ICID Posted November 1, 2021 (logo by @4MaTC) ICID, what the hell is this now? Endless Random /idgames WAD Adventures is a small project of exploration, interaction, entertainment and reviews where we meet once every 2 weeks to select random WADs in search of hidden treasures, lost promises, or our worst nightmares! We use the /idgames archive’s special feature that lets us search for random files. Of course, sometimes they are resources or unplayable stuff, so we focus on looking for WADs. The event is named after its originator, fearless leader and WAD reviewer par excellence Endless. So, what do we do here? Play at least 5 random WADs in a two-week period of time. WADs are selected using the Random File feature on /idgames or from the list below. Post a review of each WAD. There’s no required pacing (you can do all 5 on the first day if you want), but most of us post a review once every 1-2 days. Please take screenshots or video of your adventures. Play however you want, on any skill level, and with any source port, as long as you play the WAD as intended/in working shape. Review with integrity - be respectful. Good rule of thumb: making fun of a map is okay, making fun of the mapper is not. What kind of WADs are we looking for? Mostly singleplayer Doom or Heretic WADs that work in your sourceport(s) of choice. You can skip DM WADs if you don’t have anyone to play with. I also pull at least 7 random WADs for the event and add them here. Feel free to play them with me if you wish, or look for your own! The point of the event is to encourage you to explore this vast, random world. Recommendations for reviewing: Spoiler Always provide the name of the WAD, the name of the author, and a link to the file. Very important. Commenting the source port and skill-level is not required, but provides helpful context to your review. Try to stick to no more than 1 WAD per day to avoid burnout, but this part’s all up to you, champ! As mentioned above, screenshots or videos are awesome. Reviews of all formats are valid. Both longform and shortform are good as long as you write with integrity. Endless Random /idgames WAD Adventures of this event: UAC Complex BuzzSaw: City Under Siege Poly Wad Temple Plutosis Sewer of Darkness Giza Invasion Installation A Spoiler The Top 10 (out of 29) @Roofi | 2290 @Sena | 990 @Walter confetti | 470 @ICID | 425 @Endless | 360 @smeghammer | 240 @LUISDooM | 235 @LadyMistDragon | 235 @Maribo | 145 @Biodegradable | 105 Join the Doom Master Wadazine community for more events like this! » https://discord.gg/Q2RKn4J 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
ICID Posted November 1, 2021 Per usual, allow me to get the ball rolling with our first review :) UAC Complex (1998) by Steve Gaucher Play Settings Source Port: prboom+, complevel 2 Difficulty: Ultra-Violence Has to be understood as the work of an 11-year-old still in elementary school, as described by the text file, which doesn’t make it immune from criticism but certainly keeps it from earning too much ire from me. There’s flashes of something interesting here – I quite like the opening crate maze even though I wish it wasn’t drowning in FULLBRIGHT, and the office complex at the end is a fun slice of Doomcute with powerups hiding in trash cans and toilets. But you really can’t get away from the fact that this thing doesn’t work. I have no idea how you get to the room with the yellow key without cheating and never even found the blue key at all. It’s incredibly easy to softlock yourself in multiple places – I myself got stuck in three over the course of normal exploration – and sometimes trying to go back to a place you’ve already been leads only to a wall and a HoM effect. Visuals are mostly ugly, bright, and monotextured and combat’s so mindlessly easy that any modern player will leave the map with enough shells and rockets to level the God Machine. If someone sent me this today and said they were an eleven-year-old looking for feedback, I’d definitely advise them not to publish it on /idgames, but I’d also say they were on the right track. Put some more effort into the visuals, try to be less clever with key placement, and QA aggressively, and this is a pretty solid map, at least by ER/iWA standards! Kinda sad Gaucher never returned to the scene after 1998 as there’s definitely potential here. That said, no one should play this. Grade: 2/10 TL;DR: Fun to think and write about but simply in no way a functional Doom map. 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
Sena Posted November 2, 2021 Day 1: UAC COMPLEX https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/s-u/uac_com It may sound obvious, but I prefer levels that are completed. Painfully obvious perhaps, an opinion as uncontroversial as me choosing to play the game with my hands instead of my elbows, and when it's universally accepted that you'd want to play something that is finished, then I'm not sure why someone would choose to release an unfinished version of something. Technically, this map is finished (perhaps regrettably so, would have had a better time if the map didn't work so I never had to play it), but by the author's own admission, the level is an unfinished state, as some of the boxes are not placed correctly. Well, preamble over, now to actually talk about the map, it's a crate maze, which are probably some of the worst words you can put next to each other, as dreadful as Terry trap, Icon of Sin level, or the 3DO port of the game. The game puts you on an exceptionally linear path, barely a step up from being an actual 2D game, which looks as boring as it plays, and somewhere I was meant to get a yellow key, however I decided that cheating to get it was the best solution because they can fuck off back to 1998 if they think I'm going to backtrack through that room. Leave the crate maze, and you get some office with alarmingly few textures, rather than make something characteristic of a window, they just do a hole, walked through that for about 20 seconds before just giving up. There are thousands of WADs out there, and there's some veterans in the mapping community like Benjogami, Doomkid, Jimmy, whose artistry I've only seen a glimpse of as I've only seen first-hand a mere fraction of their releases. To spend any more time playing this level would be an insult to people who actually know how to make a decent level, which sure don't have any fucking crate mazes in them. 1/10, and I don't even want to imagine how the author's previous map could play, if it's so bad he thinks this is a genuine improvement. 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
Roofi Posted November 2, 2021 Month 5 Day 27 I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I die/stop. File 1) zert.wad by Brian Cocks (1996) Spoiler Quote This is level for deathmatch only. This is also my first try at making a wad. Yes , indeed, it's an extremly simple octogonal building surround by huge flat featureless outdoor area. I have nothing to say except this. To reach the exit which is located in the BFG room , you have to randomly hump brown bricks walls. I've seen a lot worse. I fell in a deadly lava pit after the stairs viciously decided to lower in NOVA III Spoiler 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
