The DWmegawad Club plays: Plutonia Revisited Community Project 2

dobu gabu maru · July 2, 2023

What is the DWmegawad Club?

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

Can I join?

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

What levels am I allowed to post about?

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

Do I have to post an entry every day?

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

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

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

+++ Ultimate Doom

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

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>>>DOWNLOAD PRCP2 HERE<<<

Led by the unforgiving master-of-disaster Josh Sealy, Plutonia Revisited: Community Project 2 is a kickass tribute to Plutonia designed to… kick your ass. It’s also designed to be co-op friendly, speedrun friendly, and aims for a bite-sized experience that delivers a hefty heaping of challenge. So let’s revisit Plutonia once more… again!

Author & Maplist:

MAP01 - “Inception” by Dutch Devil, Joshy

MAP02 - “Medieval Evil” by SilverMiner

MAP03 - “Murder Well” by deetee

MAP04 - “Decayed Redoubt” by riderr3

MAP05 - “Against the Spirit” by DMPhobos

MAP06 - “Waters” by DJV

MAP07 - “Argarthan Anomaly” by Captain Toenail

MAP08 - “Azure Ambition” by Sincity2100

MAP09 - “Church of Pollution” by The_SloVinator

MAP10 - “Natural Selection” by DJV

MAP11 - “Plutonium Rust” by Eternal

MAP12 - “Close Encounters” by Egg Boy

MAP13 - “Never Safe, Always Sorry” by NuMetalManiak, Archi

MAP14 - “Corpseflower” by Scorpius

MAP15 - “Ironclad” by Cheesewheel

MAP31 - “Steel Mill Zone” by Joshy

MAP32 - “Orestruck” by cannonball

MAP16 - “Ifrit’s Lair” by Doomlust

MAP17 - “The Wolf Hour” by Sincity2100

MAP18 - “Enclave” by Anon

MAP19 - “Acid Bath” by DukeOfDoom

MAP20 - “Calamity Valley” by Yumheart

MAP21 - “Scorched Sacellum” by Wydoomer

MAP22 - “Trickster’s Lair” by Jark

MAP23 - “Wrong Turn” by MattFright

MAP24 - “Deep in Naraka” by Tatsurd-cacocaco

MAP25 - “Sting Operation” by General Rainbow Bacon

MAP26 - “Golgotha” by Xyzzy01

MAP27 - “Rules of Nature” by Potatoboih

MAP28 - “Crimson Realm” by waverider

MAP29 - “Gehenna” by Yumheart

MAP30 - “Shattered Nightmare” by Death Bear

BONUS CONTENT

Doomwiki

DSDA

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Edited July 8, 2023 by dobu gabu maru

RHhe82 · July 2, 2023

Dang, I’d really love to play this, but I think I’m going to report in as absent. My reasoning is that I’m gonna play this sooner or later regardless of club. Still lurking in the background to get a feel of general consensus.

cannonball · July 2, 2023

The second wad in three months to feature a map by myself. PRCP2 has a slightly wonky production history given it was a creative branch for the still in progress Plutonia 3 where some maps here were cut from PL3 and maps submitted for this are now in the PL3 development cycle. Hopefully @Joshy might be able to stop by and provide some extra insight.

I will go through the first two maps later today.

Egg Boy · July 2, 2023

Excited to see my map make people a little upset

sincity2100 · July 2, 2023

Oh yeah PRCP2.. I really wasn't excited about it, but I decided to upload a couple of maps for it.. two of them made it to the final project, in my uploads I was trying to deviate from the Plutonia Style of mapping, so I made homages to SOD and BTSX2 instead.. hopefully you get excited for it..

Celestin · July 2, 2023

Woof, -cl 9, pistol-start with saves, everything past MAP01 is blind

To be honest with you, I haven't played the original PRCP, but from what I've seen, a lot of maps there are just wholesale remakes of Plutonia levels. This is why I'm glad Joshy, who returns as the project leader, explicitly discouraged such approach. I've always enjoyed community wads for their creativity and variety, so combining them with Plutonia-style gameplay should be really enjoyable.

MAP01: Inception by Dutch Doomer and Joshy

Spoiler

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A collaboration between two experienced mappers, Inception starts the wad with an impressive view of a stronghold lost somewhere in a swampland, while MAP01 track from Plutonia MIDI Pack plays as a backdrop. PRCP 2 upgraded to Boom-compatible engine, which, among other things, removes the limits imposed by the original .exe and from the opening shot, it's clear Inception took advantage of it, creating a more detailed environment than the Casalis could ever dream of. It's a stark departure from the rather minimalist aesthetics of the original.

Yet the map itself is surprisingly economical with its use of space. Inception is fond of reusing arenas, leading you into already visited places and repopulating them with new monsters. The caves with blue and red key are one example, but the better one is the central courtyard. At first visit, it's a modest fight involving mid-tier foes. At second, it's a trap with two revenants. Right before reaching the exit, though, it teleports in an archvile, a pain elemental, a mancubus and two revenants. Only five enemies, but this creates a rather tense scenario, where you try to blow a vile before it blows you or revive too much crap from earlier fights, while avoiding projectiles and spawning lost souls. Aside from this part, I recommend taking the map slowly, it's full of tight corridors with chaingunners hidden behind every corners.

Inception is a strong opener, which feels like the Plutonia school of combat realised in a better looking environment. I look forward to the rest of the set.

MAP02: Medieval Evil by SilverMiner

Spoiler

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Some of you might cringe seeing SilverMiner's handle in a Plutonia-themed wad, but, while odd at times, Medieval Evil is the best map of his I've played.

The map starts in a dark void with only a teleport pad in sight, which takes the player into the middle of a small camp set up next to ancient ruins. Enemies are all around, but running in whatever direction you choose should result in finding basic guns and the red key. The small fort with the blue key is next, aside from usual monsters it contains teleporting chaingunners on the walls. I'm not a fan of this idea. I get the concept was to run inside, sprint from switch to switch and have them eventually crushed, but you can just snipe them from the outside with a bit of patience. Anyway, there is one more fight with the monsters guarding the yellow key and the map is over.

Medieval Evil offers a handful of unofficial secrets, one of them gives a plasma rifle. I haven't found it and having 300 cells and no means to use them is a bit irritating, but I ended up not needing them. It isn't a conventional map, but one I enjoyed for its weirdness.

Klear · July 2, 2023

I'm going to sit this one out. I've been busy with stuff lately and that hasn't changed, and this wad sounds like it would be a pain to go through in VR. But I thought I'd leave an "I'm not dead" comment here, since I miss the club and will definitely join again in the future.

HiMyNameIsChair · July 2, 2023

oooo~! PRCP2! I've always intended to participate in one of these, and given this one's been high on my to-play list for a while I think I'll join in~! once I wake up a bit i'll give the first two maps a go~! Gonna be mostly blind, with a few I've played before.

continuum.mid · July 2, 2023

I'm not 100% sure about this one, lately I've been wanting to play Heretic more than Doom and MAP01 is already a little difficult... but this WAD looks great, so maybe I will join in.

plums · July 2, 2023

Neat. Of the older unofficial Plutonia sequels, I liked PL2 a *little* more than PRCP, but I remember them both being fun. I also don't remember PRCP being much like Plutonia at all, except a few sections here and there that seemed almost like a straight copy, so I wonder if PRCP2 changes this at all. Lots of good mappers involved so I expect it to be fun!

finnks13 · July 2, 2023

Alright. I like Plutonia enough that I'll bite this month :P

I've played a bit of PRCP 2 before, but didn't finish it - for reasons that I will not elaborate on now, since they'll come up over the course of the month. I was also working on a submission to PRCP2 for a while, though I ended up scrapping the map because it wasn't very much like Plutonia and therefore I thought it wouldn't be suited to the wad (and while I was wrong about that, the map wasn't anything special anyway so it's no great loss :P)

I am playing using Woof!, -complevel 9, on UV from a pistol start. I try for 100% kills, but I don't like secret hunting so I may skip stuff if finding it is annoying me.

