The DWmegawad Club plays: #1 Kill & Number One Kill TNG

[Monsieur E]

Map06: "Central Command"
357/444 kills, 1/6 secrets, 33:34

This plays like a TNT map (pejorative). Abundance of hitscanners in completely bland corridors or around corners, there are literally only two armor pickups, health is spread out in an obnoxious manner, t looks ugly as sin. And the map "generously" gives you rockets but the Rocket Launcher is located somewhere I couldn't find, if it's in the secrets, it shouldn't have been and a cursory glance at doomwiki tells me some of the secrets can be permanently missed. The floor next to the button nearby the radsuit on the nukage also damages you, oh and said radiation suit is placed rather unintuitive position; there's also a HOM. The only saving grace of this map is the red key ambush, a brief moment of excitement in an otherwise completely miserable experience, bonus points for letting me grab the red key through the bars than going through whatever winding path intended. This is a complete trainwreck. 

Map07: "Gateway To Hell"
88/88 kills, 0/0 secrets, 5:44

Half godawful dead simple, half pretty fun. The dead simple setup is one of the worst in the market, a demonstration in how to make a flawed concept worse. Nice going hiding the trigger for removing the damaging floor for the close quarters weapon on a completely undistinguishable platform from the rest. It isn't fun to slowroll 12 mancubi either way, remind me why they needed backup. However, after this complete waste of time is dealt with, the map becomes remarkably better with a fun ambush featuring two battalions of varied demons while you've been equipped with enough ammunitions to deal with them and their archvile reinforcements. It might be overkill but I managed to have enough to clear them out despite the archvile resurrections. But then, you also have to cross 20% damaging floor to reach the exit segment forcing 8% health me to do the nukage rhythm, not too much of an annoyance since I wasn't doing this saveless. Overall, the action in this map does make up for its failings and I think it's a step up from the last map, especially since it's much shorter. 

[Book Lord]

MAP 13 – City of Hell

DSDA-Doom v0.24.3, UV, Pistol start, non-blind run w/saves.

 

Here we have Angelo’s take on the urban sandbox theme, finding its place in the traditional MAP13 slot. It began in the municipal water supply network, an area that should be fully explored before following the long tunnels to the outside, which flowed into channels that separated the various city blocks. Checking the nearby door and clearing the flooded indoor areas was essential to build an arsenal, before climbing to the upper level thanks to the collected BK. Venturing too far alerted monsters that could not be confronted yet.

Spoiler

Once out of the small wooden building, things got hectic with roaming Arachnotrons, Revenants, and a dangerous hitscanner crossfire. The dead alleys to the west contained useful resources, protected by a few enemies, and were the ideal place to find cover. The not-so-hidden Megasphere remedied to the inevitable attrition, and with the town square under control I advanced towards the northern building. The 152-unit gap could be easily crossed with strafe-running, and it might be intentional since on HNTR the RSK is on the outside. I could have skipped the small wooden building, but I went there anyway and followed the path to the RSK chamber, populated by various demons and containing the rocket launcher.

Spoiler

To collect the key on the Baron ledge I must continue to the south-east, then jump across the channel to the BLAKWAL1 building and back, deal with a timed door while avoiding a zombie surprise attack and foil the Demon attempt to put me in a sandwich. At this point, I entered the red door and dropped on the plasma rifle I spotted before, an essential weapon to have any hopes of survival. Eliminating the cloud of flyers, the hitscanners, and the Arachnotrons in the north-eastern district was a bit grindy, but necessary to think about where to go next. The large edifice on the island was optional, and it provided useful resources as well as a humorous gag, consisting of two stuck hordes destined to the crusher. The noise made by Arachnotrons and Revenants really creased me up.

Spoiler

The southern courtyard hosted one of the deadliest ambushes of the Number One Kill series, guaranteed to leave a lasting impression. The triple door shut firmly behind and sealed me in the empty courtyard, where I could only pull the levers to lower the flesh cube and expose the YSK. What happened next could be described as pure terror: the day became dark as night, a Revenant emerged from a compartment and the first shot alerted one of the most wicked assortments of monsters ever conceived by Angelo Jefferson. I could not fight them in the courtyard: the Arch-Viles were impossible to isolate, and they saw me everywhere regardless of the darkness. The only way to win this fight was to unlock the doors and get out without firing a shot, or to camp the escape lever niche with plasma rifle.

Spoiler

The ambush would have been a highlight of 1997 mapping if it had not been tainted by technical errors. The player might be sealed forever in the courtyard if he did not trigger all W1 lines that shut the triple door. Certain monsters could not leave their closet, even though Doomguy might reach them through the invisible gap seen on the automap. The inexplicable lack of care continued in the last area resembling a waste treatment plant, which offered tricky hitscanner resistance. Four linedefs near a door were missing their texture, generating a huge HoM that no playtesting could have missed. Such glaring problems confirmed that the megaWAD was released in a rush, as if Angelo had no time to round things off. This is a real shame, because City of Hell would have been an excellent urban map without those flaws.

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 12: Strage Universe

 

Wanna know what's STRAAAAANGE? Seeing an easy word misspelled because no effort for spellchecker was given. It's not like this is a needlessly-cryptic map, but the 'puzzles' are all pretty stupid, especially getting towards the end.

 

Probably best not to step on the yellow key platform before acquring the Super Shotgun, although we doubt the little homage to end of E1M8 was meant to confront on pistol start. Or maybe you have to? 

 

So anyway, this is probably a fair deal easier than the last map, however, it does definitely live up to its name. The little sort of void area at the beginning is mildly dangerous but really nothing compared to what has come before. The giant pillar of blood is quite interesting and lowers when switches in hallways are both side are pressed. At least there's a Berserk Pack. Although it's probably another camping fight.

 

But no matter. Blue key in hand, we head back to the places in the previous room: a door and a small hallway which raises some stairs to said door. This door will then end up teleporting us to a mysterious and cramped room with a yellow skull-lined arch in the middle, a switch sitting some ways off to the right which presumably opens it......and hitscanners everywhere! If you're prepared for the Pain Elemental, than things can probably be managed up to a point. But avoiding chaingunner fire on both sides may be a questionable prospect. Anyway, head out of the room, pick up the rocket launcher at the end then take a right turn to press a switch that raises a certain curious barrier temporarily, along with the gateway to our next task, where we actually had to restart because we somehow softlocked ourselves.

 

So there is a square room with shifting shadows and around 3 Barons that constantly teleport around and with one highly annoying exception, will eventually make their way to the entrance. Then when we actually step into this space, closets in the previous room open, containing pinkies and rockets. It's kind of wonderfully chaotic in a way. The solution to reach the other end is acqually quite simple: keep to the right and try to hug the right and eventually, we'll be at the other end with a switch and hopefully a dead chaingunner. There's still the matter of picking up the plasma rifle and most of the cells, which isn't easy but can be guessed at. After that, head to the hallway with the chaingunner, press the switch at the other hand and take the nearby teleport. This deposits us back at the entrance with the rock wall that was here lowered to reveal 2 Cacodemons! In our first run, this refused to come down. Anyway, enter this, another semi-circular room opens up with some nastiness and a teleporter which desposits us right on top of the yellow key! And did I read right when it was said those enemies in that one room that now opens will have died already. No matter, we have the SS at this point.

 

Anyways, we return to the room with the yellow switch and door which we press to reveal.....nothing. Or that's what it appears. Head into the door from the direction of the switch and we are teleported into another area! Combat is quite similar, but we are much better equipped, so we don't end up dying this time, despite some bit of clumsiness. From here, we head into a Circle of Death homage, complete with damaging blood and 2 Arachnotrons and a Spider Mastermind. We have enough at this point that killing the Mastermind was little trouble although she tore off yet more skin in the process. Making a required trip through the blood at the other end here with chaigunners, Imps, and other hitscanners firing from a window in the back was even worst. Although there is a nearby Supercharge in one of the side hallways. Probably should hit the switch here, but afterwards, collect the yellow key and return to the starting room through a rather convoluted process because too many teleporters are one way. 

 

Anyways, a little tussle with some caged Revenants hanging over a void and some hitscanners leads us to a switch....and easily our least favorite section of the map. See, several tunnels are opened in all different corners of the map and we are thusly tasked with heading into all of them in order to press switches surrounding a sort of Limbo homage. And you have to pas through some seemingly inaccessible bars to hit one of them!

 

I'll freely admit I wasn't in the greatest of moods when I went through this, but even so, I've no idea what could possibly possess anyone to make a map like this contrary to what makes Doom fun in any capacity! Making an open-ended map is one thing. Making a map where we have to head to various places in the map to see if random spots the automap will probably tell us is entirely another, and especially when navigation is as cumbersome as it is here. It was basically blind luck that led us to the last one - and also finally allowed us to access the sole secret in the map because if we did it before, we'd be trapped in the blood pit!

 

So.....my opinion's very mixed. While I can appreciate Angelo trying not to make an in-your-face style of map, making practically every critical path one way and forcing the player to find the way forward before they can return isn't so bad if the red key basically opened the teleport to the geometrically-interesting exit. But being forced to backtrack through what is essentially a scattered series of different locations is just really, really bad. There are ways to make exploration fun and Strange Universe manages to fumble practically all of them.

 

PS (demo isn't complete because I restarted due to the apparent softlock and I thought I'd look into Map 13 - but I really should have saved because I hadn't loaded the version created by distik)

 

 

 

 

lmd_#1killtng12.zip

[Veeda Vidlak]

Quote

On 2/18/2023 at 5:47 PM, LadyMistDragon said:

Map 10: The Wicked Metal Garden

 

Were you holding your breath for the moment when the wad decided to go full Hell Revealed?

... Maybe

 

Map10 “The Wicked Metal Garden”

 

Now that’s a hot start, though it’s actually not as bad as it looks. If you hit the switch you can tuck yourself by one of the doors and pistol whatever comes to get you. The next part is pretty rough though. After getting teased by an SSG I teleported to a maximum Plutonia vineyard with sniping hitscanners and a bunch of cacos. Heading inside pits you against more cacos, pinkies, and imps up the stairs. After running around like a chicken with its head cut off I finally managed to kill everything, sitting at 20% health. My first try run then came to an end when I opened the door by the pool and an archvile promptly vaporized me.

 

Oh wait, I was supposed to grab that SSG when I teleported?

 

Ok nevermind, with the SSG this area isn’t bad at all. The hitscanners are threatening as they always are but you don’t have to flee from cacos, resolving the "running around in panic" issue. I also now discovered a handy megasphere secret in the watery cavity in the ground (hit the wall left of the dirt by the teleporter). Skipping the vile this time (no need to go that way until you have the yellow key), I went up the left stairs and through some modest opposition. Eventually I reached a berserk pack and OMGWTFGAAHHHHHH!! Barons! Cacos! Revenants! Pinkies everywhere! Way too cramped, just need to squeeze my way over… did that wall just open up? Holy shit now there are even more pinkies. Where did these chaingunners come from? FUUUUUUU

 

Yeah… I walked into this place with an almost fully intact megasphere and left with 14% health and no ammo. It’s a jaw dropping moment, assaulting the player with around 50 enemies in a constrained playing field and the only weapons you have are SSG, chaingun, and berserk. About half of them attack immediately and most of the rest are released in the circular stairs room you came in from, quickly blocking your escape and reinforcing the initial wave. Approaching the eastern wall (to your right facing the berserk pack) lowers it, revealing more pinkies to unexpectedly turn a safe looking corner into a wall of death. Now, despite how terrifying this fight is I did get another “hmmm, I wonder” moment. Sure enough, my second playthrough I grabbed the berserk, hightailed it back up the stairs, and just killed everything from the safety of the upper entrance. You might have to “scuse me, pardon me” your way past some stuff on the way but the secret megasphere will protect you while doing so.

