The DWmegawad Club plays: Fragport

[Helm]

as I expected, work hit hard and it hit fast. I have been playing along with everyone else, I just don't have as much time for thorough impressions. 

Map 11 - 13

I actually had enormous trouble with ammo on 11, making it a memorable but painful experience. The long perimeter run around can only be tackled if you pick up all available weapons and ammo in the correct order. I actually run out of ammo on this even after practicing it 3-4 times and end up IDDQDing the rest of the opposition for the exit. Not a great time because of ammo but a well made map otherwise. A lowlight of the set so far for me.  Taking dips in the nukage with limited radsuits many times over is a mark of frustration for me on any map, and this one is no different. 

At least on 12 there ammo! You start out a on a little maze that made me think I was in the wrong complevel when I couldn't double back at the blocked map start, heh. After that bit of confusion it's a matter of getting armed up and making it through the different section of the map for a key / switch hunt. After the SSG things improve, but it's quite an SSG heavy map at that. The combat has become deadlier for sure. There is a section with a little garden and parapets to protect from a few replenished enemy waves that I found quite memorable, insofar that the layout mandated the kind of siege combat that is characteristic of some older map sets. There is a terrible section with no visibility I proudly F11'ed out of consequence. The end of it involves a blinking dark maze with a couple of viles I fished out one by one. Slow room, didn't even engage with the intended layout.

Then another nukage maze but at least has the courtesy to have little ledges on the side to protect from the damage and a plethora of radsuits everywhere around. The timers necessitate fast play dispatching enemies and automapping to make sure you hit every little location. I have a little freak-out dancing in the sludge because the Coroner was too good, but such a thing is not to be recommended generally. From the nukage to central location for a slaughter lite teleporting in fight you can just strafe around and listen to your music (I did). The titular sewer tanks part of the layout is a challenging mobility setup to introduce a lot of waves of turreted monsters on. I had a good fight in there, less fun on the re-ups to be honest. There is a mancubus trap that I really struggled with, though. I will watch the forum warrior demos and videos to see how everyone else did. Parts of this map mar the experience.

Then on 13 we have a hot start picking up guns while we set an open floor plan to fight itself. The abundance of health helps with the weapon scavenger hunt under fire that is thankfully all centralized in the beginning location. I hope it's a trend as we move forward in the set to get all the guns early. Fun ongoing, rolling fight to start. Then it devolves to key hunts on different parts of the pipe factory and eventually outside as well for a contrasting arena fight with a mastermind. This is well made map and I didn't struggle understanding what I had to do or how for the most part. The sense of place starts to run together on these last few maps to be honest, but playing a bit faster due to lack of time also accounts for my experience. This is not a very ambitious one but it plays well, has some interesting doom cute and you have enough ammo to kill everything so I can't complain. Big fight at the end can go anyway as there's 3 PEs roaming around, but you should be filled up on plasma, so.


Map 14 - Urban Wasteland 

This one's fresh I just did it. Let's see. Once again, get all the guns scattered about opening arena, there's a lot of health to recover from stray shots, one key unlocks the next one in the most expedited manner possible... The opening is an infighting - scavenging exercise and a removal of hitscan exercise, good to get those in in the morning but nothing extremely exciting. The abundance of good ammo and guns on this map neuters tricks like, here's an archvile in a corridor to spook you, we are beyond that point on the set it seems. Getting all the keys opens up little monster closets complicating the original arena you have to go through again and again. This is the number one trope of this map set, having a central area, and keys in little disparate doomrooms around and when you get the key and go back through the center area 2 monster closets out of the 6 have opened. 

This one provides an exciting little low window to sit in and let most of the maps mid-tier battle it out amongst themselves. Slow but ammo economic and very safe, it's in my footage.

Sadly there is a very slow lift with many vertical jump offs that has secrets in it that is very boring to get through for not enough reward nor challenge that drags this map down significantly. Literally a third of my time in this map was taking that lift up and down. Then we get out and meet the rest of the monster closets, including 2 archies but eh, in the end I think the rote of the map set is getting to me. Even though I only write about those today but I played them on their day more or less, they are starting to run together. The combat is getting more beefy and more competent as we go so I doubt I'll have a bad time like with some of 1KILL, but I am looking forward for the mapper to come up with new mechanics besides arena with keys that open up more closets. 


Now for the good part, to catch up on the reading in the thread!

Edited March 14, 2023 by Helm

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 14: Urban Wasteland

(Played with Anteresian Reliquary mod, complevel 9)

 

This one wasn't very good. The idea of some ghetto where crack deals occurred around every corner was not really taken full advantage and to be fair, little can be done under vanilla constraints. But the thing is that combat manages to be even more formulaic than the last map, to the extent an Arch-vile is guaranteed to appear in all of the last few ambushes which increase steadily in size and intensity until the last one which sort of scales back things. But the Arch-viles were all just really annoying, with the last one even managing to killme, as my health being at 34. All of the secrets are really obvious and mainly serve to provide more cells in case the rezzing gets too bad. A BFG would have been a far better idea, or perhaps more rockets because while it can be cool to run between buildings, the implementation is incredibly sloggish. Definitely feels closer to filler to the extent it might be my least favorite! Although the Papa Roach song actually wasn't too bad, believe it or not. Can't say I've heard much beyond their hit singles though. I now see what Azure is saying about mods. Perhaps the problem is this being a one-man megawad. We'll just let that percolate for a bit before we forget about it. But it still feels like the weakest map thus far.

lmd_fragport14.zip

Edited March 14, 2023 by LadyMistDragon

[TJG1289]

GZDoom/UV/Continuous/Saves

Map 14: Urban Wasteland

Kills and secrets: 100%

Time: 14:08

Deaths: 1

 

When I think of the brownness of this WAD, this is the map I think of. It's probably the brownest out of all of them, since even the insides of the building have no color to them either. Other than that, there's nothing really remarkable about it. It's very much a basic version of Downtown from the IWAD, but not as fun (I actually like Downtown, so what?). Like the previous map, whenever you grab a key, a bunch of monsters show up outside. One of these fights is easy since you can take everything out from a window and not have to worry about getting hit cause they can't reach you. Another has a very nice secret behind you after grabbing the key, with a soul sphere, mega armor, and cells. The only annoyance is the center building. The lift with 8 different stops at 8 different heights is already annoying, but once you hit the switch lowering the outside wall to the exit, another archie shows up outside, starts reviving the demons there, and creates a roadblock trying to get back out the blue door. This was how I died, from a baron entering the door preventing me from taking out the archie that had targeted me. It can be a crap shoot trying to get out. There are 3 different bulk cell secrets in this building, but rockets are the best way to deal with all of this. I also could have sworn there was a BFG in this building, no? Oh well. This has always been one of my least favorite levels in the WAD. 

[Book Lord]

MAP 15 – Freight Depot

DSDA-Doom v0.24.3, UV, Continuous, blind run w/saves

A commendable attempt at creating realistic environments that were interesting to play, Freight Depot also carried out a fascinating quest for the secret level and provided the first BFG on UV. The ‘Main Warehouse’ was a textbook crate depot, that could be entered either from the switch-operated main gate or from a more convenient side door marked by the customary chainsaw. All weapons could be found in the storehouse, hidden in the various nooks and crannies, and a decent ammo stock was collected by jumping on top of the crates, helped by simple forklifts. A detour in the cramped corridors of the ‘Offices’ led me to the RK and to the corresponding door, where a switch revealed another switch (!) to open the gate to the next section. The four Arch-Vile ambush had been spoiled by sprites protruding through the wall texture, but their number was shocking at this stage of the map.

Spoiler

The ’Rail Yard’ brought the map scale to a higher level with its immense outdoor spaces, which trivialised the combat action but convinced me with their gigantic props, like cranes, monorail platforms, containers, and a train with basic detailing exalted by the amusing Cacoswarm it released after picking up the GK. Making Arachnotrons and Hell Knights infight in the western yard was super fun, and the only portion that just beat about the bush was the north-western group of warehouses populated by a few former humans. The ‘Control Hut’ was the only mandatory place to visit for the BK, featuring another Arch-Vile commander. A Cyberdemon livened up the return path to the warehouse; after the boss bit the dust only a Baron, a switch and a group of Arachnotrons separated Jody Russell from the normal exit.

Spoiler

 

 

 

In the info text The Ultimate Doomer claimed “that the secret levels are VERY well hidden”, but the shootable switch exposing the exit with the six coloured light columns was easy to spot. With the help of the automap, it was not difficult to find the six secret compartments that formed the puzzle, obtaining the BFG as a bonus. The only non-obvious step was to toggle the column at the centre of each hidden room, switching the light off. I did it by chance in the green chamber and it was an eureka moment. The action was mirrored by the disappearance of the matching column on the way to the secret exit, underlining the extreme clarity pursued by Clark in his Doom endeavours. Barring a few filler sections, I admired the large-scale sector architecture of Freight Depot, I enjoyed the standout combat set pieces, and I respected the concept and execution of the secret level puzzle.

