The DWmegawad Club plays: PUSS IX: Mapping at Warpspeed

dobu gabu maru · April 1, 2023

What is the DWmegawad Club?

This is a place where we settle down, have a cup of tea (or drink of your choice) and take a month to play through a megawad on our own, together! Any keen observations, criticisms, or frustrated ranting about it goes here in the discussion. As long as you want to say something about what you've played, feel free to speak your mind.

Can I join?

Sure. The only rule is that you have to play at least some of the levels in our monthly megawad to contribute, but you're generally encouraged to finish the whole thing, even if you've played it before.

What levels am I allowed to post about?

Whatever day of the month it is, is the upper limit for the map you can post on. So if it’s the 6th, you may discuss up to MAP06.

Do I have to post an entry every day?

Nope, not at all. This is only for our more enthusiastic members. As long as you play through it with us you’re part of the club.

When do we vote on the next month’s megawad?

Voting begins on the 25th of the current month. Remember to add one “+++” before your vote to make it easier to count. For example:

+++ Ultimate Doom

Note that you can vote for up to three separate nominations in a single month, and every wad must contain at least three maps each. The winning nomination must receive at least four votes for a thread to be made. Ties will be decided by RNG.

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>>>DOWNLOAD MAPPING AT WARPSPEED (v.1) HERE<<<

Looks like it’s time to take another hit off of the peyote pipe! This month we’ll be astral projecting into Mapping at Warpspeed, the ninth official Pineapple Under the Sea Speedmapping event—or PUSS for short. Each map was made within a ten hour time limit and features a distinct interstellar theme we may have seen before. So rev up your Undefined Fantastic Object and go get high fry some intra-terrestrials!

Author & Maplist:

MAP01 - “I Skillsawed the Aliens” by Death Bear

MAP02 - “Ancient Covenant” by myolden

MAP03 - “Trespasser” by notTyrone

MAP04 - “Oberth Malfunction” by notTyrone

MAP05 - “Ursae Minoris” by Death Bear

MAP06 - “Ursae Majoris” by Death Bear

MAP07 - “Holodeck” by moylden

MAP08 - “Moon Funeral” by myolden

MAP09 - “Alien Tartarus” by Muumi

MAP10 - “Lagrange Disruption” by notTyrone

MAP11 - “Another Glance at the Paradise” by Muumi

MAP12 - “Spirit Fracture” by Lemonlytical

MAP13 - “Electron Avenue” by Death Bear

MAP14 - “Electron Boogaloo” by Death Bear

MAP15 - “The Atropal Jaws” by BlooberryPi3

MAP31 - “Lazarus Labs” by Cheesewheel

MAP32 - “Blood Swamps” by Muumi

MAP16 - “Mors Palus Aliens” by LateNightPerson

MAP17 - “Zero G Station” by Danlex

MAP18 - “Close Encounters of the Weird Kind” by Weird Sandwich

MAP19 - “Hiding the Secrets” by theBMFG

MAP20 - “Archvile Arrival” by Muumi

MAP21 - “Beyond” by Doomcat, Son of Death Bear

MAP22 - “Passions Like Fire” by BluePineapple72

MAP23 - “Neon Desert” by Chookum

MAP24 - “Cryptozoophobia” by WeirdSandwich

MAP25 - “Grab the Bull by the Horns” by BluePineapple72

MAP26 - “Clandestine Cumulonimbus” by BluePineapple72

MAP27 - “Of Waves and Woe” by BluePineapple72

MAP28 - “Planet Chasers” by Death Bear

MAP29 - “Mapping at Warspeed” by Death Bear, myolden, Muumi, Lemonlytical, Doomcat, Danlex, Weirdsandwich, notTyrone, Chookum!, Peccatum Mihzamiz, & BluePineapple72

MAP30 - “Stargate BP-9” by Death Bear

BONUS CONTENT

TBA

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OLD THREADS

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Edited April 23, 2023 by dobu gabu maru

SuyaSSS · April 1, 2023

YOOO! it's PUSS my dudes

KickAss · April 1, 2023

Grabbed the file right now. I will check it out immediately.

TJG1289 · April 1, 2023

Very nice! One of my picks again made it! This was one of my most anticipate WADs of last year, and I am happy to say it did not disappoint. I had only been mildly acquainted with the PUSS projects before playing this one. In fact, I had only played one before: March of the Speeddemons, which was a Rowdy Rudy one. But I have played a good amount of maps by some of the authors in this WAD from other community projects. And a lot of those names are ones to watch, if you haven't been already. Since then, I've played a couple other PUSS WADs: Anniversary Under the Sea, TH1RT3EN, and Lover's Quarrel, and they've all been really good (just waiting om The Chilling Winds of Dis to get out of beta before trying). Like other WAD series such as the Doomer Board Projects, each one has a distinct visual theme, which for me is half the fun! Another cool thing about the PUSS series is the rules. Each PUSS has some unique rules mappers can implement into their maps. Some of them could be a list of things each map needs to have, some could be naming conventions for maps, and loads more. For this PUSS, here were the rules:

10 hour mapping time limit
Ancient Aliens Resources required
Each map must be an explorable journey on an alien world
Each map must evolve/change/unfold in some way
Each map must begin and end with a UFO
MIDI must be thematically fitting
Abstract level design and animal warp telefrags are encouraged homages
Boom format
Custom Skies that fit the palette are allowed
No jumping/crouching
Designed with pistol starting in mind

The main reason this was my most anticipated WAD of last year, is because of the Ancient Aliens resources. AA is my favorite WAD, and I feel there's not enough WADs out there using that texture pack and color palette. It's the best looking set out there to me. So stuff like Alienated and the Intergalactic Xenology Trilogy is right up my alley. And this WAD is the first full-game replacement to use AA resources since AA itself. And as an added bonus, there's a lot of stewboy's AA soundtrack in here too, and that's my favorite Doom soundtrack PERIOD, so I'm happy. Though the non-AA tracks are great too, and work well with their maps. I don't like to replay WADs so soon after finishing them, but I'll make an exception for this one. I've only ever played RC1, and we're now on the first normal version 1, so there's been a few changes since I last played, including one that should make map 12 a lot better. This is a good one folks, so I hope you enjoy it!

TJG1289 · April 1, 2023

GZDoom/UV/Pistol-Start/Saves

Map 01: I Skillsawed the Aliens - Death Bear

100% kills and secrets

Time: 15:03

First off, this MIDI by Psyrus is fantastic. Love how atmospheric it is, and how well it fits with the AA theme. We start this WAD with a lonely passage to a hut with a pipe, just like in AA. On the way, we get some cute graphics hanging in air announcing the WAD like an opening credit scrawl. Smoking the pipe sends us through an animal warp like AA map 1, but while that one shoots us almost into a cyb, this one has us telefrag one (lol), shooting us into a megasphere and first ambush. Death Bear isn't here to make the first map easy, which is evident from the archies that show up positioned on pillars in the main hub as you progress through the map. Side note: Death Bear has become one of my favorite mappers over the last couple of years, since he's always been able to make really fun maps in such a short amount of time. This map unfolds by picking up weapons, initiating an ambush, open up a new passageway in the hub, avoid archies and new enemies as you head over to the new opening, and repeat. Simple enough. The ambushes aren't too bad, though the occasional mid-tier shows up in each to keep things spicy. The chaingun one is especially spicy, with a chaingunner, 2 revs, and a caco or 2 too boot. Eventually, you'll open up a chamber to the south with a teleporter that allows you to telefrag the 4 archies, and also unleashes the biggest ambush in the map. Just a big variety of stuff, plus another roaming archie. Nothing the rocket launcher can't fix. You also get some goodies from each archie you telefrag, including a soul sphere, making the fight after a little more fair. I didn't find the secret switch for the plasma and cells until after everything else was dead, and since I am planning on pistol-starting this WAD since I've already played it, that makes me sad. Overall, a solid opening map. Inverses some AA map 1 elements to great effect. The AA textures and palette are looking as good as ever, though some walls could use some more detailing. It's a speedmap, it's not gonna look 100% immaculate. Fights are a little spicier than other map 01s, but nothing too threatening.

