The DWmegawad Club plays: Realm of Chaos 25th Anniversary Edition

[Cutman 999]

MAP06 - “Splatterhouse” by Steve Duff

 

I got scared seeing the killcount for a second, later i noticed most of it was reachable in secrets only, so i didn't bother, you just need to kill like half of the map anyways to exit. 

 

And, well, is one of the maps of all time. Some of the secret setpieces are good, the rest of the map is just bland hitscanner nonsense and navigating this maze of a level. It reminds me a lot of tnt, especially hanger for some reason. And for the benefit of this map, unlike most of tnt, you won't get lost every 5 seconds. But like tnt, this map is just completely dry of any enjoyment, since is just a 15 minute scavenger hunt that just ends when it feels like it, and unless you want to waste your time  secret hunting, it would not have any sort of enjoyment.

 

4/10

[cannonball]

MAP05 - “Mission Control” by Slava Pestov

 

Well I started my original review by complaining about map04 again, so I decided to redact that segment....

Quote

The start is complete BS. Complete RNG luckfest here.

The rest of the map is linear with a design quite similar to Map19 of MM2 with a lift with keyed doors on some of the sides. The difficulty is pretty easy once the start is dealt with, but it's non offensive and ok on the whole. The mastermind trap was rather limp though. And the sergeants at the end seem completely pointless.

Still better than map04 by a country mile though.

 

Well in todays review;

The start is still complete nonsense, though there is an obvious secret to help you out. The rest is simply a hub, which in this case turns out to be a lift. There are some really wonky design choices here, most notably the red key that requires pushing on an odd wall marked by an arrow (the rest of the map uses switches), but also the yellow key/yellow door is also rather wonky along with the blue key that require using the right teleporter and a leap of faith into nukage with extra demons. The mastermind placement is okay, still easy to clear but offers a little bit of resistance. 

Overall, this one still feels rather messy, but at least the Pestov platform has remained, removing this would have resulted in an instant F, even if Cammy had used this slot to create the next Mucus Flow....

[rehelekretep]

map03 fda

who decided on those stairs up to the penultimate room? disastrous.

 

map04 fda

loved this. great midi and a dangerous sense of mystery round each corner. didnt like that you can essentially block yourself from going down those lifts though. i had to camp the top to draw out the viles.

 

map05 fda

chaotic map. the mastermind is really annoying to try to get infighting. didnt really want to stay too long in this one.

[LadyMistDragon]

It's kind of interesting to me that a Mac level designer like Laz Rojas didn't end up joining the project, owing to the small size of the Mac community generally, but I guess he was mostly infatuated with Wolfenstein. Anyway.....

 

Map 05: Mission Control

by Slava Pestove

 

This...feels less like a retread of Map 01 and more like someone's usage of vanilla Doom II textures in an incredibly non-id way. That is sure a hairy beginning though! Naturally, I didn't think to lower the crate initially until everything was dead but in our defense, the shotgun is not easy to spot. It's kind of a weaker and less formed version of The Shaft from Memento Mori II, only with each wing having less substance. One room seems to riff off the Gauntlet's end, but with rad suits seemingly only accessible after blindly plunging from above. The arrow complaining is certainly amusing when it literally doesn't affect anything. The room right above it is a sort of storage room with a red key, a Super Shotgun, and a pinkie atop each of the crates. Upon the acquisition of this key, a closet opens up with Hell Knights and Cacodemons. It's probably better to come here before getting the blue key in the sewers since we get attacked by Cacodemons when we grab that.

 

At one point we even head outside and mow down hitscanners like there's no tomorrow, amidst a not-badly constructed natural environment. Unfortunately, the preponderance of hitscanners here underscores another issue: the tightly-controlled amount of health in a map crawling with former humans. It certainly prompted a restart or two.

 

The last challenge (confusingly accessed by another passage at the top of the lift of the one leading outside) sends lots of pinkies and some other enemies we can't immediately touch. Enter the central courtyard with the Mastermind though, and Arachnotrons attack! The rocket launcher was determined to not be such a good weapon for the Mastermind though because it's chance to inflict pain is lower than that of the Super Shotgun. No matter though, blue key raises some stairs, then opens the exit (garage door) that sends some stronger enemies out but nothing too challenging to someone who hadn't used rockets against the Arachnotrons.

