Endless Random /idgames WAD Adventures #051

[DrRock]

Drew Carey sounds & grafix from the Drew Carey Show from Chris J Pisarczyk (Vanilla, 2000)

played in Zdoom 2.8.1 on Ultra-Violence

Spoiler

A WAD that provides minor graphical and aural replacements sourced from the Drew Carey Show. Having never seen the show in question and only knowing it's titular star by name, I can't verify if this is of any interest for fans of the man's works but I'd have to imagine that even those familiar with the source material won't get a whole lot out of this. What you get here are your bog standard annoying sound replacements and a few texture changes. Even as early as 2000, this sort of stuff must have been old hat.

 

 

Novice's House by SpiderDisease (Vanilla, 2014) - Doom II

played in Zdoom 2.8.1 on Ultra-Violence

Spoiler

A beginner mapper's level that has extremely little meat on the bone. The room shown in the lone screenshot is about as interesting as this thing gets. To the author's credit; the exit is guarded by an archvile and his two revenant body guards in a tight space, making for at least a tiny modicum of excitement. Very short and simple otherwise.

 

 

Dominion by Memfis (prboom-plus, 2014) – Doom II

played in Zdoom 2.8.1 on Ultra-Violence

Spoiler

One of the many 2014 works from Memfis, drawing inspiration and using resources from Memento Mori. There are two maps here placed in the map 04 and 14 slots. The first one is a punchy trek that is centered around three color-coded areas accessed from a central hub. These are generally very cramped, but use the limited space to surprisingly decent effect to amplify every monster's threat level by a good bit. It's quite the challenge to actually make it through all of these in decent shape, but fun enough to encourage the player to keep trying. The other map is likely more to a general audience's tastes due to the more spacious architecture. Here it's more familiar dungeon crawling style progression with some nasty ambushes. It is a very cleverly designed, interconnected map that gives the player many different entry points to approach it from. This too should prove to be rather hard to clear, perhaps more so than the previous map. Quality stuff that is worth a download for sure.

[LadyMistDragon]

Chris8 (1996) by Antichris(t) (Eternity)

 

Six incredibly bland deathmatch maps that still seem like they'd be quite fun to play. They still have enough ammo and health to be perfectly playable, but let's just say something like the Wolfenstein-themed map isn't exactly evocative of anything. That map is also probably also the worst one because of the ridiculously large player start area when compared to the passageways which seemingly twist around each other. There are also advertisements for the Dark Tower BBS Antichris and his friends seem to be a part of, as well as shoutouts to many of said friends. And of course, the music replacements are popular replacement covers! I find it amusing that the release of Quake was two months away and the future projects of some guy called "Neon" were still being advertised. It feels very much like a wad you'd make and play with your friends. With that in mind, this gets a 4.5/10

 

 

Spoiler

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[Walter confetti]

15 hours ago, LadyMistDragon said:

 

Spoiler

 

 

Tuna will K YOU? K what? Kill you?

Spoiler

FucK you?

However, having said things happening by a person nicknamed Tuna is really something completely else that happens in a lifetime lmao 

[Roofi]

Year 2 Month 02 Day 16

 

I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I died/stopped.

 

[1] rustbelt by @MannerKing  (2018)

 

Spoiler

 

Quote

rustbelt.wad is a medium-sized map with an uneasy atmosphere. The fog that covers the outside and open areas gives the map a feeling of mystery as you go through it. The textures are from the NMNCorp Texture Pack 1 and I used some textures that makes the map look sort of like Quake 1. All of my custom assets I got from Realm667.

 

You awake in a foggy and rusty ominous tech base surrounded by natural outdoors such as a hedge maze. the calm and atmospheric Esselfortium's midi "Waiting" vibrates in your ears and prepare your mind before navigating in this desolate place. Mannerking offers a new set of weapons which rusted too but didn't lost their efficiency. A new bestiary is ready to tear you up, especially the many dogs populating this map. Honestly is it a kennel club we are exploring or what? Joking aside, this map doesn't have a wide monster variety, even for a short map like this.