MAP01 - Inception by Dutch Doomer & Joshy:

7:06/0 Deaths
A serviceable opener for the wad, Inception shows off PRCP2's new texture palette and sets up an expectation of pretty faithful attempts at capturing Plutonia's gameplay spirit. However, and this is the fault of the texture pack rather than this map specifically, the visuals of this (and every other map in the wad) map do not look right. While I don't mind most of the additions to the textures, I really hate that Plutonia's brick textures have been swapped out here for altered versions with different heights. Now I understand, having used these textures myself, that 16-unit tall bricks are far easier to work with and align around than the ones found in PLUTONIA.wad itself, and I have absolutely no problem with them being used in wads that do not have the word "Plutonia" in their name, but their inclusion here feels like a misstep and make the visuals of the maps feel off. I understand that this might seem like a very weird thing to get hung-up on but Plutonia's visual identity is those brick textures by and large and so changing them is a baffling choice in a wad that is trying to feel like a successor to it.

As far as the map itself goes, the opening shot is very ugly due to it using a bunch of different coloured rocks that all clash horribly with one another, but once you're out of that area, you never revisit it and the rest of the map is very pretty so it's not the end of the world. There's a focus on berserk in this map that I like, and you're fairly light on ammo before getting the SSG and blue key so punching often is necessary. I really like the little "gotcha!" trap that happens when opening the door to the main area opens up some chaingunners beside you as well, and the final fight involving an archvile, two revenants and a pain elemental feels very Plutonia. I feel like the map is at it's strongest in the hub area, as spelunking through the caves that lead to the keys felt rather uneventful, but other than the very door-camp-able blue key ambush, the combat in these areas was fine.

Overall, Inception is a solid and fairly lengthy start to the wad with some fun little set-pieces. One of the better Map01's I've played for sure.

MAP02 - Medieval Evil by SilverMiner:

7:15/0 Deaths
This map feels like it's trying to emulate Plutonia 2's style of gameplay (specifically Gusta's stuff) much more than the original, with the expansive, wide-open layout, hot start and variety of choice in paths to progression. I don't think this is a bad thing, I really like Plutonia 2 and it's undeniably part of Plutonia "canon" so emulating it for this is fair game as far as I'm concerned (the map I was making for PRCP2 was in that style). That being said, I don't think this is an entirely successful attempt at doing so, since the combat in the map is fairly poor on the whole.

The progression feels rather stilted, with random bars everywhere letting you backtrack for no reason, and monster traps that are often just one guy in the middle of a wide-open room posing zero threat. While the fortress that houses the blue key looks really cool, the teleporting chaingunners are annoying to deal with and I'm not sure how you're supposed to get through the area keeping them alive, and the blue key trap itself is incredibly lame, with an archvile that has sight over about 10% of the arena and only one arachnotron to come to fight you otherwise. The yellow key area is definitely the best part of the map, the combat here feels more challenging, but importantly, more engaging than the rest of the level, the gang of shotgun guys that teleport in upon picking up the yellow key itself is a surprise that is very effective.

Overall, Medieval Evil is fine, but is let down by gameplay that feels like SilverMiner is holding back unnecessarily.

But what do the teleporters look like?

This is a very important section of these posts where I'm going to give a score to all of the entry and exit teleporters that appear in PRCP 2 because I thought it'd be funny when playing through Map01 and started screenshotting them.

Spoiler

MAP01 - 10/10. Basically perfect, this is what a plutonia teleporter should look like.

MAP02 - 10/10. Once again, these look perfect.

HiMyNameIsChair · July 2, 2023

Map01: Inception by Ronald Lubbelinkhof (Dutch Devil) and Josh Sealy (Joshy) (UV Pistolstart. Played on DSDA. Completion Time: 11:59. 100% Kills & Secrets) (Second Playthrough)

Ah~! There's a name I'm happy to see: Ronald Lubbelinkhof AKA: Dutch Devil~! it's good to see him here and paired up with PRCP2 project lead Josh Sealy~! Although i couldn't say how the work was split here.

I'm immediately rather charmed by the opening shot, lots of natural landscape, a mix of water, brown and grey stone, as well as some brave usage of some of Plutonia's more vibrant greens that maybe don't quite mesh with this palette, but the attempt is appreciated~! As a fellow mapper who loves drawing natural landscapes, I feel right at home~! the addition of a free berserk is also a well-appreciated gesture for saving ammo or for those who just really like punching things (myself included~!)

Spoiler

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While I'd be hard-pressed to accurately guess who worked on what, the first interior room does remind me of Lubbelinkhof's work, with its neatly drawn lines, soundly architecture, and eye for detailing, like these arched supports. could be wrong though.

Spoiler

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On the Visuals in general: the map is quite handsome with its sculpted buildings, signs of wear and tear, and rugged terrain.
The large cave section with it's agreeable mix of light browns and green stone, in particular, caught my eye, with the vines and the light gradient really pulling it together. The demon ran crematorium, in particular, is very cleanly sculpted, and I like the nice attention to detail with the rubble and a hole blasted in the wall.

Spoiler

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Spoiler

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Spoiler

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On the combat end, it has just the right amount of that Plutonia bite, with its plentiful chaingunners and Boney boys. I like the nice initial scrap in the open courtyard that punishes those that don't prioritize the boys in red, but otherwise is happy to let you punch everything out~! Speaking of punchable foes, the abundance of beefier fireballers feels like it could Lubbelinkhof's input, and feels in line with his more Doom64-inspired joints, ala Alter of Fear or What lies beneath titan-426. Meanwhile, the chaingunners perched around corners and in high vantage points feel more like Joshy's input, but i could very well be wrong.

NGL i got a laugh out of this hallway that very quickly turns into an infight moshpit~! The two Chaingunners usually end up making fast friends with a gang of imps.

Spoiler

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The final fight after getting the red key feels appropriately Plutonia but also fair for its early slot, with a single meatball to punish unweary rocket usage, an archvile threatening to undo your handiwork, some boney bois, and plenty of room and cover to tango with a pissed off martian.

The 2 secrets aren't too much trouble to find, including

Spoiler

an easy backpack for those willing to do some basic footwork, and a soulshere for those that investigate the automap carefully, and even then, Joshy and Lubbelinkhof give you a nice visual cue with the teleporter in the window.

Overall, Inception is a model opener~! Handsomely drawn, and with combat that invokes its inspiration, but remains friendly enough as an introduction. A lovely collab between two veteran mappers!

For an extra bit of fun I think i'll grade these as i go.

Score: B+

MAP02: Medieval Evil by Sergey Andreevich Burow (SilverMiner) ( UV Pistolstart, played on DSDA, Completion Time: 9:46)

So I actually did a second playthrough for this immediately after my first. I originally didn't intend to, but ended up doing so because there were a few things about this that I found odd.