 

One last thing, that's a good midi. It's really nice how it starts with a sort of cautious, perhaps slightly melancholic mood before exploding into something more energetic.

 

 

[Cilian]

Map06----------------------
First thing to say of course is that this map is massive compared any previous map of the wad. I think it's even similar to a late TNT map. For a big map it flows pretty well and you won't get lost much. It's only sad that the end is abrupt, there's no feeling of buildup up to it or a big fight near the end, it just suddenly ends in one room (I had no idea the map is anywhere near end until I saw the "exit" sign). Visually decent, I want to say on a similar level to knee deep in the dead, I didn't feel like this map is geometrically too simple or boring, and I found the detailing to be good enough to be unnoticeable. In this way it's similar to TNT too. Gameplay wise it's not super remarkable, a lot of killing of stray imps and hitscanners in corridors or through windows, but at least you aren't rocketing a spider mastermind here.

This map has 9 secrets out of which I found only 5 (I gave up.. First map without doing 100%), and lots of enemies most of which are in those secrets. With 5 secrets found I had only 50% kills in the end, which indicates that I'm missing a lot of the map, but I don't want to keep searching the secrets anymore and don't feel like opening the map in an editor. Perhaps I'd think differently of the gameplay had I seen the secret fights but they're hard to find on your own.

Also, never said this, but the midis are consistently great.
 

Spoiler

Blind saveless 2 attempts to reach the exit, after that started saving while secret hunting and died to damaging floors a few times.

 

[VoanHead]

MAP 04: SEWERS (Woof!, -complevel 2, -pistolstart, UV w/ Saves)

This map wasn’t too shabby! For being a sewer map (for about like the 2 times that it was b/c it switched textures/themes pretty frequent throughout exploring the map) it had some pretty exciting fights sprinkled here and there that kept you on your toes. Loved the combat section with the Niagara falls -esque slime pit where you get encircled by a small group of cacos and have to fend yourself w/ a rocket launcher. You either made quick work of them, or they would make quick work of you with their fireballs and infinitely tall height that does not allow you to maneuver so well. I also liked how the same area gets reused again after picking up the yellow key and in spawns some arachnotrons and a baron of hell. Shit gave me a surprise, but surprisingly didn’t result in me dying once like the caco-cloud from before. The secret plasmarifle really helps in this map, don’t forget to snatch it in the beginning. I also noticed that the map can be tackled differently as in you can get either the red or yellow key first and the second vice versa depending on where you go.

 

MAP 05: MISSION CONTROL (Woof!, -complevel 2, -pistolstart, UV w/ Saves)

This one gave me some E1 techbase vibes. But other than that, I didn’t find anything too outstanding in this map. Feels like it has way more hitscanners than the last map, as the outside area has a chock full of them that you can slaughter on mass w/ your trusty super shotgun like I did. It felt strangely cathartic, too. Anybody reading this, the intro w/ the huge shotgunner group may look scary at first, but look behind you for a secret and some cover and it gets ez to take em all out.

[Steve D]

I'm so glad that Cammy uploaded this great revision of RoC, though it does catch me at an awkward time insofar as my participation in this thread. I'm currently in an overtime program that won't end until December 16th, so I'll mainly be limited to playing my maps and offering other general comments. I'll discuss my playthrough of Map06 tomorrow.

 

To start, in May of 2021, I got a PM from Cammy asking if I'd like an Original Soundtrack for Realm of Chaos. I was very interested, but I had no idea who Cammy was. Also, as I explained to Cammy, I was "away from home" and using my phone to write, something I abhor doing. Away from home, in this case, meant I was at a rehab center, aka nursing home, recovering from surgery to my left foot. ;D So I asked for some examples of Cammy's work, was very impressed, and the ball got rolling. At first, I thought it was going to be an opportunity to correct some of my errors in the original megawad, and replacing it with this one, though I worried that the speedruns by Hitherto, Heretic, SAV88, and others would be obsoleted. But soon it became evident that we'd have 2 versions on idgames and that this one was going to see some significant revisions. I discussed the matter with fellow RoC alumni Rob Berkowitz, and he said Cammy could go right ahead.

 

The results exceeded my wildest expectations. The OST is phenomenal, and the map revisions breath new life into these maps, in most cases making them tougher than the originals.