 

Next we head over to the blue door and go through a sequence of green marble rooms that brings me back to the halcyon days of the first #1Kill episode. This sequence leads to a switch that raises a deathpit floor to proceed but you can easily jump across it if you don’t want to bother. The next room overlooks what I presume to be the titular wicked metal garden and has a couple sniping arachnos, which I recommend you kill now. Take the nearby teleporter to go through an ominous sequence of ammo pickups leading you into the garden and the second big fight of the level.

 

Walking into this area (which is a lock-in arena fight) opens up the far wall, revealing several mancubi. You can kill them now, but know that getting on the small yellow key platform opens… more of the far wall, unleashing two PEs, a bunch of cacos, and an archvile who will start resurrecting any mancubi you killed. Said archvile is a menace in this clash, able to target you pretty much anyway in the garden and your only cover is the key platform or a little tucked away corner to the east. I’d recommend conducting operations from there, though you will need to watch for blindsiding fliers. Take shots at the vile and if you see him in front get aggressive with the rocket launcher, as once he’s down the fight becomes mostly cleanup. After that, backtrack to the yellow door (don’t get scammed by the stupid archvile there) to conclude with a winddown red key section that presents little threat.

 

Wicked Metal Garden is… great. We’re finally getting some slaughterfights I've indeed been waiting for and I gotta say, they kick ass. The berserk ambush is quite the rush (if you don't cheese it), the garden brawl is diabolically designed to maximize the threat each enemy presents, and you're not too constrained on ammo for this one. I only ran out in the first major fight because I was stumbling over shell boxes. There is an odd yellow switch back in the circular stairs area leading to some lifts that is pretty pointless, but otherwise I don't have anything to complain about (ok, getting jebaited by the SSG wasn't cool either). Like map09, map10 lacks technical problems and I'm hoping this is more the norm and less a reprieve going forward.

 

Edited February 21, 2023 by Veeda Vidlak
grammar

[Ralgor]

MAP13 - “City of Hell”
dsda-doom v0.25.6 cl2, UV, Pistol start, blind run w/ saves, then single segment
100% kills and secrets
Deaths: Several before the YSK fight, and probably a dozen just on that one fight.
Note: I'm using the fixed level by @dististik, since the original crashes DSDA-Doom.

 

I generally love city maps. This one is really no exception. Most of its fights can be neutered a bit by killing things from the canals before you get to them. I would consider this essential so you can save the megasphere for the big fight for the YSK.

 

Most of this map is fairly sedate. There is a warm start, but it's fairly easy to avoid damage. Getting the blue key is pretty easy as well.

 

Your first time into the courtyard past the blue key can be difficult if you didn't kill some of the monsters around the canal first. But it's very doable. The megasphere here is easy to get, but I reiterate... save this for later. There is a berserk pack down a blind alley that you can use if you need health (and to save ammo).

 

The RSK shifts position depending on the difficulty. It's actually possible to strafe jump across the canal here, but it might be safer to go the intended route.

 

Past the red door, there's an interesting room with revenants, arachnotrons, and mancubi on two twin tables. The revenants and arachnotrons are on top of each other and harmless. Hitting switches in the corridor around this room triggers crushers to kill everything. The main threat here are the chaingunners around the corridor, and the stray mancubi fireball that can noclip straight through the wall. (This happens in my demo.)

 

Before you go into the next area, go pick up that megasphere.

 

The real star of this map is the fight around the YSK. If you try to play it straight, you will die. You will die horribly, over and over again. The trick is after triggering the "trap", DO NOT FIRE YOUR WEAPON. Instead, draw out the revenant, and enter the tunnel with the switch. You will be teleported back out. Just enter three more times (without firing a shot, or getting hit by homing missiles) and then you will finally be able to flip the switch.

 

NOW you can fire. The first arch-vile will teleport in at the southeast corner. You can use plasma to kill him, but don't stay too long. The megasphere will let you take some damage, and if you can take out the first arch-vile that will make the rest easier.

 

Anyway, retreat back outside since the door is open. And proceed to kill everything coming through. Your primary targets are the arch-viles, and once they are dead you can take your time with the rest.

 

Re-entering this arena can soft-lock you. Each entrance has its own door-closing line, so you either need to trigger all three, or use the same entrance each time. You can enter the monster closet containing that horde at the south end of the arena. It's not very useful to fight the horde, but you can go in there afterward if you want to.

 

There is at least two missing textures in the level, causing a hall of mirrors effect. It's not a big deal, but it's very obvious. This and the soft-lock are the only technical problems I saw. The soft-lock at least seems to be accidental this time.

 

Let's be real: The map as distributed by Angelo does not run in standard Doom 2, as far as I can tell. From this point of view it gets an F.

 

But this write-up is about the fixed version that DOES run, and I really like it. I find the map interesting and challenging. While being a very open and non-linear map, it is not confusing to navigate.

 

Grade: A

 

This demo is using dististik's version of the map. I don't think it would desync with the original should it run, but you never know. Amazingly, after doing my saving run, I managed to do the demo in a single attempt. I was so full of adrenaline during the YSK fight I nearly flubbed it though.

 

MAP13 - 28:39.66 (28:39)  K: 315/315  I: 24/32  S: 0/0

ralgor_#1killtng13.zip

[Azure_Horror]

#1 kill New Gen

UV, Pistol Start, DSDA-Doom, Saves

 

Map 12 Strange Universe

 

Some parts of this map are under-cooked, but in total this map is not bad. I would have called it "cozy" if not for the bloody hitscaneers behind every concievable corner! Grumble, Grumble...

 

Technical details:

There are some out-of-the-way softlocks and other rough edges, but nothing really jarring.

 

Gameplay:

Good parts - high variety, many fast-paced encounters, nothing outright unfair (Even the yellow skull trap at the start can be won). Bad parts - relatively restricted health + everpresent hitscan + long puzzle-based progression can really get on one's nerves, lots of backtracking through teleporters, and most teleporters are inconvinient.

 

Art assets, overall mood, total impression:

Texture variety is pretty nice even in the boring sections. Sky walls look pretty memorable. Blue and Yellow door-frames are used as tele-portals - quite an original approach! Backtrack-fest is kinda be boring, but it does help in maintaining the atmoshere of weirdness. Same thing with endless teleportation platform. The countless red-door buttons near the end are excessive, but they are less annoying than the countless teleporters of Doom1 E3M7, in my opinion at least. Unlike Doom 1 Limbo, Strange Universe has a lot of visual diversity, and it helps to not get lost. On top of that, there is alsmost no damaging floor sections, so there is no health penalty for mistakes in navigation.

 

Conclusion:

Map 12 is another authentic 1997 map, which approaches the quirky design concepts of @Benjogami's 2021 Down The Drain megawad. It is nice to play some quirky maps from time to time, and it is even nicer to see similar ideas in two projects separated by 24 years of time.

Edited February 21, 2023 by Azure_Horror

[Helm]

MAP 13

Thanks for fixing the wad, dististik, first of all. 

I enter hot and heavy with some bolt thrower - realms of chaos supporting me. We start with one of those symmetrical switch puzzles that reveal, in this case, a load of pinkies. The map opens up to long underhalls-esque corridors circling a huge, square 'city map'. These are the worst doom maps for me, not because they're inherently bad (I am actively trying to play more of them to get over my annoyance with them, actually) but because they underline how easily I get lost, turned around, and generally confused in open ended doom maps. However I tested this yesterday a little and it seems Angelo is still kind of set on a linear path through this place with three keycards as usual so I try to take it piece by piece.

There an unmarked door, a blue door and a yellow door on the periphery of the open ended structures, so I go with the unmarked one revealing some chaingunners, imps and pinkies. A little switch hunt detour nets us blue key and SSG. I tested this map up to this point last night to make sure the map works and then started fresh today so the rest is totally new to me. 

Even the blue key fight is quite dense with enemies in a relatively small, multilayered vertical space so we are seeing both more interesting shapes of rooms to conquer as we move in and definitely more enemy density as we move towards the end of the map set. There are places here and there that reach that Hell Revealed level of SSG grind though not with such a single minded determination shown in HR to turn you into a bored butcher as the groupings of enemies and layout woes that Angelo likes so much often require more mobility than that. It's the increased use of hitscan.

Anyway I take my blue key all around the perimeter to the fitting door. A couple of chaingunners are guarding a switch that lowers some Angelo Bars (tm) that complicate a tomato encounter and pushing through all that we finally reach the higher level of the 'city' part of the map. The open layout is very uninviting to poke your head on because of multiple sources of hitscan, arachno and homing fire. I do not know if there's much point to try to snipe dudes from the sewer floor, I do think the mapper intends for you to engage with them through the blue door passage on the open field, as I did. 

Getting out of that blue corridor in the open space is laborious in my case, hopefully not for yours, as there's a couple of arachnos and imps and stuff all around the door which I couldn't push through. Outside there's a lot of chaingun and shotgun pain anyway. You kind of ... once again... have to have learned the layout to stand a chance with how you move without any cover. I play in a bright room and the map is fairly dark so that plays a part in picking off the chaingunners fast but I am used to Angelo's stuff by now, health attrition/lowhealth saving it is. Chaingunner perches everywhere in an open layout, and a mad scavenging run in every nook and cranny for ammo and stuff, which is dutifully guarded by picket revenants for the most part. I tried to play patiently here but I still got whittled down to 30 health before I even step foot outside. Soon thereafter I tangle with revs and chaingunners to secure a little house in the outside and settle on a cozy 1% health but thankfully I trigger the mega secret exactly as I need it, that's a good feel. 

However, I do start having ammo troubles around here and that wastes a lot of my time making little ammo runs here and there, running into a pain elemental in the sewers just fucking around... Trying to circumvent cacodemons in narrow sewers with no ammo or zerk is something that might happen to you too, in this place.

Anyway, more than half of the mega gets used getting things to infight and whittling them down with nonzerk punch and ammo scrounging. This is where I know I should have reloaded from the full mega and went straight for some of the ammo I eventually found, but I just don't have it in me to go back more than seconds of the run, so I carry on being a bit health compromised, adding some further deaths and reloads down the line. 

After some calculated defenestrations (the one cool thing about city maps in doom is jumping from building to building) I find myself on another one of those burning floor cross rooms with a load of monsters, including the bruiser bros. This room is quite hard to approach but there is the promise of a rocket launcher out there. The main issue is of course, two full teams of hitscan on opposite sides of the arena. This is a well designed fight and in any case even though it was a bit messy for me I elect to carry on in the state I'm in. Some more defenestratin' and fighting hitscan across from building to building eventually nets us the red key.

