The DWmegawad Club plays: PUSS IX: Mapping at Warpspeed

[DisgruntledPorcupine]

MAP04: "Oberth Malfunction" by NotTyrone

UV, pistol start, no saves

100% kills, 0/0 secrets

 

NotTyrone's combat still lacks the polish and bite of the preceding maps here, but there's a bump in ambition in the visual department. We go through a few different themes here, starting on the inside of a green UFO, beaming down to a red planet where you get to walk across a starry sky, eventually making it to a predominantly blue techbase. After taking the portal at the end of this thing, you're taken to a dark and slightly worn down version of the same techbase, and after finding a red tunnel you make it outdoors, where the calm starry sky has been replaced with a blue sheet of falling stars. The exit is a UFO with a red interior. Making an interior for the UFOs is a nice touch, and I'm curious to see who decides to play with that down the line.

 

As I alluded to earlier, the combat is still quite easy in this one. The outdoor areas give you a huge amount of space to work with, so you shouldn't have a ton of trouble there, and otherwise you're kept very well-stocked for health and ammunition. The hordes that guard the blue key include two archviles and make perfect rocket food. The archvile behind the red key door did take me off guard and give me a zap, but again the level keeps you well-stocked enough that mistakes like that are forgiven. The dark version of the techbase reintroduces the AA exclusives, and the stealth troopers are the main threat in this area since there are quite a few of them running around.

 

Gameplay still left me a bit wanting, but I did enjoy the visuals quite a bit. I have a thing for maps where you walk on the sky, and the two mirror versions of the same area was pulled off nicely.

[RHhe82]

MAP05: Ursae Minoris. Played on DSDA v0.25.6, UV, PS. 222/222 K, 2/3 S, 86/86 I. Comp. time 22:35

 

This didn't look like a speedmap either, but rather legit E2 map from AA. (Not my favourite episode, though). Opening shots remind me of Lunatic. The valley after the start looks like a giant hub, but apparently only one of the buildings can be entered. Behind one is a secret chainsaw -- which I missed in my playthrough, the place can't be backtracked to (>:-().

 

That aside, I enjoyed this one as well, it's a bit harder than two previous maps, especially when the action first really breaks. After the initial onslaught it gets a bit easier, although the back arena is troublesome, those pesky arachnotrons could aim at me anywhere, almost nowhere could one stand safely and wait for other enemies to comes closer.

 

Aside from the chainsaw, this time I also found the other secrets naturally, BFG quite early on as well. Could have used it more, too, at the end of the map I had 600 cells and packs lying around. (I recently learned the basics of two-shotting cybers, very satisfying to take care of the one roaming here!).

 

Good stuff.
 

[SuyaSSS]

MAP05: “Ursae Minoris” by Death Bear

Played On Nugget Doom, HMP, Pistol-start

 

This map looks very good. Since I have never played AA, I don't know how accurate it is to its style but, it still looks good to my eyes.

 

The difficulty here is quite high compared to all the previous maps. I especially like the final area of this map. I do think that some areas are pointless such as the area with one revenant and one archvile which has no purpose other than to get the secret BFG. I also think that the Arachnotron turrets border more on being annoying than fun. I also did the same mistake as the first map and killed all the arachnotrons (oops) which made the constant teleporting to the pillars very annoying for me.

 

Overall, I don't think this type of gameplay is my favourite. Especially the beginning fight felt way too not my taste. I also got suoer confused on where to go because one alien switch which opens the door to the rocket launcher area matched too much with the colour. Obviously, I wouldn't consider it my favourite map here but the effort put in this map has to be applauded.

 

Grade: B+

Edited April 6, 2023 by SuyaSS

[PRO-RC]

Played on Woof (10.5.1) - Single Segment - Blind run - Saves - UV - Old wad Ver.

Map04: Oberth Malfunction by notTyrone

 

good map. notTyrone made more effort into detailing his map, the weird red space canyons were cool but underutilized. beside some low to mid tier enemies, he didn't place any demons it it. its still short and easy like his last map, but visuals make up for the lack of gameplay.

 

Give the map a GOOD/10  

[Book Lord]

MAP 05 – Ursae Minoris by @Death Bear

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

 

Death Bear presents us a double feature with two consecutive maps, bearing similar names. The starting areas differed only for the colour of the liquid, filling the same rocky crater, and for the featured enemy type. Since the Latin name of the Little Dipper is Ursa Minor, the genitive Ursae Minoris implies we are visiting something related to the constellation. The player will not have many chances to realise the connection before the map is almost fully explored. The large moonscape with various coloured buildings, all inaccessible except the one with Former Humans, was fascinating, though a secret chainsaw was not enough to justify the existence of this hub, whose purpose remains obscure for now.

Spoiler

I was not prepared for the type of challenge that lay ahead. After jumping in the blue portal, I was equipped with a Megasphere and sent into a neon-coloured floating outpost, eerily silent but soon to be animated by sudden bursts of aggression. As soon as Zorglo entered the base, a wall shut behind him and enemies started to pop up everywhere. A pistol starter cannot do much with pistol and chainsaw, and getting trapped in a cage with four Cacodemons and Imps was startling. The same fate awaited the player following the double lilac line and turning right, where he will be at the mercy of Revenants and an Arch-Vile on floating platforms. The intended direction was to the left, where an SSG could be grabbed before triggering more enemies. The Revenants on top of the stairs confused me a lot with their teleports, and I assumed they were more than just three. At last, I reached the terrace with the Mancubi; there I collected a rocket launcher and started sorting this warm welcome mess.

Spoiler

A sequence of switches opened the way to the north, revealing more Arachnotrons on pillars connected with violet beams of light. These living turrets sent streams of plasma in my direction from incredible distances, getting so annoying that I could not stand them for long. After painfully exploiting their barrage for infighting, I killed all the spiders. I gradually gained control of the large northern courtyard, just to see it swarmed by Alien Guardians and other creatures after pressing the green switch. I think these glass cannons are great when used in small numbers to ambush the player in close quarters, considering their splash damage death and high rate of fire, but they are plain irritating when confronted in the open. I must hide and wait for them to slowly get closer, to avoid dodging a deluge of homing rockets.

