Scorching Earth (32 Level Megawad)

[DoubleCakes]

I'm a Hellbound acolyte so this shot right up my to-play list.

[Baron T. Mueriach]

Looks amazing!!

[DoubleCakes]

Played the first two levels. 1: A Start At Last is a snappy opening level. I like the heavy detail and the floor plan of the main facility had a lot of room to wave my arms so it felt very realized. I liked the moment where you look outside into the canyon as foreshadowing for later when you go out there to pick up the red keycard.

 

2: The Underground is dark and the accompanying midi is gloomy along with it. I had trouble adapting to the jump in difficulty and not just because I didn't find nearly as many secrets. It's here that I began to wonder about the strange pillars that seem to be drilling through the floor– the rock ones with the red glowing hell inside.

[DRON12261]

The screenshots look extremely promising. As far as I understand, so far there are problems and wad mistakenly tested on GZDoom, so I will wait for the finalization of compatibility with other ports, such as DSDA, prBoom+, Woof!, Doom Retro and so on. I can't wait to try it out.

 

Edited May 17 by DRON12261

[VanaheimRanger]

This looks pretty dope, I'm gonna play it in VR and you can't stop me.

[Jayextee]

10 hours ago, Xaser said:

the reason folks are trying to play it in dsda et.al in the first place is because of the word "vanilla" in the title

This is precisely why I'll comment if I catch a non-vanilla project touting itself as vanilla. Because people won't be pleased if they downloaded a WAD expecting that it'll work in their chosen port (especially if it's Chocolate DOOM or even the original executable) and, nah, they can't. Worse still if they get a fair amount of progress before their run is entirely-halted by a VPO or other broken limit.

It's not just me being autistic about proper nomenclature, I swear! ;)

[MattFright]

This looks amazing!! If you eventually port it to work with dsda & other ports i'll definitely give it a play

[SportsterV90]

If I correct understand, blue key is under the box. But pillar is rising w/o the box. Map 05 latest official GZDoom.

[Astro]

2 minutes ago, SportsterV90 said:

If I correct understand, blue key is under the box. But pillar is rising w/o the box. Map 05 latest official GZDoom.

Thanks for finding this bug. Sometime ago i replaced every "Thing" and forgot to add the blue key again lol.

[BunnyBun]

Wow! Looks super cool! Did you make every single map here?

[Astro]

5 hours ago, BunnyBun said:

Wow! Looks super cool! Did you make every single map here?

Yes. All 32 maps are made by me :)

[VanaheimRanger]

Played the first 6 maps so far in VR, I never played Hellbound (yet) but I definitely see some TNT inspiration. The maps look very good, there is a bit of ammo struggle in the early maps. Videos will be posted once I've completed the whole WAD. How long did it take you to make the whole WAD?

[Serathis]

Serious Hellbound vibes. Which I like since HB is my favorite megawad. There might be a bit too much pistoling at the start however.

[RataUnderground]

At the moment I have finished four levels. I quite like the relaxed difficulty curve and exploration-based gameplay, and in some places the architecture and views are excellent. Looking forward to continuing playing!
 

 

[Astro]

On 5/20/2024 at 9:19 PM, VanaheimRanger said:

Played the first 6 maps so far in VR, I never played Hellbound (yet) but I definitely see some TNT inspiration. The maps look very good, there is a bit of ammo struggle in the early maps. Videos will be posted once I've completed the whole WAD. How long did it take you to make the whole WAD?

Took me 3.5 years to make the whole wad. Mostly because a lot of remakes lol

[50milliarden]

I played the first 10 maps so far, and I gotta say, it's one of the best Doom experiences I've had in a long time.

 

Beautiful, original designs, neither too bare or over-detailed, no gimmicks, no death traps with every key, no phoned in monster swarms. No impossible challenges or unsolvable puzzles either. It all contributes to a really nice sense of realism that's quite rare in modern megawads.

Maybe in some of the larger maps, a return teleporter or two could prevent some tedious backtracking, but that's a very minor issue, and one could argue that the lack of such teleporters contributes to the realistic feel.

 

Nice challenging secrets too, but not too hard to find so far. Except for that

Spoiler

Hitler easter egg in map 9,

no idea how to reach that one. Maybe it isn't meant to be reachable?

 

Anyway, thanks a lot for this great megawad! I'm enjoying it immensely.

Edited May 23 by 50milliarden

[Astro]

7 hours ago, 50milliarden said:

I played the first 10 maps so far, and I gotta say, it's one of the best Doom experiences I've had in a long time.

 

Beautiful, original designs, neither too bare or over-detailed, no gimmicks, no death traps with every key, no phoned in monster swarms. No impossible challenges or unsolvable puzzles either. It all contributes to a really nice sense of realism that's quite rare in modern megawads.

Maybe in some of the larger maps, a return teleporter or two could prevent some tedious backtracking, but that's a very minor issue, and one could argue that the lack of such teleporters contributes to the realistic feel.

