The DWmegawad Club plays: Solar Struggle

[DJVCardMaster]

I won't pick PRCP II so soon as I don't want more of my maps to be reviewed, we still have to go through E4M4, so I'm saving the club some problems

+++Claustrophobia 1024
+++Plutonia Revisited Community Project 2

[Ralgor]

A little late posting this one, but I should get back on track soon.

 

E4M1 - "Docking Station" by LordEntr0py

MIDI: "Escaping the Doomed Forgress" by Myrgharok
dsda-doom v0.25.6 cl3, UV, Pistol start, blind run
100% kills and secrets
Deaths: 3
Time: 21:12

LordEntr0py again starts us off in this episode. But this time they are a little more malicious with their design. I died as many times in this map than all of the previous maps combined. It's still not terribly difficult though. We start with a pistol, and that's all you're going to get until you infiltrate deep into the level to find a rocket launcher. There's plenty of rocket ammo around, so don't bother trying to be too efficient. Luckily there's plenty of health to deal with the damage you're going to take trying to reach that rocket launcher.

 

Spoiler

Once you get it, the real fun begins. There are some nasty teleport ambushes in this map, and trying to kill everything with your rocket launcher is going to risk face-rocketing yourself on something. Trying to make space so you can use your rocket launcher is the primary skill involved here. Once I had an imp teleport in right in front of me and I only barely managed to stop myself from firing. Also, you have to be careful about falling off of ledges. Two of my three deaths were from face-rocketing myself after falling off a ledge or because auto-aim decided sending the rocket to the left into the pillar was a good idea. Only one death was from the monsters direct damage. I found the combat quite enjoyable, and a good difficulty... if only I could stop eating my own rockets.

 

Spoiler

This level looks great. I would describe it as haunting. The level consists of several islands suspended in a eerie green sky. At the far end of the level from the start is the back half of some large spaceship, with glowing engines. It's a good, if simple, piece of sector art. The one thing I didn't care for as all of the damaging blood everywhere. It's especially harrowing when you're rushing for the rocket launcher, but then you still have to play "the floor is lava" even later when things are quiet. A little bit would be fine, but the stuff is everywhere.

 

Spoiler

I really enjoyed this map. Being limited to just the rocket launcher makes you play a bit differently, and so it helped to break up the repetition of ultimate doom maps. I really need to start checking out more of LordEntr0py's work.

[LadyMistDragon]

Allright....I think I'll wait until some other stuff comes up before I use all of my votes, but there is at least one moderately popular pick from last month I might support (not PRCP 2, but I might play that - but this is like the 3rd month in a row I've participated the entire month...which tends to be the limit for some reason. Regardless, there are two popular choices i'd support, but any votes for those will be saved for later.. Regardless, I'll go Azure Horror on all y'alls asses and nominate three smaller wads I found quite interesting!

 

+++

 What Lies Beneath(11 maps) -  Do I even have to explain this one? The only thing that would've made it better is if Rivi, Lunchlunch, and Soulless came back from an encore after their fantastic Skulltiverse maps but alas, the prior two sort of hang in different circles, and the latter has not been very active lately)

Devious Deviance (9 maps, plus credits) - This didn't get tons of attention but these 9 maps feature a unique concept. Picture something like Trilethal from 180 Minutes Pour Vivre then imagine several maps using the same concept. But instead of giving different skill settings different paths, this one rearranges progression more so without increasing the monster count! It does get pretty tough and long and most maps outside the first aren't exactly brief, but it's kind of nice!

 In the Halls of the Goblin King - (10 maps) This was a project conceived by the Action Button Discord server, almost entirely consisting of people that had never released anything close to a finished map. As expected, there's a vast diversity of approaches, workmanlike and simple but competent efforts (Map 02) some basic and '94 reminiscent (Map 04), some with a grand scope (Map 10), some with some strange nods to modern difficult maps (09) or even one that takes a shockingly effective approach to conveying a famous location from a famous JRPG (Map 06). There are some maps that can't be viewed as anything but objectively weak, but it's quite the fascinating collection all the same!

 

Hey, it even hits the magic number!

 

Edited May 25, 2023 by LadyMistDragon

[Catpho]

Here's a fun combo to play:

 

+++ Finely Crafted Fetish Film, Old Still Life, Jumpwad

 

The joy of unconventional progression. Don't worry too much though, as it's not all puzzles. Instead, each wad showcases a different way to make a Doom level compelling by being environmentally focused, but within each wad there's tons of variation. FCFF is a combo of pure action and pure puzzles that converges at one point (eccentricities expected), Old Still Life is fairly conventional in action (on HMP at least) but with a very distinct, compelling take on the idea of "Hell On Earth" (even if it seems not to be set on Earth?) that synthesizes everything from modern community gameplay and Russian Doom Community tropes, and Jumpwad is not even a puzzle in the traditional Doom sense. Should make for a compelling month of the Doom-but-not-quite-Doom, and I will definitely see it through.

Edited May 25, 2023 by Catpho

[RHhe82]

2 hours ago, LadyMistDragon said:

but this is like the 3rd month in a row I've participated the entire month...which tends to be the limit for some reason

’tis a strange thing, but just like megawad fatigue is a thing (at least for me), so is club fatigue. One month is easy, the second month also, but the third month is already something I always approach by proclaiming that Imma gonna take-a break… and nevetheless participating, unless the chosen wad absolutely does not interest. (And even then I run the risk of jumping off mid-month as happened with Judgment and Ray Mohawk).

 

It is strange because one map a day shouldn’t be that demanding, and a couple of lines text on each map, not even thought-provoking deep cut essays but an expression of gut feeling added with some obvious observations.

 

(All this to say I may or may not participate next month :P)

Edited May 25, 2023 by RHhe82
fixxed typos

[Azure_Horror]

Some more random ramblings:

 

E4-M1 Docking Station by @LordEntr0py

 

Really unique visual design, achieved with only one custom feature: new sky texture. That said, this level would look just as stunning with normal Ultimate Doom episode 4 sky, I am sure! Overall, the visuals and the geometry this level has a bit of Sunlustian feel to it. Very cool!

 

Gameplay is a solid rocketfest. Rocketfests are always fun!

I have only one minor complaint: at first the level feels pretty confusing and cruel. But, IMO, this comes with Ultimate Doom Episode 4 territory, so that’s not that big of the deal in the end.

 

E4-M2 Customs Office by @Anarkzie

There is a certain type of the map out there: those levels, where the mappers are simply having fun creating stuff, and this is felt all throughout the gameplay.

 

Customs Office is this type of the map. A wonderful sequence of locations and combat situations, which takes the player through both public venues of the spaceport and through its technological underbelly. There is also some heavily hellified places, but they are a bit hidden.

 

Despite the map feeling like a “Pure stream of creativity”, it is also well paced and solidly paced. A real testament to mapping skills of @Anarkzie!

 

E4-M9 Cult Headquarters by @Mystic 256

Solar Struggle is a Struggle of non-Antaresian variety, you say? I am a bit skeptical about that…

 

Some parts of Solar Struggle do indeed feel like members of the legendary “Antaresian Legacy” (Pun Intended).

 

And Cult Headquarters in particular reminds me quite a lot about Struggle: Antaresian Legacy maps 15B and 15C. The semi-abstract, but very evocative visual design is definitely here. And some surprisingly complex fights on rectangular arenas complete the picture. Once again, it is very cool to see the sheer variety of maps, which is possible with basic Doom 1 resources only!