Roofi Posted November 3, 2021 Month 5 Day 28 I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I die/stop. File 1) Where Am I? by Edward Dassmesser (2006) Quote Not really playable to any real extent. More of a "confuse the heck out of the player" map that continuously makes you wonder where you are unless you look at the automap or figure out the gimmick. Not really playable or rather not playable at all ! The author only included a txt file. How am I supposed to played this? Sorry. File 2) PURGATORY 2 by Daniel Eugene Grant aka:Jester (1995) Spoiler Quote This is the add on to the already successful PURGATOR.WAD. This version has those little bugs fixed. Ya'll know which one's. A teleport has been added to the pit. "Since everyone who fell in it seemed to die :)". Along with alot more inhancements, for better game play. "Watch out for telefrags people. " This wad runs well on a 486dx-50,and was meant to be played with Deathmatch 2.0."Due to the fact that this wad gets very dark." A DM level consisting to a complex and extremly dark marble castle. Maybe the level should have been designed for singleplayer knowing all the explorable areas reachable by teleporters. It seems to me too large for DM. Anyway, there are a lot of light goggles available in the map. At least, the author put a nice music of Nine Inch Nails and added some new sounds. I got crush sadistically by a surprise slow crusher in Vacation in Hell V.1 for Doom2 LEVEL 1 Spoiler 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
smeghammer Posted November 3, 2021 5 hours ago, Roofi said: Month 5 Day 28 Wow - has this been going for six months now? Anyway... Today I got a very short, quite frantic map called Feveswar: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/d-f/feveswar GZDoon, UV, no saves. Missed some secrets: 1 Quote Share this post Link to post
ICID Posted November 4, 2021 BuzzSaw: City Under Siege (2019) by Luis M. Arevalo Play Settings Source Port: prboom+, complevel 9 Difficulty: Ultra-Violence, pistol starts Inscrutably described as the “1st chapter in the second story of the BuzzSaw Saga”, Luis Arevalo’s sole contribution to the /idgames archives involves a “death trap previously know as Operation: Extermination Time” and if it sounds like I’m taking a bit of a mocking tone with this one, it’s because I hated playing it. Let’s do a map-by-map review, shall we? MAP01 (untitled, like all the other maps) is a cramped, brown opportunity for hitscanners to take endless potshots at you. It’s what people who hate city maps think all city maps are, with absolutely no cover from chaingunning snipers and totally inscrutable progression requiring you to run between multiple buildings playing switch Sudoku. Start as we mean to go on, I guess. MAP02 introduces us to one of BuzzSaw’s cardinal sins: no matter how high the monster counts get, and no matter how tough said monsters are, you are never getting a super shotgun. I give Plutonia (the base for this particular WAD) a lot of guff, but at least it understood that if it was going to throw mancubi and arch-viles at you in the first level, it also needed to give you the equipment to deal with it. Not so here, as Arevalo apparently expects us to take the time to slowly chaingun high-tier enemies, bullet by bullet. Or maybe not. This map takes the shape of long runways – my interpretation was that this was some kind of abandoned metro line (silver lanes shining starkly against a city backdrop – the best visuals of any map in this set by a country mile) that actually make it pretty easy to run past a lot of the worst foes. And not just easy, but kinda fun! Thrilling to dodge between mancubus shots and try to lead arachnotron plasma into enemies. Here I thought that maybe the lack of good guns might be to some extent a stylistic choice, forcing the player into new forms of gameplay. It’s not Doom, but it might still be something else fun, I hoped. The next several maps would disabuse me of this notion. MAP03, though, is actually by far the best of the set. Sure in terms of actual layout it’s just a big square, and it’s still quite frustrating in parts and I still miss having an SSG, but at least combat seems to be calibrated correctly. Most fights are against small groups of low- to medium-tier enemies actually befitting your loadout (minus a chaingunner-heavy ambush that just turns into a pure RNG fight) and while the hub is a bit dull at least it makes it easy to know where you need to go. Plus there’s a dark room that gives you a chainsaw and loads of pinkies to fight that is the one time I actually had true fun with BuzzSaw, rather than just the absence of not-fun. MAP04 gets us back to wide open spaces, tons of snipers (mostly arachnotrons), and none of the weapons you need to deal with them. Not much else to say except that every room here is a rectangle attached to other rectangles, kinda feels like even Arevalo was getting tired of his work by this point. MAP05: penultimate maps in Doom are usually seen as a place to summarize all the ideas of your WAD before the final boss, and well, that’s certainly what happens here. Way more monsters than ammo, stacks of mancubi, chaingunner snipers, ugly brown buildings containing inscrutable progression – the works. Most memorable for its central fountain structure, which is to say two blue cylinders stacked on top of each other. MAP06: Really thought this was going to be a boss fight of some kind, or at least have some sense of finality, but instead Arevalo dedicates himself to one of the few awful mapping tropes he hadn’t touched so far: the sewer level. Other than the abundance of hurtfloors (and total lack of radiation suits) this feels like every other map in the set. The actual final enemy before the exit and therefore “boss” of this mapset is a single SS Officer, which feels right. Actually lol'ed when the game went straight from that to Plutonia’s default text message about “killing the guardian”. All in all, I would say that Arevalo has a decent if cliched visual sensibility and at least not the worst sense of progression we’ve come across in the ER/iWA. Dude knows how to put together a map, for sure. What he lacks, seemingly, is an understanding of the fundamental gameplay of Doom. How to balance ammo and weapons against enemy counts, how to use different types of monsters in different scenarios. Killing maps absolutely loaded with mancubi and pinkies with only the default chaingun and shotgun (and some rockets that will kill you instantly if you dare to use them in any of Buzzsaw’s very cramped combat spaces) feels like almost the literal definition of banging your head against a wall. It’s exhausting. Just exhausting. Grade: 1/10 TL;DR: Looks okay but otherwise like all my least favorite mapping tropes piled up together in the same car crash. 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
