Deadline Announced! [Community Project] Pandora (Shovelware MegaWad) - All Slots Taken

[Dark Pulse]

D'oh, I done goofed, and while they would be appropriate for a shovelware map, they're not appropriate for a shovelware megawad.

• Fixed exit teleporter accidentally having S1 activation instead of W1
• Fixed tutti-frutti on the starting stairs by changing to a different texture
• Fixed a few incorrectly-flagged lines

No other changes. Thanks to @Arcturus for bringing the exit issue up.

 

Spoiler

You may also thank him for inspiring me to put lots of skelly bois in the map.

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19uxJjT9UWKgaqKYutiub46Oijp_BsMqJ/view?usp=sharing

 

EDIT: Probably one more update forthcoming - doing an optimization pass right now, just in case someone is trying to run this on a 386 or 486 or something. It'll run fine on modern hardware, I'm sure, but this map would probably make ancient machines cry. :)

 

EDIT 2: Now updated, which should make things a lot more smooth on lower-spec systems (in case anyone out there is running this on a Pi or something). As a bonus, walls have bullet puffs now. :) The map should be functionally unchanged from the previous update.

 

Thanks to @vyruss for pointing that out.

 

If anyone else finds any bugs, please let me know! I'll happily fix them, I just need to know them in the first place.

Edited July 4, 2022 by Dark Pulse

[Endless]

Hey hey people! Gibbon is still managing the megawad and he's being working on finishing the project, so RC1 is here!

 

Update V1.1:

https://doomshack.org/uploads/pandora_v1.1.zip

• Now it works on Doom Retro

• Added RMAPINFO

 

Now you can enjoy your shovelware adventures in 2020s!

 

Some notes:
 

Quote

 

UMAPINFO lump won't be used on GZDoom (you'll need to delete the MAPINFO lump in slade) since GZDoom favours MAPINFO and ZMAPINFO before UMAPINFO.

Also, to play this in Doom Retro, you'll have to delete both since it does not support either formats and will crash.

 

MAP29 causes a Z-memory failure in DOS, no idea why, but other than that, all maps are vanilla flavor.

 

Edited July 8, 2022 by Endless

[Roofi]

Here is my playthrough for the 6 first maps. I really love it, especially map 05 where the author bring a lot of attention to the details. I skip map 07 though. I don't want to inflict myself ultra-hard non-sense difficulty.

 

I play on DOSBOX without the custom exe.

 

 

Edited July 8, 2022 by Roofi

[Thelokk]

Calling this map's gameplay non-sense is a bit harsh: I enjoyed it a lot, good to see shovelware with some bite once in a while, though the map is nowhere as difficult as it looks at first. Manage to pretty much pacifist my way to the exit. Will play some more later on. 

 

Edited July 8, 2022 by Thelokk

[Roofi]

My adventure continues. I got a VPO at map 10. Also, ton of HOMS display in this map (Very good Ultimate Doom inspired level btw). The author should remove details in order to run the level properly.

 

 

 

[thiccyosh]

-(Snip)-

Edited July 9, 2022 by thiccyosh
you have seen nothing, pass along.

[Roofi]

And my playthrough for map 11 to map 17. I played a part map 18 but eventually died. That's all for today.

 

I didn't like map 11 but I managed to beat it.

 

My fav maps are 14 with its hedge maze and 31.  17 was one of the highlight too thanks to the slaughter-oriented fight at the end. The rest is pretty good.

 

 

 

[Noiser]

6 hours ago, thiccyosh said:

VPO, HOMs and Tutti-frutti just adds shovelware stink to this I guess

No. It's just annoying.
 

6 hours ago, thiccyosh said:

The problem is I don't have the original wad file (which isn't the same file on wadhosting) for this map anymore so that's probably Gibbons task

Simply extract the map from the Pandora wad (or edit from there).

Edited July 8, 2022 by Noiser

[thiccyosh]

2 hours ago, Noiser said:

No. It's just annoying.

 

Ok.

