MACHETE - 32 Map Boom Compatible Megawad [Now on idgames]

[A2Rob]

 

MACHETE is a 32 level Boom compatible megawad made during NaNoWadMo 2022. 

My goal was to essentially make one giant homage to the Scythe series and Doom 2 iwad.

 

<<<DOWNLOAD MACHETE RELEASE CANDIDATE 1 HERE>>>>

 

<<<RELEASE CANDIDATE 2.1 AVAILABLE HERE>>>>

 

<<<IDGAMES LINK>>>

 

 

--The Story--

You are a space marine, recently discharged from service shortly before (another) demonic invasion engulfs the planet. Wacky hijinks ensue.

--     ----     --

 

You'll need a Boom compatible source port to play this. All maps were tested in DSDA Doom and Nugget Doom. There's a dehacked patch which includes two custom enemies and a few other modifications (such as collision-less hanging corpses). Any gameplay eccentric mods could potentially break some levels.

 

All levels were designed for pistol start. Coop starts are included. Though I never bothered to playtest coop, I tried to ensure there wouldn't be any coop soft-locks.

 

Special thanks to @scwiba, @Vile, @finnks13, and joe-ilya for playtesting.

Edited February 3, 2023 by A2Rob
Final Release

[Dusty_Rhodes]

This looks awesome, congrats on completing a megawad. Can't wait to play this!

[Andrea Rovenski]

It looks very cool! Love the sharp green color. Will give this a whirl whenever a final version is up :) 

[Egg Boy]

This is a certified Scythe moment!

[phoo]

Looks excellent, I'll need to check this out!

[Bryan T]

OOOO, another A2Rob mapset. I'm sure it's gold like all your stuff.

[Firedust]

omfg

 

more a2rob mapsets are always welcome!

[VoanHead]

Neat, looking forward to playing this in the new year.

[Deadwing]

12 maps in and this is fantastic! Early levels remind a lot of scythe, but it gets its own pace quickly and the creativity of the fights is awesome. Will upload the playthrough soon 

[Deadwing]

 

 

 

Incredibly fun mapset!

[Slipgate Tourist]

Made a recording of the first Doom map I played this year. I'm really enjoying this wad so far, it seems ideal for 2 player co-op as well.

 

 

Edited January 1, 2023 by Slipgate Tourist

[phoo]

Just finished my playthrough, this is an amazing wad!

[Firedust]

Alright, let's get going!

 

Map 1: Mapper gives shotgun in the first level, bad Scythe tribute, 0/10 would not recommend

 

Map 14: The middle platform in the red key pit is damaging. Intentional?

 

Map 31: why u do dis

 

Jokes aside, these are super fun so far! Will edit this post if I run into any bugs.

[Deadwing]

Playthrough map 18 to 22:

 

 

Things are starting to get tougher. First two maps of the last episode are hard and the new enemies are definitely challenging.
Enjoying a lot!

[Firedust]

Done! Very very good mapset, and very polished too! Got no more bugs to report. 

 

Magnum opus megawad next? *wink wink*

[FrancisT218]

Map30 - Given especially what this is intended to be an homage to, I'd recommend potentially considering dropping some more Megaspheres to Supercharges on UV. I haven't played the map, but felt the finale of Running Late 2 Map12 was considerably too easy with all the powerful orbs around and suspect the same may be going on here.

[A2Rob]

1 hour ago, Firedust said:

Magnum opus megawad next? *wink wink*

 

No promises :^)

 

1 hour ago, FrancisT218 said:

Map30 - Given especially what this is intended to be an homage to

 

I intentionally made Map30 less difficult compared to it's inspiration.

Spoiler

At least, that's what I hoped for.

 

[FrancisT218]

I'd have to play the map, as less difficult is cool but taking a glance it could easily be a bit carried away on the Megaspheres. From inspection it seems it might have the same overcompensation problem I had as the last fight in Map12 of Running Late 2 (for reference, that fight IMO should have had the Megasphere and Invulnerability but NOT the four Supercharges; or the Megasphere and two Supercharges but no Invulnerability).

 

It could be better balanced than that fight already, hard to know without testing it, but I wanted to point out the risk given how RL2 ended.

