The DWmegawad Club plays: Community Chest

[finnks13]

MAP29 - Citadel at the Edge of Eternity by Magikal:

I don't even know where to start here, I've been trying to write this review for 3 days now, and I just can't think of what to write. The main thing that keeps coming back to my head is the obvious criticism - this map is too long. But unusually for me, while marathon maps such as this usually tend to bore me to tears, I can't say that this map did. I didn't particularly enjoy playing it, outside of a few standout moments, and finally conquering the map didn't make me feel triumphant or relieved, as I would expect from a map of this scale, I felt nothing after completing the map. Honestly, I think I checked out from the map about halfway through my playthrough and spent the rest of it in a mood I can best describe as a "sad focus".

 

While this is going to be pretty negative, there is a fair amount of good stuff here. First, and most importantly, the visuals of the map are superb, there's an immense scale to everything, with the Citadel itself sitting in an enormous hell canyon, and it looks absolutely fantastic. I think it's one of the best, if not the best, looking maps in the wad (and it definitely has competition for this). I liked the fight in the tiered room with all the hitscanners, it's the most fun I had with the map and wouldn't be too out of place in a more modern challenging map. I also like the fight in the techbase section that starts off with about 30 shotgunners emerging from the sides of the room. In spite of it's reputation, I thought this map was actually pretty generous with health and ammo, a fair amount of it was in secrets, but these were pretty easy to find overall with the help of having the secret sectors already revealed on the automap.

 

There are some parts to this map that are beyond parody, two minutes in and I'm single shotgunning a baron to death while standing on a completely unnecessary faux-3d staircase, the icon of sin room is absolutely hilarious when first going into it. I'm not sure why Magikal seems to have such an obsession with the faux-3d bridges, but I really hate them. While the initial fight to get the BFG is pretty cool, having to kill a cyberdemon while balancing on them is just miserable. There's a lot of miserable fights, the room with the baron faces is awful, and having to figure out which random part of the floor triggers which door just sucks. I also really just hated the long series of connected marble rooms on the western side of the map, they
take so long to clear out and aren't that fun to do.

 

The map doesn't hand out the BFG until you've pretty much beaten it, and never gives out a plasma gun at all, so some of the fights can become a massive slog. That being said, the most tedious room is easily the elevator room which takes such a long time, especially if you take the time to get the much needed secret health. I spent most of that part watching a video on my phone, it's so unnecessary. The room with all the small containers with various monsters in, is a pretty interesting idea for a fight, though I hated playing it, it's so random how they open and getting unlucky with an archvile here, as you've removed most of the cover from running around really sucks.

 

After getting into the Citadel itself, the map becomes really easy, I'm not sure if Magikal was up against a deadline for the release of Community Chest or if he was just burnt out on making the map at this point. The hardest part about this Citadel is figuring out how to get up to the first floor. The final fight is a massive let down, it's really easy and because 50 monsters never spawned in for me (some arachnotrons, and imps as far as I can tell), I was expecting a much grander fight. And then you're done.

 

So how to sum up this map, then? I can't not despise this map, it's so long, so miserable and so tedious, but at the same time I really respect the immense effort that must have gone into creating this map - just testing it all the way through must have eaten up most of an afternoon - and it's nowhere near the worst map in the wad. To be honest though, I can only rate how much fun I had with this map and I didn't have much fun with it. It all goes back to that obvious criticism from six paragraphs ago - it's just too bloody long.

 

Rankings:

Spoiler

Really Liked: MAP02, MAP07, MAP17, MAP21
Liked: MAP04, MAP09, MAP13, MAP14, MAP31, MAP16, MAP18, MAP23, MAP28
The Boring Zone: MAP03, MAP11, MAP15, MAP32, MAP19, MAP24, MAP26
Didn't Like: MAP01, MAP05, MAP08, MAP12, MAP20, MAP22, MAP27, MAP29
Really Didn't Like: MAP06, MAP10, MAP25

 

Edited March 29, 2022 by finnks13
redid the first sentence cause it sucked

[Book Lord]

1 hour ago, RHhe82 said:

I don’t wanna change my votes for the second time, but I wouldn’t be unhappy about Devilution, either.

 

Of course, but it's the (long-awaited) public beta release. Just wait until it gets uploaded to idgames, so we won't have three RC updates during the month.

 

Haste+MSCP are well ahead in the polls, so April will be the month of slaughter for the DWMC.

 

 

[RHhe82]

16 minutes ago, Book Lord said:

 

Of course, but it's the (long-awaited) public beta release. Just wait until it gets uploaded to idgames, so we won't have three RC updates during the month.

 

Haste+MSCP are well ahead in the polls, so April will be the month of slaughter for the DWMC.

 

 

That’s true, which is exactly why I won’t change my vote. I wouldn’t mind playing it, but if it never gets chosen for the club, I’d play it only when it hits idGames. (Then again I’m not sorry we played 1000 Lines 3 when it’s still not on idgames afaik).

[sincity2100]

Map29 is basically a Torture Porn..

[Horus]

The DWMC can provide some very useful beta-testing feedback, and it has done so in the past (1k3, 25YOE, AA are a few that come to mind). I don’t think there’s anything wrong with playing RCs as part of  the DWMC, as long as there’s a balance between that and finished WADs (which there is).

[Book Lord]

6 minutes ago, Horus said:

The DWMC can provide some very useful beta-testing feedback, and it has done so in the past (1k3, 25YOE, AA are a few that come to mind). I don’t think there’s anything wrong with playing RCs as part of  the DWMC, as long as there’s a balance between that and finished WADs (which there is).

 

I am not against playing RCs or betas in the DWMC, as long as there is a stipulation not to make updates while the Club is playing. Not everybody is pistol starting each map!

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 29: (in ancient dragon voice) Citadel at the Edge of Eternity by Kevin Reay

Music: "The Scarlet Fortress" by Shin Godzilla

Played continuously with the Whitemare class from Final Doomer

 

Gabriel from Supernat....I mean Kevin Reay returns for the second and literally the final time with a map that definitely doesn't have the trolollol enemy count of 1337 on UV, is visually the blandest excuse for Doom mapping ever and I can safely guarantee will most certainly be not filled with a bunch of painful and playful design decisions that will make you wail and gnash your teeth. "The Scarlet Fortress" genuiely sounds like it was made for this map though. The pounding, grim and miltaristic rhythm of this are the perfect complement to its combination of exploration and despair.

 

Before you as you start is the scene that greets you in the opening post of this thread. High and crimson red rock walls rise around a large caldera with 3D bridges seemingly going around a tower and off into the distance while the titular citadel looms in the background with a couple of towers placed equidistantly in front. Just in case you think you can jump onto the bridge and get back YOU CAN'T. Not until you have the yellow key at least.

 

Instead, head up to the left, be a stranger to the Arachnotrons (this is designed for pistol start, regardless of what you'll think about the ammo distribution) and when you get to the bunker alcove with the hitscanners, hit the window ledge and it will lower. This will introduce you to one of the Citadel's primary characteristics: the segmenting of different section of the map into distinct zones. In this techy grey corridor, there are plenty of chambers with enemies that open suddenly and many switches seemingly having no immediate effect. Eventually, you'll head outside again and ascend an utterly pistiless canyon to the ramparts on the west side of the fortress. These ramparts contain several doors which seem to head inside, but they'll only open once from the outside when you've approached them. And let's just say the opposition'll be much too stiff at most of these doors to bother. I think it was the 5th door here which will open from both sides no matter what you do.