Sena Posted November 4, 2021 Day 2: BuzzSaw: City Under Siege https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/a-c/buzzsaw1 Well, they don't call it development hell for nothing. This WAD, consisting of 6 maps, of which I completed 4, took its author over 20 years to make, which means he might be entitled to a world record of sorts - Duke Nukem Forever took a similar time frame, but I think somewhere along the line it switched developers, so it wasn't the same exact people consistently working on it for that long. Granted, a number like that may be misleading, he may have spent 10 hours every single day for all that time making it, or maybe he finished 95% of it within 3 weeks, then he got 20 years of prison and the first thing he did when he got back was finish and release it, can't tell. In any case, as a 2019 release, it sure doesn't feel like it, as can be expected of something that took so long to make, by the time it was finished, its design quality was more in line with something that released when development started, not when it ended. The biggest issue I have with the WAD is it's just so fucking long. From an objective standpoint, it's not that remarkable, 150 enemies per level on HMP, closer to 90 for the opening map, but it sure feels a lot longer. It uses Plutonia as its iWAD, for what I presume is no particular reason, if I'm not mistaken Plutonia doesn't contain any new textures or anything, but if Plutonia can be typified by its ferocious and short combat encounters, at all times in Buzzsaw (BS makes for a very appropriate acronym) you are dealing with the opposite, it almost never throws in a large group of enemies you've got to negotiate around in a small arena, instead, you will always be receiving harassment fire from something, cacodemons a lot of the time, because I'll just give them a couple shotgun or chaingun blasts, and can't really be asked to put in the tremendous effort to start doing 2-round bursts, so I just walk away, knowing they'll come back soon anyway. Sometimes you'll have to deal with chaingunners who they deploy further than your maximum range, but it doesn't happen frequently enough to really matter, which could probably be said for most of it. The whole thing really does feel like it straight up discourages you from fighting anything, if you've ever played a CoD campaign and you've reached a point where you notice the enemies will infinitely respawn until you move forwards, then it'll be a familiar feeling. For an example in my attempt to clear the area before entering a room, I shot an imp off a roof, and then, off that same roof, a second imp comes into my line of sight, and a third, and by the time I'd killed all five of them, I think I spontaneously developed psychic powers and could hear the laugh track from the sitcom that was my life, which is kind of weird because last time I checked my name wasn't Harry Truman. Apart from that central issue, there really isn't anything I can remember, you get the incidental doomcute, and the levels are mostly coherent in how they're put together, although it's a pretty on and off thing, most of the time it's very obvious where you're supposed to go, but other times, it doesn't make the slightest bit of sense, and all things considered, even in the levels where I didn't have to backtrack at all, walking through those levels with so much empty space is still as tedious as backtracking through other levels could be - I can only guess that those 20 years of development time must have included programming an APC through which you're meant to drive through these levels which eventually got scrapped, because I cannot conceive any other reason why you'd have to make the level this fucking big, if this was a Quake map and I could rocket jump through everything I'd still be spending far too much time traversing through empty space as I need to. There have been genuinely painful WADs I've played, but this isn't one of them, it's still okay in places, it does take way too long to give you an SSG, but when they put in an interesting combat encounter, which happened now and then, certainly not in the opening level where 50% of it is just plinking zombiemen, it can make you temporarily forget how much you had to walk through to get to that point. But I wouldn't suggest doing that when there's so many maps out there that are consistently fun to play, and interesting to look at. 3/10. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post
Roofi Posted November 4, 2021 Month 5 Day 29 I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I die/stop. File 1) Custom Marathon TeamDM UESC vs Pfhor Items ACS Enter Script by H. G. Wells (2020) Spoiler Quote UESC and Pfhor fight it out on the sectors of doom! Whether it's frag count from Team Deathmatch, or life limit from Team Last Man Standing, Prepare for the hunt! May philosophy be with you. Sorry, warping non-applicable. A little script for zdoom in the case if you want to play DM. It doesn't have new maps so it's not interesting for me. File 2) final thoughts by shawn "spam" hamm (1996) Quote well, the 1st level is one i started on way back in august, but had a block. then school started. well, ive been working on it alot lately and here it is... its come along way. a note about the second map. the layout isnt too imaginative (its a star), but the catch is that it was design to have a high number of respawn telefrags (respawn on top of someone) as of yet i have had minimum playtesting on this map. Well , I opened the wad on DOSBOX but I forgot to launch my software for taking screenshots... :) A regular set of two deathmatchs maps. For some reasons , the author placed a chaingunner right in front of you but besides that , the aesthetics look ok. The second map is however just a 4-point star shaped arena. The thing I liked the most were the new sounds which mostly come out from other games like Quake or Heretic. Also, the humping sound (unf) was replaced by a coughing noise. I got sniped by a cyberdemon in the DM wad Avatar Collection #1 Spoiler 1 Quote Share this post Link to post
Sena Posted November 5, 2021 (edited) Day 3: Poly Wad https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/p-r/polywad2 The word poly is defined as "a combining form with the meanings 'much, many.'" The usage of such a word in this context can itself be defined as "false advertising". Compared to yesterday's WAD, this is very simple to play, and very simple to explain. You walk forwards in a series of rooms, rooms so narrow that you actually get stuck on the flat architecture, and that's it, you also have to go through a maze, but this is the height of tedium. You walk forwards, blast some imps at your eye level, turn left, and then a copy-pasted room with the exact same thing is waiting for you, and then another, and then another. Don't want to make the same analogy by reminding people of the fact we've progressed past the Atari so people can make Doom levels that are more complex than one room that just copies itself over and over, but apparently I have to make that analogy again because people keep fucking making levels that are that barren. This is an absolute pisstake, this is characteristic of the 30,000 Levels jokewad, or as it is also known, "press the space bar as many times as you can before you realise you are doing something completely menial that does not provide you with anything of interest". This shite feels like the fake video games they put in movies. 0/10, I don't care if after dealing with 200 enemies deployed in a manner that makes Wolfenstein look interesting it decides to change, I don't care if the mapper was 5 years old and mentally disabled and also diagnosed with cancer, I still want to kick his face in for making this travesty. At least Hong Kong 97 ended within a minute, this doesn't even qualify as kusoge, it is worse. Edited November 5, 2021 by Sena 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