SuyaSSS · April 1, 2023

MAP01: “I Skillsawed the Aliens” by Death Bear

Played On Nugget Doom, HMP

I am still one of the (probably) few people who still hasn't played Ancient Aliens so I have no context on the difficulty or gameplay style of that wad. However, I had tons of fun in this map. It is neither too easy nor too difficult. It feels like a perfect balance of surprises with accessible combat. Bravo, Death Bear. I have high hopes for this mapset (Not that I ever had low hopes).

The only thing I would change is the teleporters at the end. I know that they are made to telefrag the archviles but, the archviles are very easy to kill with your rocket launcher and I had no problem obliterating them making that telefragging section pointless to me. But, this is a nitpick and overall doesn't hamper the very good map that I played

Grade: A+

Book Lord · April 1, 2023

How appropriate: I just completed my 3 month-long Ancient Aliens playthrough last week, playing MAP28-30 after completing Fragport for the DWMC. While a comparison between the blockbuster 2016 release and a speedmapping project is not fully warranted, the use of the resource pack will inevitably bring back memories from the famous forerunner megaWAD. Let's see how these neons work within these constraints!

MAP 01 – I Skillsawed the Aliens by @Death Bear

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

In the capable hands of Death Bear, the prelude of Mapping at Warpspeed cannot let anybody down. The opening sight immediately brought me back to the visual world of Ancient Aliens with its flying saucers, tractor beams, neon colours and elements from North American wastelands. Following the lilac rivulet through the floating signs and into the caverns led me in front of another native American shrine, more technological than the one in The Ancient Navajo Wolf Warp but still containing a smoking calumet, sending me on another mystical trip through the universe.

Spoiler

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I did not have to wait long to telefrag a Cyberdemon with the might of the spirit wolf! Landing directly on his pyramid made me chuckle, but it did not take long for the map to become a little more serious and require my attention. A Megasphere was granted to compensate for mistakes or sloppy playing, but the author did not leave the honour of using high-tier creatures to the other mappers. The central hub saw “bad medicine men” appearing regularly during exploration. A patient player might leave them be and deal with their occasional attacks, but not me. As soon as I picked up the rocket launcher, I killed the Arch-Viles as soon as they appeared, since the map granted enough ammo to do so. They could be telefragged in a second time if the map dynamics were known beforehand.

Spoiler

771678849_MappingatWarpspeedMAP01_02.jpg.e891dc597c3f4cb3f93f4aa0a32a83ec.jpg

I Skillsawed the Aliens presented a series of traps taking place in the various level branches, revealed in succession and granting the necessary items. Every weapon except the BFG was present, including a secret plasma rifle that I found only after a thorough search. Considering that the Viles could be killed at leisure, the pressure was still moderate, but the number and nature of the opposition must not be underestimated. The last Arch-Vile appeared suddenly in the middle of a carnage, surrounded by meat shields, and demanded immediate reaction. I liked this opener: it played fast and violent, and it gave enough resources to have fun while keeping a good challenge level. The old MAP01 syndrome seems to have been replaced by an opposite tendency in contemporary editing, elevating the first level to a complete showcase of what the WAD has to offer: good-looking, well-paced maps using the resources from Ancient Aliens in a speedmapping context.

Doomy__Doom · April 1, 2023

DSDA-Doom, UV, pistol start, the usual.

MAP 01 – I Skillsawed the Aliens

Immediately a rough start - txt file listed "limit-removing" and I chose to believe it, despite raising a brow. Sure enough, it wasn't a complevel 2 mapset, and tntcomp-ing to boom compat softlocked me in the RL pickup area (the trap walls never lowered).

That bump aside, the map looks like an in-your-face showcase of what to expect - small fodder crowds up close an personal, closet ambushes with fairly obvious triggers, copious elevated sniper usage, almost every enemy in the roster present in a single map. Overall, a relaxed pace with a few ambush high points. Early megasphere pretty much carried throughout the entire map.

Tower Vile-zoning doesn't really work for me - there's plenty of RL ammo to just kill them outright. They're even nicely boxed in so you don't have to play the "please zap me and stand still" minigame. The end fight is good fun - a lot of verticality for Cacos to stay out of sight and sneak up on the player preoccupied with ground level, but there's always the option of hiding in any of the previously unlocked areas to funnel the opposition.

I guess I shoud also mention that, irrespective of this particular mapset, I'm not a fan of AA palette, especially because it remaps automap colors in a very awkward way. I'm way too used to bright white lines as "line at sector with floor = ceiling", which becomes the color of regular one-sided walls in AA and thus throws me off a lot when using map for progression or potential ambush/secret wall hunt. Ditto secret sector color - bright purple becomes an indistinguishable brown, which means giving up on finding a secret "fairly" involves a trip to UDB right away.

RHhe82 · April 1, 2023

Okay, although I'm not too big of a speedmap connoisseur (nothing wrong with speedmapping, of course), this wad sounds like one I could participate in the club after a long hiatus -- especially since I just recently finished my second playthrough of Ancient Aliens, one of my favourite megawads out there.

MAP01: I Skillsawed the Aliens, played on DSDA v0.25.6, CL9, UV, pistol start. 203/203 K, 4/4 S, 40/40 I. Comp. time 27:20.

The first thing I run into is technical trouble. The text file coming with the wad says "limit-removing", but after some attempts at smoking the peyote pipe and forum searching I found out it's CL9. Having that out of the way, we have a skillsawy map complete with UFOs and pyramids. The main arena is surrounded by smaller areas each unleashing groups of enemies at you. Combat here never once feels tedious (maybe I was trying too hard to conserve ammo, there is no need, especially if you know about the secret). I also should have guessed the archies could be telefragged, I wasted several rockets on them (although sparing them until fragging denies some area from you).

It took me 18 minutes to reach the exit, and another ten to find the secrets. I had discovered the thin ledges around the pillars in the main arena could be lowered. I just wouldn't find the switch to reveal the goodies and remaining enemies. I can only blame myself.

The map design is perhaps a bit blocky at times, some lighting issues, or not-as-polished-as-one-would-hope, but then again that comes with the speedmap territory. No time to dwell on minutiae when there is a complete map to be made, and despite some small nitpicks I could make, this opener is a winner and makes me want to play more.

Celestin · April 1, 2023

Woof!, -cl9, pistol-start with saves. I'm also using Ancient Aliens widescreen HUD.