 

To the west of the darkened marble hallways is an incredibly ugly use of MODFACE2 containing chaingunners behind fake walls that probably won't hurt you too badly but still add to the incredibly hostility on display here. In between are a series of rooms, though you'll want to enter them in the right order, lest you find yourself softlocked with hardly any ammo for the incredibly tight gauntlets arrayed against you. In one case, firing at an Arch-vile pair will cause no less that SIX Pain Elementals to teleport in the nearby room that has a Berserk Pack and Megaarmout. That is quite possibly one of the most unfair moves in this  You have to enter them to press these switches though to lower some bars at the far north of this hallway. Then press the switch behind, and hopefully not end up quitting after 5 minutes like I did and discovering the hallway which opens hardly more than a minute after my session resumed. This led to more darkened rooms and nonsense, pushing a switch in a hallway behind some rather cheap Revenants, and then heading back to the south of the western ramparts where you'll finally be able to access a series of niches near the outside you saw going through here earlier that you've GOT to straferun here since there's zero switch. At the end of all this is a switch to press which opens up this fortress area with more Arachnotrons. But the switch allowing progression is behins a fake wall....guarded by an Arachntron.

 

An opening in the rock in the far north I missed for a bit will have opened up at this point. Reaching the cage with the Mancubi, gazing to the left will greet you with an incredibly intimidating sight. Cyberemonds on a shrine, all three keys sitting at various points here and Arch-viles that will awaken if you enter the middle area. Anyway, after opening an obvious hidden door in the northwest through a switch in chambers with some awful use oif fireblu, you fight your way through some sadistic but managable chambers, fight some Revenants and Arch-viles in stupidly close quarters and push a switch which lowers the red key.

 

The red key opens a door in the far east guarded by a gobsmacking amount of pinkies. You should have picked up at least one Berserk Pack at this moment, so they shouldn't be a big deal. The real big deal is entering the red door and find yourself greeted by a deadly multi-level brick fort or something (I forgot the name) absolutely crawling with hitscanners and a murder of Revenants I'd rather not try to take on keyboard-only. After this nonsense, is a lift which will lower slowly, taking you to a room I cursed almost as badly as Mt.Pain. Jumping onto tiny square room lifts, pushing on seemingly unlike textures to proceed, and yeah....there's a touch more of a pattern to this if you set your mind to it, but it does feel like it was mainly designed to piss the player off.

 

Not long after this was an incredibly tiring room with probably 140 enemies someone @Poncho1 dubbed the serious sam room. Difference being is that it's actually fun in that series with the added mobility you've got, whereas this was basically filled with tedious crap and sometimes entertaining infighting. I'm not sure I can recommend killing everything if you just want to complete this.

 

Past this is the most visually interesting map in the room, a pit of lava with green-vined bricks staring out at a series of 3D bridges an Icon of Sin texture leaning against some incredibly demonic rock. Is this a shrine? An idea whose point doesn't quite come across? I'm not sure, and the Romero head upstairs that you can't shoot doesn't really help matters either. What I refuse to believe is that it's ugly. A cool cavern that really rams in the "Edge of Eternity" aspect of the theme as much as the tech sections, you can tell at least that Kevin was indeed crafting a space intended to feel out of time.

 

At a certain point, you'll press the yellow key switch, head back to the beginning, pick up a BFG in the central tower, fight a nasty ambush, head to the yk bars to fight the cheapest Cyberdemon in existence and press a switch that lowers the shrine with the BK that was just circling around some Cybers while killing maybe 2 of them, heading to the titular building to use the BK, and engage in some incredibly tedious fights whilst figuring out how to lower a lift you can only reach without cheating by wall-running (I have no idea how to do that on GZDoom so I just no-clipped) then head upside, press a switch, fight some more mobs off before teleporting to the final battle that's essentially a massive BFG spam fest where you also fight no less than THREE Spider Masterminds. Hiding has limited utility here. Anyway, you press a final series of switches and open the exit portal. My exit time was around 01:42:....

 

It sounds like a cliched and hipster thing to say, but this is the best map in CC, IMO. The various tricks just did not get to me like they would most people. And more to the point, it's less cryptic than the crap Bob Evans dreamed up in Eternal Doom. Like can you see Kevin placing a skull switch behind a cobweb? No, he'd probably spring a nasty trap out of nowhere. Sorry for my shitty taste, but there you have it.

 

 

 

 

 

[RHhe82]

27 minutes ago, LadyMistDragon said:

It sounds like a cliched and hipster thing to say, but this is the best map in CC, IMO

 

I wouldn't go that far, but it certainly isn't the worst. If someone pointed a gun at my head and told me to play either MAP06 or MAP29, I would play MAP06 because it'd be over sooner. But if that same person told me to play a certain selection of CC1 maps (like MAP01, MAP06, MAP25, MAP27, MAP20, ...) for 2 hours and 20 minutes or play MAP29 once more, I'd gladly choose MAP29.

 

So, I don't know. It's not the worst map. Perhaps the most painful, but that's because of its scale; it's so big that it manages to contain some of the most ambitious stuff we've seen this month, but also a collection of Doom design tropes that have aged like a fine milk.

[LadyMistDragon]

Just now, RHhe82 said:

 

I wouldn't go that far, but it certainly isn't the worst. If someone pointed a gun at my head and told me to play either MAP06 or MAP29, I would play MAP06 because it'd be over sooner. But if that same person told me to play a certain selection of CC1 maps (like MAP01, MAP06, MAP25, MAP27, MAP20, ...) for 2 hours and 20 minutes or play MAP29 once more, I'd gladly choose MAP29.

 

So, I don't know. It's not the worst map. Perhaps the most painful, but that's because of its scale; it's so big that it manages to contain some of the most ambitious stuff we've seen this month, but also a collection of Doom design tropes that have aged like a fine milk.

Kaiser's maps are probably the best, other than their sometimes silly progression, but let's just say I can understand why some people don't vibe with them. Breakout has the best fights, but idk.

[kalaeth]

Ooooook, let's start this. for fun purposes, I started playing this at around 10h15 am.

 

MAP 29 - The gigantic one everyone fears aka Citadel at The Edge of Eternity :

 

I've never played this before so.. Let's see. We begin outside, two paths leading up, one other path hinted but not yet reachable? Far away imps shoot at me, and I start to climb the steps. On the other side I can now see a noble as well. Once I reach the top I go back down to remove the imps and end up finding a zombieman in a room that opens ups three times revealing a door. Entering reveals three tech-boxes, a ton of former humans, with more inside each box. Second box has a switch, that I press and the third one has a panel that opens up a small niche with a shotgunner and a green armor, not marked as secret. up the steps, panels also open up non-secret little rooms, or at least two of them do. Then there's a invisible wall so I go to the door. The switch can be pressed from outside the cage and I find marblesteps with revs to the side, chaingunners after. Up the steps, we reach the top, where a not-secret backpack is hidden away and a door opens via trigger in the stairs, and I go straight inside, into a marble walled thingy that I don't really get the point of. Back outside, a ton of small marble houses and a trench running next to them. I follow it to the end and then go back, all the way back to the first door. A rev says hi, but the door closes and I can't enter it yet. Second door has a HK, but this time I enter on time. Kill everything inside, and I get stuck. There's no way out of this small room? I no clip back to the main room, and proceed to the next door. Kill a baron, enter, kill all, and save before entering the back room. Ok, this time it opens to both sides. Next door has a weird moat between the lift and it but the door opens from the outside! Now, that's a lot of imps, clear and this back door is skull, door, skull door, all the way to a dark trap where I die. But I had saved before entering here so, no big deal. After dealing with it, at the final room, a pair of wooden beams come down bearing gifts! Including a megasphere. The final door is for cacos, I kill them and then I finally explore the backside. It's a big courtyard with secret niches everywhere. I use it to enter the rooms I was forced to miss from the other side.. And this time I figure out how to exit that one I thought was bugged. First door and I find out that there is supposedly a way to travel the rooms via the grey faces but I can't reach the entries... There's more to explore here but I can't find anything new here so at about 1h of total play time, 32 minutes in game, I take a break. 