 

So anyways here is the 144p version with extra pickles. This map shouldn't break, at least I couldn't do it in DosBox. All of the issues (HOM, VPO and Tutti-frutti) should also be fixed now, only drawback is that this map is gutted in terms of detail and amount of containers near the sea of nukage.

 

I also would like to apologize for being very sloppy with this contribution and being a lazy dick in that way.

 

transmission_received.zip

 

Note to Gibbon, use this version of the map since the other inside the CP wad version crashes Dos. Forget I said anything in the last post.

 

Alright have a nice one.

[Dark Pulse]

9 hours ago, Roofi said:

My fav maps are 14 with its hedge maze and 31.  17 was one of the highlight too thanks to the slaughter-oriented fight at the end. The rest is pretty good.

Hearing my map mentioned specifically as a highlight makes me happy. :)

 

Some thoughts/extra commentary:

• I saw nobody else had put in a maze map in the beta releases, and maze maps are a staple of bad shovelware collections, so I just knew I had to make mine that. As it turned out, it was also the only maze map submitted, further justifying my stance.
• If you hated that I hid all the lines, mission accomplished - though it also had another reason besides just being mean. It's not a maze if you can just automap your way through it, and while in vanilla that would be risky due to how the automap works hiding your view, any sourceport that allows an automap overlay (i.e; ZDoom-family, among others) would make that trivial since then you had both direction and monster visibility - so the lines had to go. Of course, you can iddt your way around it, but nothing I can do to prevent that - and at that point, you're just cheating yourself. :P
• I made sure the map was beatable from pistol start (though obviously I had no real way to know of a player's state in the megawad proper). It's designed to be hard, but not "gotta hit every shot to have a prayer" hard - I did tune it with WadSpy. The UV Singleplayer Difficulty ratio is 0.723. Of course, that assumes you try to run through both sides of the maze, and I generally presumed the player would only run through half of it.
• I know that it really seems like a crappy maze, but I did carefully tune things. You have a lot more space towards the middle of the map, for example, because I'm anticipating that you will need the movement room, for reasons you discovered (and that I'm not trying to spoil in these notes for those who've yet to play it).
• Did I really have the first backpack in the megawad?! Kinda surprising. Though easier difficulties won't give you one. (To be fair, the enemy complement there is far weaker.)
• Laughed my ass off at your mid-map save and the moments immediately before and after it. That was exactly the sorts of reactions I was hoping for, so thanks for the lulz, and your richly-deserved death. :D
• Nice try seeing if those wings did anything! Truth be told, I could've stripped those out (they were going to be part of an idea I ended up ditching), but I thought it was funnier just in case someone was trying to find a way to not go through the maze in order to exit. Also serves as an idiot trap if the player left anything alive and there are lots of pissed-off enemies.
• If the level came across as an awful map, I met the project goal. If I, the creator, came off as someone who made an interesting, but intentionally bad, level instead of someone who just threw down a maze, I met my personal goal.
• I apologize if I've ruined Beetlejuice for you forever.
• Thank you for having fun. :)

Edited July 9, 2022 by Dark Pulse

[Roofi]

7 hours ago, Noiser said:

No. It's just annoying.
 

Simply extract the map from the Pandora wad (or edit from there).

 

I agree,

 

For my part, tutti-frutti is fine as long as it doesn't slow down the game.

 

However, out of the hundreds of 1990s maps I've played, very few shovelware wads had HOMS or VPOs due to technical limitations.

Edited July 9, 2022 by Roofi

[Roofi]

I continue my journey.

 

Here is a video on map 18 which ended with a VPO. Really cool map by the way , I love the urban settings.

 

Also is it possible to espace the pits full of masterminds in the case you kill all of them? In my video , I managed tp create some infights by walking on the borders.

 

 

[Roofi]

Played and completed map 19,20,21. I got a blatant "no more visplane" and tons of HOM in map 22.

 

I really enjoyed map 20. MAp 19 and 21 were fine.

 

 

[Nikoxenos]

Seems like the unnecessary additional secret exit to Map 15 was left in by accident. I was sad to see roofi yeet out of there without any of the suffering I intended.