 

Once the last switch in the courtyard was pressed, I discovered a bear-powered warp gate that sent me through the seven Arachnotron turrets, until I landed on the BSK. Thinking I could stand their suppression fire up to this point was a bit too much, so no telefragging for me. The key pickup summoned a final wave of enemies, materialising everywhere and chasing me in the Cacodemon cavern, where I made my stand. I must then backtrack to the northern area to blow up a wall of monsters, including a Cyberdemon and a comical final ambush with 4 Troopers. Something broke on the way to the next Identified Flying Object, since I found myself unable to progress after opening the blue door. I checked it in Doom Builder and something went wrong with tag 1, for reasons I could not explain. The same seems to happen with the idgames version on DSDA.

Spoiler

Ursae Minoris looked nice and had a few unique ideas at its core, such as the seven Arachnotron turrets that formed a Little Dipper shape on the automap. Sadly, the reported adventures were not very enjoyable for me, ranging from abrupt attacks to confusing progression, paired with combat scenarios that I found overly complicated. I did not think it was possible, but this time Death Bear made a map I did not like.

[Helm]

map05 (actually I'll start calling them worlds)

World 05  - Ursae Minoris 
by Death Bear

That's latin for 'Lesser Bear', which presumably knowing Death Bear has cubs could be one of his! hehe. Otherwise of course we are talking about the star cluster in the far northern sky.  Z gets around! Always happy to play more Death Bear in every and any case.

I'm blasting Vauxdvihl - To Dimension Logic, again, apropos for the atmospheric beginning of this world.

We beam down on a rocky ravine, filled with an icy lake at the bottom. The galaxy sky touches on the blues with its purple eye nebula. Green torches line the walls of the ravine, and a couple of zambies are shambling about, they've noticed nothing. Zorg taps one on the back of the head and the next straight in the cheek, lining up his shots like a little green alien sociopath with complete lack of empathy for these creatures. 

Now, the hu-men... not the zombies or demons. Those hu-men in the lab coats. Z will keep his incandescent irritation going for them on a separate track.

Passing through the cave the zombos probably stumbled through there is a transition to AA techbase. Barred windows show us another multi-levelled ravine with metal boxy structures peppering both sides of it. Eventually we jump from rock to rock and find the only opened up such metal structure that takes us deeper on this base in the North Star Minoris.

So far it's been pure atmosphere, it's a great time, my music fit, exploration feels solid. Some more zombies in the corner of the way forward signpost that yes, this is where those zombies wandered away from. A secret chainsaw is also a minor reward for looking around in the second ravine. 

Taking the spirit teleporter lands us in front of a megasphere on a techbase circular pedestal, and immediately from a long vantage we are assaulted by turreted arachnotrons.The moment you move about to dodge the aracho, you have 3-4 different compounding challenges popping up. We don't even have guns yet.

This concludes the 'atmospheric' part of the experience and Death Bear reminds us that his full nickname is Death Bear (of Death) because my friends, getting guns and pushing back the barrage of the this base proper (especially blind) will take some reloads from all but the most savage doom monsters in our midst.

The way the encounters have been designed is so if you rush forward to avoid an entanglement / get a better gun you will inadvertently trigger 2-3 other ambushes as you push, and finding a nice place to call your own and push back is an exercise in quick thinking under extreme duress. None of this is bad! It's actually quite excellent, but hard. We knew what we signed up for when we pressed 'UV' so no complaining.

Eventually I do improvise a way to stay alive and deal with a very pesky PE, actually there's so many pesky enemies in conjunction here, and little ammo that keeps you pushing to get more stuff. It's a scavenger hunt while everything's shooting at you and the layout itself is crafted to allow multiple vantages of suppression from enemies you will only much later get within autoaim range / have ammo to crucially dispatch. The arachnos even replenish upon killing them, once again not my favorite feature of any map set :P

I won't go blow by blow for the rest, once the pressure is on, it's on until you're done-done. There is a very smartly layouted vile making a long treck around the whole far side of the map to complicate your movement. There's a secret BFG that if you could find and get early you're going to have a drastic different experience on the map! There's an excellent full repopulation of the level to get all the mileage you can out of an ostensible speed map. Which doesn't feel like a speed map. That's the Death Bear thing.

I think the story of this map here is, they trapped me. They led me here, with the witless zombies and the empty atmosphere and then they sprung all this on me. But was it the demons? Or was it the huuuu maaaannns.... Z is seething. Z bets it was the humans, their intelligence is behind these dastardly tricks. Demons are much more one-track-mind. Gotta keep this paranoia in check *takes another hit*

I really really enjoyed this map, it's soft and empty and reflective and then it gets extremely malevolent fast, this is an emotion combo that works on me at least. This map requires another full playthrough with foreknowledge because it doesn't feel good to survive the entrance to the techbase kind of in an improvised way with saves. I'd like to have a plan and have it work out. But perhaps that's for later! footage

edit: @Klear well done on the single death run! Super sexy! Some thoughts on your VR project
 

Spoiler

cool things with doom in vr:

1. leaning over a corner for a sneaky kill. Imagine scenarios where you are actually very constrained, there's a stream of pinky coming one way, and you have to lean and take care of a vile or whatever on the other side.
2. generally, setups that could play on stationary body movement. like, ducking, leaning, peeking. These things are meaningless in vanilla terms but completely virgin territory to map for for doomvr
3. keep the player on floor/stairs. Vr falling bad feeling. Strongly recommend total railing support, no places to 'fall out of map for', unless that's the emotional gimmick you're gonna go for on a map, making people barf from long falls.
4. in regular doom maps layouts can be whatever and it's part of the challenge. for doom vr I would keep playable spaces (where the player walks) EXTREMELY slickly designed to always allow for nice loops and strafing motions, because out in the open the most exhilarating feeling in doom vr is being able to survive the fray and move around and aim and shoot without catching a corner of the geometry etc, stuff that otherwise a regular doom player clips out of in miliseconds by some absurd combination of left, right up, down plus wiggly mouse motions. it's absolutely arcane, and we all do it 100 times a minute when we play doom because that's what 30 years of moving around with wasd and mouse does. In VR, I want to be able to 'predict' that I have space to move left and right in a semi circle. This doesn't mean just make open arenas, just make sure all the corridors and smaller spaces observe a quite larger player footprint than 64 map units, and curve corners.
5. aiming. embrace free aim and map for it, much like in general UDMF spirit, but here with an eye to how much real aiming can a VR player do without autoaim assist, with shaky hands, without a crosshair. There is a sweet spot range and it should influence your monster comps and distances.
6. keep experimenting with weapon packs and assets until you have a slick vr setup. For example that rocket launcher launch vfx is totally destructive to play, as is the bfx total screen onstruction vfx. I understand the spirit of these things, but do not go and engage in proper mapping until you know what your RL looks like for example because you *will* map to the inadequacies of that RL you have right now, for example. You know what I mean? If the setup isn't slick, the maps made using the setup will betray the signs of jank. But you are well on your way and I'm excited to steal your setup at the end :P

 

Edited April 5, 2023 by Helm

[Mr. Alexander]

Map05, "Ursae Minoris," by Death Bear
DSDA-Doom, UV, pistol start, advanced HUD used

 

We return to the difficulty level of the first two maps with this one from Death Bear. This isn't really a hot start, but the level proper, once you teleport to the lunar hub and then to the main base, starts hot. The first spider chamber demands that you run to the left to collect a super shotgun, rather than straight ahead or to the right into the orange cacodemon nest, which tripped me up at first because it seemed more natural to ascend to the right than descend to the left, particularly with a chaingunner popping up in your face at the landing.

