The DWmegawad Club plays: PUSS IX: Mapping at Warpspeed

[Celestin]

MAP28: Planet Chasers by Death Bear

Spoiler

Once again the player emerges on the rocky cliffs of a familiar planet. The guards here are stronger than before, though killing a group of hell knights with a regular shotgun was a boring task. I instintively cheched behind the portal building for a secret chainsaw, only to find a rocket launcher instead. Much appreciate.

Spoiler

The gate warps the player into a platform in the middle of the void. It looks a bit like a parking spot for flying saucers - one is opened right away, the other two are locked. The first destination is an alien techbase with a hint of underground temple. The combnat here feels like a warm-up. Death Bear throws large groups of monsters at the player, but most of them are on the weaker side, they tend to attack from a single direction and the player is given plenty of cells and rockets to have fun blowing enemies to pieces. Clearing this place grants the player blue and yellow keys, the former needed to open the way to the second UFO.

Spoiler

Saucer number 2 leads to a land of red rocks, which quickly reveal a large basin swarming with enemies, so grab a BFG and start fighting. This slaughter is where the tension peaks, but unfortunately, there is still some work to do, namely navigating caves and ledges on a way to the red key. While the place works great when dealing with hundreds of enemies at once, the cleanup is just tedious. 

Spoiler

With the third key in hand, the player returns to the hub for the final UFO and the final fight of the map: a pyramid in the middle of nothing, with floating islands scattered around. This would have been trivial if it wasn't for the damaging skybox. There are enough rockets do deal with revenants, cacodemons, two perched archviles and whatever else found its way here, but having to avoid hurtfloors and eliminating enemies simultanously is a tense scenario.

 

Planet Chasers is an ok map, but I think it went on for a bit too long for my liking, especially in its middle part. Sorry, Death Bear, but I prefer your tightly-designed encounters over large scale spectacle.

[Veeda Vidlak]

Map24 “Cryptozoophobia”

 

Weird Sandwich is back with another big boy, vast, grandiose, and purple. Cryptozoophobia is also ancient alien temple themed, but this time the scale is massive, every part of the map containing a lot of open ground. Progression consists of working our way around a closed-off center, each section escalating in severity. Eventually the center opens and the entire map is consumed by a huge slaughterfest, after which we have a truly lethal finish.

 

The first two sections (of I’ll say five) are pretty subdued, containing hitscanners as the only real threats and sniping enemies that are eventually telefragged. A pair of secrets eases grindiness though there’s no real need to stick around and kill everything, that’ll naturally happen very soon. The third section kicks things into high gear with sniping cyberdemons and a large host of monsters tromping all over. Again, I’d recommend engaging only what’s in your way, hit the required switches and grab that BFG ASAP.

 

The blue key (obtained with the BFG) allows us to raise the central pillar of the temple, revealing a revenant horde and several archviles. The bloodshed that follows is marvelous, the whole map is now wide open and every enemy left behind will join the party. The cybers can be telefragged from going through a door near the BFG room but I’d let them infight a bit, the passage tends to get blocked by infinite height if you go there straightaway. As for the rev/archie regiment, I’d recommend choosing your battles, spin around the map and nuke each vile when the opportunity presents itself. There’s plenty of resources but do everything possible to save that secret mega, you’ll need it for the finale.

 

This final arena will make or break single segment runs; it is incredibly difficult. You’re on a floating platform with two opposing armies flanking you, each containing imps, revenants, and a pair of cybers (joined by two viles if you go for that mega). The layout is open air, providing limited maneuvering room and precious little cover from cyber rockets and homing missiles. After two recording attempts ended here I practiced the fight and decided my best odds lay with crazy aggression. Upon arriving charge one side and destroy everything but the two cybers, back up to one of the side areas for a few seconds to grab ammo, then run behind the goatbois and pummel them with the BFG, leaving only one side to focus on. Is this simple to do? Absolutely fucking not, but the longer this fight goes the more time you give yourself to die to extreme damage projectiles flying all over the place. Put another way, you do not want this fight to drag out, and the Rambo approach keeps you in control of the tempo.

 

Overall, Cryptozoophobia continues the string of awesomeness with its intensification of meek hitscan skirmishes into wholesale slaughter. The layout perfectly accommodates the flow of combat and the conclusion is a well-designed high-challenge arena.

 

warpspeed24.zip

Time: 14:18    Kills: 666/666   Secrets: 3/3

 

Map25 “Grab the Bull by the Horns”

 

Bluepineapple72’s second entry is similar to his first, featuring three more zodiac arenas which in tandem allow the player to exit. Again, the arenas can be taken on in any order although this time I’d argue there is a clear sequence to make pistol-starters’ lives bearable. The visuals are again top-notch, now with a pleasing vine-filled setting like a mix of ancient aliens and plutonia. The color green is noticeably prominent which I suspect is part of the zodiac theme.

 

So for combat we have a central hallway containing cacos, imps, hell-knights, and soon barons that are best avoided for now. I’d recommend going to the southern arena first, which locks you on a small neon walkway with pinkies/barons for a short time while two spiders and a cyber snipe at you. I won’t say I dislike this part but it’s a little heavy on the RNG, teleport order and infighting greatly affect your chances. The reason I like to do this one first is because the plasma obtained simplifies the initial encounter in the next arena (accessed via the teleporter in the east of the main hallway). The pinky/revenant/PE mix is hell with just the SSG but manageable with the fast-firing cell weapon.

 

Now we have the second major fight, initiated by grabbing the BFG between two hallways. We get locked in for a few seconds while a cyber makes us dance and two groups of hell nobles converge from the ends of each hallway. This fight can go wrong but generally speaking if you BFG through one of the groups once able to move, rush to the end, then spin around and lay down rockets you should be alright. The cybie can be telefragged so don’t waste ammo on him and at this point I’d go do the telefrag sequence on the first arena’s enemies, letting you grab a nice secret with cells we will desperately need.

 

The third arena, which I’d HIGHLY recommend doing last (don’t come here without the BFG), is reached via the northwest door of the main hallway. In here we have some fodder, a vile I’d get rid of immediately, and a rocket launcher. Picking it up releases a sunlust-caliber encounter with a storm of barons backed up by a cyber that is initially corralled. This is a legitimately hard fight and the more cells you have going in the easier it is to make enough space to survive. Make it through and the level is over, just clean up whatever’s left and head back outside to leave.

 

While I like Passions Like Fire more, Grab the Bull by the Horns showcases strong combat design worthy of its name. Resource management is imperative and knowing when to unload the big guns will help with saveless runs. A small downside is that this is an unfriendly and unforgiving map to play blind, punishing players who don’t know what they’re getting into. Another strong outing overall, but the megawad pacing is starting to call for a break level (which I know we don't get).

 

warpspeed25.zip

Time: 6:04    Kills: 122/122   Secrets: 3/3

F that greased-up pinky that kept me from getting under six minutes.

Edited April 28, 2023 by Veeda Vidlak

[TJG1289]

I haven't done my votes yet. If my counting is correct, Solar Struggle is gonna win no mater what I vote. Good pick at least! So instead, I'll use my votes to highlight 3 megawads that maybe have flown under the radar a bit that I think would be good for future months, just so people can have them in mind for next month, and in case anyone would like to check them out for a bit.

 

+++ Corruption

I'm playing this now, and I'm in map 12 I think. This MBF21 WAD has a lot of really cool DEHACKED work in it that makes it fairly interesting. Now enemies, new enemy behavior, a pretty unique color palate, etc. It's also really tough, even from the first map. Soundtrack takes from some cool games as well. Very solid overall so far.

 

+++ Happy

I feel this one really flew under the radar. Zolgia108's sequel to their own Djinn was born after realizing how many flaws that one had and wanting to improve on it. I haven't played Djinn, but I have played this, and it's really cool. This WAD has one of the most unique atmospheres to a megawad that I've seen. It may have to do with the story, which is about a schizophrenic man named Snail who, after committing suicide at the end of Djinn, is now trying to find peace. The Doomworld thread goes into detail about each map and what plane of existence they take place on, making this one of the more metaphysical sets out there. That setting translates into map environments that are very unique and oppressive. I've tried to push for this WAD before, and I really would like more people to check it out! It's severely underrated.

 

+++ Super Mayhem 17

While my last suggestion is pretty dark in tone, this one is the complete opposite. The 2017 edition of MAYhem is based on Super Mario, and used a texture pack filled with Mario textures, making this one of the more charming megawads I've played! It also has a great list of map authors in it. We've got maps by Dragonfly, Obsidian, dobu gabu maru, Scotty, Benjogami, and more. There's even a map by Killer5, aka the guy who made Dimensions, but this one I actually beat. Also, "Desk Lamp" makes an appearance too, automatically making this WAD perfect. It's only 28 maps altogether, so it would be a lighter one, but it's fun! 

 

Edit: Apparently, that one got done already. So I'll just do Solar Struggle since that was a fun one I wanted to revist.

+++ Solar Struggle

Edited April 28, 2023 by TJG1289

[Veeda Vidlak]

Super Mayhem17 has been done already sorry to say. April 2018

[continuum.mid]

Accidentally hit post when drafting something for tomorrow...

Edited April 28, 2023 by continuum.mid

[TJG1289]

56 minutes ago, Veeda Vidlak said:

Super Mayhem17 has been done already sorry to say. April 2018

My eyes must have glazed over that when looking through the past threads! I'll change it to something else then.

[Death Bear]

4 hours ago, Celestin said:

Planet Chasers is an ok map, but I think it went on for a bit too long for my liking, especially in its middle part. Sorry, Death Bear, but I prefer your tightly-designed encounters over large scale spectacle.

No worries. I do, too.

[Klear]

3 minutes ago, BluePineapple72 said:

This was my original plan for the cancer fight though:

 

Yup, looks like cancer to me.

Edited April 28, 2023 by Klear

[BluePineapple72]

 

Starting the zodiac air sign's map, I knew pretty early on that I wanted to emulate Culture Shock in some way, given the open, airy nature of the map. And the clouds of course. It was too iconic to not emulate. Some other members in the server played with the idea of doing a Culture Shock homage but ended up not going for it.

 

Air signs are curious, ever moving, and open. Like a breeze! To also emulate the element of air, I wanted the map to be as open as possible with a lot of interconnectivity. Initial concepts involved fights that centered around huge caco clouds that would flood the map. I ended up only doing this for Aquarius. Given the inquisitive adventure hidden in each air person, I wanted to flood the map with secrets a la Clandestine Castle Crashing to give secret hunters a bit of fun and to give a sort of 'puzzle map' vibe to the map without having to actually think of a good puzzle.

 

I wanted it to be full of secret passageways and hidden fights. Time didn't allow for this to become a thing. In my concept sketch you can see that the north west portion had what I wanted to be a huge secret library fight the player could access. The north-east had another planned village thing that I ended up cutting. The south-eastern Aquarius section used to be integrated into the main island and was gonna be more of a sandy temple type thing with another village around it. I ended up going for a big purple circle cause it was quick and easy. All in all, after I cut alot of stuff I have to say I'm really happy with the scale of the map. Ended up felling like a really quiet ancient village in the clouds as opposed to a sprawling city.

 

A quick tip for speedmappers: alot of the edged detailing in this map was achieve using the stair builder. Especially in areas where the clouds would raise or lower or around the edges of islands where I wanted to use a texture that had clouds on the bottom.