Now, right away Silverminers map on the visual end looks great~! A compact labyrinth of stone and wood, built around a central stone structure, and I do like the concept for the layout.

Spoiler

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Although there are a few things here I take issue with. Silverminer *really* like to pack their items in the maps many nooks.. sometimes a little too much so. This include's a pair of cells that at times, don't play well with the collision and leave one of them hard to grab at times.

Spoiler

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Speaking of cells... They really give you a lot of them! However, after finding the map's one tagged secret,

Spoiler

(a tucked-away megaarmor)

I figured "oh ok, thats it for secrets, i guess it's lying around here somewhere". however one playthrough later, and the exit in sight it hit me that I just never ran into the plasma rifle, because it's tucked away in a non-secret secret, which i found a bit rude, given just how much ammo for the thing silverminer gives you. But i get tagging it would be a bit tricky since it teleports in, and i did manage to clear the map without it so.. benefit of the doubt.

Spoiler

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Can't say i feel the same way about the chaingunners who sporadically jump around in a loop of teleporters. They're a constant annoyance, and not exactly fun to deal with by picking them off. But what really soured me on its execution is Silverminer buries the switch to crush them in the ground and it doesn't reveal itself unless you get close. I get that funky teleport shenanigans are a Plutonia staple (ALA Speed, The Death Domain, etc) but this could have been executed better.

Spoiler

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The rest of the map combat-wise is perfectly enjoyable, and if nothing else its hitscanner placement reflects the Plutonia ethos.

actually, back on the topic of nonsecrets that should be secrets: this very hidden thin switch that spawns a Cell pack and barrels next to the Hell knights. Again, I find it odd what Silverminer deems important enough to be secret tagged.

Spoiler

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While Medieval Evil looks nice, and it plays perfectly fine, some of its design decisions do irk me. I wouldn't say i hate it, but it's not a map I'd look forward to replaying.

Grade: C

DJVCardMaster · July 2, 2023

Well, having one map in Solar Struggle was not enough, so I decided to drop two for PRCP2, good thing is that, I'm quite confident about my work in both Waters and Natural Selection, so it's pretty safe to say both of them are going to rank at least as good maps for most people, although detail-wise, they could fall a little bit short. I decided to get inspired more on Plutonia 2 than the original Plutonia for both of my entries. I think that's a feature of most maps of PRCP2, but we'll see.

PRCP2 - Plutonia Revisited Community Project 2 - Joshy et al.:

The long awaited sequel to the first Plutonia-styled community project by Joshy finally arrives in a fully playable way. Being born as a fork of the, still work in progress, Plutonia 3 project by the same project leader. With many maps that got relegated from there to this project, and some submissions for this project that went promoted to the former, (and having this idea as a premise, if the map is too good for the CP standards, it would be promoted to Plutonia 3), we have a collection of really spicy maps in a Plutonia/Plutonia 2 style, with natural landscapes, hectic gameplay, chaingunners and revenants combined in traps and the usual Plutonia-esque stuff. Most maps are mid/long, in comparison to regular Plutonia play, there are some specially lengthier maps that could take some of your time, so I'd suggest you to make yourselves a little bit of time to play some of them.

MAP01 - Inception - Dutch Devil & Joshy (100%K/90%I/100%S):

Solid first map, quite longer than you would expect, and obviously harder, right from the start you will see this megawad is going to be Plutonia but enhanced. The views are more reminiscent to Plutonia 2, as most of the future maps, rather than the original Plutonia, but I think that was the idea of most of us when mapping, as stated previously, but it is a sequel to the original PRCP after all. I don't think I like to be bottle-necked that early though, as the hardest encounter will come right after you exit the first building. After that, you can proceed with a bit of care until the end, where, at the same place as before, another solid encounter with our first arch-vile will appear. As we say in my country, this one "marca la cancha", or rather, marks the playing field. Welcoming you with a hard map right from the start, comparable to Plutonia 2's MAP01.

MAP02 - Medieval Evil - SilverMiner (100%K/I/S):

The author of the infamous Plutonia 3 jokewad makes his appearance early with a surprisingly solid map. Again, taking a lot of inspiration of Plutonia 2's early levels, feeling like a map that could have been taken from there. Its worst offense would be all those teleporting chaingunners on the watchtowers, those will annoy you for the rest of the gameplay, but luckly, taking the desired path to beat this early moments of the level will make your life easier. This level fully stocks you at times with supplies, so you won't be having any problems, even with health, but beware, as you will lose health quickly because of hitscanners. It feels weird to me that I have to hit the sign pillars with the key to lower them, feels counter-intuitive, as you would expect to raise/lower them with a switch, so that screwed my progression a little bit.
Overall, setups are really well planned, but again, the map fully stocking you makes this one not that much easier, but simpler.
I don't think I liked this one more than MAP01, but again it is a solid level.

(UV - Playthrough/PRBoom+)

Order of Preference:

Spoiler

MAP01
MAP02

Edited July 2, 2023 by DJVCardMaster
added map02 review.

cannonball · July 2, 2023

MAP01 - “Inception” by Dutch Devil, Joshy

The start area is probably a little too busy on the visual sides, luckily the map tends to be narrower with the colour choice variations for the rest of the map. The combat is fine, nothing overly taxing and this probably feels a little cosier than Congo, again it feels similar to "Comeback" from Plutonia 2 in that aspect. You get quite a few mid tiers but they never seem to be in a position to really rip you apart.

A fine first map.

MAP02 - “Medieval Evil” by SilverMiner

The map was nicely detailed, but there were some off-putting elements to this one. The early stages are probably a little too sedate, your main enemies being shotgunners and demons. Pressing the red key switch unveils probably the most obnoxious section where you have teleporting chaingunners, however we had some strange choices of monster block lines here too. Other strange choices are present too, the super shotgun is just tucked away for no apparent reason, it is on the main path but stuck in a area where two bits of architecture meet. I don't mind the rocket launcher placement, it is off the main path and is clearly marked when you do find it.

This one felt like a missed opportunity, some good ideas and a nice environment, but let down by some questionable design decisions.

Bobby :D · July 2, 2023

Plutonia Revisited Community Project 2

Introduction

PRCP1 is a bit of a weird wad for me. For one, when it's doing Plutonia or it's own mangled interpretations it blends more of the wads of the 2000s and Plutonia 2 in the mix far more than the original. This is fine, except when the creep comes in that it feels a lot of the people at the time didn't really get how to do Plutonia's gameplay, and the maps in the later parts don't have that same kinetic energy and compactness that drives a lot of the original. Sometimes the new mentalities flowered into a completely different thing that stood it's own ground in the example of Xaser's bewildering contributions, but other times it felt deflating. Going into PRCP2, a project I originally played a good bit of when it came out, I feel this wad has alot more extremes in the Plutonia Spectrum^TM than the original. I have forgotten quite a bit so this replay will be pretty much blind.

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Map 01 - Inception - Dutch Devil/Joshy
Right off the bat I can see this wad is going for a more PL2 focused approach, the opening area is a deliberate remix of the original MAP01 from PL2, and Dutch Devil's style tends to lean pretty close to his 2000s days but a bit stripped down. The map in general is a hub map, which alot of the original Plutonia and some of PL2 (mostly due to the influence of Alm) utilizes, but this map is alot closer to the kind of hub style you'd see in Scythe 2, with winding corridors of disassociated mini encounters before big key ones.