 

This one is longer than the previous maps, and also slower. The combat demands endurance more than quick thinking. Make sure to get the secret BFG below the two revenants and the arch-vile perched by one of the side walkways from the first spider chamber, because the bull-run along the outer walkway of the third spider chamber will send you right into the arms of an arch-vile, and you'll want to be able to delete him immediately. It's also pretty handy for the cyberdemon at the end, of course.

 

I missed the critical free-standing, somewhat dark switch that leads to the spirit-teleporter sequence that lets you telefrag the arachnotrons, and I winced at myself for thinking the intended path might have been to SR50 onto the blue key platform from the mancubus windows above. I really shouldn't have had to look it up in SLADE, as the level's geometry leads you naturally to it. Maybe I expect switches to be recessed into walls; maybe the switch should have been fancier. I'll chalk that up to the problem between the chair and the keyboard.

 

This one was kind of frustrating to play for demos because of the introduction's pokey pace and the level's higher difficulty, but I can't deny the spectacle of the lunar hub area or the spiders' high platforms. The next map is "Ursae Majoris." If this one was Minoris, then we'll have our work cut out for us on tomorrow's map.
 

Casual practiced demo: puss905-casual-mralexander.zip

Edited April 5, 2023 by Mr. Alexander

[Death Bear]

7 hours ago, Book Lord said:

Something broke on the way to the next Identified Flying Object, since I found myself unable to progress after opening the blue door. I checked it in Doom Builder and something went wrong with tag 1, for reasons I could not explain. The same seems to happen with the idgames version on DSDA.

Hey, there! Could you describe the actual bug for me? Did the walk line just not take? Door not open? If you could help, and I can try to work on a fix…this bug isn’t something I remember encountering but I want to see what I can do with it. I’ve tried to replicate anything abnormal a few times in DSDA and can’t seem to find anything weird.

 

”I did not think it was possible, but this time Death Bear made a map I did not like.”

 

Guess I can’t win ‘em all, eh? 😂😏🤘Thanks for hanging in there!

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 05: Ursae Minoris

by @Death Bear

 

Now finally.....something! We start out facing a pair of zombiemen in a large depression, upon we enter a teleported and teleported what seems to be a large area outside said building with a group of zombies to the left and a series of buildings surrounding us. Navigating this crevass is rather tricky but we eventually find our way to the large open building and teleport to the superior map of the pair.

 

Not to much to say regarding the appearance. It's in the style of the 12-15 maps of Ancient Aliens but with the sorts of wide areas that signify speedmapping. But Death Bear's use of the Ancient Aliens pallette is excellent, and more importantly, the combat is more than up to snuff! The demo speaks for itself better than my words could to describe the fast-paced and oftentimes frantic action occurring here, but there's danger basically everywhere and monster placement never feels like pushover territory, despite the healthy variety of enemies used. This includes the plasma troopers that aren't too much of a bother, other than towards the end when they melted our terribly-weakened selves. The larger problem really comes from the skull rockets which tend to approach from a long-way off and thusly have a way of scoring multiple hits if we're not careful. Factor in the Mancubi that have this nasty habit of being nearby and the problems start to become clear.

 

That being said, the not-so secret BFG made the Arch-viles essentially a pushover, whereas the other ones are not terribly difficult to locate, yet it's really good that they're actually around!

 

We can call this the best so far right? Well, no matter. The competition for that becomes really stiff probably around Map 09 or so and you'll see why

lmd_pussIX05.zip

Edited April 6, 2023 by LadyMistDragon

[Doomy__Doom]

MAP 05 – Ursae Minoris

 

Third time out of five so far we start with a blooper - the shotgun that's supposed to teleport in at the beginning of the "meaty" part of the map fails because doomguy is perfectly capable of blocking tp destination. The same fate, as I learned later in a separate run, can affect some ammo supplies, although that's way less relevant compared to obtaining a starting weapon.

 

I don't mind when levels have "right" and "wrong" places to go at the beginning, provided it doesn't devolve into tedium due to poor outfit (e.g. "should've gone for RL" kind of problem). Thankfully, we have the opposite of tedium here. The stressful option of tripping Caco/imp ambush with barely any (or in my case none whatsoever) weapon is fun in its own right - oh there's a PE, and a chaingunner is closing in, and I need to go somewhere once the bars lower and uhhh weapons please?.. If you know to go for or stumble early into the SSG, of course everything gets more simple, but by no means trivial.

 

A lot of great placement, always keeping the player pressured from somewhere. Some of the progression switches are optional and thus the level may open up not entirely identically - for example, one could release Cyberdemon and Co. into the starting area quite early on, or it is possible to never spot that switch and be suddenly very stressed when Cyber is roaming the other half of the ramp and escape TP from the pit brings you to where a wall would'be been open had you high-threed the hand, but is now a dead end. Missing said switch also makes it much harder to deal with homing rockets, as the ramp becomes a U-turn situation rather than a circle-able scenario.

 

Add me to the list of "killed arachos by hand and got BSK by jumping" - it's not even an SR50, and the key's 4-legged guardian covers far too crucial space to keep it alive. Booming the Arch-Vile by the BFG secret down into the sky rounds out the "well that happened" list.

[Votterbin]

MAP05: Ursae Minoris (91% kills // 66% Secrets // I accidentally went to the next level before I could look at my time)
Starting off in I feel like what's supposed to be some sort of frozen place, I'm starting to realize I should've gone with Ultra Violence since it's a lot of zombiemen until just after the teleporter.
Although just after that teleporter the difficulty jumps back up. There's an arachnotron acting as a turret, and it's the first enemy I saw. Ambushed by some cacos and imps, had to take care of an archvile on a floating platform. But in that same area I found a secret with a BFG, hell yeah.
Things got really tough when the rocket cubes showed up; in a slightly smaller area like this, in these numbers, they're REALLY tough.