 A bit more, and I keep getting sniped by revenants waaaaaaaay too far away, and eventually die with rev-balls I can't even start to guess where they come from. Different approach, but first clear the rooms again. Done, now, all the way back to the start. Kill spiders, and let's try the big building.. It requires the blue key.. Ok, back to the trench and this time I won't kill stuff. Just run. Eventually I reach a red door, that I can't enter, so I just remove the pinkies and follow through until a bunch of HKs show up, I kill them all and.. Nothing gained. This time I go down into the bridge above the lava, kill stuff, grab a BFG in the central tower, climb very carefully, and reach a locked door with a cyber. Nop. Not the way either, since if I fall down I can't even get back up.. Back to the regular way, find a secret soulsphere under the stairs, and after a while I had to jump so I could do the greyfaces path. On the final room, a RL, a huge fall, a shitload of rockets. Going back up it opened up all the rooms! Meaning I was supposed to do this but I have no idea how if not cheating.. So, then final room's switch opens a door in the courtyard behind I fall through it.. then a series of faces open some what randomly? Behind one a switch, behind another a path, and I die on it, gangbanged by revs on both sides. Restart, manage to clear it and all this shit for shells?!  Back down, I've pressed both switches but all it did was bring me back to the top... Oh, a new path, some stairs, a ledge and a pool with what appears to be a cyber.. Time for a new break. at the 59 minute mark, about 1h after picking it up again.

 

 I should go eat, but I wanted to get rid of the cybercow before. I lost more life to the almost invisible chaingunners than either the revs or the cyber, and then there's nothing to do and once again I die to a rev ball from far far away.. Next try. This time my bane was auto-aim that shot a couple of rockets at a pillar instead of at the rev straight ahead, but still, killed the cow and revs and all that. This time however I save after the cow dies. Now.. Back tracking a bit, a new door! Entering it, going down and finding the biggest shotgunner fest ever. Clear everything and then die to a chaingunner hidden on a wall. Ok, I'm off to lunch now.

 

 Food has been had, time for more doom. Picking it up with 1h02m play time at 14h30, from the top of the stairs. This time I knew about the caged chaingunners and killed them fast, rocket to the face style. And then die to a rev that ate 3 rockets and still stood, just as the cacos started to swarm.. Next try, before triggering the caco swarm I removed the rev, HK and chaingunners,picked up a pair of medikits I really needed and then moved onwards. I am now out of rockets, out of plasma and at half life. At the top of the stairs I reach one of the rev cages from the cybercow fight and now the red key is down. Back down, pick the secret inside the chaingunner cages, back up.. One key down, two to go. Then, cross the snipping rev terrain and reach the red door, a full blusphere wasted! 

 Once inside the red door, I hide in the small room with a window to clear a bit of the opposition, before slowly but surely beginning my ascension. Up there I go to the ledge, press a almost hidden switch, go down to grab the secret bluesphere, save, and.. Go press the hidden face again to open the way. And down I go! Once down there the computer lowers one lift that I then enter, ride up, change to the next, up, eventually, bridge. And of course I fall down and must restart the process. Up, up, bridge, switch, up, up, secret 'serker, down, down, up, up, and as I approach the final lift, a chaingunner that autoaim refused to pick up nearly kills me until I blow him up with a rocket. And then I die to a shotgunner I couldn't even see until the lift reached the top.

 Back to the bridge. Down, up, up, up, berserk, down, up, up ,up (rocket on the chaingunner), cross bridge, go back because I notice there were a pair of secrets on the previous two lifts, one of them a blue armor! Yey. Now, up, up, up. Up again and here we are! Bridge, fall down to grab another secret blue armor and blusphere, notice another secret there that I do quite know how to reach, move. The wall closes behind me and there are boxes. Many boxes. They begin to open up : shotgunners, HKs, a baron.. Outside revs. I start killing them as they show up. On the other side of the room, a cage with monsters that do not react to being shot but still die. Ok, down to one or two closed boxes and there's a switch, done, both boxes done, and now.. What? A break. 1h35m on the timer.

 

 Back. So this huge room with the many boxes was just to open one door? I see.. An now, down I go. And big bridge over slime, a icon of sin, enemies everywhere. Kill all, press switch, enter wall, oooh awesome, the sight from inside the IoS! Another switch, a door opens, meanwhile I grab a bluesphere in front of a Romero head, enter the new door, bridge, secret with nothing inside? bridge, steps up, and i'm on the other side of the cyber from a while back. Here, a new door opens, I press it's switch and a new door opens and I think I just heard the first AV of the level? So I lob rockets until I hear him die and move. Oh, so it's two AVs, caged. I SSG them. I reach a brainy room, the YSK is now down, back I go. A switch in the brain room turned some AV crushers on, but I had already killed them.

 Now.. Why do I want the key? Oh yeah, the cyber in the start. I manage to kill him from above but I took too much damage and had to go back for refueling, and then back down, and now back up. Blue key now! Finally the central building! I rambo my way inside, clear the floor and stuck again I decide to take another break.

Play time is 1h57m.

 

 Smoke done, let's finish this! Ok, so two different faces. One opens the door to outside, silently. The other lowers a lift on the other side of this. I can't reach it on time... It's like 5 seconds. Not enough time. Sorry but I have to cheat, can't stay here trying to outrun this for hours. A touch of flying and I'm up. Kill a seemingly never ending stream of teleporting monsters, press switch, go all the way around, kill more, teleport! Central arena, kill the revs, imps, SMM, barons, more revs, more barons, etc. Press switch on the middle and a new switch comes down. Press it and... More switches come down but get pushed up immediately as I approach them.. I managed to press all switches and then, with 1 secret to go, 1053/1061 kills I exit.

 

 Daaaaaaaaaaaaamn that was big. It's now 16h51, I've spent a good part of today playing this single level. 

 

K/I/S : 99% / 95% / 90%

time : 2:10:17 / 15:03:40

deaths : 7 / 40

 

Ok, I see why this level is feared by many and yet considered a mark in mapping. It's huge, not always so straightforward as it should be but it has some nice things, some very obtuse things, a bit of it all.

Tomorrow we finish! 

Oh, I should vote..

 

+++AugerZenith + something else from DBP, maybe the side-quest? 