I get confused with a red skullkey bar that doesn't lower even if you have the key and I make a long detour (including some quality time at 1% health) around until I find the actual red door in the middle of the open city layout.

Anyway we bounce back in terms of health and ammo and make it to the f l e s h  c u b e  room. The least said about this trap, the better. Activating it is obtuse to begin with, but then when you do, oh dear... I elect to - after too many deaths - not fire my guns, flip the switch and get the fuck out and then kind of clean up the two viles and horde from sewer level with plasma and rockets. I die a lot here... this is a very cruel ambush in the dark, I doubt I'll see any demos of people fighting the two viles and all the other shit in the dark arena. I think everyone playing will nope out. 

This bit sucks, it's half baked and unbalanced for what the mapper is trying to do, including allowing you to roam the HOM room from where the enemies will teleport in for no discernible reason. After this mess that nearly ruins the concept and flow of this map for no reason other than cruelty, I find the exit but have to play an absurd game of 'don't die in a millisecond' riding a lift with 8 health and hitscan at both sides of that lift top, but hey, let's chalk that one up to me committing to playing with 8 health, nobody put a gun to my head. Nobody put a gun to my head to max this stuff either, though, so after a little deliberation I exit with all secrets but not all kills.

All in all, any ambitious, mostly playable map with an ultimately very cruel trap that is best solved by not correctly engaging with the fight. Therefore, as a whole experience, one of the worst in the set. If we compartmentalize the highlights of this one are impressive, the variety of experiences is solid for the era. I think Angelo put a little too much meat in front of too many doors to say that this flows well, but hey, city maps are hard. footage

Edited February 21, 2023 by Helm

[Ralgor]

2 hours ago, Helm said:

All in all, any ambitious, mostly playable map with an ultimately very cruel trap that is best solved by not correctly engaging with the fight. Therefore, as a whole experience, one of the worst in the set. If we compartmentalize the highlights of this one are impressive, the variety of experiences is solid for the era. I think Angelo put a little too much meat in front of too many doors to say that this flows well, but hey, city maps are hard.

 

I really think flipping the switch first and escaping is the intended way to beat the fight. It's still a potentially deadly fight even then, and I'm not sure the fight is winnable if you stay in the "flesh cube" room. Maybe if you're a literal doom god?

 

The one lone revenant which is easily avoided, along with the switch that teleports you exactly four times, really gives off the feeling of a puzzle to me.

 

That said... this wad has so many quality issues that it's possible Angelo simply never play-tested that fight, and it only accidentally works.

[Azure_Horror]

#1 kill New Gen

UV, Pistol Start, DSDA-Doom, Saves

 

Map 13 City of Hell, fix by dististik to make the map playable on DSDA

 

As a draft of a map, City of Hell is very impressive.

As a finished map - not so much. Pacing issues, bugs, wierd difficulty balance - all together, those issues bring the map down by quite a lot.

 

Arguably, the main attraction of the map is the YK fight. Or maybe it is a "don't fire a shot" puzzle? I don't know. However, I can say the following:

- The fight can be won, even without the plasma rifle! It is very hard, but it seems doable. I managed to clear the room two times. Is it reliable? Again, no idea. The darkness makes the room too frustrating to retry, so I didn't bother with constructing a reliable strategy.

- The fight is quite late in the map, which is very frustarting for such a difficulty spike.

- I do not know, how good is the plasma in this fight. Its DPS felt insufficient compared to rockets, however, the plasma rifle has no self-damage.

- The plasma is very easy to miss before the signature battle. Seems odd.

 

The yellow key fight is a great illustartion of the map being an impressive draft, but a flawed finished level. If the fight was supposed to be beaten head-on - it should have happened earlier in the map runtime, with crucial resources like mega and plasma being given right before the fight. And if the fight was intended to be a puzzle - it should have communicated better. (Quick, but ruthless way to deliver the message - replace all teleporting monsters with archviles and add a bright color marks for the escape hatch)

 

Outside the YK room, map is okay-to-good. Resource allocation is a bit weird, and some important locations are hard to find at first, but for the most part the combat is quite fun.

 

In the end, City of Hell offers some great ideas, but with flawed execution.

Edited February 21, 2023 by Azure_Horror

[Celestin]

MAP13: City of Hell

 

Disclaimer: I've played this level around Friday, before I knew about the way to cheese the yellow key fight and before a fixed version was was posted.

 

City of Hell is Jefferson's second attempt at creating a large, exploratory map and arguably more successful than MAP06. You start with a canal running around the city and make your way up to the town square. It's hot, with enemies on the ground and hitscanners shoting you from afar, so I ran to a nearby building and started to methodically eliminate everything that stood in my way.

 

All was well until I reached a courtyard with a yellow key. Holy shit, what a brutal fight. A small arena gets dark and filled with with a ton of enemies, including mancubi that block you and cover the whole place with their fireballs, a pain elemental that makes it even more difficult to move and two archviles. I know crampage seems to be Jefferson's favorite way to increase the difficulty, but this is an overkill. I kept dying here over and over. I ended up resorting to save-scumming. I normally avoid saving mid-fight, but screw this, I popped a quick save after killing both viles. This is the toughest fight in the entire wad, made worst by constant crashes when loading a save. Luckily, the remaining of the map, some sort of water treatment plant, is much easier.

 

While I don't hate City of Hell, it needs a lot, and I mean a lot of polishing. Aside from balancing the yellow key fight and fixing the crashes, there are weird visual glitches and an ugly HOM monster closet you can walk through the wall.

[SiFi270]

Map13: City of Hell

It turns out this works in Eternity with "-vanilla" added to the command line, as long as you never dare to face east in the southernmost tunnel, or towards this part of a doorway near the end.

Spoiler

As you may have guessed, this was taken in vanilla with no monsters.

 

[Book Lord]

6 hours ago, Ralgor said:

 

I really think flipping the switch first and escaping is the intended way to beat the fight. It's still a potentially deadly fight even then, and I'm not sure the fight is winnable if you stay in the "flesh cube" room. Maybe if you're a literal doom god?

 

The one lone revenant which is easily avoided, along with the switch that teleports you exactly four times, really gives off the feeling of a puzzle to me.

 

That said... this wad has so many quality issues that it's possible Angelo simply never play-tested that fight, and it only accidentally works.

I agree with this interpretation. Angelo made this fight so shocking and uncomfortable to play because he wanted the player to come up with this strategy. Unfortunately, trying to do so might soft lock you because of the three separate trigger lines that shut the doors.

 

There are many technical issues in this WAD, mostly in the part that we are currently playing, and some maps that flow better on a replay. However, what challenging maps were around in 1997? Post Mortem, Last Look at Eden, Mostly Harmful were not meant to let you play casually, or easily find your bearings. They were meant to crush medium skilled players for a good number of times before they learned an approach, often killing them before understanding enough elements of the layout and resource distribution. They got popular because they were technically sound, subjected to proper play testing, and therefore advertised by speed runners. All good reasons, but in my naivety I would trade a fixed, polished, and complete version of The Next Generation with the sacred beast Hell Revealed at any time.

Edited February 21, 2023 by Book Lord

[Roofi]

 

Number One Kill The Next Generation - Map 13 "City of Hell"

 

 

 

Well, I completed this map and as you, I cheesed the yellow key fight because It's not immoral to use unfair techniques in order to survive in an unfair fight. Yep, I know modern megawads feature extremly difficult maps I time, a lot harder than this one, but I think there is no specific technique to survivre the YK's trap without luck or without cheese. I love the menacing scene with the lights that turn off and the brutatily of the fight, but honestly... Jefferson went way too far.

 

The 13th slot seems to be a cursed one among old megawads. I can't impeach myself to do the parallell with Hell Revealed's map 13 with its open gardens and excruating blue key's trap in the cage. Map 13 from Kill and HR both includes a terrific difficulty spike (unless you cheese the trap in Kill though).

 

The other parts of the map are fortunately way much lenient but I want to warn thatyou may suffer of ammo famine a couple of times, so the standard fights remain difficult because of the many chaingunners and the distant revenants.

 

At the end, I really like the theme of this map. It's a city map but all the canals remind me of Venice but instead of gondolas, there are demons.

 

My grade would have been waaaaaaaay lower if that one trap couldn't be cheesed but at the end it's a good map. Not the best, not the worst.

 

NB : What the fuck is that teleporting room near the YK. If you're a bit more courageous, you can camp in the teleportation room in order to survive the combat. Extremly weird, I never seen a mapper designing teleportation rooms like that, even from first baby mappers... 

 

Grade : B

 

I recorded my video , but I still have a limited connection. 

[dististik]

MAP12 - Strage [sic] Universe

 

I started this map last night. I got beat over the head with the yellow key ambush and the blue teleport door ambush, got to the room with the teleporting barons with 2% health and after maybe 5 minutes of trying to make sense of it decided y'know what I'll do this in the morning when I'm less tired. Here I am in the morning (or at least my version of it) and nah man this map just sucks. The teleport ambushes are a health tax the likes I've never witnessed before, even knowing what's on the other end of these random teleport lines I consistently took well over 100 damage in the yellow key ambush and this time I made it to the baron room with 7% health oh boy! Speaking of random teleport lines, this map feels like what immediately came to mind when Angelo learned he didn't have to put line action 97 on GATE flats; initially I just thought oh this is kind of annoying but surely these barons are just teleporting around on monster teleporting linedefs haha. Fool, I am a fool, I'll be honest at a certain point every time I found myself having to go through this room I just typed in IDCLIP because I refused to spend another 5 minutes randomly teleporting around until I correctly guessed which sequence of green lines to talk into in order to progress.

 

Seriously what the fuck is this? No, really, what possesses someone to make something like this?

 

But wait! There's more! Stumble around a bit more and you'll eventually get your hands on the red key thank christ now I can finally leave this level right? You wish, bucko! Go through the red key door at the start, press a button and I dunno figure it out. That button revealed four (the linedef action here only points to four sectors, I don't know what opens the fifth and can't be bothered to look) doors at completely unmarked previously visited locations. Go through them to press some buttons to eventually reveal the path to the exit, but getting to these doors and remembering which teleporter actually goes to the bridge in the end is very annoying to say the least. Thankfully there's only one secret, if I had to figure out where even just one more was in this nightmare of map I'd go crazy.

 

Cool self-referencing sectors though I guess.

 

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 13: City of Hell

 

 

(pistol-start because the BFG in the last map was in a deathmatch arena apparently)

 

 

Starting out in what seems to be a sewer, complete with an inspector's office nearby, we emerge in what can only be described as a flooded city. While we get plenty of ammo (and an SS as well if we actually turned right instead of left in the starting area) the vast amount of Arachnotrons and fucking chaingunners along with just a few but really bad Pain Elementals (one of which causes a death of ours essentially because of bad RNG) cause the task of gaining ground incredibly challenging and basically preventing us from attempting to establish any sort of foothold. We eventually cross into the SS room after going all the way around through the flooded streets. This place which still has plenty of changunners but is much fairer where enemy placement is concerned. At the same time, ammo is once again, doled out very sparingly but not quite deliberately since Angelo was focused on continuous play. There were times where the drought was the absolute worst (as you'll see) and times that especially in the last third where it wasn't even an issue. We'd end up exiting and circling around probably twice before heading into the aforementioned building here and discovering that a window had been revealed right in front of us, showing a room with a pair of pinkies and the blue key that had probably been opened by a switch on the second floor. This is incidentally, the most tech-y area of the map because the predominating theme is metal and wood of various kinds. 