 

Libra, being a sort of justice sort of sign of balance, I decided to built a courtroom for. It can be seen as a library, but the Cyberdemon is standing on a Judge's uh... judge place. The gate midtexture around the edge of his perch was supposed to emulate a courtroom rostrum I saw on google images. The raising bookcases are about balance too I guess. The telefrag secret is kind of bullshit, but I did find the other day that you could shoot it from the spawn island instead if you know about it before hand.

 

Gemini's constellation is a pair of twins, so naturally I wanted to do barons. Because my last map had something like 80 I settled on Hell Knights. I remember wanting to have a SMM or two but didn't want to make an arena big enough for that.

 

Aquarius emulated the 'air' the most and stuck to what I had originally envisioned for the map before settled on CCC in the clouds with a big swarm of flying enemies in the air. The teleporting enemies was a coincidence of the edge of the arena having lindefs that prevent the player from walking on the clouds. The third arch vile was the last enemy I added to the map and was entirely impuslive,

 

I made the map in 10 hours non continuously (total time actually mapping was 10 hours. So if I had 10 mapping sessions each of those sessions would be 1 hour) starting it sometime in December 21 and finishing it sometime in August the following year. Don't ask, I have issues. The custom sky was made by @muumi after I looked lovingly into his eyes and asked him nicely.

 

Some behind the scenes screenshots of Map26's development:

Spoiler

 

Initial blocking of the main map. The UFO spawn platform was the first thing built. I didn't like the parkour across the symbols the other two maps had so I opted for a temple the player had to walk through. The Gemini, Aquarius, and Libra fight are all blocked out very roughly with a village and a smaller block up higher with plans to add more stuff.

 

 

Here I detailed that village and added some architecture to the Gemini fight and the exit.

 

 

Most of the texture choices and designs had to be made very quickly. Knowing Gemini would be symmetrical helped with time.

 

 

Gemini fight detailed on the northern segment. Just needed to copy paste the rest.

 

 

The walls were flat so I added some windows. Helped with the open air feeling of the map.

 

 

I wanted some elements from culture shock, so for the Libra fight I copy pasted those pillar teleporter things from that map and pasted them here.

 

 

I had originally planned for there to be a larger walkway/path to the Aquarius fight, but I had to resort to a teleporter since I didn't have the time to build that. Lack of time also forced me to cut some other planned areas like a large library fight in the north-west.

 

I have more screenshots of builder.exe for the next map, so I'll hopefully be able to be more indepth with the BTS for that one.

This was my original plan for the cancer fight though:

Spoiler

 

[BluePineapple72]

17 minutes ago, Klear said:

 

Yup, looks like cancer to me.

[TJG1289]

GZDoom/UV/Pistol-Start/Saves

Map 28: Planet Chasers - Death Bear

100% kills and secrets

Time: 21:15

Deaths: 3

 

Death Bear's final (actual) map takes us back to his familiar hub that we haven't seen in a couple of weeks. This time, its degradation is almost complete, and all that's left in its wake is a few mancs and hell knights. At least we get the plasma, shotgun, and a hidden RL instead of a chainsaw this time. Jumping into the final portal building, we hit a junction featuring 3 UFOs. It's hard to tell from here, but one of the teleporters in the void is a different color and will take you to the other secret in the map, filled with rockets and cells. I found this after everything else was done. Instead, I went into the only UFOI could at the moment. From here, we're taken to a spot that feels a lot like E2M1 to me. Both weapons that have the word "chain" in them show up early on, along with the SSG by the yellow bars. I'd make sure to grab that before hopping into the teleporter by the entry point. You'll find the yellow key outside, which triggers a rev/imp ambush outside with an archie back inside too. Plasma and rockets are your friend. Once back inside, you can grab the blue key behind the yellow bars, deal with a small imp ambush, and head back to the junction via the blue door. Lower the blue bars to head to the main feature of the map, a giant outdoor landscape filled with demons, including 3 cybs and a spider mastermind. This is a more relaxed slaughterfest, especially compared to the previous map. I still died from cyb rockets 3 times trying to get them to infight the SM, but she just wasn't hitting them for the longest time. On my 4th attempt, I finally got her to hit both ground floor ones, used the BFG you get here to finish off one of them, then headed up into the caverns. The SM finished off the other one for me, but I still had to deal with the 3rd one at the end of the cavern. You get the red key somewhere here, and as you head up to where the SM is, walls lower revealing even more enemies, and revs teleport in on the other side of the arena. Nothing jumping back down and BFGing won't fix. With the red key in hand, we can return to the junction and hit the final fight. This is in a small void area with the AA map25 skybox, with some natural elements around, including a small pyramid. Standing in the void causes damage, so watch out. BFG the 2 archies, then rocket everything else. Once done, take the exit to the final real map of the set, IIRC. Overall, a pretty good level, but not as concise as Death Bear's other maps in the set. The bigger map, the less time spent on fine tuning. 

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 28: Planet Chasers

by Death Bear

 

Oh how lovely, it's the TITLEPIC music........I guess this is the megawad starting to come full circle but all we can think of is how badly we wanted this to end. And it seems Death Bear did too because despite the monster count being higher than anything he's done so far (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), this only can compete with Neon Skies as the easiest map of the episode.

 

Although the menace of his hub reprisal doesn't really leave that impression - we're now gazing out at Mancubi instead of hitscanners and when we teleport to the central crevasse, there are now pools of poison basically everywhere and the way forward not seeming obvious whatsoever at all. We can also see corpses from previous battles that we couldn't have been directly involved in because we don't remember running into a large host of pinkies. At some point, we figure out Hell Knights are shooting at us from a particular direction, plasma the lot and then pick up a rocket launcher where the chainsaw was behind the other buildings. Although we suffered a death here we don't remember too well. Good though, because we missed a shotgun at our original central teleportation location.

 

From here,it's on to another hub, marked by ships though only the immediately accessible one actually takes us there. At some point, a little tired of missing all of Death Bear's secrets, we gaze into the void on our right and find a green teleporter. Once an investigation showed the other ones were blue, we leapt in and were teleported to quite the healthy cache of supplies which will definitely make the following corridor shooting that much more satisfying.

 

That's unfairly dismissive, but really, the opening corridor is basically just lots of Imp rocketing with some Revenants and Mancubu thrown in for good measure. Don't take the teleporter about halfway through just yet, although we certainly could've. Instead, we head to the end of the corridor and spot a Super Shotgun but before we can reach it, Death Bear decides to pull a Paul Corfiatis and start teleporting enemies before we've had a chance to pick the SS and other supplies up! We're fairly close however, so at least that's something. In any case, the rockets we got from the secret are enough to blast everything in our way to bits, though there's chaingunners in the group as well. After heading back and shooting a rather hapless Mancubus, we take the teleporter and find ourselves in another rocky outside area, with some scattered pinkies and a Hell Knight. Unfortunately, we were also killed by a Mancubus right after since our armor was gone at that point. Reloading and returning, there didn't really seem to be a whole lot, other than a switch that triggers a moderately more dangerous trap than the last one due to the presence of Revenants but we can still blast walls of Imps with the rocket launcher. As we prepare to teleport, we find ourselves surrounded by the flames of an Arch-vile who probably spawned in at some point around the same time as everything else. They are in a high window though so we take the teleporter and are proven correct when we run into them, along with monsters that were completely resurrected. Then we go back to the SS room, use our yellow key to open the bars here, pick up the RK and deal with *sigh* another predictable trap before heading back to the moon again to open the blue door in the shed which has a portal that returns us to the hub where we can use the BK and take another ship to.....

 

an entirely different planet or location on the planet at any rate. This is no Leave Your Sol Behind but instead seems to be a riff on Map 21 of Ancient Aliens texture-wise - although the scale is entirely opposite. See, entering the open area after leaving our starting area leads to a seriously massive host of enemies. Among them are Imps, pinkies on the right side, Revenants basically in the middle and hell knights on the left along with three Cyberdemons and a Spider Mastermind. Thankfullly, we also get a BFG at this point so clearing everything out doesn't seem too hard until we realize we're not really in a position to kill the Mastermind. We then head up the stairs and end up entering into a massive cave where a massive pop-up trap of Arachnotrons greet us. A couple of BFG shots are all that's needed to blow them to kingdom come. A switch here will take us to the ledge on the side with the Mastermind, although we barely have to walk before another cave opens up with guardians, pain elementals, and plasma troopers carefully placed with quite a few spectres on the floor below. Once everything is dead, we kill most of the Cyberdemons with 1-2 shots because they were badly weakened through infighting. The first one takes five however.

 

Finally, we return to the hub to face....one last fight. It may be the hardest or maybe Death Bear was just giving the player a jolt because despite there being a healthy amount of medkits, health is still sapped and there are quite a few enemies here. Obviously, the two Arch-viles on the corner pillars have to die first but there's also Cacodemons in the middle, Guardians kind of surrounding them, along with a group of former humans in one location, Barons in another and Imps and spectres everywhere in between. We died once from something, but who knows what it was. And who cares because instead of an UFO, we end up in a tight canyon....and the map's over. Can't wait for tomorrow!

 

 

 

[Celestin]

MAP29: Mapping at Warpspeed by Death Bear, myolden, Muumi, Lemonlytical, Doomcat, Danlex, Weirdsandwich, notTyrone, Chookum!, Peccatum Mihzamiz, & BluePineapple72

Spoiler

When the title drops, you know it gets real.

 

The penultimate level flips the wad's premise on its head. Instead of giving one person 10 hours to work on a map, it gave most of the team an hour each. The result is a collage of short, self-contained challenges connected together by teleporters. You'll have no idea what you'll walk into after completing one part and that's the beauty of this map. Due to MAP29's nature, I've decided to treat each part separately. This meant I took a break every two or three parts to write down my experiences. Perhaps it's for the best, as this is a juggernaut of a map and completing it in a single sitting could be exhausting. 

 

Death Bear

Spoiler

A cramped slaughter among gray and black rocks. Rush for the BFG and clear everything in a minute.

 

myolden

Spoiler

After pressing a button, this courtyard around a central pyramid gets flooded with barons and mancubi, with balconies full of revenants and a wandering cyberdemon. After the initial infighting, survivours should be eliminated with BFG and rockets.

 

Muumi

Spoiler

The crusher hallway from Alien Tartarus returns with more revenants you have ammo to kill. Pressing a switch to reset the crushers spawns even more skeletons, plus archviles denying access to traps' activators. The exit-blocking viles are harmless, as they can't get out.

 

Lemonlytical 

Spoiler

Cutting through this stone bridge to the chamber on the other side is the hard part - there is no way but forward, with plasma troopers sniping from the sideslines. With more room to move, everything can be dealt with at ease.

 

Doomcat 

Spoiler

A ring of death: hell nobles firing from above with a cyberdemon and pain elemental support. The technicolor textures are an odd choice, but it's something that make this segment stand out from the rest.

 

Danlex 

Spoiler

"Stairway to Heaven", clogged with all sort of monsters, with arachnotron snipers floating inside some sort of spheres (cool effect). You have to traverse the stairs, evaporate anything on your way with a BFG, flip a switch at the top and walk down to a now-open portal. 