 

Nice challenging secrets too, but not too hard to find so far. Except for that

  Hide contents

Hitler easter egg in map 9,

no idea how to reach that one. Maybe it isn't meant to be reachable?

 

Anyway, thanks a lot for this great megawad! I'm enjoying it immensely.

You can reach the "Hitler Easter Egg" by climbing on the stalagmite in front of the entrance. Thank you for the kind words it means a lot to me!!

[DoubleCakes]

Played a bit more. 3: Streetcleaner was a cool level. The vanilla-textured trees and the security room with the rocket launcher were very pretty. I liked the detailed street environments. Good level.

 

4: Metrostation was another good one. I like the super shotgun secret. That whole area seemed optional and I tend to enjoy levels that have big optional areas. The music was Rynnesque and beautiful.

 

5: Storage Facility spans a wide ground but has less than 200 enemies and I like how spaced out it is. There's an emphasis on traversal. That fight around the yellow key with those mancubi was a bit sloggy but the level challenged me by running my ammo out so past the red door I had to break out the chainsaw to kill some enemies. I was using the old wad file so the crate didn't raise up when I hit that switch so I had to cheat to get the blue key. I switched the wad file afterwards.

Edited May 24 by DoubleCakes

[SyntherAugustus]

Is there a list of music credits? The track for MAP04 slaps.

Edited May 24 by SyntherAugustus

[Astro]

11 hours ago, SyntherAugustus said:

Is there a list of music credits? The track for MAP04 slaps.

Track for MAP04 is made by Psyrus.

[SyntherAugustus]

So I was able to cheese MAP12 in under a few minutes. Is that exit door supposed to be locked?

[Auron]

22 minutes ago, SyntherAugustus said:

So I was able to cheese MAP12 in under a few minutes. Is that exit door supposed to be locked?

Spoiler

It is Metropolois map? If yes, both exits are not blocked. The secret exit with an Archvile protecting it can be opened by juping from one of those lifts into a small cave with a swith that opens the path to the exit.

 

Edited June 2 by Auron

[SyntherAugustus]

That's interesting. Where do the keys go then?

[Auron]

28 minutes ago, SyntherAugustus said:

That's interesting. Where do the keys go then?

In addition to map progression, the three keys give access to BFG.

 

If I remember correctly you don't need the three keys to get to the normal exit. It's a very large non-linear map and focuses on exploration so it's difficult to remember all the details.

 

I must have spent about an hour and a half or more to complete it to 100%.

[Goldar]

Just finished it. God damn, that was a lot of fun. This is Cacoward material right here.

[Astro]

10 hours ago, Goldar said:

Just finished it. God damn, that was a lot of fun. This is Cacoward material right here.

Glad you enjoyed it <3

[morningstars10]

I would absolutely love to just say 10/10, but one issue, map 30. (also map31 seems to have this one wall that won't go down in the small halllway area with a imp I see through the gap. unless I'm really supposed to go somewhere secret for the switch hunt to get to map 32. Also the teleporter, at least for me, seems to skip a map still.) Map 30 doesn't have a rocket launcher, or I cannot find it. I've pistol started every other level on UV, some not being able to find weapons you gave ammo for, and I cannot find the launcher in that map, the map where it matters because you lowered the romero head slightly so I cannot just shoot it. Am I dumb? Or is it not there? I see it got updated yesterday so maybe all of this is fixed.

Edited June 4 by morningstars10

[Astro]

20 minutes ago, morningstars10 said:

I would absolutely love to just say 10/10, but one issue, map 30. (also map31 seems to have this one wall that won't go down in the small halllway area with a imp I see through the gap. unless I'm really supposed to go somewhere secret for the switch hunt to get to map 32. Also the teleporter, at least for me, seems to skip a map still.) Map 30 doesn't have a rocket launcher, or I cannot find it. I've pistol started every other level on UV, some not being able to find weapons you gave ammo for, and I cannot find the launcher in that map, the map where it matters because you lowered the romero head slightly so I cannot just shoot it. Am I dumb? Or is it not there? I see it got updated yesterday so maybe all of this is fixed.

Fixed MAP30 issue :)

 

Are u sure you updated your wad file? I just tested the latest download and MAP31 & MAP32 don't skip a map anymore.

 

Is this the MAP31 hallway you are talking about? If not send me a screenshot i will be very grateful.

 

[morningstars10]

I still cannot find it, just updated, where is the launcher? The version you uploaded just now says 6/3/2024. Did you upload the wrong version? As for map 31, that's it, thanks!

Edited June 4 by morningstars10

[Auron]

I finally finished the entire WAD on ultra-violent continuous. Quite an experience, well-designed maps with just enough difficulty to keep the gameplay interesting without being frustrating. Amazing work @Astro definitely a must play.

 

Edited June 5 by Auron