[TJG1289]

GZDoom/UV/Continuous/Saves

Map 27: Afterlife - Sphange

100% kills and 60% secrets

Time: 34:10

Deaths: 8

 

When it comes to Sphange's maps in this set, I'd rank this one in the middle. It does some things better than his first map, like navigation and layout, but it does some things worse, mostly in health and ammo. This is easily the lowest ammo count I've had exiting a level, so I can only imagine what it's like for pistol starters. I'm under half ammo for everything. The lack of health is also a big concern, as there's a lot of times where you'll be low with no help in sight. With some close quarters encounters sprinkled throughout with mid tiers, this ain't good. Though progression isn't as bad as before, there were still 2 spots that I had to figure out how to progress. It took me a minute to find the SSG which then lowered the wall in front of some stairs. I also didn't initially think that the pillar at the front of the ship lowered, allowing you to board it. Other than that, the rest of the progression was pretty good. The map is pretty ok until crossing the yellow key bars, and that's when the health and ammo issues start for me. It's also where my deaths started, with most of them happening in the last big open area and the courtyard leading to the red door. Somehow, the archie that teleports in when you grab the red key didn't kill me when I had ~50% health. I inadvertently had all the explosion damage get absorbed by the platform the archie was on, since I was hugging it. Nice. I also managed to 2-shot the surprise cyb without a death, so that was cool. The 3 secrets I found were pretty useful, especially the soul sphere and mega armor. The map looked ok, but not as good as some of the others in this WAD. Overall, ok first half, but overly strict second makes this map less enjoyable. 

 

Map 28: Necrophobia - Gene Bird

100% kills and secrets

Time: 17:07

 

Is this the same first room as Gene's last map? I'm getting major deja vu from this. Then again, even if the rest of the map is different from his previous maps, you're gonna get deja vu from the combat, as it's pretty much all SSG all the time. Same standard tropes as his previous maps, such as basic rooms with a random assortment of monsters. Though after the last several maps, and considering the next map, this basicness is a nice change of pace. There's some rooms that have more than the standard detailing going on, like the green marble room with the IoS (is that the icon?) mural on the floor. There's the occasional elevation change, but not as much as there could be. There's no real threat in this map at all, and you can get an automap pretty early that will help you get a few secrets. Overall, not bad.

 

I don't have time for map 29 tonight since I leave for work in an hour and a half. Heck, I don't know if I'll have time to finish it tomorrow. I'll see how far I'll get through this beast tomorrow. Hopefully I can get through it all. 

[brick]

Let's do this.......

MAP29: Citadel at the Edge of Eternity

Considering the circumstances surrounding this map and its author I don't really feel like writing a wall of text. Suffice to say I had to restart the map after jumping onto the bridge at the beginning and finding out later on this is a showstopper. Not long into the restart I got stuck and it didn't take me long to consult a walkthrough, after which consulting walkthroughs became a bit of a thing. About half an hour in I gave up and turned on IDDQD (I only had it on for specific parts, but that was still a lot of cheating). Four-digit monster count on HNTR is just too much. I'd like to keep the negativity under control, so I won't retread details everyone else has already mentioned, let's just say the "puzzles" are completely inscrutable, and that's coming out of someone who thinks Hexen's and Jim Flynn's are very well hinted. Despite walkthroughs and cheating the map time still stood at 90 minutes (not counting reloads/pauses). Even knowing what to do I had to cheat twice, because I simply couldn't get the jumps/wallruns to work well enough. I think the only reason I didn't feel completely frustrated and infuriated is that I gave up on beating it fair so quickly.

With that out of the way, let's focus on the positives, because there are several. The map looks absolutely stunning, whether that first glimpse at the start, the feel of running around the Citadel itself, the multi-pentagrams in the finale. There's so much variety between the various side areas, from the marbled rooms in the west (repetitive as that gets), the battlements you slowly climb, to that faux-IoS room and the utterly bizarre revelation of Romero's head, there's a truly otherworldly feel that permeates the entire map and makes its title so fitting. At the macro level the general design of the map is great, with the central fortress, the east and west sides converging onto the northern area with all 3 keys opening up in turn, there's a wondrous sense of scale and of the various sections of the map making sense relative to each other. I think with (albeit many) changes to the specifics of the progression this could've been an absolutely incredible map. Texture changes here, making switches visible there, aligning the active bits of the linedef to the actual texture (the "only half of the switch works" lift room is just pure trolling), a bit of hinting, nothing that would've require a complete overhaul. As it is, we have a map that clearly had a huge amount of effort and care put into, even if I dislike a lot of the specific decisions taken. I would not want to replay it in its current form but it is definitely an unforgettable map, in good ways too.

RIP Magikal.

 

MAP30: Evil Itself

Small and pretty straightforward map. In the switch-arena I think you're supposed to take advantage of this being MAP30 and monsters telefragging but I couldn't quite get this to work to my advantage for the most part (though it did make short work of the Cyber). Then you're quickly off to the main event. As far as IoS maps go this one isn't so bad, at least you don't have to time your rockets. It's pretty easy once you figure out what to do, but after MAP29 I wasn't ready for another magnum opus and was quite glad for a 5-minute romp.

 

Overall feelings about CC1: mixed.

I liked some maps, didn't others, but just like with the wad overall I think my feelings towards most individual maps are also mixed (I think it shows in most of my mini-commentaries, where I rage and praise in almost equal measure). This adventure has reinforced my feelings towards specific authors: I love TV's short and playful maps and his sense of elegant simplicity in detailing; I love Rex Claussen's designs and his amazing attention to lighting and detailing ("Varied, but not unfocused" - I'm going to remember this one); I am ambivalent about Kaiser's maps, I like some things about them but they often don't pan out in a way that I enjoy. But there have also been some wonderful discoveries: I found that I love Gene Bird's unpretentious maps that aim for nothing more (and nothing less) than simple fun with the occasional clever surprise, there were some surprisingly clever uses of vanilla doom mechanics even in maps that I wasn't otherwise fond of (case in point, the "bomb" in MAP20); and I'm glad I at least saw MAP29 for the sheer spectacle and grandeur.

So much for not writing a wall of text...

[sincity2100]

On 3/29/2022 at 2:28 AM, PeceMan said:

I started playing level 29

 

What the hell is this

This is Nihilism..

[Book Lord]

 

MAP 30 – Evil Itself by Thomas Van der Velden @t.v.

PrBoom+ 2.5.1.4, UV, Continuous, blind run w/saves

 

What a nice take on the Icon of Sin! Community Chest has been a long journey without the company of Thomas Van der Velden, and I wish he had contributed more of his quality maps, like the early Nullth Precinct and the finale, Evil Itself. After a classic MAP30 all-you-can-eat weapon buffet, I was dropped in a round room with a big skull switch and several former humans. They were the first element of Doom II bestiary to be featured in this set piece, which consisted of 16 switches that summoned every creature from the Shotgun Guys to the Spider Mastermind, following the same order as in the endgame sequence.

Spoiler

Killing them was a formality with full armaments, but it provided an amusing warm-up before the final battle. I missed the secret with Romero Heads, maybe because I was eager to see what was coming next. I ended up in a blood basin with two Revenants and the gigantic head of a revamped Icon of Sin, now in three dimensions. The sector sculpture resembled the classic ZZZFACE with a helmet, looking a bit drab because of stock textures, but it may still be classified as an imposing prop. Two monster spawners did not create much disturb while I solved the boss puzzle. It required pressing four nearby switches in the order they became accessible; each time the floor level raised by 32 and the texture changed from blood to nukage, then to water, and finally to lava. All liquids were harmless and by the end the floor was high enough to shoot through a hole in the back of the 3D head and fry its brains. Evil Itself was an excellent finale that is too easy to forget, just because it was placed behind the monstrous MAP29, and it was a breeze in comparison.  

Spoiler

 

[erzboesewicht]

Lagging far behind after some "Doomless" weeks. I'll try to catch up however, as I had fun with the megawad until now. Now on to MAP14, 15, 31, 32 and 16.

