my kind of low-detail designs. So most of the map combines ROCK5 with RROCK11 flat instead. ROCK4, on the other hand... now that blends in with absolutely nothing. That is, unless you're brave enough to mix it with FLOOR0_2 and tell everyone that those aren't floor tiles at all! I mean, are they? FLOOR0_2 works even better with TANROCK8. RROCK02 is also an adequate topping for ROCK4, though definitely not for large expanses, so I only used it once on this map.

 

The second most prominent visual feature of the level are the custom grass and bush textures, made from osjclatchford's sprites! I must have found them on the zdoom forums thread. Those midtexture grass patches can really spice up the place, and now I wish I used them even more than I already did.

 

The level continues to force you to fight with just a plasma gun and a shotgun. You also get the opportunity to choose between a rocket launcher and a chaingun. The rocket launcher comes with four ammo boxes, while the chaingun comes with nothing... so it only gives you 20 bullets compared to 22 rockets, but you do start with 50 bullets and there's 25 zombiemen on the map, so that adds up to 195 bullets total. I tend to go with the chaingun and pick up the RL on the next map.

 

After getting past the yellow bars you get introduced to the new door texture. Every 3IAC episode has its own exit door texture, and now you get to choose between the new one and the classic EXITDOOR, which so far has only appeared on MAP15 to ambush you with chaingunners after you press the switch. Likewise, this one ambushes you with enemies from two sides if you try to open it. But it would be too boring to just let you skip that completely, and you'd miss out on 100% kills, so taking the correct door first just rewards you with crushing half of the ambush.

 

The last couple of things I like about this map: the staircase on the path to the blue key, which changes from going up to going down at the press of a switch. I did that once before in my old megawad, but it's much more dynamic here. There's something really fun about moving stairs. And there's also the blue armor secret, which gives you a little sneak peek of a later map...

 

MAP21: Flushed Away

I have mixed feelings about this one. Despite the new sky, it's hardly a city map (at least I threw in a few palms and bushes), and the cybie at the start doesn't make as much of an impact as I hoped for. At least the whole thing has a nice non-linear layout. I'm also fond of the unique blue armor secret, and the fancy 3D pipe with enemies on top that terminates the twisty canal from one side.

[Moravectomascb]

When I start play map 11 now, I see idea here and its great, I didnt see that idea in other wads, which I played.

Map10 would be easy, if I find that secret with chainsaw. At the and I had to use idclip to get it and at start is one sector, which activate lift, but lift is in inaccessible small area.