 

In the context of Solar Struggle, Cult Headquarters achieves the following:

- it offers a nice nod to nuDoom (for example, the Cultist Base from Doom Eternal offers the first major arena combat shake-up of the 2020 nu-Doom game. So, “Cult Headquarters” feels like a very appropriate name for an Arena-focused Doom map)

- it also offers a nice nod to E4-M2 Customs Office map: both levels require paying attention to cult symbol clues and entering teleporters from unusual direction to uncover all the secrets.

- finally, Cult Headquarters is one of the purest implementations of modern arena-based mapping tropes in Solar Struggle. A really worthy concept, given that Solar Struggle is dedicated to pushing Doom 1 mapping to its limits. One can be excused for thinking that fun multi-arena maps are impossible without Doom 2 elements. Well, Cult Headquarters dispels this notion.

 

Votes for June

+++ Corruption

+++ Pleasant Vibes from the Party Garage

+++ Tarnsman Projectile Hell

[Roofi]

+++ Doom II in spain only

+++ Abscission

+++ Remain1+TNT:Renascence +ICAR2015

[DJVCardMaster]

E4M2 - Customs Office - Anarkzie (100%K/97%I/100%S):

At first I thought, "how was this level green lit?" then it started slowly building up into something that had a little bit more sense, starts rough, crude, and amateurish, possibly at the worst point yet in the megawad, with questionable design choices, like the Hitler paintings being stored casually on a Customs Office in Venus, I have to imagine some neo-nazi thought he could spread his twisted word into another planet, having his paintings retained by the officers for obvious reasons. Bad texturing, and bunchs of zombiemen stacked up for you to blow, just like what happened on E1M7. Then, the map starts getting serious, a step at a time, and then it starts feeling like a map, near the end, and a solid one. Feels like this was made by two separate guys instead of one, as you reach that cool area with cages under some kind of floating building, the atmosphere changes for the better. Fights start feeling more serious, and design choices are not as random. The map is quite a trip, as it is longer than most of the maps of this megawad, which is a tendency for this episode, and the thing is, Anarkzie makes it longer if you want to find the secret exit, it is not as secret, as you will encounter it in your way through the level, but you will have to do certain additional tasks like getting all the keys, and backtrack a little bit. Luckly the map became fun late into it, and became a really interesting experience, as the first minutes will make you feel like you are surfing Maximum Doom wads. It is though, Anarkzie first contribution to a project, so it is safe to say it gets a pass.

E4M9 - Cult Headquarters - Mystic 256 (100%K/100%I/50%S):

Finally a secret map worth playing, not that this one is just a banger, as it is a simple map with arenas and big encounters full of bullet sponges, what takes the cake here are the aesthetics of the place, the esoteric looks of a church of some sort, floating around in venusian atmosphere feels weird and really nice to look at. Combat is, for the most part, engaging, and it feels a little bit more well crafted and serious than the previous secret maps, although you may get bored of repeating the same fights near the end. The last fight takes place in a big square with a lot of teleporting monsters and a Cyberdemon, so take your time to circle-strafe as much as you can to make the cyberdemon in-fight and remove packs of enemies like if he was trying to put firecrackers into an ant-farm. 
The level will feel pretty square, orthogonal, but it works better than the other secret maps in my books, as at least it delivers something different from both the regular maps and the rest of the secret levels. 


Order of Preference:

Spoiler

 

E2M7
E4M1

E2M3
E2M6
E3M1
E2M8
E3M6
E3M4

E2M2

E1M6
E3M2

E3M5
E3M3

E1M4

E1M2
E4M9
E1M3
E2M5
E2M1
E1M8
E1M1
E4M2
E3M8
E1M5
E3M7

E2M4
E3M9
E1M9

E2M9

E1M7

 

I should stop reviewing at 5am, I can't even speak Spanish and here I am, trying to write a review in a foreign language, confusing where and were.

Edited May 25, 2023 by DJVCardMaster

[Klear]

E2M8 - “Ceres Gateway” by @Nefelibeta

QuestZDoom, UV, practiced, continuous, saves

 

Spoiler

 

Another map I had to replay and another one where I had more fun the second time around, perhaps because this time I wasn't expecting a cyberdemon rocket in my face at every corner. One thing of note are the patterns rocket boxes make in voxel doom (as seen at 7:26). Intentional? Not sure, but it did give me a pause the first time I saw it. The only part I didn't really like much is the large lava cavern which gives off heavy "boss arena" vibe and then you barely spend any time there.

 

The real cyberdemon fight at the portal was cool. Going in blind, I figured I'll just blast through the enemies while he does the same and hope I land more shots in the chaos. I had a lot more projectiles, but his packed a lot more punch so I thought it was a coin toss. Managed to get through the fight on my first attempt that time not counting the time I got up close and personal with that giant voxel ass. On my second playthrough I struggled a bit, taking a few deaths before I made it safely to the Moon.

 

 

 

 

E3M1 - “Lunar Gateway” by @LordEntr0py

QuestZDoom, UV, blind, saves

 

Spoiler

 

The opening of the map offers a lot of opportunities to snipe faraway enemies with my revolver - until I realised there's barely any ammo and I need to play a lot more conservatively. The layout is nice, but something about the map just didn't jive with me. Maybe the texture use? The gameplay is very solid, but I just didn't like the visuals very much for some reason. I did like that one tortured guy hanging over a fire, that was a nice touch.

 

Lot of ambushes in this one. Whenever you see a trap springing in front of you, turn around and look for another ambush behind you. This has served me very well here, especially at the very end. I'm getting much better at quick glances around while firing on incoming baddies and whirling around to face a new threat always feels great in VR.

 

 

 

[RHhe82]

E4M2: Customs Office. Played on DSDA v0.25.6, UV, PS. 318/318 K, 5/5 S, 21/21 I. Comp. time 28:22

 

I remember being lost in this level the first time I played it. This time not so, the nao feels mostly linear. I didn't remember the secrets, but I guess I got lucky this time.

 

It's a solid map, I especially liked the downbelly area above the poison green skies. That said, I didn't quite click with the map, I think it's either too long, or that both SMM and Cyber are bit of a drag to kill. Luckily you get the plasma gun after alerting the cybie, and if you spared the mastermind, it's gonna be slightly less tedious to kill then. But then again, for instance the fight leading up to the cybie is a fun one: rocketing imps and zombiemen seldom fails to entertain me.

 

Some of the areas look a bit 90s (the opening area, for instance), but the aforementioned downbelly area and some of the other areas as well look compelling. 

 

So... a solid map. The midi sounds weird for me, I'm guessing that's Fluidsynth's fault?

 

*

 

E4M9: Cult Headquarters. Played on DSDA v0.25.6, UV, PS. 237/237 K, 2/2 S, 41/41 I. Comp. time 16:38

 

This is another one of those levels I had very hard time the first time: I clearly remember suffering ammo starvation and having overall hard time. The second playthrough, the first after release, was easier, I remember thinking "that wasn't as hard as I remembered". Still, playing for the third time now, I still suffer from the blind playthrough trauma, making me conserve ammo, running around the first arena hoping for enemies infight themselves to death. 

 

And sure, there's not enough shells to take care of everything, you can't afford to be wasteful, but after all is said and done, *that wasn't as hard as I remembered*. This time my saltiness stems from only the fact I couldn't find the secrets until I had already taken care of everything. I'm not sure what to think of the way to access the secrets. At least it's not needlessly complex, but... but...