 

Pistol start, UV, prboom-plus, occasional saves in bigger maps. Difficulty scale (approx.): 1 = Doom E1M1, 3 = Doom E1M4 or E3M2, 5 = Doom2 MAP29, 7 = Plutonia MAP15, 10 = Sunlust MAP15 and above

 

MAP14: Substation by Sam Woodman (Metabolist)

 

For a little bit of variation, a shortie. It is comprised of basically one and a half room with three "oversighters" where monster waves will teleport in. At first you deal with imps and some commandos, then with hell knights, revenants and lots of barons, and finally, with two archviles and ... more barons. The first fight is the best one, even if it's mostly fodder the combination can be deadly. The next one is a baron SSG-ing slog, then you get the plasma rifle and basically mow down the rest of the opposition with it. A secret gives you the BFG for the last fight.

 

Difficulty: 5/10
Rating: 6/10

 

MAP15: Internal Reaches by Samuel Villarreal (Kaiser)

 

We return to adventure maps with lots of exploration. This time, it's a very brown one, and it reminded me of Memento Mori in some way. I liked it like the path - albeit linear - winds through the whole map's central area several times, giving you some options above all when you have found the blue key. Gameplay is mostly very classic. The setpieces however suffer from much frontal combat (with few exceptions), so often you're tempted to simply door camp and take the enemies out from safety; the hitscanner placement contributes to this "making ramboing difficult" approach. There are also two time-based secrets very difficult to find, both necessary to find the secret exit; I needed hints for them. And that cage area, haha. Nevertheless I enjoyed the map; it's not flawless but has many interesting ideas.

 

Difficulty: 4/10
Rating: 7/10

 

MAP31: Mt. Chaos by Simon Broadhead (VolteFace)

 

A puzzle/gimmick version of Mt. Erebus, with much fireblu to love or hate. The start is purely atmospheric and pretty good, the first little fight in the swastika-like structure is a bit meh (I initially feared a wolfensteinesque level). But once you reach the central area the map gets interesting, as its progression centers on accessing distinct "levels" or "tiers" of floors and ledges of this hellish city. Liked also the non-conventional usage of big metal blocks to ... block doors. Combat was easy, with a nice monster closet/infighting party at the yellow key. My only deaths came from seemingly inescapable (?) pits, I even managed to fall once in the narrow inescapable lava pit at the border of the blue key area, really a good at doom moment. The secret exit (this time I found it myself) involves a really nice puzzle involving Commander Keens, there are hints both in the playing area and on the automap.

 

Difficulty: 3/10
Rating: 9/10

MAP32: The Citadel by Gene Bird

 

The second secret map is boring to inoffensive visually (although I liked the courtyard with the hanging bodies), but has some nice combat bits inside. The start is a homage to Doom2's Catacombs, but then we get into a completely different direction. After an easy outdoor skirmish where revenant missiles can be dangerous until you find a hidden switch (and I managed _again_ to kill myself in an inescapable pit!) the player visits a brown underground complex (seemingly typical for this mapper) full of fodder enemies (with a couple of mid-tiers mixed in) which are very fun to kill, I liked above all the unpredictable multi-tier slow-motion teleporter ambush in the center of the area where I scored two deaths from surprisely appearing enemies. At the end of the section, you're rewarded  with goods weapons and even a megasphere. The ending fights are again mostly in outdoor areas and easy, even if midtiers are now a bit more present. An archvile (or several) would have been nice here. The exit is a completely unmarked switch. Again like for so many CC maps: not flawless, but quite fun.

 

Difficulty: 4/10
Rating: 7/10

MAP16: Methods of Fear by Andy Leaver

 

This map takes place in a techbase area in a kind of tower surrounded by an outdoor area. The start has four teleporters which bring you into several areas of the tower, but all of them are interconnected. So this setup gives you the opportunity to clear the enemies from very different angles - a nice nonlinear concept I rarely see in Doom maps. Depending on which teleporter you choose, the first part can be a bit harsh, I had a death because in my first try I landed in the small chamber where the red key is hidden, and in this case you have to pistol chaingunners and/or try pacifist strategies in a cramped area. Unfortunately, the second part is a bit repetitive: it consist on killing mostly Hell Knights, pinkies and imps in several ambushes around the outdoor area surrounding the tower; depending where you shoot or not it's possible you miss one of them (with ~20 monsters each). At least you get lots of rockets and shells to make that part a bit more fun. Again we have an unmarked exit, this time being the door commonly used for entrances in the IWADs (while the entrance is a Plutonia exit teleporter).

 

Difficulty: 4/10
Rating: 8,5/10

[Crusader No Regret]

Even if someone offered to pay me to play through Citadel at the Edge of Eternity, I'd only accept if I was permitted to use something like Russian Overkill or some other weapons mod that significantly buffs weapons in slots 3 and 4.  The map is too much of a slog with the stock arsenal.  It's a long haul to even the rocket launcher and there's lots of high HP monsters on the way there with nothing more powerful than SSG.

 

Yeah, I god moded my way through the map to check it out back in 2005.  Even on HMP it's a grind.  Don't recall ammo being an issue but there's plenty of cruel tricks.  Like the lava pit in front of the start that's a deathtrap without the yellow key.  And some encounters where one better know what's coming in advance to avoid getting mobbed or cornered.  Probably more that I've forgotten over the years.

[Dubium]

I'm planning to join the club next month, sounds fun to me. So anyway, here's my vote:

+++ Cydonia

+++ AugerZenith

+++ Uprising

Edited March 30, 2022 by Dubium

[DavitW]

MAP29: Citadel at the Edge of Eternity

A part of me wants to respect this map. It's certainly not a fun map, or a good map, and for the most part it's not particularly good looking although a few parts certainly look impressive. Basically it has very little positive going for it, but somebody had to sit down and make this thing, with what I assume was the sole intent of expressing as much contempt for the player as possible, so I can at least respect what was surely an immense amount of effort put into creating this map. First try led to me running around in circles, dodging a bunch of revenants and arachnatrons until I decided to try jumping down on the 3D bridge at the beginning... and then ended up falling right through it. Cool. Great. No really, it's fine. I took a teleporter down there and helplessly wandered around in the lava until my rad suit ran out and I died.

 

It took a few more tries until I finally realized they wanted you to go into the little zombieman alcove left of the beginning. A few minutes later I reached a long hallway almost completely textured by those black window things with chaingunners hidden behind invisible walls and died there. At the most I've probably only seen about an eight of the map, but I've already seen more than enough and decided to call the operation off. On the technical side of things, which I admittedly know very little about, the whole thing seems to be put together rather well. Impressive given the size of the map. Zooming out and looking at the complete automap really is a sight to behold. Problem is there's just too much trickery and bullshit in here to make the entire thing a worthwhile experience. Chances are I'm missing out on a lot giving up on this one so early. 100 percenting this one might be the way to achieve Doom nirvana, an existence of pure euphoria, but if so I'll have to remain blissfully ignorant.

 

MAP30: Evil Itself

2 boss fights rolled into one map. The weapons on the stairs leading to the portals give you so much ammo my screen stayed yellow for a solid 15 seconds afterwards. The first part is a round room where you fight the entire roster of monsters one by one. It's like an interactive version of the credits sequence and I thought it was very clever. The second part is the expected fight with the Icon of Sin in a square area getting filled with various liquids. The Icon had a makeover since the last time we saw them, they're now 3D! Hit the 4 switches in sequence and pump a few rockets into the open wound on the back of their head and you're done. In classic fashion I died after killing the Icon and before the map ended. Ignoring that one small and completely insignificant fact this was one of the easiest Icon of Sin fights I've fought, but I have no problems with that. Most of them turn into a giant mess anyways.

cc30.zip

Edited March 30, 2022 by DavitW
Added Map 30

[dobu gabu maru]

Auger; Zenith & Arrival and Haste & Microslaughter are tied at 10 each, with Uprising at 5 and Hexen at 4. Get in y'er votes!