 

Weirdsandwich 

Spoiler

This compact techbase is a stage of several waves of monsters. First is a regiment of shotgunners with cacodemon backup, followed by mancubus-revenant combo. Pressing both buttons here lowers the walls to reveal a horde of pinkies, balconies of imps and a wandering cyberdemon. The last stage reveals a central mastermind, who will immediately begin to infight its baron guards. The bigger threat are four archviles, which will start to revive the first two waves you kill.

 

Chookum!

Spoiler

A brisk fight in a colourful arena. Distract a cyberdemon to run for the teleporter, kill an archvile, telefrag a cyber and dispose of the rest.

 

notTyrone

Spoiler

The opening section greatly reminds me of Tresspasser, now overflowing with revenants and chaingunners. The inside of the base can't compete with its exterior - a handful of hell nobles and revenants, plus two archviles behind an exit door.

 

Peccatum Mihzamiz

Spoiler

The second you fire a shot, hundreds of zombiemen and shotgunners will start pouring into this overgrown cave, so try holding them off with rockets. Once they are done, examine the perimeter for a set of three switches, each guarded by an archvile clumped with other monsters. Hope you have enough cells left.

 

BluePineapple72

Spoiler

The project lead's contribution is a synthesis of their previous maps: a central hub connected to four snippets of four elemental zones, each holding a switch that unlocks the exit. It is also the hardest part of MAP29, but after several deaths, I've figured out a working strategy. I started with the earth zone, while it is filled with damaging slime and stuffed at capacity with hell nobles, it is also the most spacious place around. Approaching the button spawns two cyberdemons, which, combined with the one in water zone, can be helpful infighters. After whittling down the opposition and killing the cybers, I activated the remaining switches, dealt with whatever spawned and left the fire zone for the end. It releases several archviles and I wanted to have the least distraction. With everything dead, you can finally exit this gauntlet.

 

Mapping at Warpspeed is PUSS IX in a nutshell. Eclectic, creative, surprising at every step and full of thrills. I've been in love with a concept of capping off a community project with a community-made map ever since I've played NOVA. The team behind Mapping at Warpspeed created something truly unique, an outstanding map that I will never forget.

[Klear]

Mapmap29: Mapping at Warpspeed by everyone

QuestZDoom, UV, pistol start, saves

 

Today is going to be a double feature! Since we're almost done and I enjoyed the map so much, I decided to play through the whole thing twice. It definitely had nothing to do with me accidentally quicksaving with 1 HP standing in lava surrounded by monsters. Nope. Definitely not.

 

I was looking forward to this map because I love the concept, though I was imagining it differently, thinking the map is going to be all joined up and we'll get to see differences in style mutate as we go through the rooms. This is fine too though.

 

Spoiler

Death Bear

Blind

The map certainly doesn't pull any punches. No slow buildup here. This was a matter or trying various stuff, being ready for reinforcements and not forgetting to pick up the megasphere when I really needed it. The last part gave me the most trouble, I think. I managed to get to the BFG without raising the enemies once, but I got eaten by cacos when I thought I was safe.

 

Practiced

Easily passed the first fight without any deaths. Wasted a few BFG shots because I didn't realise A) the door takes so long to open, B) the vile is behind yet another door. Not sure what I was thinking when I opened that door with a mob of revenants still shooting me and then retreated to the open field. Rocketing the vile immediately as the revenants spawn was the play here.

 

Fun fight, maybe a bit too difficult, but with a lot of enemey variety which is always nice.

 

myolden
Blind

I remember recognising myolden's style first time I saw the section, the detailing (especially the floor!) and more so when a ton of revenants spawned in. It was the mancubi who gave me the most grief though. I decided that their nice spacious closet would be a great place to get a second of peace when I need it, so I was initially focused on evicting them out of there and they were having none of it.

Once there's some space to move around, the fight tunrs into a classic carousel of death which I've grown kind of fond of in VR. All the projectiles flying around made me duck my head involuntarily almost constantly. I haven't really examined how crouching is implemented in QuestZDoom but if there's a cyberdemon rocket flying above me, you better believe I'm going to duck.

 

Practiced
Eviction went smoothly on the first try, the carousel started without a hitch and I didn't even forget about the megasphere. Then I realised I can probably just leave and did just that, but I expect I'd clean this up without an issue if I so chose.

 

Muumi
Blind
When I saw this sections my head produced two thoughts almost simultaneously: "Nice callback!" and "Oh fuck!". I didn't do so well in Alien Tartarus and despite having gained some experience in fighting off hundreds of revenants with a BFG recently, this sure was no walk in the park. I never found a way to activate the round crushers and the square crushers didn't help me out that much either. It took quite a few tries but eventually I managed to kill every single revenant. And then the second wave came, which is about as big as the first one but now there are also viles everywhere. Yeah, that wasn't gonna happen.

I found the hole the viles crawl out of, carved my way in with the BFG and was done with this segment.

 

Practiced
Ignoring and early (fatal) blunder, this time the first wave went fairly well to the point I was seriously considering staying and fighting the second one. Then I realised just how bad idea that is and exited same way as before.

 

Lemonlytical
Blind

This one has an interesting start. You can use the stealth troopers to start the infight party before alerting the whole room, though eventually a chaingunner or arachno is going to ruin the fun and target you. Overall this reminded me of the final corridor of myolden's Holodeck, but much harder. The biggest problem for me was the mass of mancubi revealed after peeling back all the revenants and hell knights. I had a lot of trouble avoiding all their criss-crossing projectiles.

 

Practiced
A good start - got a lot of use out of rockets before switching to BFG, sniped the sleath troppers as a priority, took the megacharge at the last possible moment and did my best give the macubi as much time to intiate some infights as possible. Then I got stuck in the doorway and revenant missiles significantly reduced my HP, leading to another scrappy dodging minigame. Felt like playing an old Atari game or something actually.

 

Doomcat
Blind

This one is kinda funny. All those evil demons towering over you from all sides like you were a fish in a barrel while the world is full of whimsical colours. And then there's the Earth looming large overhead. Reminds me of MDK to some extent. Imagine it with this song playing. That would be glorious. Anyway, the start took me by surprise and I died in 9 seconds after pushing the button. It's manageable though, and the final chaingunner got a loud chuckle out of me.

 

Practiced
This time I died 8 seconds after pushing the button. Not sure if that's an improvement or the opposite.

 

Danlex
Blind
This one is amazing! I mean, just look at it! It's beautiful! On top of that, I really like its honesty. You can see all the enemies right from the start, you get plenty of supplies and can start the massacre whenever you're ready. Somehow I managed to clear everything on my first try, only to die to the cybie repeatadly.

 

Practiced
This time I decieded being more clever, using the arachnos to help and various other tactics and got my ass handed to me repeatedly. I only saw success when I reverted back to my default strategy of panic-shooting BFG everywhere. And yes, the cybie was a problem again, so I eventually decided to be the bigger alien and let him live.

 

Weirdsandwich
Blind
After a bunch of arena-based segments, this one was a nice change of pace. I mean, it's still very arena-like, but it has some progression, even a few corridors and stuff. And then you reach the bridge and realise this is all a very nicely done spaceship interior. I love it. Also this segment as well as myolden made me face the fact that I might just be a closeted mancubus. I had no idea.

 

Practiced
Way more trouble at the start this time. Not sure what went wrong, or rather, what went right the first time. Knowing what's up in the later part, I start the classic infight of the bosses though, which is nice. Then forget all about the viles released at the very end and get burnt to a crisp. My BFG is ready the next attemp, though, despite some nice dodges by the last vile.

 

notTyrone
Blind
This one looks tough at the first sight, but ends up being a breather segment, as is tradition with notTyrone's maps. It's fun, it's full of carnage and it looks nice, pretty much all I could ask for. And it's nice to find the cyberdemon telefrag for a change, even if it's too late to do anything.

Practiced

Goes pretty much the same as my first attempt, except that I allow myself to go harder on the barons, since I know about the telefrag this time.

 

Chookum!
Blind
Trying to cheese the opening goes badly as I'm trapped in the starting area, revenants are closing in and am aiming point-blank at a shootable switch with the rocket launcher. Other than that this is another breather segment, and the only one that might actually be interesting if pistol started, as I don't think it provides a BFG. I'm too attached to it by now, though. The most trouble I have is when I decide to make some accumulated revenant missiles to go into a baron and then spend half a minute running in circles before I manage to pull it off. The final viles as I've learnt to open doors with a BFG ready by now.

 

Practiced
Pretty much the same as before.

 

Peccatum Mihzamiz
Blind
This is my favourite one, hands down. Who doesn't love to rockets some zombies? I figured they'd slowly get replaced with tougher monsters, which they do eventually, but they spawn for a long time. There's a shitton of rockets provided so you can just go ham and let the gibs fly. I love it. And the visuals! The scientists watching you, scribbling in their notepads, it's such a cool detail and immediately gives the segment a ton of personality rivalled only by the spaceship of Weirdsandwich and in a more abstract sense the rainbow bridge of Danlex.

 

Practiced
Knowing what's in store simply allowed me to enjoy myself more. Didn't wait for the cacos to show up (plus I think they got stuck) and plunged into the outer circle top deal with the viles early.

 

BluePineapple72
Blind
Well, the first thing I noticed was the framerate drop. It was bad. Second was the amount of enemies. That was worse. Lowering my rendering distance again, I started getting the feel for the map, seeing where are which enemies coming from (everything is coming from everyplace as far as I can tell) and eventually ended up in the fiery section. With 1 HP. Surrounded by everything. It was roughly at this time when I - by a completely coincidence - came up with the idea of playing through this map twice. And I was so excited about the idea that I didn't even finish the segment and restarted straight away. Funny story.

 

Technically still blind because I didn't really see all that much
This time I started by trying out anywhere but the fire section where there's viles and death. The idea is to only linger in each elemental corner of the map a short while before the mob in the middle cuts you off and then switch it up, restocking on the way. It kinda works, as long as I don't run headfirst into a cybie. I find myself in the fire section again on accident, but it's ok - I won't press the switch which released the archies. That's where I discovered ugly truth #1 - the archies are not released by the switch but by a linedef.

 

Hiding in the earth corner finally bore fruit as it's large and provides a useful chokepoint - it finally allowed me to decimate the enemies enough that I felt good about getting rid of the two viles and that's where I learnt ugly truth #2 - the same trigger releases more viles all over the map, not just the two in the fire corner...

But a bunch of deaths and reloads later I managed to take them all down and the rest of the cleaup was a formality. Phew!

Well, that's the last hurdle. Only a credits map remains (spoiler, I already played it) which means I've done it - the first PUSS IX: Mapping at Warpspeed VR playthrough and I have the videos to prove it.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 29, 2023 by Klear

[Ralgor]

MAP29 - "Mapping at Warpspeed" by Death Bear, Myolden, Muumi, Lemonlytical, Doomcat, Danlex, WeirdSandwich, NotTyrone, Chookum!, Peccatum Mihzamiz, and BluePineapple72
dsda-doom v0.25.6 cl9, UV, Pistol start, blind run w/ saves, then single segment w/ demo
100% kills and secrets

This level is a collaboration in a megawad that is itself a collaboration. Eleven authors created eleven different challenges for you to play, and most of them are great. When playing with saves, this ended up being really fun. I just saved between each challenge, and sometimes replayed one when it seemed like I needed more resources for the next one. In the end I managed to beat it without too much trouble.

But of course... I wasn't happy with that. I had to record a demo. I knew it was going to be quite the challenge, so I played through the map a second time with saves, but this time I left a save before each fight, so I could practice each fight in isolation. I actually had a lot of fun replaying my favorite fights in this. After practicing for a while, I felt I was ready to try to make a single segment demo.