[TJG1289]

Heads up, since we're about to get to the secret levels. Make sure you read the Crmaxe txt file to understand what map 32 is doing.

[Veeda Vidlak]

Map13 “Pipe Factory”

 

Yay, city map

 

Not technically a hot start, but the opening is definitely heated. We’ve got three chaingunners shooting the breeze with their backs to us and making a sound alerts a number of mancubi, arachnos, and shotgunners on the factory floor. The northwest has little sheds containing weaponry, which we’ll need to fully clear out the starting area. I also like the doomcute here, the little numbers are just for flavor this time and the desks remind me of the office space in TNT’s Central Processing.

 

Head up to the control room and grab the red key, triggering a refill of the factory floor. The spastic teleportation actually makes this encounter surprisingly unpredictable, and I’d say its pretty good as a result. Head outside (which you don’t actually need the red key to do) and see a wide open fenced in area, with a couple buildings, a guarded entry checkpoint, and a mastermind patrolling the grounds. She’s just an ammo sink (though I like Ralgor’s tactic of dealing with her) and the gate guards are two viles, who are a bit annoying to take out but reward you with a soulsphere and megaarmor.

 

The red key lets us progress into the “big hole”, which is a building with a big hole in the ground. I was so certain of an ambush when I jumped down to grab it that I was actually annoyed there wasn’t one. What’s the point of this pit dammit? Give me my positional disadvantage skirmish! Deal with the pinkies outside and head into pipe storage, which Stephen actually tried to make look like a pipe warehouse (I appreciate the effort). Nothing strenuous in here, but head back outside for your actual key fight.

 

A bunch of stuff ports in, including two viles and some gasbags back in the factory. Not much to say here, good old-fashioned infinite real estate smackdown. Just save some plasma for the pain elementals or they could become a problem. Once you’re finished use the blue key to access the roof. Before we leave we get a very rude archvile to waste time with followed by… another very rude archvile to waste time with.

 

This is a fine map. It has a good start, a couple fun fights, and the buildings are nicely detailed. The outside area isn’t, but that’s par for the course in this wad. The two ending viles get a ten yard penalty flag but otherwise I have no complaints. Meets expectations and is solidly in the upper half of the wad.

 

Fast Monsters: I’ll continue to go with recordings and a couple brisk notes

-          The viles at the big brawl felt like dudes keeping onlookers away from a street fight, they wouldn’t let me get close until the demons had mostly killed each other

-          Fast pain elementals can go straight (back) to hell

fragport13_lmp.zip

Edited March 15, 2023 by Veeda Vidlak

[RonLivingston]

Fragport is my all time favorite wad, I'am a fan of Stephen Clark as usual, and I knew what it looks like in the PSXDoom Format, I love the design of those fright trains and local stations

map15 freight depot 

map16 city center 

map18 northgate 

 

But my comment about Map19 “Dockside”

 

I wonder why there was a dead marine inside that freight train? I think because he was attempting to drive the train to Map20 "spaceport" where he was ready to reach that ship but he was killed by that one archvile

Edited March 15, 2023 by RonLivingston

[brick]

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

 

MAP15 - “Freight Depot”
Visually and architecturally this is a great map. The first part is a warehouse, not quite a crate maze (missing the maze part). There's great use of elevation to lend a tactical aspect but none of the enemies are so high up that they're unreachable. The main goal in this part it to get into the offices and unlock access to the large doors: west goes into the train yard, north will eventually lead to the exit (south was the entrance). The train station looks and plays great, with the various platforms, the freight train in the rail shed to the south with the archvile driver and the cacos coming out of the containers after grabbing the key (a very humorous touch!). Continuing past the western platform we reach a series of storage areas (a free-trade zone?) and a control room housing the blue key, which will grant access to the normal exit back in the offices. The cyberdemon ambush on the way back was the most dangerous fight, though it's also very easy to ignore and run past it. This being MAP15 I kept an eye out for secrets, and managed to find a series of similar ones; rectangular rooms with helpful goodies and a pillar of coloured light in the centre, pressing it would turn the light off. I was sure this had something to do with the secret exit, but then got stumped for a bit, until I finally noticed a shootable switch that I had missed. This led into a dark corridor, and I think those light pillars had opened various obstacles in this corridor, leading to a pretty cool-looking gate into a starry void. This is probably one of my favourites so far.

 

MAP31 - “The Void”
Befitting the secret slot, this goes in the completely opposite direction from the wad's typical design. Gone are any attempts at realism, this is an abstract and bizarre series of tests set in the titular void. Many rooms are made of pure blackness (even light-amp cheats won't help see much), lights flash in strange patterns, enemies float in the void while shooting at you... visually it's all a bit unnerving. The starting room has doors leading to 3 of these flashing colours rooms, and beyond each is a trial of sorts. The lost soul maze to the east is much easier than it looks, because of all the impassable lines most of them cannot reach you. I found taking the red path I could stay on higher ground, and navigating to the key was pretty straightforward. The west side leads to a very cool-looking effect, because of the way Doom rendering works it seems as if the steps are appearing out of thin air in front of you as you step on them one after the other. The north side is a gauntlet of sorts with various enemies shooting from a distance, and a Spider barring the way. Maxing this must be a huge pain, but I one-shot the Spider with the BFG given beforehand and just ran past everything else, which makes the whole section trivial. It's very nice of TUD to not hide the secret exit and provide such clear warnings, because he knew some players would want to go back to a save here and just go to MAP16.

 

27 minutes ago, RonLivingston said:

I wonder why there was a dead marine inside that freight train? I think because he was attempting to drive the train to Map20 "spaceport" where he was ready to reach that ship but he was killed by that one archvile

That's exactly it, the intermission text after MAP20 specifically mentions the "dead marine on the train", his plan to blow up the reactor, and of course "it's up to you". I liked that Clark was working around the limitations of intermission texts and when they can be used, and added that little bit of visual storytelling so that the ultimate goal makes more sense.

[Veeda Vidlak]

Another one, I'll try not to fall behind during the secret levels but I'll probably need the weekend to fully catch up.

 

Map14 “Urban Wasteland”

 

4 hours ago, LadyMistDragon said:

The idea of some ghetto where crack deals occurred around every corner

 

I can’t unsee this now.

 

Urban Wasteland plays like its name and the above quote’s image implies… it’s not very high quality. The combat is procedural. The detailing is basic. The layout is simple and has a lot of symmetry. The monster placement is samey. Even the secrets are weak, three of them are bulk cells shoehorned into the tunnels in the awful lift section at the end.

 

So to start we have our slum, infested with a bunch of enemies. It’s comfort food combat but it does the job well enough, clearing the place out isn't trivial. Afterwards we get to collect the three keys (again) and grabbing each one spawns some stuff in the main area. It is… pretty boring. There’s so little to differentiate encounters (or key areas) that I don’t really have anything to talk about… I guess the viles added after the blue key are notable? If the map ended here, I’d probably file it under the filler category and move on without complaint.

 

Unfortunately, the level has the worst ending I’ve seen in this wad so far, putting us through a wearisome lift section with a bunch of offshoot tunnels containing single enemies, one of which has a switch needed to proceed. Hitting it opens the exit and triggers a vile up above… forcing you to muscle past a ton of revived meat at the blue door. Wtf is this doing in the middle of the hood? What did speedrunners do to hurt you? It ends the map on quite a sour note and there isn’t anything beforehand I found endearing to offset that.

 

So do I think this map is bad? Eh, I dunno. This is still Doom, give me demons to kill and I’ll be entertained. It’s the latest filler map and a particularly egregious example of one, so it’s unwise to have parts like that lift section to give reasons to dislike it. Regardless, I'm not gonna dwell on it, on to map15.

 

Fast Monsters: I gotta admit, the fast parameter really does energize routine combat. This otherwise jejune map becomes quite intense with it, probably giving the biggest increase in excitement I’ve gotten out of speedy bois thus far. I can see some people have been turning to mods to stay awake and this is basically the same thing.

fragport14_fast.zip

Edited March 15, 2023 by Veeda Vidlak

[Ralgor]

MAP15 - “Freight Depot”

Using the 2003 version of Fragport
dsda-doom v0.25.6 cl2, UV, Pistol start, blind run, single segment
100% kills and secrets

I'm using the enhanced version of MAP15 from the 2003 release. The main difference is that the enhanced version has some train cars in the outdoor rail yard. I can't see any other real differences between the two.

We've visited the factory, and then we visited the waste dump. Now we're here at the freight depot that presumably is here to bring raw materials to the factory and take away the finished pipes. We start out in front of a warehouse. Right now it seems to be mostly housing demons. This start is very rough with a pistol start, since there is very little ammo to be had. You have to scrounge around the warehouse to find enough ammo to actually clear the area. Once you managed to do that and find a couple of secrets though, you'll have enough ammo for the rest of the map.