The map's gameplay is mostly in angular skirmishes with small pockets of monsters and corner hugging chaingunners constantly try to trick your ass, and small crescendos when you get a key. It's not nearly as dynamic as the original Plutonia's Map 01, where it wasn't afraid to have nothing happen for a short while then to all of a sudden light a fire under your ass with monsters in every corner. The constant stream of monsters is engaging but not really noteworthy, and the even cluster sizes (and tight corridor design leading to alot of chokepoints and door fighting) means that this map doesn't really have to much of a standout moment besides the encounters in the open hub.

Visually this map is close to something Dutch Devil would cook up in his 2000s days. Big bordering strips line the buildings, jagged, haphazardly shifting rock shapes and a penchant for miniscule and often mentally bypassed microdetail. All's to say it doesn't really look like Plutonia outside some of it's texture choices, and not too much like PL2 cause of how beady detail can get. It is still a strong visually identity but it feels like either Dutch or Joshy had to strip stuff back to try and match the originals a bit more.

As far as a merger of styles, this map more feels like someones Scythe 2 inspired map that they retextured with Plutonia textures than a deliberate attempt to capture the dynamics, broad strokes, angular arena designs, and general viscerality of Plutonia or Plutonia 2, or to wildly reinvent it so that it stands on it's own ground. What comes out at the end is still decent - both of the mappers have been doing this long enough that they can put out a good map like nothing - but a little fine tuning would have made this more aesthetically close to the spirit the project series is trying to capture.

Edited July 2, 2023 by Bobby "J

TJG1289 · July 2, 2023

Nice! I was hoping this one would get picked so it would make me finish it. I had started this a while ago, but only got a few maps in before something more interesting (to me) dropped. When it comes to Plutonia sequels, I prefer the first PRCP over Plutonia 2, so I was excited about this one. I don't recall the few maps I played being bad, so I guess whatever I dropped this for was something that excited me more. I'll be playing this continuous as normal, even tho I've played the first couple of maps, then it will be blind playthroughs somewhere early on.

GZDoom/UV/Continuous/Saves

Map 01: Inception - Dutch Devil / Joshy

100% kills and secrets

Time: 11:24

Deaths: 1

Hey, I actually died in this WAD! I didn't complete Rebirth due to vacation and power outages, but I hadn't died at all during that one. The final fight here got me. But before we get to that, we've got a map to complete, and this one is surprisingly long for an opener. This felt more like a mid ep-map to me. Getting the berserk immediately is great, tho you don't really need it for the map as you should have more than enough ammo for everything (I also seem to recall somehow whiffing my punch on the shotgunner the first time playing this and getting a load of buckshot to the face). This map looks very nice. Idk if these are all the standard Plutonia textures or if there's some new fresher ones, but everything looks quite good. You only get the shotguns and chaingun in this map, but the enemy placement doesn't really call for the stronger weapons, so that works. Despite the big open court, most of the map is in narrow hallways with fodder baddies, tho an occasional hell knight or caco could appear. The key ambushes are pretty tame too. The only real danger is the final fight, which spreads out a wave of demons into the courtyard, including an archie and pain elemental. This could use a rocket launcher to make things a little easier, but it's doable with the SSG (though as I played map 2 and found the RL there, I picked it up and didn't autoswitch. Did I pick it up in map 1 and didn't notice it?). The soul sphere secret took me a minute to find, but it is telegraphed if you're observant. Overall, not a bad opener, but I was expecting something a little more like Congo or something.

Map 02: Medieval Evil - Silverminer

100% kills and secrets

Time: 19:42 (half of this was exploring, more on that below)

I've played a few Silverminer maps before, but not many. I am aware of their history with Plutonia maps, so it's interesting that they're back in this environment. Thankfully, I enjoy this map quite a bit as there's some quirky aspects to it. I know I've already played this map before, but I feel like I've seen this map in another WAD? Another similar map must be what I'm thinking of. This map starts you in the void before teleporting you to a small island. The biggest threat in this map is the annoying chaingunner turrets that happen to constantly teleport. They're easy to pick off with the chaingun, assuming you can get them to sit still, which entails them shooting at you. The outskirts of this island are very breezy, and will puch you back to the island. I don't see this action a lot in maps, so I like its addition here. The key fights aren't too bad, and I like the archie jump scare for the blue key. Overall, this map is a nice map 2. Not as threatening as the last one, and the environment is nice.

Speaking of the environment, I happened to notice while exploring that there were cell pickups but no obvious plasma rifle or BFG. The lone secret is a mega armor. So at the end of the map I decided to IDDT and see if there was a hidden non-secret cell weapon. I'm glad I did, as not only are both of them in the map, there's a few other non-secret secrets here! I never did find out how to get the cell weapons (I'll have to open up UDB for that), but I did find 2 easy to miss secrets. One being in the red fortress next to the switch guarded by 2 mancs. If you use the small pillars nearby, they lower allowing you access to the shotgunner turrets where backpacks and ammo are. The other secret is by the yellow key. If you look to the right of it behind the pillars you'll find a switch. Hit it and a bulk cell will launch out of the stone above you and onto the floor. I like these little additions as they reward curiosity and are really fulfilling to find! Now to figure out how to get the cell weapons...

Edit: figured out how to get the plasma rifle! One of the giant skull blocks in the water by the red fortress has red eyes. Hitting it will teleport the plasma just inside the island here. Still no clue on the BFG tho.

Edited July 2, 2023 by TJG1289

LadyMistDragon · July 2, 2023

Map 01: Inception

by Ronald "Dutch Devil" Lubbenkopf and Dr. Joshua (Ghost) Sealy, @Joshy

Lmao, nice callback at the beginning. Only thing more perfect would've been to put a PRCP 2 logo in this opening area. No matter though, maybe the slopes were a Joshy addition, but I'd expect this map to be a little more conservative in its enemy layout were he the main author of this map. Dutch Devil is fine though. This guy has made a couple of Cacoward-winning maps and contributed to a few projects over the years. He hasn't been on in a long time, but I suspect that like Eternal, he probably has at least one map in Plutonia 3.

Anyways, it's not too hard to see why this map got cut in the end. Visually speaking, it adheres to basic Plutonian themes, but Dutch Devil seemed determined to put down some sort of personal touch because there are a number of hills and slightly ruined buildings that show a willingness to go beyond the immaculate and essential abstractness of Plutonia 2.Enemy placement, too, lacks the preciseness compared to classic Plutonia wads.. It's certainly not without challenge, especially on UV, but there's a curious lack of sadism despite the presence of every single member of the Plutonian trio, and while the AV at the end was unwelcome, we're more than adequately supplied enough to do away with them, although thanks to mass rocket wastage, we were out by the time we were through!

One more thing, that furnace behind the chaingunner door was an excellent demonstration of environmental storytelling that one doesn't normally see in Plutonia because it supposedly takes place in a jungle or whatever. Sorry Casalis, but you'll never convince me!

Does this make it different enough from Plutonia that it won't be too much of a drag. We'll see, but this was an excellent opener!

Spoiler

Map 02: Medieval (Knie) Evil

by Sergei Andreevich Burow @SilverMiner

The map where we finally "go to serr-fiss" but if you expect another lazy-bones and ugly map, prepare to be blown away. This is my favorite SilverMiner map I've played so far, although I've played rather few so far, lmao. I only assume the starting room is a callback to something from that infamous megawad that's really the reason this project exists in the first place! But anyway, the teleporter (and hopefully not missing the hidden green armor) takes us to a central location reminiscent of something like stockades, with quite a few fort-like structures scattered throughout an island. It's actually quite reminiscient of a particular Plutonia 2 map that escapes me at the moment, but I know there was a chaingun in the middle of a 4-way path near a nasty Arch-vile ambush and something that went under an overhang. The presence of sheer rock walls, beaches, and a very strange plunge with a boat in the middle show difference though.

