The DWmegawad Club plays: JENESIS (open to suggestions for next WAD)

[purist]

MAP03 - The Oasis Facility

The watery theme continues. I like this map just as much as MAP02 and more than the first, which is probably to be expected since the set represents the gradual progression of Jimmy's map making skills.

It's nice to have a group of similary themed maps together to give you a sense of place - not just in each level but for the episode as a whole. It's pretty evident that Jimmy doesn't struggle with layouts as again this is the level's strong point. You'll find yourself looking into places you'll visit later and re-entering areas from different places.

I don't remember any standout fights. The baron/HK trap sprung by the RL comes closest but I teleported before it was over and finished them off from a safer spot. On the other hand I don't remember any annoying fights save for the revs on ledges that are becoming a Jimmy motif. Ammo was a little scarce but in a good way, in that it was often close but I felt I had to earn it by rounding a group of monsters or chainsawing some imps.

[cannonball]

Map03 - Oasis Facility
Kills - 100%, Secrets - 60%, Time - 9:12, 1 Stupid death
Nice map, catchy tune, good layout. Monster density was a bit higher, yet difficulty was lower than the previous map. Still had to chip health from revenants using the chaingun though. That's the one gripe about the map is the lack of threat posed by them. The light enemies on the ground didn't really distract me from them and avoiding the missiles when they come from above is very easy. Overall though it's a really good level.

[dobu gabu maru]

Jimmy91 said:
Right behind the yellow door - a real dick move, I'll admit.[/B]

I kind of like it, just because you have to backpedal extremely quickly while keeping in mind that you are on top of nukage (my reactions weren't quick enough so I took a punch). The problem with it and other traps in MAP02 is that it's weirdly brutal for such an early map. I expected something like this around MAP17, not your second foray into the megawad.

MAP03: Not as tough as the first two levels, but its no sloucher towards the end. Part of the ease in difficulty comes from the relatively quick acquisition of good firearms in this level/the levels before (just a note, I am playing a successive playthrough on UV, since I feel Jenesis is better balanced for that type of gameplay more than the collaboration megawads. Plus it's nice to take it kinda easy sometimes). Enemies are a bit bulkier and dense, but less snipers means a lot less health being chipped away. I only had two stupid deaths, one at the start to me bumbling around rev missiles, and one to the rocket launcher trap (I thought the two closets were interconnected... boy did I get cornered fast when I found out they weren't. Neat trap though), so it's a pretty "kind" level overall. Plus the AV's big intro to the megawad was pretty anticlimactic/non-lethal, leaving him trapped in a little room with plenty of cover.

Visuals are still great though. Glad to see Paddock's level of quality being upheld.

[Capellan]

Map02
Nice-looking brick/stone map, which again features a well thought out flow. Later areas hook back onto previous locations, allowing you to retrace your steps without retracing your steps.

It did again feel like three keys was a bit unnecessary, but that's a minor quibble.

I'm going to get tired of the revenants long before the WAD does, I expect.

[fauxmachine]

I think I'll join the Jenesis Club. :) I just made my way through the first two maps and here's what I think:

MAP01:
I played this map yesterday on HMP and it was much more difficult than I expected, especially for the first map in a megawad. Today I tried it on UV and finished the level with 100% health (and I found all the secrets too!), though I had to play pretty cautiously. I like the visuals in the indoor areas, and the helipad is kinda cool, I guess.

MAP02:
Tried to do this one on UV from a pistol-only start, but it was just too much for me! I had to go back to my quicksave at the end of map01. Even with the weapons and armor, I struggled in places. I died a couple of times at the blue key trap. I definitely need more practice at dodging revenant missiles! Another good-looking and well-paced level. I'm quite impressed with this megawad so far. I might go back to it later to figure out how to get that soulsphere!

[ComicMischief]

MAP03
Alright, that Pendulum music threw me off. It seemed to be a terrible fit at first, but suited the pacing of the level very well.

The level itself, it seemed a bit milder in terms of health balance (there was always a stim or medipack in a previous area left off so I could 'top up' before entering a new section) but the ammo balance was harsh and tight -- had to berzerk-fist two Hell Knights behind the red door, then flat-out ran past the Revenants in a quick-dash toward the exit.

Not a weak map by any means, but not as strong as the first two. Still really enjoying this.