 

And yet I'm happy for a map like this. First of all, it does feel like a secret map, and I think it's the best of the secret ones. It looks good, and it plays like a special map in this episode of long levels. That's another thing: I like it because it is short. It consists of few smaller arenas stringed together, and it's only blemish is that it makes shotgun barons, and I'm not even sure that's necessary, even while UV-MAXing. The ammo usage in the final arena depends a little bit on how soon the cyberdemon appears. On my first attempt it teleported in only after almost everything else was dead (and still it managed to kill me!), and on my second attempt it teleported it almost right from the get-go, allowing me to take advantage of infighting.

 

Yeah, a solid (is this the only adjective I know?) map, I like it, despite the initial trauma :P

[LadyMistDragon]

E4M2 - Customs Office

by @Anarkzie

 

This map by sometime (rare)  club contributor once again manages to match the sense of place and visual standards set by many of the best maps. Underpinned by the tense and energetic Descent midi, we literally find ourselves in line behind former humans for some reason. Like what's the point? We literally came in through the backdoor, they should really be facing us. But who cares, the Baron ticket taker teleports away somewhere (possibly, you meet him in the next room) and then, it's a matter of taking the rocket launcher he was keeping safe and use it on the Cacodemons flying through the window.

 

The layout is somewhat difficult to describe. It's a rather confusing complex, split into a number of distinct areas. The baggage receiving room is quite interesting, to say the least. In addition to the Spirit World HQ-esque random objects placed in certain locations, there's a pinkie in a cage...and barrels. Really, these just exist for the purposes of blowing the packed groups of hitscanners to bits but no one ever said we looked a gift horse in the mouth (ok, maybe). It's the sort of place where one really has to make mental notes of certain locations if they hope to find the secret exit, so they don't end up like us. But the baggage room itself is quite nice. There's a Spider Mastermind in the center, and less room to hide than it might seem at first glance, if the medkits at the other end of the room are any indication. Unfortunately, the Mastermind's massive hitbox led to at least one rocket causing concussive damage, in addition to the one or two that went into the pillars nearby. Still, we survived. And it's cool how rockets can be actually wasted up to a point because they're practically handed out by the truckload later on.

 

Let's just talk about a few of the more memorable fights. There's a narrow hallway that probably existed to ferry baggage containing scattered shotgunners, many barrels, a spectre or two to throw a wrench into our plans, and some Imps on a platform off in the distance firing at us from beyond the windows. One has to be careful, possibly not charging in immediately....but we really had little patience for that.

 

Then there's the point where we went into a....backroom of sorts with a certain sort of marble-looking crate that appeared in storage as well. Try to exit the other end and we're confronted by a wall of skulls....then the room we were just in darkens and flying skulls emerge from some newly-created flesh alcoves to terrorize us. Or not because despite the size of the room, the rocket launcher is actually shockingly effective here, although one might switch to the chaingun if it seems like all the ones in the center are dying.

 

 

After this comes a massive series of fights in an open area we can just then pretty much spam our rockets in....kind of. There are several turret Cacodemons to our left and front, and a massive mixed collection of monsters, but blasting through proves to be somewhat difficult as other enemies teleport in as we enter, making it more difficult to blast the enemies on the sides. Actually, Anarkzie is incredibly effective at using teleport traps in general. Like what happens when we attack the pinkie in the cage.

 

The final encounter then takes place in a hanger, with a Cyberdemon and several other enemies in front that are nothing but cannon fodder. Although it's not like we have lots of rockets at this point, so we run forward, to the exit where a pinkie awaits, open it and grab the plasma rifle and use it to dispatch the Cyberdemon badly.

 

But of course, this is the map with the secret exit. Unfortunately, there appears to be no way to lower the flesh pillar with the blue key on it. Ultimately, it comes down to pressing a random wall in an experimental teleport room (yeah, yeah, there are teleporters) to head into a closet leading to a switch that lowers the blue key. From there, things fell perfectly into place, although it would've been better if we'd actually taken the teleporter back to make the journey to the red key door shorter.

 

The reward is great, though, a darkened chamber that feels like an outpost of the Unitology Church will open and reveal an outpost with a rather disturbing trident symbol. It'll take a serious map to top this one. Only E2M3 might be better

 

 

 

E4M9 - Cult Headquarters

by @Mystic 256

 

An unknown mapper brings us this shockingly effective secret map of secretness, clearly with the sort of imposing abstract architecture more at home in modern Doom II wads, with perhaps the rocket launcher location being the only one that hints at Doomcute. But no matter, this is a brutal, straightforward slaughter-ish map that has less monsters than E3M9, but with strangely higher and more deadly enemy concentrations with literally zero pretensions. Don't expect supplies to be handed out from the jump. There's nowhere near enough for the 8 or so Barons that appear in the central area so it's a trip into some admittedly bland areas to blast shockingly close-quarters fights with Imps and Spectres (in comparative terms) while some switches get pressed and open the way to the red key in the central arena, lowering a barrier which then teleports in more enemies while we completely forget we had a plasma rifle earlier and rush through the teleporter with a meager supply of rockets, only to realize there was no immediate way back. The following fight was played out for a minute or two before it was realized we had a plasma rifle. But there still wasn't enough ammo for a single Baron because infighting is tricky in the central arena as it happens.

 

Anyways, the final battle is a massive teleport battle, consisting of several groups of individual monsters, including sergeants in a couple of corners that successfully brought an end to us on 3 occasions, and of course, a Cyberdemon! Although it's probably best to allow a decent amount of infighting because there aren't the cells to plasma literally anything. Anyways, we can then return to the previous arena and pick up the two secrets that are accessed by...crossing some side teleporter linedefs, we think. Would've helped earlier. Good secret map.

 

 

 

[ViolentBeetle]

I think E4M2 was the first published map by @Anarkzie so you can see it's still rough around the edges. I did some cleanup during the compilation, though not enough to claim co-authorship.

I definitely enjoy the creativity of the design, like the whole Hitler impound.

[Anarkzie]

Much like my level, this is long so skip it if that’s not your thing.

 

So with “Custom Office” I have officially popped my Doom mapping cherry. This is the first map that I have ever actually created, I have played Doom for years on consoles but I never used my Laptop for anything other than work. The unity port Addons, got me trying out user made content, which somehow lead me to watching Dean of Doom, which made me want to try and do it myself. I watched a bunch of YouTube videos from ChubzDoomer, downloaded Doombuilder and here we are.

 

Lore

 

I never asked Violent Beetle about the story or anything but my head canon for this stage was that a piece of the evil meteorite was stored in the customs office, which corrupted the people turning them into evil cult worshippers. The secret hellish areas were repurposed parts of the airport that the cult members decorated with the flayed skin of their victims as part of their demonic rites. This came about organically when thinking about the map order, why would a Cult Headquarters follow an airport? I borrowed the cult symbol from Mystic256 to add continuity between our levels; full credit to him for the fork design. I also imagine that Doom Guy was waiting in the cue for quite a while before clocking that everyone in the queue was dead.

 

What I tried to achieve

 

I wanted the map to be fun, explosive and to have engaging set pieces as that’s the kind of maps I like playing, I didn’t want the player to feel like they were missing out because they were not playing with the full Doom 2 roster.

 

Inspiration

 

Mostly inspired by times I have had to go through custom which is mostly standing in long queues, also being British queueing is something we oddly pride ourselves on. I wanted to show areas of the base that were used by different types of people maintenance crew, employees, cultist and the nice customer facing areas, as well as take advantage of the space, how would a floating city operate etc. I inserted a few call backs to John Romero’s original E4M2 both in the opening and the reverse teleport secret.

