The DWmegawad Club plays: Doom 2 in City Only [vote now]

dobu gabu maru · April 1

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 DOOM 2 IN CITY ONLY (RC6) HERE<<<

Know what's pretty cool? Big city maps? Know what's hypothetically the coolest? A whole megawad full of 'em! Doom 2 in City Only is a MBF21 community project spearheaded by myolden that will take you across six varied landscapes with some jaw-dropping visuals. Due to the size of these maps it's recommended to play with OpenGL. Time to ~~sightsee~~ slaysee, tourist!

Author & Maplist:

Episode 1: Modern City

MAP01 - "Hellions on Parade" by moyolden

MAP02 - "Simple Complex" by thiccyosh

MAP03 - "Waffle Town" by Amiga Angel, taviow

MAP04 - "CBM City" by CBM

MAP05 - "The Nuclear Power Plant" by Novaseer

Episode 2: Future City

MAP06 - "Somewhere in time" by LateNightPerson

MAP07 - "Darkweb" by cannonball

MAP08 - "Crypto Crash" by LVENdead

MAP09 - "A City Now" by realjohnmadden

MAP10 - "Upon the Brink of Trancendence" by muumi

Episode 3: Egyptian City

MAP11 - "Sons of Belial" by myolden

MAP12 - "Princes of Wadi" by Sikreci

MAP13 - "City of the Dying Sun" by Death Bear

MAP14 - "Takamet Baphomet" by senpaigru

MAP15 - "Sunlit Promenade" by taviow

Episode 4: Underground City

MAP16 - "Ex Nihilo" by myolden

MAP17 - "Colossal Wreck" by Weird Sandwich

MAP18 - "Reservoir of Muck" by PRO-RC

MAP19 - "Silent Submergence" by JacaCaca

MAP20 - "A Wilted Clover's Lullaby" by eater29

Episode 5: Hell City

MAP21 - "Cruels End" by Shawny

MAP22 - "Lifeless Sanctum" by Snaxalotl

MAP23 - "Idumea" by taviow

MAP24 - "Blur Affinity" by Scionox

MAP25 - "Eternal Dis" by cannonball

Episode 6: Void City

MAP26 - "Welcome to Nothing" by NeilForshaw

MAP27 - "The Consumed Metropolis" by ABearInThaWoods

MAP28 - "Village and Void" by NinjaDelphox

MAP29 - "Void Masquerading As Matter" by myolden

MAP30 - "Sin City" by NecrumWarrior

Episode 7: Secret Maps

MAP31 - "Traces to Nowhere" by Captain Murphy

MAP32 - Obama Hamburger 2" by Ludi, myolden

MAP33 - "Wanted in 12 Systems" by Death Bear

MAP34 - "Bricked Up" by BluePineapple72

MAP35 - "The Great Gib in the Sky" by Danlex

MAP36 - "Anti-Life" by muumi

BONUS CONTENT

TBA

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OLD THREADS

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Edited May 28 by dobu gabu maru

Insaneprophet · April 1

Doom 2 In City Only

Map 01: Hellions On Parade by myolden

"Hello, my name is Prophet and I like Doom 2 lvl 13 Downtown." Oh wait, wrong club...

Ive already made it halfway into this set and am only too happy to restart and play with the club this month. Ive always had a thing for city levels in doom, I dont care if its someone trying to improve on the genre or not. So starting out we have a very myolden map, well constructed, designed and textured. It offers mostly an introductory gamplay with mild incedental fighting and fairly small and tame traps. I think its brilliant as a map 1, its difficulty is reminisent of what you might find in Nostalgia but the size feels more like what you would get more towards of the middle of most mapsets, letting us know, this isnt Scythe inspired and we had best be ready to invest some time into these levels. Did I mention I like city maps? 😝

Edited April 1 by Insaneprophet

Novaseer · April 1

I'll have you know that, given Greek roots, it'd be "metropolides". Maybe. No promises that I'm actually correct on that one. :p

Given that I'm, y'know, in this one, on the 5th I'll probably give some kind of analysis as to my thought process behind MAP05 instead of giving in to my urge to be extremely biased, kinda like the Eviternity II guest mappers did on their days when that was the WAD of the month.

Other than that, same deal as before. dsda-doom 0.27.5, UV pistol starting each map. I'll probably use saves this time around, because these maps are quite a bit larger and harder than Nostalgia's, but I won't need them on MAP01 (and probably not on MAP05 either, given that I know it inside out). Assume the latest RC unless I say otherwise.

Also: I playtested the first 15 non-secret maps as part of being on the team, so I won't necessarily be blind for them - even if some changed quite a lot since internal playtesting (looking at you, MAP03)

MAP01 "Hellions on Parade" by myolden (100% K/S, 75% I, 14:28)

One of the most brisk maps in D2ICO, and still longer than anything in Nostalgia to uv-max, even with foreknowledge. Buckle up, lads.

