The DWmegawad Club plays: PUSS IX: Mapping at Warpspeed

[DisgruntledPorcupine]

World 7: "Holodeck" by myolden

UV, pistol start, no saves

100% kills, 1/1 secrets

 

Now for two myolden maps, the first one bringing us an in-map appearance of Gold Rush! God I love this track. The spacy techbase maps continue here, this time leaning more into the neon see-through platforms that one might associate with AA episode 2. The techbase itself is predominantly blue, and funnily enough uses torches for its lighting in the central room alongside some stock Doom 2 objects. 

 

I didn't struggle with this one nearly as much as myolden's contribution in the second slot, although it still did get me a few times. The first few fights are relatively simple, starting with another uncomfortable shotgun encounter (although much less threatening than last time), before giving you the chaingun to take down an ambush of soft enemies. The real action picks up in the next room, where we get our SSG and meet some more mid-tier monsters. Grabbing the plasma rifle will have you scrambling for cover while trying to quiet the fight's archvile, and going into the rocket launcher room will give you 3 encounters before you can leave with it. Despite the large amount of rockets you get here I like to save most of them for the rest of the map, using mostly infighting in these fights and using plasma or rockets to take down the high priority enemies (pain elementals, archies), and then SSGing for cleanup. Leaving the room will show you part of why I like to save rockets, a big skeleton horde starts charging at you. First time I did this map I had no rockets or plasma for these guys and that was not nice.

 

The red key door holds some more tight ambushes for you to figure out, nothing too deadly although you won't be exactly showered with health here so tread somewhat carefully. There are some archviles at the end that tend to get rather busy, all the more reason to have saved some rockets. The final stretch of ambushes past the blue key door are tight but not too bad. Monsters on either end of you with some extras, like the revenants on those tall platforms that you'll have to keep moving to avoid the missiles from. The final wave is pretty simple being all grouped together, although there is a pain elemental shoved in there so take caution.

 

Enjoyed this one a lot. Not quite as challenging as myolden's first map (for me at least) but still very exciting.

[Helm]

World 9 - Tartarus
by Muumi 

I am listening to Atheist - Elements

We took the little boat over to a strange, metaphysical crusher fortress, perennially crushing space particles in the middle of space nowhere. Dimensional portals pockmark the void through which endless peppergrinder pillars oscillate. If you play doom with freelook you won't get the right experience the right experience is that infinitely tall pillars cut through dimensions of nowhere to nowhere. With mouse look you are just looking at a sector move up and down. This is one of the coolest opener shots so far and the mood established just with crusher actions is quite cool.

The central gimmick of this world is that Zorg will have to use shotswitch activated crushers to stem the flow of ambushes and to crush significant numbers of low tier. We will often be attacked by multiple sources that have crushers on their way to you. It's a cool concept with which I engage I think kind of minimally in the blind run. I make it through the map but it's worth another shot where I use the doom machinery more to my advantage. The map shows that there is this promise even at the blind go, though. 

There is heavy use of the plasma stealth marine enemy along with mandatory use of the chaingun. The stealth dudes in large groups of mixed hordes are a pain to sort out with the chain. However the encounters and indeed the whole layout plus crushers hinge on the early part of the gameplay being chain-centric, so everything works out as intended. 

There is a painful life on the side of the map reserved for shotgun procurement that also allows for a high vantage of the map through a window that I enjoyed. It also signposts further progress and a good armor pickup. The flying rotating cyberskull enemies are a right pain with basic equipment but because they're slow it's possible to just crush them with the available crushers.

The rocket launcher revenant crusher + minor maze is harrowing (and a cool combat experience on the whole). Movement necessary to get that rocket launcher and herd the revenants. The chaingunners in there are a cruel addition but beyond the blind run I recognize that the intention is to crush them not run in front of them but you may also lose a few zorg clones in there in practice. With a proper route this part can become expedited and safe I think (I'll watch the demos! :D )

This is a really good 'dungeon crawl in space' in a word. The second 2 big crusher arena is quite hard but amenable to different strategies. Placements of health in 50 chunk increments all around the periphery is very kind.

After all that we finally get the (nonsecret) SSG, all in time for central arena to get a couple of fun floor viles! At least we have enough rockets to deal with one of the two viles but my footage got pretty dicey there at the end and there was such a juicy megasphere just out of range of my risky play that I rewound a few times to grab it instead of redoing the whole archvile encounter. Just felt like the right action movie end to that encounter so I Sands of Time'd my way to it.

This is a different flavor of difficulty to the myolden maps before it, I think with a few retries this is probably a consistent and safe map. Just got to get use to the crusher help and save enough ammo for the viles. Obviously getting any of the 5(!) secrets probably will give a different experience with less narrow of a margin anyway. Promises of an even deeper experience on replay. I have never played a Muumi map I didn't like or love. 

My impressions above all come with a big grain of salt because this (perhaps the last map as well) made me feel like playing saveless will involve much more respect for the crusher necessities and of ammo management and some routing, so I observe the limitations of my 'review' that are born out of the save/reload experience. However even with this lingering feeling of 'should play this with less fragments to feel it...' safely tucked in the same emotional compartment where my map stats and other pretentions of completion went, we move on through with overall adventure! 

footage

[Azure_Horror]

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

 

MAP09 Alien Tartarus by @muumi

 

It is amazing, how only a few minor details can expand into a full-blown narrative with the right framing!

 

The, previous map, Moon Funeral, ended not with a usual UFO, but with a small wooden boat. Why is this?

 

Well, the demons from humanity's Hell suddenly invaded the extra-terrestrial words! And our protagonist, an alien themself, decided to fix all this mess. After seeing the full scope of the problem, the alien hero decides to check onto the Alien Hell, to see, if the human hell-spawn managed to reach even that crucial place. Hence a trip to the "Alien Tartarus", which is made with a help of ye olde little boat.

 

And guess what? Those terrestrial nether spawn did indeed invade the place! Luckily enough, Humanity-influenced hellspawn have very little understanding of Alien afterlife, and recklessly walk around huge moveable blocks. Those enormous crushers are very helpful for clearing the monster infestation.

 

In its gameplay, this map achieves two things:

- The level once again expands the Ancient Aliens playbook, adding heavy emphasis on both the crushers and the custom bestiary. Possesed stealth aliens are abundant on this map, and they cause quite a bit of headache. Rocket drones are less prominent, but they are still quite present.

- The whole crusher-heavy combat concept feels like a love letter to Nekravol, part I from Doom Eternal. I am always happy when the mappers manage to successfully back-port nuDoom elements onto the Doom2 engine!

 

In conclusion, I once again found what I was seeking: mooore Ancient Aliens levels!

 

Arbitrary map ranking table

Spoiler

Maps I enjoy (basically, all of them), in order of preference:

- Map 08

- Map 03

- Map 05

- Map 09

- Map 02

- Map 07

- Map 01

- Map 06

- Map 04

 

Edited April 9, 2023 by Azure_Horror

[SuyaSSS]

MAP08 - “Moon Funeral” by myolden

Played On Nugget Doom, HMP, Pistol-start

 

We are now in the slaughter territory. dun dun dun. 

 

Map looks absolutely phenomenal just like the rest of Myolden's maps. This time the gameplay is more slaughter-y than any of the previous maps (maybe except the final part of MAP07). It even has the common slaughter gameplay trope of using tons of revenants and hell knights. Thankfully no Archviles. The Cyberdemon turrets do their part in being annoying which I assume was intentional so good job. I just think that this map lacks in enemy variety. I had fun but maybe I might switch to a lower difficulty.

 

Grade: A

 

MAP09 - “Alien Tartarus” by Muumi

Played On Nugget Doom, HMP, Pistol-start

 

Welp, I didn't change the difficulty setting but honestly, doesn't matter. This is the first map after quite a while that is made by a different mapper (muumi) and they absolutely killed. This map, although not as detailed as Myolden's maps still stands on its own due to its uniqueness. The moving rocks, the rotating crusher textures and the back of zombiemen creates a wonderful beginning shot. The crusher at the start create a comedic effect of stealth killing the zombiemen but that won't be the last of when you'll see these gun activated crushers. Turns out a lot of fight use this style of crusher to lower your killing burden. This constant use of a gimmick makes this map stand out and become very memorable.

 

The revenant fight room is also very interesting. You are able to press a switch which causes a platform to raise up and crush whoever is on it. One thing I noticed is that Muumi introduces these gimmicks in a safe environment before throwing anything hard on you such as the back facing zombiemen in the beginning to show the gun activated crusher and more back facing zombiemen to show the raising platform. You are able to collect both blue key and yellow key here. After that there is another fight involving the gun activated crushers but this time with you being in the middle with just enough area to move around. 

 

This map also shows me how tough the plasma guys and the missile shooting dude (I really need to know the name of these guys) can be. Nice enemy variation in almost all fights and good job in making the fodder enemies an actual threat. Speaking of threat, with your blue and yellow key in hand you return to the beginning area which starts to repopulate with tougher enemies now. You know the deal. Time to run around and crush these fools.

 

Now, you open the blue key door (an incredibly, incredibly minor complaint is the usage of some other texture to indicate keyed doors) which surprises you with archviles. a few teleport to other location in the area but a few stay. Gun them down before they roast you like chicken or revive some other baddies. One archvile still remains inside the blue door. Kill him and then go inside your UFO to exit the map. Really fun map especially due to the gimmicks and is definitely my favorite map from the set.