[Jimmy]

MAP03: The Oasis Facility

Completion stats:
Kills: 100%
Items: 98%
Secrets: 100%
Time: 6:05
Best Time: 2:20

History:
There's not as much of a history behind this one, because it's completely original. Mapped between the October 27th and 28th, 2010, this map was fairly simple to do because it was one of the maps of which I had the clearest vision before I made it. I also mapped the majority of it down on paper so I'd get an idea of how it was laid out (which is something I largely improvise when it comes to the actual mapping phase). I ended up struggling a little bit for inspiration for the grey T-shaped room to the south, but I'm happy that I made it loop back to the starting area.

I think I'd been playing Kama Sutra a lot around the time that I made this map, and wanted to integrate elements from that into this map. Whether I was successful or not I'm not entirely certain.

Gameplay/Layout:
Speaking of which, MAP02 had a Plutonia-style exit teleporter, as this map's starting area does. Direct progression between the maps' starts and exits is something that is prevalent throughout (I think) all of Jenesis, and in my opinion it isn't done enough in megawads. However, something I really don't like, that's done a lot in megawads, is the presence of an area behind the player start, and no indication of how the player actually entered the level, and this bugs the hell out of me. The simple addition of a teleporter (and of course, a similar teleporter in the exit room of the previous map) alleviates this annoyance.

This map certainly feels like a rocky oasis, and also like a facility, so at least the name doesn't mislead. :P (I only wish I could've stuck some palm trees in it here and there.) I do like this map - it was definitely my favorite map in Jenesis Pt. 1, but with the advent of more maps, while I still regard it as an overall success, it's not the best showcase of my current level of mapping ability (we'll get into some better examples later on, definitely). I think the only gripe I have with it is that in places it's too cramped and there seem to be quite a few inessential switches (like the two elevators near the start).

Only two keys needed this time around... maybe this would've been a better MAP01 if it wasn't so revenant-rife. :P

Music:
Yes, that's Pendulum's "Under the Waves", arranged by me. I was actually listening to the original on my iPod in art class and thinking about this map (and not paying attention to the surrealist movement, don't be silly), and the two seemed to go together - both the song and the map involve water in some way, after all. :P

Originally I wanted to use my original composition "The Oasis" but this was before Doom 2: Unleashed had been released, so it felt dishonest to use that track, which had been written specifically for that project (it ended up accompanying MAP05), for my own maps. When I added the Pendulum MIDI to the map, I wasn't too sure about how well the song fit it at first, but it just grew on me in the end, so I kept it in. Techno tunes don't always fit the Doom environment, I grant you, but I tried to shape the MIDI in such a way that it would. :P

Pointless trivia:
Here's an early screenshot of the room behind the blue door, with some horribly placed tech pillars. The filename "gnrx033" comes from the fact that the working title of this project was "Generix" - for about five days, and then I came up with "Jenesis" instead. :P

[an_mutt]

OK so I've decided to play a little catch-up.

Map 01

Kills: 98%
Items: 100%
Secrets: 25%

Time: 17:12

Yeah, this isn't your typical opening map. Other people have said that they're not fans of such large and lengthy intro levels and I have to agree with them, but aside from that it's a strong level. I'm always a fan of returning to previous areas from different directions and seeing what's opened up or become available. The area leading to the yellow key in particular I felt was nicely done. Like others have said I didn't enjoy some of the tediousness of the monsters on ledges (especially the chaingunners and revenants :c ). I'm awful at finding secrets as well, so I could only stumble upon the berserk secret once I had finished everything up and had decided to inspect the map for stuff that I may have missed. I heard some revenants near where the nukage area leading up to the yellow key was, but couldn't access them. Decent map, but not something I'd personally choose for my Map01 if I had the choice.

Oh, and I should note the music choice as something I'm not a fan of. It felt too long and changed itself up far too often and just didn't do anything to set the mood of the map up. I mean, when you listen to the music of Sunset, that's such a good opening track and it sets the mood of everything so perfectly. Same with The Teleporter from Memento Mori. The first level music of Jenesis on the other hand just keeps dragging me out of the map because the music's doing something that doesn't really fit what I'm looking at, experiencing or feeling. I guess.

Rating: 5/10

I'm putting it down as average as although the gameplay was decent there were some bullshit moments. Points were lost due to music choice and the overall length - brevity is the soul of wit, as that famous poet William Shakesman apparently once said, and there's too much going on within this opening map that subtracts some of the impact from the more impressive moments.

*****

Map 02

Muuuuch better music here - though I feel the need to point this out, I think I've been listening to too much Rush because its progression is totally the verse melody of Entre Nous. I'm not the only one who hears that, am I? ANYWAY.