Hellions on Parade is a great opener. It - admittedly probably not 100% intentionally, given that this is a community project - eases the player into the kinds of combat they can expect, without ever going too hard for the player to handle. It looks great, plays fast, and has lots of fun optional side-content and doomcute like the (unfortunately not working for me) health potion vending machine - unsurprising, given that those latter elements were in the rules and myolden is the project lead.

That, and it makes for a nice transition between Nostalgia last month and what's in store for us next.

Death Bear · April 2

Looks like I’m back for round 5! 🤣 looking forward to seeing what y’all think. I’ll add some comments in mid-month about my maps, for those interested. Not sure I’ll be able to keep up with the playthrough, but I’ll try.

ABearInThaWoods · April 2

Oh wow, that was quick eh? Well it'll be the first time I'll have a map in the club so that's both exciting and terrifying.

I'll try to play along and when we get to my map I'll just talk about the process of creating it. I'll wait until tomorrow to drop my thoughts on both maps 1 and 2.

myolden · April 2

Wow, cool to see this get picked up so fast. To make sure you guys have the best experience possible I've uploaded RC5 in the launch thread.

cannonball · April 2

MAP01 - "Hellions on Parade" by myolden

A surprisingly fleshed out opening map that surpasses anything in Nostalgia in terms of size. The map on the whole play well too and again I am surprised to see everything up to weapon 6 being given out. That also means you will face mid tiers in a rather sizeable number as well. This map was probably a little on the large size for an opening map, but it offers enough thrills and good visuals to set the tone nicely. I could not find out how to get one secret (The one near the soulsphere), but hey ho.

MAP02 - "Simple Complex" by thiccyosh

I really struggled with the rooftop section and even after exploring and finding the plasma gun and the SSG I totally missed at the beginning, this section was still no fun to play, the pop-up baron by the switch is just a terrible idea. That is a shame because actually the rest of the map moves along fine and that one section feels at odds with the rest of the map that feels quite easy-going (The zombieman splatterfest being a casing point). The trouble is finding the hardest part of the map early can really leave a sour taste. In the end this was an okay map but I struggled to get into the groove with this one, especially compared to the first map.

Edited April 2 by cannonball

Spectre01 · April 2

I like a good city map. Due to their often non-linear nature, they can be a fun open world to explore. They also tend to be on the longer side and are likely to feature a weapons hunt at the start, which I don't always enjoy. Hopefully this wad has a good mix of gameplay and themes to differentiate the maps. DSDA-Doom, UV, and pistol starts with saves.

MAP01 - "Hellions on Parade" by moyolden

Nice animated sky. Pretty big map for an opener, focusing largely on small traps and encounters around points of interest. The Plasma Rifle feels like the most important pickup as it trivializes the majority of the fights. Since the map is non-linear, I can see it being hard to balance the difficulty as you never know what weapons the player picked up previously before heading into a fight. In my case, I cleared the Chaingun area last right before heading for the exit.

Edited April 2 by Spectre01

Novaseer · April 2

MAP02 "Simple Complex" by thiccyosh (100% K/S, 62% I, 18:04, saves)

It took me far too long to get the play on words in the title.

I don't think there's a single map for the rest of the run where I'm going to get 100% items, by the way. Health vials litter most of these maps and I can't be arsed picking them all up.

Simple Complex is already a step up from Hellions on Parade in terms of difficulty, although that is because of two factors:

the limited amount of armour early on, meaning that you'll notice the zombiemen a lot more,
the rooftop fight.

I'm not going to go so far as to say that Simple Complex is the rooftop fight, but most of the rest of the map is pretty light-hearted incidental combat - and the rooftop fight instead opts to throw a pop-up Baron at you and shower you in revenants, chaingunners and meatballs of varying spice. There's a reason I did it last - having the plasma rifle helped immensely, as it allowed me to clear a path back to relative safety instead of letting myself get sandwiched. Even with that and my preeminent foreknowledge, I still scored a death because Revenant rockets are Revenant rockets.

P.S. Apparently this map has an unmarked super-secret that activates a "hard mode", though it is not required for 100% kills. If any of you are struggling a little bit too much, that might be why.

Insaneprophet · April 2

Map 02: Simple Complex by thiccyosh

This felt different than when I played it during RC 1, just a hand full of things and places that played out differently, maybe I just played differently as there is no fixed progression. Another open sandbox that can have you pick any key path and has the option of playing fast and loose or slow and methodical. There was nothing here that I didnt enjoy and I was seriously happy that I was able to figure out the soulsphere secret that elluded me on my first go-round, even if I had to force myself to let go of the 1 missing item I had at the exit. Till next time... oh wait... did I mention that I really like city maps? 😝

Celestin · April 2

Woof!, -cl 21, pistol-start with saves, blind

I'm not playing new wads that often, so I'm interested in seeing what contemporary mappers are doing. On the other hand, a 36-maps marathon of large levels? I guess it fits after the brisk Nostalgia, but damn, that's going to be rough.