 

Grade: A+

Edited April 9, 2023 by SuyaSS

[Doomy__Doom]

Map 06 - Ursae Majoris

The hardest part of the whole map is probably quickly identifying that in the rude fling/bsk room you just need to chill and hug walls at the bottom. The vile part is trivialized by, well, running to the bsk and hanging out there. Beyond that, the bfg makes already spacey and relaxing rooms far too easy, and that's without the big secret section's supply. Not using it is also an option, SMM getting stuck in a caco and eaten never gets old.

 

It's one of those levels where you look at the space configuration and imagine a really scary fight, but there isn't and you can enjoy the sights in relative peace.

Map 07 - Holodeck

The beginning is a bit unpleasant with those super close range shotgunners and the room after it filling up instantly with multiple sources of point blank damage. I like the "oh really now, PE with no weapons?" to keep stressing out the player after the cold welcome.

 

Past that is a series of solid fights with I'd say conventional concepts:
- dodging a vile + midtiers in a room with a central cover bit - the ancient alien somehow got clobbered by his cohort's firendly fire more so than my own efforts.
- light wave->mid-tier wave->let the viles out in a circular room with massive pillars - pull everything to the center and win, with a bit of added trigger discipline when the flying explodey turret things (guardians? I always forget the name) and lost souls are in the picture.
- rev horde in a tunnel - not much to say here, just dodge the missiles.
- squiggly room with 2 levels with a bit of cqc and release the viles - the important part here is to save hp/armor for the finale.
- a corridor with tower snipers that fills up with stuff - I pressed the 2nd wave switch far too early (without clearing the snipers fully), but the wallrun came in handy.

 

I honestly had more trouble figuring out last map's "rude fling" scenario on the fly compared to all traps in this one.

Map 08 - Moon Funeral

Sniping Cyberdemons, the map. The first area serves to acclimatize player to the idea of being permanently under rocket fire from somewhere - the steady stream of rockets crossing the sky reminds me of shooting stars, except the only wish you can make is "please hit something that isn't me".

 

The first key fight is quite nasty, as once both HK and Rev walls start mixing and infighting the situation switches to survival navigation. Once you get out and telefrag the first cybers, it becomes possible to finish the fight by retreating to the starting area even though it was predicted and some wall-imps are dispatched.

 

The plasma fight was surprisingly the only one that claimed my head once, I expected do die a good deal more (to be fair, the game let me off the hook with one sniperocket's damage early on). I went back a bit before taking teh obviously trapped weapon, collected health, saved and... forgot to take the blue armor. Once again, it feels more like a "keep an eye on everything" fight as cybers can distract a lot of things and pull cacos/hks to the edges. Once you get out, again the cleanup from outside is advised.

 

For the last fight, I took the "slow and steady" approach of killing 2 cybers closest to the plasma fight by hand ahead of time. There are more than enough shells/plasma for that. The rev horde is not really scary after that, as you can hang out in places that would be very snipeable by aforementioned cybers and make good use of BFG with low risk. And of course retreating down the bridge is an option once you've got some infight for the remaining 2 cybers going.

 

It's good to have a Vile-less map after the previous one heavily used them in very classic ways.

Edited April 9, 2023 by Doomy__Doom

[Ralgor]

MAP09 - "Alien Tartarus" by Muumi
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 building designed by a madman obsessed with crushers. It's actually really entertaining how the crushers are used, and it's quite unique. Good use of the crushers is almost required to successfully complete this level. You have to use the crushers not just to kill the monsters, but also to act as a form of crowd control and cover.

Each area of the level has a set of crushers, and will at some point be flooded by enemies. The initial area is reused later for a second round of slaughter. Outside of the main fights, the level is actually quite easy. Every single one of the main fights is deadly however, but the one with all of the stealth plasma zombies outside is the hardest. Trying to dodge everything while keeping the crushers going and actually killing things is quite difficult. Sure you can use the BFG here, but you probably want to save that for the arch-viles that spawn in the fight after this one. Your best bet is to get the chaingun out and don't stop firing.

This map is very brown, which normally wouldn't bother me at all, but after playing Fragport it's kind of a boring color. This map is well detailed though, so it still looks good. I really love the columns that disappear into portals in the ceiling. It gives this whole map an otherworldly feel.

Grade: A

MAP09 - 13:27.60 (13:27)  K: 346/346  I: 6/7  S: 4/4

ralgor_pussixmaw09.zip

 

P.S. I just realized the transdimensional dinghy is an Unidentified Floating Object.

[continuum.mid]

World 9: Alien Tartarus (by Muumi)

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

 

Alien Tartarus is definitely the most experimental map yet. The setting is a brown brick palace in the sky, which is more reminiscient of the middle episode of Perdition's Gate, than anything I remember being in Ancient Aliens. I love the pillars looping through portals though, it makes the setting feel magical.

 

The combat is even more experimental. Muumi, or at least this map, seems to love forcing the player to herd large groups of enemies into crushers. Doing so is mandatory in at least four fights - the opening fight with an army of fodder, Guardians, and Revenants, the mid-map Imp/Steath Alien teleport ambush, the Revenant crowd in the room with the two keys, and the second-to-last fight which teleports a crowd of varied enemies including an Arch-Vile into the starting area. That Revenant room was especially mean, as I'd missed the early super-shotgun and the rocket launcher (as well as all the ammo available for it) could only be picked up while the skeletons gave chase. I used mid-battle saves here, as well as while dealing with the final group of four Arch-Viles - two trapped, and two which will run into the opening area and resurrect monsters - mostly out of impatience.

 

I appreciate the creative combat puzzles, but this style of map isn't for me. It's more frustrating than it is hard...

Edited April 9, 2023 by continuum.mid

[DisgruntledPorcupine]

World 8: "Moon Funeral" by myolden

UV, pistol start, no saves

100% kills, 1/1 secrets

 

Myolden's third and final solo effort in the set is the one that looks the least "distinctively AA" so far, apart from the spirit animal teleporters and the UFO (singular this time!). The colours are more earthy and less flashy than one might associate with Ancient Aliens, take out the factors I mentioned before and this could fit right into an unrelated set. Time signature nerds can rejoice at Alien Forest being the midi for this one, another one of my favourites from AA.

 

This one is a real firecracker. The first thing you see after arming yourself and taking that first teleporter is a black void with 8 cyberdemons facing away from you. Shoot the switch and they teleport away, and your next destination is the area where the action happens. The cyberdemons are situated on the tops of towering platforms scattered around the map, and they'll be making your life a touch more difficult for the duration. After the initial fights, you'll have to deal with a nasty little slaughter featuring a bunch of hell knights, and then a bunch of revenants. I make sure to go grab the secret soulsphere and the mega-armour right before tackling this one because it can be dangerous. After this, you're off to telefrag the cyberdemons... at least two of them. Almost got tricked into thinking I'd get let off easy there.

 

The fight for the red key gives you a plasma rifle and tosses in some hell knights and cacos in a cramped arena (myolden really loves those in this wad). There are still of course cyberdemons with a clear shot at you, so you'll have to avoid those rockets as well (luckily you get megaspheres after each key fight, so you can take a bit of a beating). After the timed barriers lower, clean up the enemies as well as the imps that pop in afterwards, then you'll get to subtract two more cyberdemons from the total. The last fight features an area with some imps and hell knights on ledges, roaming arachnotrons, and of course the final 4 cyberdemons overseeing the whole thing. You get a BFG off the top of a pyramid, which will help you deal with the next step: unleashing a massive wave of revenants. There's a spot around the corner from them which is both safe from cyberdemons and can be used to make it so not too many escape at the start, and also to group together the others so they can be efficiently BFG'd. Once you're done here you can telefrag the last 4 cyberdemons and leave on a wooden canoe.

 

Probably my favourite map so far. This was a ton of fun, and I loved the idea of only taking out a couple cyberdemons at a time. Very cool map.

 

World 9: "Alien Tartarus" by Muumi

UV, pistol start, no saves

100% kills, 3/4 secrets 

 

A gimmick map, in this economy?! Indeed. An interesting looking one at that, brown brick ruins floating in space, with decorative columns suspended in the void that are infinitely scrolling into and out of tiny wormholes. Neat little effect. The midi is Basement, one I always thought was a bit underrated. Enjoy the mysterious and sinister sort of sound it has, it fits this map pretty nicely.

 

So the gimmick here is crushers. You do get weapons that are at least part of the way to being able to deal with your foes, but throughout most of the map's fights you'll be able to utilize crushers to assist you. The opening fights feature shootable switch crushers that deliver one quick crush before eventually scrolling up after a time. Funnily enough I think I died to this opening fight more than anywhere else, even though it mostly features weaker monsters. The custom monsters can be quite a hazard in this fight though. After progressing through a few more fights and hopefully picking up the very tantalizing SSG, you encounter a somewhat different fight. This time you have pushable switches that will raise up a platform and slowcrush whatever is on it to death. Some of these platforms have items on them that you might want to grab before doing so though. I chose to crush the solo revenant guarding the green armour, but I took out the chaingunners and revenants guarding the rocket launcher with the SSG. From there you can either shoot the next revenant hordes, or lure them onto leftover crushers to hear that satisfying crunch sound (you'll likely do a mix of both). If you missed out on any of the items under the crushers, the level does give you a switch to lower them again so you can pick them up. How thoughtful!