Spoiler

woof0007.png.1a56345e878f858d6a42fd31bc2a7830.png

This is my first exposure to PUSS series, which up until now totally evaded me for some reason. I love community projects, as they end up producing rather diverse wads. I complained a lot about the homogeneity of the Club's previous edition and hoped for something more varied. Wish granted.

MAP01: I Skillsawed the Aliens by Death Bear

Spoiler

woof0008.png.986873b5fb8c7f04fed1aa465115c592.png

April begins with a bit of technical difficulties. The info file labels PUSS IX as "limit removing", so I launched the wad with -complevel 2, reached the shack and couldn't progress further. Switching to Boom compatibility fixed this and I could continue as intended.

I Skillsawed the Aliens (10/10 pun) starts with a short prologue, which acts as both title sequence and a reference to Ancient Navajo Wolf Warp (sidenote, I've only played the first few levels of Ancient Aliens, back when I started playing Doom in 2020 and concluded it was beyond my skill level and hasn't returned since; I should finally give it another chance). Go inside a shack, smoke a peyote pipe and get transported to the map proper - an arena with a ziggurat in the middle and a series of adjacent rooms on the perimeter. Everything you do - picking up a new gun or pressing a switch to progress - unleashed an ambush of imps, zombies and pinkies, supported by stronger demons. While the fights here aren't that tough, they are made more tense by map's cramped design. The final fight adds an archvile to the mix, but if you have enough rockets, you can just rush the corridor he appears in and saturate it with explosives. After dealing with this last ambush, you can enter through a flying saucer.

I thought the map was a bit tight on ammo, but that's my fault - I killed the four archviles only to learn they can be telefragged later. There is also a secret plasma, it's easy to find and helps in a pinch. Probably my only complain are the visuals, to be more precise, a contrast between ancient ruins and alien side rooms. I know what Death Bear was going for, but I don't think it worked. Then again, this map was made in 10 hours, so I shouldn't be that much picky.

I Skillsawed the Aliens is a solid, action-packed opener. Nothing more to say, other than it makes me excited for the rest of the month.

Klear · April 1, 2023

I've been following last month's Fragport from afar and enjoyed it very much, and this looks great, so I'll just jump right in. Plus everyone is recommending playing Ancient Aliens at least once, so I can get that squared away =P

Map01: Skillsawed by Aliens by Death Bear

QuestZDoom, UV, blind, pistol start, saves

This map is gorgeous! Playing in VR, I appreciate things to ogle and ogle I did. The doggie warp corridors were especially trippy. So far the difficulty is managable - I did have some deaths due to technical issues, skill issues and a revenant ambush. The only really scary part was the one with the berserk - I just can't do the melee dance reliably enough when using an analog stick. Overall the map is pretty chill - the ambushes are telegraphed (usually sprung by picking up a weapon or pushing a button) which let me admire the scenery in peace in between them.

The map makes me want to do another run but this time leaving the archies for a final tele-stomp, but not with analog controls. No way.

Edited April 4, 2023 by Klear

Monsieur E · April 1, 2023

Haven't played this wad before, dsda-doom 0.25.6, UV, -complevel 9, pistol starts, going for 100% kills and secrets.

Map01: "I Skillsawed the Aliens"
By Death Bear, 203/203 kills, 4/4 secrets, 11:32

Ancient Aliens has arguably one of the best opener maps, laying its cards on the table for what we can expect from the wad alongside telegraphing its willingness to challenge the player on UV with a cyberdemon greeting the player. As a result, I had a bit of an expectation from Mapping At Warpspeeed to deliver a similarly high quality opener, and fortunately, it delivers.

The map opens with a pretty snazzy intro functioning as a title sequence alongside referencing AA map01's opening gag, and proceeds to thrust you into action telefragging a cyberdemon perched atop a ziggurat. The map is pretty loaded with exciting traps, with some being compatible with the weapon they were set to guard. Archvile turrets teleport in periodically on the pillars in the central arena. I got the secret pretty early and there was sufficient enough ammo for me to depose of them without much hassle, rendering them pretty inconsequential although I appreciate the telefrag sequence towards the end and will use it on subsequent playthroughs. The final fight in the map is my favorite with how the enemies protect the archvile who can then wreck havoc as they push outwards.

Visually, I think the map is a bit too dark and lacks sufficient lighting contrast that makes aa-tex feel kinda drab, but otherwise looks good. In particular, I like the cracks in the grounds around the central arena. If I could nitpick, I would suggest making all of the secret platforms one secret as opposed to four since they all are unlocked essentially by the same trigger but that's not really anything I hold against the map. All around, this was a very fun map and I'm excited to see what the rest of the wad has in store for us.

BluePineapple72 · April 1, 2023

Really glad to see this one up here! Thank you for choosing a PUSS wad for April! (My birth month of all months :D)

A quick note: the limit-removing mention in the text file is 100% a mistake, as many have mentioned. This is a boom wad.

ALSO, this version is *technically* outdated. The current version 1 had a few softlock fixes and a fix to a single frame of the player sprite. Some of the custom textures have also been modified to not break on certain ports.

You don’t see this version because it’s currently sitting around in the incoming directory for idgames, so keep your eyes peeled for that!

Again, thanks for the playthroughs! I’m very excited to see what y’all think. I’m super proud of this wad and consider it to be one of PUSS’ best works.

If you like what you see here, come check out our PENIS series, which is launching today!

Mr. Alexander · April 1, 2023

I've lurked in a few DWMegawad Club threads and figure I may as well join in on this one. I really liked Ancient Aliens when I played it a few months ago: The texture pack and palette look great, the encounters challenge you, but not excessively, and the maps offer a fresh variety of different styles of level design. I've never played this wad before, and I don't think I've played any PUSS projects, but they always look pretty fun, and I'll try anything that uses AA-tex. I'm interested to see how the texture set works with speedmaps, since I know it primarily as it was used in carefully made maps like in Ancient Aliens and Intergalactic Xenology.

Like Celestin and RHhe82, I got tripped up by the "limit-removing" designation in the text file: It's a Boom wad, so play it in complevel 9 or Boom compatibility if your source port cares about those distinctions. The original thread makes this clear, and a reasonable person probably could have assumed that a tribute to Ancient Aliens would be a Boom wad, but it's the morning, I had only just had my coffee, and usually I follow the text file and everything works fine. None of that is really serious and the problem comes up immediately, so, on to the wad:

Map01, "I Skillsawed The Aliens," by Death Bear

DSDA-Doom, UV, Pistol start (It's Map01, so ... ), used an advanced HUD

Spoiler

Inverting the idea from AA Map01, you warp into the main arena from a peyote pipe and immediately telefrag a centrally placed cyberdemon. Where that map was fast and breezy, this one is a little more slow and methodical, with a chilled out midi to match. If you want to press a particular button early on, you have to take a chainsaw. I don't know what that button did, but I maxed the map, so I guess it doesn't matter. As you descend from the central ziggurat and work your way through the side chambers, each of which gives you a new weapon in exchange for an ambush, arch-viles appear one by one on elevated platforms flanking the entrances to the biggest side chambers, forcing you to take cover close by their platforms, behind the ziggurat, or behind horribly small blocks that demand precise positioning if you don't want to get zapped. In the demo, I got frustrated with myself after taking a particularly stupid arch-vile flame and used half the secret plasma rifle's ammo to kill one of them in revenge, even though I knew I'd telefrag all of them if I just got to the teleporter room. In my first playthroughs, I thought I had to arch-vile jump onto the pillars to get the plasma rifle and its ammo, which would have been doable, but very mean, especially for a Map01. Fortunately, you can interact with them to lower the outer ledges and get an easy boost to the secret items.