MAP01: Hellions on Parade by myolden

D2ICO starts with a relatively low-impact map, set underneath a lovely evening sky. It's a pretty map, with stock-textured skyscrapers and few nice details that wouldn't feel out of place in Nostalgia's middle part. Like the pier by the river or a working vending machine.

The place is very open, but only the exit is locked behind three keys - the place is a sandbox for the player to explore in search of keys and guns. I really like this approach, as there's very little dead time, you are either dealing with traps, or incidental enemies that are scattered around the place. I think the only fight that I felt threatening was the rocket launcher trapdoor. This is because I stumbled into this place early with nothing but a scavenged shotgun. Then I found a plasma rifle and the used it to clear any ambush the map threw at me.

Hellions on Parade is a pretty chill opening, set in a map that doesn't overstay its welcome.

MAP02: Simple Complex by thiccyoshi

I guess there is some lore behind why the map starts with you jumping out of the window. Anyway, compared to the previous map, Simple Complex looks more grimy, with heavy use of concrete, nukage and overall deterioration. The detailing was definitely given a lot of attention and it shows. I think this is the high point of the map, as I'm not on board with its gameplay.

It's a quite large map that sends a handful of imps and zombies at you. The yellow key, placed in a flooded square of sorts, left little impression, but the horde that appear when you grab a plasma rifle or getting sandwiched by two masses of zombies when trying to obtain the red key are where I think the bulk of kills are. Not that they are hard, but it's entertaining to blow stuff. The blue key fight on the hotel's rooftop is another story, as this place is quickly gets filled with monsters. I died here and had to restart the map, as I forgot about saving. Now, I've noticed a strange device near the start that teleported me into a dark room with only a teleporter back. After restarting, I investigated it again, only to be lead in front of a fleshy monstrosity. This is apparently how you trigger the hard mode, which adds archviles to every major fight. This made a rooftop even harder, even when I came prepared with cells. There are three of them on the nearby skyscrapers and fourth teleport in when you lower the key. Hard mode or not, this feels out of step with the rest of the map.

Simple Complex looks great, can't deny that, but I wished its difficulty stayed more consistent.

cannonball · April 2

MAP03 - "Waffle Town" by Amiga Angel, taviow

Hmm, I'm not sure about this one, there are a lot of themes stuffed into a large area of space, most of the monsters are imps but there are some fun fights embedded in here and you will get enough rockets to obliterate most of the fodder. In the end it feels too big for its own good and as such the big fights only account for a small amount of playtime whilst wandering sparse areas and cramped tenements that reside near the start.

I found the secret exit, though I am unsure whether this was by accident or not.

In the end this didn't drag as badly as I thought it might, but I personally found it to be a neutral experience and lacked a cohesive vision that could have carried the theme far better (Lots of doomcute but also large empty and somewhat bland areas).

I will play the secret map tomorrow I think.

LVENdead · April 3

I contributed map 8 to this project and did a LITTLE bit of playtesting. Most of the playthroughs will be blind although I've seen every single map.

MAP 01 - Hellions on Parade / myolden

Fun opener. I agree with others who say it sets the stage for the rest of the project well. Some of these maps are massive and very open-ended, and this one is big for an opener. The visuals get a lot of mileage from simpler shapes and texturing which still make for a compelling cityscape. This map also shows off myolden's setpiece combat chops, which at times make him seem like a disciple of Skillsaw's (a couple of notable "floor drops you into an ambush" traps for example). I haven't played a myolden map I don't like, but the gameplay in this one does kind of blur together with the rest of them to some degree, although was made a little more interesting by me not finding the PG until the end of the map. It's okay, I'm aware that he really does know how to twist the screw when he wants to, and as a result this one demonstrates quite a bit of restraint.

Solid way to kick off the WAD.

MAP 02 - Simple Complex / thiccyoshi

This one was a bit of a mixed bag for me. On one hand, I enjoyed most of the progression/layout and the visuals quite a lot. The geometry and interconnectedness of many areas kept me captivated for most of the map. The theming, detailing of the different areas, and all the doomcute were delightful. I liked the way the different paths flowed, even though I was never really clear on my objective until I actually finished the map. The individual key paths tended to make it pretty obvious you were chipping away at progress, including at least one one-way path to keep you on track.

On the other hand, the balancing and pacing were off for me. There are a few places where you can really screw yourself with a bad quicksave, due in part to the disbursement of resources; which is to say, for such an open map I was surprised to feel so lacking in health and ammo for most of it. Outside the key fights, which are appropriately setup as arena fights, the rest of the combat is a lot of incidental churn and burn against fodder (not that I always mind it, especially when exploring is interesting). However, the rooftop fight was a large unexpected spike in difficulty and action, owed to the monster density and cramped arena, and the low amount of resources meaning basically every one of my weapons was empty by its end. Embarrassingly, I died over and over to this fight until I caved and popped a midfight save, dying repeatedly to random chip damage be it an errant former human shot, or a lost soul from one of the TWO pain elementals floating about. Not one of my finer moments for sure.

