The Cognition Engine - Single Map

[The Royal We]

Opening the wad with a song from Blood is already an excellent sign of what is to come.

 

I thought the use of textures on the map looked excellent, as did the whole demonic atmosphere created. Also, I'd have been glad to find more secrets, as I liked the hidden messages. I'll leave it for another day when I revisit the map, which will probably happen.

 

I died a few (several) times, but because I don't play very well, as you can see in the video below.

Great job!

 

 

[Snowy44]

9 hours ago, The Royal We said:

Opening the wad with a song from Blood is already an excellent sign of what is to come.

 

I thought the use of textures on the map looked excellent, as did the whole demonic atmosphere created. Also, I'd have been glad to find more secrets, as I liked the hidden messages. I'll leave it for another day when I revisit the map, which will probably happen.

 

I died a few (several) times, but because I don't play very well, as you can see in the video below.

Great job!

 

 

Thank you for playing and thank you for the video!

[LVENdead]

I gave this a play through, man I really enjoyed it. Such a good mash up of weird and "wrong", I just love how it feels like a bad dream. The diary logs were also a very nice touch, really put the concept up to the next level in my opinion. The combat was a pleasant surprise of engaging but not soul crushing difficulty, and something I usually find that the more conceptual maps tend to lack in, almost coming across as perfunctory in ways. Instead, this had a great blend of incidental fighting with structured scenarios that kept things interesting the whole way through. 

 

Solid map.

 

 

[Snowy44]

3 hours ago, LVENdead said:

I gave this a play through, man I really enjoyed it. Such a good mash up of weird and "wrong", I just love how it feels like a bad dream. The diary logs were also a very nice touch, really put the concept up to the next level in my opinion. The combat was a pleasant surprise of engaging but not soul crushing difficulty, and something I usually find that the more conceptual maps tend to lack in, almost coming across as perfunctory in ways. Instead, this had a great blend of incidental fighting with structured scenarios that kept things interesting the whole way through. 

 

Solid map.

 

 

Thank you very much!

[Soulless]

Really cool map, enjoyed the aesthetics and combat and the secrets were cool (9/11).

Good stuff!

[Snowy44]

13 minutes ago, Soulless said:

Really cool map, enjoyed the aesthetics and combat and the secrets were cool (9/11).

Good stuff!

Thanks!

[Maribo]

Pretty phenomenal standalone map, particularly in the aesthetic design department. The red-tinged color palette is something that I found myself adoring more and more as I played. It's initially most visible on pinkies and ends up giving them a much thicker and meatier feeling, similar to the way that the Sunlust's palette ended up making barons less pink and more like an actual wall of flesh, but it slowly becomes apparent that many of the monsters have bits of fleshy-red embedded into their sprites, ends up feeling like it's trying to recreate the real life effect of light reflecting off surfaces and affecting the color of other things. Very cool.

 

I was already a huge fan of the aesthetic this is going for from the screenshots, the whole computer/tech/flesh/blood/organic blender mix is something that speaks to me in a lot of ways and this delivers on so many fronts. Textures that should clash pretty hard with each other feel right at home because everything is an organized mess, I'd like to point to the computers that are found bleeding profusely in specific and say that they were an excellent idea.

 

cogen_maribo.zip - FDA playthrough, -dsdademo format and will only play back in DSDA-Doom v0.25.6

 

Thanks for sharing, very much hope to see more from you in the future.

[Snowy44]

12 hours ago, Maribo said:

Pretty phenomenal standalone map, particularly in the aesthetic design department. The red-tinged color palette is something that I found myself adoring more and more as I played. It's initially most visible on pinkies and ends up giving them a much thicker and meatier feeling, similar to the way that the Sunlust's palette ended up making barons less pink and more like an actual wall of flesh, but it slowly becomes apparent that many of the monsters have bits of fleshy-red embedded into their sprites, ends up feeling like it's trying to recreate the real life effect of light reflecting off surfaces and affecting the color of other things. Very cool.

 

I was already a huge fan of the aesthetic this is going for from the screenshots, the whole computer/tech/flesh/blood/organic blender mix is something that speaks to me in a lot of ways and this delivers on so many fronts. Textures that should clash pretty hard with each other feel right at home because everything is an organized mess, I'd like to point to the computers that are found bleeding profusely in specific and say that they were an excellent idea.

 

cogen_maribo.zip - FDA playthrough, -dsdademo format and will only play back in DSDA-Doom v0.25.6

 

Thanks for sharing, very much hope to see more from you in the future.

Thank you for playing, glad you liked it!

[Flying01]

Congrats Snowy, this is really enjoyable. Like others have mentioned, the aesthetic is amazing. The colour palette, the drooping wires, the mix of skin and techbase textures all lend it a cool creepy vibe. I particularly loved the secret areas with the ominous text that drip-feeds the background plot.

 

If I can offer some criticisms, there were moments where monsters were accidentally opening secret doors and revealing secrets before I had a chance to hunt for them. I also had an unfortunate moment or two where monsters had wandered into the teleporters to the secret areas with the text, and trapped me on the teleporter exit. Nothing disastrous, but I wasn't sure if it was intended to happen.

 

Overall, amazing effort! Thanks for making it!

