Shovelware Society #43 - JON31.WAD & DOOMFIRE.WAD (and also QUAKE! if anyone seriously wants to check out E1M3

[BigBoy91]

This one looks dope. Gonna play through it in a bit. Mighttttt have to skip the cyberdemon.

[Luleta]

THIS WEEK'S WADS HAVE BEEN HANDPICKED BY ME

Oops! all Doom 1 Why? because i felt like it :^)

 

CROSS (E3M5) - Soulsphere

BLAHBLAH (E1M1) - Megasphere

BOOGERS (E2M5) - Invulnerability

CYKE (E2M1) - Blursphere

 

ykno the drill, react with the powerup to vote :3

[United VirusX]

My vote goes to boogers just cuz of the odd name choice lol

[LadyMistDragon]

Ok, I guess it's ok to call Boogers the winner! Description should be updated this afternoon. Let's give this until about Saturday evening, shall we (and you can still play last week's if you want!)?

[LadyMistDragon]

BOOGERS.WAD

by John Jablonski

 

Nice ship at the beginning. Although progression is a little strange because you have to enter specific rooms to open stuff at times. And once again, the caves have no map enabled for basically no reason (like that awful Tim Ash map). A lot of neat structures and charming use of slopes on at least one occasion. Like you teleport to the top of this tower and it's incredibly easy to miss some bullets on the lower floor because you'll be distracted by the cross and slopes in front of you. Some decent use of natural environments, even though said environments don't necessarily look natural. Stuck near the end because the yellow key door location is a touch obscure. And of course, an obligatory Cyberdemon in a white room with black.....ok, scratch that last part with apologies to Pete Brown. At least it's not SHAWN though like you'll see off the storage bays. One of the better maps we've done easily, next to DDS1.

 

If the demo's rushed, I'd already played this and may have rewinded in a point or two near the beginning due to the hitscanners in the dark making not getting hit hard.

 

 

llmd_pandora_boogers.zip

Edited September 1, 2022 by LadyMistDragon

[Luleta]

BOOGERS.WAD

 

freaking epic ship, i like the atmosphere that this map is attempting to do, after a bunch of wads attempting to showcase the epic action of doom, its kinda refreshing to see some shovelware attempting to do horror. it was actually a lil spooky, reminded me of the first time i played Doom 1 :O

i did have to switch my render from OGL to sofware to able to see a damn thing at the start (dont ask why it was on OGL to begin with) geez, that was dark

[instert a doom 3 joke here please]

maybe it's called boogers because we are inside a nose, and that's why it's so dark :^)

finally a cybie fight that ain't trivialized by an invulnerabilty right away, instead you get to have a rocket duel :O

 

i do have to say, my DUMB ASS forgot to record on complevel 3 instead of 2, i don't think it made munch of a difference tho

luleta_pandora_boogers.zip

[BigBoy91]

A little late, but I just got around to recording this. Fun and deceptively challenging map! A littttttle too much open space. Odd design choices and key placement. Definitely feels like shovelware!

 

[United VirusX]

And here are all of this week's wads a mix of Doom 1 & Doom 2 

 

 

HORUS (Doom 1) - Soulsphere

CRIMKEEP (Doom 1) - Megasphere

BIGMAC2 (Doom 2) - Invulnerability

BITCHIN8 (Doom 2) - Blursphere

 

 

[Dusty_Rhodes]

I'm feeling Doom 1 this time

 

[United VirusX]

So I finally got around to playing BOOGERS.wad and I originally did not like it at all mainly cuz of the interior of the ship was so damn dark but after a few tries it grew on me its a nice-paced map that provides a little challenge with ammo if you don't find certain weapons (missed the plasma rifle and the green armor in the ship) also loved the use of "COMPBLUE" texture to simulate a waterfall anyway I'll link my playthrough after it uploads  

 

Edit here's my playthrough of it 

 

Edited September 5, 2022 by United VirusX

[LadyMistDragon]

Ok, think it's fine to declare BITCHIN!!! the winner! Description will be updated very soon. We will give this until Sunday evening!