 

Anyways, finding the blue door in the sewers or the flooded tunnel leads to a small room with a Cacodemon in front and a strange contraption where a lift both lowers and some pillar in the middle comes down at well. And at the top are.....chaingunners! Although there are certainly sergeants but they're fairly inconsequential at this stage. From here, we then exit into a large grassy courtyard surrounded by tan buildings, with the exception of those white-lined buildings from Doom II featuring a pillar of (ugh) SHAWN in the middle with a Megasphere. However, we have to deal with something like half a dozen Revenants, along with an Arachnotron and chaingunners/shotgunners in spots just as annoying as you'd expect and (sigh) one Pain Elemental. It was in the southeast in the green-bricked building here where I suffered a death from a chaingunner while trying to evade a Revenant. Honestly, this area's one of those "camping is your friend" kind of spots like much of the map, but pistol starters should be aware that there's really not lots of ammo to burn. Anyways, the building with the aforementioned chaingunner contains a few buttons, one of which lowers the Megasphere in the middle. 

 

From here, it's necessary to leap over the street at the north end to where the cell ammo is, enter, and engage in more close-quarters battles with some enemies, some of which involve chaingunners to the right and behind us! There's also the Cacodemons and Barons in front over the center ledge too. Getting here and getting the red key isn't really too much trouble as well. Then in an extremely questionable bit of progression, we've got to go right back to the central courtyard and open the red door there because as it turns out, the red bar in the sewers is impassible!....for some reason. Anyway, we eventually end up on the building sides where the Arachnotrons that you should've largely taken care of earlier are. Make sure we pick up the plasma rifle at the far end before heading to the right where a single Arachnotron can be found in the courtyard because otherwise, the next bit will be close to impossible!

 

So after hitting a pair of switches, the flesh cube in the middle lowers, revealing some rocket boxes along with the yellow key. Press it and this room immediately goes dark, with the exception of a deep crimson red square line in the middle. Eventually a Revenant appears at one end of the courtyard. The instant we shoot at them, we are besotted by an absolute cavalcade of enemies, including a few Barons of Hell, several pinkies, more Mancubi than you could shake a stick at and two arch-viles! While it's not really that hard to figure out where we're being attacked from, the problem comes when both of the Arch-viles are close enough together that escape ends up as a very slim possibility. It took around 4 tries, but eventuallly, rocketing one of the viles and plasming the other seemed to work, helped by a little but of infighting. However, exiting proved to be an entirely different prospect. The problem is that the switch which reopens the gates that locked is here is behind a teleport line for godknowswhat reason. And the solution? Turn on the stupid automap and see afalse wall located not too far away, which opens into the region that probably crashed the map in the original version. When we teleport to the rooftop, it becomes necessary to return here and teleport again to end up next to the switch that exits. Maybe I was just unlucky though. 

 

Map concludes with some fairly desultory combat in something like a sewer entrance where there might be a Cacodemon or two. Unfortunately, there seemed to be around 60 enemies left that...probably didn't teleport in. No matter, city levels are pretty fucking cool and it's a little hard to argue with this one as the best overall, with Circle of Death maybe the only other true contender, with the issue being that the encounters in the latter not having a stand-out quality like the YK fight, where I felt OneManDoom may have slightly exaggerated the difficulty (but at the same time, I've got to order a new mouse because I'm becoming unhappy with the occasional 'stuckness'

lmd_#1killtng13.zip

Edited February 21, 2023 by LadyMistDragon
beginning format nonsense

[Book Lord]

MAP 14 – Pain

DSDA-Doom v0.24.3, UV, Pistol start, non-blind run w/saves

 

The author deceptively incited the player to go Berserk and expose himself to the Shotgunners’ flank attack. As a result, I was down at 37% health for a while, a bad situation that was mitigated by the freebie Blue Armour and SSG. The Chaingunner closet contained Medikits I could not find, since the unofficial secret had an unmarked trigger as well. The map was called Pain for a good reason, as the player will learn after clearing the first areas, including the packed round hall with the symmetric staircase.

Spoiler

The lift sent me directly into a cramped mess of enemies, hurting floor, and barrels, which killed me because I could not switch to a better weapon. The chaingun worked just fine, though the trick was going either right or left to dispatch a Chaingunner and gain control of a corner. The lava tunnel was excruciating with its 20% damage floor and barrels that were more dangerous for the player than for the enemies. The Radiation Suit allowed to play more aggressively, but it was better to save it for the YSK pickup in the enclosed pool seen before and for the backtracking. The Arch-Vile & co. released in the round chamber were telegraphed but might still surprise the player riding the lift back up.

Spoiler

The section behind the yellow door was easier if played cautiously like I did, and it contained an obvious secret with the plasma rifle and lots of resources. The cell weapon was used extensively in the BSK ambush, which unleashed a Cacoswarm with a Pain Elemental in the middle. Angelo provided resources for recovery but forced the player to backtrack to the blue bar near the YSK pool, thus traversing that scorching tunnel again, which required precise movement to avoid damage. The expected presence of high damaging floors in most segments was annoying, though functional to the intended gameplay; a second radsuit was granted for the next hazardous crossing and the subsequent break into a new area.

Spoiler

The last part of the map was a lava-filled version of The Inmost Dens, using a few curious systems for the progression. Firstly, there was a switch opening a timed door into an area patrolled by Cacodemons and Mancubi, where camping was discouraged. A half-bugged switch raised a bridge to an islet, and faith was required to hope that another bridge would raise when approaching the second switch. The same confidence in the author guided me through lava following the direction indicated by an arrow and a Soul Sphere, and only a mighty SSG burst could trigger the switch behind the Hell Knight. The RSK could be approached either from the inside, which was trickier because of the mob of hitscanners shooting through the windows, or from the outside, if you spot the untagged secret door on the automap. Unmarked secrets plagued the second half of The Next Generation, and I am afraid this was the sign that Angelo Jefferson was building maps in a rush, investing less and less time to polish his work.

Spoiler

He did not think that backtracking to the red door area for the third time was a bit too much, even though he gave a spare shielding suit, and he did not see the mess he designed with that disastrous BFG ambush. He noticeably mastered closets and monster placement much better than teleport waves. The last Arch-Vile gave me a good jump scare since I was almost out of ammo, having squandered my cells with the slow teleport in a cramped room. Like MAP13, Pain lacked some quality control, which was a pity since the action and visual presentation were pretty good.

[Veeda Vidlak]

Map11 “Circle of Death”

 

Circle of Death might be lazily named, but its the most visually interesting map yet. Our adventure takes place in what I imagine as some sort of ritual summoning circle, culminating in a memorable climax. 

 

Our start is subdued compared to what we’ve seen, pistoling a chaingunner then clearing some enemies from cover. There’s a blue armor in a little pond and getting out is an awkward platform raising process, but otherwise a nifty setup. To get the blue key, we have to navigate a Slough of Despair like field that I liked with the exception of some hitscanners on a corner platform I didn’t see for the longest time. Running across the top felt kind of like I was getting a secret and the view from up there looks pretty cool.

 

After this creative if somewhat clumsy opening we go through the blue door and proceed to the namesake circle of death. Unfortunately the clumsiness continues, as you need to go through a short Rube-Goldberg sequence to open the door to the circle. This isn’t bad… as long as you run in there and don’t sit at the entrance waiting for the archvile in there to approach. I did that during my blind run and was forced to redo this sequence about a dozen times, gradually chipping away at the crap blocking the door until I could finally get in there. Playing my second time I went with the aggressive approach and had a good time, which is almost certainly what Angelo intended.

 

By the way, the scary looking glowing red-hot coals that make up most of the circle? Completely harmless.

 

To continue, head east into a modest library maze with some minor enemies (its not a nukage maze, I’ll take it). This area has problems. First of all, you can actually chaingun the various imps waiting above the shelves because there is a tiny one unit gap between the ceiling and the shelf tops (Angelo does this a lot I’ve noticed). Second, the way forward is wonky. You need to grab the soulsphere to lower some shelves, one of which has a switch that lets you lower more shelves and… Wait, some of these shelves have switches required for progression… and the rest softlock you? What the actual fuck? These might be the most irritating softlocks yet, because they occur during natural level progression and the player is encouraged to explore the lowered shelves for switches.

 

Now we go dungeon delving and I gotta say, I love the theme transitions in this map. A hidden cellar behind a library bookshelf? Awesome. Eventually we come to a surreal room with enemies behind bars and a small passageway with a teleporter (and a baron). Just a heads up, clear out that cage of barons and shit before you teleport. Behind the enemies is a side room with the yellow key which you must backtrack to the circle to use. One hosed down cyber later and its time for the big finale.

 

Taking the red key from cybie’s corpse brings down the hammer… two archviles and a squadron of revenants that teleport into the circle to avenge their slaughtered summoning. I’d argue this is a masterful encounter, deadly and demanding while giving the player all the tools needed to win. There are multiple ways to approach this fight… using the pillars for cover while wearing down viles, aggressive and risky with the RL to try to drop them immediately… I prefer to move around the perimeter until a vile gets isolated, kill him, then repeat with the second. While this is the best fight of the map, it has the potential to be infuriating if the archviles behave badly. Sometimes they like to run into the center and take potshots at you behind walls of minions, have fun extracting them if they refuse to come out.

 

By the way if you don’t want to deal with this fight your latest cheese is to grab the red key and immediately run through the library and the red door. You can then kill everything safely using the stone pillar for cover.

 

While I love the artistry and immersion, I feel like we also took a couple steps back in Circle of Death. Technical issues are back, progression was questionable at times, and some of the combat felt awkward. The map did end on a high note, with a raucous rev and archie merry go round that might be my favorite overall encounter of the megawad so far. It's a mixed bag but I think I had some bad breaks playing blind and it was a lot more fun the second time around. I'll overlook the library issues and put this as another quality map, with considerably more advanced aesthetic presentation compared to what's come previously.

[brick]

GZDoom, Doom compat, software, HNTR, blind, continuous with saves.

 

TNG MAP13 - “City of Hell”
I waited until I had calmed down after MAP12 before tackling this one, so I was in a much better mood. It's an odd mix of Underhalls and Downtown from Doom II, and I found myself enjoying most of it. Progression is pretty linear but the various areas connect well together, there's not much backtracking. The YSK arena was the toughest fight I've encountered so far, I took a big hit in health and would've died for sure if not for the medkits scattered around. The trick with the W1 teleporters to get out of the arena is a clever way to punish players trying to run away from the fight; I found it irritating to deal with after everything was already dead, but it's not worse than the modern standard of hiding tiny switches at every corner of the arena. There are still some sloppy or strange little things in the map, like potentially getting completely stuck in the YSK area if you go through the linedefs in the wrong order, that strange building north of it that seems to serve no purpose with the 2 switches to raise/lower the bridge, and those switches near the exit with another area you can drop into and get completely stuck down there. Flaws aside I enjoyed the map, and thought it balanced exploration and tough combat very well.