[Snowy44]

15 minutes ago, Flying01 said:

Congrats Snowy, this is really enjoyable. Like others have mentioned, the aesthetic is amazing. The colour palette, the drooping wires, the mix of skin and techbase textures all lend it a cool creepy vibe. I particularly loved the secret areas with the ominous text that drip-feeds the background plot.

 

If I can offer some criticisms, there were moments where monsters were accidentally opening secret doors and revealing secrets before I had a chance to hunt for them. I also had an unfortunate moment or two where monsters had wandered into the teleporters to the secret areas with the text, and trapped me on the teleporter exit. Nothing disastrous, but I wasn't sure if it was intended to happen.

 

Overall, amazing effort! Thanks for making it!

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! I'll try to fix those things if I ever get to version 2.0.

[Wo0p]

Heyo!

 

Fssssshhhw oapr8jiosnkmfjmsukehladsd.. ok so. Let me start off by saying I really enjoyed my time with your map and overall it's a solid Doom experience! :)

(The dreaded) But! There are some things I think could improve your map but let's have a constructive discussion about it. I played your map in GZDoom 4.10 without any other wads loaded. So no custom weapons or anything like that, pure vanilla as can be with GZDoom.

 

First off! Gameplay. 9/10
Lovely pacing, lovely ability to find weapons in secrets before finding them by following the mandatory path. Great difficulty creep, no reason to secret hunt in order to buff yourself with powerups because the fights ahead are way too difficult without them. The fights DO become difficult but it takes a while to get there and I appreciate that. As stated, lovely difficulty creep.

 

Pathfinding 5/10

And by pathfinding, I mean the readability of the map and the obviousness of which way to go next. This is probably the lowest rating I give because I found the map very confusing at times. My memory is ass so that's not on you, but it would be nice to be transported closer to a corresponding door after receiving a key because you really do go from one end of the map to the other when you need to progress.
That in itself is not too bad though, but because much of the map looks alike it's super difficult to remember where anything is. But praise shall also be given for the massive fuck-off red arrow pointing you to a lever that needs to be switched on. I liked that one :D And also that you don't have to solve obnoxious puzzles to progress. Therefore it gave me a familiar experience of playing some of the official doom wads where pathfinding can also be tricky. So nothing special, but not garbage either.

 

Theming & Texture Usage 7/10

I despise vanilla-only textures. I love blending appropriate vanilla textures into other texture sets if I feel they visually fit. Why fix something that isn't broken? But you manage to creatively texture your map without it seeming totally random and using only vanilla or frankenilla texture to boo!. There's even a few reoccurring detailing throughout the map which helps glue a sense of cohesion together for the feel of the map. So there's order to the madness (of the theme). Excellent job! 

But hang on, did I not just criticise the visual aspects of the wad for being confusing and at times poorly readable?
Well yes. But it's one of those risks you take when you pick a theme such as reality-fuckery for your WAD and I'm confident that, after seeing your efforts here, you'll develop a stronger bond between theme and pathfinding in the future. It's just a matter of repetition in map making and experience in my opinion :D

 

And if I can just comment on the narrative throughout the WAD as well briefly. Creative take on a "journal"! And also I kinda drew parallels to the story and the process of mapmaking since for me personally, there's a deep well of peace and purpose when I sit and make a map. So I really loved this aspect of the map :)

[Wo0p]

Bugs and Exploits ????????

How does one rate bugs and exploits?
Well I didn't find any bugs! So that's nice :) But I DID cheese the final fight by simply running away xD So maybe you could add a sort of airlock between the final fight and the... final... target. I don't wanna spoil so that's why I'm being vague lol. Maybe put a couple of barons in the way around a corner so you're still exposed even if you try to brute force your way past the final fight?

Overall 7-8 / 10

Hope to see more from you in the future :D

[Snowy44]

7 minutes ago, Wo0p said:

Bugs and Exploits ????????

How does one rate bugs and exploits?
Well I didn't find any bugs! So that's nice :) But I DID cheese the final fight by simply running away xD So maybe you could add a sort of airlock between the final fight and the... final... target. I don't wanna spoil so that's why I'm being vague lol. Maybe put a couple of barons in the way around a corner so you're still exposed even if you try to brute force your way past the final fight?

Overall 7-8 / 10

Hope to see more from you in the future :D

Thank you very much for the feedback!

[Wo0p]

1 hour ago, Snowy44 said:

Thank you very much for the feedback!

 

No problem! Hope it was constructive.

[Proxy-MIDI]

Wouh ! Indeed ! I understand why this wad had a cacoward. The map is big, beautiful and full of surprises. And finally, the difficulty is fine ! Indeed, there are some tough moments with the demons fights, but they are reachable. 

 

The music gives a pretty mysterious soul to this place. That reminds me the "Resident Evil" PS1 Soundtrack ! It was incredibly good ! <3

 

So ja, good job ! I had a good moment ! ;)

[Snowy44]

16 hours ago, Proxy-MIDI said:

Wouh ! Indeed ! I understand why this wad had a cacoward. The map is big, beautiful and full of surprises. And finally, the difficulty is fine ! Indeed, there are some tough moments with the demons fights, but they are reachable. 

 

The music gives a pretty mysterious soul to this place. That reminds me the "Resident Evil" PS1 Soundtrack ! It was incredibly good ! <3

 

So ja, good job ! I had a good moment ! ;)

Thanks, I'm glad you liked it! I didn't even realise it got a cacoward mention, lmao.