Sucker Punch 2 [Nine small maps for Doom II, now on idgames!]

[Rook]

 

[DOWNLOAD from idgames] [DOWNLOAD RC2 - outdated]

 

Sucker Punch 2 contains nine small, single-player maps for Doom II. The maps have been tested in GZDoom, PrBoom+, Eternity, and Doom Retro. The WAD is made up from three mini-episodes of three maps each which escalate from easy (with green details) to harder (yellow) to hardest (red). These are slightly larger than the maps in the original Sucker Punch (2018), and should mostly take 3-5 minutes each to play. Difficulty settings are implemented. The maps are designed for pistol starts.

 

The WAD uses (and includes the relevant textures from) the superb OTEX 1.1 texture pack - many thanks to ukiro for this immense contribution to the community. The music consists of MIDI renditions of tracks from various classic fighting games, primarily by SNK. If you're interested in the thinking and process behind these maps, I've published a post-mortem on my site. 

 

 

Details

Name: Sucker Punch 2
Map Format: Boom
Ports Tested: GZDoom, PrBoom+, Eternity and Doom Retro
IWAD: Doom II
Map(s): MAP01 - MAP09
Gameplay: Single play
Difficulty Settings: Yes
Multiplayer Placement: No
Build Time: Three months
Textures: OTEX 1.1 by ukiro (textures used are included)
Requirements: No jumping or crouching. Freelook allowed but not required.

Maps and music

Title music: "Title theme" from Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition
Intermission music: “Winning the Tournament!” from Fatal Fury

MAP01: "Back in the Ring" ("Kyo Kusanagi" from The King of Fighters 2000)
MAP02: "Live-Fire Exercise" (“Psycho-Soldier Remix ‘96” from The King of Fighters '96)
MAP03: "Fighting Firemen" ("Slum No. 5" from The King of Fighters '98)
MAP04: "The Torture Garden" (“Shadow’s theme” from Eternal Champions)
MAP05: "Rhythm of the Knight" ("Cammy's theme" from Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers)
MAP06: "Last Hurrah for Chivalry" ("Trash Head" from The King of Fighters '96)
MAP07: "Tomb Eternal" ("Ninehalt Sieger" from Samurai Shodown II)
MAP08: "State of Decay" (“Geese ni Kakatori” from The King of Fighters '96)
MAP09: "Where the Dead Go to Die" ("WWIII" from The King of Fighters ‘99)

Where you come in

 

I'm grateful to all of the YouTubers who have played Sucker Punch 2 (a playlist is here), and to those who streamed the maps including Tarnsman, John Suitepee (stream available in full here), stx-Vile, and francist18. I'd be really interested to see extra playthroughs, and can add new YT videos to the playlist.

 

[DOWNLOAD from idgames] [DOWNLOAD RC2 - outdated]

 

Edited August 5, 2021 by Rook
Added idgames link, etc.

[Blip]

Just finished playing all maps. Really nice work, I enjoyed every map quite a lot. I didn't have any issues neither technical nor with the map design/balance. Maybe the only nitpick I have is with map05 that feels kind of cramped and low on resources for everything they throw at you, but it wasn't that bad honestly. 

[ScrappyMcDoogerton]

Hello I just played through these maps and I had a blast! My evaluation:

 

Visuals: great design all around. Texture work and level design are both top notch.

 

Gameplay: These maps will brutalize you on UV. Non-stop action featuring frantic fights with monsters on all sides. Lots of heavies with scarce resources and often underpowered weaponry. A berserk here and there would help alleviate the ammo scarcity but there is not one in the whole set.

 

Bugs: The only error I found is on map 04 in the rocket launcher secret there are two missing textures (seen at 1:14:20 of the VOD).

 

 

Edited May 17, 2021 by ScrappyMcDoogerton

[Arbys550]

Awesome WAD! Finished the whole thing. Nice, short, maps with a nice kick. Visuals were cool as well. Only found one bug. Two mancubi teleport into this destination and get stuck, they can't move or shoot. This is with prboom+, complevel 9:

 

The only thing I found weird was that the climax of difficulty seemed to be in the final room of map03, with the mini rev horde and double archviles with minimum cover. Nothing in the rest of the wad seemed to reach that point of difficulty.

