Pegleg Posted March 21, 2021 Let me begin by saying congratulations to all four teams. These maps were very well-made, and remarkably cohesive. I think all of the contributors should feel happy with what they made, and I think people will enjoy playing these maps. Now, here are my thoughts and my decisions. UDMF League Team 1: The Contingent Demolition of the Lackadaisical Potpourri Outpost Spoiler This map looks very nice. The particular shade of blue water makes me think of icy water instead of regular water, but that’s just my perspective. Regardless, I like the overall theme of an oceanside techbase with two caverns on either side of the path leading to the entrance. The caverns are both similarly rocky, but one has vines and the other has icy waterfalls. You have to visit both to get the keys that are in them, but you can visit them in either order. That introduces a *bit* of nonlinearity to the map, which is a nice touch. Of course, you still have to visit the icy cavern before visiting the techbase, because it’s behind a locked door, and the key is in the icy cavern. As for the icy cavern, it looks quite pleasant. The waterfalls, the icy pools, the soulsphere, and the blue key contribute to a good theme and a consistent color scheme. If only there were blue enemies, it would have made it complete. However, as the only blue enemies are the SS Troopers, I think it was a good choice not to do so. It would have been nice to be able to walk through the waterfalls, and would have contributed to the overall aesthetic quite well. Unfortunately for the aesthetic, it does mean that the cavern is quite cramped, in my opinion, for the fight that ensues. It was nice that you teleported a few monsters into the doorway out of the cavern, because that kept you from just running out after grabbing the blue key. I still was able to kill a few monsters and leave most of them behind as I ran out of the cavern. While you can fight everything, I found it to difficult for my skills, and I think more room or fewer monsters would have helped there. The caverns with the vines had a drop-off to enter, so once you entered there was no going back, at least until you found the teleporter out of there. The fight in that cavern is easier. In fact, I was able to clear out many of the enemies just standing in one place after hitting the button. There was enough ammo to handle all the enemies. The combination of the arch-vile and the SMM was a nice touch and I really liked it. With the two of them active, it was difficult to focus on the arch-vile (to keep it from resurrecting the other dead monsters) while staying out of the line of sight of the SMM and her gun. Ultimately, once you get the fight down to just her, it’s relatively easy to maneuver to the other side of the solid posts in the center and shoot her with plasma or rockets through the gaps while she paces back and forth. The techbase was clean. It wasn’t fancy, but it did what it came to do. Unfortunately, when I first played it (GZDoom 4.1.3), I was frustrated because I wasn’t able to walk across the 3D bridges to get to the switch to lower the yellow key. I have no idea why that would be broken, and there are probably much better ways to do that in UDMF. Overall, the fight was relatively straightforward, mid-tiers standing in your way as you circle the large open space in the middle, with lower tiers (imps and chaingunners) in alcoves on the walls. Yes, you may just be running in circles, but you have to remain cognizant of where the revenants and hell knights and mancubi are, so you don’t get hit in the back. Of course, you can’t ignore the imps and chaingunners on the walls while you’re dealing with the other monsters, or you’ll end up burned and full of holes just the same. The extraneous switch texture on the side walls of the lift was confusing, but that was minor. Once you have all three keys, it’s a simple matter of opening the doorway to the exit. Once you go through the gate, you can explore the small bit of beach on the other side of the fence, but you have to wander off into the water in order to reach the exit line. It would have made more sense to me if there was a boat waiting for you or a buoy with a switch that you pressed or something, or even moving the exit line to the edge of the rocky outcropping, so that the level ended as you stepped onto the beach. Overall, though, that’s a small complaint. Also, this map had difficulty settings implemented. It also had a unique name. Both were nice touches. I liked the music track, too. It added a nice action flair to the map. All in all, this was a good map, with a decent setup, some good fights, and a nice theme. Team 2: Temple of the Crystal Spud Spoiler This map opened with a rather hot start that took me a few tries to get my footing. Ultimately, there was a fair amount of running around, getting infighting started, before running off to open switches (which themselves trigger ambushes) to proceed with the rest of the map. Overall, this map was completely linear as you went to the blue key, to get the red key, to get the yellow key, to leave. As for the rest of the map, it has a reasonably coherent theme of stone jungle temple with a rocky cavern underneath it. There were some ambushes, many of which were of the “instapop” variety. I’m not