[Book Lord]

1 hour ago, dobu gabu maru said:

Auger; Zenith & Arrival and Haste & Microslaughter are tied at 10 each, with Uprising at 5 and Hexen at 4. Get in y'er votes!

 

I counted only 9 votes for Auger; Zenith.

 

Anyway, my last two votes:

 

+++ Haste & Microslaughter Community Project (I would rather play Auger; Zenith and one of these two slaughter WADs, but April is too short for such a feat)

+++ Uprising

 

 

Edited March 30, 2022 by Book Lord

[RHhe82]

MAP30: Evil Itself. DSDA v0.24, HMP-Cont. 26/26 kills, 4/4 secrets. Completion time: LOVELY, LOVELY 5:08.

 

It's an Icon of Sin level.

 

But it's not actually that bad, the Icon looks a bit goofy, but quite cool at the same time. It's different. And most of all it's painless. I found the the first part of the level a bit funny, it's like the robot master stages in Mega Man games. I love the brave notion of not making the last level the most grandiously difficult (and/or lengthy), that the final stretch of levels (here only one level long though) can resemble a safe and graceful landing of an airplane; by presenting a level that's quality work, is not the easiest one (although Evil Itself just might be the easiest level of CC1, or am I forgetting something?) and that does not intend to break the players' spirit.

 

I love it that the megawad had such a quick and painless final level after the mastodon of a level yesterday.

 

***

 

And that concludes Community Chest 1. After all is said and done, I'm glad I stuck with it. In the end I think there were only a couple of really bullshitty clunkers (and I'm not sure I count MAP29 in those... it's hard to say), but mostly the levels fell victim to ambitions of yesteryear, the authors wanting to put all in and produce far too long levels. Some of old-fashioned (and I say this as someone who has never been part of the community and who has been in the dark on custom pwads ever since late 1990s until discovering Decino's channel one or two years ago) mapping tropes rear their ugly heads here, things I haven't really seen in more modern pwads I've laid my hands on in the past few months. Worst offenders were visible voodoo dolls - has this ever been a thing really? - and the "3D floors" or fake bridges, which I can understand mappers would use, but I personally find them off-putting and unnecessary in Doom.

 

Also nowadays I think mappers avoid confusing progression: usually you'll receive more or less immediate feedback on what switches do, you're not left in the dark backtracking gigantic levels.

 

Speaking of gigantic levels, I can't quite put my finger on why some modern "magnum opus" levels are enjoyable whereas ones in CC1 were not. While I prefer shorter levels, I don't mind long treks every now and then. Interception II had some really great long levels. So, why don't they work here? Visual outlook? Modern levels avoid backtracking and provide with shortcuts and true interconnectedness? Is it a matter of difficulty stemming from obtuse puzzles/progression vs. difficulty stemming from encounters and puzzles designed with clarity in mind? Or does the difference lie in that in modern wads, space is used more economically whereas in old wads there are a lot of emptiness? Whatever it is, I'm glad design philosophies have evolved.

And by that I thank fellow clubbers for another month! It's been, um, fun :P Fun reading and watching all your struggles!

[finnks13]

MAP30 - Evil Itself by Thomas Van Der Velden:
A decent enough finale, I suppose. This map starts off with an interactive version of the Doom 2 cast screen, which is pretty cute I guess, though it's not in the same order, which seems like a bit of a missed oppourtunity to me. After this you're lead to a room containing a very doom-cutey mossy demon, where you have to hit four switches to raise the liquid level four times, and then shoot it in the back of the head. The highlight is the secret Romero head room, which is very funny. Honestly, I'm glad this is a short map to blow off steam after the insanity that was Episode 3.

 

Overall Thoughts on Community Chest:

I was expecting this to be much worse than it actually was - I had a pretty good time here. While most of these maps (even the ones I liked) are obviously quite outdated in terms of progression and combat, the maps are pretty varied and due to the relative lack of polish (compared to a lot of the stuff the club has been playing recently, that is) I can get a much greater sense for what the map author wanted for their map, which is something I like. Be that Thomas Van Der Velden's love of doomcute and small fights, Kaiser's intricate details, Sphange's love for the berserk pack and Magikal's bizarre and sadistic design - it's just something that I feel is a bit lacking from more modern, polished CPs and it absolutely made this worth playing for me.

 

Would I recommend playing this to someone else? Probably not, to be honest - I feel like that's a good way to make people not want to be my friend any more. I can't deny that I liked and disliked about an equal number of maps, and while I'd prefer inconsistency over predictable "fine" maps - there's a lot of stuff here that's just bad. In any case though, I'm glad this was picked for a playthrough by the club as it's not something I'd have picked to play myself, and I think this has been one of the most divisive wads I've seen played here for a while, and it was entertaining to read everyone's write ups.

 

Top 5 Maps:

Map02 - Nullth Precinct by Thomas Van Der Velden

Map07 - The Boardwalk by Gene Bird

Map13 - Another Dead Hero by Use3D

Map17 - Infliction of Hate by Andy Leaver

Map21 - Avenger by Sphange

(this really was not the top 5 I was expecting!)

 

Rankings:

Spoiler

Really Liked: MAP02, MAP07, MAP17, MAP21
Liked: MAP04, MAP09, MAP13, MAP14, MAP31, MAP16, MAP18, MAP23, MAP28
The Boring Zone: MAP03, MAP11, MAP15, MAP32, MAP19, MAP24, MAP26, MAP30
Didn't Like: MAP01, MAP05, MAP08, MAP12, MAP20, MAP22, MAP27, MAP29
Really Didn't Like: MAP06, MAP10, MAP25

 

[NiGHTS108]

MAP30: Evil Itself

By Thomas Van Der Velden

Kills: 92%

Items: 66%

Secrets: 100%

Time: 1:31

 

After last map I really can't be angry at an Icon Of Sin map, run up the steps getting all the weapons, face a monster roll call, teleport into a duplicate of the first room, then press four switches in the final room with the funniest looking Icon Of Sin I've ever seen, jam explosives in the back of his skull, and Community Chest is history

 

Grade: C

Difficulty: E

 

 

- FINAL THOUGHTS -

 

Eh... I think it's safe to say I don't love Community Chest, I am glad I played it, this was more interesting to write about than the last 3 months in my opinion, but there's just too many maps that grind and go on and on and on sadly, I think it serves best as a live Doom history lesson, a raw megawad-sized sample of the average Doom community member's map in 2003 19 years later, however I simply can't give it a high grade, Community Chest I lands on a C-, and as for difficulty it's ridiculously inconsistent, a C+ sounds the most accurate to me, sayonara MAP29!

 

Whole playthrough

 

Now for the grand ranking!