[Dusty_Rhodes]

On 7/10/2022 at 1:54 PM, Roofi said:

Played and completed map 19,20,21. I got a blatant "no more visplane" and tons of HOM in map 22.

 

I really enjoyed map 20. MAp 19 and 21 were fine.

*snip*

 

Really great video, glad you liked my map! Something was weird with the custom textures, I added, not sure why things were missing . . . . The waterfalls were all wood for some reason too.

[Paf]

On 7/10/2022 at 1:29 PM, Roofi said:

 

Also is it possible to espace the pits full of masterminds in the case you kill all of them?

Nope. You're supposed to raise a lift and then press a switch to raise the pit.

Edit: I saw you raised the lift in the video, but didn't ride the lift because of that sneaky VPO. I'll fix that RQ if I can find the original wad file I had.

Edited July 13, 2022 by Paf

[Dark Pulse]

3 hours ago, Paf said:

Nope. You're supposed to raise a lift and then press a switch to raise the pit.

Edit: I saw you raised the lift in the video, but didn't ride the lift because of that sneaky VPO. I'll fix that RQ if I can find the original wad file I had.

If you can't find the original WAD, just rip the map out of the compiled WAD with SLADE.

[Clippy]

Very fun stuff - I will try to come back some day

 

 

@xdude_gamer @DynamiteKaitorn @Paf @Clippy @Endless @ShadesMaster @ScrappyMcDoogerton @Roofi

[Paf]

Updated MAP18 to not have a VPO!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IKr4sgracnQgp5iXkErP4mw6YGnV0ybt/view?usp=sharing

[Dark Pulse]

4 hours ago, Clippy said:

Very fun stuff - I will try to come back some day

 

@xdude_gamer @DynamiteKaitorn @Paf @Clippy @Endless @ShadesMaster @ScrappyMcDoogerton @Roofi

Can't wait until you get to mine.

 

I hope you hate it. :)

[Clippy]

hey friends

 

So I hoped to cover this in 4 vids of 8 maps each but today's session didn't go that great... I could only do 6 and had to use the editor to solve the first one and had to leave two others incomplete as they were too tedious / annoying to play

 

HD still processing

 

 

 

@Worriedidiot @thiccyosh @Walter confetti @Origamyde@Dark Pulse

 

I get that we are trying to emulate wacky shovelwhere - but some of these may have gone a bit too far lol

 

COOLMAP.WAD by Worriedidiot - fine fun map - just the random hallway door eluded me

 

Transmission Received by thiccyosh - I actually liked this one a lot, my fave in the set

 

Flies by Walter confetti - I get that the archie could have bounced me to the SSG but I also worried about health and well, having one SSG alone doesn't seem like much. It was just too bothersome to hump random walls, evade random crushers and attempt to navigate this one bud

 

The Ultimate Terrors! for Doom II by Walter confetti - this one was much more enjoyable, in that it was playable

 

ShovelwareORI by Origamyde  - always love your maps, this one was very well done - you are too good to pretend to be bad lol

 

Field O Screams by Dark Pulse - sadly due to limited time I will never have the time to competently play this. If I can be honest, the maze hidden from auto map is offensive to me. I get it helps the player be lost but it just makes it a frustrating chore to play. That coupled with having hardly anything but a regular shotgun to deal with things - to get through it feels like it may take over an hour and I just don't have it in me

 

sorry guys for not having the best experience today but I like to be honest - I may be back for more as I juggle other things on my plate

 

have a good one

[Dark Pulse]

10 hours ago, Clippy said:

Field O Screams by Dark Pulse - sadly due to limited time I will never have the time to competently play this. If I can be honest, the maze hidden from auto map is offensive to me. I get it helps the player be lost but it just makes it a frustrating chore to play. That coupled with having hardly anything but a regular shotgun to deal with things - to get through it feels like it may take over an hour and I just don't have it in me

Thank you for playing! I'll provide a little extra commentary here, though, and it will hopefully get you in my mindset.