I was wrong.

But before I get into that, I want to list my opinions about each section individually. I tried to keep it short, but I'm not good at that. There are no challenge names anywhere, so I gave them some:

 

1. Opening Salvo, by Death Bear is pretty much a perfect start to the map. Looks pretty, and is somewhat challenging without being overbearing. You pretty much can beat this by letting the cyberdemon handle most of it while triggering each wave before the previous dies down. Don't let the final arch-vile zap you on your way through the portal.
2. Sane Gazebo, by Myolden is another great fight. The primary difficulty is avoiding the cyberdemon's rockets while trying to kill everything else. I usually BFG the mancubi once right off the bat, then swing around and kill most of the hell knights. I only kill the cyberdemon once I have enough revenants down that I can try to two-shot him without interference from the revenants. You don't have to do this well, you can end this bloodied and still continue on.
3. Exquisite Torture Device, by Muumi is a distillation and amplification of Muumi's "Alien Tartarus", a crusher-based level from early in the megawad. The challenge here is controlling the horde and not letting stragglers pummel you. Lots of fine red paste is manufactured here. The health balance in this fight is about perfect for me. The gaggle of arch-viles at the end is a little excessive.
4. T-Shaped Fight, by Lemonlytical is a plain, yet aggravating, challenge. This one is excruciating, and is the only one of these I don't like. It's too easy for a minor mistake early on to either cause you to fail, or leave you so wounded you will die later. It is possible to recover if this goes badly, but it's hard. You're essentially stuck in pathway with plasma snipers on the edge, and have to BFG your way through a crowd of mixed monsters. Then the mancubus fire squad tries to finish you off. There's no where to run, and nowhere to hide. Do you feel lucky?
5. Fish in a Barrel, by Doomcat is a simple challenge, and honestly one of the easier ones. But after the last fight, it's sorely needed. You just run around trying to dodge demonfire and rockets while trying to kill things. You have to BFG the cyberdemon up on a ledge, which is mildly annoying. There's also no health, so if you barely scrape by in the last one, a single misstep here could cost you a death. Also the cyberdemon can absolutely rocket you before the walls lower if you're in the wrong spot.
6. Stair to Nowhere, by Danlex: Arachnotrons try to snipe you while you BFG your way up some stairs. Hopefully you come in with some extra health so you can save the megasphere, because it's damned hard to survive on just that and the health packs. The walls are fiendishly designed so often the arachnotrons will keep shooting at you even if you hide behind them. I really like this setup, I just wish there was slightly more health, like a soulsphere at the top of the stairs.
7. Weird Space Ship, by WeirdSandwich is a small cramped tech-base, which is actually a space ship. It's slight on the easier side, but it can absolutely still kill you. You get to play peek-a-boo with a cyberdemon until you clear things out enough to deal with him, and then watch as some barons bully a spider mastermind to death. The arch-vile quartet at the end is the most dangerous thing here, but you can easily eliminate them if you know they are there and block two of them.
8. Blue-tech Infiltration, by NotTyrone has a small blue-colored techbase where the primary challenge is the security detail outside. You can easily hide around the sides, and you get so much cell ammo that you can just fire the BFG until everything is dead. The inside of the tech-base has little resistence. I really like this one, because it's easy.
9. Infight Arena, by Chookum!: You aren't playing this right if you're not letting the cyberdemon take care of most of the monsters. You can even start things off by easily getting the cyberdemon to fire into the revenants near the start without waking anything else up. It's also fairly simple to get him to handle his baron guard. Just don't take too long because you need to go BFG the arch-vile on the other side. Then just circle around for a few minutes, telefrag the cyber, and clean up. I really like this one too, in fact it might be my favorite.
10. Gibs Galore, by Peccatum Mihzamiz is a challenge where you get to kill hundreds of troopers with a rocket launcher. If you have some sort of fetish for that gib sound, then this challenge might be more difficult. With any luck, I have enough armor to save the megaarmor for when I'm ready to leave. It takes a bit more time, but it makes the final challenge much easier. I usually rocket my way to the outer ring, then bfg down all of the arch-viles and revenants. Then just find a corner of the ring and rocket for a while. I usually finish up with the chaingun because I get bored of one weapon after too long.
11. The Last Battle, by BluePineapple72 is the final real fight of the megawad. This is an epic fight that requires a good strategy and the ability to adapt. I think it's only the second hardest challenge though, but it's one of the most fun ones. Four platforms in each of four elemental areas have a switch that release more enemies into the mix. You absolutely want to wait until things calm down before you loose them. I usually go for the hell knights first, then kill the cyberdemon. Then I can rocket everything down while staying on the side near the revenants. Once things are somewhat safe, I go BFG the revenants. You don't have to kill them all, you just need to thin their numbers a bit. Then it's just clean up. I'd flip the switches in the order of air, water, earth, and fire. Kill the reinforcements as they come in.

Spoiler

Admittedly, this gazebo-looking structure actually isn't that sane with the red sky inside of it...

 

Anyway, I finally managed to get the demo just a little bit ago, after working on it for three afternoons. I couldn't have done that if I didn't enjoy this map so much, warts and all. I think this is a great map, although it does go a little long. My demo is over half an hour long, and it's pretty damn hard. The feeling of actually hitting that exit switch was something else though. With MAP27, I was just glad it was over. Here, I feel like I really conquered something. I made 43 real attempts (I'm not counting the few where I grabbed the weapons and realized I needed a break or it was time for bed), but they were on average MUCH longer than the attempts in MAP27. Most of those attempts ended very quickly, while a large number of my attempts here ended between challenge #4 and #6. The second time I hit the last challenge I made it through.

 

Spoiler

This stairway ending in a switch is probably the most beautiful part of the map.

My only real complaint is the section from the very end of Muumi's challenge (#3) up through the end of Danlex's challenge (#6). With the exception of #4, I think they are all great, but it doesn't feel like there's enough health to go around. You absolutely need to start #4 with max health and armor, which you can generally get in #3. But that means you have to really nail that challenge to have a good chance at the next. And then the one after that (Doomcat's #5) has no health at all! Danlex's #6 has a single mega, which is stretched pretty thin if you have to pick it up immediately. Finally, WeirdSandich's #7 doesn't have much health in the beginning either, although the end finally gives you enough to get back on your feet if you make it that far.

I guess I'm saying there needs to be a bit more in there to make the map flow better. That stetch is the hardest and most stressful part of the whole thing, but it doesn't feel like it's for good reason. Still, that doesn't sour my opinion of the map as a whole much. I just have to grouse about something.

 

Spoiler

The arena for the final battle, nearly completed.

This is a nearly perfect ending map for the megawad. Great job everyone!

MAP29 - 35:44.74 (35:44)  K: 1533/1533  I: 65/65  S: 1/1

ralgor_pussixmaw29.zip

[Book Lord]

MAP 29 – Mapping at Warpspeed by Various Authors

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

 

Mapping at Warpspeed was chosen as the name of the whole PUSS IX event, but it is undeniably tied to the making of MAP29. A team of eleven mappers gathered their creativity to bring together the last map of the megaWAD, working for one hour on their single chunk and passing the “hot potato” to the next in line. The last map must be the ultimate challenge, as if we had not enough in the third episode, and the result was a collection of crowded, hard, and intense encounters, a tour de force I would never beat without saving at the beginning of each segment, and on some occasion even in the middle of the encounter.

 

As the author of MAP28, @Death Bear started the dance with a black rock crater, containing all weapons. The only pillar saved my skin more than once against the horrors that jumped out of the ground, teleported in waves, and emerged from the exit. It was not that difficult though, just as the following square arena created by @myolden. Once I realised that I could use the central platform to get out of trouble, I quickly prevailed over Cyberdemon & Co. If you played Alien Tartarus,@muumi did not need to explain how his third arena worked: you get crushers, and 123 Revenants to lure into them. Easier said than done. To reset the crushers the player could press the red cross button, but the action spawned 72 additional Revenants and 6 vicious Arch-Viles near the crusher triggers. I died when I pressed that button for the first time, as I was not prepared for the events, but survived at the second attempt. I first killed the Revenant welcome horde, then prioritised the Arch-Viles during the second wave. There was almost no ammo in this arena, only a lot of Megaspheres, so ours truly took for granted that we came stocked from the previous fights and made good use of crushers.

Spoiler

The map started to go south with @Lemonlytical’s signature spirit & void segment. Breaking through the wall of hellspawn was the only way to survive, and it required brute BFG force. Stealth Alien snipers were excruciating, but I could only endure their bolts, reach the horizontal hall with Mancubi, and hope to create a safe space in one of the corners before they overwhelmed me. It took some attempts, and it counted as the first battle I could not beat consistently. Doomcat’s small arena was much easier in comparison, consisting of a multicoloured crater surrounded by elevated foes. The main problem was the absence of health, so while I won at first attempt, I came to @Danlex’s encounter in bad shape. A beautiful stairway to heaven hosted a short but very hard fight. Thanks to those merciless Arachnotrons in floating orbs, I died so many times before getting past the Cyberdemon that the scene will probably hunt my dreams for a while.

Spoiler

@Weird Sandwich did his best to be as pitiless as Danlex, welcoming my battered videogame self with two squads of Shotgunners, while giving me only 2 stimpacks. They gunned me down twice before I could get past them and open the various compartments of that demon-infested spaceship. Almost every monster type was featured in this encounter, even a Spider Mastermind that was scratched to death by Barons of Hell, but I was too busy with the upcoming Arch-Viles to enjoy the show. @Chookum’s arena was more reasonable, requiring only patience and circle-strafing, if you spot the concealed Arch-Vile beforehand.

Spoiler

@notTyrone brought us back to the tech-base seen in Trespasser for a much more crowded encounter with Imps and Revenants. Nothing too hairy considered what we have been through so far, and the inside of the base was even milder. The next arena looked like nothing seen in the megaWAD, and this should not surprise since it was done by @Peccatum Mihzamiz. I had a lot of fun gibbing an army of weak former humans, using the given resources to survive the attrition, then I must carefully single out the three Arch-Viles and their bodyguards in the perimeter. The time was ripe for the final showdown, a cross-shaped arena where @BluePineapple72 condensed the graphic themes from his zodiac tetralogy, putting a huge, magnificent flying saucer with all 12 signs at the centre. A wonderful place to have one last slaughter fest but… beware of the lava room! Approaching the skull switch causes five Arch-Viles to appear in various places of the map, with terrible consequences if the fight is still raging on. I was lucky and I triggered them when I was unlocking the exit, so I only had to be quick with the BFG. The map’s only secret was a Computer Area Map found in the exit room, useful to see the names of the mappers close to the respective sections, in case you did not recognise some of the spirit icons during hyperspace transfers.

 

I cannot say I liked all Mapping at Warpspeed (the map), because it was too combat-oriented and with questionable balance between encounters. Some battles were harder because I arrived with less-than-optimal health & armour, and I enjoyed myself more with the ones that gave me time to think about a strategy or space to run away. Anyway, the “hot potato speedmapping” was an interesting idea, something that needs to be examined in depth, maybe on a smaller scale and with different priorities than challenge. Maybe not the best map, but surely a striking chapter of this megaWAD.

