The DWmegawad Club plays: Back to Saturn X E1 & Favillesco E1

[dew]

Playtester's War Journal, day11: The Colossus Crawls West (Ed)

YouTube: UV SoloNet Max in 9:13 (played on v. 099j8)

This map simply reeks of Ed's style. He has such a distinctive way of building techbases and making them look pretty... and just try to stop him from adding teleport ambushes to switch actions, I dare you! Gameplay definitely changes to something not seen much so far. I'm pretty sure this type of relentless teleporter abuse would get quite annoying if the whole megawad (or even just chunks of it) worked the same way, but it's a welcomed change of pace as a soliton.

Gameplay-wise this isn't exactly my fave thing. I mean I will enjoy playing through it casually, but this is the sort of a map I don't enjoy speedrunning at all. The scripted nature didn't give me or the other playtesters too much space to influence the mapper, so it's quite an Ed monolyth. Well, we did force him to work on progression problems, because all those walls coming down and interconnecting passages? Yeah, it was all backtracking through empty rooms in v1. :)

I knew the map would be polarizing, but I'm still fairly surprised at some players' reactions to it. Especially players who didn't like the "defend the door" gameplay previously, but adored it here, hehe.

[The Green Herring]

More catching up, this time with three maps due to the "do the hub map and the map after it the same day" thing.

MAP07: Metal Mothers by Björn Ostmann -

This level is named such because of the spider masterminds around which the level was apparently designed. But let's not beat around the bush here: the spider mastermind is a worthless enemy. Especially if, as in this level, you have partial invisibility powerups to make it harder for it to shoot at you; there are enemies around who can distract it; and if you set up multiple masterminds as the final fight, in a manner where you can easily defeat them by getting them to kill each other. The rest of the monsters, including the arachnotrons, provide more of a challenge than the masterminds do. The level they're placed in is not entirely linear; there is a specific progression through the level, but you can reach the blue key and enter the section it unlocks from two different sides. Overall, it is passable. That the author didn't use tag 667 on this level is refreshing.

In my FDA, I die once to the monsters (not the masterminds, of course), and miss all the secrets. Two of them were because I wasn't attentive enough, but the other four are more suspect: one is marked only on the automap; one requires you to backtrack to the start of the level after getting the last key; one is accessed only if you kill a trapped mancubus (and is thus inaccessible in -nomonsters) that's barely even noticeable; and the secret BFG can be reached only through strafejumping, not that I needed it in the end.

FDA (doom2.exe v1.9, Ultra-Violence, 22:53 total time, 15:19 level time, 90% Kills/80% Items/0% Secrets, 1 death): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6650582/BTSX-E1M7-FDA-byTGH.zip

MAP08: Get Out Of My Stations I by Michael Mancuso -

It's a hub map, which takes you back to the train station at the end of MAP01. The path to the next level is evidently marked, but I wanted to explore the rest of the level first before I left. It does a nice job of providing atmosphere, although I admit my experience was dented by the fact that doom2.exe messed up and forgot to play music in this level. Oops!

FDA (doom2.exe v1.9, Ultra-Violence, level/total time 0:49, 0% Kills/Items/Secrets, no deaths): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6650582/BTSX-E1M8-FDA-byTGH.zip

MAP09: Some Drilling Implied by Michael Mancuso and Travers Dunne -

This was more of a challenge than MAP07. Unless you do something that isn't remotely obvious and backtrack to where you found the blue key, you won't find the super shotgun. Plus, you don't get the rocket launcher until after the yellow key door. Thus, if you play it from a pistol start, you'll have to bust out the shotgun and chaingun all the way over there, including against tough monsters. It ultimately wasn't a problem for me given how many Doom 1 WADs I've played, but I suspect not many will have the patience to do so. At this point, it seems right angles are here to stay, but the layout works out well, using height variation in many areas including enemy placement.

FDA (doom2.exe v1.9, Ultra-Violence, 15:15 total time, 15:19 level time, 98% Kills/95% Items/33% Secrets, 2 deaths): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6650582/BTSX-E1M9-FDA-byTGH.zip

[Capellan]

SteveD said:

I’m guessing this is one reason Capellan plays with music off

I just don't like music in games. I play every game with music off or turned down as far as possible: Doom, the Mass Effects, Civ4, Skyrim, Torchlight, whatever.