[Celestin]

MAP05: Ursae Minoris by Death Bear

Spoiler

As is Lesser Bear? Clever.

 

It's a vicious map, though the opening set on a barren planet might not look like it, with only a handful of zombies guarding a portal. Once you warp to the space station, shit gets real.

 

Death Bear throws cacodemons at the player with mounted arachnotron spraying plasma. I recommend running left for the super shotgun and rocket launcher, this should give them enough firepower to clear the first area. Also, check out the part with two revenants and archvile above the void. There's a secret BFG below and it helps a lot with later sections of the map.

 

The next part is somewhat of a breather, with stealth troopers and another arachnotron. Opening the way forward releases alien giardians and pain elemental, with archvile on the ledge. Now comes the hardest fight of the map: a run along the perimeter of the arena with snipers in the centre and on the rim. Luckily there's a ton of cells and rockets laying around, so be on the constant move and eliminate everything. The BFG is invaluable here, especially on the blue ledge. Shotgunners and pain elemental emerge from monster closets, while guardians fire a barrage of missiles from the other side of the arena. What a nasty trap.

 

With this mess dealt with, the player takes a series of teleporters back to the first arena, with the final one granting them the blue key. The map gets refilled with enemies, with guardians being the worst, followed by a cyberdemon by the exit (have fun fighting him on a narrow walkway). 

 

Ursae Minoris is the hardest map so far, I had fun overcoming the challenge. Also, I like the visuals, with ton of colours and good use of the voidscape.

[TJG1289]

GZDoom/UV/Pistol-Start/Saves

Map 05: Ursae Minoris - Death Bear

100% kills and secrets

Time: 18:04

 

I remember this one being quite tricky when I first played it, but it wasn't so bad this time. This is the first of a series of maps by Death Bear that use this opening hub area, with each time you revisit it, it becomes more and more degraded. This first visit just sends zombiemen after you so no threats here. Grab the hidden chainsaw behind the building and teleport to the first true part of the level. You'll be immediately pressured by a turreted arachnotron, plus just a bunch of enemies all around. In my panic to get out of the way, I ended up in the alcove just to the right of the entrance, and got locked in there for a min with just a pistol. Not good with the imps and cacos (I think) here. I somehow jumped over the shotgun on my way to this spot and didn't find it until after I escaped, ran a different direction, pistoled a chaingunner, and used that to clear room for me to escape back the way I came. Tough spot, but I managed. Helps that you get a megasphere when you first teleport in. After you get your bearings, the map dies down a bit. There's a few traps on the way to unlocking the path forward. There's also a hidden BFG in the void by the archie and rev combo, which I was really surprised by in my first playthrough. I thought that was WAY too easy to find. Not complaining though. When you unlock the next part forward, after to clear out the guardian/pain elemental/archie trap, make sure you return back to where you opened the first part through to find a new passage to the plasma rifle. The final area of the map has way more turreted arachnotrons, which you can telefrag later, but it's much safer to just blast them now. There's a pain elemental/shotgunner trap that can be painful without cell weapons. There's also an archie just hiding over by the opposite side of the room, so BFG him. Another archie appears when you find the megasphere secret. You may want to spawn him in now before things get hectic. Once you open the teleporter that finally nabs you the blue key, the map gets repopulated. Guardians are the most annoying things here, but you can get a good BFG blast on them. Everything else you can rocket as the mosey on over. Except for the cyb, which probably won't mosey over. It was waiting for me by the exit. 2-shot him, wait a surprisingly long time for the bars in front of the blue door to lower, take out the final ambush of lowly zombies, and you're good. Overall, another solid map. Doesn't feel like a speedmap! Fun combat and stellar visuals. 

[continuum.mid]

World 5: Ursae Minoris (by Death Bear)

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

 

I was pretty excited for this map, mostly because it uses a track me and @DCG Retrowave made for the Alien Vendetta MIDI Pack (thanks for choosing it, @Death Bear!)

 

Aside from that ego trip, this map was pretty difficult, and the start was... interesting? Even on UV there were only a few Zombiemen in a big and empty lunar area at the start, and the player is given a full green armor to deal with them, even though they likely won't get hit and it's made entirely redundant by the megasphere after the second teleporter. Especially considering all the ammo laying around, it felt like I was supposed to have many more weapons than I did. Also, I ended up with 100 rockets in this map, but never found the rocket launcher, which is quite odd.

 

The second teleporter sent me right into a rather challenging combat situation - a Pain Elemental, an Arachnotron turret, and several fodder enemies and Cacodemons - with only 83 pistol ammo and a chainsaw. I died several times here. Best strategy I could figure out is to get the Chaingun and Shotgun off the hitscanners as fast as possible, then run into the room with the Super Shotgun, negotiate that fight with some help from infighting, and deal with the remaining monsters using that SSG. This was only the beginning of my woes as every fight after this has some mean monster placement and difficult footing. Case in point: the room with four Arachnotron turrets and a multitude of enemies of all sizes, which requires very careful attacks to deal with. Afterwards I got to telefrag the Arachnotrons (useless because I had to kill them anyway to survive), grab the blue key and negotiate an even bigger fight, with heavies all over the map. Both required me to use mid-battle saves, thus killing my "no/limited saves" streak. Thankfully, after the blue key fight, the map was over!

 

Definitely the most impressive map so far, but wow is it punishing.

Edited April 5, 2023 by continuum.mid

[BluePineapple72]

5 hours ago, LadyMistDragon said:

We can call this the best so far right? Well, no matter. The competition for that becomes really stiff probably around Map 09 or so and you'll see why

 

I personally think that maps 22, 25, 25, and 27 are the best. 29 has a good part at the end. That's just me though. 🐸 ☕️ 

Edited April 5, 2023 by BluePineapple72

[Ralgor]

MAP05 - "Ursae Minoris" 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 starts out slow. The first dozen or so enemies you'll fight are just troopers, and you just have a pistol. It's not until you go through the big teleporter in the building that the map really starts. As much as this area looks cool, I'm not really certain why it's here. It really seems like the opening to an enormous map, but we only get to see a fraction of it here. Maybe the next level will show us more?