In any case, its absolutely critical to keep moving here because there are constantly teleporting chaingunners in each of the towers constantly moving around and making targeting them a bad idea with other threats around. Like the shotgunners seemingly lurking around every corner from the central stockades. These corners contain a backpack and a 'hidden' Megaarmor, among other things. There's a point where we were killed by a Lost Soul and it made more sense to restart since saving when most places are subject to chaingunner fire seemed unintelligent and this is a speedy map at any rate. The Revenant trap upon revealing the red key is quite harsh for pistol starters, but we can probably weave through them to a point, find some red bars spotted earlier and head into the main fort, with two Arachnotrons near us, shotgunners in the portcullis and Mancubi guarding a switch that opens a gate to an upper battlement. Might want to pick the rocket launcher on the side before confronting them though. Don't worry, this is about as generous with the last map with supplies!

Anyway, ascending the battlement brings us into some conflict with some fiercesome Hell Noble guards that its little trouble blasting away. The subsequent ascent led to a in-face Arch-vile that's not really all that hard to avoid. Somewhat disapprovingly, they're the last one in the map. Anyways, we snatch the blue key and wander around for a bit before finding some blue bars, leading to some storage stockades and some rather disappointing traps with the yellow key. We're probably just used to each map building up, but I'm sure some people were disappointed to find two Cacos as the only opposition. Although the path out of here does contain a couple of Revenants and some other fairly nasty enemies, but it's not exactly like we fight an Arch-vile. At this point, the exit will have miraculously opened, which it does in the same central arena we arrived in, containing some nice slope work and some supplies. Worthy second map!

Veeda Vidlak · July 3, 2023

Yay, Plutonia. I'm glad PRCP2 won, I wanted to see a more combat-focused wad this month.

I played this mapset fairly recently so I won’t play levels twice, otherwise I'll stick with what I've been doing (UV, max kills, pistol start, DSDA Doom). I'll try to go saveless but as of right now there are a few levels I have not been able to beat single segment, so we'll see what happens. I'll go back to making recordings as well, maybe I can motivate myself that way.

Map01 “Inception”

We get a callback to Plutonia 2 before being thrown into the fire immediately, just the way Plutonia should be. No, not the initial imps and pinkies, I mean the courtyard behind the first couple doors. Chaingunners, a sniping revenant, some mid-tiers following us around. Good start, and an appropriate number/type of monsters for the first major encounter.

We now go on an adventure around passages of blue, green, and brown, though something about the aesthetics bothers me. The visuals feel… garish I suppose? Like the map is actually too detailed. Anyway, Grizzled veteran mappers Dutch Devil and Joshy provide resistance in the usual Plutonian style, emphasizing enemy placement and terrain. No fight exceeds double digits and we get a lot of chaingunners. It’s not easy street but the ambushes are gentler than usual Plutonia. The initial courtyard fight and the final fight (also in the courtyard) are the hardest, the PE, vile, and revs providing a suitable map01 finale.

This is a good opener, presenting early Plutonian gameplay while holding back a bit to ease the player in.

prcp2map01.zip

Time: 6:07 Kills: 96/96 Secrets: 2/2

Map02 “Medieval Evil”

This is an interesting map, reminiscent of Gusta’s open, frenetic outings in Plutonia 2 and clearly inspired by them. Ammo is plentiful but weaponry must be searched for, with some of them being quite well hidden.

We start with a teleporter that takes us to hitscanner island. While our path forward is technically linear, SilverMiner’s layout gives us tons to explore. Items are stuffed into little crevasses, there are all sorts of pathways looping around, and the terrain makes great use of what is a surprisingly small square footage (the map isn’t that small, but it feels larger than it is). And that’s not getting into the various not secrets hidden around the outskirts of the map. I found a couple of them but there’s clearly more, one of them a BFG I don’t know how to retrieve.

Combat is… pretty good. The map isn’t as hectic as a Gusta joint but it’s threatening enough, especially if you’re getting disoriented by the layout. Hitscanners hunt for us in every nook and cranny, draining health and keeping the player moving. The main danger is the fort of teleporting chaingunners, which can hit you from all over the map and are a bear to clear out.

Progression includes all three keys, which can technically be obtained within a couple minutes. All but the yellow one are poorly guarded, with enemies that can be easily run past (though the teleport gunners will be constantly pinging us if we don’t deal with them). A mancubi guarded switch behind the red door triggers “a” crusher that slowly but surely kills the chaingunners… and I would argue they should have just all been crushed immediately. Fighting your way to the switch is not trivial and only having one crusher slowly kill them over like a minute is disappointing. Simply chaingunning them is a better option.

After the (pretty good) yellow key ambush we can head around to the exit teleporter and leave.

I really like this map. The gameplay is just the right kind of uncomfortable, the island is fun to explore, there’s weirdness that doesn’t interfere with playability, and it’s actually pretty short. Exactly what I want out of a map02.

prcp2map02.zip

Time: 4:31 Kills: 87/87 Secrets: 1/1

Endless · July 3, 2023

Ah, finally something I haven't played! Was kinda excited for this project to come. I remember playing the original PRCP years ago when I first started getting into some serious dooming. I recall it being quite difficult but also pretty fun. I already imagine a lot of these maps are going to be ball busters, so I decided to take it a little more gently at HNTR. My old bones can't stand the pain anymore. So, let's begin:

MAP01: Inception

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Already starting pretty strong. At UV, this little map has 96 enemies, and at HNTR, it has 69, so we can already see a slightly noticeable difference, and I must say that even on lower skill level, it still feels quite spicy for being an starter map. But, let's talk about the visuals first. To begin with we have a great scene of multicolour and a variety of geometry that does an excellent job of creating a natural environment. I'm probably a little biased here, as I love exteriors with passion, and this one manages to create one quite effectively while maintaining a good level of modesty. The rest of the map follows a similar style by combining interiors with exteriors, always with an eco theme. From small hills to dark caverns full of roots. I'm not complaining at all. The layout of the map on the other hand felt a bit clunky. It's not bad per se, but the paths you have to take to reach the exit are quite small and easy to miss, and once you take the blue key, the path to the red key isn't as predictable so I got a bit lost, but it's a minor complaint, really.

Now, the gameplay. From my point of view playing on HTNR, it's a bit hot despite being a low difficulty. It starts in a violent way by giving us a berserker pack to demolish our enemies, then gradually opening up, releasing more demons in more dangerous combinations. As I imagine, most of us expected, there are quite a few chaingunners and the use of revenants is a biased one, with a few surprises here and there. It's not bad, but I prefer when a megawad starts with something more relaxed, because, if the difficulty stays at this level in general, I think I'll get tired of it quickly.

For a first map, I like it. The visuals captured me, but I hope I won't discover sadistic surprises later on. Oh, who am I kidding. This is going to hurt.