Kills: 98%
Items: 50%
Secrets: 60%

Time: 18:29

I have to say this map, first and foremost, was a joy to look at throughout - it's very pretty and has a good sense of space for most of the outdoor parts. The central-ish area where you pick up the SSG and armor especially looks great. My one big complaint however is that pistol starting this mother is just a gigantic pain in the ass. When I activated the yellow key trap and saw two mancubus come out, having just spent my last couple bullets killing the last revenant in the room, I just got out of there and never looked back (except to pick up the ammo in the areas that had just opened up). So yeah, where's my ammo Jimmy. WHERE'S THE AMMO AT.

Later on things seemed much more balanced (though I'm putting that to the SSG's appearance), and I have to say that the blue key trap was easily the best part of the map and the wad itself so far. It's so perfectly set so that you go to run out the way you came but oh fuck some bars have popped up and well I'm stuck with a Baron closing in on me and revenant missles chasing me I guess. You get just enough space to maneuver around there and although it's tough it also feels very fair.

So yeah, I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Rating: 7.5/10

I was torn between a 7 & 8 because although it was a very fun experience and the map design is well presented... that pistol start, man. That pistol start. I had to run down a shotgun guy across nukage with 9% health and punch him in the face because I literally had no ammo left at one point. I should never have to do something like that, unless the wad I loaded up was Kaizo Doom (please nobody ever make that wad, thanks).

[mouldy]

Map 4 - this wad really is unapolagetically tough. I played it several months ago but couldn't remember it, and now i think i know why that is - the trauma of playing it made me wipe it from my memory. But now it is all flooding back. This map in particular gave me a real headache at the start, and its all thanks to those bloody chaingunners up there walking the battlements. They gun you down from all angles, try and shoot them on one side and they get you from the other. Ammo is sparse from pistol start so you end up leaving them and running to the next room. "i'll be back for you guys" I thought, then a torrent of teleporting monsters in the next area sends me straight back to the chaingunners (who can also happily pick you off in the next room anyway).

I was going to whine a bit more about those chaingunners but I get the feeling I should man-up a bit more with this wad and just deal with it. After clearing them all out its all pretty straightforward barring the awkward revenant ambush. The 3 switches to 3 lifts to collect 3 things is perhaps a bit tedious, and the secret maga-armour at the end after everything's dead was a bit redundant, but otherwise its a nice open-plan dangerfest, short and sweet and a bit sour, like a sherbert lemon.

[purist]

I played MAP04 and died in the yellow key trap. This is my least favourite level by a stretch so far due to the HKs/barons/Revs on ledges or in cages that are easy but tedious to kill plus chaingunners in awkward to hit places. I'll try again tomorrow but it's going to be tougher still from pistol start. This map would be markedly improved by a RL and a few boxes of rockets given early on.

[glenzinho]

Jenesis brings back some good memories for me, because when I played it around Christmas time last year,
I was playing it here: and was looking out at this:

Definitely the most picturesque location I have ever played Doom! Anyways, whether it was because I was in sunny Rio, drinking Scotch, on holidays, enjoying the beautiful weather & scenery, or all of the preceding, Jenesis remains the most memorable PWAD I have ever played.

MAP01
Brutal opening, good flow, 3 keys don't bother me. I won't say much more because I'm late and most of it's been summed up pretty well. DEMO

MAP02
Tough from pistol start, I dropped down to HMP for this one. When I first played it last year, I played consecutively in HMP. I'm going to try and pistol start in UV this time, but I will drop down to HMP if needs be... This level encapsulates a lot of what the mapset is about : great flow, tough encounters, fast action. DEMO

(Demos in -complevel 9, naturally!)

MAP03
Nice looking map, difficulty's a little kinder on UV, but still tight. I think this is the wad where I learnt to deal with Revs... they must be Jimmy's favourite monster! Once again, excellent flow, and the texturing & design is great. DEMO

[Crusader No Regret]

Map 03
pistol start HMP

One outdoor area reminded me of Alien Vendetta's Map 4. Mixing indoor and outdoor areas, fairly high monster density in smaller spaces, the whole map has a similar vibe to me.
Playing from pistol start, I notice the ammo and health balance more. Even abusing infights, I ran out of shells once or twice. As I also had full bullets with over a hundred lying around at completion, this is a consequence of my weapon choices. Most of my health loss came from being jumped by chaingunners though the ambush at the top of the lift behind the red key door is notable. It's due to the monsters being so close at the top and also the fact that the player is permitted to take the lift back down after alerting the ambush and lure the opposition down in smaller quantities.