 

I remember there being a strange story in the media about Johnny Depp and his wife trying to smuggle a dog into Australia. This inspired the Pinky in a cage. I liked the idea of the player seeing it and thinking WTF! Then questioning if they should shoot it or not, shooting it and then having the table turned on them. Repurposing the Wolfenstein Nazi art was risky but when I read the early reviews I see that people got it.

 

Objective self-assessment

 

I’m proud of what I achieved with very little technical skills. My teleport ambushes are a bit basic, relying on hiding rooms in places that the sound carries but most of them work very well, just that Pinky one is a bit crap. There’s texture issues here and there, particularly around doors, it’s cringy for me to look at if I’m honest, I wish I could have caught them at the time.

I went a little over board with the distribution of health and armour, planning how to place enemies is easier than placing stuff like health. I don’t think the player gets a chance to have their armour drop below 100%, and I gave out more free 1st aid kits than the Canadian health service.

I proud of how creative it turned out and the way level is pieced together but there are issue with sections just not being very intuitive, I seen more than one person get lost around that section by the teleporter/create area and placing a John Romero double teleporter although a throw back to the O.G does not really add much. Having been in the community for a bit, I'm kind of over that sort of thing now.

 

I love how a lot of the set pieces turned out, with my favourite being the Spider Mastermind, lost souls ambush and the ledge throwdown. The Lost Souls look awesome warping in and the ledge just plays really well and best achieves the kind of combat I was targeting throughout the level. The Cyberdemon being the only one I’m not hot on but I peaked two rooms to soon and I needed something bigger to top the level off with. I’m actually surprised how long it was, I tried to keep it under 15 minutes. 

 

Finally thanks to Jark for helping me with technical issues during development and for showing me how to actually check this stuff myself, he did not need to but he did. Apologies to Violent Beetle for causing extra work, taking ages and thanks for a lot of technical help and advice, and another thanks to Book Lord for providing some good, but blunt constructive criticism, it helped the level out. 

Edited May 27, 2023 by Anarkzie

[cannonball]

E4M2 - “Customs Office” by Anarkzie

 

Very rough around the edges with some rather dubious design choices. However there are some cool visuals in places (I like the section where you traverse the underside of the complex). There are a few neat fights too embedded in here, though withholding the heavier weapons when you have to pass a few barons isn't a great idea. I did enjoy the fact that the keys are entirely optional and are only required to access the secret exit.

Overall it is a decent first effort, and there are enough redeemable qualities embedded within the quirky design to entertain most.

 

E4M9 - “Cult Headquarters” by Mystic 256

 

A pretty straightforward and swift secret map where you merely need to collect the rocket launcher/plasma gun, collect the red key and then enter the final arena. In the end the execution of the map felt a little off. Too many shotgunners in certain traps provides a large amount of RNG, the teleport trap mechanics were a little iffy at times (Some monsters were slow to teleport), the balance felt a little too tight to allow the map to flow as the author intended. In the end I guess the secrets could have help with some of these issues.

Overall, it is the best secret map of this set, even if the bar wasn't overly high. I sense this was one map that could have been a lot more fun with a few tweaks.

 

 

[DFF]

Depending on the pick i'll think about joining next month.
+++Claustrophobia 1024
+++ The Rebirth

I'll think of a third later

[Ralgor]

E4M2 - "Customs Office" by Anarkzie
MIDI: "Mars Processing Station" from Descent
dsda-doom v0.25.6 cl3, UV, Pistol start, blind run
100% kills and secrets
Deaths: 0
Time: 35:32

So now apparently you have to go through customs after taking the tram... and there's a long line. There's also some security behind you that you apparently snuck past. Luckily you can grab a chaingun and just go postal on the zombies that arrived before you. It's a humorous and fun start to the map. There are a lot of entertaining elements like that. I love all of the little details in the cargo area, like the paintings on pallets. There's also some well-placed explosive barrels that can be used to help you save ammo. I also liked the look of the area that hangs down from some structure overhead.

 

Spoiler

Apparently, after South America, the Nazis went to Venus.

I'm less excited by the layout. It's pretty close to just one long (if curved) hallway. There are a few places that require some backtracking, and usually through a shortcut that opens. Most of the combat is incidental, although there are a few teleport traps. The spider mastermind is pretty hapless as usual, since there's not much in the room and you have plenty of cover. The cyberdemon fight can be pretty fun, but it's easy to not realize there's a plasma rifle where he starts. I ended up killing him with nothing but bullets and shells, which took forever and was kind of boring. Most of the combat outside of that was fun though.

 

Spoiler

The baggage claim area. The spider mastermind here is guarding it, but she's a pushover.

I kind of like how you access the secret exit. You have to go all of the way to the end of the level to pick up a key after lowering it inside another secret. After that will be a teleporter that should make the trip back and forth easier. This will unlock an optional part of the level. You have to grab all three keys (with the last two being in the same room) in order to take the secret exit. It was kind of fun unlocking more parts of the level, but it did feel just a tad incomplete since two of the keys were together. Still, I thought it was a good design for a secret exit.

 

Spoiler

This unassuming office turns pretty grim.

Overall I had fun with this map, although there were some parts that left me a little bored. I had fun finding the secrets and the secret exit. I just could have done without the spider mastermind, and wish the plasma rifle was well in front of the cyberdemon.

 

E4M9 - "Cult Headquarters" by Mystic 256
MIDI: "Junkie Smack" by Mark A. Klem
dsda-doom v0.25.6 cl3, UV, Pistol start, blind run
100% kills and secrets
Deaths: 0
Time: 14:17

 

This is a small level with around five fights. But those fights involved dense packs of monsters teleporting on top of you, so it's pretty exciting. None of them are difficult really, but they make good use of the ultimate doom roster. The first fight starts the instant the map does, since some of the perched barons can see you immediately. You don't get any good weapons here, and it's not worth trying to shotgun down barons (if there's even enough ammo to do so), so I think you're intended to flip the switches to take on the wings. Each wing has a high-level weapon, but you don't get it for free. Collecting each will cause a wave of enemies to spawn in. Once you take out the wings, cleaning up the center is easy. Even the reinforcement wave on collecting the red key is easier than what came before. The last fight is very similar to the end of E2M8, just with more light and thus easier. You can still get caught by a stray rocket, but the cyberdemon was so distracted I don't think he shot at me once until there was enough space to actually dodge his rockets.

 

Spoiler

This is a pretty imposing compound

The one secret (with two marked sectors) was easy enough to find, although I didn't find it until I went looking for it after I had killed everything. The level is fairly bare with just the three towers to give the level any personality. You're going to be fighting more than looking at the sights anyway. I had a lot of fun with this level. There's never a dull moment.

 

Spoiler

The back is where the cyberdemon battle takes place. It looks a bit like a landing pad.

 

[finnks13]

E3M6 - Deep Crust Borehole by myolden:

13:48/0 Deaths
This map's pretty cool, I really liked the grand scale to the level, it makes sense why you'd do this from the map title but I think it's done really nicely here. The non-duke 3d moonrock is used a lot here, and while I think it's a bit more dull than the moonrock that we've predominantly seen thus far, I can definitely understand why you wouldn't want to use it for a map that has this much height variation. Another cool detail is finding out that hell is actually inside the moon, which shocked me to my very core! The only thing I didn't really care for in the visual department was the shadows, I think one very high-contrast shadow looks much better than what's done here since it took me a bit to realise that there were shadows at all which is a shame given how much work they are to put in.