[Dusty_Rhodes]

Excellent! Looking forward to how jank it will be

 

[LadyMistDragon]

BITCHIN8.WAD

by Bob "Bitchin" Simmonds

 

This map isn't actually too bad, despite the childish name. Despite the sloppy enemy placements (the Revenant and Hell Knight in the courtyard near the start are really lame) and vastly-overscaled hallways, ammo that aren't bullets are controlled quite tightly, and you definitely won't feel oversupplied. Although perhaps it goes too far in the other direction since you'll run into mid-to high tiers and have nothing but a chaingun and SS. You do unlock a room with all weapons other than the BFG after getting the red key, but ammo is basically nonexistent, unless you find the secrets. That's why I felt fully justified in running past most things. Infighting isn't really worth the effort when enemies hardly appear in such numbers to make said task worth your time. Otherwise, you've got lots of differently-textured areas sort of clashing with each other, with their only commonality being a permanent slight shadow over the entire map. Although the yellow key room was actually sort of neat; basically think of a series of power cables surrounding a central structure. But basically forgettable. Do a better job of finding the secrets though, will you?

 

lmd_pandora_bitchin.zip

[Luleta]

BITCHIN8.WAD

im gonna be bitchin the entire way that im running down those long ass halls.

 

a huge empty map with enemies that look like they were sneezed onto the automap by the creator.

besides being too big for it's own good i'd say visually the map doesn't look too bad, don't get me wrong, the rooms are so large that any texture would get boring along those walls buuut, on the plus side, most textures seemed to be aligned, and i only saw 1 HOM.

mind you, aligning textures may not be as hard when the walls you use are the size of the entire texture, but still, appreciated.

flats weren't terribly aligned either except some minor nitpicks.

an effort was made to put some nice lighting effects and it looks... good enough c:

 

gameplay wise, it's quite boring, mainly because its so large no monster is EVER a threat.

i didn't have much problems with ammo, although i dont blame @LadyMistDragon, most fun weapons are kinda just tucked away on a random corner, you'd have to be in love with going through big ass rooms checking corners to find all the weapons instead of simply going through the level.

the rocket launcher at the start that appears to be blocked by a SILVER1 texture actually isn't blocked at all, for some reason the SILVER1 texture is used as a lift. yeah idk...

and i recall the plasma gun being on a random corner somewhere.

the areas where you find keys are an exception however having a  much more interesting layout, but 90% of the map is walking to those areas.

 

i feel teased. the large areas made me think i'd get to bfg some cyberbuns but no luck ;(

 

luleta_pandora_bitchin8.zip

Edited September 7, 2022 by Luleta
forgot the demo lol

[RoastDoom]

BITCHIN8.WAD

 

Below is my playthrough of BITCHIN8(and also my first video!). I had a pretty good time with this one, not bad at all! Quite a few fun fights throughout, the one in the video thumbnail being the map's most notable. That said, it does suffer from the usual issue a lot of shovelware maps have which is giant rooms and halls with a handful of monsters scattered throughout and an overreliance on symmetrical areas.

 

Surprisingly, you definitely aren't showered with supplies in contrast to other D!Zone offerings. In fact, as other users have pointed out, ammo scarcity is an issue, and in the latter part of the map, I briefly ran out of it before finding a remotely opened room in the map's central hub with some meagre munitions to keep me going! Finally, I got pretty lost towards the end, but I would put that more down to my complete lack of navigational skills and sense of direction! 

 

 All in all, from all the shovelware maps I've played, I consider it above average and some good fun! 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 9, 2022 by RoastDoom

[BigBoy91]

Decided to skip BOOGERS because the dark room wore on my patience quickly. BITCHIN8 was a much more pleasant experience. Not challenging in the slightest, as most of the time spent on this map was figuring out how to navigate it. It was pretty lazily designed and little to no thought was put into monster arrangement. Didn't bother looking for secrets or trying to achieve 100% kills, because of the vastness of the map combined with the lack of ammo. I still enjoyed it though!

[LadyMistDragon]

Great to see you join us @RoastDoom!

[United VirusX]

What can I say about this map it isn't a terrible map at all but it's imo pretty boring a lot of baron fights and not enough ammo to really take them out quickly not to mention a lot of the rooms are way larger than they need to be but asides from that it does play well I'm not struggling in the slightest with difficulty its an alright map with flaws only thing standout thing about it is its name also apparently its part of a series of wads called the "bitchin levels" just happen to find the others with I went researching the map maker with bitchin10 being the latest in the series also a fun fact the map has an actual name "La Villa Strangiato"

 

Here's my playthrough of it 

 

[BigBoy91]

Alright!! The time has come for new WADs!!