 

Things don't stop there. Cammy became the music director for Realm of Chaos 2: The Revenge of '96, taking it from what would have been a partial OST to a fully bespoke soundtrack. Cammy also contributed a map in collaboration with @antares031. Here's a screenshot.

 

 

This is right after I finished the first of several big fights. 

 

At this point, it would be reasonable to say that no one has done more for the RoC franchise than Cammy. Thank you!

 

To answer a couple of questions, @LadyMistDragon I'm pretty sure none of us had heard of Laz Rojas at that time, though I became aware of him by late '96 or early '97 at the latest, and played a lot of WolfenDoom and AstroStein. The Mac Doom community was very small and not much connected to the PC community, and so it basically collapsed. At the time the RoC team was put together, we were practically the only Mac mappers available, in spite of our spiffy, easy-to-use editor Hellmaker. Here's an interface pic from DoomWiki;

 

 

@Roofi You guessed right about Sewers. Basically, with a small team of noob mappers and a 6-month deadline to create a full megawad, we didn't reject any maps that I'm aware of. Another thing is that I tested this map frequently and got to where I could beat it easily . . . most of the time. ;D  My strategy was to run to the Blue Armor room, kill the Revvie, use the corners for cover, and blast Archie with the SSG. Obviously, a first-time player would have no idea this possibility existed.

[Roofi]

Map 06 : Splatterhouse

Quote

 

 

My take will probably be unpopular but I sligthly prefer the original version over the new one. I honestly think the stock midi fits better than the new composition because Splatterhouse fundamentally plays like a relaxed mysterious exploration-oriented map. The new music feels too frenetic compared to the pace of the map to me. Im also not a huge fan of transforming the large areas located at the north-eastern part of the map into outdoors. The old version makes me feel more withdrawn and I therefore found it more immersive.

 

Also, the addition of new monsters was not so relevant to me because the low threat and low monster density really matched with the Iwad's midi.

 

I will not say that the new version is worse than the old one but it seems that Cammy tried to make this map feels more perilous than it actually is.

 

Keep in mind my opinion is a bit biased by the fact I missed quite a lot of content since the map has lot of secrets and monsters in them but it would probably have changed very little if I'd found everything.

 

Grade : B (13,5/20) - old version

Grade : B (13/20) - new version

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

Edited December 6, 2023 by Roofi

[Cutman 999]

MAP07 - “Deathstay” by Rob Berkowitz

 

I kind of dig this one. I like the lighting, probably a thing from the rerelease, and the combat wasn't so bad, i only disliked the tight hallway ones, lol after 4 maps they appear again. The blue key ambush and the finality fucking surprised me, even if they're not complex ambushes and they solve themselves, at least gave me more tension than anything in maps 5 and 6 combined. Decent, doesn't waste my time, is just a fun map to play if you have 10 minutes.

 

6/10

[Pechudin]

MAP06 (UV, PS, Saveless)
Bold decision to hide 50% of the enemies in a fairly obscure secret. I had to cheat to find it, it turns out it was a slightly offset texture. Come to think of it, the RL was also hidden behind a slightly offset wall texture. The music is again the higlight of the map, but the action itself is solid, if a bit fillery. The map felt like UDooM in its nonlinearity, wading in nukage, and in general it felt like an E1 Romero map, perhaps spruced up by Sandy (a la Suburbs's final fight). The fight itself is a fairly easy U-shaped affair, the baddies kill each other pretty easy. Good map.

 

EDIT:

@Cammy, is that MIDI new? Is that a Touhou reference, sounds like some Touhou music, at least there is a motif that sounds similar.

Edited December 7, 2023 by Pechudin

[Celestin]

MAP06: Splatterhouse by Steve Duff

 

A crawl through a slime base in search of two keys. The combat here consists of mostly low-tier enemies in large numbers, which seems to be the standard for Realm of Chaos, with a number of secrets to help you. While it leaves little to remember, it flows together nicely and I had a good time.

 

The sole exception is the plasma rifle secret, which I'm 99% certain was Cammy's addition (or at least was heavily reworked by them), as it just so unlike the rest of the map. It teleports in a horde of monsters in a large outer courtyard - while I can complain the only place where a plasma rifle feels needed is a secret where you obtain it, it was an effective setpiece that took me by surprise.