All in all, not a bad start. Maybe a little tight on ammo at times, but only just enough to keep you conscious of your spending. The chainsaw and the berserk pack are obvious cues to slash and punch your way through weaker enemies once the hitscanners and mid-tiers are down. In the demo, I took a slightly different route through the blue-locked area than I did on previous attempts, hitting the revenants first with the super shotgun before moving through to the big chamber with the cacodemons, and so I missed the imps that teleport into the dark inner chamber, causing me to wander around looking for the remaining monsters once I'd finished the final fight. It's ugly, but it's a casual demo, so it's not the worst thing in the world. Looking forward to the next map!

Casual practiced demo: pussix01-mralexander.zip

LadyMistDragon · April 1, 2023

I'd started playing this around RC1's release but had to stop when time ran off or something. heh

UV, pistol-start, From Doom With Love, demos when I feel like it. As The Home Depot says, let's do this!

Map 01: I Skillsawed the Aliens

by @Death Bear

Zorgo Blazkowicz starts on his adventure only to find that he has been expected! Like why would we have this Alphabet text floating in the air otherwise? In any case, this opening area is wonderfully atmospheric, thanks to the the purple hues much of the Ancient Aliens texture pack contain. And in the hands of a guy who'd already proven in the course of 7 months of activity to turn out maps twice as fast as anyone else, it proves especially impressive! The high canyons leads to an obvious Navajo Wolf Warp reference which leads to the instant telefragging of a Cyberdemon....but then, we spot 4 Arch-vile perched around the central pyramid here and we know we're not gonna have an easy time of it.

From here, we go through a series of linear challenge fights where we find our weapons, acquire the blue key, then finally, after a series of teleportations around the courtyard, end up fighting off quite the large horde of monsters coming from the exit! The one Arch-vile in there was not all that easily disposed of here. The plasma rifle wasn't too easy to find, but was accessed easily enough after finding a switch on one of the washed-bricks in the corner.

Very interesting. Doesn't just riff on Navajo Warp Wolf but presents combat in precisely the right way to let us know what we're in for! And the presentation is just as top-notch as one could hope for. I'd forgotten the Arch-viles could be telefragged, lol

PS - Sorry this is a shorter one. It hasn't been such a good couple of days

lmd_PUSSIX01.zip

Quote

Very nice! One of my picks again made it! This was one of my most anticipate WADs of last year, and I am happy to say it did not disappoint. I had only been mildly acquainted with the PUSS projects before playing this one. In fact, I had only played one before: March of the Speeddemons, which was a Rowdy Rudy one. But I have played a good amount of maps by some of the authors in this WAD from other community projects. And a lot of those names are ones to watch, if you haven't been already. Since then, I've played a couple other PUSS WADs: Anniversary Under the Sea, TH1RT3EN, and Lover's Quarrel, and they've all been really good (just waiting om The Chilling Winds of Dis to get out of beta before trying). Like other WAD series such as the Doomer Board Projects, each one has a distinct visual theme, which for me is half the fun! Another cool thing about the PUSS series is the rules. Each PUSS has some unique rules mappers can implement into their maps. Some of them could be a list of things each map needs to have, some could be naming conventions for maps, and loads more. For this PUSS, here were the rules:

You've named basically all of my favorite PUSS sets!! (there's also Summer of Slaughter, the Pirate Doom-themed one as well as the Adventures of Square set, but of course, at least Booty has yet to reach RC1 and honestly, I'm not really much of a Adventures of Square fan)

Edited April 2, 2023 by LadyMistDragon

BluePineapple72 · April 1, 2023

11 hours ago, dobu gabu maru said:

MAP09 - “Alien Tartarus” by myolden

This level is actually by Muumi. It has the best starting UFO in the whole wad methinks.

Side note: if you pay attention closely, every map begins with a UFO created by the mapper of that map, and it ends (usually), with a UFO created by the upcoming mapper. It kind of makes the wad a Grand Theft UFO simulator if you have a good imagination.

Ralgor · April 1, 2023

I've been aware of the PUSS series for some time, but until now I haven't had the chance to actually play one. (other than one of the Lover's Quarrel DM test sessions) When I saw someone nominate this particular wad in the last thread, I knew that this was the wad I was really wanting to win. I'm glad it did, since it should serve as a change from the last couple months of older wads. A lot has changed in the mapping scene since 2001, and one of those things is the proliferation of custom palettes. I actually love the original Doom palette so much though that I find most custom palettes to be worse than the default. This is not one of them. Another reason I'm glad this won is that this is a true limit-removing boom mapset. The capabilities that unlocks makes a ton of difference to the look and feel of maps.

Believe it or not, I've never actually played Ancient Aliens. I've started it a couple of times, but I was never able to stick with it due to time constraints. So this is all going to be from the point of view of someone who has limited experience with the wad that inspired this one.

I'm going to be playing using DSDA-Doom v0.25.6, using complevel 9 and "Ultra Violence" difficulty. I'll be trying to record my blind pistol-start runs in a demo, but if the levels get difficult enough I'll transition to doing a run through with saves, and only recording a demo if I feel I can do it in a reasonable amount of time. I'm kind of hoping this wad doesn't hit that high of a difficulty level though! But if it does that won't stop me from enjoying it.

MAP01 - "I Skillsawed the Aliens" by Death Bear
dsda-doom v0.25.6 cl9, UV, Pistol start, blind run, single segment
100% kills and secrets

We start out having just been transported down from a UFO. This initial cave section doubles as an opening credits sequence, which is really charming. We enter a hut with a pipe, and away we go! I know Ancient Aliens does something similar, just without the credits. One of the first things I notice, besides the credits, is the midi. I've heard this track before and I'm happy to hear it again. It makes for a great start to the wad.

Despite the monster count, this map is fairly compact and linear. There's usually only one path to follow, and at the end of that path you have to flip a switch, or cross a linedef that unlocks a new path. Each time more monsters are released into the central area, and often a new arch-vile will appear on one of the large platforms there. The last arch-vile gets released to the floor, and will start resurrecting everything. I hope you saved some rockets.

Eventually you unlock the exit and are whisked away by another UFO, a gimmick that will apparently be repeated by every level. It won't be quite as interesting as Fragport's continuity, but it's still appreciated. BluePineapple72 mentions that the UFO at the end of one map is designed by the next author, which is a neat trick that I will have to pay more attention to in the future.

Each weapon you get comes with a contingent of defenders, so you don't get anything in this map for free. You get plenty of ammo to kill everything, and none of the traps put too much pressure on you. The thing is this is just MAP01, so if the difficulty goes up from here we'll quickly get to some pretty spicy maps.

The visuals are great, which is a welcome change from the last two wads this club has played. I'm really excited to see what these authors can do with this palette and texture set!