MAP02: Medieval Evil

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I like the island style maps. They always have a rather ominous feel to them; seeing those eternal horizons stretching off into infinity reminds me of the beauty of life... until a million teleporting chaingunners ruin the moment for me. The style of the map is hub-like, where all areas are central to the level, and we have to collect keys to unlock the exit. Nothing wrong with that, and the visuals and map geometry are sweet, well done, and make good use of shadows, though they feel a little dark at times.

My problem is the positioning of the chaingunners. It's just irritating to have to deal with chaingunners located in remote, well-covered areas that are difficult to access. Add to that an infinite teleporter of chaingunners surrounding an entire wall, and it's just something I don't appreciate. RIP vanilla users with headphones, the sound of teleports will be burned into your minds.

If not for that, I would have enjoyed this map a bit more, but still, the style and layout is quite easy to follow and the gameplay, outside of the chaingunners, is entertaining and appreciable thanks to the aesthetically pleasing level design.

Take a shot every time I mention a chaingunner.

Book Lord · July 3, 2023

MAP 01 – Inception by Ronald Lubbelinkhof @Dutch Doomer and Josh Sealy @Joshy

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

Since the opening view of a craggy canyon filled with water, Inception displayed some of the new custom textures designed by Fuzzball for this project, side by side with the classic Plutonia and PRCP rock faces. The small first area incited to grab the Berserk pack and start punching the enemies that emerged as soon as I approached the entrance of a temple submerged by the wilderness. Plenty of Chaingunners awaited inside, immediately reminding me what kind of journey I was embarking on.

Spoiler

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The indoor section was surprisingly short, since I emerged in a large outdoor courtyard with some monsters waiting to ambush me from all sides. Better not hang about this place for too long and head straight to the eastern cavern, ride up a lift, and find an alternative route to the other side of the fence. Inception frequently forced the player to search for a different path to cross a blocked door or to reach a key on an inaccessible ledge. The exploration of the flooded caverns led to the SSG and to the BK in quick succession, with reinforcements teleporting to keep me engaged. I enjoyed mowing down the assorted rabble that tried to break through the blue door.

Spoiler

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The BK opened the door to the western building in the courtyard, a crematorium with active ovens managed by Hell Knights and Chaingunners. If you have loaded the WAD on complevel 4 instead of 9, you will realise your mistake when trying to open the hidden door to the green teleporter, leading to the secret Soul Sphere. Once the RK was collected, the caverns could be left through the red-coded door. A team of monsters led by an Arch-Vile tried to stop me before I reached the other red switch and the nearby exit. Accompanied by Lippeth’s Death Mask from Plutonia Midi Pack, Inception was a perfect introduction to the megaWAD.

MAP 02 – Medieval Evil by Sergey Andreevich Burow @SilverMiner

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

The author of the infamous Plutonia 3: Going to Surface is still around. In 2021 he resumed mapping activities with renewed enthusiasm, submitting an impressive number of contributions to community projects on both Doomworld and Doomer Boards. His appearance in PRCP 2 might not be a masterpiece, but it holds a special meaning, working as a sort of rehabilitation in a mapping field where his early work sparked controversy.

Medieval Evil was a triple key hunt taking place on a green island surrounded by the sea, hosting a few fascinating scenarios with good detail. There were many Shotgun Guys in ambush stance, Chaingunners that might attack from the distance, and shooting gaps between the walls that I found awkward. The starting hub area might be left following two paths, the southern one being optimal since it led to both an SSG and to the RSK, eventually converging in the eastern path. The second SSG was protected by a nasty Revenant ambush that I inadvertently evaded by falling into an invisible pit in the water, containing a boat with health and ammo. This was one of the various hidden treasures of this map, but the Blue Armour that you might easily find from the hub was the only official secret.

Spoiler

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Getting inside the fort guarded by phasing Chaingunners required strong nerves and chaingun tapping. The courtyard was patrolled by Demons, hitscanners, and Mancubi, which were a bit painful to kill with SSG. Once the rocket launcher was acquired, the map went downhill and neither the BSK Arch-Vile nor the whole YSK area presented major problems. Hitscanners were in large numbers for a map called Medieval Evil, and they caused the most trouble by teleporting unexpectedly behind me, or by shooting from strange angles or great distances. The trick of teleporting enemies behind the player was used so many times that it became predictable.

Spoiler

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I do not know if SilverMiner and the project lead did it on purpose, but the map made it to idgames full of technical errors that did not directly affect the gameplay. Running an analysis in Doom Builder generated a long list of bugs, evidencing many monsters that were not tagged for any skill level, and other mind-boggling oddities. At least this explained the strangely empty way to the exit. Medieval Evil played and looked better than you might think after checking it in the editor but was still a bit rough around the edges.

Edited July 3, 2023 by Book Lord

DJVCardMaster · July 3, 2023

MAP03 - Murder Well - DeeTee (100%K/14%I/83%S):

dt_ is an author that casually appears from time to time in community projects since Community Chest. And he drops simple but effective maps most of the time, with little improvements to aesthetic quality, but solid on the gameplay department. This is the case with Murder Well, which feels more like an original plutonia rendition, it also feels under par to previous maps in terms of overall quality. Just because of those multiple tagged sectors at one secret area, some design choices here and there, texture misalignments or just simple detailing. Anyways a fun map, I like that Onslaught-like area where chainguners and arachnotrons will be shooting you point-blank with no cover. Go forward, shoot straight into hitscanners and pray. Fairly doable although it looks menacing. Overall it feels like an easier map in comparison to MAP01 and 02. I feel the outside area could have been used for tougher encounters, but it is a bit of a letdown. The arch-vile at the cross will "revive" until you reach the point all the "revival" archviles are crushed, near the end of the level.

(UV - Playthrough/PRBoom+)

Order of Preference:

Spoiler

MAP01
MAP02
MAP03

Book Lord · July 3, 2023

MAP 03 – Murder Well by Daniel Trim “deetee” @dt_

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

There are not many worse situations than being in line of sight of an Arch-Vile from the very start, and not having the slightest idea of where he might be. The hostile inhabitants of Murder Well were Revenants, Mancubi, Hell Knights, Lost Souls, Imps, and Chaingunners, all equally eager to strike a blow on poor Doomguy. The natural outcome of such a hot start was a series of deaths, while I was trying to find a way to go. I happened to find shelter in the Commando bunker and from there I accessed the Soul Sphere secret behind the waterfall, which counted as four out of the six secrets of the map. The other compartments were accessed naturally during the game and had not much impact.

Spoiler

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This was not only a map with a water well where you can murder and be murdered, but also a map designed to murder you well. Strong weapons were needed to overcome the hardest parts, but nothing except the SSG was given freely. Health was scarce as well, at least in the starting area. Going into the eastern building first was a good idea despite being unable to progress, since you need that rocket launcher in case of trouble. The western section was a catacomb with 64-unit wide passage, a plasma rifle, and an ambush that wanted to homage the RK fight in Aztec, adding two Chaingunners for good measure. Gaining the YSK caused another harrowing situation, with Pinkies appearing nearby, a Revenant near the exit, and a death squad with more skeletons and an Arch-Vile coming from the water area.

The yellow-coded switch opened the path to the exit, which was a viciously conceived obstacle course. Equipping the plasma gun before taking an elevator into the unknown is good Doom practice, and here it made the difference between life and death, since you find Imps in close quarters while already in a shooting range with Chaingunners and an elevated Arachnotron. The same situation was repeated in the second part, offering a Partial Invisibility but more than doubling the threat.