 

Well, this map has many features which positively contribute to give this map a memorable moody ambiance but it doesn't hide the fact the mapper doesn't have a lot of experience in mapping. Most of the rooms are underdetailed , flat and contain a rough texturing. The gameplay is perfectly enjoyable but remains generic for the most part.

 

Anyway, it's a good beginner map with a both relaxing and creepy atmosphere. Nothing to complain here and I hope it's author didn't give up mapping.

 

Grade : B

 

I stop here for today.

[LadyMistDragon]

Doom Advent Calendar 23 (2005) by Shitbag (Eternity)

 

This was the 23rd map in a series created to....the purpose is a little unclear but several known Doomworld mappers were involved and a separate site was even created by a guy (Anders A) who makes some awesome speedmaps but had no time for this.

 

Anyways, this takes place in a hellish underground with a central crimson cavern containing a lava river and piles of dirt  in the middle that actually teleport you to important locations (as it turns out) and on the sides, largely narrow and twisting red passageways filled with almost exclusively dangerous enemies. A Cyberdemon will be in the arena for probably most of the playtime. Heading up the west side, you come onto a closet with several Barons and an Arch-vile which goes about as well as you'd expect. Despite 300 or so monsters, there's actually a fair degree of slaughter. The fight in the darkened cavern in the blue key is the absolute worst and there's no need to explain why. Maybe things would be better if a berserk pack had been located, but like the BFG, it was no doubt hidden in a finely-detailed secret. Toward the end, the map just turns full slaughter with masses of Barons and Hell Knights spawning everywhere we go, through the dirt tunnels that lead to the outdoor ZIMMERN-covered exit with some rather modest opposition. This Hell Revealed knockoff was far too tiresome. It would probably be much better if more of the fights were like the one with the Barons and Arch-vile and not the idiotic grindy nonsense at the end that we'd be lucky to have enough rockets for. It does have some positive stretches, but the emphasis on cramped combat makes it that much tougher to admire the finely-crafted visuals in spots (and honestly, the dirt is ugly as sin). 5/10 because it's actually fairly fun despite itself but can not be more than mediocre

 

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

12 hours ago, Walter confetti said:

 

Tuna will K YOU? K what? Kill you?

  Reveal hidden contents

FucK you?

However, having said things happening by a person nicknamed Tuna is really something completely else that happens in a lifetime lmao 

The texture here was actually scrolling and I do believe it said 'kill you'. Funny story, my mind immediately went to some geezer rock band I doubt anyone knows or cares to know about.

Edited February 3, 2023 by LadyMistDragon
removed a stupid and pointless .... at the end

[Walter confetti]

8 hours ago, LadyMistDragon said:

The texture here was actually scrolling and I do believe it said 'kill you'

Eh, i get closer at the end with the interpretation.

[LadyMistDragon]

Ponte (2004) by Renato Pinheiro (Eternity)

 

For a minute I could not believe the file stamp date. Then I read the file again and it sort of seems like this was a map made at some point in the late 90s that was slightly modified perhaps? Eh, there's nothing of value of here at all. Vast areas, too many monsters, and not enough ammo to make things fun whatsoever. It's possible to conserve by only using rockets at the strong enemies but that doesn't change the dumbass area of red toward the end, like rock on lava perhaps. 3/10 at best but this map is about as disposable as they come.

 

Spoiler

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[Roofi]

Year 2 Month 02 Day 17

 

I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I died/stopped.

 

[1] Midian2 Same as Midian1 but with new stuff and bug fixes. ..more rooms Better DM play If you liked t by Joe Jenkins (Green Mind) (1995)

 

Spoiler

 

Quote

This is a very good deathmatch level that's made for deathmatch 2.0. It works well with 2 players and it should be awesome with 4, but I haven't tested it. It is a large size level that goes pretty fast. There is a no exit. All weapons are available. Made Bfg harder to get in ver.2 This level is a must for everybody that plays deathmatch. I tried to base the level around the movie nightbreed..the place they hung out was called "Midian"..which is also my bbs's name.=) The level is pure havoc.