Grade: B

MAP01 - 18:43.94 (18:43) K: 203/203 I: 40/40 S: 4/4

ralgor_pussixmaw01.zip

Helm · April 1, 2023

We're playing a good one?! I'm so excited. Work is killing me but I will wake up at 8 every morning and play a dope level of this set no problem. Modern, beautiful, fixed for pistol starts, the mapper name list is a thing of beauty. Very excited to start tomorrow and catch up with the writeups!

continuum.mid · April 1, 2023

Ooh, an Ancient Aliens parody! Perfect for the month. I loved Ancient Aliens, so I'm very happy to play this. Also I heard one of my compositions in the demos, which got me super excited, but that's for April 5th. Also it seems that in this mapset I get to play as the aliens, which is a great gag, as is the BluePineapple72 bio that's just the Wikipedia page on the host of Ancient Aliens.

World 1: I Skillsawed the Aliens

dsda-doom 0.25.6+dfsg-1 (Debian 12), Doom 2, Ultra-Violence, blind, pistol start w/ limited saves

I was going to play with Crispy Doom since the TXT file said the compatibility was limit-removing, but then the pipe teleporter didn't work, so that was probably a lie; I switched to DSDA-Doom, which is increasingly becoming my favorite all-purpose source port. The opening titles are great, as is the reference to Ancient Navajo Wolf Warp, using the pipe teleporter to telefrag the Cyberdemon that annoyed me so much in AA map 1, and afterwards the map proceeds in a linear and formulaic fashion. The first four encounters occur in rooms that open around the central pyramid: a hitscanner crowd with the shotgun, a green room with fodder and Revenants and the rocket launcher, a red room with a berserk pack and some pinkies and imps, and a brick room with the Chaingun that opens into a corridor with lots of well-placed monsters. Each encounter summons an Arch-Vile, the first has to be shotgunned but the rest pose little threat if you're paying attention. Once you have the blue key, there's a room of Cacodemons to clean out, then some hell knights and an arachnotron guarding the final teleporter, giving you a supercharge for the final fight, which is a fun time.

Ordinarily I'd play saveless on the first map, but I didn't here. I took three deaths (one in the red room, one to the archvile that appears after the chaingun room, and one to the final fight), and oddly got softlocked once by jumping off a ledge to an area behind some torch pillars. Moments like that remind me that this is a speedmap, I suppose. I managed to get 100% kills and secrets without much added difficulty, because the 4 secrets are just lifts to get on top of pillars, and none of the monsters are hidden or optional. Despite some moderately difficult fights, this map still feels easygoing and slow-paced. Probably thanks to the MIDI, which sounds like a dead ringer for the AA soundtrack and I'm very surprised wasn't composed by Stuart Rynn himself.

Anyway, solid start, but if it weren't for the MIDI and the Ancient Aliens references this map wouldn't stand out to me much, and it certainly doesn't feel like it belongs in the map01 slot.

Azure_Horror · April 1, 2023

DSDA-doom, UV, pistol start, -complevel 9

Map 01 I Skillsawed the Aliens

by Death Bear

This is an interesting level. It feels both very Ancient Aliens, yet very differnet from AA. I guess the key here is a combination of familiar AA episode 1 visuals and tricks with a surprisingly chill overall gameplay. Don't get me wrong, there are quite a few hectic ambushes on this map, but in between those ambushes the level feels very chill. Some stretches of Chill Gameplay experiences do happen in the original Ancient Aliens, but they are concentrated in the final stretch of the WAD, with overall difficulty of those levels being much higher than episode 1.

In short, "I Skillsawed the Aliens" feels like a map which takes gameplay loop of "Kingdom of Crystal Skulls" or "Xenoarboreum" and re-adapts it to normal AA Episode 1 difficulty standard.

I think that this map is a very good introduction to the Warpspeed megaWAD, it both references the original WAD by Skillsaw and stands on its own unique terms.

Edited April 1, 2023 by Azure_Horror

Celestin · April 1, 2023

MAP02: Alien Covenant by myolden

Spoiler

woof0010.png.701abf14a7adbbaaf81da0abef787484.png

Locking the player inside an arena and forcing them to survive until they can get out - that's this compact desert temple in a nutshell. The opening fight involves killing imps, hitscanners, revenants and a pain elemental with a shotgun. This is easily the least enjoyable part of the map, but after dealing this this, it gets much better.

The next area has an elevated cyberdemon. If you know to press a nearby wall, you can telefragged him right away. I only found this out when everything but him was dead and his rockets can reach places through the map. Fights such as super shotgun trap (with revenants, imps and archvile) or the narrow walkway with red key and revenants on both sides force the player to take extra care and look out for stray rockets.

The map's highlight is the rocket launcher/blue key fight. Two perched archviles that act as area deniers, a horde of revenants on the ground and an elevated cyberdemon (plus the other one that was still alive) make a deadly fight. Luckily, it's easy for the skeletons to catch a cyber's rocket, giving you more room to get rid of the viles. Once you press a series of scattered switches and get out, you can telefrag the other cyberdemon and deal with the last fight - a small room with yellow key, plasma rifle, revenants and hell knights. I dealt with it by hiding in an alcove with a switch - that way I was shielded from the revenants and could easily kill the nobles.

Despite my complains, I enjoyed MAP02. It's efficient with its use of space and relatively low kill-count, while presenting some clever traps and more coherent visuals than the previous level.

Veeda Vidlak · April 2, 2023

Oh hell yeah I am so happy to see this wad.

I discovered the Pineapple Under the Sea community late last year, partially from MtPain27’s playthrough of 12 Days of Doommas. That one’s fun but since then I’ve played some projects I really love, like March of the Speeddemons and Anniversary Under the Sea. And then we have Mapping at Warpspeed, my absolute favorite, so I’m looking forward to this month.

The backstory here is that we’re an ass-kicking alien, Zorglo Blaskowicz (the ninth), and are just chillin when Earth’s hell decides to invade and wreck all our favorite shit. So now we have to appropriate a saucer to go save our planets from the demons, no doubt spitting out a space cigar in annoyance at having our vacation ruined.

Map01 “I Skillsawed the Aliens”

We open with a friendly greeting, welcoming us to Mapping at Warpspeed, before being presented with our customary peyote pipe. You know what to do.

The hit takes us through Skillsaw’s animal companion sequence and this time our canine friend is more on the mark, telefragging the cyberdemon on the first try. Now on top of a pyramid we are presented with the splendor of the Ancient Aliens texture pack. Damn does it look good, the atmosphere in AA is among my favorites of all time and the theme looks just as good here. Once you’re done sightseeing head down to grab the megasphere and start the level proper. It’s obviously an ambush, which will ultimately net a shotgun and chainsaw.

Watch out! An archvile is now on one of the pillars overlooking the pyramid in a clear homage to Bad Medicine Men. We have the ammo to snipe him if desired but he can just be telefragged later. A bunch of demons also come out but if you’re skilled with the saw they’re no threat whatsoever. Now we can go on more forays through alien techno temple, each one having similar gameplay to the first ambush. Grab weapon, get ambushed, new vile on a pillar. Ammo and health are sufficient, and we have a plasma secret (essentially covering all four secrets) opened by a switch which is… fairly easy to find? Fiendishly hidden? I’m not sure, I could see this one taking a while or being found immediately by pure chance.