Spoiler

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Learning that the exit was the same pad as the entrance was a bit weird, and I did not like the hidden Chaingunner behind the fake wall. I can do without bad Plutonia stuff. The surplus Arch-Viles that replaced the one in the big red cross had been crushed, so there was only one left to kill. The strangest feature of Murder Well was a hidden compartment, not tagged as a secret, containing a BFG and 8 Medikits. I cannot understand why it is in this map, and as a continuous player I refused to take that weapon with me. Daniel Trim has been a member of this community for 20 years and he has improved his design under all aspects, cooperating in many projects since the first Community Chest. I liked the pressure he applied with the hot start and the encounters were tributes to the meanest side of the Casali brothers, but the tight spaces and limited health did not allow for many mistakes. This is not a map you can beat on first try; you need to know it well (pun intended) to stand a chance.

Celestin · July 3, 2023

MAP03: Murder Well by deetee (dt_)

Spoiler

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You can't have a hotter start than getting set on fire by an archvile behind your back.

Once you duck away from his attack, you'll end up in the titular well: a flooded depression with bullets and projectiles flying from every direction. It gets crazy, especially when the organs from "Plusfort" kick in. Arming yourself is a top priority, the super shotgun is in the centre of the well, rocket launcher in a nearby building, but the plasma rifle in the tunnel unleashes a truly nasty trap: an archvile and two chaingunners in a tiny room with a baron spawning behind you, just so you don't try running back. Running to a tunnel on the left allowed me to separate the enemies and break vile's line of sight. This is the stuff I love in Plutonia, screwing the player over with as little monsters as possible.

Other place of note is the maze section at the end, which, by contrast, I didn't like. You have to navigate a short obstacle course while under fire from chaingunners and arachnotrons, then you have to do this again. Or save rockets and remove any threat once it appears, it's up to you. The map concludes with killing that one archvile that attacked you at the very beginning and returning to the starting location, which doubles as an exit.

I like the pace and aggression of Murder Well a lot. It's the kind of maps I was looking forward to see in PRCP 2.

Death Bear · July 3, 2023

Wow, so I guess I'm going for 3 out of the last 4 months? Interested to see what y'all think about mine, when you get to it.

Spoiler

It's among my least well-received maps for a community project that I've seen. That's all part of the growing process, though, right? RIGHT!? (*cries inside*)

See you then! GLHF!

LadyMistDragon · July 3, 2023

Map 3: Murrrr-duhr Well

by Daniel Trim @dt_

The guy who used to be an abominable police officer might best be known for something he did in NOVA 3, which I'm not familiar with but a megawad a lot of people say is good. Anyways, this map here is just excellent, with the "Seasons of Insanity" midi originally intended for Caughtyard in Plutonia providing a perfectly frenetic base for the action and the map overall being quite gorgeous with great use of height variation to create a sort of cave and fort complex, framed by waterfalls in select spots.

It's possible to find a place to hide once some of the surrounding enemies have been taken care of but that's a tall order indeed for pistol starters. Probably best to head into one of the side passages before doing anything like that.

Although the passage leading to the plasma rifle almost seemed like a roll of the dice. There's not enough ammo for all the enemies in the predictable trap and prioritizing the Arch-vile might seem a strange choice when there's also chaingunners and a Baron right behind us. Although we probably did strike the chaingunners first in our winning run, we weren't eager to head back without dying.

Instead we headed into the fort, with Mancubi in each corner (two of them able to strike us from outside). Avoiding the closest too shouldn't be too difficult, especially when enemies from outside might strike them but tedious shotgunning of the far two is probably necessary. Especially when reflexes are failing. See, step toward the rocket launcher and immediately be confronted by a chaingunner pair in front and a pair of Hell Knights and a pair of Imps on either side. The rocket launcher definitely feels intended here but there's little enough room that concussive damage is inevitable and we'd unfortunately taken enough damage at this point that death was not all that unlikely. Probably, we've got to head back toward the entrance but who knows?

Anyway, we end up heading back to the bunker with the plasma rifle, go down some passages and collect the yellow key from a pillbox location with some chaingunners and Mancubi that were largely dead. The little stone tables here were really a nice touch. We then end up heading bacl to the fort building and use the key on a particular switch which raises a door leading to a lift. This ends up in a hallway which acts as an excellent Caughtyard presence, or just that we're running between fences attempting to fight off Arachnotron and chaingunner ambushes on either side with rockets. After some more nonsense, we head into a Hell-like path that then leads to the exit, back in the courtyard. But there's 14 enemies left alive!

After some exploring, we then find ourselves a lift whose lowering causes another lift to lower in the bunker that it lowered from, basically leading to a ledge that we can spot a Supercharge on a pole from. Grabbing it triggers a pair of Cacodemons and some Lost Souls to teleport in. If it seems like ammo's low at the moment, not to worry! There's some supplies at the far end that can probably help with some of the stragglers though.

Best map so far? Maybe, who cares? I got STUFF right now. I forgot to record at the right time though. Safe to say that not much was missed, beyond several deaths in the expected trouble spots.

finnks13 · July 3, 2023

MAP03 - Murder Well by deetee:

5:46/4 Deaths
The title is very accurate as this map did indeed Murder (me) Well. I really enjoyed this one, and I think that's because it's exactly what I was hoping for out of this wad. Small, tight skirmishes that are balanced on the edge of a knife in terms of health placed vs monster effectiveness, clean and very pretty visuals that feel right out of Plutonia Episode 1, and small flairs of trying to develop and innovate upon Plutonia's gameplay ideas. It reminds me a lot of Cydonia visually due to the large scale of everything, but feels classic due to the (as far as I can tell) entirely stock texture choices.

While the hotstart is fun to deal with, the highlights for me here were the ambushes that occur when picking up the two power weapons. The plasma gun fight is excellent, you have to react very quickly to escape into a side corridor before the vile torches you, but also need to take care to ensure that the archvile enters behind you before the baron in order to not waste tons of ammo. The rocket launcher fight is a bit simpler, with you surrounded on two sides by six hell knights while four mancubi pelt you from above and this felt like something right out of Plutonia. I liked the section with the partial invisibility, chaingunners and arachnotrons. Obviously, you have to pick it up in order to not get turned into swiss cheese, but the arachnotrons firing plasma wildly can really mess you up. There seemed to be a fair bit of optional content I missed, since I exited with 10 or so monsters still alive, but I really liked what I played and didn't fancy ruining it by humping walls for 5 minutes.

Overall, Murder Well is an excellent showcase in how to make an homage faithful, but still with an identity of it's own.

But what do the teleporters look like?

Spoiler

6/10. The outer bit isn't entirely black which isn't a massive deal, but I have to dock points for the fact that because the entry & exit teleporter is the same, you don't exit by walking on the light itself which is (as we all know) ILLEGAL.

cannonball · July 3, 2023

MAP03 - “Murder Well” by deetee

This map gives off a lot more Plutonia vibes than the first two maps. Unfortunately a few of these involve tropes that I wasn't keen on in the original IWad (The narrow corridors that often curve around). However none of these were overly bothersome. There are a mixture of traps, some rather nasty and a more liberal use of archviles (Outside of the one who roasts you at the start). There map is both visually and combat wise a little hit and miss, but this has a character that I vibed with more than the previous two maps. So overall a rather flawed experience, but one I tended to like quite a lot.