 

The next fight brings back the shootable quick crushers, and a pincer attack of imps and stealth troopers. You'll want to keep moving to avoid the stealth troopers, as there are a very large amount of them, and use the crushers optimally. If you keep moving in circles the chasing stealth troopers should group together and a rocket or two will make quick work of them if you can get that space. The final fight is another ambush in the first room. This time you'll have archviles to deal with, both right off the bat and when you go for the exit. There are a few remaining archies that stick in the exit and are easily rocketable, plus a poor zombieman hanging out the back. The second zombieman prank the wad has pulled so far (think I forgot to mention the silly final ambush in World 5). 

 

Cool little gimmick level. I'm not sure the crusher thing is totally my cup of tea, but I can't deny that it was pulled off well.

[Veeda Vidlak]

Guys, this week has been grueling and it’s unclear if next week will be any better. I really don’t want to drop out during a wad I’ve actively wanted to do so I’ll have to be much more brief than usual until the workload eases.

 

Map05 “Ursae Minoris”

 

We start out in a little outcropping with a teleporter leading to an open alien landscape, something I’d get used to seeing because we return to this “hub” in later levels (or do we?). It’s mostly for moodsetting, so don’t spend too long looking for secrets here (just one). The next teleporter warps us to a fashionable space station that gives us a mega on entry. We'll be needing that, there's a lot of damage to soak up in this one.

 

This map’s gameplay is franctic, keeping you moving the entire time. Guardian constructs are particularly vicious here, their projectiles are great at finding you in the large room with the many arachno turrets. The disorganized, highly unpredictable combat gives me a “Cyriak Harris in space” vibe, especially with the map geography. Progression gradually opens the level up, culminating in a highly circuitous layout overrun with chaos.

 As other club members have noted, you can also sequence break with an SR50 onto the blue key platform, triggering the endgame fight. Just eyeballing it, this tactic seems to make the map harder while finishing faster.

 

warpspeed5.zip

Time: 10:04   Kills: 222/222   Secrets: 3/3

 

Map06 “Ursae Majoris”

 

Here we go.

 

We start in what… almost looks like the exact same lunar canyon as last map but ya know, that water is looking a little sus. After the Wormhole style events of Oberth Malfunction things like this make you wonder. Anyway, going through the teleporter takes us to an alien techbase with some enemies facing away from you. Firing triggers a teleport ambush and starts off our journey through a very impressive level.

 

The combat isn’t lightning fast, but it isn’t grindy either, sitting in that middle ground that plays well in an adventure map. The alien megastructure, whatever it’s supposed to be, houses some hefty scrums, and you’ll be slinging rockets and BFG tracers throughout your stay. I will once again praise the visuals, this time focusing on the sense of scale. The secret trek around the outside of the base stood out to me in particular, showcasing the building’s immense size and alien nature. I don’t think the turret arachnos in the middle of the level needed to be refilled, but that’s the closest thing I have to a criticism.

 

Ursae Majoris is atmospheric, formidable, and epic and I'll call it best map of the set so far. Side note: This level has a spectacular choice of midi. Stewboy’s AA soundtrack is loaded with quality, but this map/midi pairing is especially on point.

 

warpspeed6.zip

Time: 12:03    Kills: 257/257    Secrets: 5/5

 

Map07 “Holodeck”

 

A snazzy little firecracker, Holodeck noticeably contrasts from the preceding adventure style Death Bear levels. While the monster counts (and the runtimes, at least mine) are similar, the gameplay switches from open-air to arena based, with resources abundant enough to not have to skimp. The map feels very arcady with its bright neon aesthetics and the lack of internecine combat between challenges… pretty much every enemy is killed in lock-in fights.

 

I had a good time with this one. The generous number of artifacts permits riskier play, so I felt encouraged to go all gung-ho guns blazing without caring how much damage I took as long as I didn’t die. The fights themselves are pretty nice, with nefarious use of arch-viles and classic Sunlust-style turret revenants. I appreciate the lack of viles in the wide-open bridge finale but criticize the superfluous third wave, deploying all the monsters in just two stages would have been better. Overall, a strong combat-focused outing and my pick for Myolden’s best map so far.

 

warpspeed7.zip

Time: 10:08   Kills: 237/237     Secrets: 1/1

[RHhe82]

MAP08: Moon Funeral. Played on DSDA v0.25.6, UV, PS. 291/291 K, 1/1 S, 6/6 I. Comp. time 12:04

 

Moon Funeral? More like Moonlust. And since I'm posting this late sunday evening EET (writing this on monday 3th), I'm sure that joke's already old :P If previous Myolden outings have been difficult, this one is relentless. There's constant pressure by looming cyberdemons (lost count how many), and while the first arena is business as usual (aside from the cyber air superiority), by the time you reach the rocket launcher only to be greeted by a very close quarters with hordes of hell knights, imps and revenants, you get that sunny feeling. I think this is also the hardest encounter of the map, because later on you either have more space or a BFG.

 

Moreover, this doesn't feel speedmap one bit. With Holodeck, I could believe that slightly more easily, but here it's just astounding a map of this calibre can be made in 10 hours. Excellent stuff, but I hope we get a breather next.

 

Superb map, my favourite so far.

 

(Love the rowing boat :P)

 

 

*

 

MAP09: Alien Tartarus. Played on DSDA v0.25.6, UV, PS. 346/346 K, 4/4 S, 6/7 I. Comp. time 16:28

 

(Love the rowing boat :P)

 

This Doominhouse torture cellar is not locked for the night!

 

Where have I heard the level title before? No matter, while Alien Tartarus is no breather, it's a bit more relaxed than Moon Funeral. That said I had harder time with it than I had any right, for example the first fight and the trap floor crypt area. The latter became easier once I understood the gimmick, that you're supposed to crush the alien bastards and the trap floors can be reused. I was afraid I'd lose the goodies littered there first and hence avoided using the traps before picking up backpack, RL, etc.

 

Gimmicky is the operative word, but not a pejorative one; despite small frustrations, this one is a winner, too. It also does not feel like an Ancient Aliens map -- and I guess that's because of the crusher trickery. However, a map like this could have been in a secret slot of AA easily.

 

Great map.

[Klear]

Worldmap10: Lagrange Disruption by notTyrone

QuestZDoom, UV, blind, pistol start, saves

 

Spoiler

 

After a few intense maps, I'm assuming notTyrone will let me breathe a little. Well, mostly.

 

Welp, this UFO is wrecked. Time to find a new one. A soulsphere right off the bat, shotgun and some hitscanners, just what the doctor ordered. I'm ready for a leisurly stroll for once. And we're back in a familar desertscape from the first couple of maps. I feel right at home. Teleport takes me to something like an Egyptian tomb. I like the details here, especially the blue torches sunk into the corners. I smell a secret somewhere, but can't crack it. Can't wait to learn what I missed.

 

Eventually I find my way to a fresco with an Egyptian lady. I bow to her and the wall opens... no. Nope nope nope. This has to be the wrong way, I know I missed a door. I quietly back out from the waiting cyberdemon and try the door. Let me in! Let me in! Sigh... time to die a lot.

 

I know I can make it, just have to not make a single mistake for twenty seconds or so... This fight made me realise maybe my VR controls need to be more sensitive. I feel like it takes longer to start strafing than in pancake mode, and it also takes longer to stop moving. Or maybe I'm just bad. I'll see if I can change thigs in the settings. Anyway, he finally goes down and take a rightful seat in his throne (which makes me feel rage for some reason). It's good to relax after a nice fight. But there's more to be done. Pressing the waiting button reminds me it's time to make tomato sauce, so I do. I salute both Giorgios and leave in a cute new UFO. I was a bit sad I couldn't examine it in detail, but I'll have a chance to do so at the start of the next map.

 

So, another very easy map, for which I'm thankful. The Egyptian theme was a nice surprise. Not having played Ancient Aliens, I don't know what to expect from the tileset. 

 

 

Given the leisurely pace of the map, I was free to mess around a bit today, hopefully giving the floating gun in my hand some personality. 

 

 

Edited April 9, 2023 by Klear

[Celestin]

MAP10: Lagrange Disruption by notTyrone

Spoiler

Part dark corridors, part cyberdemon arena, MAP10 is a short level that probably wasn't intended as a break after high-impact action of Death Bear, myolden and Muumi, but I don't mind a bit of rest. 

 

As I've said, the first part of this underground ruins involves dispatching some weak opposition in underlit halls. Nothing to see here (sometimes literally). The second bit is a cramped room with a cyberdemon, free plasma and cacodemons teleporting in after pressing the switch. I first tried to get them infight, but that was a mistake - there is no room to move with like 20 cacos floating around, so you can choose between being cornered and bitten to death, or catching a rocket. Fighting each threat alone seem to be an intended way - there is enough cells for everything.

 

This time, instead of an UFO, there's some sort of landing craft at the end.

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 09: Alien Tartarus

by muumi

 

Too bad it's Sunday....because for me, it's only Tuesday (....I wish). But more bluntly,calling this my least favorite of Muumi's maps in IX is literally no knock whatsoever, beyond perhaps its gimmick being stretched a little too thin. It's just that his other two wipe the floor with this one so throughly, it's not even funny. Part of that might just be because I originally had kind of a bad time with it.