 

I respect the author of this lost DM map for creating a so large and excentric layout with lot of interconnectivity and unorthogonal shapes but the rendering is utterly ugly and clumsy. Random texturing, tutti-frutti in a lot of places and absolute no consistency about the themes ! Midian2 is a messy universe crowded with ton of barrels I had a lot of pleasure to blow up. Considering the wide size of this map, it could have been a singleplayer map insted. Anyway...

 

 

I got stuck in one of the BIG DEAL!!!'s dead ends and a roaming HK caught me because I ran out of ammo.

 

Spoiler

[Walter confetti]

Walter|6 wads|4 maps|5 utilities

Total=13 wads|32 maps|5 utilities

 

nuts.zip by Anonymous Author - Vanilla Heretic, SP, 1995, played with Zandronum 3.1 and bots

Spoiler

 

At first i thought this was a map for Deathmatch, despite having wrote in the small text file accompanying it that is made for single player and single player only, unless you want to see bots or people instagibbing wildly on coop. This is a very short and basic map that gives us the magic of having a door made of web mid-textures, i would like to see how such things appears on vanilla engine. Square layout, slightly challenging map due to monster placement, with 2 or 3 deaths you can easily beat this. Typical shovelware filler wad, imagine finding this on Maximum Death or H-ZONE!

 

Got Trippy Skrill, a wad I've found in one of the previous Adventures, it's a bizarre map with a funny title.

 

The Art of the Shotgun - Level 3 by Blazer - Vanilla Doom 2, DM, 1997, played with Zandronum 3.1 and bots

Spoiler

 

Conceptually a nice map ruined by old-school fashion of putting type 1 DR doors (the one that opens and closes when you push them, sorry for the wacky mappers lingo here, non-mappers readers) for dividing the different map areas, this small arena is pretty frenetic and with fast-action gameplay as promised in the text file but i think it will be more fun with real people because bots just run into the SSG very small center area, the level got some lovely detailing works and good sense of verticality in maps, despite the cramped layouts of this place.

 

WADCOMP.EXE and EXTRACT.EXE (also includes LIST.EXE) by Serge Sminrov - WAD Utilities, Doom (and possibly also Doom 2 and Heretic?), 1995, checked in DosBox 0.74-3

Spoiler

 

A small patch of WAD patches that can be easily replaced with other stuff like DeuTex, NWT and WAD Concatenator (or even better for you 2000 kids is using Slade3) that is less complicated to use, the only thing that these programs is to create IWAD packs out of your stuff (is a option from WADCOMP), neat thing that i didn't tested. Also, there's a small graphic patch that switches former trooper and sergeants sprites lol. Interesting but feels old even in the times it was made.

 

The Facility by Jason Benson - Vanilla Doom 2, SP, 2004, played with Eternity "forseti" 4.0.2

Spoiler

Another simple and basic map that looks was made 10 years before, including the music choice... why using the Axel F theme in 2004?

Ah, shit, now i remember why

Anyway, this is a nice small first effort map by Jason Benson bro here, is a little too dark for my tastes and feels very old-school, it's a "fun" map with the best looking part into a pretty hidden secret, reminds me of E1M1 meets MAP02, not bad overall.

 

The Traphouse by @DukeNukem4ever - Limit Removing, Doom 2, SP, 2018, played with Eternity "forseti" 4.0.2

Spoiler

 

A very tricky map based upon classic Doom traps sets in this TNT-like map, check every corner and hit every switch to find the way for escaping the base, but be very careful while roaming around! Fun map, got some interesting concepts that i like to use in future maps! Pretty interesting stuff.

 

Also, I've just material worth of entire Doom 2 megwad in something less than a week! Woo-hoo!

[LadyMistDragon]

Glaive 2 (2020) by @EANB (Eternity)

 

EANB tends to make engaging maps almost without exception and while the final wad in this sort of unoffficial trilogy Warglaive probably proves the culmination of the set, this set is by no means a slouch in any sort of way and probably is harder than something like Tech Blast at least, as good as that was, there was only one part where I can say things got a little overwhelming, but not too overwhelming.