Not one of my favorite maps, but I didn't outright dislike it either.

Spectre01 · April 3

MAP02 - "Simple Complex" by thiccyosh

Whereas the visuals and layout of the first map were very much a Doom city, map02 seems a lot more Build (or more specifically Duke 3D) with its scale, textures, and realistic detailing. I found the flesh nightmare "hard mode" area almost right away, which appears to add additional Archviles and some other enemies to the fights. Most of them are not too bad, though I call bullshit on getting zapped behind here in the water fight. A single Radsuit for the following slime section is also a bit tight for anyone exploring for the first time. The rooftop encounter is the most challenging, but the two Viles on the buildings across are a chore to remove. The main fight there is nicely chaotic and reminds me of Going Down.

cannonball · April 3

MAP31 - "Traces to Nowhere" by Captain Murphy

In short, this is a definite homage to Suburbs, which is one of the best city episode maps from Doom 2, the trouble is for this map is that the map this is homaging is better than this map.

The six key hunt is a little bit of a pain and essentially means that the vast majority of the map is mandatory, the map gives you plenty of ammo but not a lot of health. In the end I baited the cyber to infight the mastermind after she got stuck behind the switch that was opened by the red keycard because killing her herself was something I didn't want to do, ironically in my attempt here both monsters somehow killed each other at the same time. In the end I felt like quite a bit of the fun had been sucked out of the original. The archviles that get released offer a bit of tension but the big blowouts that are the thing you remember from Sandy's map are just lacking here and adding boss monsters don't really add much to the event.

This wasn't a bad map but if you are refering one of the original maps, you really need to make sure that the final product is up to the same fun factor, if not higher and unfortunately that isn't achieved here.

Novaseer · April 3

MAP03 "Waffle Town" by Amiga Angel and taviow (100% K/S, 76% I, 22:31, saves)

Yes indeed, folks, that's a quadruple digit kill count and non-secret BFG in MAP03. Your eyes do not deceive you.

Luckily for you, the vast majority of those 1000 monsters are imps, and you're given enough rockets to kill every Icon of Sin ever made.

I happen to very much like absurdist slaughtery rocket romps (Eviternity II MAP32 is probably my favourite map ever for a reason) so the combat here is very much up my alley, even if I feel it's a little early in the WAD (though I can't talk). The visuals, though, are rather hit or miss. Some areas of the map are absolutely lavished in detail with tons of doomcute, others have like 6 flat lines in a main fight area. Although, having the insider knowledge that I do that Amiga Angel hit the sidedef limit, I can't entirely blame 'em.

Multiple automaps, so don't even bother going for 100% items.

MAP31 "Traces to Nowhere" by Captain Murphy (100% K/S, 50% I, 9:42, saves)

Obvious Suburbs homage is obvious.

The first time I played through Traces to Nowhere, I wasn't exactly a fan. On repeat playthroughs... it's alright, but you really need to know where the weapons are if you want a chance to have fun. MAP03 with a half-dozen redundant rocket launchers this is not.

Despite being (I did not fact-check this) possibly the only sub-100 monster map in the entire WAD, there's some bite to the combat. There's some pretty damn mean Archviles on display here, enough of the relative population is Revenants to make the Casalis blush, and you'll have to squash both a Cyberdemon and a Spider Mastermind for 100% kills - though at least those you can fight on their own with a fully loaded plasma gun if you're smart about it.

I can't blame the visuals for being the worst of any map yet, because Doom II wasn't exactly photogenic either, and it's clear Traces to Nowhere prioritises nostalgia over modern sensibilities - which is a good change of pace in a contemporary mapset like this.

Sidenote: I finished on 1hp no armour. Not even close, baby. Good thing I pistol start.

Edited April 3 by Novaseer

Celestin · April 3

MAP03: Waffle Town by Amiga Angel and taviow

I won't lie, my heart sank when I saw the monster count. A thousand monsters and the start once again drip-feeds you with singular chaff, so I braced myself for a complete slog of a map. It wasn't that bad. For once, the bulk of the kills is made of like 400 imps that appear at one point or rocket/BFG dumps by the keys. Still, it takes a while, 40 minutes of in-game time in my case, which to be completely honest, doesn't bode well for the wad's digestability.

So, Waffle Town. It's a meticulously constructed part of a city, complete with a shopping district, medieval castle and a stadium. If you want to leave through the regular exit, you have to find three key cards. The blue one is on the roof on a church, the yellow one is on a fountain that releases a group of revenants and the red key is in the castle, guarded by a mastermind, pinkies and an archvile or two. If you know what to do, you can get them without much hassle, though I'd recommend clearing out the archvile fountain, as the viles are guarding the BFG.