Walter confetti Posted November 5, 2021 Looks like the maps got this time are all garbage from what I read. 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
Sena Posted November 6, 2021 Day 4: Temple https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/s-u/temp A bit basic, but with what I've gotten thus far, I can't be dissatisfied with something for being basic. It uses TNT, but if I really had to pinpoint a particular theme to it, it would be E2, maybe because I never bothered to get any further than map 8 or 9 of TNT, but in any case, stylistically, it's most like E2, via its usage of a bunch of stone, and also a very large amount of hell stuff, including the flesh wall and laughing face textures, imprinted into the walls like a patch of mould, which is something I'm all for, that one oversized room in one of the screenshots is the exception, for the most part it looks quite good. However, this is largely contrasted with the combat, which is not good as much as it is unremarkable, you're never given a super shotgun, so that means your time spent in 90% of the WAD is dealing with pinkies, big groups of them, I guess in this WAD they must asexually reproduce because they're everywhere, and I think the psychological pain of having to watch them slowly go down in 3 shots each probably hurts me more than a cyberdemon rocket to the face would. In regards to rockets, you get a launcher at the very end, against whom you can use it on precisely one enemy, a mancubus, who's lowered very slowly, in a manner that seems to imply far more importance than he really has, you can just run right past him anyway and not even use the launcher on anyone, which is exactly what I did. 6/10, decent level with some interesting design features, but largely forgettable. 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
Roofi Posted November 6, 2021 Month 5 Day 30 I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I die/stop. File 1) 24-b-day by Jason Root (@Hellbent/Grotug) (2003) Spoiler Quote A larger offering than what I've been making of late. Mostly outdoors with RL and Plasma at opposite ends once again. The layout flows well despite its odd, non-conventional and slightly chaotic design. I already explored this map during Month 3 day 28. The green and grainy texture makes this map particularly memorable. On more modern ports such as gzdoom, this texture is much less irritating to the eyes because of the higher resolution. File 2) Starlite! for DOOMII by Dave Johnson (1995) Spoiler Quote This is a medium sized level which is very playable with the weapons provided and should be enjoyable for players of all levels. Look for secret areas and watch your back. We start in a courtyard with a large star drawn on the ground for mainly decorative purposes. Apart from that, don't expect a map that takes place in the galaxy but rather a kind of dark and ruined brown "city". The level is neither more beautiful nor more ugly than a Doom 2 map. For a 1995 map, I think it is above average. The gameplay is fun with lots of zombies to exterminate thanks to SSG and chaingun. Besides, we can find much more ammunition and health bonuses than necessary, so nothing frustrating. Towards the end of the map, we can get a BFG and a megasphere. Except that, there is not much to explain. The random progression due to the use of teleporters to reach particularly empty rooms does not make this level particularly unique. However, it's still quite intuitive, so expect to spend about ten minutes to finish this little find. File 3) ==> The Black Serpent Headquarters by ==> Joe Htein (1995) Spoiler Quote ==> A level for single, cooperative, or deathmatch play at any difficulty setting. The Black Serpent could be a map for Heretic or Hexen, but it is actually a large tech Doom 2 base guarded by Nazis... The structure of the level turns out to be in the same frame as the map 31 of Doom 2, that is to say a particularly flat layout with corridors and lots of rooms to explore. However, unlike the Doom 2 map, the different areas are very varied because of the themes or the little gimmicks created. For example, you can explore a small medieval library with a portrait of Hitler, a helipad, a test room with tanks of liquid and even large outdoor areas. Even if very basic, I really liked this level. Exploring each room to find out what's inside is a big part of the fun. It's like opening a surprise package. Also, the level contains quite a few secrets (I don't know if they are counted as such because I play on Dosbox). These are very useful because they allow you to get weapons in advance such as the RL. These are not very hard to find, but I think that not finding them can be a handicap. In any case, the ultimate goal is to get the three colored keys. The red one requires you to press several switches to open the different doors of the kind of safe that contains it. A level that doesn't really make sense, but is very pleasant to play. File 4) Reviver Patch by RavenCM (1996) Spoiler Quote Reviver.deh is a patch that replaces the once- potent BFG with a Reviver gun, which when fired unleashes a red-tinted BFG shot that doesn't kill enemies - it brings them back to life!! For best results, get up close to the dead enemy that you want to revive and fire. The BFG shots cost you no ammo, so wail away! A weird and pointless dehacked file which allows you to ressurect monsters with your ..... BFG. It shoots now pink balls which cost no ammo. The idea is funny, but the weapon malfunctions severely. First of all, each ball allows you to resurrect only one monster at a time, which is not very exciting. Then, unless I'm wrong, you can't even resurrect some monsters, namely cybers, SM and viles. Finally, you have to be really close to the corpse to hope that it works. Indeed, most of the balls fired disappear for no reason and do not produce the expected effect. So, I had to shoot several times just to resurrect a Nazi... I might as well call an arch-vile who will do the job much better. I died in the first encounter of Tetraptykon. Spoiler 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