[UUN4]

MAP06: Splatterhouse

UV | Pistol start | No saves

K: 50% | I: 77% | S: 55%

For a pistol start, this map starts off pretty nasty and stays nasty. I was mostly stuck with the shotgun and chaingun to deal with enemies (meaning I had to pepper cacodemons, revenants, and hell knights with regular shotgun blasts); that isn't to say the combat in this level is bad because I did ultimately have fun with it. Also, by the time I reached the end of the map I had only gotten half of the secrets and kills thanks to the computer map in one of the secrets; I heard monster SFX and I kept trying to figure out how I could access the remaining part of the map, but I decided to cut my losses and decided to move on. At the very least, the music kept me invested.

Also, the text intermission music does a nice job at complementing the longer break between levels.

Edited December 6, 2023 by UUN4

[cannonball]

MAP06 - “Splatterhouse” by Steve Duff

 

Last time...

Quote

Ah unmarked exit :/

This map was rather easy, though somehow I died loads of time, ok that was due to one early trapped leaving me on 3% health :P

Visually the best map so far with some interesting secrets to boot. Gameplay could do with some more bite though.

 

 

Well this is a large and rather non linear map where you have to make quite a lot of effort to get 100% kills and plunder the rewards within. Otherwise you have roughly 180 of the over 400 monsters to kill with just the chaingun and shotgun where you can leave the level and feel very neutral about it. Luckily the computer map secret isn't too hard to find and with that you should get everything. The map is well put together and flows fairly well, but like in this playthrough the combat is a little dry and having the SSG, rocket launcher and plasma gun tied up in secrets is a risky move and unfortunately this time the effort didn't feel worth it and the rest of the map is a little too spacious to allow for fast run and gun at times. 

Worth noting that roughly half of the monsters are teleported in the secret plasma gun fight, this fight is also incredibly easy to beat, which in a way highlights the fact that the fact sides on he "probably not worth it" side of the scale. 

This is still a solid map though.

[Cilian]

Map07------------------------
The dead simple map slot. The most important question for such a map is how well it used the map slot, and in my opinion not very. The same map could easily be on a different map slot with minor differences, so as a map07 it's not very good.

Judging it as a normal map though it's solid enough. It's definitely a step up on the combat side from some previous maps. The beginning is pretty fun, it has lots of barrels to blow up the hordes of imps and zombies, mancubi can infight with the remaining imps while you shotgun them to death. You get the SSG here easily if you choose the right path that gives it to you first, and killing horde of imps and hitscanners in the other path takes less time. There's a cool fight where some imps and 4 hell knights come out, there's nothing that cool about it if you do it normally but you can run past the hell knights to activate another 4 revenants and let them infight which both lets you save ammo and is fun to do. The ending of the map is a bit questionable, you drop into a very tight corridor with a cacodemon, a revenant and a mancubus, and after you kill the last mancubus a bunch of non-threatening fodder teleports in. It's annoying but after it's taken care of you rocket several arachnotrons standing on elevated elevated pillars, which are a bit hard to aim at so it's easier to stand still but while standing still you are vulnerable to other arachnotrons so you have to be mindful.

This map has some fun moments and the less exciting ones are very brief, overall it's good.

Spoiler

Blind saveless, 1 death. I'm happy to say to myself that I don't care about secrets that I can't find in 5 minutes anymore.

 

[Celestin]

MAP07: Deathstay by Rob Berkowitz

 

I don't know what to think about this one. It has a brisk pace - the map wraps up in about 5 minutes, which are spent killing chaff. There are some entertaining fights, like the surprise in a basement, where you have to survive against the monsters that surround you, and a subsequent encounter where cacodemons block your path forward. On the other hand, the texture choice feels basic, the narrow corridor with teleporting monsters that leads to the exit is just bad and the map ends with an anticlimactic fight against arachnotron turrets. The negatives cancel the positive aspects, making this an average map.
 

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 06: Splatterhouse

by Steve Duff

 

Titles are stolen from late 80s arcade games to create...something that goes between techbase and brick but isn't terribly difficult. Well, we'll run into several Revenants before finding a chaingun and anything heavier is locked away in rather obscure secrets. Naturally, I missed the secret fight, but considering the length of the video and at least one fellow player finding it rather disappointing, that's probably for the best. It's not like the hidden computer map is going to be able to find pixel-thin doors. That said, I thought the door leading to the rocket launcher at least would have opened from the chaingunner closet it seems to be located in. It plays basically like basically every other Steve Duff map I've played which is to say quite interconnected and somewhat elaborate in structure but not exactly difficult if one doesn't mind running away from enemies. I do totally respect Steve's hitscan usage here. One last thing, the midi probably doesn't fit the map that well, but I really like how it transforms from symphonic gloominess into a weird hyper bit of electronica.