 

So anyways, these are basically ruins floating in a void. Is this what alien hell is like (I only assume because of the title)? Immediately, we're introduced to the map's central gimmick, crushers activated by shootable switches which can be used to get rid of some disposable. The plasma trooper trio immediately to our left is easily dispatched, but this is but child's play compared to what surely awaits us. Walk over to the far accessible end there and we are hit by a nasty double-header trap involving chaingunners, Imps and Guardians coming from the closets closest to you whilst at the starting location, several hitscan enemies start teleporting including plasma troopers. Shooting the crusher switch might be helpful but the first demo shows a more effective strategy of getting the guardian rockets to hit these pesky invisidudes. Once that's done, we head to the room that was revealed, containing a pool at the entrance end, along with a berserk secret that we got before but initially missed because the switch that opens in is in a wall in the corner, but that's fine because its utility is probably somewhat limited anyway. Then after heading to the open-air room with the shotgun, we are set upon by pissy sergeants and their Demon allies, and said room raises!....but it's just medkits in the side hallways. Still valuable but this is a trap that went nowhere.

 

Afterwards, we then set to exit the room into quite a nasty situation! But at least we've got enough ammo at this point! Not like it matters to much when there's 2 Arachnotrons on either side of us some distance away, plasma troopers waiting to catch less competent players unawares, and guardians coming from....somewhere. Try killing at least one of the Arachnotrons at least. See, the Super Shotgun floating above us was a secret that seems like we should've missed it last time because we're not even certain we finished it until we did so this time! In either case, the narrow ledge leading to the hidden teleporter seems like something we couldn't have possibly missed if we were paying attention. But we were not doing so hot at the time.

 

So we then proceed to the next room which was honestly probably the main reason our initial memories of the map were quite tainted indeed. See, these hallways with ruined floors, cage-like rooms and even a checkerboard at one point might be enough to fill a player with dread considering the difficulty of what confronted us thus far. But the worst part is that the crushers shouldn't even be activated initially, if at all. See, there's a rocket launcher and armor in two separate crusher rooms and when the blue key is collected, an utterly apocalyptic swarm of Revenants starts swarming into this nasty series of hallways. Worst, the switch that resets the crushers is at the end of the hallway where they all came from! Although admittedly, rocket splash damage would help a fair bit, there's also not enough rockets, which really quite sucks. In either case, we objectively did it the hard way.

 

After that is some desultory incidental nonsense (including one where a dumb Mancubus wandered into a crusher room instead of coming to face us) until we reach the outside arena and head towards the YK, upon which we are attacked by a veritable army of plasma troopers and several other enemies including guardians! Well, we did end up having to rewind a couple of times. Gameplay was probably a little incompetent, but at the same time, working out a correct strategy in all this mess can be quite challenging and relying on the crushers is, frankly, kind of irritating, although I guess combination of that and rocket fire are probably intended..

 

Although there is that hidden BFG that started taunting us the moment we entered this courtyard! But the crusher shootable switches seemingly do nothing and we can't get back to the ledge entrance now so we exit, face down another nasty and claustrophobic trap involving plasma troopers again from the entrance, chaingunners and guardians pouring in from the pool room and most immediately, an arch-vile on a pillar! We fluffed this fight once by immediately choosing to go after the chaingunners after the AV died (or not? they did kill us 1 time, come to think of it. I remember now, they got us within something like 3.5 seconds with no time to hide!). After this, we see the berserk pack hanging on an above and are immediately encouraged to access it before opening what seems to have been the red door...and are immediately confronted by several AVs we simply didn't have the rockets for! After rewinding, we then took to search for the BFG. Unfortunately, it immediately became clear that the shootable switches did absolutely nothing and if we teleport into the courtyard before finding out how to open it, we have to backtrack again. So naturally, we rewind and disgustedly drop down into the poison void and eventually spot a switch on a ledge basically invisible and also easy to line-skip over. After another rewind, we fall, teleport back from the void, then finally drop on the ledge and press the switch to finally open the hallway that allows access to the hidden BFG!

 

The Arch-viles were then no trouble at all, save for the one that teleported away who once again killed us because we got sloppy or something (not running away). It was then little matter to walk into the constructed UFO.

 

I'm really not certain what to think of this map. In some ways, it's like Muumi adopting the design tendencies of Myolden somewhat, but somewhat more gimmicky perhaps and almost harder because he's clearly someone who enjoys dynamic combat as much as self-contained arenas if not more so. I guess the main problem here is that the fights are a little bit too self-contained for their own good, the nail-biting difficulty some of them present aside. For that reason, it's hard to rank it too highly. Like enough with the plasma dudes already! Maybe that's the problem. I don't know

 

Grade: B

lmd_pussIX09.zip

Edited April 10, 2023 by LadyMistDragon

[Ralgor]

MAP10 - "Lagrange Disruption" by NotTyrone
dsda-doom v0.25.6 cl9, UV, Pistol start, blind run, single segment
100% kills and secrets

This map is short and snappy. It mostly doesn't waste your time. The map is fairly easy and doesn't have any standout combat set-pieces, but the map looks good and flows well. The biggest fight, taking places in the last room, is a cyberdemon followed by a cacocloud in a smallish room. I enjoyed it, but some parts of the rest of the level were somewhat boring by comparison. My biggest problem with this map is the fact that it has multiple points of no return, which makes looking for secrets in this map miserable. I like looking for secrets, and I ended up having to beat this one twice to get all of the secrets. If I could backtrack I would have found them all the first time.

Grade: C

MAP10 - 5:31.29 (5:31)  K: 56/56  I: 26/26  S: 2/2

ralgor_pussixmaw10.zip

[Veeda Vidlak]

Map08 “Moon Funeral”

 

Speaking of maps that keep you moving.

 

If the megasphere and visuals (which are closer to Sunlust than Ancient Aliens) don’t put the fear in you at the start then the eight inactive cyberdemons seen after teleporting definitely will. They will serve as the engine of this map, porting to their designated turret points once you hit the switch to begin the level proper.

 

Taking the (second) teleporter brings us to a rocky starscape floating on a sea of black oil. Dozens of monsters bear down on us immediately, with the aforementioned cybers being the greatest concern. Their crisscrossing lines of sight prevent camping and the density of the ground forces make it impractical to keep track of rocket fire. There are a ton of recovery artifacts lying around so as long as you aren’t actually dead stabilization is just a megasphere away… but the sheer damage from a rocket hit might not give you the chance.

 

Progression takes us through a sequence of small “islands” to retrieve keys that open up the next area (and allow us to telefrag some of the sniping cybers). Each key is preceded by an encounter with the yellow key having the most notable defenses, a massive army of revenants deployed in a pincer attack. I cannot express enough how dense the bonehorde is, there’s like 90 of them between the two groups. Be aware of that if your plan is to bully your way through with the BFG.

 

The club seems to be really high on this one and I am too, Moon Funeral is a blistering adrenaline rush from start to finish. Myolden’s awesome slaughtermap is my favorite level in Mapping at Warpspeed so far.

 

warpspeed8.zip

Time: 5:20    Kills: 291/291    Secrets: 1/1

[RHhe82]

MAP10: Lagrange Disruption. Played on DSDA v0.25.6, UV, PS. 56/56 K, 1/2 S, 25/26 I. Comp. time 6:48

 

Cool map title! Nottyrone returns, and now we have an actual breather map, although some mistakes were made when dodging the cyberdemon rockets and then when handling the emerging cacocloud. My only problem with the map lies in this final fight (aside from the fact I couldn't backtrack to the secret I missed, the soulsphere at the very start of the map :P), it feels a bit like busywork. At least we have the plasma rifle - the fight could have been worse, but one-on-one with a cybie in relatively tight quarters is something I've never particularly enjoyed. As for the cacocloud; in principle I love them, and here I like it how they emerge from both sides of the temple, but I wish we had a rocket launcher or BFG (which would have warranted a bigger cloud). Perhaps even the cybie would have been less irritating with a BFG, as you would still have to dodge enough of its projectiles. ALTHOUGH, I guess I could have tried releasing the cacos in the middle of the fight, so they could infight with the hooven crook? On the other hand, the space was quite cramped already.

 

Layout-wise this shows improvement in Nottyrone's design: I like how the map looks, and I don't get a feeling of mapper running out of time. Temple looks good, areas in general look good.

[Helm]

World 10 - Lagrange Disruption
by Nottyrone

I am listening the masters, Manilla Road

Decided to do a blind demo recording on this one as I was listening to a podcast and just played it back for the couple of chocie tracks. I chose well as this one seems to be a bit of a breather by a returning NotTyrone. The map looks good, has 3-4 opening encounters leading to a plasma showdown with a cyberdemon and then a switch addition of a cloud of cacodemons. For a map like this ammo balance matters, and I found I had just enough to dispatch anything on the main path. I found one secret in the beginning saucer (I appreciated being able to be inside it and then come outside naturally) but not another, my end stats told me. I enjoyed just getting a first exit on the blind run, to be honest! I caught a cyberdemon rocket in the eye while making for the blue armour. Thank god I got that blue armour before I caught the cyberdemon rocket. But would I have caught the cyberdemon rocket had I not gone for the blue armor? Questions for my therapist. Footage

 

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 10: LaGrange Disruption

by notTyrone

 

I really have no idea what a LaGrange point has to do with what's another ancient temple map but no matter. Only truly notable fight would be the tomb overlooked by the Cyberdemon that we probably should've allowed the Cacodemons to do the dirty work on but as you'll see, they don't emerge right away and the Cyber will probably make hamburger out of us if we tried. Sorry, we were a little distracted, but that raises it above Tyrone's other stuff at least/

lmd_pussIX10.zip

Edited April 10, 2023 by LadyMistDragon

[continuum.mid]

World 10: Lagrange Disruption (notTyrone)

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

 

Apologies if this is underdetailed, I usually write just after finishing the map but for some reason I didn't do so when I played it yesterday.