[Jimmy]

MAP04: The Garden Terminal II

Completion stats:
Kills: 97%
Items: 96%
Secrets: 100%
Time: 7:07
Best Time: 2:30

History:
This map might just be the oldest map in the whole WAD. It was simply going to be called "The Temple" when I started making it for GForce all those years ago. I initially wanted to make a huge, mainly outside map after being inspired by the first few levels of Serious Sam: The Second Encounter. Obviously it would take a kind of genius to recreate the visuals of that game faithfully, and since I wasn't one, all resemblance to it was lost in translation.

This map was even more brutal, initially, starting the player out smack in front of an arachnotron and several barons with nothing but an SSG and a few shells. It was also going to be a ZDoom-format map, like most of GForce's maps (not all of them!), so I had to turn the ACS-scripted sequence that opened the pillars and the first door into a voodoo doll script. I hadn't done anything like it before, but it was fun and fairly simple to pull off.

It was only in 2010 that I realized I could still put the map to good use by taking the starting area and turning it into a more expansive recreation of HR MAP04's, and so "The Garden Terminal II" it became. I'm not sure what it is about that map that sticks out to me, but I do enjoy it - I usually play all the way up to it when I launch a quick weapon mod with Hell Revealed to see how the megawad plays. I almost included a teaser BFG, but I'm not that insanely cruel. Instead it's a perfectly reachable chainsaw. :P

Gameplay/Layout:
It felt great getting the layout of this map finished (it was the last map I had to complete in order to finish Jenesis Pt. 1) because, after all these years, it finally felt like a complete map. Personally, however, I don't favor this map particularly. When compared with the rest of the maps I made for this, even in Part 1's roster (made when I was still getting warmed up and my mapping skill wasn't too sharp), it just seems sub-par. That might have something to do with its age (the starting area is virtually untouched from its initial form) but it just seems a bit dull and visually repetitive overall.

Gameplay is a little bit boring as well - it seems to be laid out like a really bad maze. Whereas the original map was four distinct square areas that had to be visited in a certain order, this map has the player backtracking, hopping in and out of teleporters, and running blind in pursuit of the next crucial switch. Even I get lost in it at times.

I guess I really don't like non-linear maps. :P

Music:
I would've done my own track for this map but that would've slightly gone against the whole Hell-Revealed-tribute thing. I had to use Lee Jackson's "CCCool" from ROTT - seeing how HR MAP04 uses "MMMenu" (an unusually short track for a map, I think), it seemed fitting.

Pointless trivia:
1. A certain tester insisted there was too much health in this map. Every time. XP I removed medikits and stimpacks all over this map that I felt were crucial because I honestly found it terribly difficult to finish at times (especially when playing in PrBoom). I can't exactly recall but I think there's pretty much just four stimpacks in the entire map now.

2. I think my dad technically contributed to the design of this map. I was at a loss with what to put in the south-western-most square area (the area with the yellow door) and I think he suggested some raised platforms with monsters on them. However, I think this suggestion may have been colored by the fact that he thought the floor in that room was lava - the keen-eyed among you will notice that the floor texture in that room (and all the adjoining rooms) is in fact grass. Of course, I then added some lava anyway, because why not. :P

[mouldy]

Map 5 - this was a tense one for me, I lost a fair chunk of health early on and with no armour i was getting pretty hammered by any mistakes. But after a few stupid deaths i started playing a bit more carefully and once i found a load of health it was fairly plain sailing. Apart from falling in the inescapable nukage pit around the yellow key that is.

I left a few monsters behind i'm ashamed to say, but those revenants in the rad-suit room were having so much fun fireballing me I decided to let them live. They better remember that in the next map.

The music was great in this one, had a strange melancholic urgency about it. Also there was an abundance of ammo for a change, which I enjoyed wasting.

[gun_psycho]

I apologize if I'm gonna be pretty slow, since Borderlands 2 is gonna be eating up a bit of my time.

I'll definitely go back to clearing some levels once in a while, though, but the updates won't be often.

[Capellan]

Map03
Again, a visually tight level. Nowhere near the obsessive detailing of some levels in CC4, but enough to give a sense of variety and style. Liked the exterior area with the blue key especially.

Again, the level loops back on itself and multiple routes into and out of areas open up. Nicely done.

Still an over-reliance on revenants for my taste, but it's obviously a "thing" for this set. I liked the RL trap. It was clear you were going to get bushwhacked, so it wasn't unfair. I bolted outside, myself, and fought from there.

[ComicMischief]

I had to play catchup by a map, ah well.