personally a fan of monsters just appearing in front of you, but I recognize that it adds a bit of suddenness to the encounter. Not all of the ambushes were like that. Some (like the archives) were good old monster ciosets. The blue key encounter was of the “instapop” variety, which I’ve already said I’m not fond of, but they didn’t just pop up right in front of you, which is what really makes those sort of monsters annoying. There’s a fair amount of room to maneuver in that cavern and the stalagmite/stalactite pillars provided cover. Overall, the fight wasn’t that stressful. I also liked the red key sitting on the throne that triggered the progression that allowed you to reach the yellow key. The combination of mid-tiers attacking you from multiple sides while you tried to navigate a series of crushers (which were both fast crushers and slow crushers, so you had to manage the timing) was a nice touch. The stress of having to fight off what was in front of you to avoid being blocked, while simultaneously avoiding incoming fire, and timing the crushers was well done. Then there is the rotating cube. I really liked that. It took me a minute to connect that it was the solution to the puzzle, which was neat to see. At first, I just worked my through the puzzle via trial and error, being repeatedly teleported back to the start. Ultimately, there was no consequence for doing that—it would have been a nice touch (if a bit evil) to damage the player for each wrong guess, especially since it was very easy to trigger the wrong square, particularly when moving from one row to the next. A little extra room would have been appreciated. I also noticed that you just can’t no clip your way past the puzzle. You still get transported back to the start. Once you have the yellow key, it’s on to the final arena, which is a cyberdemon in the middle and revenants and mancubi on ledges to either side. While it’s straightforward to drop down into the blood surrounding this peninsula and let the cyberdemon infight with the mid-tiers, there are demons in the blood to try to dissuade you from doing this. Of course, by this point you’re sufficiently well-armed to dispatch the 15 demons down there with you. There are also texture misalignments that could bother some people and make them not want to be down there. However, it’s advantage to be traipsing around the blood because, once the demons are dead, you’re free to concentrate on the mid-tiers on the ledges. From down there, you can concentrate on one side of enemies (or even one part of one side) at a time, making the fight much more manageable. Then you can head back up and circle strafe your way around the cyberdemon (provided you’ve eliminated the revenants on the walls by the door). Once the cyberdemon is dead, the blood rises, and you can leave. I didn’t notice any difference between the difficulty settings. It would have been nice to have difficulty settings implemented. Also, it’s a nice map title, playing off the “Crystal Spud” of Indiana Jones fame (at least, that’s what I assume to be the case). I liked the music track, as well. It has more of an “adventure” feel to it. Overall, this map was pretty well-textured, with some well-structured fights, good traps, and a nice puzzle. DECISION Spoiler Personally, I found these two maps to be pretty close. Both were pretty good, given the time constraints. I found myself going back and forth between them. Ultimately, I voted for Team 2: Temple of the Crystal Spud. I liked the theme, which I thought was slightly more coherently carried out than Team 1’s theme. The encounters in both maps were decent, but I liked some of the ambushes and combat in Team 2’s map better. Finally, the puzzle was a nice touch. The apparent lack of difficulty settings wasn’t enough to downgrade it. Boom League Team 1: Overnight Apocalypse Spoiler This map was a solid techbase on a peninsula. While there were no difficulty settings implemented (at least, from what I could tell there weren’t), it was still enjoyable to play. It has a relatively coherent theme throughout, except for one brief interlude through a a bloody room with a marble structure. The map starts out in a rather wide open outdoor area; in fact, it seems like there would be more enemies in this area, but that’s not generally the purpose of this map. It doesn’t flood areas with monsters and force you to keep up. There are only a few spots where the map seems to try to overwhelm you with enemies. There’s the swarm of imps, the mancubus gauntlet, the secret fight, and the final room. Otherwise, the encounters are reasonable and don’t feel as if they’re meant to be overwhelming. In general, the encounters feel setup very well. The map has a pretty clear linear progression, and it starts of with your lower tier enemies and moves on up to more powerful enemies. Each step up comes with an increase in firepower. The one exception is where you have to face several revenants with a regular shotgun. Still, given the structure of the room (well made), and the fact that you *can* alert the revenants one at a time, the fight isn’t overwhelming. I found the texturing to be reasonably consistent throughout. There were some areas that were more detailed than others, but it wasn’t as if the map jumped from spartan and bare to hyper-detailed