 

Anyway, this is about what I expect from a notTyrone map. Simple and beautiful, with easygoing combat, but not as easygoing as his previous outings. I was planning on doing this single-segment, right up until the end; I saw a Cyberdemon in a small throne room filled with cell pickups, remembered all the times that I had died to Cyberdemons recently - not just in this megaWAD, but in Eternal Doom which I'm playing concurrently - and wisely decided to save my game. The Cyberdemon wasn't too bad, I took some deaths but they were mostly just dumb mistakes. The real threat was the flood of Cacos teleporting from behind Giorgio Tsoukalos after hitting the switch behind the Cyberdemon. After a few attempts at that I bailed and ran for the exit, which wasn't far away. I wonder if I was supposed to let them kill the Cyber and use my cells for clean-up, but I'd overwritten my save at that point.

 

Outside of that last fight, there isn't much that's memorable here. There are some easy shootouts in hallways with basic platforming that all lead up to the Cyberdemon king. Exit creativity continues, as the map ends while approaching a relatively primitive landing craft.

Edited April 10, 2023 by continuum.mid

[TJG1289]

GZDoom/UV/Pistol-Start/Saves

Map 09: Alien Tartarus - Muumi

100% kills and secrets

Time: 14:44

Deaths: 1

 

I'm trying to remember what maps from Muumi I've played before this. I know I've played something. Maybe they did something in Skulltiverse? I've played something by them before that made me excited to see their name in this one. Their first map of this WAD has an interesting gimmick: target-based crushers. This initial crusher shows you how it works, then unleashes a surprisingly intense ambush at the beginning. My only death was from that initial wave. I found that just chaingunning everything in this part is better than trying to use the crushers. The crushers in the other fights are more effective. After this initial panic, there's a few parts of breathers. Getting the shotgun is a semi-easy trap, then we have a small guardian/arachnotron fight with a secret SSG on the way to the next set piece. This fight for the yellow key requires you to activate crusher traps that also raise the platform the crusher is under, trapping the monsters from moving around, but prevents you from grabbing any goodies on them if you don't manage to grab them first. There's a few groups of revs and chaingunners already on these platforms, and you can activate the traps without them seeing you, but the RL in on one of them, so if you don't lure them off first, you won't be able to grab it until later. The RL is useful for the giant rev wave that shows up when you grab an item at the end of a path (a backpack maybe, or possibly the blue key? Idr), but there's 2 useful crushers that helps out quite a bit. There's the one directly sandwiched between the 2 rev passages, plus the one that has 2 walls taken out that allows easier rev herding. I used both of these very efficiently to my surprise, getting most of the revs in them, while SSGing the rest. The yellow key has a switch behind it that lowers the crushers, allowing you to grab any goodies on them. I didn't grab the RL before this, so this was a very nice addition. Through the yellow door we have 2 mancs, and a chance to get a BFG before starting the biggest crusher fight. Jumping from the mega armor will teleport you to the arena, so don't do that. Instead, jump around the outskirts of the arena, to find a ledge with a switch. Smack it, then jump into the void to teleport back up to find a passage has opened by the stairs. Go up to grab the cell pack, then use the wall to the left to grab the BFG. You only get cells here, so save the BFG for later. Now we can do the crusher fight. Just teleporting down will start the fight, where tons of fodder enemies show up, so you'll need to use the 2 crushers to turn the tide. This works well for the slower imps, but I would focus on taking the stealth troopers out with the chaingun. This is a really fun fight, and it can get intense. After that's done, we can finally return back to the beginning, with a bunch more rockets and a non-secret SSG. Of course, another ambush happens, with a bunch of revs, hell knights, chaingunners, and guardians teleporting in, and a column with an archie and megasphere lowering. Rocket the archie before he lowers all the way, and you'll be more safe. The crushers don't do a ton of damage to the mid-tiers, so rocket them. Behind the other blue door is like 6 archies, 2 of which teleport back into the area with you, so now it's time to BFG. I almost died here, getting down to 7% health. I was concerned I would still die despite having everything dead, since the passage to the exit has damaging floor sectors, so I decided to figure out the berserk secret. That was the only secret I didn't figure out last time, but I got it this time, and it made getting to the exit safer. Overall, this is a really fun gimmick map. The texture use in this one is very distinct compared to the others. It probably wouldn't fit in AA, but everything works well. Great MIDI pick too.

 

Map 10: Lagrange Disruption - notTyrone

98% kills and 50% secrets

Time: 5:18

 

notTyrone's final map is a nice breather map after all these relatively challenging ones. We have a straightforward linear map with another great stewboy MIDI. This map looks more like if Epic 2 used AA textures. It's pretty cool. There isn't much to talk about here. We have less than 60 monsters, and only 1 big fight. Getting there has us go through some narrow passages with revs and stealth troopers first. The alien troopers dealt a big chunk of damage to me as I was switching from the SSG to the chaingun. Good thing I noticed the soul sphere in our crashed UFO. Once we get the lift in the water canal working, we can get to the big fight. At first, it just looks like a cyb fight in a throne room. Easy enough, since we get the plasma rifle, a backpack, and a ton of cells. But then we hit the switch and unleash one of the most cramped caco clouds I've seen. I did almost run out of cells, so I SSGd a few. Didn't need to save ammo as it was the last fight. Finish this to find a new teleporter by the entrance to the throne room that takes you to the next UFO. I did miss the other secret and last enemy, and I don't think I was able to go back and get it after entering the throne room, but no biggie. Overall, a nice little map. Always nice to get something short and simple in the middle of a full megawad. Looks really nice too.

[Klear]

Mapworld11: Another Glance at the Paradise by Muumi

QuestZDoom, UV, blind, pistol start, saves

 

Spoiler

 

After a mapful of devious trap, I'm not sure what I expected from Muumi's second map, but it certainly wasn't a pleasant green cave with an equally pleasant tune in my ears. Moss, grass, waterfalls and The Good Skybox are the name of the game.

 

The first combat room looks intimidating (especially once you start hearing the spidermamma) but isn't all that bad. Remembering some of the recent maps, I go for the boring strategy of hanging out in the entrance and letting infighting do the job. I also get an answer to my unvoiced question - can stealth troopers infight with arachnotrons? Yes! Good to know.

 

I hit a snag in the second room. Spider Mastermind blocks my escape path, clearing first of what turns out to be many cacos has drained my ammo reserves, despite trying to save them, my health isn't doing so well and progressing triggers a huge caco cloud behind my back. Despite my many deaths, the room never got too frustrating, since I knew there were more things to try, but I could have saved myself a lot of pain if I didn't try so hard to make my plans work and instead proceeded faster towards the last one which saved me. Here's what I tried in rough order:

 

- Stay on high ground and clear the cacos, enlisting the big spider's help - I run out of ammo, am forced downstairs and die. Or just suffocate in the red cloud.

- Run downstairs, try to get the revenants there to infight with the mancubi so they leave me alone and use ammo picked up along the way to survive the caco cloud - not gonna happen, too much incoming damage, and the cloud dispereses too much to let me get a foothold.

- Take cover in the gazebo - How the fuck did the cacos get inside?!

- Run past everything and go to the next area - wait, this works? Why didn't I think of that sooner?

 

I guess I've been conditioned by the previous maps where pressing on mid-fight was usually punished by doubling the amount of enemies without any benefit. Well, the next room possibly triples the amount of enemies, but given it's size, it almost feels empty. Certainly after being smothered by cacos for test minutes straight. There's a lot of going on, including a spider mastermind, but there's ammo, there's health and most importantly there's so much space. I die a couple of times to a combination of carelessness and poor framerate, but for the most part this part is very easy. A lot of infighting happens, though I take personal revenge on the caco cloud with a newlyfound rocket launcher.

 

Oh, and I found the scientist chilling in a hot tub. Haven't seen him in quite a while. Shame there was too much commotion to join him for a relaxing soak. When things calm down, I release a horde of hell knights and an archie - killing the later and saving the former, thinking they might come in useful.

 

Opening a yellow door, I was expecing a horde of monsters (probably revenants) charging at me, but no! There are only two demons guiarding a beautiful ravine and... uh oh. A platforming exercise overseen by a horde of mancubi. Surprisingly, I only fall down twice and I don't think I got hit even once. This might actually be the kind of training from hell I need to get better at analog controls. My reward (after cleaning everything up) is a relaxing moment at a charming swimming pool. I put my gun on the handrest (ignore the negligent discharge) and rest for a while. The environment here is gorgeous.

 

Returning to the main area, my decision to leave the knights be is validated when a cybie gets spawned in the centre. I spend a couple of minutes having them infight only to get killed due to loss of care. Sigh.

 

The blue key is fight is a cage match - here I'm annoyed by the invisible wall protecting enemies after the visible wall goes down. I need a few attempts, but finally the cage is lifted and the room floods with revenants. Not losing my head, I run back to the main area and deal with them.

 

Blue door reveals two cyberdemons who are... quite pathetic in this space, really. I let them walk out and find the BFG I suspected they were guarding. Archie ambush kills me the first time, but when I know it's coming, it's easy deal with. Everything beyond this point can be dealt with with the BFG quite easily, really, including the final horde of imps (which I suspect is there more as a reward than a challenge).