The secret exit isn't hidden at all, but you also need three skulls and to get them, you have to go through the toughest challenges of Waffle Town. The silver techbase (some sort of waste processing facility?) lacked space, especially when I visited this place early with only cell weapons. The monsters here are on the tankier side, so my best guess was to spam rockets at the baron that blocked the exit switch and escape. The ammo factory has you avoid a cyberdemon and other projectile tossers, only to have you hold ground against a wave of archviles and hell knights later. Finally, the volleyball stadium is a BFG spam where you circle around imps and revenants. With all keys, kill the last batch of archviles and you can leave through a strange portal.

The coauthors can be proud of themselves, Waffle Town managed to turn me around with its variety of sights and a ton of intricate sector art. At the same time, though, exploring this place left me exhausted and despite leaving it impressed, I'm not sure if I want to revisit it in the future.

MAP31: Traces to Nowhere by Captain Murphy

The first out of six secret maps of D2ICO is Suburbs tribute except less fun. It lacks the large-scale fights the original is known for (the monster count is actually half of Petersen's map and, due to larger size, the opposition is more spread out), the mastermind and cyberdemon contribute little besides extending the playthough (I couldn't even get them infighting) and the basic visuals look like something from a completely different wad. That being said, I like the supercharge secret and how the switch it activates is hidden. It's probably a work of a novice, so as a piece of constructive criticism I'd recommend increasing the enemy density a bit, so the large outdoor area can be used for a bigger fights that perhaps could give the bosses something to do.

taviow · April 3

Hello, I suppose it's fitting to leave a comment to explain how the co-authoring on MAP03 worked.

Originally this map was made by Amiga Angel as a solo effort. They agreed to let me help later with the gameplay side of the map, basically constructing setpieces for each of the keys and the random encounters scattered across the map.

But the entire layout and all the doomcute were made by Amiga Angel.

For the combat, I intended to deliver an experience that was fairly relaxed as this is just MAP03 so in the grand scheme of things it's not intended to be challenging. Even with that in mind, the map still ends up feeling quite long if you choose to 100% it, due to the time commitment of finding all 6 keys, however in this and a few other maps, the exit can be opened earlier than that.

Non-linearity was one of the project's goals, along with offering fully optional content to the player, and in this map that manifested itself as the 3-key exit with an extra 3 keys being required for the secret exit, along with a series of optional locations that you can explore.

While this turned out to be one of the larger maps in E1, hopefully it still plays briskly with the laid back combat and the keys being placed in locations where they are not too difficult to find.

Edited April 3 by taviow

Insaneprophet · April 3

Map 03: Waffle Town by amiga angel and tavoiw

This map is quite large with alot to explore and the monster count is super heavy but with how it plays out I feel like, along with the first two levels, its the knock out punch in a perfect 1 2 3 combo. More than enough ammo and health are provided to make taking down the thousand plus demons an enjoyable and relaxing tour of simple slaughter setups. The first time I played this on RC1 it made my PC chug so hard that I turned the resolution all the way down to get to a playable frame rate but for what ever reason this time around I was able to keep the graphics turned up and only had to deal with complete screen freeze ups like four times, and two of those times were when I was looking for the last two secrets at the end. Anyways, the doom cute and architecture is amazing and the fights are all easily handled with the large weaponry supplied, the only nit pick I might have is that the theming is kinda all over the place but honestly, I didnt mind one bit. I dont know if Ive said this before or not but I love city levels. 😝

Insaneprophet · April 3

Map 31: Traces Of Nowhere by captian murphy

The first time I played this I dont think I even noticed the overly striking, unmissable, slaps you right across cheek and yells in your face, resembalance this has as an homage to Suburbs. Dont know how I missed it but I did. Saw it from go on this play through and I would have to agree with others here that it is indeed weaker than its inspiration. That said I still had a good time with it and its short enough that its lack of intricate detailing and mostly random seeming fights dont over stay any welcome. Its placement here also makes it feel like a slight breather after the monumental openers and as a secret map it doest hurt progression of the wad because secret maps are all over the place anyways. So all told, I would say, no harm no foul, its still a city map and if ya havnt heard... I like em. 😝

Edited April 3 by Insaneprophet

LVENdead · April 4

Map 03 - Waffle Town / Amiga Angel & taviow

You know, on paper this is a map I don't think I should like, but I think I played it at the right time because I enjoyed basically the whole thing. It's absolutely a turn your brain off and shovel some popcorn into your mouth type of map and I'm okay with that. The decision to cough up everything except plasma weapons right at the start certainly is one, but it also means you can just kind of get going on the map immediately. The keys provided more than enough impetus to explore, meaning my main goal was just keeping my weapons stocked which the map was more than willing to do. Multiple traps result in massive imp spam ambushes but if you tell me hearing the sound of a half dozen imps gibbing at once ever starts getting old to you, I'm going to call you a liar. I actually liked the volleyball court ambush quite a lot, which had a fun timed aspect to it where I scrambled to kill as many revs as possible before they all got free.