Anyway, the level kicks off once you grab the megasphere, and doesn't let up until you're done. There are numerous arachnotron snipers in this map, and in many ways they are the primary threat. There are certain places where they have some significant lines of sight. The first one can shoot at you as soon as you teleport on top of the megasphere, and will continue to have a shot at you until you proceed through the next area. It's in this area that you finally get the shotgun, but unfortunately it has to teleport in for some reason. This is a bizarre choice made worse by the fact that I had it not work once. I crossed the line to spawn it in multiple times and it never did, so I had to restart. I guess it's to simulate having some benefactor trying to help you out?

When you get farther into the map, it opens up a lot. This area is the hardest part of the level, and the difficulty stems from constantly trying to watch what's shooting at you at any point in time. You have a bunch of arachnotrons, but also cacodemons and those spinning skull things. There are few spots to hide, so I ended up having to run into the area, try to kill a couple things, and then retreat. This was pretty annoying, but with patience isn't too difficult.

A cyberdemon does warp in with the final assault, but if you get the secret BFG he's mostly a pushover. Most of the horde that comes with him can be rocketed or BFGed.

Overall, I felt that this map was between MAP01 and MAP02 in difficulty, but was much more enjoyable to play than either. I really liked this map, despite the slow start and wonky shotgun. There was plenty of ammo, in fact maybe slightly too much ammo. The chainsaw secret was completely pointless because of it, but honestly I was pretty happy to not need to melee anything in this map. There was also a really long delay waiting for some bars to lower at the end. I guess it's to keep you from exiting without killing everything, but it was really boring waiting for it to lower. The combat was pretty awesome though, with a variety of setups and monsters.

Grade: A

I did break down and go through this one with saves before trying to record a demo. Once I completed it with saves I managed to get my demo on my first attempt, minus the attempt where the shotgun didn't spawn. I have a demo of the shotgun not spawning if anyone wants to see it.

MAP05 - 16:48.43 (16:48)  K: 222/222  I: 86/86  S: 3/3

ralgor_pussixmaw05.zip

[DisgruntledPorcupine]

World 5: "Ursae Minoris" by Death Bear

UV, pistol start, no saves

100% kills, 3/3 secrets

 

Guess I might as well start calling these Worlds too.

 

This one starts us off in a moon area, with pretty blue water (turquoise? teal? cyan? This is my favourite spectrum of colours and I couldn't tell you what to call this shade). After teleporting off to a very spacious hub-like area to take out a few hapless zombiemen, we're off to our destination: a flashy technicolour techbase suspended in the starry sky. Our midi, from the lovely community-made Alien Vendetta midi pack, is decent. Less memorable than some of the other midi choices, but it fits well enough.

 

Definitely the lengthiest map so far, your biggest challenge will probably be easing the chaos that ensues when you first enter the main area. The rest is just not making too many missteps for the rest of the duration. The route that got through me the beginning bit was to first go right, turn back after tripping the shotgun teleport to pick it up, then trap yourself in with the cacos and imps. Not a lot of teeth in this trap as long as you keep moving, then once the bars lower you can leave, grab the BFG secret, and then move to the SSG. For the revenant trap ahead of the SSG I just hid around the corner and peekabooed them. They teleport out into the main room if they try to get too close, so they aren't too threatening unless they manage to come up around behind you again (which did happen to me once).

 

The rest of the level is good fun, but no particular fight is terribly difficult, just about not messing up to the point of dying. You also get quite a lot of ammo, so while there is the option to telefrag all the arachno turrets, you're best served just rocketing them as you progress in my opinion. If you leave them there, they are the biggest threat in the map. If I had one nitpick it'd be that the progression isn't too clear after the opening donnybrook, as that blue switch is quite easy to miss (I spent an embarrassingly long time looking for the way forward). It's also quite easy not to notice that plasma opening up after you hit the switch in the next area. The secrets on the other hand should be easily findable with just a smidge of curiosity. At first I was also a bit disappointed that the opening moon area wasn't utilized more with its size and multiple buildings, but after catching a small glimpse of the start of the next level I have some guesses as to what's coming. 

 

Fun map that looked very snazzy. Quite impressive for the time constraint.

Edited April 6, 2023 by DisgruntledPorcupine

[RHhe82]

MAP06: Ursae Majoris. Played on DSDA v0.25.6, UV, PS. 257/257 K, 5/5 S, 131/132 I. Comp. time 27:55

(this is where I switched to IdGames version)

 

Funny thing, I was *certain* that this one was going to be New Game+ version of MAP05 when I first saw the slightly altered Lunatic/DN3Dep2 inspired valley. That wasn't to be the case though, you get to tread some unfamiliar territory after the familiar-looking starting area. Don't miss the secret I missed in MAP05.

 

Ursae Minoris was a decent map, but I liked this one more. We start the actual action with an area that opens up gradually. Nothing (particularly) difficult here as long as you charge for the SSG when the first Hell Knight is unleashed. I think I like this opening battle the best. The rest are fun, too, although the final area with the RSK and raising chasm bridge feels a bit tedious. Maybe I approached the whole last arena wrong, that's where I died the most anyway. Even the secret room behind yellow door feels like it's rewarding you with vacuum-cleaning work.

 

Most of the secrets are stringed together (and the aforementioned final secret later on requires you follow this secret sector path to the end). Didn't have to spend that much time looking for them this time, although I found the start of the path by a colored automap wall rather than astute observation.

 

Still good stuff.

[Book Lord]

MAP 06 – Ursae Majoris by @Death Bear

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

 

The premises were the same of the previous map, with Sergeants replacing the Former Humans in the crater and in the hub with the coloured buildings, where Zorglo found another secret chainsaw and a portal to a different place. Ursae Majoris consisted in another floating space fortress, but its locations were notably larger, and solemn. The gameplay also had a completely different tone, leaning more towards slaughter than the sudden shocks that I did not enjoy very much in Ursae Minoris. The appetizer was a mob of hitscanners in the vestibule, unleashed before I was ready to hop on pillars and steal the rocket launcher from the Mancubus guard.

Spoiler

Once past the first building, the bridge area saw me hide once again because of Alien Guardians in the open. As soon as I entered the main building I was gently nudged ahead, sent to deal with Arachnotrons on pillars and some invisible monsters wanting me to face rocket. Two switches must be pressed to reach the BSK and leave the room: the first replenished the Arachnotrons, and the second one released hitscanners, Revenants and an Arch-Vile in the pit. I liked this room, as it was creatively challenging.