Endless Posted November 6, 2021 (edited) Altair3a | By Kenneth Chirko | 1996 | Played on GZDoom | Ultra-Violence Quote This is a BIG level designed for Doom II. It was designed with ultra-violence in mind and is mentally challenging. The level also has a design theme which I hope will be visually pleasing. Hah, believe me, there's more mentally challenging WADs out there than this one. Not a bad WAD at all. Altair3a is a single-map WAD with quite the big scope and charming little personality. It's a combination of Doom 2 brown-ish mapping style with some bits of castle here and there. It's mostly simple, quite modest on the visual side of things, with some classical oddities from the 90s being exposed in some sections, like paper thin walls or overused textures, and some HOMs. On the other hand, the maps looks quite nice thanks to a well done layout that expands itself full of variety and fun encounters. The map is quite big, it can take something like 20 to 25 minues to finish on UV, depending on your playstyle. Considering the date of the WAD, that's quite huge for 1996 standards, although, size doesn't equal quality, but lucky for us, this WAD provides a decent amount of challenge, fun encounters and simplistic visuals that despite being quite lacking by todays standards, they're still cute to look at. While I'm not precisely the biggest fan of maze-like WADs, this one was fun thanks to the huge amount of areas to explore, diversified combat arenas and pleasing design. Not bad. Edited November 6, 2021 by Endless 1 Quote Share this post Link to post
ICID Posted November 6, 2021 Poly Wad (2001) by David Fontaine Play Settings Source Port: prboom+, complevel 9 Difficulty: Ultra-Violence A fun-enough large-scale adventure map with stepieces that should be more memorable than they are. If I told you that the red key door triggers an Indiana-Jones-esque crushing ceiling trap followed by a vine-covered maze it would sound pretty darn cool in theory, but in practice, I dunno, it’s fine but it’s not as fun as I want it to be. (Doesn’t help in this specific case that the maze is inadvertently positioned to cause maximum blockmap bug.) Still: epic, exploration-heavy journey is my favorite genre of map, and this is an acceptable if ultimately forgettable version of that. I’ll take it. Grade: 6/10 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
Sena Posted November 7, 2021 (edited) Day 5: Plutosis https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/p-r/plutosis Couple of Plutonia maps, however due to my prevailing illiteracy I just played them through Doom 2, so anyone else will not have to deal with these black bars everywhere. Considering the ER/IWA standard, these levels are okay, for reasons that include but are not limited to, they don't use D_RUNNIN, they don't use STARTAN2, the levels actually work, and they actually give you weapons, but despite the lack of these issues that are far more common than they otherwise should be, I don't think I was entirely on board. For all the shit I give them, I can at least give the Doom 2 levels credit for being distinct, visually and in terms of gameplay, you post a screenshot of any of those levels, and anyone who's played them before can instantly know what they are. Some might choke that up to nostalgia and/or people having played them multiple times, but I'd suggest it's just the result of memorable area design and combat encounters - I'd argue Bourgeois Deathmatch does the same thing, which I can't exactly be nostalgic for when I only found out about it this year. Each of its maps has at least one big room or big fight that you can point to, one particular facet that makes all the maps clearly distinct from each other. Comparatively, Plutosis, a series of 4 maps, of which I completed about 3 and a half, feels very samey, with an overreliance on two monsters, chaingunners and revenants, and there's a good chance that by mentioning a reliance on two monsters, you knew immediately who they were. Fans of Plutonia, of which there must be many or else there wouldn't be a hundred different community projects dedicated to remaking it, will probably think of it as the same Plutonia that they loved when they first played it, but I only view it as the same Plutonia that I didn't particularly care for due to its gameplay that feels exhausting. When I enter a new room, I'm not excited at what new and interesting things I'm going to see, because I know already, as soon as I reach the halfway point, or any powerups that are contained within, they'll open up some chaingunners at the edges, and some revenants will come chasing me down. When you ask yourself, "okay, I've had enough, what else can you show me?", there isn't much in the way of an answer, obviously there are other situations that the WAD will throw at you, but they are outnumbered by ten to one, and while each of the levels are a decent length, I'd have preferred it more if it was just one map, the longer you play, the more the sameness sets in. 5/10, at least it's easy enough to get around. Edited November 7, 2021 by Sena 1 Quote Share this post Link to post
Roofi Posted November 7, 2021 Month 5 Day 31 I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I die/stop. File 1) FORTRESS OF WOE (1998) Spoiler A hellish map that replaces slot 12. This one is quite long and particularly full of monsters. I think I can divide this map in two parts: - The first one consisting of rather unmemorable areas such as an underground marble ruin or small mazes of crates. Apart from the lack of coherence with the themes, the gameplay is quite grindy as you have to kill mid-tier monsters such as barons with the chaingun and the shotgun. - The second one, more iconic, consists of a big pyramid shaped fortress with lots of enemies, ammo and powerful power-ups like invulnerability spheres. I really had fun in this area because I had way too many resources compared to the existing threat. Moreover, it is possible to get the SSG located... just next to the exit. The items and enemies were numerous enough to "disappear" because of the vanilla limits! A particularly fun map overall. File 2) None. by Yashar G. (aka @gemini09) (2000) Spoiler Quote 10 dm levels from scratch. Some good levels, and some bad. New music. Yashar Garibzadeh is a familiar name to me. Indeed, it's the author of HR2's map 17 "An Eye for an Eye" which proved to be more detailed than the others maps in the megawad. Gemini has a sense of aesthetics and it is even more obvious in this deathmatch episode. Whether you're a fan of the brown color or not, the medieval castle theme a la Quake is extremely well done while keeping the vanilla format. The choice of textures as well as the rather precise alignment of the latter also contribute to give a very modern look to this wad. Moreover, there are interesting effects such as torches resting on a support hanging on the wall. There are indeed "bad" maps that turn out to be basic and symmetrical arenas. They are not ugly, but much simpler in details and effects. I guess they have no other purpose than to fill in the 11 maps. There are also some oddities such as the painless lava. Could it be an oversight? I really liked the choice of music that was familiar to me but I forgot the names. I don't know if I like or not the contrast between the very cheerful music and the very gloomy atmosphere of the maps. However, the music of the 32 maps have all been replaced and the unused music fits the medieval