 

Anyways, in contrast to Warglaive, this utilizes an aesthetic that's entirely vanilla. First three maps take place deep in red hell and while spicy, are probably comparable to Scythe difficulty. Map 03 specifically has a Caco mass that we have to evade before we can get the plasma gun which is just after a pair of Revenants in a lower cave.

 

Map 04 switches to wood, is shorter with a monster count under 100 but still is harder than the first 2 maps, with a fairly nasty end. Map 05 might be the very best of the set. Crisscrossing an E4-styled wooden complex, the reward at the end feels entirely earned after having fought through plenty of nastiness already. Map 06 is a sort of take on the Living End, while Map 07 proves to be a strikingly claustrophobic, not quite Dead Simple clone whose challenge is easily worth that of the last selection!

 

This gets an incredibly easy 8.5/10 from me. Still think Warglaive should've been part of "21 for 21" list in the Cacowards, unless I'm forgetting that it is. No matter, EANB has hardly disappointed so far and this was seriously good! Only reason it doesn't get a 9 might just be because it falls just short in a way I don't feel like explaining right now because it's not easy.

 

Spoiler

 

Edited February 5, 2023 by LadyMistDragon

[brick]

Brick | 3 wads | 3 maps

Adventure total | 12 wads | 56 maps

 

The Terraces (2017) by @Bauul (HNTR)

A sprawling map originally meant for a CP that never materialized. There are a few new graphical assets but most of the aesthetic is the Doom II iwad's, which is used really well to convey the look of buildings falling apart (the "gaps" in the stonework and the cracks in the ceiling). The architecture is striking. It's a city of twisting streets and stairs and of course the titular terraces, it reminded me most of the Spanish Quarter in Napoli (particularly the southern, less touristic side). There are some breathtaking vistas, sometimes seeing other parts of the city from above or below, but especially the side of the city on top of the cliffs overlooking the lake of lava, with that serpentine monster threatening to engulf everything. Initially I was really worried the map would prove impossibly difficult to navigate, but in fact it's remarkably easy to get your bearings, in part thanks to many memorable sections, and also because the map is quite linear, though it's also well laid out to have you come back to certain segments with a minimum of backtracking. With the exception of one ambush that was a bit bullshit just before the red key, combat is very approachable on HNTR. The secrets are pretty cool, though there is one that I didn't find without looking it up. This one (appropriately named the Garden of Inspiration) is very cute though, it's basically an in-game acknowledgement where Bauul credits his inspirations for the map. It took me 40 minutes to beat the map, but I was taking my time drinking in the sights.

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ushasu (2008) by Brett 'Mechadon' Harrell

A small deathmatch-only map. It does have a beautiful look, thanks to a texture set that Mechadon converted from Quake.

Spoiler

 

 

Hexen: Mission Arrgh (1995) by Andy Kendall (Berserker)

A small single-player Hexen map. It did not sound hugely promising at first, with a low monster count and it looked very flat, but it's not bad actually. It makes pretty good use of ACS (especially considering the release year) to keep things changing and dynamic-looking. and while the rooms are all quite blocky it's fun going into every one and wondering what surprise will trigger this time. It's quick-playing but reasonably enjoyable.

Spoiler

 

 

 

[Aku]

On 2/1/2023 at 2:53 AM, Clippy said:

hey guys hey - this vid will be premiering shortly - thought I would try the premiere thing @Doomkid said its cool - especially for my ID games stuff - its the only vid I put effort or edit lol - not much happened in this ep tho

 

 

 

Firstly we found

 

Simple Mirrored Monsters by Coldiron https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/graphics/smm4doom

 

I will admit I didn't quite understand what this was and took way too long to figure out how to load it - cause I thought nothing was happening - but I left in the experience to show that sometimes you get files that have folders of more files and well.. it doesnt take much to confuse me

 

I will admit - the backwards monster deaths were kind of freaky - even with the revenant but especially the Archie and Cyber - we know their death animations so well that seeing it backwards is indeed jarring

 

but who is this for lol - well I guess if you feel like seeing monsters possibly die to the left instead of right will enhance the experience then this was is 4 u

 

Moving on next we got

 

Tab16 Level by Michael Contorno https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/themes/tab/tab16

 

"Difficulty: Hard"

 

another 90s map from the tab series - in my third ever IDGAMES ep 3 I drew tab 3

 

here I am a year later with Tab 16

 

I seen others pull these files from time to time here too - it seems like a common find - was hoping for something more unique hehe

 

well I thought Tab 3 was kind of light, big clumsy areas with wide boring easy combat but this was far better - I missed the story tho

 

How many damn tabs are there?