Visually this map is all over the place. Amiga Angel has a stellar attention to microdetails and Doomcute, making up for the more uninspired bigger geometry. The idiosyncrasies in the map's theming ends up being more endearing than offputting, because of course there's a giant castle and a moat in the dead center of a "Waffle Town" (which had more toilet stores than waffles by my count although I may have missed something), or random bulldozers and track vehicles everywhere, and for some reason this doesn't bother me in the slightest because it's all so damn silly.

Overall, this map is like engorging on a McDonald's Double Quarter Pounder and gulping an entire Coke in one chug; specific to a particular type of craving, maybe a little unsightly from the wrong angle, probably not something you want every day, and immensely satisfying when the mood calls.

cannonball · April 4

MAP04 - "CBM City" by CBM

Like Map03, this felt a little all over the place in terms of visuals, some areas have tonnes of doomcute whilst others would look bare by Doom 2 standards, I would add that while I understand the need to keep the skybox quite low (Streetlamps effectively), it does make the upper level feel quite flat. There is a tonne of ammo and the only weapon you need to look for is the plasma gun. You won't need the ammo though because most of the monsters will slaughter each other, especially when the cyber gets involved, the only risk is from the archviles that you need to isolate and remove before they become a handful.

The plus side on this map is that it is over quickly, and there is fun to be had. Though it is hard to ignore some of the flaws in this one and in some ways this one commits the same ones as the previous map did. Personally I prefer a good canvas as a base to put doomcute on than concentrate on minute details and leave the rest as a rather bland affair, especially as you and running around faster that Usain Bolt.

Novaseer · April 4

MAP04 "CBM City" by CBM (crazy, that) (100% K/S, 89% I, 10:55)

Off the bat: the only reason I was able to get 100% secrets was foreknowledge (again, I can't talk, but still). Flushing all three RGB toilets on the map will raise the path to the invulnerability. If this saved you 20 minutes, you're welcome.

In essence, CBM City is one big slaughter fight in a raised (rooftop?) neighbourhood, where you'll spend half your time circle strafing around and watching as the Cyberdemon kills everything. It's not exactly the most subtle map of the set so far, but much like MAP03 it's pretty good mostly-mindless fun. Just... don't forget to pick up all the weapons like I did on my first attempt, that won't go down well.

Like in MAP03, and as @cannonball observes, it does feel like a lot of the visual budget went into the doomcute, and at certain points I feel like the map is too cramped for its other visual ideas to properly flourish.

That being said, my own reservations about naming the map after its author aside, it's certainly not a bad map, and its brevity is appreciated between the behemoths that sandwich it.

P.S. Shoutout to CBM for making some commitment to interconnectivity by teleporting the player into the elevator that MAP05 starts off with them exiting.

Insaneprophet · April 4

Map 04: CBM City by cbm

This one is just a big playground of a lvl, a couple of city blocks acting as an arena of sorts for what isnt technically a combat setpiece, more of just an infestation to be eradicated. The three keys needed to exit are trapped but not by anything too difficult and there are a bunch of secrets hidden about. I feel like this map was more about creating the environment than it was about making a well layed out, thought out level with progression and combat puzzles. Like I said, a playground, and I will take all the different takes on a city map as are being offered up. For someone like me, an avid lover of city maps, a full megawad is the perfect place to get all the variety I could ever hope for. 😝

Celestin · April 4

MAP04: CBM City by CBM

Someone left the door to your jail cell opened, so you can leave the police station and witness the city under an alien invasion - I assume the monsters came from the flying saucer hanging over one corner. How the map works is once you get outside, you'll trigger the enemies, the bulk of which clumped in one place and took themselves out. Archviles were the scariest, but I've managed to single most of them out and for the one that got himself in the middle of a crowd, I've just spammed him with rockets. The map puts ammo everywhere, though you need to look a bit for the plasma rifle.

To be honest, once the initial fight is over (which, mind you, isn't that hard thanks to the available space and resources), the map winds down. It's mostly clean-up and searching the place for the keys, each guarded by a small trap that doesn't look impressive compared to 250 monsters opening. I feel like something isn't working as well as it should. If the goal was to make a single fight that necessitate looking for resources under pressure, then there's too much stuff laying on the streets or the enemies aren't overwhelming enough. On the other hand, if the map was supposed to be a chill exploration of an admittedly pretty place, putting the bulk of monsters early on might feel like too much.

TL;DR: a handsome map, but the gameplay lacks a clear identity.

Novaseer · April 4

MAP05 "The Nuclear Power Plant" by me (100% K/S, 74% I, 39:32)

Stats are from a run I did just now for the sake of due diligence.

So... the write-up on the theory of everything, and all that, how my map came to be, etc etc etc.