 

I actually have done a fair few maps - it's just that most of them are conversions for the GEC PlayStation Master Edition (the one that runs on an actual PlayStation), so I kind of have flown under the radar. I do have an account (and barebones user page) at the Doom Wiki though, of course! If you'd like to get a better sense of how I balance things on "real" maps, that's a better place to look, since there I actually had to rework whole encounters entirely for RAM reasons and/or missing monsters in the case of Arch-Viles. (To keep it short, if you have too many monster types for your map there, the game will actually run out of memory and bomb.)

 

Believe it or not, a lot of thought went into such a shitty-looking map. Any old fool could slap down a maze and call it a day, but it takes a bit more intelligence than a fool in order to carefully balance it. There were design rules intentionally made and kept in practice throughout the development process, and I believe that a good mapper needs to know what exactly they're making before they begin just slapping down linedefs.

 

It's just that in my case, what I was intending to make was a terrible maze map. So I did my best to do my worst, and come up with all sorts of "terrible" design decisions that, on a deeper level, aren't actually as terrible as they seem when you're not consumed with rage and fury. :)

 

Thus, here's some things that are worth mentioning:

1. You played on Ultra-Violence, where I intentionally made the map as tough as possible (I do lean a little to the "Ultra-Violence should actually be hard, not medium+" side of things). I did have a few testers, and they did complete it on Ultra-Violence from pistol start, as did I (personal rule: I don't release it if I can't beat it on UV from pistol start). It is very much a "tough but fair" map, and I made sure I tuned the ammo and monster balance with WadSpy; you don't need to land every single shot to win the map, even without infighting. For totally blind playthroughs, Ultra-Violence may be slightly unfair to some, unless they have patience.
2. The monster count may seem high, but you can literally skip half the map - thus, half the monsters. Bias is slightly more in favor of left side (56) than right (61), with two monsters that count towards both. The monster count only matters if you're doing a UV-Max. The map is designed to be run in maybe 10-20 minutes, depending on how good you are, and you can definitely get this down to sub-5 if you know what you're doing.
3. It's STRONGLY advised to take on fights one at a time - panicking and running forward will do nothing but greatly amuse me and greatly kill you, and as you found out, early on I don't give you much more than a shotgun and a chaingun. This is especially true on UV, where I don't pull my punches anymore compared to easier difficulties, and I will happily send multiple Hell Knights, Skelly Bois, and the occasional Baron your way if you decide to get footloose. (I will point out at one point this map contained a Cyberdemon. That wound up being unfair even to my demented mind.)
   • This is basically the cause of much of your grief - watching your video, your instinct when you got a spook was to run forward, not backward. Running blindly forward, in a maze you don't know? Oh yeah, you dead. You SUPER dead. (To the point I'd actually say you should try to work on that, because a lot of maps will punish this behavior hard. Backpedal, backpedal, backpedal! Always go the way you know, never blindly forward into what you don't!)
     • That said... considering you fled forward so much, even if you would have stepped backwards most of the time, all the other stuff from the starting areas of the map would've walked up to challenge you... granted, some Cacodemons and Pinkies might've been easier to tussle with.
   • You also at times left a big bad alive in the name of avoiding the fight and risk thereof. Valid strategy... but then you'd better know where you're going. Otherwise, he WILL be waiting if you come back to the area; that's the tradeoff I'm going to force you into if you do flee from a fight. If you don't know where you're going... probably better not leave anything alive.
4. The left half of the map is twistier and relies a lot more on tight encounters; the right side of the map is more open but has beefier monsters in exchange. Expect me to challenge your maneuverability in different ways in both, but you will always have enough cover if you don't rush and keep in mind the path you took just before leading up to the encounter.
5. You do get some breadcrumbs on HMP and you get literally lead by the nose on ITYTD/HNTR. UV completely takes those away. See Point #1.
6. Someone posted a pretty winning strategy - stick to an outer wall and follow it all the way through. Most mazes are actually beatable with this, because they follow a specific design paradigm; mine is no different.
7. I realize that hiding the lines will piss some people off, but it's not a maze if you can just see the lines - and I also knew many people would be playing this on GZDoom or other source ports that have automap overlays where you're not even blind thanks to that. Had it been either-or (like in vanilla), I would've actually kept the lines because then you'd be risking a monster encounter if you just kept your eyes glued to the automap, but overlay is too stronk and completely ruins that by giving you both direction AND fighting visibility! So they had to go.
   • I think @Biodegradable suckered you into checking the automap. I enjoyed his laughing at this very much, and joined him laughing in the pure schadenfreude we got from that and for the rest of the map. Yes it is funny indeed! :D (Please tell me this was the result you were hoping for when you suggested that, BD!)
8. If it's a decent powerup, I'm probably going to make you work for it. It puzzles me that more maps don't do this anymore, considering one of the best sources of fear in the original Doom levels was "You know this item is gonna do something bad, but you need it anyway."
   • On UV, this also extends to larger ammo pickups. Again... see Point #1.
9. The more open the area, the more I am telling you that you are going to need that maneuverability very shortly.
10. Saves! Some may call savescumming cheating; I say those people need to get bludgeoned in their external occipital protuberance. Of course, saving while you're not directly in combat (see your first save) is strongly advised.
11. Infighting! You got the idea eventually that you should see if you can get them to do the dirty work for you, to save more precious ammo. While no fight strictly needs this in the WAD, things are definitely easier on your ammo if you use this wherever you can. Indeed, I even reward you for this (see the Backpack/Megasphere area - the latter of which doesn't exist on UV/NM, and the former of which doesn't exist on ITYTD/HNTR, but of course, neither do the monsters!).
12. Chaingun does NOT suck, despite your assertion - in fact, I'd say it's crucial to beating the map successfully, as is knowing when to use it. Barons and HKs have an okay pain chance and Revenants have a really high one; the chaingun keeps them stunned longer and less likely to throw a fireball at you, compared to the Shotgun. Need an escape? Whip that out, shoot it, and back the hell up. Just be aware of where you're backing up into, or that gets punished; both will fuck you up fast if you're boxed in.
13. Switch tradeoff: You can hit it and run, but then all you still have is the Shotgun and Chaingun to clean up what is left over - in exchange, you have a much easier switch hunt. Or you can take it head-on and deal with the wrath that comes, but then I give you a SSG and a Rocket Launcher. You do have a much bigger mess to clean up, but I'm also going to give you the tools with which to do it. Pick your poison.
14. Biodegradable was clever with thinking about that exit, but that would mean the map is starting to become a good map, not a terrible one (it'd also make it unwinnable by design if you UV-Maxed it), and terrible was what I went for all the way - so the solution is a much more obvious one; you actually were 2/3rds of the way to completing the map legitly!