There is a stairway in the warehouse that is badly designed. Attempting to go down it will cause you to bump your head constantly. And on top of that, there are a couple of hell knights at the top which will attempt to follow you down. It is very easy to take some damage here from them simply because you can't move around properly.

When you flip the switch that will unlock the way to the rail yard, it releases four arch-viles into the warehouse. This is pretty crazy and is easily the most exciting part of the whole level. Hopefully you've found all of the weapons before releasing this, otherwise you're going to die horribly.

Once you leave the warehouse, there isn't much that will challenge you. Dealing with a bunch of mancubi in a very open area is mostly just annoying. You can't really get close to them without having to play bullet hell. So I just tried to find places where I could hide and then shoot one at a time. It wasn't very fun. After that there's an arch-vile trapped in a train engine that is easy to kill from a distance. A while later there's a cyberdemon who is pretty easy to take down with the plasma rifle.

There are a ton of secrets in this map, and each one raises a pillar blocking your way to the secret exit. I didn't have a lot of problems finding all of the secrets. Interestingly, in this version of the map you don't have to use the pillars to get access to the secret. Maybe you don't in the newer versions either, just walking into the secret seems to be enough. The action to turn out the light is still there in this version though.

The best part of this map is honestly the warehouse, although the rest of the map is pretty nice visually as well. The secret exit is well hidden but still doable without resorting to a wiki or the editor. On the other hand there is way too little ammo in the beginning, and that stairway in the warehouse sucks. I still find this to be a good map.

Grade: B

MAP15s - 32:20.69 (32:20)  K: 104/104  I: 2/3  S: 8/8

ralgor_fragport15.zip

[Ralgor]

Here is the 2003 version of Fragport that I'm using. I can't find this anywhere else on the internet, since the 2011 version has replaced it. I don't know how I ended up with this version and not the 2011 version, since I downloaded it last year.

 

fragport.zip

 

If you want to play any of my demos, you'll need this. Also I'm using this command line:

 

dsda-doom -iwad "doom2.wad" -deh "Fragport.deh" -file "Fragport.wad" "Frgprt07.wad" "Frgprt15.wad" "FRGPRT29.WAD" -playdemo "ralgor_fragport15.lmp" -complevel 2

 

If posting this is against the rules or something, I can delete it. But I spent time looking for it elsewhere and couldn't find it...

[Book Lord]

MAP 31 – The Void

DSDA-Doom v0.24.3, UV, Continuous, blind run w/saves

 

I am not sure how popular the ‘void’ concept was at the time of Fragport’s release. Considering its appearance in the first secret level, it must have been a visual novelty and a rather experimental way to build a level. The Ultimate Doomer sent Jody Russell to an alternate dimension formed of bright, vividly coloured sectors, clashing with the suffocating blackness of The Void that surrounded them. The unusual environment hosted a linear series of challenges belonging to the awkward kind, instead of feeling hard or clever in some way.

Spoiler

The three doors in the starting chamber were unlocked and the heaps of goodies behind them could be looted freely, suggesting harsh combat scenarios that did not take place. Following the same colour etiquette of Fragport city, the yellow chamber should be entered first to find a charming blue & red labyrinth, populated by Lost Souls. In practical terms, the blue and red floors marked two separate paths to reach the RK: I navigated the blue one first, then I climbed on the red walls to find a return path. I soon abandoned it because I could not find a gap across the blue trail, since the red one seemed enclosed within invisible walls. The author envisioned some arbitrary crossing points, but the maze could be left by retracing your steps along the blue path.

Spoiler

The second section tried to represent Penrose stairs, an optical illusion that could not be achieved in a 3D environment; still, I appreciated Clark’s effort and the bizarre sensations generated by height differences in this high contrast space. The 20% damage floor at the bottom was like a fist in my face, but I enjoyed climbing to the GK and fighting the Cacoswarm. I found the following ‘Danger Zone’ much less to my liking; I was unsure about how I was supposed to play, so I just targeted static monsters without exposing myself to their crossfire. The green zones on the red carpet were shielded from projectiles, but I could not see a purpose for their existence. I collected the BK, gunned down the pop-up Spider Mastermind, and reached the blue door while still scratching my head.

 

A cluster of 8 Arch-Viles in a single room ended The Void in the silliest possible way. After completing this rather inconclusive secret level, maybe an original alternate theme for its time but lacking gameplay ideas to support it, I was tempted to choose the door leading back to the ‘City’. The disclaimer message on the way to the ‘Maze’, described as the “hardest level ever”, was not inviting after this MAP31 preamble, but the accompanying text file (“go on, go on, go on, go on, go on etc.”) convinced me to press forward. I hope that I will not regret it.

 

MAP 32 – The Crystal Maze

DSDA-Doom v0.24.3, UV, Continuous, blind run w/saves

 

Even after reading the indispensable CRMAZE.TXT notice, my first reaction to The Crystal Maze was of total bewilderment. A comprehensive exploration and some failed attempts were necessary to find my bearings, and to match the graphic environment with the given information. I doubt that any knowledge of the source of inspiration could assist players facing this treasure trove of puzzles for the first time; however, it might help them to identify the context and the nature of the challenges.

Spoiler

Willing or not, Kill Crazy found himself inside the creation of a mad, though still brilliant architect. The Ultimate Doomer devised all sort of trials and riddles to “test every aspect of your DooMing skills”, organising them like in the homonymous British game show from the early 90s. The map was divided into four thematic zones: “Aztec, Industrial, Medieval and Futuristic. Each zone has 3 games, ALL of which must be completed to reach the Crystal Dome”, where a Cyberdemon guarded two Megaspheres and the portal to MAP16. An unspecified fact, that I found confusing, was the physical connection between the four zones. I would rather have used the first room as a teleport hub instead.

Spoiler

Each zone contained 3 game cells, 3 small rooms with resources, and a corner with 3 “Reset” switches in case you need to attempt a challenge again. The games had a time limit of 2, 2.5 and 3 minutes respectively; after that, the player was soft locked in the cell. Not very friendly to people playing without savegames, and an absolute nightmare for the ones that dislike puzzles, despite not belonging to those categories my experience in The Crystal Maze was mixed. A lot of creativity was invested in the design, but I argue that not every test was equally fair and satisfying to beat. The low monster count suggested that the ‘physical challenges’ (i.e., the ones primarily involving combat) were not a big deal, with the Futuristic one being the most memorable because it included coloured light pillars to switch off, instead of standard triggers as the others. I enjoyed the castle siege in the Medieval area, and I was surprised by the closet ambush in the Industrial section. The cavern brawl of the Aztec zone was the least attractive setup.

Spoiler

I had a hard time with the ‘skill’ challenges, demanding swift movement and dexterity. The first I attempted was the Aztec ledge walk, a rather tedious trek where I cheated a bit, saving mid-way to try difficult jumps and skip big chunks of the itinerary. I preferred the shorter and more varied library platforming in the Medieval zone, while dodging crushers in the Industrial and shooting switches on timed lifts in the Futuristic were miserable experiences.

Spoiler

The ‘mental’ tests were my favourites, except the crate maze in the Industrial zone that was one of the two that I failed to complete in the requested time (the other was the puzzle with timed lifts). Some of these challenges lacked the impeccable logic I expected from Stephen Clark: the Aztec lava room had a winding safe path slightly marked on the ceiling, but strafe running over 20% damaging floor was a sounder approach; the metal column maze was arbitrary and was solved by trial-and-error; the coloured square labyrinth was a clever and delightful homage to Last Call, but one of the last moves had an equally valid choice that broke the sequence; needless to say, 50-50 turned out to be the wrong choice for me.

 

Only The Ultimate Doomer could have developed a secret level like The Crystal Maze, celebrating his love for Doom and for puzzles at the same time. Although it repulsed me at first glance and I eventually did not like many of its challenges, it surely belonged to the must-see attractions of Fragport. Puzzle fans will naturally love it, but everyone should try something like this at least once in a lifetime.

Edited March 15, 2023 by Book Lord

[Ralgor]

MAP31 - “The Void”
dsda-doom v0.25.6 cl2, UV, Pistol start, blind run, single segment
100% kills and secrets
Using the 2003 version of Fragport

This is probably the strangest and most abstract map in this wad. "The Void" is aptly named, as you seem to have been thrust into some weird test chamber. You start in a completely blank void with three doors out. All three lead you into rooms with weapons and ammo. Two of those rooms then have doors that need keys, while the first one is just a normal door.

The first test chamber is just a maze with a bunch of lost souls. It's more annoying than anything. The key is at the end, and there you can actually get up on the elevated red part of the maze. It looks like you should be able to get to the key entirely while on the red maze, but I couldn't figure out the trick to do it. It's easy enough from the lower portion anyway. I'd be pretty impressed if this were actually two mazes in the same space and you have to travel down both.