 

While the progression through the map is pretty linear, the techbase you enter near has a bunch of different routes you can take. Obviously I managed to completely miss the plasma gun until I was right at the end of this bit, which made a lot of this part a bit of a slog. The structured fights are pretty well set-up and play nicely, a highlight was the fight on the giant bloodfall you travel down into the borehole through. I also thought the ending fight was very nicely made as well, and this is easily the stronger of myolden's two maps here because of the much more entertaining combat than his E1M1. The main disappointment here was that the secret exit is *lame*, you just push on a random wall next to the regular exit to unlock it - it just feels rather thrown in. Doesn't spoil the map, as it's definitely one of the stronger ones in the episode.

 

E3M9 - The Dark Side by Astro X and ViolentBeetle:

15:27/3 Deaths
The secret map this time is going for a slaughtery feel, and if I'm honest, I think it shows off pretty well why slaughtermaps aren't generally made for Doom 1. There's one really good fight here, and it's the cyberdemon fight in the cross-shaped arena, you've got stuff from all angles, the turrets don't take 20 years to kill and the cyber is a genuine threat. The other fights in the map range from basically fine if a bit dull, such as in the opening ambush & blue key fights to a circlestrafe-able mess as in the BFG encounter. I know you're limited on monster-types but there are just far too many barons in this map that make it a bit of a slog. The visuals are pretty bland, and it seems a shame to call a map "The Dark Side" in a Moonbase episode and not alter the skybox at all, especially since you're using UMAPINFO already - I think a starry sky that didn't have the Earth in would have suited the atmosphere of the title much better and it'd have at least made this map stand out a bit. Ultimately it's fine as a secret map, and at least tries something different even if I don't think it's entirely successful at that.

[Capellan]

E4M3

 

 

 

[Book Lord]

E4M3 – Commercial District by @RataUnderground

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

 

Commercial District was the first contribution to the project by RataUnderground, submitted four months before Mining Complex. As opposed to E1M5, this level had an open layout, basically a single courtyard divided in many sections and paths that got populated via surprise teleports, deploying large quantities of hellspawn. I liked the abuse of GRAY textures, their coupling with MODWALL and white lights, and the monotone background that helped the important landmarks to stand out a bit. Besides a few scattered crates, the map looked empty of tangible content, just as the demons had ransacked the shopping centre and left nothing behind, except for equipment that could be used against them.

Spoiler

Depending on the route chosen from the start, the player can have one or two active Spider Masterminds on the terrace with the large fountain, hiding a secret Blue Armour. The Berserk Pack was provided along with a herd of Demons to punch, but they were troublesome on -fast when the map was still full of invisible snipers. The Spiderdemons engaged in a chaingun duel, giving me enough clearance to climb to the indoor area at the centre of the map, where I collected the rocket launcher. I used the shotgun to bring down the surviving boss, as running about with her -fast rate of fire was out of question.

Spoiler

Clearing the outer areas granted me some respite, the plasma gun, and food for thought. There were several nooks with colour-coded bars that escaped my attention and contained important progression elements. The path to the BK was open and indicated by a coloured arrow on the floor, and a Cyberdemon appeared next to the key accompanied by a Baron and two Pinkies. I was surprised that this small encounter turned out to be the hardest with -fast monsters, because the light pillars offered insufficient cover from rockets (splash damage still got me), and the turbo Demons were troublesome in that cramped space. This was the only point where I had to reload a savegame, and for several times before succeeding.

Spoiler

The BK granted access to a control switch that allowed me to follow the path marked by the yellow arrow, eventually leading to the YK. The Baron teleport (21x) was epic but more of a time waste than a threat, even with -fast monsters. The biggest threat came from the host of Former Humans, resuming sniping activities, and from the Cacoswarm that could follow me everywhere. There was ammo for everything, including a free BFG provided just before picking up the YK.

 

At that point, I remembered the progression to be a little puzzling on my first encounter with Commercial District. The teleporter after you pick up YK and BFG sent me back to start, and from there it was difficult to choose which direction to take. The switch with yellow bars opening the yellow-coded teleporter in the outside was well hidden, and redundant too. I can see blind players struggling with this design choice. The second Cacoswarm & Cyberdemon combo should be outrun, possibly instigating some infighting, and the player should have enough time to collect the RK, proceed to the red bars, and open the exit, if he still remembered their position! Just as Mining Complex, E4M3 had a convoluted solution that might not appeal to everyone, even though I tend to enjoy exploration puzzles on small maps. I also liked the sleek and clean visuals, and how combat had been organised. A solid effort.

[DJVCardMaster]

E4M3 - Commercial District - RataUnderground(100%K/100%I/50%S):

A massive map filled with brutalist architecture just like in E2M7, but this time everything just feels big, every field is open, and you will constantly feel minuscule compared to the size of this level. Gameplay-wise, though, is as heated as Ultimate Doom allows with its limited beastiary. Every enemy is present here, both masterminds and cyberdemons make appearances and not once, but multiple times. There is a lot happening here, and I prefer to just use my berserk pack whenever I can to save ammo, as this map was at least for me, way too ammo starving, just because of the enemy count, and because of that baron ambush that I have to leave untouched until the very end. Luckly, big guns are given to you early, so you can dispatch bigger threats with ease. Every enemy comes in packs, making this level somewhat of a slaughter-fest. I'm not checking enemies in levels as I'm playing in Crispy Doom, but I'm pretty confident to think this is one of the maps with the highest body counts out there. The inner building is not as interesting as the outdoor areas, but said building will be a recurrent part of our playthrough, throwing most of its progression in the middle of the map itself. It was a nice map, but I usually get overwhelmed by this kind of things.


By the way, here is a playthrough by the author itself made early into development, it is in Spanish, so I'm pretty sure you won't understand his introduction, but it is nice to mention it: 

Spoiler

 

Order of preference:
 

Spoiler

E2M7
E4M1

E2M3
E2M6
E3M1
E2M8
E3M6
E3M4

E2M2

E1M6
E3M2

E3M5
E3M3

E1M4
E4M3

E1M2
E4M9
E1M3
E2M5
E2M1
E1M8
E1M1
E4M2
E3M8
E1M5
E3M7

E2M4
E3M9
E1M9

E2M9

E1M7

I almost forgot that I made a map for this mid-playthrough, but yes, tomorrow we will talk about it I guess.

[continuum.mid]

oh yeah, it's voting time! Sorry for dropping off the face of the Earth. I got burned out on this mapset, Doom 1 combat kinda just wears me down.

 

Anyway:

 

+++ Doom 2 In Spain Only

+++ Claustrophobia 1024

+++ Perdition's Gate

[ElPadrecitoCholo]

Okay... First of all, hello everyone, I hope each one of you is well, and secondly... I had told myself that I was not going to continue participating in this because of the Wads class so long-lived that are usually chosen for each month, and now that I had noticed that this month it was the turn of a Wad that runs in the first Doom, I was sure that it would not be as extensive as the maps made for Doom 2, huh... I realized that I underestimated the Wad quite a bit, and really paid dearly for it during the battlefield, so... I'll be direct with what I'm going to say next... every map that I have played, I will not give you a super detailed description of its content, but rather, I am going to give my opinion about my experience in each map and how I felt all the progress from beginning to end, for which, I will say from now that my way of playing playing is far from being the ideal for every Doom player, I really tend to do my games in a strange and not very serious way, so part of my opinions on each map will focus on that particularity, therefore, the only thing they should Keeping in mind is just enjoying the content that I show you on video, okay? Because there are literally hours of gameplay for each episode, so my opinions may vary in this regard, but anyway, without much distraction It's time to get on with this.