 

 

 

[VoanHead]

MAP 06: SPLATTERHOUSE (Woof!, -complevel 2, -pistolstart, UV w/ saves)

Explorative map time! A bit of an odd one, at least for me, since like half the monsters are still left to be killed when you finally get to the exit. Plenty of hitscanners peppered here and there, and for the most part you'll be regular and super shotgunning & chaingunning your way past these foes while you try your best to look for the keys required to progress. When I finally got to the exit, I decided to turn around and do some further secret hunting to see what I can find. That big open area was teasing me w/ the boxes of rockets placed outside, and while I managed to find 6/9 secrets, I could not figure out how to access the outside area. 18 minutes was spent fighting my way to the exit, and the 5-6 minutes I spent trying to figure out what I needed to do. I decided to just cut my losses and move on to the next map as well. I would say I'm a decent secret hunter sometimes when I don't read the doom wiki for a guide, but this time I got stumped. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Spectre01]

MAP06 - “Splatterhouse” by Steve Duff

 

When I see a vanilla map with over 400 monsters, it's either a behemoth of classic gameplay or there is one huge fight. The latter is the case here, with the blue key unlocking a ton of resources and some slaughter outside. There is enough space to run around and provoke infighting, though the Zombiemen give a reason to shoot back. This level is a massive improvement over the previous maps in nearly every way. The non-linear layout and architecture are significantly more interesting than some of the boxy rooms connected by tight hallways in the maps before. The one thing holding this map back is the late placement of the SSG, which makes the start rather slow.

Edited December 7, 2023 by Spectre01

[Steve D]

Map06 - Splatterhouse by Steve D & Cammy

 

Realm of Chaos debuted on Halloween night, 1996 . . . and this map wasn't in it. ;D

 

The original Map06 was by Slava Pestov. I have it on a hopefully still-workable Mac HD, but none of my old PowerMacs will boot. Because my Mac drives are SCSI, I'm looking for a modern SCSI-USB interface plus a Mac emulator to run them.

 

Once RoC was released I went on my merry way and began working on two multi-map projects; first, the Ultimate Doom maps that became Shotgun Symphony, and a group of Doom 2 maps that were finally released in 2017 as Abcess;

 

 

I had finished several of the maps for Abcess but lacked an opening map, and thus Splatterhouse was born.

 

I probably began work on Splatterhouse in January of '97, and it was in April or so that Rob Berkowitz emailed me with an urgent message that we had to replace Slava's Map06 immediately, or RoC would be removed from idgames because Map06 was too similar to id's E1M9. Rob didn't have anything available because he was working on Unreal deathmatch maps. Splatterhouse was in an advanced state but importantly not finished or polished, and I decided to send it rather than any of the tougher maps.

 

As Roofi said, this is a mellow map, since it was designed as a Map01, and as Pechudin said, it's very E1/Romero in style, namely because I was designing with the influence of Toxin Refinery.

 

I'm happy with all three versions of the map. Oddly enough, I died once in each. :D The original version has a bit more hitscanner abuse to chip you down and take you out, while the new version is spicier, mainly thanks to the Revvies at the start when all you have is the single shotty. They forced me deeper into the map in search of better weaponry. The Abcess version is relatively modern in appearance with a lot of gradient lighting and is also the most vicious, with 312 monsters and some nastier traps. Each newer version of the map has 3 more secrets than the last, as well.

 

Cammy's version has the toughest path to the outside area because you need to make a tricky shot on a Speed of Doom switch that appears and disappears as you walk over trigger lines. The switch, when activated, reveals the path to the secret Rocket Launcher and the Blue Key. You then need to grab the Blue Key and remember that a Blue Door exists. ;) As others have said, the outdoor fight is both massive and easy. One swing around was all it took to create an Infight Generator, allowing me to pick off survivors with ease. I'd rate it as one of the easiest fights in the map, tbh, and IMO it needs fixing. I also agree with those who say the end fight needs to be tougher. Happily, Cammy improved the exit by putting it in the final room, whereas in the original you teleported into the exit but there was no clue that you had reached the exit, and no way of getting back if you decided to search for any secret you missed. We didn't care about such things in the Mac Doom community in the '90s. ;)

Edited December 7, 2023 by Steve D

[Cammy]

On 12/5/2023 at 3:05 PM, cannonball said:

At least the Pestov platform has remained, removing this would have resulted in an instant F, even if Cammy had used this slot to create the next Mucus Flow....