The second test chamber is just some colored stairs up to a key. It is a neat effect though since the "void" only reveals the few steps ahead of you. But otherwise this room is pretty boring.

The last test chamber is just a path through the void with "safe" areas. The rest opens you up to fire from various snipers stationed on platforms. This part is kind of dumb because it's really easy to use the chaingun, plasma rifle, and rocket launcher to clear out the snipers. Not even the spider mastermind can liven this place up. It's pretty mediocre.

The last room has eight arch-viles in a room. They can't leave the room though, so this part is just kind of dumb. Don't forget you have a BFG in this map, like I did.

Going through the door on the right takes you to the super secret level, and has a dire warning about the challenge you'll face. We'll see if it lives up the hype!

Grade: D

MAP31s - 12:54.83 (12:54)  K: 49/49  I: 4/4  S: 0/0

ralgor_fragport31.zip

[Celestin]

MAP15: Freight Depot

 

Assaulting the titular warehouse can get tough, as you are shelled from every direction and chased by pinkies on the ground, but once you clear the place of initial threats, the map gets much less tense. It's yet again a linear search for all three keys, spurced with traps like a quad archvile trap (which is best dealt with using a secret BFG), a cacodemon swarm in the train shed or a duel with a cyberdemon.

 

To me, the main appeal of Freight Depot is accessing the secret exit. It isn't hard to notice the switch that reveal it, but the corridor is blocked by six pillars. In order to lower the, you need to find as much hidden rooms scattered around the map and interact with light columns inside. I have a soft spot for exploratory maps, so this one is right up my alley.

 

Finally, I can't not talk about the details Clark created with sector art, like the cranes in the rail yard or a train with an archvile driver. Also, the soundtrack here is is a midi version of "Crazy Train", which I find amusing.

 

Overall, a great map. I wonder where the secret portal will lead?

 

 

MAP31: Void

 

If you were getting bored with quasi-realistic level design, Void would offer a respite. It's an uber-abstract map, where 90% of textures are solid black and the rest is made of monochromatic colours, while "Rainbow in the Dark" plays in the background. It gives this place a completely surreal vibe, unlike anything in Fragport so far. The gameplay sadly can't match the presentation. 

 

Void hands the player a complete set of weapons at the start and tasks them with surviving a string of miniature fights. A maze with lost souls is more tedious than difficult, a cacodemon trap is unthreatening and the final stretch is just bad - a catwalk with sniping revenants followed by another catwalk, this time with added mancubi and a mastermind. I eliminated most enemies here with infighting, before killing the rest with plasma and rockets. The final room contains 8 archviles in a tight space that stand no chance against a loaded BFG and exits to both MAP16 and MAP32. The latter warns about "the hardest level ever" and asks the player to read an attached file. I'm already scared.

 

Jokes aside, MAP31 is a good concept that doesn't live up to an endless potential of a void map.

 

 

MAP32: Crystal Maze

 

Stephen Clark wasn't lying. If you can beat this map with no saves, you are a true Doom god.

 

Based on a British game show of the same name, Crystal Maze is a series of 12 challenges that will test your skills. In each room, you need to reach an armour bonus within a time limit, otherwise you get locked and cannot progress further. Expect hunting for switches under enemy fire, mazes and environmental hazards.

I got most of them on my first or second attempt, with 3 exceptions. The crusher hallway, platforming section in the library and The Chasm 2.0. The last one is easily the worst, as there is one part where you need to walk down on thin ledges which are below your POV. I ended up using an automap here, which I think is the only way to solve this without using a mouselook. I know I could have save-scummed those rooms, but the info file advised against saving mid-room, so I complied. In the end, I have only myself to blame.

 

With all rooms conquered, all there is to do is killing a cyberdemon in a small arena and leaving this place for good.

 

I have very conflicting feelings here. No doubt Crystal Maze is a labour of love. It's probably the best looking map in Fragport so far, with a blend of themes and some creative obstacles to overcome. However, it's also long, at times overly complex and janky (on 3 separate attempts, the game didn't register I found the armour bonus and I had to re-do the rooms; good thing those were the easier one, otherwise I would have just skipped this map). I can admire the concept and the effort put into bringing it to life, Crystal Maze was, in the end, a frustrating experience I'd likely will never revisit. After all, winning a game show should feel like an achievement.

[Roofi]

So, here are my reviews for map 15 as well as the secret maps, all beaten saveless as usual.

 

Map 15 "Freight Depot"

 

 

I know that Fragport is far from being the most detailed vanilla wad I have ever played but I'm quite impressed by Stephen Clark managed to respect the vanilla limits for those such extensive areas with those multiple railway platforms and large warehouse. In spite of having a linear progression with a serie of keys to obtain in a multiple order, "Freight Depot" offers quite a lot of exploration and the quest for the hidden colored light columns incitate you to investigate this map from top to bottom.

 

Freight Depot doesn't feature really difficult fights but ammo is a bit tight and the perched chaingunners can easily target you in the warehouse. for the rest, a steady approach suffices to beat that map and it's what I love in Fragport

 

So, for its openess exploration-heavy layout and for the realistic tone as usual, Freight Depot represents another banger from Fragport.

 

Grade : A

 

 

 

Map 31 : The Void

 

 

So, we enter in secrets levels and of course, as standard megawads, Fragport contains 2 gimmicky levels which map 31 is based on colours while map 32 ... I'll leave that for later. 

 

You have three rooms containing each all the items you need to properly beat that level and which the blinking checkerboard floors reminds me of a nightclub. And without wanting to spoil you too much but Fragport actually has a nightclub later in the megawad !

 

Except of the last group of arch-viles which may bother you if you're not confident enough with the BFG, the different challenges proposed by this level are harmless. About the danger zone, you just need to kill the enemies as you go along, so no need to hurry.

 

Map 31 will not mark your memory forever but I like the quirky colorful theme and the fact gimmicky doesn't always rhyme with obnoxious.

 

 

Grade : B

 

 

 

 

 

Map 32 : The Crystal Maze 

 

 

As a french person born in the late 90's, I strictly had no idea that a TV game called "The Crystal Maze" existed in this world. Now, after playing Fragport's map 32 I think it's equivalent to a game called "Fort Boyard" in our country with tests to pass in an odd time.

 

You have different challenges dispersed in 4 themed sections : 2 tech bases, 1 medieval castle and 1 naturel-aztec, as well as supply rooms with a LOT of medkits but not so much ammo whereas you'll need of them for the populated sections.

 

Stephen Clark doesn't lie when he warns it's one of the hardest levels because you're likely to struggle in this map for severals reasons :

 

- Some sections require accurate movements which turn out to frustrating if you don't know an appropriate technique (ex : the catwalk section in the aztec area).

- The layout is complex and you can be confused if you're not the kind of player to read txt like me. At the beginning, I didn't understand what the numbers above the entrance doors meant.

-  designed the level well and it proves to be partially buggy. Basically, you have to collect armour bonuses to open doors that block access to keys, but sometimes the linedef that opens the door doesn't activate and you have to restart the section again.

 

So here is  a quick strategy guide, in case you want to beat that map saveless :

 

- START WITH THE CRUSHER SECTION AT ALL COST. That one is so stressful and ruthless that you'll be relieved to finish it.

 

- Each theme park has a section full of monsters. I think the medieval one is the hardest mainly because of the sniping revenants. You can skip a lot of monsters but I advice you to keep some cells for that one so it will be easier to get rid of the skeletons as well as the arch vile near the entrance of the castle. The other sections are a lot more simple but it's necessary to use ammunition sparingly.

 

- In case you struggle at the catwalk section in the aztec area, the automap is your best friend ! And take your time.

 

- The other sections are a lot more easygoing since they just require a somewhat functional memory

 

For my part here is my ranking of the sections, from the easiest to the hardest :

 

- The puzzle similar to TNT map 30 with a colour scheme to follow (Green tech section)

- The crate maze

- The floor is lava from the Aztec section

- The switches to shoot while crossing perpetually moving lifts (boring section)

- The maze with the countless bars to open in the medieval area

- The monster-filled cavern

- The slimy paths to take before releasing some monsters from 4 monster closets

- The section populated by monsters where you have to turn off several coloured bars like in map 15.

- The easy but stressful catwaks above lava

- The library's rather tricky route.

- The guarded castle with its sniping revenants

- The infamous crusher section where a single mistake sends you to the graveyard.

 

Overall, The Crystal Maze varies from the traditional map 32 populated with countless monsters without however lightening the pressure on the reckless player who would like to perform without a save. I don't think it surpasses the Aurelius's 1Klines 2 map 32 in terms of infamy but it is a very special and memorable map from Fragport that I really enjoyed.

 

Grade : A

 

 

 

Edited March 15, 2023 by Roofi

[Ralgor]

3 hours ago, Celestin said:

Stephen Clark wasn't lying. If you can beat this map with no saves, you are a true Doom god.