MAP04

Wowzers, did this one do a number on me. Basically, ammo balance is tight until you get into the 'main' four-squares area, and in there it's a bit of a hectic runaround to get the monsters bottlenecked in a safe area (in my case, the blue key quadrant gave me ample cover to pick the fuckers off with SSG); after which the map kinda quietens down. If I died ten times attempting this map (I don't like to save often, I attempt maps mostly only saving at the beginning), eight of them were likely in that initial 'runaround'. It was a little boxy, but a nice challenge -- I never felt cheated upon death, which is a good thing.

Loved the Revenant ambush around the yellow key, that had me running around in crazy circles avoiding projectiles. A Hell-Revealed tribute? Never played it. I guess my mileage may vary if I do.

MAP05

This one saw the difficulty let up a few notches. A pretty satisfying tech-base with a nice clear layout and not too much symmetry. Contrary to the previous map, this one had plentiful health and ammo; and was pretty easy-going. Loved the barrels in general.

[dobu gabu maru]

MAP04: Awesome level, my favorite so far. It wasn't just that it was a redesign/reimagining of MAP04 from Hell Revealed, but it's how well the level was built. From the onset to the excellent garden battle, ammo and health were handled with extreme care, and it didn't have any unfair popouts/traps that a player wouldn't be able to handle on his first runthrough.

Only problem with it are the chaingunners in the courtyard section, since there's like 6-8 of them and its hard to take one out without watching your health plummet. But man, did I have a blast in the garden terminal area. I thought I could hold my own in the starting room until I realized I was COMPLETELY out of ammo, so I starting dashing from room to room, trying to pick up what I could find and dodging ballistics from multiple directions. Super tense and super fun.

MAP05: A unique change of pace, since this level is more of a linear affair with rooms full of enemies consisting of no major traps. There's a consistent pace of "open door, shoot guys, collect goodies, repeat" leaving no room to be unique (especially since it's symmetrical), but it's still an exciting level with no lulls.

EDIT: Also I wanted to point out how interesting it is that Paddock includes a nukage level with a surprisingly rare amount of rad suits. I always like the feeling of having to brave the acid on my feet, and there's enough health throughout it that it really doesn't become a problem.

So far I'm having a great time with this megawad. It's such a joy to just take like 10 minutes out of my day and to play through a map that's simple, fun and challenging. No sloucher maps either so far!

[Jimmy]

MAP05: Submerged Refinery

Completion stats:
Kills: 88%
Items: 73%
Secrets: 33%
Time: 4:18
Best Time: 1:40

History:
Here we have another old map originally made for Random Plutonia Skulltag Episode, but I never got past the dreaded two-room barrier that seems to plague a lot of my earlier attempts at mapping.

I'm so glad I redid the aesthetics of this map's starting area. I vastly prefer the gritty brown dirt-brick Plutonia look to the original grey-brick look that you see in Pt. 2, which is awfully dull. Now the map has a newfound sense of grandness and spacing that the original lacked due to it being (a) cramped, and (b) a TARDIS. Seriously, look how unforgivably low the sky ceiling is compared to the inside of the facility in the Pt. 1 version of this map. I think the final area of Pt. 1's MAP01 suffers the same thing. I'm not even sure that "TARDIS syndrome" is something I've grown out of, yet. I think it has something to do with the fact that I don't put nearly as much thought into the insides of maps as I do the outsides. I find outside areas extremely fun to do (mostly), because they really establish the theme and setting of the map far better than the inside areas do. Once the outside is done, the building itself is more of a mere afterthought... hence the sloppiness.

Gameplay/Layout:
I had the original map layout in a old notebook of mine. It wasn't realised until October 25th, 2010, when I decided I was tired of looking at a 2-room unfinished map that I had a plan and a complete vision for and everything. The process went really smoothly, on account of my having planned out pretty much everything that went into the final map. (Of course, it wasn't the most complex of layouts.)

This map was my third venture into Boom mapping ever (we'll get into my first and second quite soon), and it sort of shows. I thought I was being really clever with the layout of this map because I made the player revisit areas and jump around the map in a non-linear way, which was how I assumed most classic maps did with their players. It actually turned out to be incredibly linear. There is only one path you can possibly take through this map, and only a couple of areas that you don't even need to visit a first time before the map takes you all the way through them again. It's a map that can be done blindfolded, almost (though some lifts and switches probably needed to be made more obvious because they can be easily glossed over).

The map is also one of the smallest (ie. the most compact) in this mapset. As soon as you get inside the installation it's cramped areas ahoy - I hope you enjoy congestion-style maps. :P Overall it's not bad. Definitely not one of the best, but I still like it, particularly for the boost in its visuals that I gave it.