 

Spoiler

17: Infliction Of Hate :)
14: Substation
18: Sudden Death
16: Methods Of Fear
24: Bring Evil Upon Thee
23: Blood Runners
07: The Boardwalk
20: Technodrome
31: Mt. Chaos
02: Nullth Precinct
26: Breakout
21: Avenger
04: Outer Base
11: Mandrel
25: Blood Demesne
15: Internal Reaches
19: Monster Mansion
08: Battery
28: Necrophobia
30: Evil Itself
10: Termination Center
22: Future Grave
05: The Forgotten Prison
09: Flow
03: Ground Floor
13: Another Dead Hero
12: No Tomorrow
32: The Citadel
27: Afterlife
01: Pistol Panic
06: Goin’ Down
29: Citadel At The Edge Of Eternity

Edited March 30, 2022 by NiGHTS108

[Poncho1]

Map30: Evil Itself

Author: Thomas van der Velden

 

A very quick IoS map, and frankly, after the monstruous entry that was Citadel at the Edge of Eternity, it's well-needed. It's a shame that van der Velden hasn't done much in the way of mapmaking since... Plutonia 2, I think? In any case, you get all the guns and ammo, jump through a teleporter, flip all the switches at once, get the Megasphere, fire a shot, watch all the enemies telefrag themselves, go to the IoS room, raise the liquid level and blast the boss brain (with a BFG, if you like). I beat this in less than 2 minutes to 100%. One of the easiest maps out there.

 

Final Verdict

 

I must say that I'm actually glad to have finished the original Community Chest. This is far from a cohesive, well-organised set of levels, owing to the insane variation between mapping styles, mapping quality, stylistic continuity between each of the maps, difficulty curves and so on. It has perhaps the worst opening map to any megawad in existence, one of the most notorious maps in existence, gimmicks up the arse, magnum opuses followed by more magnum opuses, bizarre progression, and a lot more. I suppose that these negatives are what give this megawad some of its charm. These days, we are far removed from this sort of management; we expect levels to be playtested, balanced and well-paced. WADs such as this are a callback to the almost anarchic way community projects were thrown together. With the exception of something like Alien Vendetta, projects worked on by multiple people just didn't quite nail any form of consistency.

 

That said, for all its faults, there are still a few levels worth checking out. Special mention to Andy Leaver, Thomas van der Velden and Gene Bird for making some of the best maps in the set. Leaver's mix of competent detailing with a sense of urgent action, van der Velden's slick attention to detail, and Bird's sole focus on small-enemy massacres all managed to stand out among the other levels, though if I'm being honest, if they were put into a more competent WAD, they wouldn't have been quite as noteworthy. But hey, this is the WAD we got, and they delivered what I feel are the better outings.

 

Best Level: Map16 (Methods of Fear)

Honourable Mentions: Map02 (Nullth Precinct) ; Map07 (The Boardwalk) ; Map14 (Substation)

 

Worst Level: Map27 (Afterlife)

Dishonourable Mentions: Map13 (Another Dead Hero) ; Map01 (Pistol Panic) ; Map06 (Goin' Down)

 

So, there you have it. I've been told that Community Chest 2 is of a similar vain - Andy Leaver, Gene Bird and Use3D even returned for the first sequel - but I think I've had my fair share of Community Chest for a while. In due time, I'll go through it...

Edited March 30, 2022 by Poncho1
Yeah, Substation's a bit better than Technodrome. Both good maps, though.

[RHhe82]

7 minutes ago, Poncho1 said:

So, there you have it. I've been told that Community Chest 2 is of a similar vain - Andy Leaver, Gene Bird and Use3D even returned for the first sequel - but I think I've had my fair share of Community Chest for a while. In due time, I'll go through it...

 

This is something I meant to ask - how does CC2, CC3 and CC4 compare to CC1? I know something of CC2 thru Dean of Doom, apparently Gene Bird falls from grace there, and CC4 I have played a couple of levels and the texture pack of that origin is great. CC3 is hardly ever mentioned anywhere.

[NiGHTS108]

4 minutes ago, RHhe82 said:

CC3 is hardly ever mentioned anywhere

Yeah, Y'know I wouldn't even be opposed to a DWMegawad Club thread on it, uhhh, probably in at least 4 months though lmao

[Jaccident]

Map 30: Evil Itself

I absolutely love this map. For some reason, the music didn’t start, I think it could be related to how I skipped Map29 but either way I didn’t mind, it added to the atmosphere, and my god what an atmosphere. The way the map looked made it feel like I had properly entered Hell’s Domain, in a way that still felt fresh despite me having played enough IoS maps to last me a lifetime. The fight before the IoS was quite cool because in my game, the enemies kept telefragging each other thanks to my summoning of them all in quick succession. I imagine this fight would’ve been really gruelling without it, but I liked the feeling of having tricked the map (I get the feeling this happened thanks to gzdoom but I really wouldn’t know.) The IoS fight was a breath of fresh air compared to most of them, quite frankly. The IoS itself looks amazing thanks to it being all 3D and such, and having the fight be framed around raising the level up the point where you could kill it was a cool concept which was executed well. I particularly liked how the liquid changed as it rose, that was very cool. A decent end to this megawad, and probably the best IoS map I’ve played (although that really doesn’t say much.)

 

Final Thoughts

I didn't realise this was something that we do but I might as well. Aside from a few absolutely awful maps this set wasn't too horrendous, and it has been fun playing a level each day and having no clue what to expect. I still haven't finished CatEoE so I'm probably a tad biased, but I wouldn't say this mapset quite deserves the reputation it has. It is mostly mediocre, not terrible (although Technodrome can go fuck itself). I feel like having a similar project that acts as almost a talent show for new mappers could work quite well, but then you could argue that RAMP and projects like it serve this purpose. All in all, I have enjoyed the time I have spent with Community Chest, even if some individual moments of it were truly horrendous.

 

(My review for CatEoE seems like it is going to take me quite a while, so expect for this thread to randomly pop up in your notifications at some point! ^{If this isn't ok please just tell me})

[Jaccident]

10 minutes ago, RHhe82 said:

CC3 is hardly ever mentioned anywhere. 

 

Funnily enough CC3 was the first wad I ever played. Black Rain was 99th in the top 100 memorable maps so naturally I had to play the whole wad up to that map to get the proper experience, and then once I got there of course I had to finish it.

[Book Lord]

Final Thoughts

 

One of my deepest regrets is to have joined Doomworld only in 2021, thus missing most of the legendary and influential megaWAD playthroughs. Community Chest was one of the last all-time classics still eligible for the DWMC; it was the community project that started them all, marking the border between closed groups à la Team TNT or The Innocent Crew, and open initiatives that allowed free participation of people in good will.

 

The DWMC was founded in August 2012 with the purpose of playing the long-awaited Community Chest 4, but in the following 10 years its members did never feel an urge to revisit the previous instalments of the series. The most plausible reason might be the bad reputation gained by those megaWADs over the years; reading negative reviews, knowing that several levels were hopeless, and thinking about the wealth of excellent material to play, were enough to deter users from choosing any of the Community Chests.

 

So why play a discredited work of old, instead of new, shiny & ultra-polished alternatives? Speaking for myself, I am typically more interested in the past than in the present. I like to find answers or explanations to current habits and status quo, and I think that knowing where they come from helps understanding and appreciating what we have in our hands. Even though an old compilation will surely have disappointments and underwhelming moments in store, living and acknowledging them is much more compelling than playing a series of perfect levels, where everything conforms to the universal standards. Players prefer to concentrate on having fun, but level authors absolutely need to play old, flawed stuff; it helps them develop their personal taste, and the history of failure is always more inspiring than the history of success. Because of this, the DWMC has always been a hotbed of mapping talents.