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||Zandronum || Continuous || Ultra-Violence || No Saves || Gameplay Mod
 

EPISODE 1: TERROR TITAN
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→ E1M1 - "Detention Facility"

Appear as a prisoner in an unknown place, make your way through the (enemy) guards who are supervising the place, having to deal with many hitscanners and Imps, not only at the beginning, but also in the part where the shotgun is collected for the first time, and even the one collected from both colored keys (Red and Blue) have with them a mini horde of enemies that appears out of nowhere to kill the prisoner who has just escaped with a backpack that was found thanks to a secret in the beggining. To say that the final part would really be a bit hard to deal with if it weren't for the soulsphere that can be found there thanks to a simple secret, and that I also like the atmosphere of this map because it is something like escaping from a prison but. .. without being very outstanding in the textures section, but nevertheless, in the design section, the map is interesting due to the architecture it presents, something that you really don't get to see much in the first Doom like the areas open.
 

→ E1M2 - "Admin Offices"

This map... is really interesting, since here, in addition to seeing how it connects with the previous map, it shows how explorable it can be, from falling into the water to pick up a secret, to reaching an office or company owned by demonic entities. A very large place, with a certain way of progression that can be a bit confusing, and the same can happen when discovering the secrets it can offer. What there are here are quite a few Hitscanners and Imps, the pinkys still don't get to present themselves in an annoying way until a little more than halfway and almost reaching the end, and I must also say that the kind of details put into each part of the place does a very good job of giving a realistic look at what the demons were doing before the arrival of the marine. Lastly, I will say that the water fountain in the middle of everything, is simply spectacular, although more spectacular was having left this establishment before I kept getting in trouble for having stolen a Chaingun and having destroyed a ventilation duct with various useful things.

→ E1M3 - “Barracks”

A map that seems to be quite ordinary in regards to the first Doom, without much new in the environment that has not been seen in the base game, although it does seem to be more extensive than normal. To tell the truth, having found some of the secrets in an unconventional way reflects how complicated it is getting to find mysteries on the maps, due to the fact that some make them look so simple that it seems to be a joke, but anyway, The combat is nice here, I haven't had any major complaints about this, except in some parts that were very small, but in general, the map is quite good, for the standard of the first Doom (as I said before), It was quite enjoyable, not counting the small details that make the experience interesting, although there weren't many on this occasion.

→ E1M9 - “Excavation Area”

I have to say that for the first time, I began to have some concern with this secret map, since the enemies kept appearing out of nowhere on multiple occasions, and even having the best weapons in hand, they did not prevent those bastards from draining me. almost full health, honestly it was a bit annoying having to deal with certain areas such as the initial zone after obtaining the yellow key or the part where everything is red, and in the center many enemies appear that were mostly Hitscanners, imps and Pinkys, not a lot of medkits anywhere, or was it those stimpacks... either way, my first kill was here (from falling into lava and trying to get out unsuccessfully), and while I didn't expect to have to swallow it all The journey up to that encounter, I really enjoyed the somewhat intense light combat that was presented, and even more so with the secrets that it offered, but yes... there should never be a lack of narrow areas where multiple enemies mercilessly attack the Marine, although less Too bad that on this occasion the meeting did not turn out to be so dangerous.
 

→ E1M4 - "Mineral Processing"

A tremendously long map, and at the same time confusing, really resulting in a kind of somewhat calm search at the beginning but then it became a bit desperate as the minutes passed, and I really don't like maps like that, but as I could, I managed to make my way around this place to find the exit, and as if that were not enough, finding the secrets here, some turned out to be extremely easy in this regard, but besides that, the combat in places like this comes to be a bit annoyed by how the Hitscanners and imps take advantage and throw their things at the Marine without him knowing where the hit came from, but oh well. Finding the keys here turned out to be a pain in the ass, and falling off bridges to grab health bottles (+1) wasn't a great idea really, but despite the obvious dangers and traps some areas have , the progress to the yellow door was somewhat fun, although I don't feel like I'm going to want to try a map like this again, even more so with the ending that consists of spawning enemies until the demon reserves are exhausted and the weapon that burns from so much use that I have given it. (Spoiler alert, I tried maps like this again, and I'm really starting to feel a certain hatred for these places with strange and certainly confusing structures...)
 

→ E1M5 - "Mining Complex"

Arriving here... I can simply say that the map looks good in terms of aesthetics and textures but... in terms of architecture... I just found it quite unusual, and even more confusing than the previous map, and I don't know why there are so many maps like this where maybe the priority doesn't seem to be the gameplay, but rather to solve puzzles for some reason until you completely get out of the place, and I'm not complaining about it , I know that not everything should be action (that's what the Slaughters are for), but I feel very strange about this type of format to be played on a map, since you have to guess where to go and be careful with the traps that appear, that some of these are very involved in what are toxic liquids, and other similar dangers, but all this did not finish convincing me, and at the end of the slaughter, I only looked for the exit very quickly and then focused on the search for secrets, something It really didn't happen because I accidentally went straight to the exit and appeared on the next map, and having to repeat that whole experience again just for two secrets that I left there, the truth was that it wasn't worth the return.
 

→ E1M6 - "Visitor Center"

Hm? Was this place some kind of continuation of E1M2? Because I could really notice the office theme that was repeated in this place, only that it could be said that it is even more expanded than in the previous map shown, although thinking about it... it could also be a kind of hotel that one arrived at, and you started from the reception, maybe he was right? I don't know, but I'm sure of something, the site allowed me with slight condutions at times, since I didn't know where the hell I was going, or even where the exit was, and even if I had the keys, it was hard for me to analyze where I can get out of here. There were so many rooms, and I didn't understand the way to go, but anyway, the combat at least leaves a good challenge and apart from that, there is plenty of ammunition to grab and choose from, it is appreciated that extra supplies are always left for If things ever get too complicated, huh. In the end, you have the three keys, you have to go to the 3 switches, activate them and finally escape from this site that never found a clear way, but despite its structure, it doesn't stand out much in design, but it was decent equal.

 

→ E1M7 - "Traffic Control"

Well, for starters, it's clear that this map's forte is combat, quite a bit to tell the truth because more Hitscanners keep appearing than anything else, and that's saying a lot. Apparently, the marine ends up arriving at a kind of underground train station, since in the second area after the initial area there is a kind of detector that is used to enter any transport such as an airplane, or also a Train. Despite that, this site has outdoor areas that... aren't great, since there is nothing interesting to highlight here, except for the part where you enter the train station, it has many circles around it and I don't know why, but now the terrain looks strange huh. One thing that I can say is that the trip to the train station was truly crazy, it really took me a bit to find the keys, because I didn't really know where each one was, but hey, after having been more observant in the map, found every key, shot many times and got to the station, which looks better than the rest of the things on this level, and there were even bathrooms there, and that kind of details I really appreciate, heh.
 