 

I'm no doom god, that's for sure. I did manage a single segment demo though.

 

MAP32 - “Crystal Maze”
dsda-doom v0.25.6 cl2, UV, Pistol start, blind run w/ saves, then single segment w/ demo
100% kills and secrets
Using the 2003 version of Fragport

This is a map composed of thirteen challenges grouped into threes across four wings (medieval, industrial, futuristic, and aztec), and then a bonus "challenge" (the crystal dome) at the end. Some of the challenges are platforming sections, some are mazes, some are little combat puzzles. Each one has a timer that will lock you in if you take too long. I don't like the idea of soft-locking the player because they failed a challenge, so this map already is off on the wrong foot with me. Luckily, the timers are pretty forgiving. I didn't once get locked in, but they caused quite a bit of anxiety even when I knew I was well ahead of schedule.

 

I really hate platforming in Doom. It's one of the things that will make me hate a map more than anything. I don't mind just running across some pillars, but the instant you try to make it challenging I start to hate it real quick. It's not that I'm incapable of doing it, it's just that I don't play doom to do platforming. Maybe one of these days I'll get over it and start to enjoy this type of gameplay, but that's not today. I'm also not a fan of complex crusher layouts, and I generally consider those a type of platforming.

 

This level has multiple sections of hard platforming, all of which I found miserably to play. These sections were very stressful, but not in the way I enjoy. When I did get past them I just felt relief, not any sort of feeling of accomplishment. Unfortunately, the platforming (and crushing) sections contain the only real challenges on this map. The rest of them are fairly easy, or at least not harder than the maps we've been playing up to this point.

I've mentioned before that I don't necessarily mind mazes. I don't automatically dislike them anyway. The mazes in this level are mostly just boring though. The color maze puzzle is unique, but easy. The standard maze with the cacodemon at the end feels like it could be in any map. If you keep your speed up and stick to the left-hand rule, you should complete this with time to spare. The maze with all of the door columns is annoying, if only because of the sound the door makes. It's also pretty easy, though slightly harder than the previous two. The lava room is technically a sort of maze, but it's easier to just run across it and take the damage. I never died even when I managed to take every tic of damage.

I also hate the crusher challenge room. The crushers are never timed exactly the same way, so you really have to watch how they line up. It's difficult in a couple spots  to see the timing of the next few crushers, and it's very easy to misread when to keep moving forward. I was eventually able to complete this more often than not, but sometimes I'd get crushed by something that I didn't seem to be under.

 

I'm also not a fan of the weird switch shooting challenge. My demo attempt went about as badly as it ever had, but I still made it out before the time ran out.

The combat sections are not really worth mentioning. They aren't difficult, and if you collect all of the weapons from all of the wings before doing any of them, you should find it fairly easy. At least compared to the platforming. There's plenty of health and armor around to replenish yourself before moving on to the next combat challenge. The fight with the cyberdemon at the end was the most fun part of this level, but even that wasn't very fun.

Overall only two of the rooms are actually challenging, and those for reasons I really don't like. A couple of the others can be somewhat difficult, but not to any extreme degree. Most of them are fairly easy. I died dozens of times during my initial run, then the practice sessions, and finally the eight attempts to do the whole level in a single segment. The vast majority of those deaths were in the crusher room or the parkour room (that's what I'm calling the wooden platforming room). I could never complete either consistently, but I did finally get lucky enough to finish both in one session. The first time I managed that I finished the rest of the level without issue. I did spend way too much time practicing the two hard challenges so I could get a single-segment demo, and I disliked it the whole time. My issue with this level isn't with the difficulty, but just the type of difficulty. I had a harder time with some #1 Kill: TNG levels, but I really enjoyed that sort of challenge.

Grade: F

MAP32 - 25:32.14 (25:32)  K: 94/94  I: 15/15  S: 0/0

ralgor_fragport32.zip

 

[TJG1289]

GZDoom/UV/Continuous/Saves

Map 15: Freight Depot

Kills and secrets: 100%

Time: 18:11

 

This one is one of my favs in this WAD. We've got a big warehouse full of crates that's attached to a railway. The warehouse has a few offices inside, while the railyard has a few storage buildings on the outskirts, along with a retired train. It's a linear key hunt here, but the bigger open areas are fun to go through, with the railway containing a bunch of heavies. There's a definite ammo shortage out here, but those buildings on the outskirts got some goodies in them. The only real threat is when you come back out of the offices after unlocking the railway and 4 archies swarm you. There is a secret BFG you can grab before unleashing this, and that would make it a little more trivial, but I forgot how to get it until the end of the map. The cyb that shows up in the railyard after grabbing the final key surprised me tho. I kinda forgot about him. This is map 15, so that means secret exit! In this case, you have to find 6 secret rooms, each with a color light pillar in the center you have to turn off. Most of these are pretty easy to spot, if you're checking the automap. Opening up the passage to the exit is the easiest part, but the others aren't as obvious. The one that I always forget how to access is the one that is by the train. The intended way has it open when you enter the area from the warehouse, then haul your booty to the opening before it closes. This time, a shotgunner down there wandered into the room when I first entered the area and got stuck there, so when I grabbed the green key, he re-opened the room for me. So nice! I then shot him in the face. Overall, a pretty fun one, and I like way to unlock the secret exit.

 

Map 31: The Void

Kills and secrets: 100%

Time: 8:39

 

I do enjoy me some void levels. One of the first type of these settings, this secret map is all about the gimmick. The starting room branches off into 3 different rooms, with 2 needing keys. Each room has a nice chunk of goodies before moving into a main room. The first room is a low maze with a bunch of lost souls. Easy. Going back has you jump onto the red hedges and traverse that way back. There's a bunch of invisible walls tho, so it may not be clear which way you need to go in order to get back. The next room in just a giant staircase with lost souls and cacos. Lastly, the Danger Zone has perched monsters attacking you that you can hide from behind solid black walls, indicated by the different colors on the floor. There's a big room with revs, mancs, and a spider mastermind that you can cause a little bit of infighting with, then BFG 'em. Same with the final room behind the blue key door, which is like 8 archies. Again, nothing too bad with the BFG. Then, you get the choice in going back to the main set, or continuing onto map 32. I took the latter route. Overall, interesting gimmick map, but it's not really that memorable.

 

I don't have time to do 32 today, so I'll do that tomorrow. I've actually never beat that one, just cause I have a feeling it's going to take a while.

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 15: Freight Depot

 

Crazy Train is about as good a song as one could hope for that seems touch inappropriate.

 

Not like that's so obvious at first: opening warehouse is stuffed with enemies and we took a few deaths before finding a weapon collection order that more or less worked. Playing with things running in the background is a drawback because it kept us from hearing a crate lower that conceals the berserk pack secret. Ammo is also incredibly tight and we're initially fighting for basically every space of square ground against pinkies, chaingunners strategically placed on the crates to make staying in one place questionable overall, and Revenants. At a certain point, we open a door to the titular depot, containing some quite impressive scale and scattered Mancubi that will immolate careless players. Otherwise, combat we'll just say isn't challenging to say the least and while the picking up the red key unleashes a an Arch-vile attack that proves especially nasty without the BFG and on pistol start, that one's probably the hardest, including the obligatory Revenant swarm that shows up at some point I'm sure is fairly routine, really. Although the Pain Elementals near the train did prove a little bit annoying with no rockets, but it wasn't too bad, they just went down slower than we'd like. A cloud of Cacos we easily had enough ammo for and a Cyberdemon were the later highlights. Eventually, we can unlock the regular exit and confront a whole squad of Arachnotrons that are easy to blast to bits. But this is Map 15 and we know what that means! Basically, we have to enter a series of hidden rooms with colored lights, most of which will interestingly turn off when hit. Then return to the first forklift we saw in the map, take it up, then scramble to the highest point of the crates to find a shootable switch which will then temporarily open a hidden door leading to the positively sci-fi-styled darkened hallway which will have barriers blocking the way if all the hidden rooms have not been found. At the far end is a mysterious portal....

 

Map 31: The Void

 

Taking an entirely opposite departure from the realism of Fragport overall, we're deposited into a series of largely pitch-black rooms, though with a few consisting of flashing lights of a given color. The basic objective is to enter some darkened rooms containing Lost Souls, one being a maze whose walls can't be climbed over and one being a mysterious collection of platforms over an empty void. The Lost Souls may not seem like much but they perform an important ambient feature. Eventually, we enter into a series of invisible walls with windows from whence Revenants and an Arch-vile can cut us to pieces if we allow them to do so. Tragically, pass this point without finding the blue key, we'll be softlocked. And indeed, that's what happened. The amazing but imperfect cacophony of Revenants, Hell Knights, and Spider Mastermind made for a fairly entertaining show, but on entering the room at the other end, the blue key was required and unfortunately, you'll also be softlocked in this room if the door behind's allowed to close! Although there are apparently nothing but Arch-viles at the end, which is on par for the course with Stephen Clark for better or for worst. Like, I get it but anyways....