Edited May 17, 2021 by Arbys550

[Noiser]

I remember the first Sucker Punch, awesome set of levels. Looking forward for this one!

[Rook]

Thanks for playing @BlipBlerp, @ScrappyMcDoogerton and @Arbys550 and I'm glad you enjoyed the maps. I'm noting down the errors you've noticed, which is a big help.

[koren]

Great fun. I really enjoyed the original sucker punch and this set scratched the same itch.

 

Particular fan of map03 and the frantic chaingun start. Only noticed two bugs - there's a hom in the secret rocket launcher closet on map04 and the aforementioned mancubus getting stuck on map06. Played with dsdadoom cl9 0.18.0, software renderer.

 

 

sckrpnch2-rc1-fdas-krn.zip

[Egg Boy]

Really neat looking, defo on my “to play” list.

[eharper256]

Here's a video!

Short and Punchy levels are really my bag, so I pretty much instantly picked this one up to try out and played Maps 1-3. Pretty darn good so far; though I found one problem (shown in the video)- if you're over-enthusiastic on MAP02 pressing the switch on the elevator that sinks and then rises again, the elevator seems to get stuck there and you can't press the switch again, had to no-clip out. I was aware that this was the intended behaviour since the recording for this map failed and I had to do it again. Played in GZDoom with Walpurgis if that matters.

Edited May 17, 2021 by eharper256

[Arrowhead]

Really looks like gorgeous stuff. I played the first Sucker Punch a couple years ago and remember liking it - so can't wait to give this a go! :)

[Rook]

3 hours ago, koren said:

Great fun. I really enjoyed the original sucker punch and this set scratched the same itch.

 

[..]

 

sckrpnch2-rc1-fdas-krn.zip

 

Thanks for the demos! Glad you enjoyed the WAD.

 

21 minutes ago, eharper256 said:

if you're over-enthusiastic on MAP02 pressing the switch on the elevator that sinks and then rises again, the elevator seems to get stuck there and you can't press the switch again, had to no-clip out.

 

Good spot! I will try to fix or at least mitigate this in the next version.

[Egg Boy]

Played in PR-BOOM+ on UV, pistol start. This is just what I'm looking for! Compact, interconnected layouts that open up as you play, simple, yet beautiful detailing, and encounters that range from fairly manageable to frantic fun. This wad is set up sort of like a highly compressed Scythe 2. Small episodes with their own individual difficulty curves. These days, I'm more into short affairs I can beat in an afternoon, and this did the trick. It shouldn't be too difficult for any intermediate player, but still has a bite that keeps it from being dull. Big fan of this, I'll be sure to look out for releases from you in the future. On another note, I did find two notable errors, the lower textures in the rocket launcher secret on map04 are missing, causing the flat to bleed. There's also an error in map09 in which the wrong sky is displayed over the teleporter near, again, the rocket launcher. I also have a small nit-pick for map02, I think the BFG secret would really benefit from a secret encounter, perhaps teleport the player to a secret, hard arena. It just felt kind of lame to get the BFG without having to fight for it.

[Rook]

I've updated the OP with an update to the mapset, plus a link to my post-mortem article. Thanks again for the plays and comments so far.

[loveless]

had a good time playing this a few days ago.  i am not sure i agree with the map ordering a bit later on but that's okay.  no super crazy jumps in difficulty, short and sweet fights/maps.

[Master O]

On 5/16/2021 at 4:37 PM, Rook said:

 

The WAD uses (and includes the relevant textures from) the superb OTEX 1.1 texture pack - many thanks to ukiro for this immense contribution to the community. The music consists of MIDI renditions of tracks from various classic fighting games, primarily by SNK.

 

 

 

Does the Icon of Sin also have SNK Syndrome?

 

https://snk.fandom.com/wiki/SNK_Boss_Syndrome

[Suitepee]

https://youtu.be/chj_bbc3R7c

 

My playthrough starts at 24:20.

 

I'm nominating this for a 2021 Cacoward. I knew Rook was going to make good things when I played Sucker Punch 1 in a playtest session a few years back, and this is more of that same good quality. An excellent mapset that everyone should play at least once. I foresee great things for @Rook in the future if he continues to produce maps of this quality.