in the space of a few rooms. The detailing, in general, kept to the theme. The only section that seemed out of place was the aforementioned blood-floor room with the marble dais. The music was a mixture of more upbeat, but still somewhat relaxed, and it fit the general feeling of the map. Overall, this was a good map. It seemed to be paced well, the theming was consistent, the encounters were well done, and I found it enjoyable to play. Team 2: Twice Fried Spoiler This map was a fairly well-done city map, which is a good way to incorporate different areas made by different mappers. The individual areas were generally independent, but there were small bits of interconnectedness, like how a switch in a different room lowered a key in another area of the map, or how you could look through windows and have an idea of what was upcoming. The map was linear, and the order was dictated by the order in which you had to obtain the keys. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that; in fact, the order in which the individual buildings were accessed was reasonable given the available armaments. The secret in the first building is easy to find, which was a nice gift to a semi-observant player, because it does help you out with the beginning of the map. The fights themselves seem to be mostly trying to put as many bodies between you and your objective as possible. Given that, they’re usually well thought out, and aren’t just spamming mid-tier monsters until the player survives or dies. Most of the individual areas were relatively plain and straightforward, with a couple being more detailed and providing a bit more intrigue. The ice rink fight was certainly interesting, but could be infuriating. The red keycard fight was also well done; while at first it seemed like it would be possible to just grab the key and run, the horde of revenants teleporting in prevented that. Also, while you didn’t *have* to kill everything in front of you, many of the enemies were able to follow you, so if you left some stragglers alive, you may end up finding yourself dealing with those stragglers later. As mentioned earlier, the theme was that of a city, and one that was overrun with the forces of Hell. The choice of sky was a good one, with the ominous red and skeletal black of the buildings highlighted the fact that this was not an ordinary urban experience. The individual buildings were well-done, but, by their very nature, they were all different. Some were recognizable as *something* (ice rink, dance club, store with counters and cashiers, park, etc.) while others were less recognizable (the building with the red key and the last half of the last building, particularly). Nevertheless, the overall theme was instantly recognizable. This map had difficulty settings implemented, which, as I have said before, was a plus. The music track also seemed to me to be fairly relaxed, which was at odds with the map, where the combat was often frenetic. Overall, this was a good map. The theme was well realized and the encounters were generally well-done. Personally, I think it could have done with fewer monsters, so that fights wouldn’t necessarily devolve into the player against masses of deadly meat. DECISION Spoiler As before, I found the two maps in this league to be quite close. I went back and forth with this decision, too. Both maps were good, with good themes, and good visuals. Ultimately, I voted for Team 1: Overnight Apocalypse. I liked the coherence of the overall theme for the map and I found the map more enjoyable to play. While Team 2 seemed intent on overwhelming the player (albeit with well-structured fights), Team 1 concentrated on fights that were mostly manageable, with a few higher stress elements. That’s not to say that Team 1’s map lacked teeth, because it did. I just found the teeth to be more selectively applied. Team 2’s map had difficulty settings; again, that was a nice touch given the time constraints, but it wasn’t enough to give it a bump over the top. 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
BluePineapple72 Posted May 6, 2021 (edited) Four score and 4 months ago, we started Hot Potato! And after a long ass time of procrastination, the first version of the Boom League WAD is out now! Yippee I say! Yippee! WAD File: Hot Potato - Boom Port: Tested in PrBoom/GZDoom IWAD: Doom 2 Resources: CC4 - Compiled in WAD Comments: Maps created for the Hot Potato event hosted a few months ago. Maplist: MAP01 Overnight Apocalypse: Mappers (not in order of mapping. I can't find that rn) @BluePineapple72 @Alper002 Joe-ilya @waciej @ViolentBeetle @Mystic 256 @Zero the Red Spoiler MAP02 Twice Fried City: Mappers (not in order of mapping.) @xvertigox @dach @LateNightPerson @Weird Sandwich @Captain Toenail @LordEntr0py @Walter confetti Spoiler As per the event gimmick, each mapper spent 1 hour each on their respective maps, tossing the map between eachother like a hot potato (above mapper list is NOT in order). Enjoy these maps! Let me know if there are any issues! The UDMF league maps will be out soontm! Edited May 6, 2021 by BluePineapple72 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
Walter confetti Posted May 6, 2021 Congratulations for the release! 1 Quote Share this post Link to post
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