 

TNG MAP14 - “Pain”
A fitting title, this map skates very close to the line past which tricky becomes plain annoying, and even crosses over the line a couple of times. The path to the yellow key goes through a damaging lava passage with non-damaging alcoves filled with barrels, and plenty of enemies. There is a radsuit at the beginning but it's a long walk, and mine expired before I'd even gotten the key; going back lost me a lot of health, and to top it off the lift back up was blocked by a caco and a PE, which resulted in another big health loss. At this point I was starting to feel really annoyed, especially since the red and blue doors are both down there so I knew there were at least 2 more runs through the lava. Thankfully there were actually more radsuits that were revealed in future trips, so this didn't turn out to be a problem. There were other annoyances though, including 2 instances where the way forward involves moving to drop into an apparently-inescapable lava pool to raise a bridge; not only is there no reason to think this would work (especially since, right before the first instance, a very similar bridge is raised with a switch), in the second case moving too fast will result in a softlock as the bridge raises in pieces and they do not keep up. The exit room finally rewarded me with my first BFG for all this trouble (I could've picked it up back in the Strage secret but that would've been cheating; and while I'm frequently a filthy cheater, I'm trying to beat this wad fair and square). I ended up with mixed feelings about the map, but I agree with Book Lord that there's a really good map in there that just needed a bit more quality control.

[Azure_Horror]

#1 kill New Next Gen

UV, Pistol Start, DSDA-Doom, Saves

 

Map 14 Pain

 

In my opinion, this is one of the best maps in the WAD so far. Very few sour spots, and most of those sour spots are very close to the map start.

 

The berserk fakeout is just a good-natured joke: nobody stops the player from restarting the map immediately after realising the real ammo/enemy composition. The immediate blue armor is a really nice prize, and even the umarked secret behind the starting room is not too hard to reach: check every wall in the starting area, and you will get there eventually.

 

The map has, arguably, two really annoying parts - the lift to lava tunnels and the lava tunnels themselves. But, once again, nothing too bad there: the welcoming party down the lift is realiably defeated with chaingun, and the lava tunnels themselves can be pretty chill, if the player exercises cauition. Going back up the lift can present a problem, however. The archvile and other bad guys guard the upper floor. Best solution: lure all the annoying enemies down the lift one by one.

 

Past the yellow door, the map offers a fun romp with a lot of enemy variety and fun gunplay. Hitscans/Cacos/PEs is a very under-utilised enemy compostion, and it is fun to fight even with SSG only. Add to that unusual geometry, some rockets, some arachnotrons, a secret plasma - and you get a very fun sequence! Even backtracking does not present much of the problem here.

 

Past the blue door, the map felt less exciting, but it was very fun still. Lava-flooded Inmost Dens section, on-point placemnt of mid-tier monsters, some archviles to spice things up further - what not to like? (Apart from backtracking, of course.) Well, there is a small design flaw here - lava-flooded section offers no escape from lava pits, and building bridges through those pools is a puzzle. Odd choice: misunderstanding the puzzle leads to complete defeat. This part could have been designed much more elegantly. And the final room offers a little BFG fest! What a great way to end the map! (Teleporting mancubi get stuck around those parts, but it does not break the map in any way, so I do not care!)

 

In the end, this was a bit mean-spirited, but ultimately very fun spicy level. BTW, a little trivia: this map reminds me about map 16 from Down the Drain megawad.

[Helm]

re: is it fair to say that the mapper wanted you to disengage with the YSK fight in the prior map and fight the viles outside the space: I see the point, it could be the case. We had a couple of marines going ahead and killing those viles in the dark room, though. Surprising, but in the end most of us noped out.

MAP14

This one is called Pain but I found it quite less painful than some of the stuff we've seen so far. Though there are a couple of titular points in this map. 

Opening linear push nets us early berserk, blue armor and SSG, so since this map is respecting me, I'll respect it as well and try to conserve my ammo more than usual. Nothing heavy duty in terms of encounters early on, just narrow green walkways with pinkies and imps, a symmetrical layout, the usual. The symmetry opens up to a perimeter crawl arena with a revenant in the middle pillar protecting YSK. I pick the revenant off and all of his perimeter crawl friends with the single barrel from the door. Boring, safe, door fight, but I am conserving ammo, and it turns out this is the most important value in doom playing, conserving ammo!

I  dead end on a yellow door, so I know where both that deferred key and where to use it are and I double back, picking off incidentals until another arena room is unlocked, this time an elevated perimeter line with lots of hitscan, pinkies, imps and cacos in the middle and bruiser bros, chaingunners and such. This door fight doesn't go as well for me because of hiscan and I cruise around with 6% health for a little bit, but eventually recover and get a rocket launcher for my trouble. This is the rote that Angelo has liked on every map so far in terms of key/weapon placement, it's usually the same order. 

After these not very exciting two perimeter fights, I get lowered by a lift amidst many, many hitscanners and die a couple of times until I manage to sneak away. From very lukewarm door fights to 1milisecond twitch shots for survival, that's how this map set rolls. The good friend even put explosive barrels at the bottom of that lift, they go very well with the mad chaingunner scramble. A very fair lift in all occasions, but extra good for my low-health ass. 

We find the red room lava corridor, and enjoy 10% hurtfloor while a horde of stuff comes through to SSG patiently. Not a great part of the map in terms of pace, and we will have to walk through this a couple of time to get our exit. This whole map set is immediately elevated a whole mark by removing or nefing so much hurtfloor... I don't disagree with the idea about how the mapper wants you to move in the red lava corridor, I just disagree that if you're late on the tic (on, like, 10 tic crossings over hurtfloor) you deserve 10% damage every time, but that's just me. The explosive barrels at least are an interesting complication because they can be used to your advantage, too but definitely can fuck you up as well.

Further down we have to take some inescapable damage (with the info we have at this point) to go grab that YSK on top of that revenant pedestal we were looking at in the beginning of the map. I think you just have to take this extra damage no matter what. So imagine if you were in front of that YSK with 20 health exactly, better restart! Hurt floors are great.

On the way back with the YSK I find the actual crux complication of this map. An archie has spawned upstairs and is doing archie stuff. It doesn't necessarily want to come down with the lift, though he might. He's an introvert/extrovert. So you have to ferry shit down with the lift, dispose of it outside resurrection range and then eventually get the archie to come down to show him your rockets. I nearly ran out of everything ammo, I still had zerk to kill the vile if need be, but finally getting him down and rocketing his ass and being left with, like, 1 rocket 1 shell spare was the cool side of ammo starvation experience, when things are just right. Of course I could have punched half the map slowly and carefully and have ammo, but is this why you play doom, to zerk pinkies and imps in corridors for 15 minutes before you start to run around freely? I have no problem if your answer is yes, awesome. My answer just happens to be no.

The vile came down with his final chaingunner, and I am looking at them both with 25% health, I shoot them both with the SSG, chaingunner pops like a blood piniata, archive gets SSG stunned, I manage to run through and get to cover. Good experience. 

Retracing back with YSK we find the odd secret of the map, just a rock lift with a plasma rifle and ammo. Very needed, very odd looking secret though, feels like an afterthought. More door fighting ensues until I get bored and run it to meet pain elementals and cacodemons on walkways so I take a trip back to get to safety fast. There's quite a few PEs in this whole map, huh. The arachnotrons sniping the flesh corridor are the biggest threat in any case. A lot of entrenched fights in this map as well similar to HR where you just have a lot of flesh at the door and not a lot of incentive to engage with the space. I will take it after some of the more obtuse design choices our mapper has showcased, but it's not exciting stuff, at any rate.  Blue key springs more floaters and pain elementals (is this why this map is called Pain?), a nice little hectic fight around a room with a window. Once again, the mapper understands and likes to use floating enemies correctly, but with plasma rifle in hand we don't have anything to worry about besides ammo counting.

Once again, with the BSK we turn back to where we found that blue door, there isn't any layout confusion this time. This map isn't very large in reality but it's quite beefy with enemies so it feels like you're spending a longer time in the space than usual. It's one way to escalate your map set.

Revenants start making an entrance, along with chain backup. The moment revenants are here the map is more fun. However the hurtfloor layout the fight is centered on is filled with softlock potential, busted doom machinery and, to add insult to injury, you have to intuit that a blind jump in the lava will start raising platforms. Raising platforms that malfunction and can soft lock you too. There is also a marine corpse in the lava to dissuade you from jumping in and solving the problem. It's a mess. Terrible, terrible idea, leads to rewinds to figure out what's going on, I am no longer playing doom to have fun, I am playtesting something from 1997. That's the story of this set tbh but I have made my peace with it. That I solved yet another busted lift puzzle and managed to get my exit is more the mark of pride with this set than overcoming any of the combat encounters. 

After that whole absurd raising lava bridge stuff and TNG starfleet sector sign, you have to SSG a shoot switch, hope you still have shells! Anyway, things pick up slightly after the RSK fight, another perimeter edge fight with two perimeters this time! Double perimeter crawl! I think I was half-right that Angelo never got over the concept of central structure/point of interest and perimeter fight around it + second ambush when you breach. But I didn't expect double perimeters! Unmarked secrets continue as a trend as well. 

Ultimately we double back at the lava floor corridor to get our 10% in and finally reach the red door. In there is the BFG and BFG fight that is quite tame, but I am not going to knock a genuinely empowering and fun encounter. It could have been a bit beefier I think, if it had a few more teleport locations so enemies can flow in better. I have a BFG and 300 shells so even if the mapper trickled in 5 archviles in that space along with the other stuff, we'd be ok, but in the end Angelo decides to go with a pressure release fight for the map's culmination, which I can respect. On saveless, this probably is a victory lap and I am looking forward to seeing it in recordings.

We have a Traditional Exit Vile (tm) and... that's it. 100% 100% for me in this case, which is a testament to that the map is - mostly - better built. I think this one was easier than the last three (at least with saving) and to be honest inoffensive at best. Until it starts offending. We've been through a lot with 1KILL and I think at this point we are celebrating not having a terrible time with some of these maps more than that we're having an amazing time, heh. I am fine with this, wad archeology is a passion otherwise why 50,000 words, right, but I can't hide that I am still hoping for some more personality to show up as we near the end of the set. footage

 

[Ralgor]

MAP14 - “Pain”
dsda-doom v0.25.6 cl2, UV, Pistol start, blind run w/ saves, then single segment
100% kills and secrets
Deaths: 7

 

"Pain" is a very aptly named level full of damaging lava that you will have to backtrack across multiple times. Only the fights with the two arch-files are very interesting.

 

You start out with a berserk pack, and you really should punch the chaingunners with it in the hidden corridor behind the start. They deserve it. Once back there, you can easily pick off the hitscanners in the two rooms, and then collect the armor and SSG from here.

 

The map, summarized is: Travel to and through a lava sewer to get the YSK. Then travel all of the way back to the beginning and go through the YSK door to find the BSK. Then travel ALLLLL of the way back to near where the YSK was to find the BSK door. This time you won't have a rad-suit either, so prepare for pain. (I assume this part is what the title of the map is referring to.)