 

After going through all of Community Chest, I conclude that its disrepute is well-grounded, but at the same time it had been fairly exaggerated by hearsay. Saying that the megaWAD is “a mixed bag”, is stating the obvious: the maps were from various authors with different skills and backgrounds; there were only loose guidelines, like the limitation to stock resources; and finally, playtesting by the community was not a thing and was clearly lacking on some entries. It was the first attempt as such a compilation, and it was a novelty even for the project founder Dale Harris (Cadman), who previously worked on megaWADs only under the aegis of Team TNT. Spearheading a diverse group of mappers is never easy, and there were no tutorials about how to host a community project at that time. He probably did not play the received submissions, or else he would have noticed the trouble lurking in Magikal’s levels, or at least in MAP25. In the same vein, he would have considered splitting Use’s MAP12 and MAP13, as they were clearly too big and long to be placed side by side. A better map order could have improved the megaWAD framework, but many shortcomings were far beyond redemption. I doubt a cross-checked & revised Community Chest would have ever seen the light of day.

 

Speaking of content, the megaWAD lacked outstanding moments and featured a handful of glaring missteps, but it was an enjoyable experience overall, though a bit overstretched and plagued by confusing progression. This was particularly evident in the third episode. Magikal’s contributions unjustly monopolised the attention over the years, as they were a compendium of bad editing choices, ambitious and experimental to the point of being self-referential. I am sure that Mr. Reay, wherever he ended up when he left this world, is splitting his sides laughing at the Doomers still falling for his tricks after 20 years.

 

Community Chest was more than Citadel at the Edge of Eternity, but it must be mentioned that one third of the proposal had been already published on idgames. The first episode featured small tech-bases, dominated by Daniel Trim’s triplet of brown maps, which stood out as the most incisive and distinguished. The second episode opened with Use’s impressive efforts, two monumental opuses that will surely crush the will of less determined players. After overcoming the stumbling block, the next levels felt like smooth sailing, mostly short and with relaxed combat. Technodrome by Stephen Clark closed the episode with a big difficulty spike that was not replicated, barring the leviathan MAP29 and some balance issues in other levels. The third episode was characterised by Sphagne levels, all interesting but not equally enjoyable, and by a variety of mappers that tried to impress and mostly failed. The megaWAD featured three contributions by Samuel Villareal, notable for their superior detail and their tiresome backtracking, acting like the sword of Damocles, and four entries by Gene Bird, not exactly famous for the quality of his maps but whose easy-going attitude towards gameplay eventually earned him some recognition.

 

Pistol starting should not be taken for granted in a 2003 megaWAD, but on most maps it seemed a viable approach. I played continuous on Ultra-Violence, with savegames mid-level (not during encounters to cheat the RNG or to facilitate anything). This was a good choice to limit playing time and frustration, especially in maps with miscalculated ammo balance. The full playthrough required 14 in-game hours, less than what I expected, but more than any DWMC choice in the last year. The presence of obscure or unmarked secrets, along with the considerable length of many maps, discouraged me from maxing out the end-of-level tally. The harshness of combat often took the backseat in favour of progression puzzles, and I cannot recall many difficult set pieces. Most of my deaths were caused by sloppy play due to exhaustion, or badly designed map segments, especially in the deeply flawed slots (MAP06 and MAP25). MAP29 belongs to a separate category, being both the megaWAD’s highlight and the reason why Community Chest is shunned by new generations of Doomers.

 

While it featured dreadful design choices and oversights that today are deemed unacceptable, Community Chest was a worthy play-through, bearing a huge historical significance for Doomworld and its evolution. I would not advise it to people looking for good gameplay, as they have an immense array of better choices, but it gets the highest recommendation to mappers and others interested in the development of mapping trends in the last 20 years. In the same showcase you can see the fecund seeds of creativity being sown, as well as the unwanted weed that got uprooted by the Doomers’ consensus.

 

Best maps:

MAP 02 – Nullth Precinct by Thomas Van der Velden

MAP 14 – Substation by Sam Woodman “Metabolist”

MAP 18 – Sudden Death by Rex Claussen “ReX”

MAP 23 – Blood Runners by Sphagne

 

Other standout maps:

MAP 09 – Flow by Daniel Trim (Bad Bob) “dt_”

MAP 13 – Another Dead Hero by Mike Alfredson “Use”

MAP 17 – Infliction of Hate by Andy Leaver

MAP 20 – Technodrome by Stephen Clark “The Ultimate Doomer”

 

Special mention map:

MAP 29 – Citadel at the Edge of Eternity by Kevin Reay (Magikal)

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 30: Evil Itself by Thomas van der Velden

Music: "Plurry" by Bucket from Plutonia Midi Pack

Played continously with Whitemare class from Final Doomer

 

Here it is, the final map in Community Chest! Shockingly atmospheric, kind of a tight space but undeniably well-made, Thomas van der Velden turns in this relatively stress-free closer demonstrating some cool floor effects and requiring you to use your thinking cap some. Run up the platforms at the beginning to teleport to the "Icon of Sin" though really, the textures have been rearranged so that you're facing down a statue-like texture much smaller than the surrounding wall. It functions the same way though, so you have to press a series of switches which will slowly raise you up to a place where you can shoot inside the head, the liquid at each level changing. While I had far more trouble with it than I should've, prevailing was still completely inevitable.

 

Final Thoughts

 

Community Chest was released at a time when community projects had gone into a drought with the demise of the Innocent Crew and the slow disintegration of Team TNT. It's no accident that project founder Dale Harris was a member of Team TNT. Unfortunately, not too many people were especially ethused, beyond a then-obscure mapper Samuel "Kaiser" Vilarreal and the more known "Ultimate Doomer", which basically led to 5 mappers (Alex Parsons, Kevin Reay, Daniel Trim, Gene Bird, and some other guy with the handle of Sphagne) submitting their previously-released maps as part of the project. Unfortunately, Dale didn't seem to do anything beyond compiling the maps since some of them demonstrate an incredible lack of quality contro lLittle to no effort was made to polish them though because unfortunately, there are just some sections of certain maps (06, 25) that are so blatantly unfair that it's a wonder anyone could complete them. Perhaps that's why Community Chest failed to make the Top 100 Wads of All Time list for 2003.

 

Though there are plenty of annoying tropes as other people have brought up. The oft-confusing and intuitive progression, the uninspired visual design that mars the majority of these maps (seriously dude, variations of tan are not acceptable replacements for STARTAN) and the not-particularly interesting 3D bridges incredibly prone to breaking if you approach them in the wrong way are not exactly popular characteristics in 2019. Yet, I was rarely bored in my subjective experience of this map and I'm glad I played something I would've had little excuse to do otherwise.

 

On it's influence of later wads, it would take more mental effort than I want to bother with speaking on right now, but at the very least, growing pains were still clear at the time this was made.

 

With that, let me bid y'all adieu for a month or possibly two and see you all toward the end of April!

 

Best maps

Spoiler

Map 15

Map 29 (I'm starting to realize some fights might just be a rad repetitive without a plasma rifle, but still)

Map 13

Map 07

Map 12

Map 26

Map 04

Map 17

Map 18

Map 31

Map 28

Map 24

Map 23

Map 02

Map 16

Map 19

Map 21

Map 10

Map 11

Map 25

Map 22

Map 03

Map 20

Map 14

Map 27

Map 05

Map 01

Map 06

Map 08

Map 09

 

And just out of spite, I'm changing my Ray Mohawk vote to +++Auger; Zenith and Arrival I may not play it since it's the kind of wad where I'd rather spend time exploring all the maps than running through, but slaugher sucks so there. ;P)

Edited March 30, 2022 by LadyMistDragon