Edited April 29, 2023 by Book Lord

[DisgruntledPorcupine]

MAP26: "Clandestine Cumulonimbus" by BluePineapple72

UV, pistol start, no saves

100% kills, 5/10 secrets

 

Those on the edge of their seats waiting for a Culture Shock get their wish, and if you were following the zodiac map theme you could maybe make an educated guess where it might end up. This is the air sign map, and like AA's most famed map it takes place in a cloudy sky in a fortress with lots of whites and bright blues. There are differences though, the sky is a brown and gold starry sky, rather than the cloudy blue sky in the inspiration map. There's also more of a balance of the Culture Shock themes and the classic AA textures in this one it seems. The midi is also different. While Imaginarium was a perfect midi to encapsulate the wonder and surprise that the original map conveyed, it probably wouldn't have quite the same effect when you are somewhat expecting it so a different midi is a fine choice in my opinion. It's one I've heard before with the club in one of Interception II's great epics, Slipgate Ex Nihilo. It's a fantastic midi and it's great to hear it again.

 

One thing you'll notice with this map is that it at least somewhat addresses the main criticism of Culture Shock, which is that it's a somewhat awkward map to move around. This one still has some irregular terrain, but you have more space to move here which is a plus. This level can also be very difficult to complete saveless, but it gives you a whopping 10 secrets to find, so with some proper rationing of the secrets I did find and a little bit of cheese I was barely able to come out of this one. It plays somewhere between the fire map and the earth map, a little bit more of a free flowing layout like the fire map but not quite as chaotic. The initial stretch will be you scrounging up your starting arsenal, the shotgun, rocket launcher, chaingun, and SSG (I got them in that order). Even this opening stretch can be a bit tricky to survive, those stealth troopers can be quite a nuisance and they can move around the area better than you would expect.

 

For the sign fights, I began with Gemini. It takes place in a wonderful looking library and is honestly not too tough, more of an ammo sink than anything else. I do think it's neat that the monster teleporters are damaging surfaces to prevent you from standing on them to prevent some monsters from teleporting in. Here I just camped near one of the arachnotron teleporters and rocket them as they came in, then tried to get some infighting with the other arachnos and the hell knights to save a bit of ammo, then rockets/SSG shots take care of the rest. Make sure you find the secret BFG with the hidden bookshelf switch, I definitely needed it. Next I tackle the Libra fight, and this is where the cheese comes in. If you stand in the right spot and try to hit the secret switch with your SSG, the spread can hit it allowing you to telefrag the cyberdemon easily later. He's frustrating to telefrag otherwise, and killing him with cells is not recommended because you don't get a ton in this map. So I perform the cheese, prefire a BFG shot before triggering the fight so that I get a jump on the revenants, telefrag the cybie and then clean up the rest. The Aquarius fight features multiple archviles and some air support from all of the flying enemies. Pain elementals and guardians are a nuisance in this fight, after you take out the archviles they'll need to die asap. Funnily enough I ended up with two cacos infighting each other in my successful attempt, guessing due to shenanigans with the alien guardian splash damage. Screenshot below, not a great one but you can kind of see one launching a fireball at its comrade. Best screenshot I got before one melee'd the other to death.

 

Spoiler

 

 

After you complete all the fights, the opening area sees a couple archviles and a cyberdemon come in. You'll likely have some revived enemies to take down as well. There's also a "fake" sign fight for the plasma which I didn't mention, because I did it last. I kind of regret that decision because I had no cells left, and doing the fight with rockets is very dicey. Ended up leaving the map with 5% health despite saving a megasphere secret for it...

 

Wonderful map, visuals were outstanding and combat was very enjoyable and tricky.

[RHhe82]

MAP29: Mapping at Warpspeed. Played on DSDA v0.25.6, UV, PS. 1533/1533 K, 1/1 S, 61/65 I. Comp. time 51:36

 

Phew! A potpourri of Warpspeed mappers unleashing their one final (unless the final map proves otherwise -- in original AA the final map is very special credits map) display of power at poor Zorglo. A series of disjointed arenas runs a risk of providing with an uneven experience, but here I found the the experience pleasurable, even though some of the arenas (most notably Muumi's very recognizable Tartarus arena) are like the New Game+ versions of segments we've already seen.

 

I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't recognize all the mappers - it took me a while to realize the spirit animal warps had mapper icons. Muumi might have been the first I even realized this. But who is Beavis? Was there a Pacman icon? At least I recognized BluePineapple, as if the arena didn't give it away in an instant :P

 

High monster count, but slightly more relaxing experience than in some of the maps we've been through. This was another occasion where extended HUD served me poorly. Not because of revealing the kill count, but the knowledge of one secret. I was constantly worried I'd miss it as the arenas seemed non-backtrackable. I remember thinking if that's the case, the secret would probably reside in the final area, but that didn't alleviate the pain (the uncertainty).
 

[continuum.mid]

World 29: Mapping at Warpspeed (see below)

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

 

This WAD's title map is a series of mini-levels, linked by teleport sequences based on the mappers' avatars, contributed by numerous members of the Pineapple Under the Sea team. Given the nature of the map, I thought I'd do a separate paragraph on each section, with a separate timer and save count.

 

Death Bear: Starting off with a bang, Death Bear's contribution is a small slaughterfest amidst black and grey rocks. The initial pop-up cavalry of Revenants, Hell nobles, and Barons, with Chaingunner snipers, would be enough, but as soon as you fire a shot, imps teleport onto the starting pad, and a wall slowly lowers to reveal Ancient Aliens exclusive enemies. Let the Cyberdemon kill everything then use the BFG lying in the middle of the arena to take him down. A second wave of Guardians and Cacos appears when pressing a switch, then walking up to the exit reveals Revenants, and finally, an Arch-Vile guards the portal to the next room. Time: 3:48, Save Count: 0+1 (for the beginning of the next section)

 

Myolden: This room is beautiful, the blue and beige bricks contrast perfectly and the maze-pattern floor is dazzling. After gathering all the ammo and pressing a switch, a Cyberdemon appears, and Revenants fill the ledges in all four corners of the room. Cybie will do most of the work, but still, be careful of fireballs! Pressing two switches after that leads straight to the next section. I did this all on the first attempt, and I'm pretty proud of myself for that. Time: 3:00 (6:48), Save Count: 0+1

 

Muumi: I knew Muumi would have something up their sleeve, and indeed, as soon as the teleportation sequence finished and I saw the chaingunners under a crusher, I went "oh no..." Indeed, this is an expanded version of a fight in Alien Tartarus, with too many revenants for even a full cell pack to deal with. You'll have to make good use of the crushers to deal with them. Then press a switch for another wave of Revenants, with triplets of Arch-Viles hiding on opposite sides of the map! After several attempts dying to either of those first two fights, I decided to break my short-lived streak of not saving in the middle of segments. I ended up needing all five megaspheres and that was after a dozen or so attempts and saving after the first fight. There is one fight after this, but thankfully it's "only" eight trapped Arch-Viles. Just BFG and rocket at them and duck behind cover whenever you're targeted. Side note: I wonder if there were invisible boxes of rockets here, it seemed impossible to go under 100. Time: 5:22 (12:10), Save Count: 2+1

 

Lemonlytical: I was hoping for a break after Muumi's section, but Lemonlytical refused to provide me one. His segment is a hallway filled to the brim with monsters - chaingunners first, then Revenants, then Hell Knights, then Mancubi. Nothing to do but go YOLO with the BFG and then rockets, and hope I survive. I did, but had only 66% health at the end. Thankfully after pressing the two exit switches this section is over. Time: 1:19 (13:29), Save Count: 1 (I saved before the exit because I thought there would be another fight. Thank heck there wasn't.)

 

Doomcat: This part would've been way more fun if there were a megasphere at the start. A lift raises up to a small rainbow room with two Cacos and a Pain Elemental, and Hell nobles and a Cyberdemon around the edges. Cyber splash damage easily killed me, so after about a dozen attempts I realized it was probably best to focus all my fire on him. Once I'd done that I pressed the switch to open up the final portal, shot the Chaingunner, and stubbornly tried to go for 100% with my remaining shells, but accidentally stumbled into the portal to Danlex's section while circle-strafing and didn't feel like loading a save just for the numbers. Time: 1:21 (14:50), Save Count: 0+1

 

Danlex: This is a sort of fusion of Lemonlytical's room with the look and feel of Danlex's map Zero G Station. It's a rainbow spiral staircase where you must BFG and rocket your way to the top. There's a layer of Pinkies, then Imps, then Revenants, then Hell Knights, then Barons, then the Cyberdemon. Careful movement back and forth on the staircase will prevent a lot of damage, but it's still difficult to withstand the onslaught for as long as is necessary, and Arachnotrons snipe from the sidelines to make it extra hard. (How were the spherical cages done, by the way? They look awesome.) Absolutely beautiful section. Time: 1:27 (16:17), Save Count: 0+1

 

WeirdSandwich: Wouldn't have guessed WeirdSandwich's contribution would be the hardest part of the map, though I'm not surprised it's the most elaborate, with four phases instead of just one short battle. The first phase is the easiest, just spray the sargents with plasma, and rocket or SSG the Cacos. There are two switches on opposite sides of the area, and whichever one you hit first, the next wave will raise a small army of Revenant snipers and Mancubi on the ground. It's hard to say which one's more of a threat, but I ended up BFGing the revenants and rocketing the mancubi - I could just as easily have done it the other way around. The second switch will reveal a Pinky brigade, a Cyberdemon, and two battlements full of imps. I used rockets to clear a path through the Pinkies, SSG on the surviving ones, then relied on the Cyberdemon to deal with the Imps. After picking up the SoulSphere and MegaArmor from where the Imps were, I used my three remaining BFG shots and one SSG shot to take down Cybie. I actually beat this fight using a different strategy earlier, but I thought it was over and didn't save - nope! The final fight has you battle four Archviles, a bevy of Barons, and the Spider Mastermind. I focused my efforts on grabbing the cells in front of Mama Spider as fast as I could then BFGing the Arch-Viles before they caused too much damage; from there the Barons handled the Mastermind and I could take the rest down with rockets. Time: 4:39 (20:56), Save Count: 3+1

 

Chookum!: I did beat this section first try, but it didn’t feel very easy. Chookum contributes a colorful symmetrical arena, with a Cyberdemon in the center, groups of four Revenants perched on computer panels, and Imps on the battlements. Don’t be afraid to use your cells and you should be fine here, there’s plenty of health and Cybie infights with everyone. After almost everything had died I was amused to see one lone imp among the last surviving monsters. Time: 3:59 (24:55), Save Count: 0+1

 

NotTyrone: For some reason I mixed up Chookum and NotTyrone’s sections and thought the previous one was out of character until I saw someone else’s review. Turns out that, fittingly, someone other than Tyrone contributed a nice break section to this map. Punch a switch to find a platoon of Chaingunners and Revenants running around the outside of a small techbase. It’s as simple as running around and spamming BFG. Even if you take lots of damage from the Chaingunners you’ll easily recover with the Supercharge and light armor outside the entrance to the base, and the base itself is sparsely populated (relative to the rest of the map) with Hell nobles and Revenant snipers. Even the two Arch-Viles at the exit won’t do you any harm - they’re just an 80-cell tax. Time: 2:07 (27:02), Save Count: 0+1

 

Peccatum Mihzamiz: Holy Hell Revealed, that's a lot of zambies. You'll have to spend a good while rocketing, plasma-ing, and/or BFGing them from the central courtyard before it's safe to enter the outer ring, where three Arch-Viles, respectively surrounded by four Pinkies, four Hell Knights, and four Revenants, await. Thankfully for you, they won't all activate at once and they'll be distracted by all the corpses on the ground. Press three switches to open the exit.  I think the scientists overlooking the courtyard are a nice cherry on top. It's a shame Peccatum didn't contribute a full map to this set. Time: 3:25 (30:27), Save Count: 1+1

 

BluePineapple72: The Pineapple Lord takes us out by doing what he does best: a big, climactic slaughterfest. I expected to have a lot more trouble with this battle than I did, but with four of BluePineapple's maps under my belt it was no sweat, just take out the Arch-Viles and weave through the crowds, and I am very proud to say I beat it first try! Once everything was dead I could take in the scenery, which seems to be a UFO surrounded by small areas based on the visual motifs of the earlier Zodiac maps. Press switches in each of them to open the exit. Time: 3:13 (33:40), Save Count: 0

 

Final Stats:

Kills: 100%, Items: 86%, Secrets: 0%, Time: 33:40, Save Count: 16

 

That was super fun. I was planning on beating half this map on the 28th and half on the 29th, but I got through the whole thing early owing to the mappers' sheer ability to keep me engaged, with all kinds of blistering combat. The formula of "Hot Potato" collabs works well for closing out community speedmap projects, as NOVA and 180 Minutes Pour Vivre have shown before this, and the MaW team handled it just as well. I've already played the last map, but I'll keep with the rules and save my final thoughts for the 30th.