 

There will be an arch-vile in the large circular room when you come back after getting the YSK. The easiest way to deal with this is to lure the inhabitants out into the previous hallway so the arch-vile has nothing to resurrect.

 

Now, you get another rad-suit, and now you get to travel down a river of lava. This leads to an honestly interesting area to get the red key. It's the best part of the level.

 

It's not without issues. After all of the pain from wading through lava, you aren't going to want to make the step of faith required to raise the bridges. It's very counter-intuitive. I always was very careful when I triggered the sectional bridge so I was never soft-locked, but that's only due to me having to open it in an editor to figure out how to proceed.

 

Once you get the RSK... you get to travel back to the lava sewer. Luckily you can go through where the BSK pillar was as a shortcut, and you get a rad-suit for the trip back. So this isn't as bad as it might first seem.

 

Angelo then finally gives you a BFG... to use on a somewhat disappointing but relaxing encounter.

 

Still, the YSK->BSK->BSK pillar backtracking is dumb. Also, it seems that unmarked secrets are the norm at this point.

 

Grade: D

 

MAP14 - 27:26.89 (27:26)  K: 293/293  I: 51/52  S: 1/1

ralgor_#1killtng14.zip

 

[Celestin]

MAP14: Pain

 

I can think of a couple of maps in the set that would deserve this title, but 14th isn't one of them. It feels much more laid-back, with a decent balance of supplies, more room to breath and a nice blend of outdoor areas, caves and underground tunnels. 

 

The toughest part comes early: the route to and from the yellow key, the first one you need. A lowering lift drops you into Jefferson's signature cramped room, which leads to a lava-filled tunnel with various foes and explosive barrels. You have a rad suit, but it's unlikely it will last for a return trip, so you'll have to quickly move from one alcove to another, trying not to burn your feet. It isn't over yet. Call a lift down to escape and an archvile will descent into a room full of corpses. Good stuff.

 

The to the red key, with platforms over a lake of damaging liquid is odd. I get this was an attempt to add a bit of variety with puzzles, but I don't think it went well. The ending, however, is a great cathartic moment. The BFG is handed to deal with a leaky teleporter ambush. Fellow, pistol-starters, this seem to be the only BFG available on UV. While the rest of the WAD can be completed without it, there are some sections I wished I could just delete a crowd of pinkies or an irritating archvile.

 

I like this one. Maybe it's because MAP13 gave me so much trouble, but I enjoy a breather.

[Monsieur E]

Almost caught up!

Map08: "Hell's Welcome"
220/243 kills, 0/3 secrets, 12:20*

Another miserable experience, most of my complaints regarding map06 carry over again, this time featuring everyone's favorite doom gimmick, mandatory traversal on damaging floor with limited radsuit allotment. By the time I cleared out the enemies and got the chance to leave, I was low on health and my radsuit had run out, leaving me for dead in the nukage while the lift out was occupied by a baron I did not have the time to deal with. Already exhausted and frankly, with zero tolerance for this map's tricks, I decided to idclip out (hence the asterisk). Awful map.

Map09: "The Pit"
243/256 kills, 0/0 secrets, 15:59

This is a significant step-up from the previous maps. First of all, the most obvious difference in this (and subsequent maps as far as I've played) from something like map08 and map06 is that hitscanners are placed in a much less hostile fashion and health and especially armor are actually allotted comparatively generously. The key hunt sequence rather than opening the exit in a traditional way, instead provides you with a radsuit to ensure the damaging floor maze is doable. And the fight sequences in the map are actually enjoyable and decently challenging including a hell knight close quartered standoff with the red key. The yellow key fight is a particular highlight with how you can get the cacodemons and pain elementals to infight with the cyberdemon, unfortunately I got a softlock here and had to idclip out. The ending maze works well as a way to incentivize the switch key hunt and it becomes a frantic rush to the exit cutting through the enemies in the maze before the radsuit runs out, occasionally tanking with the generous megasphere provided, so much better since you aren't ever wasting away the radsuit in situations you don't require and you don't have to backtrack here again. The only flaw here is due to the nature of the damaging floor, you can be randomly damaged by it which I think cheapens this section. 

Map10: "The Wicked Metal Garden"
228/255 kills, 1/5 secrets, 11:47 

Another really solid map, this time with a theme of a metallic-marbled fortress gradually being reclaimed by nature. It's pretty enjoyable throughout, ammo and health are balanced well, neither excessive nor too restrictive. The combat setpieces likewise, neither obnoxious nor is it trivial. My favorite encounter was the surprising arrival of cacodemons and pain elementals, headlined by the archvile who diverts your attention so that the flying demons can wreck havoc. The map also has my favorite usage of the cloudy sky, it complements the texturing in this map well and helps paint a moody atmosphere.

Map11: "Circle of Death"
238/250 kills, 2/6 secrets, 13:00

Would you look at that, this is another map I quite enjoyed. The maze in the beginning is alright and I'm fond of the idea of scaling it towards the end and dispatching the hitscanners camping atop it, but the main locale here is the titular circle of death, made up of brimstone but one that doesn't damage (not that I'm complaining!), serving as a hub for the rest of the map. The library is strange, particularly since you can't just directly open the door and instead have to cross a linedef trigger for whatever reason, and then progress in the library itself isn't the most straightforward. Reading what others in the club have written, I was fortunate enough to avoid softlocks but it's still a critical flaw. The fortress segment is pretty forgettable truth be told, and kind of grindy. But the map picks up again at the final stretch when the archvile duo arrive alongside their revenant brigade to undo the cleanup you had done previously, it's not too challenging but the large scale of the circle works both in your favor and against, you can keep your distance easily but when you're in the archvile's range, dodging it can be difficulty. Also, I couldn't get much infighting value of the cyberdemon so best dispose of him early. All around, this was a pretty enjoyable map.

Map12: "Strage [sic] Universe"
204/204 kills, 1/1 secrets, 23:30*

Half of this map is alright, the weird blood falls and skies on the floor help to make it feel stra(n)ge in an almost Peterson-esq way to me, but then the other half is terrible. The first segment is okay, the yellow key being a red herring and only collected much later was interesting, alongside how going through the doors teleports you into the other segments of the map. But it all goes downhill, starting with that extremely stupid teleporting baron teleporting room, if you aren't going to be annoyed by the constant spam of teleporting fuzz and sound, you will be when you try to make progress through this, I don't know how I got through it twice but I did, and later on I gave up and idclipped because I had taken the plasma cells even on segments that weren't part of the route so using them as breadcrumbs didn't really work out. Because of this map's progression, you might go through here a couple of times too. The red segment sucked, with forced damaging floors right under the watch of spidermastermind. After all of this stuff, you then have to do a tedious puzzle which involves locating red key doors which were previously hidden in each of the three segments, mind you going in between these segments is a bother too. Eventually I decided to give up and idclip to the exit because I couldn't bother to get back to the previous segments if to locate what I missed. At least the floor wasn't damaging in the puzzle room, but it was a waste of time.

Map13: "City of Hell" (using the edit dististik posted alongside the m13 track from the tnt midi pack)
315/315 kills, 0/0 secrets, 22:22 

Another mostly fun map. Apparently the city of hell has canals filled with water. Anyways kidding aside, I had a blast for most of the map, each of the combat sections especially the courtyard housing the megasphere was lots of fun. Navigation felt satisfying going from building from building and across the canals, combat was challenging yet enjoyable, I liked the way the red key bar lowers after you get it to make the map easier to navigate, and I think the map looks pretty good and is designed well. The building across the yellow key arena was odd with some monsters were stuck together but I liked how they were crushed rather quickly, like you are wrecking havoc in some kind of cybernetic factory. But then you get the yellow key arena, which is horrendous. It is such a shame too since I think with some tweaking it could have been good, the main issue is mostly that the arena is too small for the amount of mancubi it spawns that dodging them is way too frustrating and you can get blocked by them pretty easily while maneuvering, not helped by the awkward torches around the perimeter. I did this fight straight after like 15 minutes of attempts, only realizing the cheese after reading some of the club's experience and I think that is ideal since doing it straight felt too dependent on luck for the right mixture of enemy behavior. But the rest of the map was good fun, easily would have been my favorite if not for the yellow key fight. 

Edited February 22, 2023 by Monsieur E

[Roofi]

Number One Kill The Next Generation - Map 14 "Pain"

 

 

Oh god ! Thank you for the BFG .... at the very end of the level. Anyway, "Pain" mostly holds its name for the nasty arch-vile released once you get the yellow key, the mandatory lava passages inflicting -20 damage which hurt you with the radsuit and the limited ammo. Beside that, the level has a moderate difficulty if you advance steadily as the previous maps.

 

About the final fight you have not one friend but two : your BFG and the red-keyed door. Just hide behind it and open and close constantly in order to make the appearing enemies infight between each other and use your BFG in order to clean the remaining enemies as well as the last arch-vile. I had a lot of fun cheesing the final fight.

 

As some maps, playing this map was quite irritating during the first playthrough. The scarcity of radsuits force you to use them at the right moment whereas the progression isn't always clear. Exemple : I didn't understand at the beginning that the blue key bar acted like a door. In the later parts of the maps, some bridges don't raise if you don't walk on some ledges. However, once I knew the gameplay mechanics, it was very satisfying to find the right strategy in order to kill the enemies the safest ways. For exemple, in the giant circular room with curvy stairs, I summoned the enemies to the entrance in order to prevent the arch-vile to resurect them near the lift (which also convert them into ghosts...).

 

At the end, I like how Pain creates danger with its painful lava which keeps you under stress. It was a great long level.

 

Grade : B+

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, check my videos of the two previous maps here :

 

Spoiler

 

 

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 14: Pain

 

One of the first things noticed here is the most unwelcome sound of "The Dave D. Taylor Blues" because not only was Angelo too lazy to replace the default midi, it's also one of the worst slots he could have just blown off that way. So I just put on the sound of a certain twitch streamer with a soothing voice and then proceeded to play the map.

 

Fatigue is definitely settling in at this point because I find myself caring less and less about how it stands out unless it noticeably does. But anyway, a prevalent theme if ZIMMERN, along with lava, and some outpost approximations, at least one (the rk building) is clearly a bungalow of sorts.

 

But in any case, pistol start proves quite nasty because there are shotgunners on both sides ready to blast us to bit when we open the first door. At this point, two sets of stairs will  bring us to an open room with a Revenant on top of the pillar in a caged pool of lavaand some enemies on either side that are chaingunners, Imps, and some pinkies. This map was particularly annoying with the camping and this is just one example of why.

 

The first encounter of any note is probably the large room containing a raised platform at the other end with some Barons of Hell that'll toss some fire our way and a rocket launcher. The verticality here is quite nice and definitely seems much like a Romero thing, not unlike something from Doom II: The Way Id Did. But anyway, chaingunning the enemies here proves to be little trouble while Super shotgunning the rest is also little trouble.