The overarching concept of the map was decided very early - a massive city with large buildings each representing their own route, which were to play as micro-maps of their own. The themes were blocked out early too, and are as follows - though I can't promise you'll actually notice the resemblance:

UAC office building (Starting area)
Luxury hotel (Red key route)
Factory (Blue key route)
Shopping centre/mall (Yellow key route)
Military base (Plasma Rifle route)
and of course, the final fight in the titular nuclear power plant

Before I'd even laid lines I'd also decided on how progression through them would work (which I actually hashed out with myolden in voice shortly after joining the project) - any one of the three keys, which can be grabbed in any order, can open the final fight, but all three would be needed to acquire the BFG - and without doing the plasma rifle route, said BFG wouldn't have much ammo. The final fight would be possible, but very hard, with only the rocket launcher, so neither the plasma nor BFG would be necessarily needed to complete the map. (And it 100% is, I playtested it with rocket only. You need to be careful with your space, but it's consistently doable)

When making the map, I was particularly conscious of going 'too crazy' in terms of monster count (only for taviow's share of MAP03 to eclipse it) and difficulty, which is why I capped off at exactly 999 enemies. The vast majority are confined to the major routes, so I didn't have many to work with in terms of populating the areas between said routes - which is why most of the leftovers are turreted enemies with good vantage points, which is probably the most controversial part of the map among the people who've played it so far. My rationale is that they exist to keep the player engaged and moving whilst they're moving between route buildings, but in practice most players just waste their time killing them when most can be left well enough alone until you have a little more confidence and/or firepower. Massive empty Kenosis I didn't want this map to be - and frankly? The complaints aren't loud enough for me to capitulate to them.

Speaking of controversial decisions, RC2 saw the addition of about six new Super Shotguns to make the weapon basically unmissable, as with early builds of the map the SSGs were tied to the red brick room and double Archvile room - which caused a lot of players to miss them, get bored to death single barreling Barons (looking at you, stx-vile) and get mad at me. So I changed it. Of course, I still wanted those rooms to matter, so I added soulspheres to them.

And speaking of Eviternity series secret maps made by ukiro, I only realised near the end of development that I'd unwittingly made a map with more monsters and secrets than bloody Anagnorisis, and I'd put it in the MAP05 slot. That being said, I'm still okay with it - an episode ender ought to have some spectacle as far as I'm concerned, and spectacle I'd say it provides. That and there's some absolutely crazy slaughter pieces later on in the WAD, so I'll consider it a filter.

About the death exit: My original plan was to teleport the player to a Wormhole-style irradiated version of the map and then escape to a spaceship with a damaging floor death clock, but a: that would be a ridiculous amount of extra work to redesign the entire map with the appropriate amount of nuclear fallout, and b: making the player play Run From It after 40 minutes seemed needlessly cruel, especially to the saveless players. But I still wanted the episode ending switch to have some flair, so... death exit. Blowing up a nuclear power plant should hurt, after all.

Though, that being said, there's a secret invulnerability in the reactor that you can use if you play continuous and want to carry on that shiny BFG...

And speaking of secrets, I've yet to see anyone blind UV-max this so I'll drop a hint to what is handily the most obscure one - look where you cross the road!

I'd go ahead and explain my methodologies behind each of the routes in depth, but at the same time I'm conscious of both the fact that it's 1am and that I can only put so large a block of text before the thread becomes nigh unreadable, so... you get let off for now.

cannonball · April 5

MAP05 - "The Nuclear Power Plant" by Novaseer

This one was more exhausting than epic in my opinion.

This is a huge map, on par with Map03 in that regard, but the general increasing in difficulty or in particular how some monsters are liberally deployed make this a rather frustrating map to beat, in particular chaingunners and revenants. In the outdoor section there are a lot of very high sniping positions that need to be cleared out because most of the time these are very threatening monsters.

I must confess that I didn't really enjoy any of the wings, though I am thankful for stumbling upon the plasma gun section first because that weapon is a lifesaver at times. However said area contains 2 Masterminds that you need to slowly kill, a load of barons that are pointless and a cyberdemon that again is more of a chore to kill.

The yellow key area is probably the section that is the most fun to play, purely because it is the one area that is pretty quick to clear and the fights are messy with plenty of in-fight potential. The blue key however is a complete slog, there are a lot of fights that are cramped or offer enemy positions that require slow and methodical dismantling, then there is the trench fight that again equals rocket dump with no threat. The red key contains several waves of chaingunners that you have to hide in one of the side rooms for, again making the process slow, the key fight itself is cheeseable and could potentially be skipped completely if you get the red key in mid-air on that drop.

The final fight is probably the easiest in the map, you get the BFG and a couple of megaspheres along with plenty of cover. I am surprised to not see any archviles or ~~boss monsters here, ironically they could have made the fight more interesting and a cyber could have aided with the long clean up process.~~ So there was a cyber but all he did was wander into the nearby nukage pit and got scratched to death without making a dent in the Hell Knight horde, well I put that down to bad luck.