 

TBH this level wasnt bad - it had some weirdness but it's always a win when I dont have to ask @Snaxalotl wtf am I doing here - got through it - janky allignments n stuff but gameplay felt classic and alright - overall I could have drew worse but still curious to see what I get next time

 

cheers!

dumb questions, whats the song your using in the background that sounds like elevator music???
i hear it a few places but never found anywhere to identify it

[Dr. Zin]

On 2/2/2023 at 5:04 PM, LadyMistDragon said:

Doom Advent Calendar 23 (2005) by Shitbag (Eternity)

 

This was the 23rd map in a series created to....the purpose is a little unclear but several known Doomworld mappers were involved and a separate site was even created by a guy (Anders A) who makes some awesome speedmaps but had no time for this.

 

If you'll indulge me a bit of history here, Doom Advent Calendar 2005 was a project inspired by children's Advent Calendars which contain a small treat for every day between December 1st and Christmas; @Torn come up with the concept and led the project. Participants signed up and were given a couple months to make a map (which did not need to be Christmas themed) - the group ended up being a real cross-section of mappers active on Doomworld at the time, from the obscure to influential people like Agent Spork, @Use and Erik Alm. Torn released a single map every day of December until Christmas, after which the project kind of faded into obscurity. I think that's a real shame since DAC foreshadowed the modern Christmas community project, but also because in my view DAC is almost like "Community Chest 2.5." At least eight of the mappers had previously contributed to Community Chest 2, and while the maps are shorter and more simple due to the time constraints on development there's still a lot of the flavor of that era. Not every map is great (or even good), but in some ways these smaller maps work better together as a level set since there's less of the slog that many people complain about in the Community Chest series. I think if the project had been compiled into a single megawad instead of being released as separate single maps it would be more widely remembered today. Anyway, anyone who likes the early Community Chests should definitely check out the DAC set (I'm thinking of you, @Dusty_Rhodes).

[Clippy]

10 hours ago, Aku said:

dumb questions, whats the song your using in the background that sounds like elevator music???
i hear it a few places but never found anywhere to identify it

 

[Aku]

@Clippy thank you very much, had wanted to actually incorporate this particular jingle on my doomstyle backrooms level, as opposed to having the caretakers its a burning memory looping by its self for an hour

[Dusty_Rhodes]

Thanks for the shout out @Dr. Zin! It's definitely something I'd like to check out. I've heard of these (Agent Spork did Congestion 1024, right?), but never played them. Maybe we should bring this concept back? Actually compiling them into one wad would be great too. A custom TITLEPIC, music, and other miscellaneous bits would make a nice "definitive edition" or something. Tracking down permission would be a nightmare though, Alm hasn't been around in forever. 

[Clippy]

1 hour ago, Aku said:

@Clippy thank you very much, had wanted to actually incorporate this particular jingle on my doomstyle backrooms level, as opposed to having the caretakers its a burning memory looping by its self for an hour

Awesome. I like to play something during the selection process but I really need to get more tunes lol

[Andromeda]

20 minutes ago, Dusty_Rhodes said:

(Agent Spork did Congestion 1024, right?)

That one was a community project led by Lutrov71, Agent Spork didn't map for that one or any other 1024 projects I think.

[Dr. Zin]

3 hours ago, Dusty_Rhodes said:

Thanks for the shout out @Dr. Zin! It's definitely something I'd like to check out. I've heard of these (Agent Spork did Congestion 1024, right?), but never played them. Maybe we should bring this concept back? Actually compiling them into one wad would be great too. A custom TITLEPIC, music, and other miscellaneous bits would make a nice "definitive edition" or something. Tracking down permission would be a nightmare though, Alm hasn't been around in forever. 