Music:
Technically, this map has had three separate MIDI tracks. When I was first trying to map this one all those years back, I thought "Core" by stewboy would be a good track to accompany it, and it did for ages while the map was in its infant state (ie. when it was just two rooms). Then when I finally completed it for Jenesis Pt. 1, I opted instead for "Gotham" by Lee Jackson. When the makeover came along, I chose another stewboy track - one he wrote specifically for one of my SpeedMIDI sessions - "Rusty Bridge", which is a brilliant track and really shows what the guy is capable of creating within a short time span. For those not aware, he uploads weekly compositions to his SoundCloud page and they're all beautifully written. Check them out if you're a fan of his work. :)

(Sorry about the slight delay on the new collab, stew! I'll add some more to it as soon as I get the time! :P)

Pointless trivia:
Under the remade version of the map, the western courtyard with the mancubi and revenants wasn't connected to the main body of the map for ages. I think I saved that task right until the very end of Part 3's development, when I was going over the more trivial grievances I'd noted on my various playthroughs. You lazy bum, Jimmy, you. :P

And for anyone interested, here's what I listened to while doing the visual overhaul.

[purist]

MAP04: The Garden Terminal II

Had another go and nailed it on pistol start with no further deaths. I actually enjoyed it a lot more second time around too. My favourite part is the greenway you start on. I like running past most the mosters, picking up weapons and ammo while taking down the histcanners then clearing up the imps and barons afterwards. I still maintain the chaingunners on the fort wall are too much of an annoyance but the mancs helped me clear them out.

I have said before that a trap that is deadly when it takes you suprise but is a cakewalk with foreknowledge is flawed but only one of these conditions apply to yellow key ambush as it still caused me problems on my second playthrough and turned out to be a real adreneline rush escaping the centre with 7% health and outrunning the revs to the bezerk pack I'd left behind. Good times.

That trap was definitely the peak in difficulty - everything else is fairly easy if playing cautiously. Still possibly the weakest level so far but it's grown on me the second time so perhaps it's an aquired taste.

EDIT:

MAP05: Submerged Refinery

Three keys crammed into quite a small level. This one's bark is certainly worse than it's bite, starting as it does instantly under attack with sergeants to deal with and movement restricted due to nukage pools. Although you'll feel a hint of claustraphobia and take one or two dips into the nukage (often without the protection of a rad suit) there is no real danger to speak of. Jimmy lays off the revenant abuse and there are no tricky traps to speak of.

The layout does it's job of pushing the player in the right direction after every switch is hit and key is grabbed. This is useful as aimless wandering should always be kept to a minimum where damaging slime must be trecked through. The only part that foxed me was finding the exit door but fortunately the level was too small for me to get lost for long.

There's little to complain about in this level except perhaps that Jimmy did not stretch himself, resulting in a rather ordinary map. There's not much wrong with that though, I wouldn't call this map megawad filler - it's more of a sorbet.

[mouldy]

Map 6 - Another symetrical base, this one was a joy to blast through, despite the best efforts of surprise chaingunners. The layout gave lots of opportunities for finding cover, and a good thing too with all the ranged enemies involved in this one. The one bit that gave me trouble was dropping down to face the firing squad, took a few deaths to get the hang of that.

I'm liking the compact and circular nature of these maps, it takes a bit of willpower sticking to only one a day.

[purist]

MAP06: The Waystation

The best looking map so far and connectivity is as strong as any of the other levels but I must admit nearly giving up on this map in a hurricane of rage and expletives.

The main reason for this was the ranged enemies on perches or otherwise confined to a distance, which reward playing in a very slow, cautious, tedious manner and harshly punished the run and gun style gameplay I am occasionally partial to. The main offender in this regard was that awful stretch accross the fake 3D bridge. I originally played carefull taking out both mancs, the two chaingunners I could reach and the rev stuck accross the bridge but it took so bloody long when I fell fowl to the (diminished) firing line at the bottom of the lift I learned to leave most of them alive (I still killed those chaingunners otherwise it's almost insta-kill going down that lift. Providing the RL before this stretch and the soulsphere in a more obvious place would have saved my poor blood vessels from being strained to near bursting.

The flipside to this awfulness meant that after I was finally passed it (three or four attempts) I was playing on a razor edge, which was really tense and satisfying (though if I died and had to do it all again I might have said something else!)