Spoiler

The next chamber contained a Cyberdemon and a few pre-placed monsters. Both the plasma rifle and the BFG were available here, the first on a platform in the middle of a pit trap patch of damaging ooze, the other inside a cage that could be opened with a switch. Getting on the Cyberdemon platform required pressing a switch and dealing with monsters appearing on various platforms, but it was mandatory to access more progression switches. Besides reopening the blue door to backtrack to previous areas, the other switches opened both the western and the eastern chambers.

Spoiler

To the east, a second Cyberdemon dominated a vast chamber with pits, flying monsters, and a thin bridge to raise in the middle. Arachnotrons appeared on tall towers as seen before, putting some pressure but this time there were many options to find cover or dodge, regardless of the obstacles. Conquering this room and collecting the RSK was a lot of fun, possibly the best moment of the map. The western wing contained the exit, which was revealed along with a Spiderdemon and many other ambushers. Despite wielding the BFG, I was defeated the first time I attempted this fight, because I was surrounded by infinitely tall Cacodemons and Alien Guardians around the Blue Armour spot. On my next attempt, I kept my distance from the teleport destinations and things went smoothly.

 

I noticed a yellow door in the eastern section and still four missing secrets. A look at the automap evidenced a ledge around the whole base, which was accessed passing through a grating, signposted by a pillar with a clip on the other side. Finding all secrets and the YSK was only a matter of perseverance, and I cackled at the treasure room à la Wolf3d behind the yellow door. The automap showed also that the blinking square pillars were arranged like the stars of Ursa Major, not only the Big Dipper but also its numerous, less known bright stars (Talitha, Muscida, the Tanias, the Aulas, etc.). I found the gameplay stroke the right chords in Ursae Majoris, and I enjoyed its telegraphed and well-organised monster deployments. The visuals were less elaborate than in Ursae Minoris, but they allowed for some beautiful vistas, especially when approaching the main fortress. An excellent speedmap by Death Bear.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Book Lord

[PRO-RC]

Played on Woof (10.5.1) - Single Segment - Blind run - Saves - UV - Old wad Ver.

Map05: Ursae Minoris by Death Bear

 

Good map, has the best fights and looks in the wad so far, and has heavy use of the AA enemies (mostly the weird floating thing that spew's 10,000 rev rockets per second.) would have said it was great but I don't particularly like this one switch that opens the rest of the map up. why does it need to blend into its adjacent wall and why does it need to be right next to a drop? I hope that got fixed in the idgames release.

 

The Switch:

Spoiler

   

I give it a GOOD/10

[Book Lord]

15 hours ago, Death Bear said:

Hey, there! Could you describe the actual bug for me? Did the walk line just not take? Door not open? If you could help, and I can try to work on a fix…this bug isn’t something I remember encountering but I want to see what I can do with it. I’ve tried to replicate anything abnormal a few times in DSDA and can’t seem to find anything weird.

It happened at the very last door of MAP05. The door opens and displays a HOM because of exposed, untextured walls. Sector 1304 seems to rise properly , while sector 1305 stays down and must be "opened" to rise, then it follows the nearby door somehow. If you open and close the door repeatedly or untimely, the door checks the height of the nearby sector 1305 and may get stuck.

Some pics:

Spoiler

 

Quote

”I did not think it was possible, but this time Death Bear made a map I did not like.”

 

Guess I can’t win ‘em all, eh? 😂😏🤘Thanks for hanging in there!

You did a great job with all of your maps. This one strangely did not resonate well with me for the reasons explained in the review, but I liked the next one much better!

6 hours ago, Ralgor said:

I did break down and go through this one with saves before trying to record a demo. Once I completed it with saves I managed to get my demo on my first attempt, minus the attempt where the shotgun didn't spawn. I have a demo of the shotgun not spawning if anyone wants to see it. 

Now that Ralgor says it, the shotgun did not spawn in my playthrough as well! These facts might have soured the impression a bit, giving me the impression that the map was conceived as a one true path to follow, or die if you go another way. A shotgun could help you survive if you get in the Cacodemon cage instead of going elsewhere.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Book Lord

[Klear]

Ran into technical issues yesterday. Turns out Android 10 is incapable of creating files over 3.8GB. Guess which Andorid version Quest 2 uses? Well, 12 actually as of the latest update, but it is sent out in waves and I didn't get it yet, so I'm stuck on 10 for now. I had two options - pause recording in the middle and splice it or learn how to speedrun Doom in VR. So anyway, hope you enjoy my 30 minute video.

 

Worldmap06: Ursae Majoris by Death Bear

QuestZDoom, UV, practiced, pistol start

 

Spoiler

 

Last time I mentioned Ursae Minoris is my favourite world so far, well if you asked me now, I'd say maybe? Almost everything I wrote about that one applies here too. I think Minoris takes it in visuals on the back of those lasers, while Majoris had the more satisfying gameplay, at least to me. Yeah, this one narrowly edges out Minoris and is officialy my favourite map of the set.

 

We start out in a familiar place, this time menaced by shotgunners. I love how the dead zombiemen from the previous world persist here. I wonder if they'll turn into pools of blood in the inevitable continuation. There's still a bunch of buildings to explore!

 

The first area has some fierce fighting, but it's quite easily managable. It's worth it to take it carefully to save health for what comes ahead though. You'll note that I'm quite ready for both pain elementals. Chainsaw one (making sure not to block its spawn), use the saved barrels for the second one. Didn't manage to preserve all of the barrels this time, but it goes down after some shotgun-based coaxing.

 

The next big fight is my favourite of the map. In my blind run I didn't expect to be yeeted in violently and scrambled around, dodging spectres, streams of plasma and the occasional stealth trooper. It was GREAT! I didn't even die that time. Well, in my fourth run (which I finally managed to record) I took it safe, sniping as much as I could with the secret rocket launcher, plus I knew the best spots to hide in now, which took a lot of teeth out of the fight and made it ever so slightly less enjoyable.

 

I jump out of the window to get the string of secrets I only found in my second playthrough and come across the hardest challenge yet - very minor platforming couple with movement along a wide ledge. I fall, I walk back, I save, fall again, load, get the items, load game on accident instead of saving, fall again... eventually I bumble my way through this zeromaster-level roadblock and grab the yellow key and the megasphere. On boy, do I need it!

 

The fight against reventants backed by an archie and some surprisingly annoying fodder enemies goes a lot worse than usual since the archie takes a long time to spawn (first time I played this, he was the first to teleport in). I use up almost all of my health, but there's enough medikits to replenish it, so it's all good. Then it's time for round one with a new batch of arachnotrons, which is maybe a little bit cheap, but I enjoyed the first fight so much that I'm excited about having an encore.