atmosphere much better. In any case, a very nice DM wad. File 3) DominationDuel2 by @Th0r (2006) Spoiler Quote Gothic Duel maps A simple set of 5 small and compact maps using the GOTHICDM.WAD texture pack. I have nothing to say about the gameplay, it's very standard. The wad uses some new sounds and I love the SSG sound. Much more detailed than the original one. I don't think everyone can appreciate it but I do. I got sadisticaly burned by bunch of arch-viles in Meatbox Slam! Spoiler 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted November 7, 2021 Medevil (2018) by whirledtsar (DSDA Doom) Three smallish maps with a gothic/castle medieval theme. The music really complements it too, and it somehow actually feels like a castle/graveyard as opposed to a map merely containing those textures. Not to mention the door opening sound being replaced with the creaky one I think came from Hexen gives an ambience that no one really asked for, but is still appreciated. In the visual sense, it's incredibly strong and cohrent, far more than the average non big-name wad submitted to id games. For instance, I reviewed something called Book Depository recently that was very fun, but had some off purplish OTEX texturing. I had no odd feelings from this one on the other hand. While not being particularly ambitious, there are still a number of cool visual structures that go with the theme that no doubt took some effort. The 3rd map is easily the star, though, with a graveyard, mausoleum, and a throne room I was unfortunate to die immediately in. Health availability slowly declines with each map, to the point that there's hardly any in the last map if you're bad with secrets.. It's not incredibly difficult - I didn't die until the 3rd map - but you have few options to recover if you take too many hits. Also, there's a new custom enemy: a transparent Imp that becomes a massive pain in the ass after the 3rd level, where I believe a number of them are unleashed after you hit a switch in a mausoleum which lowers some bars blocking the exit. And whirledtsar apparently really liked Pain Elementals because quite a number of them appear starting with the second map, despite the enemy count never reaching 100 and only going over 90 in the last map. Rocket ammo isn't exactly handed out like confetti either, so don't waste it on some group of 4 Imps or anything like that. I'm not sure I would call this better than Doomboy's Demon's Revenge necessarily, mostly because I was sloppy and sucked. Not to mention while the Pain Elementals and Arch-viles weren't all that obnoxiously placed, I sort of wanted something a little easier. Still....8/10 Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler 1 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted November 7, 2021 (edited) *message deleted Edited November 8, 2021 by LadyMistDragon 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
ICID Posted November 7, 2021 Temple (2013) by mrthejoshmon Play Settings Source Port: k8vavoom Difficulty: Ultra-Violence Nicely detailed, as Sena got into in more detail above, but even with k8vavoom lighting nice graphics can't hide the fact that this is one of those WADs that makes you painfully aware of the fact that Doom at its core is just clicking on stuff. I was already rolling my eyes at the hell knights you're clearly supposed to shotgun to death (not in THIS lifetime) but began gnashing my teeth at the endless hallways vs pinkies which, unlike the former annoyance, you can't run past. I need a new numerical rating to represent "this map would be good if it would just give you a fucking SSG", which seems to be my most common comment on ER/iWA crap. The complete author information section in the textfile for this WAD is as follows: "#SWAG lol". Something for us all to consider. Grade: 2/10 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
Sena Posted November 8, 2021 Day 6: Sewer of Darkness https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom/s-u/sewer2 It's definitely a sewer, and it's definitely dark. Like most 90s maps, it feels like the author put more effort into the prose detailing the backstory in the readme than they did the actual level. Doom 1, so I know for a fact that I'm not getting an SSG, and with how many lost souls there are, you know you're in for a bad time. They've got way too many invulnerabilities, if I played a Sunder map with this many I'd feel like they'd be going a bit soft on me, but this isn't a Sunder map, I am not fighting 80 barons at once, it is 2 lost souls, so I really can't understand the rationale, especially when the fact that taking one will compromise your visibility, so I didn't take any of them. It's a sewer level, you know what entails, it's dark, it's completely nonsensical in its design. If I wanted to explore a place where I keep getting lost and every single room looks the same and it also smells of piss, I'd admit myself to a psychiatric hospital. 1/10. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post
ICID Posted November 8, 2021 Plutosis (2014) by Memfis Play Settings Source Port: k8vavoom Difficulty: Ultra-Violence, continuous The year this came out, its developer – the absurdly prolific Russian speedrunner and mapper known only as Memfis – put out more than 50 maps by my count. I quite like Memfis’ work, as a rule – I previously had good things to say about his contributions to DMP16 and SlaughterMAX – but law of averages says that if you make that many maps all at once, some of them are going to be less than stellar. This is one such example. When randoming WADs for this event, few things put as much fear in my stomach as the words “Plutonia inspired”. This almost always refers to maps which, like their namesake, are ugly and mean-spirited. This is mostly true of Plutosis, although it betrays its roots somewhat by having multiple colors (gasp!) and its meanness is more in spirit than in practice. By this I mean: yes, picking up nearly anything is going to open up a trap, but those traps are pretty badly miscalibrated. The first map, Exoplanet, is particularly bad at this – you encounter an arch-vile almost immediately when you pick up the red key, which is a bit frustrating if you don’t get lucky with infighting, but every trap after that is a joke (in particular when you pick up the SSG and are attacked by…a single cacodemon.) MAP02, Stalked, ups the arch-vile count a good bit but still seems scared to really let loose. It also gives you so many rockets at the beginning that it’s fairly trivial to neutralize any threat. Normally with Plutonia maps I complain about them being too hard, so why am I now complaining that this one was too easy? Well…if you’re still basing your map around the Plutonia style, which is to say building the maps solely for combat puzzles with no sense of exploration, atmosphere, narrative or theme, you simply need more engaging combat puzzles than “hold down the rocket button until victory happens.” Still, better than miscalibrating in the opposite direction, I suppose. I had an okay time. Also, it's weird for Plutonia maps not to use the Plutonia exit. Doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things but it throws you off more than you'd think. Grade: 4/10 TL;DR: Easy Plutonia is a contradiction in terms. 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