→ E1M8 - "Huygens Spaceport"

Well, the train stopped, and it was in ruins due perhaps to a demonic attack on it, preventing further progress and taking the marine to his final destination in this first episode. The station now looked scarier, it seemed to be all destroyed and...- hey, wasn't it there inside that room with various corpses and candles where they made the cover for this month's wad to play?... Err , I mean, the place is really in ruins, but to a lesser extent, since there are areas that don't seem to be affected, but that doesn't matter, because then you discover several interesting things besides the secrets that this map contains, huh , and among those things, there are several structures that are below the station, and that are not particularly small, as is the case of the path to take to get the red key. After some light killing and unwanted setbacks, the Marine makes his way further through the site until finally entering the door that required the key he found, only to later discover that this site was much stranger than he thought, because there were quite a few. toxic liquid on the ground, there was a huge red circle in the center, and when he got closer to inspect, he noticed that this place sent all kinds of demons to attack, mostly Barons of Hell, and since he didn't want to lose his health enhancer I use my head a bit to win this level without much problem, which in itself was truly chaos after chaos. After killing them all, the central portal opened, and taking good care of his health enhancer, the Marine was ready to escape from that hellish place he was in but... did he manage to do it? And this is where the first part of all this ended, ladies and gentlemen.
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Soon I will bring the other parts that I am missing before the end of the month, because there is a lot to talk about about the other parts that are still to come, so I leave the video there without editing at all so that you can see in detail the oddities that I have been doing during the entire game.

Edited May 26, 2023 by ElPadrecitoCholo

[RHhe82]

E4M3: Commercial District. Played on DSDA v0.25.6, UV, PS. 261/261 K, 2/2 S, 12/12 I. Comp. time 23:45

 

Yet another map I dread replaying, although after you survive initial scarcity (not necessarily ammo, but health, dammit!) and SMM onslaught, going gets easier, but it's still a decent challenge wrapped in a slick, nice outfit. The map is structured so that it loops around central area, which gets populated each time you reach a goal (grab a key). Love it, will still dread replaying.

 

That was my initial review, but such a short review feels underestimating. I think one small criticism is in order: at times I felt a bit confused with the progressions. Sometimes SMMs would appear all of a sudden, and while there are arrows in the ground helping you, I found myself a bit lost for a while. But that's a small grievance, the map is one of the, if not the, favourite map of E4.

[Ralgor]

E4M3 - "Commercial District" by RataUnderground
MIDI: "Devil's Ground" by Mark Klem
dsda-doom v0.25.6 cl3, UV, Pistol start, blind run
100% kills and secrets
Deaths: 1
Time: 33:48

This level seems to take place in an open area between probable corporate offices. It's mostly linear and starts out with a lot of incidental combat at first, then some massive teleport ambushes and reinforcements arrive later. From the very beginning there's a spider mastermind patrolling near the big fountain, but another SMM and two cyberdemons will join the party at various points. The SMMs in particular are very dangerous in this map, since you don't have the weapons to deal with them early on and they can shoot you from range. My first attempt at this map ended early due to constant hitscan attrition, including from both SMMs.

 

Spoiler

This spider mastermind was a giant pain, and kept shooting me from long range.

Going for the plasma rifle will trigger reinforcements, and you'll probably use most of your ammo doing that. The blue key is guarded by a cyberdemon and some barons. The barons only really serve to distract the cyberdemon briefly. I was then able to get the SMMs to fight each other and the new cyberdemon, which hurt him enough I was able to finish him off. I like to see a good cyberdemon-SMM fight occassionally, and this map delivered. Going for the yellow key triggers a massive reinforcement of the level, but also gives you a BFG. So you can BFG down hordes of barons, which is really fun to do. There's no lack of ammo once you get a foothold on the level, so you can have fun killing everything without a lot of stress. There is a slight shortage of health though, mostly due to being pelted with bullets.

 

Spoiler

The demons must have tunneled into this reality from here to take over...

This map is very stark with the grey texturing throughout the level.  There's plenty of detailing though, including the light pillars of various forms, and the blood pouring out of the hellish room in the center. For the most part the progression is linear, although it does snake around the level and teleports around. After getting the red key, I forgot where it was used and it took me a couple minutes to figure out where I was supposed to go next, but that was mostly my fault for being distracted. The secrets are also well done. The one in the hellish room I found immediately, but the one in the fountain took me a little bit. I only figured out the fountains could be passed through when a rocket nearly hit me after passing through one. That was a good little surprise.

 

Spoiler

Another view of the large space that is this map

I really liked this map. It's pretty evocative of a "commercial district", has fun combat, and looks good.

[cannonball]

E4M3 - “Commercial District” by RataUnderground

 

I can understand why the keys and switches are placed as they are, they are to encourage the player to dash around the various corners of the map and as such allow the gameplay to be as fluid as possible. However it makes progression a little difficult at times. However the gameplay is pretty solid throughout, there aren't really any big traps, more that stuff teleports into the mess as you progress. You are given enough munitions but care is needed to not run out of ammo for the big guns, so again allowing everything to moshpit itself in the central part of the map is the best call. I suspect this would be fun to speedrun given the layout and space. 

Overall I prefer the opener of this episode, but this is a fine effort and an improvement on the E1 effort by this author.

[Celestin]

E4M3: Commercial District by RataUnderground

Spoiler

Do you like brutalist architecture? I personally do. Despite its name, Commercial District looks more like a park for the residents of the floating city, with green grass and small pools of water. This is contrasted by grey, concrete buildings around, with columns made using while lamp textures. Despite its minimalistic texture choice, I really like how it looks. The MIDI reminded me of Command & Conquer, that game had a similiar electronic soundtrack. 

 

The map quickly escalates into a war against hordes of enemies, with more joining as you move forward. While hitscanners, imps and pinkies can be eliminated without wasting much ammo, cacodemons and barons are a different story. There's a ton of those bullet sponges and ammo isn't that plentiful, especially early on. Infighting is a must, so I recommend provoking a pair of masterminds to take out as much foes as possible, before inevitably dying themselves. I should have also left a blue key-guarding cyberdemon alive, he could have helped with killing barons. With a blue key, you can open the blue bars to rise a bridge to the yellow key. It also gives you a BFG, but I don't think it's a good idea to use it outright to kill the barons that spawned. Instead, find a yellow bars, open a nearby teleporter and head for the red key. This will cause a lot of enemies to appear, including a cyberdemon. Most of the monsters died infighting, but I ended up with a number of barons. I've already encountered this problem in E4M9 and I fear it's not the last time. It is a by-product of Doom 1 limited enemy variety and so I'm glad Doom 2 expanded the roster of mid-HP enemies.

 

Overall, I think it's a decent map that sadly is being held back by the limitations of original Doom. 

 

E4M4: Residental Areas by DJVCardMaster

Spoiler

E4M4 is a compact housing complex, though floating islands outside the playable area suggests this being a part of a larger district. The sector details (like street lamps and chairs inside houses) are sparse, but serve their purpose of conveying a sense of place.

 

Gameplay-wise, this is a step down compared to the previous map, but is also far less tedious. Residental Areas keeps you well-stocked with ammo, especially rockets in the later segments, where the bulk of the map's barons can be found. It is rather tight on health, though, and a third of enemies consists of shotgunners, so this is where the challenge comes from. Still, with a bit of careful play, it's not that bad.

 

I think it's a decent map, with less tedium being a welcomed break after the previous entry.

[Klear]

E3M2 - “Tranquility Terminal” by @RHhe82

QuestZDoom, UV, blind, continuous, saves

 

Spoiler

Solid map with some satisfying shooting through windows - always a plus in VR. Rewatching the footage now, having reached E4M9 today, I noticed a familiar symbol. Foreshadowing! Not much else to talk about, here really. I remember having fun with it and thinking some of the visuals looked nice, but it is one of the more forgettable maps in the wad.