 

Well, I have mixed feeling about this map. All the areas look amazing. One of the many highlights is view on the sky in the large main area. The fights, some are tough and fierce and get your blood pumping. But half of my playtime was just watching things infight and waiting until things calm down, and some of the fights (especially the ones at the very end) were trivialised by the BFG, though without it they'd probably just be more tedious rather than hard. IMO getting rid of the central area and condensing the map into a series of intense fights would improve it by a lot. The middle space was just too empty to be interesting.

This is another long video and this time it's 90% of either me dying or standing around waiting for things to die. If you really want to watch it, I recommend setting it to double speed. That's what I did when I was reviewing my gameplay.

 

 

Edited April 10, 2023 by Klear

[Book Lord]

I lost the train on Friday when I failed to anticipate some write-ups for the Easter weekend, which was too busy for me to keep up. I will have to do some catch up, but I will get on track again.

 

MAP 07 – Holodeck by @myolden

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

 

The second contribution by myolden took the visuals and gameplay of Ancient Aliens’ second episode and summarised them into a speedmap formula that I dare to define flawless. Since the first breakout fight from the encirclement of hitscanners and low-tier monsters, Holodeck established a steady pace of telegraphed ambushes that turned out as dynamic and fun to play. The basic rule was to trap the player in a confined space, which happened for the first time at the chaingun pickup, and to unleash monsters upon them through closets and teleports in well thought out places. These are the basic rules of Doom encounter design after all, but it is easy to appreciate the fluidity and balance achieved with this level.

Spoiler

After acquiring the SSG, Zorglo entered the hub from which all areas of this space station were accessed. The plasma rifle could be obtained after facing an effective Arch-Vile ambush, while the rocket launcher was granted as part of the RK fight in the northern room. That round, floor-less chamber could represent the actual Holodeck, with three waves of monsters activated by the switches. They could be seen as holograms generated to test combat skills, but their attacks were strong enough to kill a player who stopped moving around in circles. The last group was rather small, putting up some good resistance because the Arch-Viles revived several corpses. The Revenant swarm appearing on the return path should be bombarded without hesitation. The secret backpack in the hub was marked by a candle I did not notice, since I was absolutely convinced that the only secret must have been tied to a noise I heard in the RK chamber.

Spoiler

The BK area to the south started with a less claustrophobic version of the four Revenants on pillars seen on MAP02 and spiced up the path to the key with continuous monster deployments. The final duo of Arch-Viles appeared unexpectedly when I was focused on other enemies, but the environment allowed to find immediate cover and reorganise the counterattack. Once I saw the big flying disc behind the blue door, I knew it could not be over yet. My ammo reserve allowed to comfortably clear the foes teleporting in waves, thankfully without healers; shooting fast and furious was the key to success. The fights in Holodeck were distinguished by their predictable nature and dynamical unfolding, a peculiar balance that allowed me to overcome most of the fights at first attempt while still feeling properly challenged. Myolden found a sweet combination of visuals and good gameplay here, delivering one of the first excellent maps of the megaWAD.

 

MAP 08 – Moon Funeral by @myolden

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

 

Speedmap you say? You must be kidding, myolden; delivering visuals that come close to perfection and fulfilling an ambitious, refreshing and technically complex concept cannot happen in just 10 hours! Regardless of the actual build time, Moon Funeral was an impressive work and a tough nut in the first episode of Mapping at Warpspeed. It began with a wonderful vista of the whole map, appearing as a series of islets floating in a blue sky; the absence of enemies allowed to admire the place in all its beauty, in such an impeccable presentation that I cannot associate with speedmapping.

Spoiler

The eight Cyberdemons met in the void and immediately teleporting away promised unusually fierce aggression, but it was objectively difficult to foresee the upcoming situation. Back to the islets, it was like landing at Omaha Beach on D-Day: enemies everywhere, projectiles flying and deafening explosions resulting from heavy shelling. Surviving on that battleground without safe spots was a bit desperate without foreknowledge. I was busy dodging Revenant rockets and repelling hitscanners when I was smashed by unseen attacks: rockets had been shot by the elevated Cyberdemons, giving poor Zorglo no quarter. No place on the map was out of their sight, not even the secret area next to the landing point that contained useful stuff.

Spoiler

The Cyberdemons celebrated my Moon Funeral multiple times, until I found the rocket launcher and triggered its micro-slaughter set piece. The boss shooting from the tower was a thorn in the side and could not be asked for help, neither against the Hell Knights nor for the Revenant squad. The Imps should also be thinned out with a few precise rockets. I must replay the encounter three times to succeed, seeing that aggression paid off more than evasive tactics. After recovering the BSK, the green teleporter allowed me to telefrag the first batch of Cyberdemons and to count on a part of the level for a safe retreat.

Spoiler

Because of the option to fall back in case of trouble, the rest of the level was smooth sailing. The plasma rifle encounter trapped me under the water pavilion, spawning monsters nearby while the turrets carried on the rain of rockets. Once the barrier was lifted, I escaped and returned only to collect the RSK and proceed to the last area. A Mayan pyramid rose in the middle of a rocky plateau and displayed a BFG on its upper platform. It made the last Revenant horde a formality, even though I escaped their squeeze attempt almost without firing and enjoyed heavy infighting with one of the Cyberdemons. The boss was eventually killed by the homing rockets, preceding the final eagle-warp sequence that telefragged all the turrets.

 

The YSK could be collected, along with the numerous extra Megaspheres and ammunition. I killed the remaining enemies and then realised that a single creature escaped its doom, entering one of the various teleporter lines with tag 59 and getting stuck at the destination. Moon Funeral was a deliberate combat concept that required strong fundamentals, creativity, and insight to be put together in such a short time. It might not be my favourite map, since it was front loaded and naturally unfair to the blind player; I still think it was one of the most memorable entries in the megaWAD, and a great way for myolden to bid farewell. See you again on MAP29!

[Book Lord]

MAP 09 – Alien Tartarus by @muumi

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

 

Mapping at Warpspeed featured an unusual high number of maps by muumi, another one of my favourite mappers. His first entry was Alien Tartarus, a stone temple containing scenarios that could be described as combat puzzles. The presentation was extremely clear, as exemplified by the first shootable switch that crushed a group of Former Humans: the same mechanic was used multiple times throughout the level, requiring the player to lure monsters behind crushers and activate them. The action was always useful to thin out the large opposition, but sometimes it was mandatory to stand a chance against big mobs in confined spaces and with limited ammo.

Spoiler

The architecture used the various Aztec bricks from Ancient Aliens to build a surreal temple in the space, encircled by scrolling pillars that seemed to warp between different planes of existence. Despite showing a monotone brown, the interior was nicely detailed with round columns, niches, and pools of damaging blood, strategically placed to put additional pressure on the player. After the first skirmish against low tier creatures and a lift trap near the shotgun, the only available path was to the south and it crossed a chamber with a secret SSG.

Spoiler

A door closed behind me and trapped me in a maze, where crushers must be operated to squish big groups of deaf Revenants. I liked this part a lot, even though it was possible to use crushers earlier than needed, while the rocket launcher should be collected as soon as possible. The YSK was retrieved in this area, but to bring it back to the hub Zorglo must hop between floating structures and drop in a large courtyard, soon to be filled with dozens of Imps, hitscanners, and Stealth Plasma Aliens. Two big crushers should be activated to kill enemies and stop their onslaught for a while. I could not find a way to get the visible BFG, scoring only half of the total secrets.

Spoiler

The return to the hub was immediately followed by a large monster deployment consisting of Alien Guardians, an Arch-Vile, Revenants, and an assorted army with many Chaingunners and Stealth Aliens. The healer guarded a precious Megasphere, but once again the crushers should be exploited, along with the splash area of the Guardians. The final tunnel with many static Arch-Viles (except the teleporting one) was not entirely needed, but I cannot complain about it. Alien Tartarus had a sound concept with the varied use of crushers, it offered stimulating combat in a pleasing environment, and showcased curious Boom effects. A very good contribution by muumi.

 

MAP 10 – Lagrange Disruption by @notTyrone

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

 

Another short entry from notTyrone, Lagrange Disruption denoted some good world building to host a limited number of enemies and only one standout fight. The flying saucer landed between two hills in the middle of the desert, and the nearby teleporter sent Zorglo inside a supposed Egyptian tomb. The encounters in the dark tunnels were not something to remember, but the lighting and texture choices created the right atmosphere. They also built up the expectation for a bigger fight, taking place in a nicely decorated throne room, firstly against a Cyberdemon and his splash damage, then to contain a Cacoswarm that slowly filled the limited space.

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

The only complaint I have with this map was the impossibility to retrace steps to the beginning, since the secret Soul Sphere in the starting room was easy to miss. I unveiled the Combat Armour though, and the unorthodox use of Tsoukalos’ hologram was amusing. The name Lagrange Disruption followed the same pattern of Oberth Malfunction, mixing a famous scientist’s name with the supposed failure of his established principles. The map itself did not elaborate very much on the subject, but it was a decent intermission between two demanding levels.

Edited April 11, 2023 by Book Lord

[DisgruntledPorcupine]

World 10: Lagrange Disruption by NotTyrone

UV, pistol start, no saves

100% kills, 2/2 secrets

 

NotTyrone closes out his solo appearances in this wad with, in my opinion, the most solid map he's put forth. Your UFO is grounded and looking a bit worse for wear, hopping out the door and through a teleporter you'll find yourself in a nice looking Egyptian themed map. Nice to have a dip back to something more AA episode 1 looking. The midi is a very nice one, and has stewboy dipping into those odd time signatures again.