 

No need to fret! I'm rather certain I did not remove a single Pestov platform from the entire megawad - Steve made sure to tell me of their significance. I want to say I even added a couple new ones here and there, but off the top of my head I'm not sure where.

 

Seems the consensus is that I still have a bit of work to do in map05 and map06. I have a rather nasty idea to spice up the final fight in Splatterhouse. As for map05, it's the blue key area that strikes me as needing attention, but I'll have to do some pondering about that one. Getting so many new perspectives on this megawad has been very valuable; it's funny how running through a flawed section of a map so many times will desensitize you to its flawed-ness even if it's not actually a map you made. I just got done making a newer version of map03's final fight that I like about ten times better, so hopefully the folks who are waiting for the idgames release will have a blast with this wad from the start.

 

Again, thank you all for playing - and thank you for the kind words about my music! I hope you guys are having (and continue to have) a good time overall. :)

[Cammy]

17 hours ago, Pechudin said:

@Cammy, is that MIDI new? Is that a Touhou reference, sounds like some Touhou music, at least there is a motif that sounds similar.

 

It's new, yes! I composed all the music in this wad, and none of it has ever been used in any previous projects. I didn't intentionally put a Touhou reference in this track, but I love Touhou music and listen to it all the time, so it doesn't surprise me to hear that the vibe worked its way in there.

[Roofi]

Map 07 : Deathstay

 

Quote

 

 

Cammy has furnished these empty rooms with more detail and monsters. I really like the cascades of lava and the gradations of light they create. The new version therefore has a darker atmosphere. Lot of RoC's maps from the original versions  tendto be brighter than the anniversary's ones. It will even be more the case in the second episode.

 

To tell the truth, I find the original version has the advantage of being a little more concise due to its simplistic nature, and it's nice to have a map like this after an exploration map. Both versions have their own qualities, I think the new one offers more appealing visuals and slightly denser and more challenging combat, while the old one is shorter and simpler and I like the stock midi as well.

 

On the whole, this map leaves me rather indifferent, a decent map 07 without anything transcendent.

 

Grade : C+  (11/20) - old version

Grade : C+  (11/20) - new version

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

Edited December 7, 2023 by Roofi

[UUN4]

MAP07: Deathstay

UV | Pistol start | No saves

K: 100% | I: 50% | S: 0%

This map was pretty straightforward and not too taxing. The most notable thing was that I didn't realize this was MAP07, so I forgot killing mancubi and arachnotrons to raise platforms was on the table; this left me in a bit of a panic in the final fight when the platforms raised to the last arena, but it wasn't enough to get me killed since I quickly noticed the megasphere. Before that though, the long tight corridor overseen by a single mancubus was relatively scary since it felt like I didn't have room to dodge the fireballs. Other than that and the kinda funky music track, I can't think of anything else to write down about this level.

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 07: Deathstay

by Rob Berkowitz

 

I have no idea what a Deathstay is....but nice midi. Almost sounds like it's going to be terrible at first but then that spazzy organ comes in and before this transforms into some stereotypically gothic thing, it proves to have the best rhythm so far and melody to boot! This latter aspect reaches a crescendo probably a third of the way in and that's not even getting into the rest!

 

The map itself is hard to comment on. I'm sure I had to have missed an early rocket launcher because otherwise the shaft leading to the exit would just seem like a bad design. Arguably, that might apply to the monster usage generally because the cramped layouts lead to at least one situation where monster will bunch up to block courtyard entrances. At least there's plenty of barrels in the opening hallways! Missed the Megarmor and other supplies, which I should've regretted but I don't remember if there was a rocket launcher here. Then kill the Mancubus at shaft's end (no comment) and bear witness to the most obligatory use of Tag 667 ever. Though we do get a couple of Revenants and some pinkies to sort of distract us. They could prove a greater challenge for others though.