 

 

 

 

 

E3M3 - “Deep Space Observatory” by @dac

QuestZDoom, UV, blind, continuous, saves

 

Spoiler

 

This map immediately reminded me of Mapping at Warpspeed. I figured it must come from Ancient Aliens and I was right. Even though it's not used in PUSS IX (and I haven't played AA yet), it immediately made me feel familiar. And terrified of meeting a horde of revenants, impossible as that may be in this wad.

 

I was happy that there's finally a map which uses the moonrock textures extensively - something I was missing from the previous two maps. I was looking forward to some moonwalking in this episode and this map scratched that itch. It's another of the non-linear affairs where I had no idea where I was going throughout most of it, yet never was even slightly lost. It could be I was just lucky, but I suspect clever design is to blame more likely. One of the better maps in the wad for sure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

E3M4 - “Fusion Plant” by @BluePineapple72

QuestZDoom, UV, blind, continuous, saves

 

Spoiler

 

Finally some more doomcute overload! It's been a while. Worst part of the map is right at the start - there's an amazing-looking forklift and I couldn't climb into it and sit there. I should have just noclipped there, now that I think about it. 

 

Other than this I love the map. The cramped rooms with a lot of detail look amazing in VR and the combat is also a lot of fun playing this way. One thing I liked was that there was a lot of coloured doors - they didn't feel like an obstacle put in place to hinder you as a player in particular, but more like a feature of this part of the lunar base, representing an area with a particular security rating. I'm not sure if that was the intention or if it's a side-product of some non-linear design of the map, but I like it. So yeah - this is by far my favourite map in episode 3.

 

The cyberdemon appearance took me by surprise and I prompty killed myself in panic, though it wasn't that bad when I knew it was coming. I figured there's probably a crusher switch somewhere, but since it looked like reaching it required some minor platforming while dodging the rockets, I opted to kill him the hard way. Good thing too, since the button I was betting on released more monsters to fight instead.

 

 

 

 

[LadyMistDragon]

E4M3 - Commercial District

by RataUnderground

 

E4 difficulty has arrived! There's not really lots to say - this one is abstract enough to give Cult Headquarters a run for its money (though I like all the trimmed green fields) - but this is where a somewhat symmetrical layout really benefits the map in question. Basically, not every area is accessible the same way and there are some wrinkles thrown into the central area that doesn't make progress seem completely predictable.

 

But if anything distinguishes this map, it's the massive teleport traps. At various locations, (such as right from the beginning!), enemies will start teleporting in and while there's generally plenty of options to take care of them, the initial underequpping leads to situations where we're hemmed in by pinkies by both sides and while there are certainly corners one could punch them from, it seemed a better idea to head up the stairs (and thankfully, it's not like pistol starting Adventures of Square where despite it being theoretically impossible, the vast amount of enemies that confront us early on will make that as likely annoying as not) and continue. 

 

However, there is one early situation where we're walking to reach the blue key and we're ambushed by several Barons and a Cyberdemon without a nearby plasma rifle. The only way out is a switch lurking in the remote corner like it believes the cool kids all play Hexen. Thankfully, all the other situations are easy to figure out. I know Rata released a ridiculously over-the-top slaughter map some time ago, but the sheer amount of traps like this put literally anything from basically all the IWADs to shame (leaving out Go2It! but you know). Although this proves quite entertaining when two Masterminds end up in the central foyer and the sheer numbers of pinkies end up killing the lot of them.

 

There's not too much else to say - we played poorly and things never really let up - but taking the teleporter after acquiring the BFG and yellow key is probably the correct course of action since it's almost the perfect place to handle the last horde of Cacodemons. And when it seems like we're running out of ammo, the ammo cache we passed on the way to the yellow key is right next to some red bars which open up the exit. The megaarmor in the fountain was basically as incidental as it came!

 

I liked the map, but it sort of shows the limits of pushing the difficulty of Ultimate Doom without going with some concise kind of Base Ganymede approach (or just making an Ultimate Doom slaughter map, but that almost imposes limitations of its own unless you're Time of Death).

 

 

 

[Klear]

So it turns out I don't have the footage for E3M5. I'm pretty sure I simply forgot to press "record". I'll come back to it later after I've caught up, I promise.

 

E3M6 - “Deep Crust Borehole” by @myolden

QuestZDoom, UV, blind, continuous, saves

 

Spoiler

 

This is a good one. Fast-paced, with a nice layout and nice visuals. My only gripe is that the music is a bit too video gamey. IMO something more evocative of an action movie would work better here. Highlights are the two elevator rides - the slow one going down made interesting by some vicious combat and the ultra fast one going up. That was quite something in VR.

 

Actually, there's another gripe - the secret exit. I've cut the video as I kill the last enemies before the regular exit. What followed was over ten minutes of going around the level looking for secrets. I did find a few regular secrets. I also saw the yellow door, but just couldn't figure out a way to get to it. Reading (and watching) writeups of other club members only got me the yellow key. Finally found one playthrough on youtube which included the secret I was missing. Normally I would just skip the secret level - I don't care about 100% completion and I don't enjoy looking for secrets I don't come across just during normal play, but I wanted to play E3M9 for completeness sake here, and I wasn't really keen on pistol starting it. Well, about that...

 

 

 

 

 

E3M9 - “The Dark Side” by @Astro X and @ViolentBeetle

QuestZDoom, UV, blind, continuous, saves

 

Spoiler

 

This map feels like a secret map in a good way. I feel like a secret map should spoil the player with a ton of goodies, then put them through hell and make them use everything up. Then do it again and again. That's exactly what's happening here. There's a few grand fights that can be solved by strafing in a very large circle and it made me realise this kind of gameplay hasn't been seen in the wad much. It doesn't fit the general theme of the wad much, which only reinforces the secret-mappity of this one. Unfortunately one of these fights (the one in a very round room with a pool of blood in the middle) was a bit less enjoyable for me than the others since looking away from walls sent my framerate plumetting. Too many voxels, I suppose.

 

 

Good news is that there's no audio desync at all this time. Bad news is that... there... isn't any audio. I still haven't figured out what causes this to happen and since I'm so far behind, I'm not going to re-record it. I *might* come back to it when it's all finished. No promises, though. Sorry about this.

 

I've also included the secret exit sequence from the previous level in the video, partly for the sake of completeness, but more because it meant I could just upload the video without editing it. 

 

 

 

E3M7 - “Freight Terminal” by @MemeMind

QuestZDoom, UV, blind, continuous, saves

 

 

Spoiler

I really like the visuals in this map. I've always preferred maps with a clear sense of place rather than more abstract ones, and the railway station presented here delivers on that front. I did not care for the combat at all though. By the time I passed the EXIT signs I was getting bored of the map and then it kept on going. My only death - hitting a rocket into a pillar - was definitely caused my the lack of attention. It's a shame. I really like how the map looks and some of the areas could be the site of fun fights. It needs more work though.

 

 

 

 

 

E3M8 - “Space Elevator” by @muumi

QuestZDoom, UV, blind, continuous, saves

 

Spoiler

 

This map I think is somewhere between good and awesome. I can't tell. I had a mostly miserable time playing it because the giant arena with the titular elevator simply does not play well on a standalone VR headset. Framerate issues aside, I simply couldn't see what was happening most of the time. I stumbled my way through the level and killed the mastermind that was blinking in and out of existence under what was supposed to be a breathtaking backdrop, but which I tried not to look at to preserve my FPS.

 

I think this map might be worth revisiting on PCVR later on. I'm sure the sense of scale VR provides will make the elevator look stunning.

 

 

 

 

 

[Capellan]

E4M4