Eventually we are able to open the southern area, which has a teleporter that lets you spirit surf the bad medicine men on the pillars. We then get a mess of monsters (with a high priority vile) to serve as a fun final fight around the pyramid. Afterwards head north to our UFO to leave. This is Zorglo’s personal transport btw, we’ll be using it to exit every map.

The Ancient Navajo Wolf Warp is a tough map to make an homage to and this one does a pretty darn good job. I found the “didn’t miss this time!” cyber telefrag amusing and the level looks great. It's a superb start to the megawad, displaying both the strengths of the texture pack and interesting gameplay. Death Bear did good work, as always.

warpspeed1.zip

TJG1289 · April 2, 2023

GZDoom/UV/Pistol-Start/Saves

Map 02: Alien Covenant - Myolden

100% kills and secrets

Time: 10:16

Deaths: 8

This map caused me more deaths than all the ones I had in last month's WAD combined, lol. Like Death Bear, Myolden has become one of my favorite recent mappers. After enjoying all of his maps for Skulltiverse when we played that for the club a while back, I was definitely keen on checking out stuff he released. It was the main reason I downloaded his full 32-map megawad, Nostalgia. That one ended up being one of my favorite releases of last year too. Add in his other set from last year, Altars of Madness, and you can really see Myolden's versatility as a mapper. They can do speedmaps, limit removing maps, Boom maps, etc. So seeing their name in the credits for this already made me eager to try it out. Thankfully, this first map of his in this set is a good one, and is surprisingly tough.

First off, right off the bat, we have to mention the MIDI pick for this map. "Desk Lamp" is my favorite Doom MIDI of all time. I don't know what it is exactly about it, but it's just so gorgeous. It almost feels Arabic to me. Idk if that was the intent, but it does evoke deserts in my mind, so it fits with this theme a little bit. Fantastic track. There's almost no incidental enemy encounters in this map; it's mostly set piece fights. First off, grabbing the shotgun sics imps, shotgunners, and revs at you. Get an imp to hit a rev so you can shotgun it without fear of retaliation. Hit a switch to lower some walls with more monsters, including a pain elemental you'll want to focus on first. Hit the other switch to lower the bars to escape, but also teleport in more shotgunners, imps, and revs. It's nothing too bad, but then you leave this area and get targeted by a cyb. You can telefrag him immediately with the secret teleporter nearby, but I kept him alive for the balcony fight, that sends out some imps, revs, and an archie. Archie got hit by a rocket, so that was lucky. Did almost die here, so I took the secret telefrag to grab the soulsphere nearby. Good thing, as I lost it almost immediately to the imp/manc encounter since I got cornered. A few more rev and hell knight fights and the red key is yours. Now the hardest fight in the map, the blue key fight. Biggest set piece of the map too. Grab the rocket launcher to open 3 alcoves filled with revs, while 2 archies look on from above, and another cyb appears stationary at the entrance. I died 6 times here, since the cyb wasn't shooting for me, and I kept getting roasted by archies. If you're actually lucky, the cyb will hit the revs, allowing you to rocket the archies with a little less danger. Eventually, I just smacked the switches lowering the bars and SSGd the revs by bottlenecking them at the entrance. The yellow key fight is another surprisingly tough fight. Hit the switch to lower the plasma, and 4 pillars will spawn revs (with teleporting back-up when they die) and hell knights will teleport in by the other switch you need to hit. Died once trying to start infighting (didn't work), so I waited until I could hit that other switch, did so, grabbed the yellow key, and SSGd everything from the relative safety of the door (still died again from a lucky rev missile here). With that finally done, I can exit. Overall, a surprisingly tough level for map 2. The fights were more set piece based, ala Ribbiks et al, which isn't something you saw much in AA. At least, not in this way. The detailing and texture-work was a step up from the previous map, and looks fantastic. And to top it all off, we have an incredible MIDI.

Ralgor · April 2, 2023

MAP02 - "Ancient Convenant" by Myolden
dsda-doom v0.25.6 cl9, UV, Pistol start, blind run w/ saves, then single segment w/ demo
100% kills and secrets

This map doesn't mess around. The last map was a fairly easy difficulty, but this one ratchets it up straight to hard. I wasn't able to beat this blind at all. I went back to using saves so I could get through it and learn the map, and only then did I try to record a single segment demo. It was still hard. It seems like these maps may not be ordered by difficulty, which is fine. This map feels like it should be map 22, rather than map 2.

Killing a Pain Elemental with a shotgun while other shotgunners are trying to kill me is not an experience I enjoyed. Most of the rest of the map was hard but still fun, but this particular fight just wasn't. In the next area is a cyberdemon turret that will severely restrict your movement. This is combined with the next fight after you get the SSG where you have to kill two revenants and an arch-vile. I died here a lot because I kept trying to avoid being in sight of both the arch-vile and the cyberdemon, but sometimes that's just not possible. Then I found the secret here which lets you telefrag the cyberdemon, and suddenly this fight isn't that bad. I really don't like how it feels like the secret was intended to be used to complete the fight. I know some mappers have the attitude that secrets can be non-optional if you're playing on Ultra-Violence, but I don't like it.

After getting the red key, you can go out into a courtyard. Grabbing the rocket launcher unleashes hell into the yard, including another cyberdemon turret. If you still have the previous cyberdemon shooting at you, then this fight gets even more difficult. Once you can clear out some space, you can hit the switches in the cubby-holes and then go out and through a teleporter which telefrags this cyberdemon as well. Still, this fight is pretty fun, and is the highlight of the map.

The fight for the yellow key isn't too difficult if you have enough rockets left. Just blast the hell knights quickly and take shelter in the closet with the switch. You can take your time after that.

My first run through this map I ended up killing both cyberdemons manually because I didn't see the teleporters. I just barely had enough ammo for it, but I wasn't about to do that when playing single segment. The level was difficult enough already! I still enjoyed most of this map, but it did irritate me with the pain elemental and dual cyberdemon turrets.

Grade: B

MAP02 - 8:27.77 (8:27) K: 99/99 I: 57/57 S: 1/1

ralgor_pussixmaw02.zip

Edited April 3, 2023 by Ralgor
Change grade after some thought

RHhe82 · April 2, 2023

MAP02: Ancient Covenant. Played on DSDA v0.25.6, UV, PS. 99/99 K, 1/1 S, 57/57 I. Comp. time 17:39

Only 99 monsters, eh? The second map, probably quite chill, right?

Wrong. The first wave of enemies in the corridor are still quite easy to dispatch, although pain elementals with a single-barrel is not my favourite pastime. So yeah, not an easy map. Who's the author again? Myolden! One of those mappers I've grown to appreciate in the last year. Indeed, Ancient Covenant doesn't look like a speedmap at all (except for one obviously faulty texture in the starting area I wouldn't have found if I wasn't desperately looking for the secret.

Speaking of which, I once again had to give up after half an hour and look in UDB. ONLY after that I saw the discolored brick wall, and I can't believe I didn't notice it right away. Instead I found, without any help, the unofficial secret :P Very funny :P (And I'm not talking about out the lab coat guy either, who's probably taking a piss behind the bushes, but the "hundred" secret). Not sure which action opened up that area, didn't look that up in UDB.