 

Yeah, I don't know if putting together a compilation is worth it at this point, especially since the project is already in the archives. Besides the permissions issue, several of the maps were actually for Doom 1 and many of the others just use D_RUNNIN for music; a bunch other little nagging details that would make the process of combining them all in one wad irritating. I think someone putting together a proper page about the project on Doomwiki would probably be the most useful thing for DAC 2005 at this point, just to record the history in a more permanent form and raise its visibility/discoverability within the community. DAC also would be a great candidate for a Doomworld Megawad Club session at some point - especially since most of the maps are pretty bite-sized, and it would be cool to see someone like @MtPain27 cover the project (though I don't think that will ever happen).

 

As for reviving the project, Torn tried to put together sequels in 2006 and 2009 but couldn't get enough maps done in time. In fact, I believe a couple of the maps in DAC 2005 were bits of an unfinished project Torn and Espi had worked on that were inserted Gene Bird style so they could fill all 24 slots. AFAIK Torn is no longer active in the community and the DAC "brand" clearly hasn't built a ton of cachet, so I doubt there would be any real objections to reviving it. That said, I don't know what purpose that would serve? The Doom community was a much different place in 2005: it was much smaller and there were only a couple community projects active that year. Looking back at the original thread, the project was proposed in early October and the guidelines were just "make a Boom map by mid-November." Having participated myself, I feel like DAC 2005 was a real "lightning in a bottle" kind of thing. For context, the "big" community project for 2005 was going to be Community Chest 3, which was supposed to be a ZDoom project. However, this original iteration of that project fell apart midway through the year in a big disappointment for those of us who had been participating in it (or at least for me it was). Then in early October Torn made the advent calendar project and a bunch of us who had been involved in CC3 jumped on board to be able to put together something for the Doomworld community for 2005 (another reason I consider DAC Community Chest 2.5). The short time frame (only a month and a half or so) was really unusual for the era, when most community projects had 6+ month development times, and is part of the reason why the maps are relatively small. Anyway, that energy of "we need to put something together for Doomworld before the end of the year" was IMO what made the project work, and the lack of that was probably why the 2006 and 2009 attempts flopped.

 

In the current environment when there's a new community project being started every week I don't know that people would find the original DAC formula compelling, especially when there much more heavily themed Christmas projects being produced. That said, I don't think it would be impossible to bring the "Doom Advent Calendar" back, but whoever is putting it together would need to establish project guidelines to distinguish it from other community projects.

 

Edited to add: For a bit more context on the CC3 stuff, it seemed like the general consensus at the time was that Community Chest was going to be THE yearly Doomworld community project (again, this was an era where there were only a handful of community projects released each year), and after the 2005 iteration fell apart it seemed doubtful that the series would be revived. Also, at the time there was a general feeling that the Doom fan base was going to eventually fade away as the original games were supplanted by newer titles, so CC3 falling apart seemed like part of an overall trend of decay in the community. Of course almost 20 years later the online Doom community is the biggest it's ever been and many of those mid-2000s games have fallen off the radar, but at the time it often felt like all of the effort we had put into our content and community was going to be relegated to obscurity.

Edited February 5, 2023 by Dr. Zin

[Dusty_Rhodes]

4 hours ago, Dr. Zin said:

*helpful info*

Thanks for all the information. I plan on playing all of these and trawling the /idgames archives (luckily DAC was given it's own theme, thanks a million Ty) and the forum thread to get the info required for a wiki page. I'll probably chat up Xymph to see how to best organize it all. I've made some pages in the past, so I'll try and get this out soon. It's a huge shame Torn's site is a dead link now. That would be a gold mine.

 

A little off topic, were there any levels made for the 2005 ZDoom CChest 3 Ling was running? I've read about that a bit, but I've never seen any of the remnants of the wad. Any clue how far it got off the ground before it's untimely death? 

[Dr. Zin]

You'd be doing everyone a real solid by putting together a page for the project on Doomwiki. One thing that should make it easier is that I believe all of the maps have been autopopulated to their respective authors pages already. Also, while it is a shame Torn's site is gone, IIRC it was just an image of an advent calendar with some HTML jiggering so that when you clicked on the various compartments it took you to the IDgames archive page for each of the maps.