 

The cybie in the next room gave me zero trouble in my previous attempts, so of course I eat a rocket straight away. First time around I spent some quality time to get him infighting the barons, only for him to keep firing into the raised switch.

 

I head towards the spider mastermind fight even though I should have known by now that's the wrong order. Whatever. In my previous attempts I tried getting her to thin out the herds while taking down the more dangerous enemies with the plasma. It was a lot of fun, though quite tough. This time I start by blasting her with the BFG and that also kills everything but a few relatively harmles cacos. To be honest, I felt like the BFG robbed me of some fun here. Sometimes it's good to do things the hard way.

 

My second and last death comes from revenants spawning in the cybie room - as is tradition. That one is on me, really. I had a safe spot and knew exactly what was going on.

 

The final room is another one where I get to run around like a maniac, this time using plasma, and it's every bit as exhilarating as the first one. The only reason I used BFG here is because I was starting to get worried I might need to make a third file. All enemies are dead. Tiem to grab the final secret. I flip the switch and... I have to walk along a straight line throughout the whole room. This is *not* easy. In fact, I'd say it gave me more trouble than the preceding fight. But having practiced, I make it first try and even walk relatively fast. I open the yellow door and my reward is... I choose to believe the health bonuses are booze. I drink a few, lay down on the ground for a bit, then drink every last drop from the remaining ones. I've earned it. Time to move on.

 

Teleporting to the UFO and finding out I'm protected from falls, I couldn't resist switching collisions off and checking the place out from all sides, but no easter eggs here. Another map UV maxed!

 

And you know what? It might just be that I got to practice this map a lot before I got a usable recording (four times in total), but I think I'm getting better. My spatial awareness is better, I'm much more confident when setting up infighting, yeah. I think I got what it takes to finish this wad. Let's see, who made the next map... Oh. Oh no.

 

 

Edited April 6, 2023 by Klear

[Klear]

1 hour ago, Book Lord said:

Now that Ralgor says it, the shotgun did not spawn in my playthrough as well! These facts might have soured the impression a bit, giving me the impression that the map was conceived as a one true path to follow, or die if you go another way. A shotgun could help you survive if you get in the Cacodemon cage instead of going elsewhere.

 

You can always do what I did and let the arachnotron help out before you enter the fray. I *think* the caco cave should be doable with just the chainsaw, but I got my ass kicked there pretty badly playing in VR. So there are some options, but reading the reviews, almost everyone here seems to have fallen into the exact same trap initially, which is probably not ideal.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Klear

[Helm]

World 6 - Ursae Majoris
by Death Bear

I am listening to Nocturnus - The Key

Zorg beams down on a bit of thematic consistency. We did baby bear, time to do the papa bear. Wait, that came out wrong in at least four galactic dialects
wow this place looks like the last place! The intro to The Key is always a spacious moment to take in some surreal sights. Instead of zambies, on this side of the dipper we have errant sargeants pockmarking the same rocky field leading into techbase shenanigans. We collect the chainsaw again and it's the only secret we'll be finding organically. Oh, I forgot, I meant to turn off my HUD stats for the rest of the playthrough. I'm not maxing anything, I don't need to see everything, we should endeavor to free ourselves from needless entanglements, that's what Zorg thinks *puffs the pipe*

Don't know if it's that we've gotten a few Death Bear worlds or if just generally acclimating but I think this one is probably harder than the last one, yet Zorg has less trouble this time around. 

We teleport on top of a vile this time, hilarious. Alien boy bonked on the head, we are offered a chaingun, and two sources of enemy trouble both boobytrapped with beneficial barrels, if we can shoot straight. I eat a first death in a pretty spectacular / corpse slidey way only a minute and thirty seconds in, but from there I get it together for nearly the whole rest of the run.

Breaching the base and getting rid of the initial swarm of hitscan and pinky is actually some of the hardest work to do in this map blind. With a nice little route to Good Gun it might be smoother but it's a real struggle to establish yourself in the periphery here. Multiple sources of angst picking on poor Zorg, but the gunplay works out even through dire health need (down to a nice 2% for a sec). 

A mancubus on the far side shields a pedestal RL you have to platform to, the brave can go there directly and tango with the manc for the rocket thrower but I only went there after the opening area was pacified. 

The very first switch we get to pull in this place unleashes a throng of hitscan and a couple of pain elementals on us. Finally for all that hard work we get an SSG and further progress into this abstract techbase. Clearing out pinky and stuff is fun until the AA flier enemies arrive and boy they're a pain because they fire multiple volleys, with a random chance of some of them being homing so they dominate front space and chase strafes in such a way that I am finding the best approach to dealing with them is with explosives, from a distance. Even SSGing them doesn't feel necessarily enjoyable unless their death blast gets more of them at once.

All that is warmup, though, for the first big arena space with arachno turrets. I think I stumbled into a safe strategy by hugging a pit wall and killing the first arachno from safety and then systematically dismantling the rest of the turrets, but if one wants to run around in this place and flip switches they might have a completely different (fun) time.

After pacifying the area you flip a switch and all the arachno turrets re-up! At this point this is my main peeve with how Death Bear does these setups. I appreciate the reuse of space, but in the flow of things suffers. I just slowed everything down to clean this up and I just pressed a button to get to clean it up again. By 9 minutes I have recaptured the arena and a wall has come down to allow progress. After another switch flip, we get the ground floor of the arena repopulate with revenants, hitscan and a roaming vile that gave me a little tactical trouble until I found a way to dispatch but didn't kill me, therefore a good floor vile placement, heh. By the tenth minute I have re-recaptured this arena! Zorg is putting in the work on this techbase!