Roofi Posted November 8, 2021 Month 6 Day 01 I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I die/stop. File 1) Bartdm3.wad by Jim Wiscarson (AKA) Bartma, (1996) Spoiler Quote Great Deathmatch wad 2-4 player A very basic DM map with weapons and ammunition scattered everywhere. Aesthetically, the building is surrounded by a strange dark area that doesn't serve a particular purpose. It's not a trap or anything. A teleporter leads to a screened platform containing a BFG, blue armor and a soulsphere. Maybe a little too overpowered. File 2) dmload.com by Sonik (1994) Quote dmload.com is designed to make loading external .WAD files easier. An old exe from 1994 which has no use today, even for Dosbox users like me I think. I woke up the arch-viles after making too much noise with my chaingun in Manin. Spoiler 4 Quote Share this post Link to post
Sena Posted November 9, 2021 Day 7: Giza Invasion https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/g-i/gizainv2 Never cared much for Egypt levels, but this one's alright. The author, Saturn, seemed to know what he was doing, albeit I've never heard of him, and I couldn't find any information on him because it was all obscured by results pertaining to either the Doom port to the Sega Saturn, or BTSX. In any case, I can be certain of the fact that he's profoundly intelligent, because this level uses the track called Into Sandy's City, and this sure is a sandy city, and I enjoy wordplay more than I enjoy digital demonic genocide. It is sort of characteristic of Nuts, but on an actually reasonable scale, with a good 150 enemies coming at you in a flat space, and you're just left to figure out the rest of it on your own, but most of them will just kill each other. Strangely, the non-hitscanners can't infight, not sure what the point of that one was, but after you deal with that lot, you've got another couple groups, and then two cyberdemons appear, and you kill them, and then you push a button and it's over. Not really much to say about this one, for no particular reason I was thinking of Shipment from Call of Duty 4 today, and this is basically the same thing, flat space, a bunch of boxes for cover, a bunch of enemies, and you can figure out the rest. The no infighting thing was kind of weird to me, and in one particular spot I took damage when I really shouldn't have because the map ends with an invisible wall, in an area where you can be very reasonably expected to try and retreat to during combat. This level was simple, but I had fun with it. 6/10. 4 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted November 9, 2021 (edited) [incidentally, I hope y'all saw my Medieval mapset post, 3 maps!] Tuning Contest Wad (2007) by Various (DSDA Doom) Here's something quite unusual: a mapping contest held by both Doomworld and iddqd.ru which basically involves taking an OBLIGE map and turning it into something far more presentable than anything the computer could possibly generate. They all had to be Boom-compatible, not use non-Boom features that weren't MAPINFO, not use any specific level tags (666) or use any custom sound effects or Dehacked enemies. There are some cases (the first 2 maps especially) where it just seems like a turd was being polished as it were, but many of the rest have serious effort put into them, (Eternal's maps hardly represent the original!), and they're practically all fun to play. A total of 8 entries were received. I'll just talk about Maps 01 and 02 in the same breath since they are basically the same. While 01 is incredibly minimalist and has textures suggestive of that of a bombed-out building (even complete with a SS guy and that flower painting from Wolfenstein!), 02 takes the same layout and applies the sort of lime green coat to it that makes it appear to be some kind of sewer facility, as the slime in the corners of the rooms suggest. And most of the difficulty in them comes from Lost Souls which I can't fight. Map 03, then, is an extension of the same layout, but goes back to the blood on the other hand for some reason, while adding a castle-like texture and orange rock. It also features a killer rendition of the lead-off track from the Deep Purple album "Burn" which I can't remember the name of but is as kickass as you'd expect. It almost made my mild frustration navigating this easier to deal with. See, switches often open things that are practically on the opposite end of the map from their respective locations, which mostly isn't too bad with a map this small. But I spent over 15 minutes searching for a passage that turned out to have an Arch-vile after hitting a switch near the red card door located next to a couple of other switches that are closed off. If you guess you have to return here after hitting the switch where the Arch-vile was, you win! The fights are actually fairly decent, even one I think you can skip involving and Arch-vile, Cyberdemon, and Spectres hidden in a closet with an Invulnerbility and a switch that raised the bars blocking the yellow door which you don't really need to pass through at this stage. The Invulnerbility might trivialize everything, but the fact you'll be on one end of a series of fairly cramped rooms if you come back here does imply a certain challenge. Map 04 is the first map by Eternal in this set (what happened to him anyway?), and it takes things in an entirely different direction. The exit is actually right behind your starting location but if you try heading into it, it'll shut immediately. It's a darkened sort of hellish, vaguely industrial aesthetic that doesn't stick in my head as much. It's a noticeable step-up in difficulty though. There are only a couple of areas that appear to be retexturings of the previous maps with much of the rest being different enough that I couldn't spot anything representing a possible prefab. There's a blood fountain, a gazebo, and best, a deep, narrow, and bright red corridor with a couple of Revenants and an Arch-vile at the very end guarding a switch. Map 05 goes back a design deviating little from the original in layout, but packing in tons more detail and making some extensions to the design that feel much more natural. It seems as if though there was some sort of teleportation experiment that went wrong, as you start in an area just outside the building with electricity flying everywhere but not hurting you for some reason. There is still rubble, but some surprisingly near details. One secret consists of a Megasphere with a flaming dumpster and some yellowish-brown things (wood? part of a bread) that you use to escape from an area that's otherwise blocked off. Mostly, the building appears to be primitive beige brick, but interestingly, there are Duke Nukem hallway and door textures and one place and even a desk or two where the Hell Knight middle managment is now wide and alert, wondering what just happened. Map 06 is, kind of? a techbase of sorts and has some resemblance