Edited January 3, 2023 by FrancisT218

[Deadwing]

Maps 22 to 29: A lot of slaughter (lite) setups, but really challenging and engaging. Also, lots of really creative ideas here, from fights to landscapes. The big fight in map 25 is one of my favorites leading to lots of deaths from myself! 29 worked fantastic for me too, great narrative, the MIDI selection also helps a lot to enhance the mood (especially the creepy atmosphere from 29, but also for the whole mapset and especially the last episode). Islands (I think 28?) was another highlight for me too, with 3 main fights setups + otherworldly MIDI

 

 

 

[A2Rob]

@Deadwing

 

Preciate the vids mate, although the audio sounds like it's being run through a woodchipper during certain segments in most of these. 

[BoxY]

Awesome wad, I didn't play any Doom for a few months then picked this randomly and played through the whole thing in about 2 sittings because for me it was the exact kind of length and difficulty for just bingeing through carelessly. Honestly the mapping style didn't remind me that much of Scythe other than stylistic cues and references, but I'm kind of glad about it because I was kind of expecting the last episodes to suddenly turn into the grindy/petty type of Erik Alm difficulty because that's what everyone else seems to do when they make Scythe tributes and I was happy when it didn't. I'm not a huge fan of the design of evil marines or afrits but the hp nerfs made them feel much more interesting and fair to fight here.

 

I recorded casual blind demos of every map with saves/loads, they use the dsdademo format so I'm pretty sure they only play back in dsda-doom. I don't know if they're interesting or useful for anything except showing I played the maps and had fun, but they exist: machete-lmps-bx.zip (RC1). I didn't softlock or break anything. A couple of maps are split into two files where I accidentally hit the new attempt hotkey after dying instead of reloading. Thanks for making this.

[FrancisT218]

Got time to test out Map30 for myself!

Yeah I have the feeling at least the first two thirds are weighted a bit heavy on 'more bark than bite', maybe reduce to nine orbs on UV (or knock a few Megas to Supers). Just one or two fights late that got me a few times. There's also enough Plasma to BFG spam virtually the whole thing and use hardly any rockets; I'm not sure if you intended it to be this generous or not. Lastly, the final fight can definite be cheesed a bit too easily, as I did in the recording. My idea would be to either have a short lock-in before it's possible to open the last blue door, or make it not a blue door at all and have it open as soon as passing the first blue door (as that would have the monsters behind it roaming the area and harder to just blast past).

 

In any case, I recorded my blind playthrough, so you can check to see how the difficulty and balance aligns with what you were ultimately intending. It's a good ending map in any case! Just think it's a bit generous and low on the 'bite' and even beefing up difficulty slightly would still be much easier than its inspiration. (My estimate of a good difficulty target is probably Running Late Map32 about, IMO.)
 

 

 

Edited January 4, 2023 by FrancisT218

[Deadwing]

Damn, no idea why the sound is glitching like this >.<

Gotta find a way to fix this.

 

Here's maps 30-32:

 

 

[ProfBloom]

Played through the first two episodes last night, plus the first map of the third, and I'm really impressed.  Fun, short, levels, with a nice gradually increasing challenge.  Played blind UV pistol start, and found it all felt really reasonable and fair.  Really dig the Scythe references, just super fun, classic feeling Doom.  I'm looking forward to finishing it.

[A2Rob]

Release candidate 2 is now available.

 

Includes some visual bug fixes.

 

Spoiler

Map 28 - Blue key platform switches should be more noticeable now / Evil marines spawn closer to the edges of the arena now

Map 29 - Warp room numbers sector bleeding fixed? / fixed a non impassable mid texture in second to last arena

Map 30 - All Afrits must be killed now to reach the exit :)

 

[NightFright]

Widescreen statusbar done by request.

machete_wide.zip

Edited January 9, 2023 by NightFright

[A2Rob]

Update implementing widescreen status bar, courtesy of @NightFright.

 

Assuming there aren't any more major bugs found, the idgames release should be coming soon(ish).

Edited January 12, 2023 by A2Rob

[Keyboard_Doomer]

Hello,

 

we're going to play the first half of the wad for Thursday Night Survival today.
The session starts 6 hours from the time of this reply and you can expect it to be fairly active for 4+ hours.

 

ZDaemon doesn't support wide screen status bar and the second ANIMDEFS lump causes it to crash so we will play with a RC2-based standalone wad that includes multiplayer fixes but I'll report all about this later.
 

[JaySmithen]

Howdy @A2Rob I am loving these maps! I've got a bug to show ya in map 18. Got a texture called "---" on linedef 544.

 

Cheers :)

Screenshot:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bnnVle3YHFyfeP7Wm-uxFVF4yjE8BaxE/view?usp=drive_link

Edited June 4 by JaySmithen
Added google drive link

[A2Rob]

Now available on idgames.