A part of my preference for no music is that it makes voice acting and sound effects easier to hear, but even when this isn't a factor (Civ4), I play without music.

I suspect that a big part of it is that I didn't get my first sound-card until I'd been gaming for a good few years.

And I haven't forgotten this thread. Just been out of town with no computer, and then getting the 100 lines wads ready for release. I'll try and do some catching up this weekend.

[ClonedPickle]

MAP13 + MAP14

I don't have much to say about these maps, to be honest, other than that I liked them. I was a little surprised that MAP14 ended where it did - I guess seeing the yellow door/switch so early made me think it couldn't possibly be the exit - but I wouldn't change that. I wouldn't really change anything about these maps.

I imagine I'll have more to say about MAP15/MAP31, but first I need to go play those.

[punnyone]

Map 31 - The Hard Way - Skillsaw - 100% Secrets, Items, Kills - HMP Skill.

"Hard Way" indeed, this is one beast of a map, and it certainly kicked my ass in quite a few parts!

Already from the start, there are many different routes to go, none of which are safe. Even going out of one's way to get extra cells leads to being attacked by nearly every monster in the vanilla doom bestiary. The arch-vile trap towards the end of the map must have killed me about a dozen times, and this level reintroduced my fear of revenant encounters.

Health and armor are in a decent amount in the level, but if you don't conserve them, you're pretty much done for. Even with the abundance of ammo in the level, I still found myself cutting it close, which is a good thing as it made for a great challenge.

Secrets were initially tough to find since two involve triggers and the other, which I only found now, involves backtracking. All in all, this provides a perfect cap to cluster 2, and as what is probably the hardest level in the wad, it's a deadly secret indeed. Of course, I imagine once episode 3 rolls around, levels like this will be early in the episode and will be considered a walk in the park!

[scifista42]

MAP31 - "The Hard Way" by Skillsaw

Nice map for a secret slot, it's something different than how megawads usually deal with them. It isn't that difficult visually from standard BTSX maps, and even the gameplay difference is only slight, but it is there and well noticeable.

This map apparently aims for pure fun from slaughtering. From the beginning and thorough the whole map, you're given big weapons and powerups, and at the same time you're thrown among squads of monsters of different power (it isn't overpowered I must admit) and have to fight them in large-scale environments. The overall large scale is specially important. Even though you encouter here significantly more high-tier enemies that you know from BTSX, the difficulty somehow doesn't leap up - at all - because you have so many space to dodge. So the map turns into an exceptionally intense, dynamic, and enjoyable action, surely in comparison with other BTSX, maybe not with other extreme slaughtermaps. But I personally don't like extreme slaughtermaps, but truly enjoyed this map so I believe the borderline was set just right, if it was more harsh, I wouldn't appreciate it that much.

There are slaughter encounters, but with quite adequate amount of monsters and specially beatable on the first try even if you're not prepared (the powerups do help). It's incredibly satisfying for me, who normally die often even in easy maps, that I did manage the two-cyberdemons-and-company trap on a first try when playing the map a month ago, and so I did today! I like about this map how it scales up the difficulty not by employing harder foes or bigger amounts of them, but instead it fluently gives you less and less place to move around. It culminates at the last two encounters in which you're totally surrounded in small yards. (Now I won't anyhow hide that I did die on those trying to kill them with SSG, after several failures I rather switched to BFG which saved the day.)

This map, as was mentioned, is of a large scale. This is connected with the fact that details are of a larger scale too, which I appreciate a lot, it gives the map an epic feeling, as it IS detailed. Another thing this map features is nonlinearity. I just quickly cheated through the map again to prove my suspection that you can actually finish it with only one of either blue or yellow key (which are both relatively easy to grab) and the BFG yard is completely optional. The map interconnects in a great way, even more than you can see on the optimized automap, and I'm really digging it. The secrets. I'm playing continuos, and I was leaving the map with all full ammo, 200% health and 200% armor, heh, but even though I wanted to gain the remaining secrets, because up to that moment I discovered only one. There are in total three, and none of them is activated by pressing a wall! And just to note, the fact that I'm leaving a secret map fully packed is actually what I expect from a secret map, along with a great fun, so I'm happy.