 

 

Map 32: Crystal Maze

 

A map one is probably ill-advised to record an FDA of because as it turns out, there are several places that will close permanently if the challenges within them are not completed within a certain amount of time. The King Crimson song used here is certainly entirely appropriate with its chaotic, frantic progressive rock energy. See, there are several confusing areas inside what already has multiple paths seemingly leading everywhere. The numbers won't make any sense to someone who doesn't understand the title of the map - apparently, a British game show! - seeming to feature a number of maze-like and just plain disorienting areas made up of varying vanilla textures. Many rooms we enter seemingly serve zero purpose and contain no switches. The cave area in the west was the most interesting because it was the only location that actually seemed to contain enemies! I'd love to try this one again later, but I've spent far too much time today on Fragport as it was.

PS: Those crushers can go to hell.

lmd_fragport.zip

Edited March 16, 2023 by LadyMistDragon

[brick]

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

 

MAP32 - “Crystal Maze”

Long ago I used to watch a French show called Les Clés de Fort Boyard, which had contestants go on an adventure in the titular island fort, where they had to pass various trials and challenges to gather keys to open up a treasure room and get as much "loot" (which translated into prize money) as possible. It inspired a British version, The Crystal Maze, which used many of the same ideas but moved the show to a very elaborate set with the challenges spread across various themed zones. I never watched the show (I think) but was familiar enough with it to know what to expect. The map lovingly recreates 4 of the zones, down to details taken from the set such as how zones connect to each other. Each zone has 3 challenges, typically one that requires some mental exercise (mazes, memorizing patterns), one that's pure combat, and one that tests your speed and agility. TUD provides a helpful text file explaining the map, and it's a must-read if you're unfamiliar with the show. I found the most important hint was to always have a save just before entering each trial, though I ended up doing surprisingly well and didn't get stuck in any of them with time running out (though I did reload to the beginning a couple of times). Each trial has an armour bonus to pick up (to simulate the show's time crystals), getting all 12 is required to exit the level.

I liked some of the challenges more than others, though I think the mazes were the most annoying as a group. The crate one is just boring. The one with metal bars is good on paper, but sometimes the right bar would fail to open, and I'd end up wasting a lot of time. The colour-coded one is the best but has one hiccup where following the pattern could still make you fail. The lava one is an interesting variation on a trick from the iwads, if you look to the ceiling you can see the path to follow without taking damage (in the iwads, following the pattern would raise a walkway over the damaging floor to allow you to cross unharmed), but just straferunning through is so much more efficient when you're on a tight time limit.

The combat trials are mostly straightforward, though some shake it up a bit, usually by also requiring you to press several switches scattered around. Assaulting the fortress is fun, and there are many switches all over the place to keep things tense even after everything is dead (the clock is still ticking). The slime river was a bit more frustrating, since you can waste time going the wrong way first, but the time limit is pretty generous. The big cavern was tense, having to look for all the switches while keeping revenant rockets off my back. I think the best one is in the reactor core, there's fighting but there are also coloured light pillars (similar to those in MAP15) that need to be switched off, and entering the reactor core is dangerous without adequate protection. There's also a BFG here but I couldn't figure out how to get it (there's another one elsewhere on the map though).

The agility tests were the ones I found most polarizing. I hated the crushers and took most of the damage from the map there. I hated even more the Chasm-like walkway over lava that went on seemingly forever, this is the only trial I liberally savescummed inside the trial (thankfully you only have to do it one way; with most trials you also have to find your way back out while time is still running out). In terms of platforming I liked the parkour-like jaunt through the library a lot more, maybe because there's more variety and not just thin walkways, and some of the platforms are wide enough for a breather. I didn't love the moving platforms and shootable switches trial, but it's certainly an interesting idea.

With all the challenges completed the way to the central crystal dome is open. There's one final test, beating a cyberdemon, but it's trivial with the invulnerability provided on HNTR/HMP. Even on UV there's plenty of health and cells, so I don't think it's too tricky. With cybie dead the portal is accessible and puts us back in the city, coming out of the freight depot.

This is a unique and original map, it would probably make it into my personal Most Memorable Maps list. It's cool how it takes bits and pieces of typical Doom gameplay and manages to make something that feels different from Doom, and all this with just vanilla actions. Some of the mechanics to simulate the timed trials are so cleverly simple, and the variety of challenges keeps the map fresh. Very fun and worth checking out, and so different from everything else in the wad.

[RonLivingston]

3 hours ago, LadyMistDragon said:

 

PS: Those crushers can go to hell.

 

I know the crystal maze is the longest level ever, so many puzzle solving before getting to the exit portal back to the city center

[Veeda Vidlak]

Map15 “Freight Depot”

 

A contender for strongest map yet, Freight Depot mixes Stephen’s trademark doomcute with a legitimately impressive warehouse/train pickup, throwing in a secret exit puzzle I actually enjoyed working on.

 

Coming out of blasé Urban Wasteland, we find ourselves in front of a large warehouse, serviced by a railyard to the west. There are two places to enter, but I’d recommend just using the main gate (after getting Mr. Chainsaw) because its closest to the SSG. The warehouse section is surprisingly tough, the enemies are sparse, but they’re nastily positioned and it’s easy to run low on ammo. I have to say, this is a great layout, the cranes, the use of verticality, the visuals, the need to route properly. Make sure the area is secure then make your way up the stairs with the control rooms, entering the non-blue keycard ones to open access to the railyard. Sustain head trauma walking down the non-OSHA compliant staircase and watch out for the 4 archviles (!) and revenants ambushing you along the way (this is why you need to secure the warehouse floor first).

 

Once outside, move quickly into the rail shed and kill the pain elementals ASAP (I recommend fighting the mancubi from inside the shed). The archvile conductor isn’t a threat but I love that he’s carrying a cargo of cacodemons. Look out! They’ll get angry if you steal the green key! Head deeper into the railyard until you reach boxy building central, which has some secrets and a control hut with a vile and the blue key. Head back to the warehouse and kill the cyber along the way, who is easy pickings with all the space you have.

 

Finishing the map from here is trivial but special mention needs to go to finding the secret exit. A shootable switch located high up to the southeast of the warehouse opens a tunnel blocked by six colored light poles. To lower them, we must find the other non-BFG secrets which contain corresponding poles that deactivate the secret exit ones when used. The light pole scavenger hunt is a charming and rather unique method of reaching the secret levels and strengthens an already fine map. Clever, aesthetic, and fun, Freight Depot is a great ending to the first half of Fragport.

 

Fast Monsters: Wow that was hard. Just about any mistake in the warehouse gets you killed and the mancubi in the railyard become fiery walls of death. Took a few tries to get a route down and execute it. I also botched the cybie 2 shot because fast is scary.

fragport15_fast.zip

 

Edit: The highly inappropriate flak cannon sound replacement for the rocket launcher is especially noticeable when fighting cyberdemons.

Edited March 16, 2023 by Veeda Vidlak
Wrong upload

[DFF]

Map14: Urban Wasteland - UV, FDWL, Continuous

K: 114 | I: 100 | S: 100

 

Now entering the City of Fragport proper, we find ourselves situated in what feels like a ghetto of sorts (as many have related to the slum-iness of it). Decrepid buildings surrounding a courtyard of trash. The opening fights are not too bad, forcing the player to mad dash around rubble to avoid on-foot threats as well as building snipers, Ammo is plentiful but what you see is mostly what you'll get in this map. This map felt like a constant decline in terms of enjoyment. The opening is about its best but once you start collecting keys, you are faced with spawning waves of enemies that aside from one or two notable differences, are all about the same. If there was some non-linearity here and more diversity this could be more interesting but alas feels repetitive. As many have noted the Blue key tower outright kills the map, stopping any sort of progessive momentum like a brick wall to a crash test dummy. The lift is too long and the halls are too repetitive, not to mention flipping the exit switch releases an archie who has plenty of time to overwhelm you with monsters due to the painfully slow lift. Thankfully i got out in time to stop him while not running out of ammo, but i can see a scenario where you literally don't have enough ammo to stop it, or that the monsters clog the only exit out of the tower. The secrets (aside from 1) were all the same cell/wall secret in different parts of the tower, and I thought the secrets were just well hidden until i got the easy computer map and made me a tad depressed.

I don't think i'd call this map filler, moreso a conceptual idea that ended up being executed rather poorly. Or perhaps a lack of ideas at the end. Falls kinda flat and makes me a lot more critical of the execution over other maps that maybe were a tad duller.