This map is definitely ambitious and I feel bad for saying that I didn't enjoy this. However the map feels over-scaled and commits many of the city map sins from yesteryear, whilst there are plenty of resources to beat this map comfortably, this has a higher difficulty threshold that prevents many of its grievances from being forgivable (Map03 might have been huge but it can be quite briskly taken apart for example). It is too easy to end up grinding through several parts of this map and that ultimately drags the experience down significantly.

Edited April 5 by cannonball

Insaneprophet · April 5

Map 05: The Nuclear Power Plant by novaseer

This is where "different strokes for different folks" comes into play because I have to respectfully disagree with everything cannonball said. To me this was a true magnum opus level event of an adventure and did almost everything right. The architecture and detailing was of the highest order, the combat offered many many differing encounters that could mostly be handled in more than one way and what required a certian strategy seemed like it was there because it wasnt somewhere else in the level and we were getting a taste of everything doom has in its inventory. On top of all that we are in what is essentially an open world map with the freedom to explore at our own pace but no matter what direction we take a story unfolds, we are given just enough visual cues and the time needed to let our imagination fill in the blanks when cut scenes and exposition are missing entirely from our beloved game. None of that is to mention the 14 secrets hidden about, of which Ive still only found 12, that give an added layer of depth to the gameplay. Some are pretty straight forward but Ive found a few to be rather convoluted and that is something I truely enjoy, I want to have to search and think and search again. Something is lost when everything is handed to me on a silver platter and is over so quickly that I feel more like Im just going through the motions as the level drags me along. But those are my opinions, I understand there are others who like different things than myself and may want a more tight and concise experience, I enjoy that myself as well from time to time, but I will never back down from the fact that long levels like this are my favorites. I can, will and have played this map multiple times, it accomplishes exactly what Im looking for in a city map and I love it. 😝

Edited April 5 by Insaneprophet

Celestin · April 5

MAP05: The Nuclear Power Plant by Novaseer

I enjoyed the setpiece fights here, the yellow key rocket spam through a corridor was a condensed dose of action, while the red and blue buildings feel almost like small, self-contained levels. The map ends with a climactic slaughter fight by the entrance to a nuclear reactor - you are given a BFG here to take out a horde of monsters.

However, this is connected by the city part, which is massive, sparsely populated, but at the same time, putting snipers in every corner. I feel like I've spent the bulk of time (more than an hour) trying to hunt elevated revenants or chaingunners.

I know I'm not part of the wad's target audience, so don't take my complaints to heart, but this was very hard to get though, not because of the difficulty (I don't think this is a hard map, health and ammo was barely an issue), but annoying to clear out the streets to move without getting shelled by and with an action being too spread out.

Xemonix · April 6

Excited to participate, even though I'm a bit late to the party. I'm hoping to catch up and finish MAP07 by tomorrow (might be slightly overambitious). I wish I'd discovered this event sooner to avoid burnout! This event is just the motivation I need to play more Doom, as I often struggle to choose a WAD. For context: I don't play Doom that much, and my hardest WAD to date is Base Ganymede. I'm not picky and have low standards, so expect lots of A's from me!

Every map gets one grade for quality and one for difficulty. Quality grades go from A to F. Grade A levels are fun, memorable, visually distinctive, creative, and a fair challenge. I grade difficulty from X to E: X for extreme, E for easy, A through D in between. Keep in mind, my idea of a great map is most likely not the same as yours, but that's okay - disagreeing is part of the fun, after all. At the end of the day, this event is about spreading the joy of Doom. So let's do so!

Before we start, the rules are: I play on Ultra-Violence and must pistol start each level. Saves are allowed, and I try to go for 100% kills and secrets in all levels, making exceptions when it's just not worth it. I play on Nugget Doom, and today's -complevel is mbf21. Now, to the WAD.

Episode 1: Modern City

MAP01 - "Hellions on Parade" by moyolden
(36:49 K 217/220 98% I 3/4 S 4/5)

Spoiler

nugg0000.png.a2858f51e2d437d37a3f33a7915f31cd.png

As someone whose only experience with city maps is The Factory through Suburbs in Doom II, the size and quality of this caught me off guard. MAP01?! Really? What a way to start! I love all the doomcute and the overall look of the map. I think it's a fantastic opener for a WAD, setting the tone for what's to come.

The two things I enjoyed the most were probably punching out revenants (first time for me) and finding secrets. The secrets are well-hidden, and it felt great to stumble upon them. Well, except for that one secret that eluded me for over ten minutes. I searched high and low, but eventually had to admit defeat and go for the exit.

Spoiler

nugg0004.png.3e393b15547caf271a6dda2d4076bae9.png

Despite only having beaten this one map so far, I can confidently say that D2ICO is well above my current skill level, and I'm excited to dive in further.

Grade: B+
Difficulty: C-

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