 

Now as for the first attempt at CC3, here's the thread, though I can't figure out where Linguica announced he was cancelling the project:

As for maps that ended up getting released, I've been able to find three: Total Darkness 5 by @Khorus, Truax by @SS-Bowen and Uplink by me. A quick note, Uplink is theoretically Boom compatible, though I only tested it in Zdoom (looking back I also like the map more than the frustrated text file indicates). I'm sure there are more maps out there that started as part of the Zdoom iteration of CC3, but I haven't been able to find them in simple searches. This talk about the history of the Community Chest series brings up another topic, looking through my post history I can't find anything that I posted during the development of CC2 and CC3. Doomworld used to have a subforum for the development of the Community Chest series, which has either been deleted (or hopefully) hidden by the admins/mods but which would be a wealth of information for documenting the history of the series.

[brick]

Brick | 2 wads | 2 maps

Adventure total | 14 wads | 58 maps

 

Kurogane (2011) by Memfis (GZDoom HNTR)

A small techbase that I think is vanilla-compatible (no mention in the txt). It could've been a pretty good map if not for two major flaws: too dark, and too little ammo. Yes I know the txt says it's "gloomy" but the almost pitch-black passages go on for too long and are a tad too dark, which makes them more irritating than atmospheric, considering the enemy placement in them. It's a shame too because, judging but the brightly lit rooms, there's some nice vanilla architecture, and the layout of the base is well done. The biggest problem though is the ammo starvation. That screenshot with nothing but 26 bullets and the dead arachnotron? yeah, I had to pistol it to death. Not shown: one revenant, a handful of knights and a bunch of imps that I had to chainsaw. And I got lucky too, because I did go the correct way first, otherwise I'd have had to punch them. Even when I did have ammo, shotgunning knight after knight got tedious very quickly. The RL is given just before an archvile in a small room where the RL is completely useless. By the time I got the SSG at the end of the map I wasn't even sure I wanted to use it, because of the dearth of shells. With all this said I often see other players complain about too much ammo, they might enjoy the map a lot more than I did.

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Sunrise Citadel (2022) by Alexsa2015sa (GZDoom HNTR)

This is a Hexen map that was made as a demo for a monster replacement mod called ERLBA, so I thought I'd install it (got it from ZDoom forums) and play with it. The mod doesn't replace so much as expand the bestiary, by adding quite a few sub-species for each enemy type, so now you have 7 or 8 different types of ettins with varying health, speed, most have a ranged attack, and so on. The problem is that I chose to play as a fighter, and most of the changes are very melee-unfriendly, including enemies that explode when they die, or send Wraithverge spirits at you, and generally do a lot more damage than usual. The map itself is huge, honestly far too much for its own good. The problem with huge puzzle maps is always the same: you'd better not miss that tiny switch hidden away somewhere, because if you do you'll find yourself stuck several hours later, and will spend another hour or two looking for what you missed. Speaking of puzzles there are the usual ones (finding the planets, finding the artifacts, finding switches), but some require more complex manipulations like figuring out the order to press switches, or at least I think they do, because I don't think I managed to solve any one of those; there's just no hints at the solution, sometimes you get an audio clue but nothing seems to change anywhere near you, and frankly I'm not even sure if some of them are even puzzles. Being a fighter here didn't help; the txt mentions that weapons are along the "obvious route", but what's obvious to the mapper may not be as much to a player, and it doesn't help when my class's ranged weapon is hidden behind yet another inscrutable puzzle. A couple of hours into the map, with barely 150/530 enemies killed (and I'm sure the latter number would end up much higher after scripted spawns), only 1 of 3 (at least) planets, my computer crashed and gave me an excellent excuse to call it a day. I hate being negative about something that clearly had a lot of work and effort put into it, but there's just too much of everything here. Too many obscure puzzles, too many narrow passages, and too many enemy variants. There is a colour-coding, and it's explained in the manual, but trying to remember which combination of 2 colours corresponds to which of the dozen or so special abilities or resistances is something that could work in a turn-based game, but not as much in Hexen. That said, if anything I've mentioned sounded interesting, by all means give the mod and/or the map a try, you may like them a lot more than I did.