 

Map15: Freight Depot - UV, FDWL, Continuous

K: 100 | I: 100 | S: 100



Thankfully we go from One of Fragport's lesser maps to one of its better maps. Freight depot is a wonderfully grand shipping yard with a large warehouse and shed annex surrounding a train loading bay. Everything in this map is big in scope compared to what we've seen previously in the wad. The curse of last map still haunted me as i entered this map wounded and with few resources. This proved to be only momentarily hindering as the warehouse is thankfully stocked full of goods including an easy BFG secret. The fights here feel decently balanced and aside from some cramped and awkward fighting in the offices this section proved well designed. The arch vile trap coming out of the offices was particularly nasty and required some guerilla fighting between the crates to take down.

 

The largeness of the train depot really sells the concept. The cranes and the sections are very simplistic in their design but the message is well translated. Combat here also felt rather well crafted, featuring far away mancs that force the player to either take cover behind the cranes or be forever cognizant of incoming fire. All the while resources are sparingly doled out at each platform. The train fight with the cacos and the archvile conductor killed me several times mostly due to resource starvation. At this point i had run dry of ammo and meds, and would only find reprieve at the farthest storage sheds. Probably my only gripe in the map is this lack of resources in the middle. The farthest corner of the map also wasn't terribly interesting but it was short lived and provided an interesting but easy cyber showdown. 

 

The secrets for the exit were well hidden and a interesting concept. I enjoyed the implementation and by the end couldn't figure out one. Due to time limitations I will review the secret maps at a later date but for a secret exit hunt this was rather interestingly designed. Overall a wonderfully fun map with a good setting focus. Very efficient with the designs and lots of good open room for combat. Maybe not as interesting as some of the other earlier maps but still enjoyable even with the ammo issues.

Rankings:

Spoiler

Map13

Map15

Map11

Map01

Map06
Map05

Map03

Map08

Map10

Map09

Map12
Map02

Map07

Map14

Map04

 

[Helm]

Map 15 - Fright Depot

I die many times for the first 7ish minutes of footage, if anyone watches these, you can skip the first part lol

This one's a moody one. The early experience for the pistol starter is very harsh as there are turreted chaingunners everywhere in the titular depot, and a lot of beefy mid tier if you just run around in the space to proc infighting. Instead you are supposed to slowly gain ground and guns and play patiently. If I have a forte at doom I don't know, this isn't it, though. After getting a foothold the rest is kind of ok for a while, though health is a bit tight. The sector warehouse risers are cute, they are cute in every single doom wad they've appeared in. 

There is a point where I felt the psychic force of an vile ambush, but I didn't expect 4-5 of them making a beeline for me. There were a dozen more deaths until I cleaned that bit up, the rest was fine after. What did the mapper have in mind, here? The player running around and dodging 5 viles resurrecting everything in a dark warehouse? Few poeple would do that, most would try what I did, which is to pump my remaining rockets and plasma on the viles as they beeline and try to thin them out as much as possible, hence the many deaths before it worked. I would like to see the mapper respond to this archvile trap in a nice little demo, I want to see the 'intended play' when 5 viles spring up on them. I don't mind difficult doom stuff, I just get a chuckle out of thinking that the mapper themselves probably never enjoyed this encounter either, they just wanted to put the 'fright' in the title.

Good sense of place, though. it is a fright depot I suppose, but I have to say there's not much you can do in a doom map to make me excited about a square, low light crate warehouse with chaingunners on perches everywhere, certainly not 5 viles. Pretty painful experience, especially the pistol start.

I barely have time to breathe right now, let alone do secret maps (I might do them at the end, which is customarily how I play secret maps, I don't play them in the wad order as they most often don't fit it, hence being secret maps).

Map 16  - City Centre

Darth Mall, really? heh

I omitted the exploratory deaths in the beginning from the footage this time. It's one of these maps I should have just tntem and looked around for the guns, but I do not regret the exploratory part, the high stress start is fun, I just don't expect anyone to watch me failing at it for a while.

This is a sprawling city map where hitting the right interior locations for all the guns (including a BFG right there) will massively expedite clearing out the outside sections that predictably open up monster closets are intervals to repopulate the sprawl. The arachnotrons in open layouts control the space heavily, which means you will have to duck in and out of the internal to avoid their fire, leading to entanglements with wondering monsters. This layout is porous in a very good way, all the action comes to you, keeps you moving. Infighting is a must, a lot of modern concepts of doom play are allowed here much more efficiently than in any of the prior layouts, standout of all that is is obviously a map meant to be ran in a speedrun way...

I was having good progress but sadly 100 kills in, I take the BFG and if I had played a bit carefully after that / saved it'd have been a pretty expedited run through this one, but I forget to save and go back 40 kills and because the sprawl of the fight behaves differently every time, I take a bit longer to get back to BFG ready shape and clear out the rest. This is probably the best map of the set so far in terms of the modern challenge, the multiple ways to approach and most importantly, that the guns inside the interior space are all there for the intrepid player to speed through to get if they feel inclined. Playing faster and running around the outside spaces to herd infighting is much more fun than corridor crawls and little boxed in fights, at least for a set where the chonky doomcute is trying to convey in the broadest of strokes a sense of place. Good shit

[Book Lord]

MAP 16 – City Centre

DSDA-Doom v0.24.3, UV, Continuous, blind run w/saves

 

The streak of standard levels resumed with a rather chaotic sandbox packed with opposition. City Centre was characterised by the central structure, bearing the humorous name of ‘Darth Mall’, which was a shopping centre full of Doomcute stores. The pistol starter will have a hard time right after entering the place, since the thresholds hide devilish tripwires that open big monster closets in the surrounding streets, inevitably alerted by the first noise. The enemies quickly entered the mall and joined the existing occupants, putting an unusually high pressure before the weapons scattered in the shops could be individuated and picked up.

Spoiler

More of such closets opened when approaching the RK in front of the ‘City Hall’ door to the east, when entering the ‘Books’ shop that held the GK in its warehouse, and when accessing both the ‘Station Hotel’ and the ‘Fragport City Station’ to the north-west. The train station was a vibrantly coloured COMPOHSO building, and the BK could be spotted on one of its platforms.

Spoiler

 

 

The hotel had five identical rooms, each one with a pop-up Revenant and a switch. The switches in the open rooms allowed to find a secret Soul Sphere and a Blue Armour near the GK, while the last secret was at the end of the hotel corridor. The switches in the locked rooms were tied to the progression and allowed leaving City Centre from an unmarked alley. The map was visually nice and had a great proto-slaughter potential, but I think the closet implementation was random and confusing, hitting too hard the blind pistol starter and breaking the exploration of the mall before it even started. It was ambitious, but it invariably revealed itself as a non-optimised setup from 2001.

Edited March 16, 2023 by Book Lord

[Celestin]

MAP16: City Centre

 

Returning to the regular programming, City Centre is another downtown block, this time taking place around the "Darth Mall" department store. This has to be one of the worst puns I've seen in a while, but it's actually a cool place, with supplies placed around its stores. 

 

The start can be tricky if you only have a pistol, as the place is full of pinkies and when you try to do anything, monster closets release hordes demons. My best idea is to get as many enemies infighting as possible. There is a ton of room to dodge enemy fire and redirect it towards other monsters. I think more than half of the foes died at the hands and claws of their brethren. I'd avoid the mall early on, it's a death zone with monsters all around. Once the place is clear of threats, you can arm yourself, but I feel like the hardest is already over.

 

The map is once again a hunt for 3 key, which open rooms inside the hotel, which contain switches that reveal a route to the exit. The red one is placed on the stairs of the town hall (shame you can't visit it), I couldn't tell you what trap it activated as it probably blended into the early infighting chaos. The green key is on a second floor of the mall, it drops an archvile on the ground. It could have been a tense moment, but with a BFG, it's quickly taken care of before resurecting too many corpses. The final key, the blue one, can be found at the train station. I like this place, mowing down zombie commuters is a simple pleasure every Doom fan knows. A baron ambush isn't a challenge with rockets and cells.

 

While I adore the details on display, the combat feels mediocre. I would complain more if it wasn't for the map's placement in the wad. A quick and straightforward City Centre is a decent break after the Crystal Maze.

[Roofi]

Map 16 : City Centre

 

 

The more I advance in Fragport, the more I qualify its gameplay as "HR light" because Stephen Clark usually makes you fight against horde of homogenous mid-tiers monsters with strong weaponry. City Centre is designed around a mall called the "Darth Mall" and where many hectic battles happen. As several previous levels, the progression is sandboxy and it tends to strenghten the chaotic feeling of this map because monsters can move everywhere as you do.

 

I admit that City Centre doesn't benefit from cute aesthetics since almost every area is square and bare, but I enjoyed plundering the shops of their goodies.

 

Overall City Center turns out to be a exciting battlezone with a lot of ways to approach it.

 

Grade: B+

 

 

No video for today. I meet internet issues.

[TJG1289]

GZDoom/UV/Continuous/Saves/Blind (One map only!)