 

BARONBBQ (Doom 1) - Soulsphere

HIT&RUN (Doom 1) - Blursphere

WHARE15 (Doom 1) - Invulnerability

NITRO1 (Doom 1) - Megasphere

 

[LadyMistDragon]

Ok, seems like HIT&RUN won! Demos and videos everyone! Let's try to get this done by Monday evening.

[Luleta]

HIT&RUN.WAD

once again democracy fails, i could've been chilling cooking some pinkie meat with daddy baron at BARONBBQ.WAD. maybe next time.

anywaysss, back to hit and run...

 

i feel like this is supposed to be a deathmatch map :P

the layout is interesting enough and there are areas that make sense for deathmatch. as a singleplayer map however, quite boring and not remarkable.

looks nice enough tho.

 

pandora_luleta_hitnrun.zip

two demos because i pressed the exit switch without realizing (its unmarked :P)

 

[BigBoy91]

I enjoyed this one, as I have a tendency to gravitate towards smaller, classically styled maps. Definitely more suited for deathmatches. Good quality shovelware. Few misaligned textures, and some cool design choices for the time. This one would be fun to speedrun. Gets boring quickly if you take your time.

[United VirusX]

I wasn't too much of a fan of this one it's deff a deathmatch map with monsters just plopped all over the place I do like some of the attempts at ambushes the chaingun one was a pleasant surprise to see that many shotgunners popping out of a monster closet anyway here's my playthrough of it 

 

 

 

[RoastDoom]

A fun little 3 minute romp that's quick and to the point. For a 'shovelware' map I actually thought it was quite well designed and had some good fights, although there's an unmarked exit right at the beginning, and the map does suffer from the common shovelware issue where you are totally overfed resources(2 mega-armors in one room WTF?!). But all in all, a pretty decent break map!

 

Edited September 17, 2022 by RoastDoom

[LadyMistDragon]

(made this morning but I'm a buffoon)

 

HIT&RUN.WAD

by Tommy

 

So...basic design starting actually doesn't seem too bad! But then, you realize that the exit is less than 5 seconds away and you then start to see the other bits of weirdness. Like the shotgun sitting on a rectangular sector surrounded by barrels. Or putting two switches in one room for no reason at all, thusly softlocking you if you push the wrong one. The shotgun trap near the chaingun did come close to killing me. The last shptgunner trap was pointless. Like there was meant to be something before the exit, but thanks to it's placement in a cramped corridor, can be beaten almost immediately. Shovelware-adjacent? Perhaps.

lmd_pandora_hotrun.zip

Edited September 17, 2022 by LadyMistDragon

[LadyMistDragon]

Ok, Gibbon picked the wads this week! Let's see what we got! Give this until Tuesday evening?

 

 

DOOMDEAD (DOOM 2) - Supercharge

COMRADE (DOOM 1) - Megasphere

bBIG-EASY (DOOM 2) - Blursphere

CHRISK12 (DOOM 1) - Invulnerbility

 

 

[LadyMistDragon]

Looks like DOOMDEAD  has won! Let's try to get through this by Monday, ok?

[LadyMistDragon]

DOOMDEAD.WAD

by Orin Flaharty

 

Hey, nice trip down memory lane! To die....but no, it's finely detailed and quite like how the layout circles around, but action-wise, it's quite spotty. Scattered shotgunners will certainly make you think. Trouble comes when you're forced to shotgun Barons, the most fun you could have in Doom. And I'm not quite in the mood for that at the moment, so I didn't bother to finish. Safe to say the MM version plays much better than this, possibly Orin's best map. (and I've played his other maps on /idgames so I think my opinion's informed at least)

 

lmd_pandora_doomed.zip

[RoastDoom]

So it was interesting coming across this well-known Orin Flaharty map in amongst all the D-Zone dross. It's always been a good looking level but I'm not the biggest fan of it in terms of gameplay, a lot of awkward platforming to do, cramped walkways and mandatory dives into the nukage to progress. I also didn't realize this was an earlier version than the one that appeared on Memento Mori. I'll have to give it another look at some point!

 

 

[BigBoy91]

Wasn't a fan of this one, and wasn't a fan of the one in Memento Mori either. Weird platforming, and having to use a single barrel shotgun on a horde of barons is not my idea of a good time. Oh well.

Edited September 26, 2022 by BigBoy91