 

Like NotTyrone's other works, this one is a bit of a breather from the very high energy maps that came before, and combat here is more on the incidental side than the arena ambushes and combat puzzles we saw in the last few maps. There's an alien guardian surprise that can be very satisfyingly quashed with a single SSG blast, love doing that. The most notable room is the plasma room, which starts you off with a relatively simple cyberdemon. After that though, Giorgio Tsoukalos shows up to unleash some caco clouds at you, and this part can get a bit hairy. There's no rocket launcher in this map, so you'll have to rely on the plasma to take them all down assuming you're a pistol starter, which I think is a pretty keen choice that adds some excitement and anxiety to this fight. Plus the room it takes place in is pretty picturesque, always a plus.

 

As far as "breather" maps go, this one was quite nice. Visuals were tight and I had fun with it.

Edited April 11, 2023 by DisgruntledPorcupine

[Ralgor]

MAP11 - "Another Glance at the Paradise" by Muumi
dsda-doom v0.25.6 cl9, UV, Pistol start, blind run w/ saves, then single segment w/ demo
100% kills and secrets

This is one long and epic map. Sporting over 400 monsters across several fights, it's also one of the most difficult maps in this wad up to this point. The opening has plenty of hitscanners, turrets, and other mid-tier enemies that you have to fight with just a shotgun and chaingun. Grabbing the SSG releases more revenants and an arch-vile. It's very punishing, and it doesn't let up until you get the blue key.

After killing the arch-vile, your entrance to the next room causes a spider mastermind to teleport in block your retreat. You don't have enough ammo to even attempt to kill her, so all you can do is move forward. Doing that causes a huge caco-cloud to spawn in. Again you don't have enough ammo to kill them from up top, and moving down involves even more enemies. The best solution is to just run past everything and go into the next room.

The next room is a giant arena. Over a dozen mancubuses occupy perches, along with a few arachnotrons. The cacodemons, revenants, and imps from the previous room will follow you in here as well. It ends up creating a giant clusterfuck as everything fights everything else. It's actually pretty awesome, although time-consuming. Generally you'll be left with a ton of cacodemons at the end, and you can reveal the first key along with the archvile and hell knights for them to fight next.

The level calms down some after this, but I'm not a fan of the next couple of rooms. The first requires you to walk a narrow ledge while being shot at from above. Once you get to the end there is a fun fight with a bunch of different monsters, and then a run back. Getting the next key releases a cyberdemon and a bunch of plasma troopers. It's easier to take out the troopers first rather than trying to kill the cyberdemon while they charge in. The second room requires you to step inside a cage. I really don't like this sort of thing. The megasphere makes it not too difficult, but getting unlucky ran ruin your run right here. The first wave is full of plasma troopers which you should dispatch with plasma, and then use rockets for everything else.

After that is just a couple of cyberdemons. There is a BFG behind them, but grabbing it releases two arch-viles. You have plenty of ammo so it's best to just kill the cyberdemons first. It's safer but more boring, and I probably wouldn't choose this path if this wasn't already nearly 20 minutes into a run. Then you can use the BFG to clear out anything you missed in the first room, including a massive imp swarm which just wastes your time.

Overall I really liked some parts of this level, but really disliked others. I don't like cage fights or fighting from ledges. The last two cyberdemons are kind of boring, as is everything after the blue key. Having to run out of the second room with a cacocumulonimbus after you is actually kind of fun, and isn't frustrating like I figured it would be. The level does look pretty good for the most part, but a couple areas don't. The big arena looks a bit odd to me. Ultimately I feel like this level just sort of overstays its welcome just a bit.

Grade: C

MAP11 - 23:46.94 (23:46)  K: 417/417  I: 7/7  S: 2/2

ralgor_pussixmaw11.zip

[Veeda Vidlak]

Map09 “Alien Tartarus”

 

Muumi enters the roster with an outing that has been described as a gimmick map. I kind of disagree with that, the crusher theme is omnipresent but unlike other gimmicks, crushers are commonplace enough in Doom that I didn’t think of this as gimmicky until I read the reports of other clubgoers.

 

So this level takes place in a brown… um, space meat packing plant? I don’t know what the purpose of this building is, but you’ll soon discover the supposed gimmick, which are crushers present in every major fight. They come in two types, big spinning circular pillars and normal crushing floors, found in one area (the blue/yellow skull key room). The circular crushers are unwieldy, they do minimal damage, they’re slow, and they have a cooldown period. The more traditional crushers in the checkered area are much more powerful, slaughtering masses of revenants with ease.

 

Muumi utilizes this setup well, providing satisfying encounters with both types of crushers. The circular ones let you puree much of the low hp chaff they’re with while requiring you to still stave off idiots left and right. They’re more a compliment than the focus. In the key room the crushers are probably doing most of the killing, but it’s fun here too. It feels great to corral bunches of skeletons and flatten them into bonemeal before cleaning up the survivors. There are arch-vile encounters but I don’t find them too menacing, we should have plenty of rockets. Indeed, the fight I find scariest is the mass of plasma aliens deployed with some other crap in the middle of the level. There’s plasma bolts from all directions, they don’t really infight, and the circle crushers barely make a dent in the monster density. I prefer using the hidden BFG here.

 

A good level that expresses its combat niche elegantly. Compared to most gimmick maps I’ve seen, the gameplay felt fluid and organic, and the crushers lack of intrusiveness in fights kept them from sticking out to me.

 

warpspeed9.zip

Time: 7:08   Kills: 346/346   Secrets: 4/4

 

Map10 “Lagrange Disruption”

 

Break map time.

 

Lagrange Disruption sends us through an alien temple containing a series of very small-scale encounters. None of them until the end are threatening but do know that backtracking is cut off at several points, which can annoy secret hunters (catch that soulsphere in your starting UFO!). The final fight is in a small pillared chamber with a plasma, a cyber facing away, a ton of ammo, and a switch that calls in a caco swarm that is much more dangerous than the big doofus. You can make things interesting by hitting the switch  immediately and having an infight party in the cramped room, its fun.

 

I find this one kind of weird, with odd quirks like giving the player a backpack shortly after hitting the caco switch (using a voodoo doll). There also seems to be some memery going around, with the illuminati symbol near the start and the caco swarm appearing out of flashing alien guy pictures. I like it though, good looking and a good mapslot for a short breather.

 

Side note: A Lagrange point is the location between two celestial bodies where their gravity fields and an object’s centripetal force interact such that said object remains stationary within their orbital system. What does that have to do with anything? I dunno, but I’m detecting a theme in level names/narrative of us getting flung, displaced, or shunted away from where we want to be to places that are, at best, unintended destinations.

 

warpspeed10.zip

Time: 2:18   Kills: 56/56    Secrets: 2/2

[SuyaSSS]

MAP10 - “Lagrange Disruption” by NotTyrone

Played On Nugget Doom, HMP & UV, Pistol-start

 

Played on both HMP and UV because NotTyrone seems to have a habit of making his maps piss easy on lower difficulties. Otherwise, this map is clearly a breather map on both diffs. The only problematic part you may encounter is the caco swarm during the end. The map is also very short compared to the rest of the maps that we have seen in this set and I think that works in its favor, giving NotTyrone more time to detail and producing a map that looks great and no area feels underdeveloped. However, I still prefer NotTyrone's MAP04 for having a really cool idea behind it with some accessible gameplay on HMP.

 

MAP10 feels a bit too plain in theming. Like, ok we have seen this temple sort of thing done already in MAP02 by myolden and that looks much better than this. No other map has thought of doing an alternate dimension thing other than MAP04 yet which makes MAP04 stand out among the crowd. I am not particularly impressed by the lack of a new idea that this map provides and it also doesn't really have a sort of memorable gameplay to make up for that. This map is good but nothing too special.

 

Grade: B

Edited April 11, 2023 by SuyaSS

[Helm]

World 11 - Another Glance at Paradise
by Muumi

I am listening to End Amen - Your Last Horison

He he, I'm in danger! 

Muumi transitions us fully into slaughter territory. There's still a lot of early health lying around to help with the various misadventures to ensue but this definitely is a noticeable step up in difficulty in terms of infighting and most importantly navigating situations where there are multiple viles and cyberdemons running around in open spaces. It's one of those and without saves the chaos of the open field will lead to great excitements and disappointments until a route is stabilized.

Everywhere you turn on this one you will trigger traps and generally complicate your life. The SSG up the stairs especially felt like a trap and for sure is as it lets loose revenants and an archvile in a strangely shaped arena and - if you cleaned everything up first - at a point of ammo deprivation as well. If you didn't clean everything up first, congrats, you have all the ammo you'll need to immediately be boxed in by the vile. You gotta be Zorg enough to stand up to the vile on the top of the stairs as much as possible and SSG it first. Are you Zorg enough? I am not Zorg enough (but I have reloads). That's the tale of this one, you will have to be brave with issues that if you just decide to play defensively will baloon up to huge mess later on the open parts of the layout. Uneasy feelings of letting a vile do its thing locationally while I fuck off to deal with other things is part of the experience here. As is your pathway back getting blocked off my mancubi and spider mastermind, heh. Muumi wanted to hurt us, why are you like that Muumi :p

The strategy I recommend is SSGing the vile once from one side at the top of the stairs, retreat while herding revenants that side and go all the way around the other side of the stairs to sneak up on the vile again and hopefully SSG it once or twice again. At least there is a semi-safe and predictable way to deal with the first vile before we are let loose on the open arena and grab ourselves a rocket launcher in short order. But not before we pass through a cute little sector Parthenon! That little angled down arena is quite a pain to navigate and exit into the massive open space where the real action will happen.