Edited April 29, 2023 by continuum.mid

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 29: Mapping at Warpspeed

by (takes deep breath) Death Bear, Myolden, Muumi, Lemonlytical, Doomcat, Danlex, Weird Sandwich, Chookum, notTyrone, Peccatum Mihzamiz & BluePineapple72

 

This is going to be shorter than it deserves unfortunately, but each section isn't so substantial that I can say that's such a huge disservice. We'll be splitting up each section at the very least. Admittedly, I was hoping that all or most of the sections would physically link together somehow, but things are fine how they are

 

Death Bear - Starting in the gulch from last map, what follows is a well-supplied battle against enemies that rank from moderately to very dangerous but their composition isn't terribly important. Safe to say it's probably not hard to die from carelessness. Have a spare rocket or two for the exit because of the nasty plasma trooper ambush

 

Myolden - Immaculately-detailed, Myolden clearly settled for making a limited space look the best it possibly. Barons, Hell Knights, and Revenants fire from the surrounding ledges while a Cyberdemon in the middle exists probably to infight with at least some of them. Allow a minute or two for infighting, clean up the outside stragglers than finish off the Cyberdemon. Section complete

 

Muumi - Just what I asked for. An Alien Tartarus reprise, only with the difficulty cranked up by a factor of 5. It's bad enough having the gimmick for one map, let alone given a much stronger form at the very end. At the same time, it's obviously fun to BFG Revenants as a rule....but there's not enough cells, and not even enough rockets as it turns out. We may not be good at seeing narrow windows of opportunity, but given that the vast majority of the cell cache we'll spot a few times will likely go into the Arch-viles at the end, that seems to be an academic matter at best. Speaking of which, the Arch-viles are actually really good at their area-of-denial role - while we can stay out of their line-of-sight if we stick to the sides of the crusher areas, that does have its limits when there's anywhere from 140-170 Revenants active at once. Interesting, but definitely would've just been miserable if stretched for a whole map, and possibly the hardest to get through consistently for us personally.

 

Lemonlytical - Our gameplay starts becoming a little more apathetic at this point. Lemonlytical recycles idea for their Mapping at Warpspeed entry to create this darkened and undoubtedly hostile challenge. Plasma troopers on the sides, then in ascending order, chaingunners, Imps, Arachnotrons, Revenants and Hell Knights. We believe we're supposed to fire ASAP, although our situation would've been helped if we could've picked up the rocket boxes at the side. In either case, this is the first section where we make some clumsy attempts at herding which would've probably trivalized this section. As it was, we died a good 5-6 times because of an initial lack of breakthrough strategy. Although there was one case we made it to the end and ended up wasting all the BFG cells, so that's probably not such a bad thing.

 

Doomcat - The coolest thing here might be the blue sky. Like Doomcat is mapping much closer to the level of an average 15-16 year old normally, but this was literally a case of 'different-colored pillars around the arena, place some enemies on them and call it a day.' I have to wonder if the chaingunner at the end was just a silly joke or a sign of creative pressure giving out.

 

Danlex - A very, very small and yet with some incredibly neat wired balls with arachnotrons we failed to notice until the very end. In a way, it's like a far easier version of his first Summer of Slaughter map. As such, it feels a little closer to notTyrone than Danlex other than the turret Arachnotrons and as such, it's probably possible to complete this section without herding everything into oblivion, which we did quite successfully on our last try.\

 

WeirdSandwich - Some people wilt under tight time limits. WeirdSandwich flourishes here. Definitely one of the highlights here, this one packs in several different combat ideas into its running! Shooting the plasma trooper will alert a squad of Cacodemons that murdered us the first time. Honestly, we can't really be bothered to get into everything here but safe to say we are well-supplied, the decision to allow the rocketing of Demons and Imps on the way to a Cyberdemon was an excellent one, and the switch that unleashes the final ambush is about as well-timed as one could hope for. Although the Arch-viles killed us one time and probably would've killed us more but we got lucky. Also, we rocket-dueled the Cyber the first time before opening the trap and thinking 'probably not the smartest idea.'

 

Chookum - This one is very small, but there are more plasma troopers on the sides, some Revenants on surfaces in the middle and Cyberdemons and some trash bringing up the middle. This one is probably harder than the next section, but memory is already fading, and basically, anything else just exists to keep us from targeting the biggies for a bit.

 

notTyrone - We are on the moon! Just destroy the chaingunners instantly, than slowly take care of everything else since there's more than enough room to move around. Just don't miss the Supercharge sitting to the building's side

 

PeccatumMihzamiz - Hey, our favorite quirky mapper who didn't show up for the original session comes in at practically the last minute to deliver something that's archetypical Peccatum! Basically, we rocket off teleporting waves of hitscanners for a bit before things start to thin out a little and it occurs to us to enter the outer ring where opposition proves somewhat stronger and the two Arch-viles at each end of said ring do prove an unwelcome surprise. But we saved our BFG so it wasn't a huge deal. 

 

BluePineapple72 - You knew this was coming, and oh god, it's about as hard as you'd expect. Featuring sub-areas that seem to reference BP's other maps in the set (even including Clandestine Cumilonimbus which makes for an interesting clashing sidebox to say the least) the most effective strategy seemed to be to carve a path through the forest with the nobles initially, head into the lava cave where the Revenants came from and triggered a trap that causes probably half a dozen Arch-viles to appear, although only 2 that are close to our location. Once they are killed, things have thinned out enough that thinning the ranks out becomes fairly inconsequential. The exit was a little hidden.

 

Yup, this is definitely everything we were hoping for, at least mostly! For its place, none can do better. Video should be uploaded in an hour and 15.

 

 

 

 

 

[Death Bear]

3 hours ago, LadyMistDragon said:

Doomcat - The coolest thing here might be the blue sky. Like Doomcat is mapping much closer to the level of an average 15-16 year old normally, but this was literally a case of 'different-colored pillars around the arena, place some enemies on them and call it a day.' I have to wonder if the chaingunner at the end was just a silly joke or a sign of creative pressure giving out.

 

Spoiler

For the first time or second time in making a 1-hour speedmap, yeah. (It's been a while...can't remember if he did this one or his AUTS map first, considering MaW's development cycle.) It was kinda just slapdash. The chaingunner at the end was 100% his idea, and he thought it would be funny, considering what you just had to potentially deal with. Originally, however, this section was a little too much for the average player to deal with and I suggested he cut some monsters. He took my suggestion, but the chaingunner at the end was funny. He got a kick out of it when I died to it on one of my playthroughs.

 

[Book Lord]

MAP 30 – Stargate BP-9 by @Death Bear

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

 

I have seen many nice credits map used in the place of ye olde Icon of Sin or alternative boss battles; still, I have never come across a work of art and love like Stargate BP-9. It was a trip full of magnificent eye candy, with a few amusing skirmishes just to break the visual enchantment weaved by Death Bear. BluePineapple72 called him the backbone of the project; if contributing 6 + 1/11 playable maps was not enough for such a compliment, he surely deserved it with the parade of honour he set up for the PUSS IX team.

Spoiler

The various Unidentified Flying Objects used by Zorglo for his galactical tour were on display throughout the level, starting from a purple palace under a sultry sky, and continuing in a void moonscape with many platforms, showing credits to the mapping team, to the eleven MAP29 contributors, to the beta playtesters, and to the mastermind of the PUSS series. Six hidden terraces might be found with a thorough exploration of the area: the floating texts therein told trivia about Mapping at Warpspeed and even contained the revelation everybody was looking for: the zodiac sign of BluePineapple72! You cannot score 100% secrets because 2 thin sectors with writings were inadvertently tagged as such, but who cares. Death Bear is not only a proficient mapper, but he is also a very nice fellow to come up with such a lovely homage to the entire team.

Spoiler

It was not over yet. The dimensional gate brought Zorglo back to the landscape of MAP01, where he was ambushed by Stealth Aliens when near to the tiny wooden boat of MAP08-09. Another time warp, and he appeared in a cavern with the zodiac flying disc from MAP29. The tunnel opened out on a beach with eight customised beach towels, representing the avatars of the mappers continuing the experience with PUSS X: The Summer of Slaughter. I cannot believe this stunning artwork required less than 10 hours of work, but I am sure Death Bear invested enough time and skill to create one of the best credits maps to ever end a megaWAD. Bravo!

Spoiler

 

[BluePineapple72]

13 minutes ago, Book Lord said:

The tunnel opened out on a beach with eight customised beach towels, representing the avatars of the mappers continuing the experience with PUSS X: The Summer of Slaughter. 

I should add since the credit for it isn’t in the txt, but each of those towels were made by the mappers that each towel represents, and they were originally made for the 6th secret level in SOS. We just pasted them over cause it felt appropriate. 

[Death Bear]

3 minutes ago, BluePineapple72 said:

I should add since the credit for it isn’t in the txt, but each of those towels were made by the mappers that each towel represents, and they were originally made for the 6th secret level in SOS. We just pasted them over cause it felt appropriate. 

True that. I'll be covering that in my writeup.

And also, @Book Lord that is very gracious of you. I did take great pride in this effort, and I LOVED getting to honor all of our contributors.

Edited April 29, 2023 by Death Bear

[TJG1289]

GZDoom/UV/Pistol-Start/Saves

Map 29: Mapping At Warpspeed- Everyone in the WAD, minus 3 people, plus 1

100% kills and secrets

Time: 32:43

Deaths: 7

 

Here we are. The final real map of the set. For this map, 11 mappers spent an hour each on small arenas for us to beat. There's a lot to go through so let's do this mapper by mapper.

 

Death Bear (deaths: 0)

Our first area gives us all the weapons just in time for a big ol' slaughter fight. Just BFG to cut through crowds, and let the others do the fighting for you. The cyb is perfect for this. Pretty simple. This rocky area looks really cool. Don't think we had an environment like that in the WAD before.