[TheGreenZap]

I've started playing through this and I echo the statements from above. Great looking levels with action packed combat. Enjoying it!

 

[siege cunt]

I just played this wonderful wad.  It feels very fun and fresh, and I especially like the "circular" style of many fights, where doing well relies upon weaving through many doorways and hallways (as opposed to doing such motions in open areas, which is more common).

 

Some comments:

 

- I echo Arby's comment that the difficulty is a bit confusing.  For me, map 3 is 10x harder than any other map.  maps 6 and 7 were the easiest.

 

- to be clear, i am not complaining about map 3.  it was very exciting and dynamic, for me.  the first fight with the vile, for instance, i had to adapt to the situation and could not follow any set path; e.g., sometimes the vile would take up spots so that i could just hide in a hallway, sometimes instead i had to run down and out of them, sometimes i would circle to the other, etc. it was incredible how much variety i could just from that one vile.

 

- map 3 bug: in the last room, near the top of the stairs, there are missing textures next to the light in the stairs on one side.

 

- map 6 issue: the cyber can get stuck on the stairs, and in fact once he was stuck i pushed him a little higher with rockets and he was completely pinned and couldn't even fire back.

 

Thanks for posting this wonderful wad.  Like all the other posters, i'm excited for your future wads =)

[NieMaMordy]

My favourite wad this year. I'd add some ending map though

[NieMaMordy]

Imps on these boxes on MAP02 have a small chance of falling from them on boom based ports. This results in Player not being able to kill them without idclip. It occurred on my first playthrough. I'd make the linedefs on these boxes impassable for monsters.

Also, the music on MAP03 is slightly louder than on the previous ones. Can you turn it down a little?

Edited June 22, 2021 by NieMaMordy

[dianghong]

That was really fun, the combat is excellent, just top notch stuff. Very good level design both in terms of gameplay and in terms of aesthetics. Frantic and fast paced, but never unfair. Map 3 is the exception - it's vastly more difficult than the rest of the maps, and a lot of it due to you having to know monster placement in advance, otherwise you're toast. Maps 7 and 8 are a bit weaker and easier than the rest I think, but still fun. The last map is great. Biggest complaint by far - only 9 maps. Played it on UV, difficulty wise it was just right for me (map03 excluded) - really kept me on my toes, but I rarely had to reload.

[siege cunt]

In map 3, in the yellow key area, the first arch vile is released on the first step, with the nearby imps being released a little higher; thus it's possible to only release the vile and fight it alone, rendering the fight much easier.  Was this intentional?

[Rook]

Thanks for the additional comments and feedback everyone - I need to get one or two other things out of the way, then I will be making some final adjustments to this WAD and an idgames upload shortly.

[Rook]

I'm pleased to say that Sucker Punch 2 is now available via idgames. This latest version has a few mostly minor changes - small bugfixes and balance adjustments. The music for MAP03 has also been replaced with a MIDI more suited to the map's length. Thanks again to everyone who has played the mapset so far - I'll be interested to see any more streams or YT videos, which I will add to my playlist.

 

For other, newer maps by me see MAP132: "Sand Trap" in RAMP and "By Inferno's Light", my contribution to the Doomworld Maximum Project 2021.

Edited August 5, 2021 by Rook

[NieMaMordy]

Great news! I will play it again, and I may even record it this time. 

[EffinghamHuffnagel]

Which version of OTEX did you use for this? I ask because there are two different sets of patches and flats in the wad, of differing numbers, and I won't assume that the smaller set is exactly duplicated in the larger set. So unless you edited some of Ukiro's textures, I'd rather just delete them all and load OTEXxx when I play.

[Rook]

The WAD uses OTEX 1.1, with no modification by me. I'd assume that any quirks can only be a result of my having used wtexscan and wtexport to compile the textures used into the WAD.

[NieMaMordy]

Here is my playthrough with commentary. As I stated before, this wad is now one of my favourites. It was fun to replay!

Quality is still 360p, but later it should be 1080p60, when it finishes rendering. I will publish this video as public later today, so my viewers can see how great your wad is.

Edited August 5, 2021 by NieMaMordy

[Rook]

Thanks for the video @NieMaMordy - really glad you enjoyed the mapset.

[BiZ]

ayyy lets go! the first one was a blast.