We get a blue key to teleport in and that raises the big techdoor to a cyberdemon arena with a false floor that immediately gives way when approached. There is a plasma pickup that requires just the smallest amount of platforming under duress. I won't go blow by blow to not bloat up my report, I had a lot of fun in this arena and got in the zone because I managed to clear everything out but fail the two-shot cyber fight spectacularly. Second go worked out ok, a bit of a shame that nerves got to me. But that the map generated nerves means it got on some sweet spot of challenging my current skill and giving me fun microtasks to help me move forward. I wish I had found more secrets, but it's ok to leave the map with the experience I had. I quite enjoyed the Ursae duology and you wouldn't expect back to back maps on a speedmap project. The little bit of narrative consistency gives the early start of this mapset a cohesion it doesn't strictly need by design but is always welcome.  footage

 

[SuyaSSS]

MAP06: “Ursae Majoris” by Death Bear

Played On Nugget Doom, HMP, Pistol-start

 

Welcome back. This map begins just like the previous map but with purple water instead of blue. Also, you have to enter a different building. I honestly found this map a lot more fun than the minoris version. Looks are almost guaranteed to be good since it's a Death Bear map. The fights rely on locking you inside a room and letting you kill enemies. Then you press a switch which spawns more enemies or open the door to another room. It is incredibly fun to bust open the Rocket Launcher and blast through the enemies or use the BFG to evaporate the mastermind in a few seconds. I have one question from this map. There is another open building in the hub-like area at the beginning with a bear hologram inside it. Is it possible to get out of that building? Was it intended for me to run onto the platform where the building is located? What is the point of that building? Otherwise, I had to restart the map since I couldn't find a way to get out.

 

Grade: A

Edited April 6, 2023 by SuyaSS

[Klear]

4 minutes ago, SuyaSS said:

I have one question from this map. There is another open building in the hub-like area at the beginning with a bear hologram inside it. Is it possible to get out of that building? Was it intended for me to run onto the platform where the building is located? What is the point of that building? Otherwise, I had to restart the map since I couldn't find a way to get out.

 

That's the building we visited in the previous map. The zombiemen we fought before entering them are still strew around it even!

[SuyaSSS]

Just now, Klear said:

That's the building we visited in the previous map. The zombiemen we fought before entering them are still strew around it even!

Oh cool! But I think that is a softlock since I was able to jump there but there was no way to get out other than dying or restarting the map

[Death Bear]

4 hours ago, SuyaSS said:

Oh cool! But I think that is a softlock since I was able to jump there but there was no way to get out other than dying or restarting the map

I see. I was under the impression that was fixed before idgames version but I'll check that out.

[Celestin]

MAP06: Ursae Majoris by Death Bear

Spoiler

Little Bear's big brother starts on the same planet, this time leading to a different portal - a appreciate this little bit of continuity.

 

Past the gate is what looks to me like a space station connected to an alien palace, stranded somewhere in the endless void. It's an awe-inspiring place, the combat however, is merely ok, with the blue key arena as the worst offender. This place relies too much on turret arachnotrons, which respawn while you fight enemies below. I'm not a fan of this setup. I do like though how you can walk through a window to a ledge and find a string of secrets.

 

With the blue key, the player can proceed to a room with a damaging pit in the middle, mounted cyberdemon and barons on the ground floor. There's a BFG here, so it isn't that bad. After eliminating the cyber and opening the next room, the player is locked in an another room with mounted cyberdemon and toxic pit, which greatly limits their mobility and increases a chance to catch a rocket. The cyborg goat is guarding the red key, which is needed to exit.

 

The final section is the best part of the map. It starts as corridors with pinkies and hell knights, but once you press a switch, it transforms into an arena with revenants, cacodemons, guardians and spider mastermind. There's a lot of room to move and blast everything with a BFG.

 

All in all, Ursae Majoris looks great and is still a solid level, but I prefer MAP05.

[Mr. Alexander]

Map06, "Ursae Majoris," by Death Bear
DSDA-Doom, UV, pistol start.  No advanced HUD used.

 

Prompted by Stewboy's thread in the general forum, I decided to turn off DSDA-Doom's advanced HUD/automap, to see how it would affect my play. I certainly didn't find any secrets in this one, but I had a good time anyway. This way, I don't think about trying to do a sweaty UV-Max while I'm just trying to learn the map and play the game.

 

Once again, we return to Death Bear's lunar hub area, this time armed with a shotgun, making the initial zone automatically 100% more fun to run demos in. I hate having to plink at zombiemen with a pistol, even only for a short while.

 

In this level, we go to a series of discrete set-piece battles, chamber by chamber, rather than to a huge chasm with a wide catwalk around it like in the previous level. Health can sometimes be a little dicey with all the hitscanners you encounter at the start of the level, but reducing incoming hitscan damage is what your chaingun is for. You get one with a backpack for free when you enter the level proper, which I appreciate. I don't know why we also get to telefrag an arch-vile when we come in, but I would have hated the version of this level where we actually had to fight it with just a shotgun. Maybe if you get a secret in the lunar area, you have to fight the archie there.

 

You advance into a base, trigger an ambush, kill a couple of pain elementals, and hopefully collect the super shotgun, which was blocked by a hell knight when the ambush came. Hit a switch, kill a mancubus, some imps, and some alien guardians, and now you've redeemed your ticket to see the main event, a series of arena battles with support from what's coming to be a trademark of this wad, turret enemies reinforced from a teleporter.

 

The teleportations in this level are mildly inconsistent.  Sometimes they come right away and sometimes they come after a delay.  This is particularly frustrating with the pain elementals that spawn in the first area when you hit the switch.  It also hit me a few times in the arch-vile/revenant fight in the first interior arena.  I'd run to convenient cover with my rocket launcher ready to go, but the revenants would warp in first, screening the arch-vile. The turret monsters often get Boomed off their platforms, too, giving the arch-vile some arachnotrons to revive. Not a huge deal. You have to make allowances for speedmaps.

 

The second arena's cyberdemon is pretty hair-raising, especially if you make the mistake of running for the plasma rifle, which causes a big portion of the floor to drop around the plasma rifle, your only exit a risky lift ride on the rifle's pedestal under the cyberdemon's overwatch.  After this arena, the others are pretty popcorny and easy, even if I took some stupid deaths to the final arena's cyberdemon.  It's always nice to have the spectacle of a spider mastermind perched high above you, but it's even nicer when its honor guard of imps claws it to death.

 

Overall, this was a fun one.  I wish I'd found the secrets.  I know something good must be behind that yellow door.  Even without them, you're well equipped for the battles at hand, and you can usually take the combat at your own pace, despite the teleportation inconsistencies.

 

The music, a Jimmy Paddock tune from the Alien Vendetta music pack, sounds a little more like BTSX than like Ancient Aliens, but it's good and its fast pace fits the level's hectic action.

 

Unfortunately, I'm still working on getting a demo. The dicey hitscanners early on and the inconsistent teleportation can be mitigated, I'm sure, but I've yet to get past the first big arena's arch-vile encounter. Maybe I should save my failed demos as a blooper reel of sorts, but I doubt it would be very interesting to other players.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Mr. Alexander
Indentation issues from copy-pasting from a text file