I have to say - this map is a masterpiece, thank you for that :)

[Suitepee]

http://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee

Time to start part 1 of my livestream for the club! Back to Saturn X here I come, and hopefully it will be a groovy space odyssey!

Writeup as always, to follow the next day.

[Tompig]

Map 14 -- Big Chief Chinese Restaurant

If you ever find a chinese restaurant like this please report it and have it shut down thank you.

Gameplay, fast paced linear key hunt... quite fun, not quite pushing the boundaries of doom mapping but everything was short and very very sweet and well executed. (Good use of archies, damn i'm seeing a lot of that in this WAD)

Looks wise, it does its job.
Feels very quake 2 here, whilst a good use of textures it all just kind of blends into the same thing making it a lil bland but not offensive to the eye.

The yellow key gauntlet run was very well done and the rev backup at the end really added some difficulty.

[Jayextee]

MAP15 - Tricycle Somethingorother

This one, I had to tackle in two segments due to real life things getting in the way. It would be unfair to give a writeup since I can't remember much apart from wandering around a stupid amount until I could find the red key, because the lift wasn't totally obvious.

MAP16 - Get Out Of My Hub

Hub.

I'll be back to normal service as usual. I didn't get the secret level, I'd wandered around the map way too long as-is, anyway. :/

[mouldy]

MAP13 - “I'll Replace You With Machines” by Esselfortium/Skillsaw

This was a fairly straightforward but enjoyable journey, with some long easy stretches to make you feel like a badass, interspersed with some slaps in the face from bastard traps. Was good to get some big guns early on. Nice mixture of scenery too.

MAP14 - “Big Chief Chinese Restaurant” by Foodles/Esselfortium

Cool map, quite spacious and interconnected. Great fun to play, I particularly enjoyed the area after dropping down a hole and everything is shooting down on you, and the revenant ambush after the yellow key. Not a fan of the twinkly lounge music though.

MAP15 - “Tricyclic Looper” by Mechadon

Bloody excellent map, really enjoyed getting lost in this one. Many memorable moments too, this is one of the few maps i remembered from my previous play through. Managed to find a fair few of the secrets for a change, as well as the hidden exit. Top marks.

[Veinen]

Map31: The Hard Way

More like the easy way, right? Really though, I didn't think this was very difficult at all, and especially so on the coop-difficulty where ammo and health are handed VERY generously. There's naturally more enemies as well but it felt like I could happily BFG every zombieman I see without much thought about saving cells. It's understandable since it's balanced for coop but I almost felt that UV was harder than Solonet in this case. Still, I did die a few times early and then once in the second to last trap room in my casual solonet-playthrough. Also the Cyber-yard killed me multiple times when recording the UV-Max -demo but that's more on me trying to go faster than what was healthy.

It sure was fun though, massacring all those innocent hellspawn. The design and surplus ammo invites the player to play ultra-aggressively so the combat is very fast-paced and non-stop. The map is basically just one slaughter after another but there's really no same design used twice so it's a pretty interesting ride. Some clever secrets too, I had some problems figuring out how to trigger the platform leading to the berserk secret. Good stuff overall and fits perfectly to this mapslot. Token demos for those interested: Casual SolonetUV part-FDA (13:12) and UV-Max (8:23).

[NuMetalManiak]

Quadruple kill!

MAP14 Big Chief Chinese Restaurant

God Fucking Dammit this was frustrating. Well, not at the beginning. The first outdoorsy area was my first pain moment. The one to the east, with all the enemies on the rocks and shit really was annoying. The revenants here and where the first key was were the major hassle for me. I may be acting like a raging Romulan here, but I think they are firing wayyyy too fast. Second key wasn't hard though. After that, I went to the northern outdoor area and ran as fast as I can to the yellow key. Which of course nets me a lot of feedback from monsters. Those revenants guarding the door from where I came from took FOREVER to die. I really hate their perch, they can dodge rockets and plasma and the SSG is pretty much ineffective. I used single shotgun there, not something I usually use on revenants. So the level could be fun, but for me it was frustrating especially the revenant placement. BTSX is really gritting its teeth right now. Final Time 7:40.

MAP15 Tricyclic Looper

Probably the coolest-named level (and song) thus far.