Lastly, this all made me look at the map in an editor one more time, and I actually found a few more bugs thanks to UDB deciding it wanted to move Things around that I didn't want moved around. Wheee!

• Fixed a Health Potion being stuck in the wall. Everyone cheered.
• Fixed a Revenant being stuck out in the void. Everyone groaned.
• Fixed a surprise being less of a surprise with certain renderers. Everyone REALLY groaned.
• Fixed some extra "proper jank" that I liked, but kind of revealed a little hint on how the map was going to flow. Sorry, Arcturus!
• Fixed some wonky texture alignments where it mattered.

If Gibbon is ever going to do an update for the WAD again, here's the fixed submission. I swear if I have to fix one more thing on this map that I overlooked, I'm gonna strangle somebody.

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eHQzu_pSAAFhT5t0c2ku394WK1ztrid_/view?usp=sharing

Edited July 25, 2022 by Dark Pulse

[Clippy]

I have a hard time finding an hour to play these days, let alone two - but I spent it with Pandora - made me a little insane lol

 

 

 

chapters and all that crap

 

@Nikoxenos @knifeworld @Luleta @Paf @Thelokk @Dusty_Rhodes @Noiser @Large Cat

[lokbustam257]

I'm sorry if this was really late but, this is the last version of my map. Nothing major changes. (in fact, there's no changes unless you look at the automap,)

Not really comfortable with the last release, don't ask why.

map26_pandora.zip

Edited August 2, 2022 by lokbustam257
I hope to god the map format is not Boom this time

[Dusty_Rhodes]

On 8/1/2022 at 8:35 AM, Clippy said:

I have a hard time finding an hour to play these days, let alone two - but I spent it with Pandora - made me a little insane lol

*entertaining snip*

 

 

chapters and all that crap

 

@Nikoxenos @knifeworld @Luleta @Paf @Thelokk @Dusty_Rhodes @Noiser @Large Cat

Thanks for playing man! Hope you liked my level. A few things:

 

1. All the wood textures near water are supposed to be waterfall textures. My boy Gibbon must have messed something up because obviously they are not the proper ones lol. I should take a look at that.