 

But just beyond this is a nasty switch trip which plunges us right into a small square room where a chaingunner, a former human, a Cacodemon, an Imp and a pinkies basically on either side of you. A complete lack of preparation led to our righteous extermination the first time around. From here, it's a trip into a sort of sewer with a layout not unlike that of a similar area in Refueling Base, complete with questionably effective weapons and enemies in each nook. This then terminates in a small room where we punch out a surprise chaingunner in an admittedly narrow space and find ourselves back in the caged pool from earlier where a switch will kindly lower the yellow key for us.

 

The yellow key is used in a hallway with some surprisingly nice lighting effects, although neglecting other design aspects may not have been the best decision. But anyway, we're confronted by a a suspicious-appearing block of sandstone so we then move on to a hallway with a cage blocking us from the outdoors and thanks to the presence of four Cacodemons, three distant Arachnotrons, two sneaky shotgunners, and a Pain Elemental in a pear tree forced camping. Makes me forgetting to continue after reaching the end that much more painful. But anyway after passing a wall lined with bloody corpses of forgotten men, we teleport at the end to the outside area, a balcony gazing out at a lava river and some boring wood structures. Yes, Angelo was still making wooden doors surrounded by wood. But no matter, we head to where the fortunate shotgunner sliced some health off which we then rewinded to get supplies, then headed across the ravine and hit a switch which unleashed a pack of Cacodemons, a pair of Pain Elementals, and a rather hapless chaingunner. At some point, the blue key's acquired. From here, we can either use it to enter a flowing red-rock room of a certain custom texture that takes us back to the room to where we came from or we can just plunge right into the slime (which might not work and our health was much too low at this point to attempt that) and see if there's a path forward. If not, we'd have to go all the way around the map to find a blue bar sitting in dried lava that brings up to the end of the lava river closest to where we came from. It was actually after returning that we thought to hit the sandastone formation from earlier, which then allowed us to pick up a plasma rifle but not without taking out a chaingunner.

 

After some nastiness with some....stop if you've heard this before....Revenants, shotgunners, and chaingunners, we then emerge into an area clearly drawing inspiration from the inmost dens. The practical ammo starvation of earlier would quickly recede, particularly with the presence of rocket boxes hidden behind a marked, but untagged, secret door (the sight of a non-damaging pool was indeed welcome!). But much as I like the look of the arrow pointing toward the Hell Knight, the um, Containment Center homage of platforms lifting out of the lava just seemed like a lazy puzzle that didn't need to exist. And that stupid shootable switch with the bottom blocked off can only be shot with an SS? If I hadn't looked at Book Lord's post, I would never have tried the least effective weapon at long range like that.

 

But after all of this nonsense is more close-quarters fighting with much of it taking place outside and inside a bungalow with a red key that has to lowered, along with an Arch-vile, a Pain Elemental, several Cacodemons and probably a Baron or two. Well, nice culmination but this isn't the end. Unfortunately, the RK door is located practically at the other end of the map and a rad suit near the entrance to this entire area we foolishly picked up earlier because we thought we needed it and will be the only way to avoid taking damage. This inexplicably leads to a tech area that has a BFG! and as we might expect, a fair degree of teleporting enemies that are trivalized by it. If you were expecting an Arch-vile, they are in the exit. Unfortunately, I was so disgusted by my time (just under 30 minutes) that I quit immediately. Still one of the better maps.

lmd_#1killtng14.zip

Edited February 23, 2023 by LadyMistDragon
little additions; some weird grammer things

[Veeda Vidlak]

Map12 “Strage Universe”

 

More missing N’s and galaxy-brain design in this heaping pile of wtf. Angelo tries out all sorts of ideas resulting in the first map I kind of hate.

 

Right at the start the alarm bells were going off loud enough for me to avoid the yellow key. Unfortunately, the correct door bells weren’t chiming and I went straight ahead through the northern door first, not knowing the western one houses the SSG and two shellboxes. I backed up from the initial hitscanners and… Oh cool! I knew it was a deathtrap! Starting again I continue to ignore the western door and go through this legitimately cool looking blood room with floating monsters and an inverted floor/ceiling. The strageness continued with a blue key sequence involving a lowering bloody cross and a baron/caco fight that was a lot better the second time with the SSG.

 

Also my second runthrough I died again accidently stumbling over the yellow key teleport line. I guess that’s my fault but maybe make this room a bit bigger.

 

Using the blue key opens the stargate and, again, this looked suspicious enough for me to backtrack to the beginning to try the other door. Yay, SSG. Returning to the plot I went up the stairs and abruptly teleported to a little circular portal room that dropped me to 1%. God this room is nasty. Sniping hitscanners, a pain elemental, some imps. It doesn’t sound bad but you can take a stunning amount of damage from the enemies here, I was at about half health in the blink of an eye. My second run I immediately ran into the southern caverns, which seems to be the right move.

 

Heading up the stairs is a door leading to a room that is my current pick for worst in the megawad. What we have here is a small chamber surrounded by caged imps housing a checkerboard of teleporter linedefs. Three barons are warping around and there’s a trench of blood encircling the board (I don’t know if it’s inescapable and I’m not jumping in to find out). You thought The Death Domain was bad? This place will make you nostalgic for it. Both times I picked off the imps at the entrance, waited for a couple barons to find their way out of the funzone, then shotgun sniped the last baron. I had no interest in taking up his dance offer in that bullshit.

 

After suffering through a torturous teleporter puzzle (which got pinkies and cacos added at various points) I was rewarded with a plasma (thanks) and continued onward until I got ported back to the start to grab the yellow key. This is a clever way to get it, but be aware that you will still teleport to the trap if you go back on the key platform (not a problem anymore with the plasma). Yellow key in hand, return to the circular portal room and reopen the stargate to proceed to circular portal room part 2, this time with a spidermomma and a bunch of hitscanners instead of an escape route. I did better this time thanks to the plasma but still ended up critically injured by the time the landing area was clear.

 

To proceed, enter the new and improved circle of death and pick off everything you can. The area behind spidergirl is crawling with hitscanners behind windows and the approach is a river of damaging blood. Your secret is here (megaarmor) but it requires mandatory blood damage, provides no health, and involves the most awkward of lifts to return to the circle, so make sure you have hit points to work with. After some switches, grab the red key and return to the start to hit a switch behind the red door. If you were hoping to leave now, get that notion out of your head because it’s going to be awhile.  

 

Side note: As far as I can tell, you have to traverse that awful teleporter room every time you need to return from the circular portal areas to the starting rooms (thank you Roofi for mentioning how to circumvent that shit).

 

Hitting the switch opens up little red door caves scattered throughout the level, six in total. All of them lead to a side area populated by chaingunners with various segregated platforms that have switches, which in tandem allow you to reach the exit. Do you want to do this? Search all over a map that is a royal pain to move from one side to the other? Well, I didn’t. Either time. I also didn’t want to get softlocked in some non-damaging blood (challenge: try figuring out what blood hurts in this map and what doesn’t). After spending several minutes traipsing around I’d hit every switch and determined which cave gets me to the exit. Unfortunately I missed a kill because a shotgunner had somehow teleported to a multiplayer only area with a BFG I found using IDDT.

 

This map is very experimental, very 90s, and very wearisome to play. As always, I appreciate the attempt to do something different, but this level just doesn’t work. It has too many moments that waste the player’s time, or subject them to spiteful combat, or just provide a general negative experience. The ridiculous red door puzzle puts the icing on this cake of frustration. I didn’t like this entry blind or with foreknowledge so I’ll leave it to the Limbo crowd and move on to map13.

Edited February 23, 2023 by Veeda Vidlak

[Book Lord]

MAP 15 – Lair of the Baron

DSDA-Doom v0.24.3, UV, Pistol start, non-blind run w/saves

 

In contrast with most levels of its time with “Baron” in their name, Lair of the Baron hosted several demonic bovines, though they might not catch the player’s attention like their faster, more aggressive brethren, used without much restraint by the author. The highlights consisted of an ample display of custom textures, obtained with curious palette changes applied to stock resources, and a strictly linear progression from one deadly set piece to the next.

Spoiler

The starting chamber was built of a tan variety of marble and deployed a fierce resistance against the pistol starter. Reaching the switch room with the Mancubi was a bit slow with basic weapons, but ammo was ok for my playstyle. Even though I took the YSK by bumping the window, useful Medikits and the SSG were placed next to it, protected by a surprise Mancubus and Angelo’s trusted flying ambushers. Hopping on pillars and forcibly triggering the closets was a sound technique that felt very modern. The journey continued to the east, into a network of blood meanders populated by Shotgunners, reminiscent of the worst Plutonia stuff but offering valuable resources, including a relatively accessible Combat Armour and a one-time secret with a Soul Sphere, likely to kill the player instead of helping.

Spoiler

The first Barons were encountered after emerging from the caves, on top of stairs that can be ascended but cannot be descended (explained in the “Engine bugs” section of Doomwiki). The RSK was visible inside a small room filled with boxes of rockets, where I arrived after a walk in the outdoor semi-circular area. I carried many missiles, but the matching weapon was behind a platoon of former humans, supported by an Arch-Vile as field medic. There are several ways to approach the ultra-cramped assault: you might either fall back to the outdoor area and meet the flyers, or you can make a stand and dash past the enemies to grab the rocket launcher. The teleporter might be exploited in case things do not work in your favour.

 

The Megasphere eased my pain and carried me through the next indoor area, remarkable for its treacherous Chaingunner cubbyholes and an Arch-Vile that resurrected a crushed Sergeant as a ghost. I am happy it was not the Baron. The author nicely devised a teleporter to send me right where I was supposed to be, confirming that the odd stairs were not an oversight but an awkward system to make a one-way path. After searching the SKINSYMB columns for a hidden panel and being awarded with a Revenant shrieking on my face, I opened the passage to the outside where I saw the bizarre purple walls for the first time. I made the Barons infight as much as possible, and collected my wits because I knew something bad was waiting beyond the metal wall with the scrolling spine.

Spoiler

Even with foreknowledge and with a readied plasma gun, the crazy mess after teleporting got me on first attempt. The sheer number of hitscanners added a RNG variable to the encounter, so that prioritising the Arch-Vile and then the Arachnotrons might be impractical. On the second try, the healer was caught in the crossfire of three spiders and died in 2 seconds, so I had time to find cover at the bottom of the round structure. I gained control of the blood lake and I quickly reached the inner sanctum with the BSK. The presence of Hell Nobles, the iconography and the visual uniqueness of that chamber suggested it might be the titular Lair of the Baron. Once again, Angelo dropped me right in front of the blue door.

Spoiler

The final yard featured another encounter driven by an Arch-Vile, the easiest in store if you survive the dastardly Chaingunner trap. The main challenge was finding the secret exit though, because when it was visible I was distracted by the enemies. This level contained relevant graphic novelties and memorable set pieces, and I think it stood out as one of the key moments of the megaWAD.

Edited February 23, 2023 by Book Lord

[Azure_Horror]

#1 kill Next Gen

UV, Pistol Start, DSDA-Doom, Saves

 

Map 15 Lair of the Baron

This is a great map, IMO. Some strange design decisions are present: shotgunning 2 mancubi - why this exists?

But for the most part the map is a very interesting and fun experience, offering a variety of cool locations, fun fights and interesting challenges.

 

My favorite part of the map: the big battle after triangle teleporter at the west side of the map.