 

Myolden (deaths: 1)

This small arena pits us against hell knights and a cyb on the ground floor, while revs are perched up in the corners. You get a lot of cells and rockets here, but you should be ok to just let everything infight for the most part. The detailing in this room is top-notch. Love the floor design. Could be something out of Fracture Worlds.

 

Muumi (deaths: 2)

I was wondering where this fight went when we were playing map 9. I may have forgotten it wasn't in that map but in this. We have the crushers from the mid point in that map, where you lure baddies in then activate a switch to trap them in there, crushing them to death. It's (mostly) all revs here, so just herd as many of them as you can into the 2 crushers. You may notice for a bit that when firing rockets and cells, you'll seemingly gain more ammo. I'm assuming a voodoo doll is on top of an ammo stash somewhere. Just don't go all gung-ho on it, as there's not a lot of them. When you hit the switch by the doors, the crushers reset, and even more revs teleport in, along with 3 archies by each of the crusher switches. Quickly rocket them in the face, then repeat the process from before. There's 5 megaspheres in this area, so you should be good as long as you don't get boxed in. Hit the switch in one of the crushers to open the doors to reveal 8 archies. Just bum-rush them with the BFG, then pick up any remaining megas before jumping through the portal.

 

Lemonlytical (deaths: 0)

I swear this one was a lot harder in RC1. Or maybe I'm confusing this with another map. Either way, this is just a bridge filled with enemies asking to be melted with cells. Cut through to the other side, then use rockets on the rest. There's not a ton of cells here. Simple stuff.

 

Doomcat (deaths: 0)

This is just a small arena with enemies on hills shooting down at you. BFG the pain elemental, then look for the red rock to lower it. Hit the switch there to open the exit. The cyb can be dangerous, but he managed to infight some nobles so I could BFG him in peace.

 

Danlex (deaths: 1)
This is just a fight on a staircase, but it's one of the nicest looking staircases I've ever seen. It's basically another BFG fest. I love seeing the arachnotrons in the floating cages. Looks like Danlex reused that trick from Lullaby. 

WeirdSandwich (deaths: 3)

This is probably the most impressive part of the map, since despite its 1-hour development, this map actually has some basic level flow to it. Start off in a small constricted room with shotgunners and cacos. Don't fire yet, just inch toward the lone stealth trooper so a few walls lower, allowing you room to escape so the cacos don't trap you. Next up, the first switch I hit lowered the rest of the walls here and revealed some imp alcoves and manc closets. Focus on the revs first since they don't take as many rockets to take out. The next switch opened up a bigger part of the area, filled with pinkies, a cyb, and some imps throwing fireballs from some upper ledges. SSG pinkies until they get close, then BFG big groups. Save cells to 2-shot the cyb. Finally, hit the switch by the front of this ship(?) to reveal a spider mastermind and barons, plus 4 archies in some closets in the back. Don't fire; just run to one of the closets to BFG hug 2 of the archies, then quickly take out the other 2 on the other side. The SM should be busy with a few barons. When that is all said and done, we can finally exit to the next part of the map. This actually may be my favorite this WeirdSandwich did in this WAD. Very tight and concise, which is super impressive given the time limit!

 

Chookum (deaths: 0)

We got another small arena that feels like a sci-fi city's garden area to me for some reason. I am well aware there's no garden here. We have a cyb at the center of the room, which you can use to take out the revs nearby, then focus on getting the cyb to take out some barons. I was content on having the cyb do all my dirty work, but then I noticed the archie that was somehow alerted to me. Well, so much for stealth. Thankfully, that archie and the cyb are the only 2 threats here really. Bonus points for being able to telefrag the cyb as we leave.

 

NotTyrone (deaths: 0)

I think this is just the opening courtyard to map 3, just filled with chaingunners, imps, and revs. At least the inside is a little different, but it's still super simple to take everything out from the door and not have to worry about getting hit. I managed to BFG both archies with one blast by the warp too!

 

PeccatumMihzamiz (deaths: 0)
Hey, where did Peccatum come from? I did find it strange he wasn't involved in the WAD until this point. He's been apart of some many other PUSS events, so I was shocked to not see his name in this WAD. Well, at least up until this point. As much as I would have loved a full map from him, at least we got something a little unique here. Welcome to the "Former Human Gib Factory". Have rockets, will shoot zombies in the face. There's a TON of them here. Most are the basic variety, but some shotgunners appear toward the end. There's more than enough rockets to take everything out, and it's super satisfying gibbing a bunch of zombies at once. I'm sure the UAC scientists watching will agree. However, once you enter the outer ring of this area, have the BFG out, as there's groups of enemies around that are much stronger than zombies, and the 3 groups all have an archie. They're also guarding the 3 switches that let us out. Oddly enough, the center room also has 5 cacos that come out of the walls, but this didn't happen my first time here. When I came back after finding the teleporter back to the beginning of the level, then they came out. I'm assuming they come out when the 3 switches were hit, and I just didn't return to the center.

BluePineapple72 (deaths: 0)

The final arena has 4 areas that are references to BP's 4 maps. It's probably the most intense of the slaughter fights in this map, as most of the monsters see you as soon as you teleport in. As usual, run around causing as much mayhem amongst demons as possible. Each area has a switch, and either hitting them or approaching them will cause more monsters to appear, like some archies in the lava area, and 2 cybs + barons in the grassy area. It is chaos, but there's a lot of health and ammo here. It's probably the most fun slaughter fight in the map! Once the final switch is hit and the final monster hits the floor, we can exit. Before jumping in the exit warp, turn around to find a small switch that opens up a secret automap. The automap spells out which mapper made each area if the user icons in the warps didn't tell you before.

 

Overall, this map is a solid final challenge for the WAD. Other community projects, especially in the French part of the community, do giant maps like this toward the end, but those tend to feel a bit much. Setting the time limit to just 1 hour for each person makes the mappers create small areas that focus more on challenging fights. It also makes this map not feel like a drag. This did take the longest time to beat out of all the maps, but it still felt fun all throughout. The mappers were still able to show their own mapping design with the time limit, which was great. I love that they kept AA's map29 MIDI for this map as well! Super fun map!

[Ralgor]

MAP30 - "Stargate BP-9" by Death Bear
dsda-doom v0.25.6 cl9, UV, Pistol start, blind run w/ saves, then single segment w/ demo
100% kills and secrets

This map is an interactive credits sequence. It looks great, and also serves to remind you of all of the adventures you just had. One large area serves as a sort of museum for all of the UFOs that we have ridden in, and also displays the proud avatars of MAP29's authors. There are several secrets that give additional information about the level, like the number of archvile's in "Archvile Arrival" and BluePineapple72's zodiac sign. I almost wish that Death Bear had more time to include more random trivia like this, but what is there is fantastic. I also like that the playtesters were listed here as well.

The beach towels at the end actually surprised me at how good they looked. I actually had to play this map with mouselook and opengl just to gawk at them. Then I got to really looking at some of the UFOs, since I had never bothered to turn on both to get a proper look at them. It's really easy to miss how great looking so many of these maps are when you're hyper-focused on slaughtering demons. I think in the future I need to just run some of these maps with -nomonsters and really take a good look at them.

There are two secrets that can't be tagged. I only mention it because I did spend some time fruitlessly looking for them. They are a couple of extremely thin sectors that probably accidentally had the secret action left on them. Oh well.

I wish all megawads would include a credits map like this. I can do without Icon of Sin fights, and I feel like this is the best way to end the experience.

I did make a demo, but only so I could say I did every level in the megawad.

 

MAP30 - 7:52.34 (7:52)  K: 22/22  I: 13/13  S: 6/8

ralgor_pussixmaw30.zip

 

Edit: Also, I have a strange compulsion to play Summer of Slaughter now...

Edited April 30, 2023 by Ralgor

[continuum.mid]

Screw it, I might as well post my final thoughts early.

 

MAP30: Stargate BP-9 (Death Bear)
dsda-doom 0.25.6+dfsg-1 (Debian 12), Doom 2, Ultra-Violence, blind, pistol start, saves
Kills: 100%, Items: 84%, Secrets: 12%, Time: 5:33, Save Count: 0

 

A quick and easy credits map that isn’t out to challenge you. The monster count is nonzero, there’s one fight involving a Revenant and some Pinkies, another involving Cacos and Guardians, and then you’re sent, one last time, to Death Bear’s familiar hub, which now has no enemies apart from two zombiemen and two imps, and is surrounded by UFOs from throughout the WAD. Once you’re done admiring the legends that made this project possible, head to a teleporter in one of the buildings, and fight the last stealth aliens of this set. The whole project ends on a beach with some very well done mapper-themed towels, and an ad for the next PUSS collaboration, “Summer of Slaughter”, serving as the exit. I thought there might be more to this map as I missed 7 secrets and AA map30 is famous for having a whole secret route, but apparently, all of the secrets are just extra fun facts about the mapset.

 

By the way, why does Zorglo have an iPhone?

 

Final Thoughts

 

2016 was one of the greatest years in the history of Doom. It brought the return of John Romero to classic Doom mapping, a whole new official Doom game by Bethesda, an excellent rare megaWAD from Japan, and the endlessly creative and memorable Ty Halderman Tribute: Threnody. But most importantly, it brought us Ancient Aliens, the undisputed masterpiece of stylistic Doom mapping by Paul “Skillsaw” DeBruyne. A unique combination of textures and an unusual palette, full of cool colors and neon, made AA look like nothing else. Stuart “stewboy” Rynn was called upon as the megaWAD’s sole composer, and concocted a suitably unique jazz fusion soundtrack. The talented Skillsaw perfected a range of styles from sprawling adventure maps to mini-slaughter. And despite his flexibility, the guest maps, from creators like stewboy, Joshy, Pinchy, and especially lupinx-Kassman, stood out even more.

 

As fate would have it, five years later was 2021, another of the greatest years in the history of Doom. A year with so many Cacoward shoe-ins that the Doomworld writers had to expand the list to 12 winners with 12 honorable mentions, and the awards were still controversial for leaving out so much. And in May of that year, a team of mappers led by BluePineapple72 set out to create a second megaWAD with Ancient Aliens’ texture pack as a fifth anniversary tribute. This was PUSS IX: Mapping at Warpspeed, and it brought some new ideas: an alien main character named Zorglo, a central hub common to one bear’s contributions, secret maps based on some little-known 2016 video game, and was full of great ideas, from simple newcomer maps, to Hell Revealed remakes, to a lengthy Arch-Vile chase, and a series of zodiac-themed slaughtermaps. It all came together in the final stretch, a collaborative map bringing together all the talents of the team into one great long burst of fun.

 

“Mapping at Warpspeed” wouldn’t actually release until this year, when it caught the attention of the DWmegawad club. Doomworld user continuum.mid was getting back into Doom at the time, had fun playing alongside friendly folks like LadyMistDragon, Book Lord, TJG1289, Celestin, RHhe82, Klear, and many others. Continuum loved it so much he even wrote overbloated, pretentious final thoughts in which he referred to himself in third person at the end of their map30 review, most of which was written two days early. But that’s because they loved this WAD, for being a fitting tribute to Skillsaw full of charming and unique creations, and making them feel powerful after managing to negotiate all of its biggest challenges. Continuum will certainly recommend this WAD to anyone else looking for charming speedmaps with great visuals and finely tuned combat. And they might even play it again if they’re looking for quick and fun slaughter practice.