Map 32: The Crystal Maze

Kills and secrets: 100%

Time: 31:54

Deaths: 5

 

We've finally hit the only map of Fragport I haven't beat. Mainly since I didn't feel like playing it back then. I think when I first played this map back in the day, the way Stephen made it out to be in the text file sounded to intimidating for me. When I played through the WAD the other times, it just sounded too long. And the last time I played through the WAD, it was with Corruption Cards, and I didn't want that mod to end up breaking this map. But now, I have no excuse!

 

This map is based on the British game show of the same name. I'm not British, so I've never seen an episode. I thought it was similar to the American show, Masters of the Maze, but I don't think it is (that show also gave me nightmares when I was a kid, involving the Lady of the Maze, and a sentient Felix the Cat doll. I was a kid; I don't understand it either, and it's beside the point). So for this map, we've got 4 hubs with 3 challenges each. One is physical, one is mental, and one is skill. Each challenge has a time limit of 2-3 minutes to beat. You have to collect the armor bonus (crystal) in each room before the time runs out. Really, it should say you have to collect it, AND exit before the time runs out. If you fail, but escape the room before getting locked in, there's a reset switch that allows you to retry. Nothing too complex here. Each hub has rooms with health and ammo, so pistol-starters may want to run around to each hub first to grab all the weapons. All of them are here, including the BFG. As for the challenges, they're all pretty easy honestly. Only 2 gave me trouble. The first challenge I did killed me 2 times. This was the Futuristic one with the color lights, ala map 15. First time, rev rocket got me. 2nd time, I ended up turning off all the lights on accident, and just kept getting hit. My other 3 deaths came from the crusher room. I did figure out if you take that one slow, you'll have no problems with them. The toxic waste one surprised me, as I did not expect the 4 monster closets to open when grabbing the armor bonus, so good job on that one Stephen. I didn't die; I just wasn't expecting a normal ambush like that in this gimmick map! Everything else was smooth sailing. The 2 narrow ledge rooms weren't too bad, though the one over lava with different heights can be hard to see down. The lava room just recycled an E2 idea. The maze was a maze. The TNT map 30 reference was thankfully a lot more forgiving. The maze of bars you have to open was tedious. The shooting range with lowering floors was a bore. The monster-filled sections we the most traditional, and probably the most fun. The castle one was the most interesting, as it really felt like a short, contained 2-minute map. Completing the challenges in a hub gives you a key, or in the case of the Aztec hub, a switch. There is issues where if you grab the armor bonus in a challenge too quickly, it may not trigger the linedef it's on. That happened to me with the lava path, so I had to recomplete it, and I ran over the linedef a few times to make sure it registered this time. Having completing the 12 challenges, it's on to the Dome, where a cyb is guarding the exit. Kinda inconvenient to 2-shot with the BFG, so I just took him out normally. Grab the megasphere and the bulk cells, and you've won the game! Your prize? Map 16! Yay! So overall, I think this is a very impressive vanilla map. Easily the most creative map in the WAD, and shows that The Ultimate Doomer can be a little more imaginative than some of his previous levels could lead you to believe. I feel like this type of creativity carried over to Super Sonic Doom, as those levels are a lot more interesting and varied, plus they have a lot of cool and unique ideas to them. 

 

This map wouldn't be the last time Stephen visited The Crystal Maze. 15 years later, he would remake this map as a standalone GZDoom map! I haven't played that, but I did watch Mr. Icarus's video on it. And judging from the comment I left on the vid back when he released it, I was the only person to realize it was originally part of this WAD (someone did recognize it as an Ultimate Doomer joint tho). 

 

 

 

Watching this video, It's really impressive to see how much this map has improved. A lot of the same basic level design in the hubs are there, and most of the original map's challenges have been upgraded. I saw the crusher room, library chasm, color light bar monster room, etc. Stephen was able to add the show's 4th game type as well; mystery. And since this is a GZDoom map, he used a lot of its bells and whistles to make the map act much more like the show. No cyb in the Dome this time tho. Very cool update that I've always meant to give a try. I should do that soon.

 

I'll catch up on map 16 with 17 tomorrow. Have to leave for work soon.

Edited March 17, 2023 by TJG1289

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 16: City Centre

 

Take Me Out works as well as anything else. What doesn't is the friendliness to pistol starters. Picking up weapons almost rates with "City of the Clouds" and then carving out enough space is even harder. Too bad: this is one of the most strongly Doomcute maps of the entire set (even if probably a conservative 75 percent of the map is once again, brown)! The computer store is quite amusing, so is the bookstore, and even "Lighting." Although perhaps it would be better to head toward the train station first, I think we're meant to pick up the red key first and thusly open the closets on either side of City Hall so the enemies there filter out and probably infight with the ones inside the "Darth Mall" (oh, ha ha). But then, there's around 10 Pain Elementals that will be awakened at some point that thusly come from.....somewhere, and idk, there may have been infighting but it wasn't like that was all that was going on. We ended up getting the green key in the second floor storage closet which was a mistake because another Arch-vile appeared to replace the one we'd just murdered, along with more pinkies than anyone should be expected to deal with! 

 

But anyways, the keys are supposed to open certain doors in the "Station Hotel" which contains beds with Revenants and also switches which basically exist to grant access to a certain alley which happens to be the exit. But I guess pushing the switches out of order softlocks you? Oh, no matter. That's probably not as bad as the ambushes. The Rev/HK one near City Hall is fine, but the one of barons and Lost Souls when you enter the train station seemed stupid. Oh well, at least there are hitscanners to gun down, along with plenty of rockets and the blue key.

 

I think this map was good, but order of operations in multiple instances could've been signposted better and it's obvious that pistol starting simply wasn't established in 2001.

lmd_fragport16.zip

Edited March 17, 2023 by LadyMistDragon
dumbass end typo

[Ralgor]

MAP16 - “City Centre”
dsda-doom v0.25.6 cl2, UV, Pistol start, blind run w/ saves, then single segment w/ demo
100% kills and secrets
Using the 2003 version of Fragport

Back from the detour through the void, we are now outside of a mall called "Darth Mall". The name definitely made me chuckle. The mall is filled with all kinds of weapons and ammo, but is also guarded by an assortment of monsters. The mall has a number of different shops in it, all constructed with various mapping techniques. I really liked the hi-tech shop, with its TVs and other electronics available for sale.

There are a ton of monster closets around the perimeter that open any time you try to go anywhere. Even trying to get your initial armor and weapons are likely to fill the streets with monsters. Luckily they all like to fight each other, and after running around a bit they will tend to congregate inside the mall itself.

There's a key on the steps to the town hall, and another is in the mall itself behind the library. One of the keys is off to the west in a train station full of zombies waiting to board the next train. Each time you go for a key you'll have to deal with another riot in the streets. At some point a bunch of pain elementals will get released, and in my case they immediately filled the area with lost souls.

Once you have all three keys, just visit the hotel and flip all of the switches. Two of the switches in the unlocked rooms actually open up a secret with health and armor.

This is a mechanically simple map, but the layout is really interesting and the fights are fairly fun. The doom-cute is all over here, and it makes the map really charming. I definitely enjoyed my time in this map.

Grade: B

MAP16 - 20:39.74 (20:39)  K: 177/177  I: 18/18  S: 3/3

ralgor_fragport16.zip

[brick]

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

 

MAP16 - “City Centre”
The pun in the mall name actually made me chuckle. TUD has a strange idea of what a city centre is about, the only locations of note are the mall and the train station. Both are really well done though, I especially enjoyed the shootouts in the mall, there's a lot of open space but also just enough cover, and the various shops are cute. once you get the 3 keys scattered around the map, they are all used in the hotel by the station to access 3 switches, which open the exit. This part soured me on the map, TUD was sloppy with this sequence and I ended up softlocking myself because I did the switches in the wrong order then spent a good deal of time trying to look for something I could've missed and that turned out not to exist. Bad bug aside it was a fun map.

 

MAP17 - “Laser Quest”
I liked this one a lot more than I thought I would, considering the abundance of hitscans. The exterior of the building is plain but there's a handy computer map hiding (not very well though), and I don't think I'd have found one of the secrets without it. Once inside the visuals and layouts are a treat. The main hall is chock full of doomcute: the pool table, the air hockey table (complete with armor bonuses to simulate the mallets!), some arcade games against the wall, the bar, and of course the TUD Special, a bathroom with lost souls hiding in the stalls. One of the doors leads to a side room with weapons and ammo to stock up, then it's onto the arena itself. All 3 keys are scattered around the arena, which is divided into several "rooms" with different obstacles and layouts in each. Some of the rooms are a lot of fun, panels provide cover but have small slits that allow shooting through them, steps go up and down with openings near the floor. Getting chaingunners through creative use of the space is very satisfying. The keys are used back outside, one at a time, to open the exit, and each also triggers a small (and not very exciting) ambush. The recreation of the Laser Quest part takes obvious liberties but is a lot of fun.