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Edited February 6, 2023 by brick

[LadyMistDragon]

Beef Balogna (2012) by kaiser_wilhelm2 (Eternity)

 

A map from a then-new mapper supposedly meant to evoke a certain location from Strife, but honestly, it crashes and burns like that. While I think the 'tanks' in the courtyard are supposed to represent structures in a slime pool that you can 'clean out' not too far into the game, that also seems to be a stretch.

 

Though combat is actually surprisingly fun for only consisting of 36 enemies, due to the majority of them teleporting to locations that tend to be quite close to where we're at. The layout is a simplistic joke, and a light to the left you conceals an untagged secret room with some armor which might actually be useful. Eventually, the red door can be opened to reveal a bland wall that you can press to then exit. Yeah, fuck this shit. 4/10, largely because its over too quickly although that may be a good thing. This was actually a map I'd downloaded years ago for godknowswhat reason. It's not too bad for a first map but the crampedness and bland texturing still make it entirely disposable.

 

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[Dusty_Rhodes]

Well I guess it isn't too bad the site isn't around anymore. I checked Internet Archive's Wayback Machine and got nothing unfortunately. The wiki page is well on its way to being finished. I got a good start on the table of maps, listing their name, author, day of Advent, game, port, and idgames link. I also put in a bit of the historical context you gave me. I looked through the 2006 and 2009 failed entries as well, mostly to mention. It's the reason @Phobus joined the site. I'll try and finish the page tonight. Though I haven't checked, maybe Xymph beat me to it. 

 

As for CC3, thanks for link. I was looking around on the CChest Series page  on the wiki. The links for anything CC3 and CC4 seemed scrubbed. I wasn't sure why, but maybe the CC subforum being ended is why. That is a shame.

 

BTW Dr. Zin, your maps for DAC2005 are great. I'll have to check out those CC3 ones you linked. 

[LadyMistDragon]

The Deeside Facility (2022) by @SleepyCat (GZDoom)

 

Starts in gray linear cave and then ends in a large rectangular courtyard with these amazing Doomcute trees and several little side buildings, all conveying a sense of place as in Sleepy Cat's other map, Helipad Techbase. A few buildings contain keys, one in a darkened room with shadows, another one with tanks. The central building contains some fancy computers along with 2 floors. The ending has this sort of cute little hell structure. But despite this sense of place, I was forced to cut it from a future newstuff guide because there's little to distinguish. Despite having 200+ enemies, it's actually quite an easy map, and there are also a few too many empty spaces to full endorse. 6/10 because it's still solid

 

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[ICID]

Thanks for the reviews, guys, always great to see new faces! Sorry the new thread's a bit late - I had dental surgery today and it kicked my ass harder than I thought it would. Here it is: 

 

[Dusty_Rhodes]

On 2/5/2023 at 6:18 PM, Dr. Zin said:

You'd be doing everyone a real solid by putting together a page for the project on Doomwiki.

I'll stop hijacking the thread to chat about crusty Doom history, but I figured anyone following the exchange would appreciate this.

 

It took a while, but it's done:

https://doomwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Doom_Advent_Calendar_2005&stable=0&shownotice=1&fromsection=Notes

[SleepyCat]

On 2/6/2023 at 10:10 PM, LadyMistDragon said:

The Deeside Facility (2022) by @SleepyCat (GZDoom)

 

Ta for the review :)  Yeah its not a very exciting one, first one I've built for literally years and was being built for a purpose of modelling an actual place for reasons to show it off to people - the sense of scaling is off (if I was building it again I'd make everything a lot tighter and more constrainted) its designed for newbies, and overall it just about does the job.  I'm glad it still had a sense of place, I think thats sort of one major thing I aim for in maps like a feeling of why its all there and environmental features and storytelling (at some point I'm going to try and make something more deliberately abstract I think just to learn how).  Glad it still got above 5/10 :)