 

 

 

 

[Pechudin]

MAP07: Deathstay (UV, PS, Saveless)
Explosive, trap-heavy and downright mean in the final room, this was a really fun map. The looks are very 90s, largely abstract and low-detail but very very functional. My favorite is the drop into the final corridor - the close quarters Revenant was kind of unfair if your close-range Rev-missle dodging is not on point but the final fight is frantic, especially for me because I got hit by a max-damage Rev rocket and had to scramble for the Megasphere. The action is punctuated by a really energetic MIDI. Music is really good throughout this WAD.

[Cutman 999]

MAP08 - “Research Lab” by Slava Pestov

 

First of all, shoutouts to the midi, without it probably that "abandoned place with secret teleporting equipment" wouldn't feel the same, is such a calm and serene theme that contrast well with the ambushes of the map.

 

About it itself, probably one of the maps that actualizes ROC as a Megawad. Is the only map for now that actually has a consistent theme, being one abandoned techbase with obviously dim lighting and hidden mechanisms of carnage, and it's one that actually thematically makes sense of its 90's gimmickry to make this place feel... Corrupted, just as the story text of doom 2 tried to convey the sense of very abstract architecture as fault of the demons presence on earth. 

 

Obviously is a linear map from its tricks and traps esque start, and you can point out progression for those fireblu switches inside of walls, less is more like I said, with simple concepts and motifs just guiding the player organically. Pacing is also very good, with fights that end quickly and satisfying enemy formations, navigation also being really streamlined and not being overcomplicated for the sake of being so. 

 

Best set piece of the map being the yellow key one, that teleporting ladder feels like a buildup to the teleporter on top of the facility, spewing lower tier demons in a reduced space akin to e1m6's from og doom finality. Idk if you can cheese it but for these reasons, i like it a bunch conceptually and in gameplay. 

 

The Aquiles heel of this map is unfortunately the final elevator ambush, that gives a similitude to tricks and traps cyberdemon room. This ambush solves itself and unless you are surprised by the arachnos, tension doesn't exist. Also, that i don't like that it switched the texture scheme out of nowhere at the last second with its red stone hellish feel.

 

But overall, very solid map, if cammy was responsible for accomplishing the potential of the original in this state we're playing today, huge shoutouts. Maybe my perception of the map is a bit exagerated, but after playing 4 bland maps, seeing a hint of quality is enough to give some praise.

 

8/10 

[Insaneprophet]

Just throwing in my two cents to say that Im reading all of these. Everyones thoughts and opinions seem very interesting to me, both new players and creators. My only issue is my memory and a continual need to look back at my own review to remember what map we are talking about. 😃

Edited December 7, 2023 by Insaneprophet

[cannonball]

MAP07 - “Deathstay” by Rob Berkowitz

 

Before

Quote

This map does feel rather disjointed visually. Ammo is pretty tightly balanced. Infighting is far too easy to make happen and the map07 stuff is too easy to either avoid or just plain skip.

Oh forgot about the caged pinkies, what was that about :P

I didn't feel too much hatred towards the map, but not a lot of love either.

 

Now;

 

This was a little on the nose and there are some mis-steps here and there, but overall this was pretty fun. Now there are some issues, for example some fights can bottleneck quite badly, notably the one with the mancubus that is surrounded by barrels, also the end fight is staged in a rather clunky manner with those narrow corridors, but the resulting fight isn't too bad when the walls lower.

Overall, not too bad.

[VoanHead]

MAP 07: DEATHSTAY (Woof!, -complevel 2, -pistolstart, UV w/ saves)

Ay, I think I've seen a screenshot of this somewhere before! Overall, not a shabby map. The intro and split pathways towards the big circular room where you fight the cacodemons and the square room w/ the mancubus caged in the center were no big deal. However, once I got down to the lower level w/ the slim hallway I got jumpscared by the revenants once I killed the final mancubus lmao. I'm surprised I didn't wind up harming myself shooting the rocket launcher down a cramped hall and ate a face rocket. The end was meh but I tried to make it more interesting by only killing the arachnotrons w/ their own medicine and raining plasma on all 5 of them.

[Pechudin]

MAP08: (UV, PS, Saveless)
Hmm, the opening room looks like Tricks and Traps, and indeed the map has many callbacks to the original map. The rooms on the side are kinda filler, but the take on the Cyber-Baron room was much more entertaining than the original. It was fun making U-shapes around the room and instigating infighting. The SMM was kind of an dissapointment.