 

2. I also tried desperately to make this have the fun amateurish feel on 90s levels while still being perfectly playable, so if something was jank or not what I usually map, that's why.

 

3. Hot damn! You actually found the switch by the Cyber the first time! Poor Finnks playtested that for me and about lost his marbles looking for it. For some reason he told me to keep it in . . . . :D

 

4. This was actually based off of the general idea of how E4M6 works, so I'm glad you liked the layout opening up - I was shooting for that organic Romero - ness.

 

5. Sorry about the last kill . . . .

 

Spoiler

 

The Pink Fish texture is also knackered, no clue why. Anyway, hope you liked it. It definitely faces the "door problem" that level design courses talk about.

 

 

*edit
 

That's a screenshot of my earlier post that linked the map lol. Not very clear on desktop.

Edited August 4, 2022 by Dusty_Rhodes

[Jark]

Hey folks,

 

I've been regularly checking here and DB for updates on this project, on July 18th Gibbon said he had uploaded Pandora to idgames though upon further checking, it was rejected:

Mon Jul 25 21:07:05 EDT 2022 Rejected pandora_22.zip because: Contains unmodified id Software resource(s)

As far as I can tell, there hasn't been another attempt since.

 

Although Gibbon mentioned on DB adding updates and fixing things, he didn't link a new basewad - I checked the OP for this thread and found the most recent 3.0 version cannot be downloaded anymore:

 

 

Gibbon also appears to have left DB as well with his profile appearing as 'deleted' - I'm not sure where this project currently stands due to the aforementioned factors.

 

I believe he had a discord server? Perhaps we can contact him through that, if not, then we may need to salvage this project - does anyone have the 3.0 file?

 

EDIT: Messaged Gibbon on Discord back and forth, he gave me a copy of the latest basewad and I ran Slade's delete duplicate entry tool to remove some duplicate sounds - He will give it the once over when able then attempt to upload to idgames again. I also added map updates since first idgames attempt.

Edited August 4, 2022 by Jark

[Clippy]

 

 

@Jaccident @Spineapple tea @lokbustam257 @Jark @Endless @Paf @Gibbon

 

good stuff guys - so far I been having more fun than expected on these maps - only a few earlier maps really messed me up

 

Endless - man I think you made the most pandory map of all pandora maps lol - I will never be able to finish that one

 

[Endless]

4 minutes ago, Clippy said:

Endless - man I think you made the most pandory map of all pandora maps lol - I will never be able to finish that one

You probably confused that one because of the original thread which hasn't been updated! I did MAP29: Chaos At Big Palace. The correct maplist is on the .txt with the zipped file ;)

[Clippy]

10 minutes ago, Endless said:

You probably confused that one because of the original thread which hasn't been updated! I did MAP29: Chaos At Big Palace. The correct maplist is on the .txt with the zipped file ;)

 

Well this is very unfortunate and confusing - cause I didn't realize who I was talking about when playing due to referencing the list on page 1

 

@MAN_WITH_GUN

 

I guess we have Endless to thank for the last level - and that huge switch

 

And Paf was the previous large map I gave up on cause I spent a long time heading to a dead end

 

It makes more sense now - knowing who actually made each map feels more suiting to the mapper

 

sorry for the mixup - bad list

[spineapple tea]

The enemies standing on pitch-black platforms outside being practically invisible on MAP25 wasn't my intention. When I was working on the map, it was just using the red episode 3 sky, so it was more of a silhouette effect. There were also a ton of trees down there to further sell the effect. Guess I just didn't know the sky would be black in the final version, lol.