in layout to the original map but otherwise feels nothing like it. Here again, aimless wandering struck again because I once again managed to miss a critical pathway near the shotgun shell secret opened by stepping on a floor plate. It was quite interesting though. The hardest so far, it'll probably also take the longest. Finding the red key card will allow you to do so much more, including pressing switches in certain rooms that will lower the floor and dump you into some rather nasty enemy nests. Annoyingly, one of these will just raise instantly. The other one has a blue key and some dangerous enemies, including a Cyberdemon in a small-enough space I can't really recommend two-shotting him with a BFG. At one point in this map, you also travel through a badly-glitched void with invisible pillars. That's a minor annoyance though. Besides, you can kill the Masterminds here easy-peasy if you have a BFG. Map 07 is by Eternal again. Somewhat easier than the last map, there are textures that make this almost feel a Goldeneye map in spots, although I would wager the temple columns at the end with the lake would disabuse you of that notion. It feels like some kind of lost civilization with advanced technology. Map 08 is by Eternal yet again, and it is truly a worthy ending! Hellish-themed, 867 monsters and enough ammo one can hope you won't run out. Despite the limited amount of space, this isn't terrible difficult for a slaughter map, other than the bit with the Revenants. Exhausting. Kind of. This was probably the best thing played for RWA, if not by very much. I don't think I'll be able to say the same for the next entry, which will be a deathmatch megawad (and one I've heard of!) if there are no monsters. 8.5/10 Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Edited November 9, 2021 by LadyMistDragon 1 Quote Share this post Link to post
Walter confetti Posted November 9, 2021 Hey, i made MAP03 on that wad! 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted November 10, 2021 (edited) 5 hours ago, Walter confetti said: Hey, i made MAP03 on that wad! That's right. You were going by daimon originally! I'd forgot seeing that in your wiki entry, lol Edited November 10, 2021 by LadyMistDragon 1 Quote Share this post Link to post
Sena Posted November 10, 2021 (edited) Day 8: Installation A https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/a-c/ap_012 This level has left me speechless, because it's just not really got anything going on. Much as I'd like to write some pointless offtopic anecdote about how the typical situation in which people will say something leaves them speechless ends up being the sort of thing it's easier to have speech about, no point in that, but that's neither here nor there. Visually, this level doesn't remind me much of E1, or anything at all really, although there is the point that it is vaguely characteristic of it on account of the fact it's got no high tier enemies or weapons, about 40 in total, and the toughest of the lot was a singular hell knight, who's tougher than normal on account of the fact I could only shoot him with one barrel of buckshot at a time, but I probably took less than 20 damage throughout the whole level. The level plays okay, and I didn't get lost or anything, so it's got that going for it, but it's got one problem, and it's really short, it feels incomplete, I know I say that levels feel like the start of a megaWAD all the time, but this one especially so, like someone who wanted to slowly build up his difficulty, although doing so in a manner that's a bit slower than I'd perhaps like. On its own, it just feels tremendously short and with nothing in it that really warranted an emotional response, beyond the "wait that's it?" when I was done, it feels strange to publish something this short on its own. 4/10, it's kind of boring, but I guess boredom is better than getting my bunghole barbecued by archviles. Edited November 10, 2021 by Sena 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted November 10, 2021 Elements(1995) by Daniel Miller Well, turns out that megawad only works in multiplayer-only wads. So I hit the button again to get...uuhnnnnnn Oh boy....screwing up a deathmatch map is sure hard, but this guy sure managed to do it. "Very good," in this case means drawing as expansive as rooms as you possibly can. Much as I can appreciate the all-water aesthetic of the opening room, the rest falls flat so completely, you wonder why anyone would bother. The wall doorframe to the left of the door area looks badly aligned, and the fire room with a lava floor is just flat out annoying and quite nonsensical when you realize the Ring of Invulnerbility you'll need to avoid damage will also prevent anyone to be harmed by other players. It sounds good, but after a while, it just gets gimmicky. I haven't mentioned the last two rooms because they are just boring and stupid. The wind passage is utterly stupid but the darkened gladiator room could be worst(despite the space you can see between the floors and walls), but the teleport lines at the edge of most of these rooms have no clear mark on where you're supposed to step. This is an utter abomination and probably was never playtested. 2/10 Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Undertaker's Venture Map 02(1996) by Kevin "Undertaker" Farley Yeah, yeah, we don't review Hexen maps here, but if I have to suffer through this hideousness, you do too. This replaced Map 02. So Kevin's username may be cheesy as anything, but this deathmatch map could be much worst. There's plenty of room to move around, though Player 1 may be left with a bad taste in their mouth if they walk backwards, as they'll plunge into the void almost instantly. However, the lack of any height differential is bad, and the only thing giving this place any character are the red-circled ceilings in the corners. Also, I don't think this one was playtested either because there is a flickering wall in the north and the teleporter in the east takes you to a platform in the west it's impossible to escape from. Still, the void isn't really that huge of a deal, not when you realize other games like Super Smash Bros do this sort of thing all the time 4/10 Spoiler 1 Quote Share this post Link to post
Roofi Posted November 10, 2021 Month 6 Day 02 I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I die/stop. File 1) Stalker by Chuck Jordan (2005) Spoiler Quote Designed specifically for deathmatches, with lots of hiding places and a few good sniper positions A Deathmatch map uploaded in 2005 but made in 1994. It can also be played solo as it contains enemies but does not have a guided progression, like any DM map. Visually, it's better than what I've played on the 1994 maps. The map contains some interesting shapes like hexagonal rooms or a long corridor between the different locations. Moreover, all the armors and almost all the ammunition are concentrated in the center of the map. I failed telefragging the cyberdemon in the first map of Cyberdreams. Spoiler 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
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