Mr. Alexander · July 3, 2023

Enjoying the maps so far! No thorough reviews here. I like the homages to Plutonia and Plutonia 2, though I don't recognize too many of the latter because I haven't played Plutonia 2 past the first couple of levels. I've been playing Cydonia lately, too, which makes for an interesting comparison in the ways the two wads interpret the Plutonia canon.

Map01 was good fun. I love a good cave-themed opener. This harkens back more to Plutonia 2's first levels than to the original Congo.

Map02 was a little confusing to get around, but I enjoyed the weird chaingunner-manned turrets of the corner fortress. No major complaints.

Map03, "Murder Well," spiked the difficulty like hell. It took me 85 tries to get a clear here, but I had a lot of fun trying to figure out a reasonably consistent way to survive the initial melee and then to advance to the exit. It's always a good sign when you can die a lot but still have a lot of fun playing the initial encounters. There's still a lot of room for improvement. To examine some strategies, I sought out Tatsurd-CacoCaco's UV-Max on YouTube, and that's obviously aggressive, but pretty clean, and way faster than my mere exit. Lots of fun to be had here once you get over the initial shock.

I fell off the PUSS crew's Ancient Aliens homage wad when the club covered it a few months ago, because I was extremely stubborn about recording demos, but I also had to make time for non-Doom activities, so I can't guarantee I'll record demos for every single map, but I figured I'd post the ones I've recorded so far. These are in no way optimized and do not represent cool, smooth play, let alone play for speed.

prcp201-03--mralexander.zip

Edited July 3, 2023 by Mr. Alexander
Smoothed out the phrasing in the fourth paragraph.

TJG1289 · July 3, 2023

GZDoom/UV/Continuous/Saves

Map 03: Murder Well - deetee

100% kills and secrets

Time: 10:42

This is one of the hottest starts to a map that I've played in a while. You're in a little ravine of sorts with many enemies already staring at you, including an archie. So immediately grab the backpack and jump down into the water to hide from the archie. Continuous players like me won't have as hard of a time as the rest, but even then don't bother with the archie, as a new one takes it place once killed, and there's a few more after that one too. Even outside this rude start, the map doesn't really let up. Grabbing the yellow key will send another archie into the main area which is very annoying (and the only part of the map that almost got me this time). The confined hallways that make up most of this side of the map have some nasty chaingunner placements as well. At least the secrets are nice. One of them makes up half of the tagged 6 secrets, so there's not really as many secrets as there appears, but you get some cells, rockets, and a soul sphere. Speaking of cells, the plasma rifle is out in the open this time, so that was nice. The RL trap isn't too bad. I focused on one hell knight duo so I could retreat to their hallway and take out the other duos. The push to the exit I thought was pretty clever. You first have to deal with an arachnotron and its chaingunner protection, which isn't too horrible. But as you turn the corner, grab the invis, and continue on, 2 walls lower, sandwiching you between 2 more of this combo, while you quickly run through a twisty walkway to the safety of a side cubby with a medikit. You're not safe tho, as on the opposite side of said medikit is a hell knight. I really like how this encounter makes you speed through it to safety, only to deal with an enemy that was hiding around a corner. Though once you dispose of the hell knight, taking the rest out is safe. One final hell knight and archie up here, then rocket the revs to return to the starting point and exit the map. Overall, this was a very hectic map. Kinda surprising it's showing up so early in the proceedings. Also, I always like it when I see authors that have been here a while still making maps 20 years later (looks at deetee's CC1 maps).

Tiramisu · July 3, 2023

I couldn't have chosen a better time for a first run in the DWmegawad club! Plutonia was always by far my favourite IWAD - I played it back in 2018 on UV/saveless, right after finishing DOOM 2 and I had an absolute blast. There was just something special about Plutonia - it could kill me over and over and over and so on, and I'd still jump right back with a smile on my face! That it looked absolutely fantastic was the cherry on top - it was my first contact with this level of deliberate architecture in DOOM, and what I saw sparked my mapping imagination like no other wad ever since (ok maybe except Sunlust).

That said, I never played any of the Plutonia-adjacent wads (Plutonia 2, PRCP1), so needless to say I'm super excited about what kind of tributes people have cooked up here!

For reference, I'm playing UV/saveless in GZDOOM (made to look as close to vanilla as possible). I might later drop down to HMP if the maps give me too much trouble.

Oh, and as an additional treat (for myself mostly lol), I'm gonna post some brief memories of the original Plutonia stages, with each map played!

MAP01 - Inception

Either I've gotten too good or Plutonia was much easier than I remember - that was my first thought when playing this one. Indeed it was an easy map - I kept expecting the Revenant hordes and Archviles out of nowhere, but it turned out to mostly be small-scale fights against some Imps, Chaingunners and Hell Knights, with only the fight at the end bringing out the big guns. Aside from one clumsy death right at the start, I ended up doing this one in a single try, and I don't really have much to say about it in the end.

Plutonia memories, MAP01 (Congo) - I remember being super excited at the brand new jungle theme, then super disappointed when they dropped it completely after Aztec.

MAP02 - Medieval Evil

I thought each map in the project was going to be a direct homage to the corresponding Plutonia map - Inception looked a bit like Congo, too. But as I've read in the posts here, the maps were supposed to be original, with PRCP1 being the more remake-focused project. Now Medieval Evil, it doesn't really look like any Plutonia map I remember - nor does it play like one, honestly, with a focus on incidental combat instead of huge traps and setpieces. The largely open layout also makes it easy to get lost, despite the small size of the map - I spent more time than I'd care admit looping around the many pathways, trying to figure out what to do with my newly acquired red key!

That said, even if it didn't remind me of Plutonia I did enjoy this map. The strongest point here was definitely the atmosphere - I loved the murky beachfront with a Revenant ambush pouring in as you stopped to admire the little boat below, and the castle was super interesting, both architecturally and layout-wise. The teleporting Chaingunners on its towers might have been a bit annoying at the start, but the crushing pile-driver that you can activate to get rid of them was honestly so hilarious to me that I just couldn't stay mad at the map :p

Plutonia memories, MAP02 (Well of Souls) - I didn't initially catch the Indiana Jones reference when I first played it, and died like three times on the invisible bridge part because I didn't know what to do!

MAP03 - Murder Well

Now that's more like it! Revenants right into your face! Monster snipers everywhere! Layers of traps upon traps upon traps! Constant, adrenaline-pumping action! This is what I remembered Plutonia to be like, and I honestly can't recall the last time my heart was racing like this when playing DOOM. And it's got the official Plutonia seal of quality, too - in that I died countless times, and respawned with a smile each time!

Overall, it's by far my favorite map of the first three. It's honestly amazing what was accomplished here with only 85 monsters. Standout encounters for me were... well most of them really! But what really stuck with me in the end was:

- the Arachnotron/Chaingunner gauntlets (the most threatening Arachnotrons in my recent memory - boy did I regret picking up that Invisibility sphere! XD),

- and the Hell Knight/Archvile fight at the end (now THAT was a terrifying duo!)

I could probably go on about the map but I think I'll cut it short here by saying it's great overall, and the only weak point was that maybe the visual side wasn't the best here - although the look was certainly Plutonia-ish, all right!

Plutonia memories, MAP03 (Aztec) - I remember this map being a huge difficulty spike for me. I liked the architecture (curved hallways!!) but I didn't enjoy the fights too much.

Order of preference (idea taken from DJVCardMaster just cause I think it's cool):

Spoiler

MAP03

MAP02

MAP01

Edited July 4, 2023 by sq. Tiramisu

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