The fight take place in a relatively open space with a big structure in the middle. Monsters include an archvile, a bunch of cacodemonss, a squad of arachnotrons and a variety of hitscanners. The setup naturally encourages weapon variety:

- plasma rifle offers a perfect balance of damage, hitstun, and convenience, but saving plasma for later is always a good idea. So episodic use of the plsama rifle is very efficient, while going all-in on plasma is non-optimal.

- rocket launcher is best for DPS on long range. But it can be bad, if cacodemons try to block you into a corner, while other demons restrict your mobility.

- the chaingun is perfect for sniping hitscanners, but it also can stun cacos and spiders. Good weapon to use after the vile is no more.

- and the SSG is always good, if you can afford to focus demon from close range.

 

There are other fun fights too: the red key fight offers an interesting combat puzzle (maneuvring around archvile and a bunch of hitscanners), and the battle near the exit is very interesting due to target prioritisation aspects.

 

Last, but not least, the map uses some simple-but-memorable custom textures. I especially like purple marble. It does resemble Stradate WADs (which were pretty far off in the future in 1997).

 

In conclusion, this is a really good map. Of all the maps I have played so fare, this map has aged the best. And apart from shotgunning two mancubi near the start, the map feels surprisingly modern.

 

 

Map 31 and 32 - info for other club members!

Map 31 - Hell Reaveled jank incarnate! Not enough non-SSG ammo, hard to navigate, beefy opposition, archviles and pain elementals in with RNG-depended placements.

Map 32 - 1) arachnotron courtyard in the west is bigger than it looks. There is a far away corner with berserk pack. It can really save ammo in some of the bigger fights, do not forget to explore!

2) Some Hell Revealed jank is here too, sadly.

3) Before jumping into blue key pit - go back to the strat of the map. The rocket launcher, that was teasing you at the beggining has opened! I don't know, if the Blue Key fight is even possible without the rocket launcher.

Edited February 23, 2023 by Azure_Horror

[Helm]

MAP15

I think at this point I'm just inoculated to 1KILLTNG. This is an ok map, using all the usual Angelo tropes of symmetry, perimeters, ordered gun getting, unmarked secrets, key - key - key, doubling back for key doors in the usual order. Generally smooth sailing until you start running out of ammo as usual and then you'll eventually bottleneck at a couple of fights here. At least this one doesn't get in its own way with broken doom machinery. Are there any highlights at the top of mind? Well... we take a while longer to get to the SSG in this one which means the map starts quite slow. the rooms, textures and perimeter crawls are looking marginally better than usual including some new textures on this map, I believe, but the aesthetic finish isn't something to write home about for this set.

There's a lot of lowlights: There's some stacked encounters, one where you reveal a couple of mancs supporting cacos early on with the single barrel. If we weren't doing wad archeology the moment I'd see two mancs sitting there with a single barrel in my viewport I'd probably quit out, heh.

There's a really annoying chaingunner by the YSK bars that is placed such so that when you shoot him or he moves he teleports away on a teleport pad, and then makes returns whenever he bloody well feels like it. Supremely annoying placement and a very deliberate one, Angelo. I feel your piercing stare, but do you feel mine? 

A minute later, you are going down a single file corridor and you get punched by a floor rising revenant with - I kid you not - an apology health pack at its feet. The revenant is slow rising so you get punched by seemingly thin air. Very good placement.

The fight on the BSK support beam with caco swarm, pain elemental, low ammo/low health was quite hairy for me, I had to make a delayed run for the SSG on scary platforms while mancubus showed me some fiery love and then the lost souls chomped me down. On second go I just rush the YSK and SSG and do the brave thing and fight the manc and cacos on the manc side of the arena, being overwatched by *sigh* two chaingunners. Anyway, with 16% health we carry on victorious. I haven't even reached the pain point of the map yet. This isn't a lowlight, this is a legit fight at least.

I go down a bloodfloor cavern filled to the brim with chaingunners and the floor isn't hurtfloor! Thank you, Angelo! 4% health is not the best for a cavern full of hitscan but somehow I make it through to a pain elemental guarded blue armor where I eat some more shit. Next time around I go find a bit more health before returning to the sarge caverns and end up with the RSK ambush.

This is a designed fight. Grabbing key drops left side walls filled with chaingunner, shotgunner, revenant, pinky and an archvile. There isn't any space to fight all that there, you can retreat out of the arena and try to get the vile from below but that felt boring to me. The other option is to carve through the hitscan as fast as possible and go for a teleporter pad INSIDE the monster closet and stagger the cleanup by teleporting in and out of the archvile space. That's what I ended up doing at least. Lost quite a few doomguys, here. I am looking forward to the single segment strats!

Probably the second most interesting fight in the map? The first also involves an archvile.

Doing some lift rocketing to clear up a lower space nets me an unmarked (but spotted from earler) megasphere that I really needed! Unmarked for... reasons. Soon we'll get to the pain point. RSK takes us to an archvile room with a few small fry and a baron. They're guarding a teleporter that gets you in front of Red door so you don't have to backtrack, thank you again, Angelo. However my gratitude is short lived as we get a proper dark room and my heart sinks... are we doing this again? The dark room ends up being just for ammo replenishment and another unmarked berserk secret (which you'll want to get for uvmax because a monster is in there too). 

From there we open to the pink courtyard which is at odds visually with the rest of the map but at least it makes that space slightly more memorable. The opening fight here is easily dispatched from a distance with RL but after that we teleport lock in a big arena with arachno, caco, hitscan of all types and a roaming archvile. There is no pillar cover in this horseshoe arena, so if you want protection from archvile you'll have to momentarily surrender most of one side of the horseshoe to him. I lose a lot of doomguys here as well because I come in quite low health. This is a difficult arena if you don't cheese, you have to hope for archvile infighting and spend your untargeted time judiciously. On my first proper attempt I die to the very last shotgunner in the space, feels bad. 

This isn't even the real pain point of the map, though. This is just Angelo stuff, I am fine with it, I am at 200ish kills out of 252, my spirit is strong, I just feel bad about all the multiverse low health doomguys I am throwing at this floor vile. Of course you could teleport back and forth in this arena and get some cheese going but... are we doing better for ourselves when we have to circumvent Angelo in this way? At least this fight is definitely doable in the open space if you're up for it.

Now to the pain point, which ironically is your reward for sticking in the arena and plasma-ing everything down. I start engaging with this bullshit at around 27 minutes in my footage. There is a long corridor opening up to a room filled with nobility and hitscan. We've used most of our good ammo on the open plan fight outside. We have to approach down a fucking syringe needle corridor into a blocked opening with nobility and hitscan peppering the said syringe corridor. Unless I missed something, this terrible bit of design requires you to cheese/wait for infighting in the prior fight so you have enough plasma (like, 2 barons and a few hell knights enough) to waste shooting down the syringe corridor, staggering your shots for when the barons aren't in the way, dodging their fire you can't spot over the MANDATORY cacodemon corpse at the very opening of their room. Angelo made it like this, and if you want to have a good time you'll have to not play this stuff blind, is what he's trying to tell us. 

Anyway, after some more multiverse doomguy corpses are let to forever linger in 1KILL TNG MAP15 and some swear words shouted at a long corridor, I'm out, out out. footage

Edited February 23, 2023 by Helm

[dististik]

Before my post for the day I wanted to go on a little bit of a tangent about the technical issues map13 had for a number of ports. Firstly, I'm glad that my fix for map13 ended up being helpful for a number of folks here. I was honestly somewhat surprised to discover a bug that effected even Chocolate Doom in what I assumed to be a fairly obscure 90's wad (although I haven't been playing Doom for very much of my life so I'm not sure how warranted that surprise is). Same day that I made the fix I went ahead and opened an issue on Woof!'s GitHub repo for the bug and later that same day rfomin seems to have fixed it with a PR; I'm not sure how common an issue like this is, so I'm not sure if similar fixes will make their way to other ports, but it's still cool to me seeing the helpful effects of off happenstances.

 

Anyway, onto the map.

 

MAP13 - City of Hell

 

I played today's map before I went to work like usual but it took me a bit to finish it so I wasn't able to get a short write-up of my opinions on it out the door befre I left, so hopefully I remember everything that I wanted to talk about. All in all, I think I'm quite a big fan of this one despite not usually being a fan of city levels and their design-adjacent siblings. The map feels fittingly large and unlike say the base Doom II map that occupies the same slot I don't think I ever found myself getting lost or wondering where to go next, which honestly is likely because of really streamlined progression compared to the latter. Jumping across the motes or from window to window was honestly really cool; I liked the amount of freedom it felt like it gave me while playing despite the aforementioned streamlined progression.

 

Now, usually for my playthroughs of each map I like to stay at least mostly in the dark so my opinions are as organically formed as they can be within reason. Even when opening it in UDB for the fixed map and making sure it loaded after said fix, it was pretty easy to not dive too much into the details since it's kind of hard to gather progression from what is essentially an automap view. That all said, I couldn't help but notice several mentionings of a certain yellow key fight. I still did enough of my due diligance to avoid spoiling what it was everyone was talking about in great detail, when I met the flesh cube and saw it's contents I was maybe a little too caucious. First time around I somehow ended up skipping the linedef that's supposed to, at least I think, start the big fight and pick up the yellow key without any commotion which honestly was kind of unsettling in an ominous sort of way. Unfortunately though, the exit switch doesn't appear unless you trigger the ambush and haha good thing I was saving very cautiously.

 

lol, said the scorpion, lmao

 

First time around I tried to fight the thirteen mancubi and two archviles on their terms in the honestly kind of tiny arena and that went about as well as I suspect everyone else's first attempts went. Second time around I tried to be more careful about it and without shooting coaxed a small group of demons out that could see me when running behind the marble baron face, let them kill each other with infighting and then finished off the first vile. Then, by doing the fool's errand of pulling the trigger in that arena, I was promptly swarmed and killed albeit this time a bit slower. Third time around I assumed there had to be some sort of trick here. I don't want to make the very bold assumption that difficult wads were nonexistant at the time of 1killtng's release but even this felt a bit overboard for the time. Sure enough, I hadn't even seen the exit switch yet so I triggered each single time teleporting linedef, opened up my escape, and punched the air as I dove into the surrounding moat and cleaned everything up from below. With just the sheer number of mancubi and how quickly they fill that arena to the brim with just their bodies let alone their crossfire, I cannot in any way imagine that this was not the intended solution.

 

Killing everything that came outside to meet me was a very ammo expensive venture but luckily after that the map wasn't too hard. I did end up not triggering the bridge to the building full of stuck monsters under crushers, ended up SR50ing to it from the platform you use to jump to the yellow key arena instead, and uh honestly not sure what it was all about but I'm just going to smile and nod. Funnily enough even after that and clearing my way to the exit I was missing a kill. So, I IDDT and look around and honestly felt like I was going a bit insane, but zoom in a little closer and I found my culprit. I had accidentally missed the berserk pack back at the near beginning of the map, so each time I wanted to save ammo to punch pinkies or revenants (and even one baron) I was doing so with the dry fist of a fresh IDCLEV. Ah well, didn't impact my enjoyment of the map any even if it would have been helpful to not miss like a goober. I'm honestly just glad to start enjoying these maps again.