Each individual fight, especially after entering the main area, is demanding, consistency requires skill and tactic. Even the early one which triggers when approaching the much needed SSG. I don't if these fights are necessarily skillsaw-like, but more like warm-ups for the maps of combat puzzle school á la Ribbiks.

Anyway, great map; one that could easily have been included in Ancient Aliens' first episode (though perhaps not quite as early). Also, I really love Desk Lamp, probably my favourite Stewboy piece. This map is worthy of using it, just like Bad Medicine Men and Sol.

Edited April 2, 2023 by RHhe82

PRO-RC · April 2, 2023

Played on Woof (10.5.1) - Single Segment - Blind run - Saves

Map01: I Skillsawed the Aliens by Death bear

Good map, don't have much to say except that my favorite room is the room with the berserk pack in it. no good map01 is complete without one of those, and the slaughter that ensues after you pick it up is glorious.

I give it a GOOD/10

Also @Klear playing in VR is sick as heck!

SuyaSSS · April 2, 2023

MAP02: “Ancient Covenant” by myolden

Played On Nugget Doom, HMP, Pistol-start

Myolden really spices things up from the previous map. The SSG fight was the first fight that gave me slight trouble in the first playthrough. That fight was incredible. Actually all the fights in this map are incredible. I even repeated the yellow key fight 2 times due to forgetting to save after doing it and getting hit by a stray cyberdemon rocket while trying to kill him. The fights in this map actually remind me of Nostalgia since I recently completed it and it is also made by Myolden. Also, it is never boring to use rockets on a herd of revenants while also getting the cyberdemon to infight with those revenants.

The map also looks very good channeling some sort of ancient mayan location corrupted by alien technology. The only issue I had with the map was that it took me a bit to find the blue key door but that is more of the fault of my horrible navigation skills than the map's.

I also noticed when playing this map that this alien doomguy re-appears in Lunacy which is a cool connection in the alien themed PUSS projects.

Grade: A+

Book Lord · April 2, 2023

MAP 02 – Ancient Covenant by @myolden

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

Well, this was a pretty tough MAP02! Reading the info text file, the levels have been conceived one after the other, with the saucer at the end being used to begin the next one. Mappers were aware of the slot they were working for, but I think they had different ideas about the difficulty they wanted to achieve. However, Ancient Covenant was the typical myolden map, showcasing detailed, functional, and finely textured architecture, perfectly matching the uncompromised ambushes in store. The first chamber, where a pistol starter must confront many Revenants, a Pain Elemental, Imps, and lots of Shotgun Guys with limited access to cover and weapons, spoke for itself.

Spoiler

487426663_MappingatWarpspeedMAP02_01.jpg.052830a2a3d51ede49f9f65a481126e8.jpg

The map was small, and the nature of its combat was very cramped. The second area had a Cyberdemon shooting from an inaccessible tower, who helped me with the wicked ambush next to the SSG, but was a thorn in the side for the rest of the map. The only secret was tied to its wolf-warp telefragging and offered a Soul Sphere as a reward, but I could not find it until I was ready to leave. The way to the RSK was full of cage traps, forcing me to confront foes in limited space, and reached its climax with the four Revenants guarding the key. The Cyberdemon got me while I was trapped like a mouse and dodging their rockets; another reason to get rid of him before venturing there. The BSK arrangement granted the rocket launcher and deployed a second Cyberdemon, two Arch-Viles, and a squad of Revenants. The healers were placed deviously, and I could not beat this fight unless I killed them first. The skeletons tended to infight with the bosses or to congregate at the centre of the shrine, where they were easily dispersed.

Spoiler

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The challenges were not over yet: the YSK must be collected in a small room with the plasma rifle and pillars, where Revenants were about to teleport. As expected, they were not alone since Hell Knights appeared in the most obvious hiding spot. They must be tricked into infighting with the Revenants, even though the skeletons might count on replacements that were a bit annoying to kill. I survived because of the Soul Sphere, but with not much health left. Ancient Covenant incidentally became the 100th map submitted to a PUSS event, as celebrated by myolden with a hidden message that can be read on the automap. It was an outstanding creation without a doubt, showing a quality you can hardly link to a speedmap, though I found the spaces a bit too narrow and the encounter design a bit too demanding for an early slot like this.

Doomy__Doom · April 2, 2023

MAP 02 – Ancient Covenant

Once again with a small blooper start, the left blue torch podium has a mid railing texture on its left side. After that, the map delivers on the close encounters promise of the first one with vigor.

In the first fight I got a lot of cooperation from imps distracting revs, so most was resolved safely enough. Hugging PE is near enough mandatory to have a decent experience.

Sniping Cyber Anxiety Therapy makes SSG fight quite rough, even though the secret telefrag is already available at that point. You don't get much of a chance to figure it out, likely tripping the encounter while looking around. Cyber can help you with a distraction as much as just decide to instantly snipe you in the back after ending his current Rev target. Stuck between a rocket and a vile place is always an unpleasant situation to be in.

If you can get through SSG fight the hard way, you can now use Cyb to distract revs in the RSK fight after a few more short cq sequences. Keeping him alive more than that is probably counterproductive though, as the BSK fight features another sniping cyber and 2 viles. Zap sightlines are pretty insane in that geometry and dodging 2 sets of random rockets at the same time isn't good time (I tried).

The last stretch - YSK fight - I somehow managed to brute force first try by rushing the revs and then circling around the pool. I doubt that's the intended strategy, but I'll take what I can.

Overall, it is the kind of level I can enjoy any day of the week - short, puncy, difficult enough to warrant an occasional pause to think, but not to the point where seriously consulting the "demonic fluid mechanics" shelf becomes a necessity.

Helm · April 2, 2023

Ok, let's get going this going.

I have played AA before when it came out but not to completion. I don't think I was good enough to have a fun time with UV at the time even with saves. I am well aware of its sterling reputation in total, of course. Stunning soundtrack is stunning. I've also played Intergalactic Xenology so I have had additional experience with the asset pack (I've been inside the caco). Ultimately, I've seen the vision quest coyotes in my very own real-life auto-scrolling psychedelic corridor of mental illumination a few times in my life, so I feel kinship to any mapset that starts with blasting your face off until you think you're an alien with a shotgun.

I've played I think most if not all the Skillsaw map sets over the years of course and I think I finished Valiant with saves once ages ago. However the more exciting part of this, is that this map set is made by mappers whose work has inspired me in various community projects for the few recent years. In small creative communities like these being inspired by peers getting better in real time is such a blessing.

Oh, and since this is trippy and spacey, I will be omitting the original soundtrack of the mapset while I play appropriately psychedelic and spacey music on top. Starting with excerpts from Pestilence - Spheres. I recognize that it'd be best to have initial experiences with new doom maps with their assigned soundtrack and I would be theoretically slightly cross if people muted my shit but since there will be a lot of footage of these maps on the thread by people who are playing with the appropriate reverence I thought it ok to continue in my idiom. At the end of the day this is how I play doom, a chance to listen to my archived music while killing demons.

DSDA-Doom, UV, pistol starting w/saves
Map01 - I Skillsawed the Aliens
by Death Bear

I like how the PUSS session starts with a nice credit drop and logo. I suppose all the PUSS sessions are like that. Anyway, we got the connection, we came to the place, the peyote is here, we gotta take that hit. Now we are an alien.