Edited April 30, 2023 by continuum.mid

[RHhe82]

MAP30: Stargate BP-9. Played on DSDA v0.25.6, UV, PS. 22/22 K, 6/8 S, 13/13 I. Comp. time 12:30

 

Ah, the end credits map, the AA veterans probably knew this was coming. I like this sort of modern take on the ending: that we are spared Icon of Sin, that we are spared from entering Underhalls (in shorter than 32/30 map megawads), and that we are given a soothing cooldown like here, where there is little exploration to be done, little sightseeing, even some combat (albeit we have retreaded from Moonlust back to Knee Deep in the Alien goo). Some of the secrets even answer some of the questions posed in this thread during the month :P Sadly, I couldn't find them all, I'm still (even on the 30th of April when I'm rewriting my two-line review) missing two of them. I tried IDDT'ing and IDCLIPping thru the map, but couldn't find the last two. Ah well.

 

* * *

 

So, the month's over. When we started, I had an attitude about speedmaps, that they serve only as a starting point for real maps. Mapping at Warpspeed is (yet another) an example of me being silly: apparently you really can do wonders in 10 hours; some of the maps we have played for the past few weeks can put aforementioned real maps to shame, that's how good they are. Of course, you have to be an experienced map maker to perform miracles in short amount of time. Community projects have different sorts of mappers, and as is the case for Mapping at Warpspeed, it turns out to be a blessing, because here they do not detract from the cohesity of the mapset, but provide much needed variation in styles and intensity (as much as I loved BluePineapple's astrology saga, I'm glad we didn't have 32 of those to play :P). Even if the project would attract expert doomgod mappers only, the variation in style and design philosophies are enjoyable varied. For instance Muumi's contributions, which were top quality, provided something different to the set to break the pace. Much like in BP72's case: I'm glad they are there, I'm glad there's not 32 of them.

 

Naturally the cohesity is achieved partly by it being modelled after Ancient Aliens, one of my favourite megawads, one of the few pwads I have so far played thru twice. The texture set alone creates that cohesity, but also the maps feeling like they could belong to AA. I guess that makes Mapping at Warpspeed a sort of Ancient Aliens 2.

 

I thank the mappers, and I thank fellow clubbers. It's been a delight. See you tomorrow, perhaps, or some other month.

[Book Lord]

This is the end of April, time to wrap up the experience and thank both the PUSS IX team and fellow DWMC members. I had a good time with the map set and reading everyone's reception was interesting, since there seemed to be less consensus and samey feedback than usual. See you next month!

 

Final Thoughts

 

Sometimes coincidences just happen. In the last days of March 2023, I completed my 4-month long playthrough of Ancient Aliens; at the same time, the DWMC chose for the upcoming April PUSS IX: Mapping at Warpspeed, a speedmapping project based upon the resources of the popular @skillsaw release. While I had mixed feelings about the original megaWAD and some of its larger maps, I was fascinated by the custom textures and colour palette, I had fresh memories of everything, and I was eager to see more of the same, so I jumped on the bandwagon for another month of Doom playthroughs and in-depth discussions.

 

The speedmapping event was created in 2021 to celebrate the 5th anniversary of Ancient Aliens, but development exceeded the planned three months by a good margin. The project leader @BluePineapple72 and his team saw the opportunity to release a full 32-map megaWAD, a first-time achievement for the PUSS series, so the project was brought to completion during 2022, to be released officially in October and reaching idgames in April 2023, just after being chosen for the DWMC. Skillsaw was obviously credited for the custom content he created, but he also gave advice to the team and shared the design principles he used when making Ancient Aliens. His counsel and the great skill showed by the authors made sure that Mapping at Warpspeed was not only inspired by its source material, but faithfully reproduced the atmosphere, the combat scenarios, and the gimmicks imprinted in everyone’s mind.

 

The PUSS IX team came up with some original content, replacing the player sprites and HUD to impersonate a new hero, an alien called Zorglo Blazkowicz. His worlds have been invaded by evil creatures from hell. Not Zorglo’s hell, but the hell coming from Mars, a planet in the Sol system with the same name as the candy company. ‘Alien hell is much nicer than that one’. His green fellows were dead, so the lonely alien had no other choice but to embrace his double-barrelled Grazzorp 3000 and blow up some demonic heads!

 

It is always refreshing to play a community project, especially when the team is small, and most authors contribute multiple levels. The resulting variety was astonishing, and I compare it favourably with the effective though monolithic two thirds of Ancient Aliens, conceived by skillsaw with only a few guest appearances. It was not only because of the teamwork. Flexible guidelines from BluePineapple72 contained the mapping time to 10 non-consecutive hours, though I am convinced some of the proposed maps were just too large, accurate, and conceptual to have been drawn in such a short time. The involved personnel have many Doom levels under their belt, but what they achieved in a speedmapping project was hard to believe. The less experienced mappers came up with perfectly fine stuff that still made a good impression, providing a useful pressure relief for the player, but they clearly showed a difference in scope and ambition. Careful pre-planning must have taken place outside the editor, allowing the mappers to bring their ideas to life in such a short timespan, and with such detail.

 

My continuous blind playthrough was carried out on Ultra-Violence and with savegames mid-level (not during encounters to cheat the RNG or to facilitate anything). The first thing a player will notice is the absence of a difficulty curve, because the maps in the first and the second episode have been compiled in the order of submission. There might be a few unexpected hard nuts to crack, such as MAP02, MAP05, MAP08 and MAP11, then the megaWAD stabilises in the MAP12-MAP23 segment, with good alternation between mappers of different experience. The third episode amps up the difficulty quite a bit, especially with BluePineapple72’s astrological contributions, and ends with the tour de force of MAP29, which consisted of 11 consecutive micro-slaughter set pieces created “hot potato style” by different authors.

 

As expected in modern megaWADs, pistol start received proper attention. Resources were generally abundant like in Ancient Aliens, except on rare occasions when underequipping the player was part of the challenge. An important change I noticed was that combat flowed smoothly and quickly if compared to skillsaw’s map set, which took 11 hours for me to beat on the first blind playthrough, while Mapping at Warpspeed was over in 9 ½ hours, curiously less than the time required to build a single map. I enjoyed the fast course of action, and my reception was less enthusiastic whenever the routine was changed to enforce different rules of play (e.g., MAP08, MAP11 and MAP24).

 

Secret hunting was not the priority, but some maps contained crucial hidden stashes that considerably changed the encounters for pistol starters. The secret levels represented their counterparts from Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods pt.1. They must have been an intriguing reverse engineering challenge, and provided good entertainment that was worth the visit. The soundtrack was dominated by stewboy’s exquisite compositions, generally used in settings similar to the ones in Ancient Aliens, blended with other tracks that were surprisingly fitting. I assume some post-production editing has been done to improve the megaWAD cohesion; if not, I am amazed by the mappers’ consistent mindset in approaching the design.

 

Expect both familiar and unconventional use of Ancient Aliens textures, custom enemies, and well-known mapping tricks, such as the transparent platforms, the spirit warp hyperspace tunnels, and the flying discs at the start and the end of each map, all displayed in the hall of fame of MAP30, a wonderful monument to teamwork as well as a testament of @Death Bear’s strong commitment to this project. The list below shows the levels that struck me the most, but I can only recommend playing the whole megaWAD to give credit to the unmentioned contributors as well. If I am used to praise talents like @muumi and @myolden, the one that surprised me the most was BluePineapple72, who has been working under the positive influence of the zodiac in the 9th instalment of his own speedmapping event. A fulfilling experience, Mapping at Warpspeed can be recommended to anyone that enjoyed Ancient Aliens and wanted a more varied take on the same subjects, with fluid, quicker combat scenarios that also increased the proposed challenge.

 

Best maps:

MAP 07 – Holodeck by myolden

MAP 09 – Alien Tartarus by muumi

MAP 32 – Blood Swamp by muumi

MAP 20 – Archvile Arrival by muumi

MAP 26 – Clandestine Cumulonimbus by BluePineapple72

 

Other standout maps:

MAP 06 – Ursae Majoris by Death Bear

MAP 08 – Moon Funeral by myolden

MAP 13 – Electron Avenue by Death Bear

MAP 17 – Zero G Station by @Danlex

MAP 18 – Close Encounters Of the Weird Kind by @Weird Sandwich 

MAP 23 – Neon Desert by @Chookum

MAP 25 – Grab the Bull by the Horns by BluePineapple72

 

Special mention maps:

MAP 29 – Mapping at Warpspeed by Various Authors

MAP 30 – Stargate BP-9 by Death Bear

[Celestin]

MAP30: Stargate BP-9 by Death Bear

Spoiler

Stargate BP-9 (I assume it's a reference to project lead's nickname?) is a credits map, formed out of pieces of unfinished levels. It's populated by a minimal opposition, features secrets that reveal pieces of trivia about the project and ends with a small teaser of PUSS X. I think it's a cute way to end a megawad and a wind-down after MAP29's gauntlet.

 

Conclusions

 

PUSS IX: Mapping at Warpspeed put the series on my radar. Variety is a feature that attracts me towards community projects and this one delivers, both in terms of visuals and gameplay styles. Ancient Aliens texture pack is used here to create a diverse set of environments and after Fragport's abuse of brown textures, the neon colurs felt like a breath of fresh air. From arid deserts, through alien worlds to voidscape abstractions, you'll nevel feel bored. PUSS IX contributors bring a wide range of gameplay styles, including compact but vicious setpieces, fluid, open ended combat, grand slaughter arenas and some gimmick maps to break the monotony. I was loading each new map, not knowing what to expect and in some cases, getting genuinely surprised with what the mappers came up with. 

 

The biggest strenght of PUSS IX, however, is its overall quality. Some of the maps here don't look like they were made under time constrains and I believe this is the biggest compliment a speedmap can receive. Even the weaker maps of the set, made by less-experienced authors, aren't that bad. I don't think there are that many frustrating maps here and even those that took me a while to beat, made the victory feel earnt. Speaking of difficulty, I would say Mapping at Warpspeed is comparable to modern megawads (ie BTSX or Eviternity), but without the warm-up period that usually lasts for the first couple of maps - it starts hot from MAP01, continues at a steady level and only ramps up at its tail end. The short runtime of the majority of maps here definitely makes it easier for single-segment runners. 

 

So, to wrap it all up, PUSS IX is a great collection that I would recommend to anyone seeking a creative and diverse experience. I'll be sure to check the PUSS series in the future, hoping for similiar level of quality and polish. I also need to play Ancient Aliens at some point, as I'm certain a lot of references to that wad flew over my head. This was a great month, easily the best I've participated in so far. A variety of mapping styles on display mean everyone will have a different opinion and I greatly enjoyed the insights of other club members.

 

There are so many amazing maps I couldn't settle on top 3, so screw it, here's top 5 maps of PUSS IX. I still had to cut some great levels out, but I have to draw a line somewhere.

 

1) MAP29: Mapping at Warpspeed by Bluepineapple72 et al.
2) MAP20: Archvile Arrival by Muumi
3) MAP27: Of Waves and Woe by BluePineapple72
4) MAP24: Cryptozoophobia by Weird Sandwich
5) MAP11: Another Glance at the Paradise by Muumi

 

The weakest level of the wad:

MAP19: Hiding the Secrets by theBMFG

 

See you next month.