MAP07 - Dead Center

A complete change of pace. Jimmy sticks to tradition and provides us with the ceremonial arena populated with mancs and spiders. The expansive flow contrasts nicely from the his previous circular layouts. It's pretty nice looking and I enjoyed the sense of invasion the progression gave you. Monsters were pretty flawlessly placed this time, so there was plenty of space for you to round on them but opportunity for them to corner you if you lose control of the situation. Ammo was plentiful and it's distribution is worthy of note - scattered accross the map encouraging movement and keep players with enough to avoid frustration but not so much that you can forget about it. Health comes at a premium though and I lived a charmed life on a small amount for quite some time before finding the (admittedly easy) soulsphere secret.

I expected another wave of monsters after the blue key but I suppose that would have verged on milking it. Nice map, cool exit sequence too.

[ComicMischief]

I see some MAP07 being played. Am I a day behind? (I may get MAP07 played today)

MAP06
I think this qualifies as the map in which I left the most monsters alive; everything on a perch, pretty much. I admit to reloading a mid-level save (thankfully, level was short enough for me to not care about playing a bit again) just to exit the level with something more than about 40% health, and I'm glad I did.

Nothing particularly noteworthy about this map, to be honest. It's okay, and looks good, but that's about it.

[mouldy]

I think today is map 7 day, it certainly shouldn't take long to get this map out of the way being the standard one-room slaughter of fatties and spiders. They have brought a few friends with them but its mainly a case of finding a sneaky corner to duck behind while mowing them all down.

The ammo is all there, so finding it isn't a problem - I did notice that after killing every last monster I was left with 2 shotgun shells, so beware of letting those pain elementals live too long.

A small slice of murderous fun.

[ComicMischief]

Alrighty then...

MAP07

I can't say a lot about this. A quick runaround with some well-placed Mancubuseses in a fairly lacklustre wasteland, with a nice-looking techbase in the middle. A little to-and-fro; it was obvious how I would get the blue key as soon as I saw it, so I pretty much concentrated on just the fatties and spiders, and left with 66% kills.

Music holds a nice pace, too. Quite a nice change of pace, going to be nice to get back to the 'real' levels after. :)

[glenzinho]

A little behind the pack, but I'll catch up...

MAP04

Tough, tough level. I liked the starting green path, but inside the brick areas I was running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. It's an ok map, but definitely my least favourite of the wad so far. The chaingunners inside the first square are murderous... I dropped down to HMP for this, but I didn't notice much difference from UV. DEMO

MAP05

Good short Plutonia style level. Great flow to this & difficulty is not so high even on UV. DEMO

MAP06

This level is f'n dangerous... I must have died two dozen times attempting from pistol start, but I loved every minute of it! I am amazed by Jimmy's ability to pack a lot of action and battles into such a small space. The only thing I even slightly disliked were the Revs across the 3D bridge... such a pain in the arse when you only have a chaingun from distance. The RL/YK courtyard frustrated me to no end, but it felt good to finally beat the fucker! Awesome small map. DEMO

MAP07

After all of the action of the previous level, this is a surprisingly subdued Map 7 type level, almost tedious even. The twists on the map 7 style are okay, but it doesn't have the tension of any of the other maps so far. DEMO

[Jimmy]

MAP06: Waystation

Completion stats:
Kills: 97%
Items: 100%
Secrets: 50%
Time: 5:37
Best Time: 1:30

History:
This is a map I still kind of like for some weird reason. The layout sprung to my mind one morning and I was able to map (almost) the entire thing out in an afternoon, although this was in about 2008/9, before I had even considered the possibility of creating a whole megawad of my own.

This was going to be another map for RPSE and was actually made a lot more recently than the rest of them - it's certainly younger than Treatment Plant and Submerged Refinery. I think it's circa either 2008 or 2009. The layout was mostly done then, apart from the upper-west area (that now houses the chaingunner quartet), at which point I ran out of ideas. Didn't take me very long at all to finish it for the release of Jenesis, Pt. 1. (The biggest pain was manually adapting it to Boom format from ZDoom format. Or it actually might've been deciding which lines should be impassible so that the player couldn't get outside the level's confines, but flying monsters like souls and cacos could get in.)

Gameplay/Layout:
Looking back on it, though, I'm not sure what I was thinking when I placed the ungodly number of sniper arachnotrons, mancubi and revenants that remain in the final version of the megawad. The monsters make it just an unnecessary fuckfest of a map. Pretty much every Doom 2 monster makes an appearance here, and for no reason other than I just seem to have an obsession with combining cramped gameplay and hordes of powerful monsters.