Death Bear places us on the top of a ziggurat with many blocked pathways to it. Actually they place us inside a cyberdemon, on top of said ziggurat. We have this charismatic personality just ready to burst on the scene so the cyber never stood a chance. As far as the onlooker demons know, they just saw their glorious leader on top of their ziggurat implode and a little green man with a pistol came out of him. Quite a change from AA!

The first thing they place in our field of vision at the top of the zigurrat is a north megasphere so we are quite motivated to go for that first ambush. zambiemen make an entrance stage right and left upon procurement of the mega-juice and then slowly as you pew pew them some sergeants and some pinkies come to flank. Even such a simple setup with the timing of the low tier fodder so many mappers don't even bother with. This entanglement is just there to give you a shotgun in an interesting way. Death Bear choreographs a lot in this first map, giving us this feeling of 'deadly clockwork contraptions' from the go of the map set. That hit was strong and we are a green paranoid alien for sure. This world is against us even from the first lock-in.

Clearing out the first fight shows us how the map will work. Very linearly, we will make progress by flipping switches that open up other avenues in the central ziggurat location, usually teleporting in a vile per chunk of progress on top of the for large monoliths that mark the corners of the ziggurat. I suspected early on that I would be telefragging these viles but for reasons of safety I rocket them early. The ammo count works out (thanks Death Bear) so, no harm done.

There's not much point to go on about how cohesive and together even this map01 looks because this asset pack + abstract level design is just gold when an experience mapper has a go. I love this palette, I love this skybox, the purple chrome SSG is a thing, this is going to be purely fun even though on UV I am quite ready to get my ass kicked down the line. Even this first map has more fair challenge than most of what I've played in the other two doomwadmonthly clubs so far.

Second little cubhole (green slimy cave) leads to a rocket launcher and assorted small ambush where we are introduced to two sides opening up at once with a few imps, and revenant right, a mancubus left. Everyone's played doom playing this, but the gentle introduction of 'perhaps you might want to make them infight... you might need to learn how to proc infights for this' just by geometry and having an underpowered gun is appreciated.

Third way (orange slimy cave) leads to a zerk and lets loose apropriate, mixed but heavy-on-the-pinky reinforcements around the ziggurat foundation. While dealing with this you have to look out for the second teleporting vile, so some geometric awareness is necessary to not get zapped too much.

Fourth way nets us a chaingun and the wall drop ambush involves a couple of chaingunners, pinkies,cacos and revenants in quite a confined space (though you can backtrack out and funnel). I like this fight, but it also just worked out for me so there's that. A further little entanglement with the first Pain Elemental nets us green armor and the blue skull key.

The ziggurat has architectural meaning assigned to it, it looks like a thing. The outward caves and cubholes and structures that house all the switch flipping and keys and encounters look purely abstract to me. This creates a push and pull where every time you return to the Ziggurat you are rewarded with meaning-sense and when you go out to do scary things to progress or gets the guns you are more in abstract world. This is a simple and effective thing to do with maps with a little hub like this.

Blue key opens up to a teleport in fight with caco and zambies, and I go and sit and rocket the cacos exactly in front of where a zambie would teleport in. It didn't feel nice. The fault was all my own though as the teleport locations are marked on the floor, but anyway I lived through it. This leads us to the SSG (before I do a minor health run around the rest of the map). Getting that SSG and flipping an alien palm switch finally allows access to the teleporters that would deal with those viles and give all the goodies up on the monoliths, including a soulsphere.

Perfectly orchestrated, as you finish the four teleporte r loop, you get dropped on top of ziggurat and a vile plus friends spawns at middle of screen, but it'd be very hard to get him immediately with the RL as his support teleports in and converges to eat the rockets. So I had to fall back and dismantle the vile offence slowly, I ran out of rockets, had to do it with SSG and chain cubbed up in green slimy cave. Great crux fight for this first map, actually!

I didn't get any secrets. Welcoming first map but it's clear we are 30 yrs down the line and expectations of what you're gonna be dealing with on UV have inflated :D Thank you for the great map, Death Bear!

MAP 02 – Ancient Covenant
by Myolden

from UFO to UFO we continue. Myolden kills me a few times even of the first fight as we get entangled first with some low tier and a rev, but then a lot of sargeants and a pain elemental do me in. I have better luck on the third go, which is the story for a lot of the ambushes on this one. Myolden is mapping it feels with a different prerogative to Death Bear's opening map, he's telling me 'you will stumble through this with saves, but I what I want you to do is to learn the map and go from the top'. Fair enough, perhaps later!

After we deal with the first fight we open to a courtyard where the tension goes up 200% immediately as a sniper cyber we cannot deal with now dominates this layout. We will have to go through here many times to open increasingly available avenues, always dodging the cybers. Hard for me, I am not a very attentive player spatially yet.

Adding to that, the SSG in that layout is trapped with two revenants and a vile, and they show up as the cyber is overwatching. This is harder than anything in the last two months combined, to give a sense of how far we've come. On the winning attempt the cyber actually stole my vile kill! Whenever infighting tales happen, the mapper's done a good job.

We carry on and we note that nearly all the fights are setpieces here, Sunlusty set pieces at that. There's a quite hard one with a lock-in at red skull key with 4 viles where you'd actually need a strategy (or general doom god reflexes and/or luck) to make it through blind, but I am fine with my saves. The titular 'Spheres' comes on, best song on this weird album, very energizing to deal with some nobles and revs, my alien is having a great time with this head high! SPHEAAAAAARRRRRSSSSSSSSS!!!!

Now to the second to last setpiece, the rocket launcher fight, now in the auspice of two cyberdemon snipers, a revenant swarm and two turreted viles that are prio #1 to dispatch. The cybers will keep the revs entertained. The blue skull key is ours.

The krux fight here is not even that. Instead we get a lock in a small room with pedestal revenants (whom if you kill new revs teleport in on their spot) and a line of hell knights on the other side cutting of your room to dodge rev missiles. The target prio is actually the knights but you wouldn't know this until you die realizing the revenants will re-up with teleports. After dispatching the knights fast, you can hide in their little switch corner and SSG the revs on their pedestals one by one. There are I am sure better ways to deal with this fight to save plasma so you can kill both of the cyber snipers out there later, but I am wasteful to survive and did not even find the one secret on the map, so in the end I have to exit with a cyber still alive and 0 ammo, but I'll take it. The secret probably telefrags both cybers anyway. My only lowlight for this map is too many re-upping revenants, here. I never am very fond of turreted monsters that get replaced, I don't like it in that Rush map, I am not a fan of it here because it creates these priority concerns that can only be solved with trial and error knowledge. But I respect the approach to mapping, most great maps deserve to be replayed with full foreknowledge and myolden having the confidence that the rough spots on blind play will take care of themselves if the player devotes a bit more is commendable. Experientally, dying like 8 times and reloading on map02 isn't the best feeling but there's no accounting for variable game experience here, I could bring more skill, more active attention or just drop the difficulty if this gets to me, but I think in the end we'll be fine.

footage of these two maps

Now for the fun part of reading all your reports!

Edited April 2, 2023 by Helm

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