From there the matter is navigating the open arena in the right order because everything is boobytrapped and meant to introduce more chaos to the horde sprawl. Making psychic choices about when it's a good idea to go grab that blatantly trapped soulsphere or when it's a good idea to flip a switch that delivers 20 knights and a floor vile in the sprawl, lol. I hope your ESP is up to snuff or your doomgod reflexes are well oiled and I eagerly anticipate any blind demos where someone went ahead and triggered everything in short order and survived :D

On top of that your way of retreat gets flooded with an impressive cacocloud so you have to keep pushing forward. What a terrible mess this situation is (I love it, but holy shit gave me some stomach acid for sure). Making a stand to clear out the cacocloud seemed necessary to me, but then I let loose some cyberdemons of regret... I don't know. I think you're supposed to run through this whole thing up to the open arena and sort stuff out there with the RL, actually.

That's a proper slaughter arena and a lot of things can go wrong. Different echelon of gameplay. Depending on your style of play you may do a lot of leisurely laps around and let infighting sort most problems or you might go prod nooks and switches and compound the situation. Valid way to design, fun sandbox.

Once things quiet down in the central arena I take in the atmosphere a bit more. Beautiful space in the cavern with a big cave hole in the wall showing up the skyfall skybox... midtexture clouds of water mist contour little oasis pools, thing trees pockmark the landscape, broken up by teal highlights architectural. For a speedmap I say 'wow!' for sure. 

Getting the yellow skull key from that vile and knight friends allows access to a different part of the experience on this map: a treacherous serpentine ledge walk overwatched by too many mancubi. On the ledge there are imps and knights to slow down the player and at the end there is an arachnothron you'll have to either weave through or stun from long range to make it to the other shore. Excellent bit of sadism if you ask me. Then immediately you will trip into an invisible linedef that releases the ambush at the other end of the catwalk. There is no time to think, no respite (only time to make a scummy mid-save) before the revenants and chainguners and plasma marines release to pinch you between them and the mancubi snipers. This bit of sadism I leave no comment on. If you can clean all of this you deserve a little rest on the sector benches my friend. Took me a good 10 minutes it felt like, and with the midsave. Proper approach would be to immediately circle back on the top ledge where the mancubi are, circumvent them and pump rockets on the arachnos or even dodge them as well and get the fuck out, but it's hard. 

We finally cut through by whatever means and take a teleporter back to middle arena, red skull key, plasma rifle and ammo and then a cyberdemon teleports behind you. I get the cyber to play with those leftover knights from earlier, but in the end I decide to plasma him down before triggering what looks like another obvious trap. I didn't want to have a cyber obviously rocketing the spot where I will be obviously trapped for obvious reasons, but I think if you're fast you can set him to deal with the knights and go engage with that sordid trap as fast as possible. Once again, I wait for the sick demos, I can't do it myself lol.

Now to this round spike fence trap. Low chances of blind survival. Walls lower to plasma marines imps and knights and fighting plasma marines in a confined round circle requires good grounding with AA enemies or foreknowledge of the encounter or luck as in my case. The second wave is fucked, you have to pick off the mancubi while imps and barons get in the way. And then if you survive all that the cage raises and you get a rev rush. Granted you just circlestrafe the final revenant cluster, but that was a harrowing encounter for poor Helm! Well done, mapper, making doom players go on relaxing strolls to calm down after playing your map. 

With all keys two more cybers are let loose on the center arena. They protect a BFG that looks also boobytapped so I take my time before going for it. This is where I elect to go for the other obvious boobytrapped soulsphere and it gives me some nice revenants and floor vile for my trouble. Through sheer luck and heavy metal support by End Amen somehow I make it alive to the BFG. Oh picking that up lets loose two viles right next to it. There is a teleporter next to the BFG I take in short order and get teleported in the opening space with a vile and a cyberdemon following shortly thereafter. My good friends I shit you not, even if you clear all that (I was at 4% health) then come imps from both sides of the initial staircase setup and my god I haven't been afraid of imps so much in a good long while. The footage is nominally exciting, I don't know if anyone watches these, but there were some good (scary) times I made it through. 

The tldr of this map is : I heard you like traps so I put some traps in your traps. Very hard, I probably can legitimately get an exit on something like this if I really train it and find a safe route... but it's a bit of a daunting prospect! Warpspeed putting me in my place, heh. One of the best in the map set, but better evaluated by a different class of player than I. footage

Edited April 11, 2023 by Helm

[Book Lord]

MAP 11 – Another Glance at the Paradise by @muumi

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

 

The small landing module from MAP10 dropped Zorglo on a verdant world of mossy caverns, limpid freshwater ponds, and rivers shrouded by foamy white clouds. What a heavenly place to relax, take a walk in the tranquil gardens, sit on a stone bench under a white marble shrine looking at the pristine beauty of nature! Obviously, Another Glance at the Paradise was not about contemplation, as a Doom player might guess in advance or learn at their expense when entering the first cavern; quite the opposite, the map was loaded with monsters and put the pistol starter against an opposition that cannot be faced with the provided resources.

Spoiler

Coming from a continuous playthrough, I limited myself to the given weapons, but my ammo stock was larger and allowed me to tediously clear the first area and painfully dispatch the Arch-Vile and his Revenant sidekicks. This delayed the epiphany I should have had since the beginning, considering that the map had a name suspiciously similar to the infamous MAP13 of Hell Revealed. When I heard a Spiderdemon spawning behind me and saw a Cacocloud erupt from the return path, its size surpassing the granted offensive power, I finally understood I must sprint forward to reach a large open area, working as a vent for the monsters and as an infight arena. This was what Doomguy was supposed to do when pistol starting Last Look at Eden, and realising the connection was probably the best moment of the whole map.

Spoiler

The analogies did not end there: a Spiderdemon was released when picking up the rocket launcher, a group of Hell Knights with an Arch-Vile protected the YSK on the south-eastern hill, and the Soul Sphere in the south-western cave was trapped as per tradition (a closet replaced the teleporting enemies ). I methodically cleared the area, helped by the monsters' animosity, then I retraced my steps to kill the first Spiderdemon as well, since I must return there later to open the stuck door. I missed both secrets, even though a closer look at the automap should have sufficed to find the Blue Armour.

 

The side rooms expanded the rough drafts of Hell Revealed into longer and well-structured quests for the skull keys. The yellow door opened on an immense natural cavern with a chasm, filled with unhealthy violet liquid and crossed by a tortuous path. I was not surprised by the Mancubi appearing on the cliff and forcing me to deal quickly with Imps and other creatures on the walkway. It took me 3 or 4 attempts to get through, and the final ambush at the meditation place was kept under control with rockets. Zorglo reappeared on the central fountain to collect the RSK and a plasma gun, which came in handy for the upcoming Cyberdemon. Thankfully, no Pain Elementals were spawned in the large area; a mob of Stealth Aliens was activated instead.

Spoiler

I hoped not to see an updated version of the BSK trap of Last Look at Eden, but it was back in all its BS-ness. Muumi went even further than Donner, trapping the poor player in a round fence and releasing several waves of monsters before letting them out, including the elusive Stealth Plasma Aliens. I could not survive the deadly crossfire and I was ready to give up the continuous play, then I tried to straferun faster than the cage and… surprise! Something broke in the sector mechanism and I was able to pass through the cage and save myself from an ordeal of fruitless attempts.

Spoiler

The Cyberdemon spam on the way back to the start and the Imp slaughter were a bit over the top, extending the duration of a map that overstayed its welcome by a good margin. I enjoyed the quote of an all-time classic and its restyling with the Ancient Aliens palette, but some of the encounters tended to be more frustrating than enjoyable. Another Glance at the Paradise was a bold attempt and an approach I want to see more often, preferably done without time constraints. Muumi had a vision and possessed the skill to realise it in a speedmapping event, but in my opinion he lacked the adequate time to test and assess the proposed content.

[RHhe82]

MAP11: Another Glance at the Paradise. Played on DSDA v0.25.6, UV, PS. 417/417 K, 2/2 S, 7/7 I. Comp. time 30:54

 

The start isn't hot as such, but reaching the first populated room had me circle-strafing endlessly just to survive. After a couple of tries my solution was to just run away, there seemed to be no way to take this slow and methodically.

 

I wouldn't call AGaP slaughter, even if at times there are dozens of enemies closing in on you, and the best way to deal with most of them is to incite infighting. At least that's what I did. I'm happy to report that even though the map took me 30+ minutes to complete (something like 27-28 if I subtract the time I spent on looking for secrets) it never once felt like a chore. Only the chasm-like section had me sigh in frustration a bit - if there is one downside to this map it's that section. Not saying it was not well done, just not to my liking.

 

The cage trap was deadly, had to do that a few times to make it out alive, and even then just barely.

 

As a tangential comment, this was the first time I tried playing the map without the extended HUD or automap stats (ref: https://www.doomworld.com/forum/post/2624836 ), not knowing how many secrets and kills there were, and trying to not care if I got 'em all, just the ones I could find naturally or by little endmap sweeping. Guess I got 'em all anyway :P I was sure I was going to miss at least one secret, there was some teleporter or something in the automap I hadn't reached, but apparently it was nothing.