I think my future maps won't ever be quite as brutal as this one.

Music:
I couldn't quite decide on the music for this one for ages. When I first made it for RPSE, it was going to use "Gyges, Will You Please Help Me" from Tyrian (the WAD was going to feature a lot of Tyrian music). Then, just before I completed work on jenesis1.wad, I decided on David Shaw's "And Blood Will Spill", purely because it's probably my favorite track of his and I had the original MIDI handy. This sort of went against my goal of having as many original compositions in the WAD as possible.

For a very short while, this map actually used "Moody 1" from Lemmings Paintball. Eventually I decided to just compose something new, and I ended up with "Pistons". I'm really pleased with how the track turned out, and it fits the map pretty well in my opinion, so at least now it has a track I'm satisfied with.

Pointless trivia:
Shortly after Jenesis's initial release, I went into a survival co-op server that was playing this map. It was awesomely tough, because it was on UV (which, as I said, I'm not used to playing on), and I was soon the sole survivor with about 10% health to go before confronting the archvile. Some miracle dodging saw me through the mancubi and arachnotron snipers, and I soon managed to finish the level thanks to my knowledge of the megasphere secret. :P It was an unbelievably nail-biting affair, but it was so awesome.

[mouldy]

cheers for posting these directors commentaries Jimmy, I hope you can keep it up for the whole month. That goes for everyone else as well. Be strong!

[Jimmy]

No problem. :)

MAP07: Dead Center

Completion stats:
Kills: 100%
Items: 78%
Secrets: 100%
Time: 4:33
Best Time: 3:00

History:
This was the second map that I made specifically for Jenesis. As you can imagine, it didn't take me long to do, so I was able to, in pretty much one sitting, start and complete the map, and it was at this point that I started to get into a groove. I was thinking I could easily manage one map per day! (That didn't turn out to be a good assumption.)

Like a few of the other maps (ie. MAP03) in Part 1, I had an extremely clear vision for what this map should be. I sorta hoped to put a little bit more into it (like some side buildings, and/or wire fences and power cables), but there was only so much I was able to do with the inspiration I had. In the end I was pretty satisfied with how it came out.

Gameplay/Layout:
There's literally nothing to say about the layout of this map. It's a rocky arena with a facility in the middle and that's about it. It looks alright, I suppose. I like making rocky areas (and there's more to come, oh yes), and the Marine Assault textures do this level a great justice.

However, I opted to take a slightly difference approach to your typical MAP07 with the gameplay. Instead of the incredibly predictable "mancubi and arachnotrons" invasion-style gameplay, I used the 666/667 tags so that instead, the fight proceeds as (1) mancubi (2) revenants (3) hell knights (4) arachnotrons and imps (5) cacos and pains, which puts a slightly more hectic (and I think interesting) spin on the humdrum MAP07 gameplay.

Music:
It is, and always has been, this. Zora's a great composer and I was thrilled when I found out he'd sequenced some DBZ Budokai tracks - that game has some killer music. I sort of thought for maybe a few seconds that this map should actually have some sort of original composition instead of a sequence of a videogame track, but I quickly discarded the idea. I love this track so much.

Pointless trivia:
Damn. Haven't got anything for this one. I thought I'd been clever and built the installation so the very middle (ie. the "dead center") of it would be point 0, 0 on the map grid. Thought that'd be an interesting little nugget of trivia, but as it turns out, I didn't do that at all. D'oh.

[ComicMischief]

MAP08

Alright, this is a 'wade through tons of nukage' but it's one done correctly - there's tons of health (probably too much), and enough radsuits to get a good runaround whilst fighting things. It's a nicely-sized and nicely-paced two-key level; red and blue, in one central area.

The beginning was a little confusing, I only threw myself down the large pit (which I now realise was the entire reason for the level being named 'The Plunge' - silly me) because I'd exhausted the other options. Good to see the 'three switches' thing clearly presented in the early stages, too.

There's a nice section with the two sets of stairs, plus HellNobles and Chaingunners at the top, which I managed to wake up for some infighting (and enough stimpacks to pay off the damage incurred whilst doing this) and I liked the final area; although it must be said that the Pain Elementals which were released after grabbing the red key didn't really offer much challenge; I lowered the lift and then got the key for a mad dash to the door, after a precedent had been set for ambush from getting the blue key earlier. Only one Lost Soul managed to follow me into the next section.

It's a nice little map, nice and atmospheric and dark; though not too dark. Jimmy91 seems to have a knack for taking things 'just far enough' and no further, which I like.