My favorite part is right at the beginning, with the nice necessity of a barrel frag. Hell, the barrel frags sure make their mark all over the level! Great fun, I could just shoot my chaingun at a group of barrels, and any monsters (there's lotsa zombies/imps, meaning gibs!) will get blown through the roof. Real big ass level though, the longetivity kinda kills some of the fun. But I had fun with barrels and other shit so it wasn't too much. Also, careful playstyle really helps here. I like after grabbing the red key, lotsa cacos teleport to attack you (kinda like Adam's Memento Mori II map), although it's still possible to miss one or two of them. Trying to get the blue key was a bit confusing, as I was lost in that area frequently (lotta one-ways paths). The way to the normal exit had one great battle with hellknights and imps teleporting on the walkway, and revenants outside, with barrels to take those suckers out. Someone mentioned a cyberdemon but I didn't fight one. I of course dispatch them then backtrack and head for the secret exit, which requirest he blue key. Got all nine secrets (Hah!). So this certainly was a good level, although confusing, but what can you expect from an author like Mechadon? Final Time 19:05.

MAP31 The Hard Way

Holy fuck...

Being a secret level, I of course expect a higher challenge and it surely delivered. While it's completely possible to skip one of the keys (you could skip the yellow key), there's gonna be some rough rounds to boot. My main trouble were actually the mancubi, which are the hardest projectile enemies to dodge in a large firefight. A large weapon depot was nearby the start which I skipped for later. Getting the blue key was far easier than the yellow as there's not much resistance. Yellow key path however has a BFG encounter where infigting can help in bringing down a cyberdemon. The teleport ambush after getting the yellow key should be handled with the BFG too. Going for the red key, there are some real nasty openings with lotsa monsters. Meaning, that if one doesn't prepare ahead of time they're shit out of luck. When running across the squares I decided to preemptively strike with the BFG to clear off some scum. Made some sense of what's left and I'm home free, but before leaving I of course come back to my precious ammo depot. Final Time 8:26.

MAP16 Get Out of My Stations II

The Wrath of NOT Khan. :) Final Time 0:06.

[Moustachio]

MAP15:

[Crusader No Regret]

map 11: did not finish, 2 deaths

Could be called "lots of teleporting monsters in a confined space, have fun." I'm impressed that this map made demons into a credible threat. Although both deaths came from chaingunners, the demons got their share of damage in. The battle behind the red door had me panicking for a bit until I got around the hellknights and back through the red door. Used it as a barricade. Monster placement in these cramped quarters works well at luring the player into dangerous situations outside of the showpiece teleport traps.

Had a 1% health moment in my recording. Would look snazzier if I hadn't died in that attempt. Didn't really care to make any more attempts and found one secret. Planned on saving the soulsphere; does little good at 0% health.

[Demon of the Well]

Continuing onwards...

Map 15 -- Tricyclic Looper - 97% Kills / 100% Secrets
Like map 12, the Looper is an adventure in itself, and like map 12, I thought it was really cool. It was fairly long on a first attempt (my FDA is around 35 minutes, although a lot of that is inefficient movement/exploration), but I imagine it can probably be done rather quickly by a person familiar with its layout, albeit perhaps not at max kills/secrets, since a large portion of both of these tallies seem to be tied up in the optional quest for the secret exit. Indeed, there are many things to see and do here, and that it is so complex while still feeling relatively intuitive is quite an achievement (though the freely-given computer area map near the start certainly helps in this regard, assuming the player has the patience/wherewithal to use it to its fullest).

Tricyclic Looper is stylistically completely different from the all of the other maps thus far, with a very complex interwoven layout characterized by networks of narrow winding passages that occasionally spill out into large chambers or yards, most of which tend to be tall/feature more than one relevant height level. Texture scheme is consistently one of a green/grey shell of industrial composites, stuffed to the gills with all manner of high-tech circuitry and supercomputers (and barrels of explosive waste, for one reason or another). It certainly creates the feeling of crawling around inside of one gigantic machine of unknown purpose. An element of moderate non-linearity returns, here: while there is a specific checklist of things that need to be accomplished in a certain order before either exit can be reached, from the outset it is possible to explore quite a ways in several directions before beginning to run into obstacles, and several sizeable areas seem to be entirely optional. The quest for the secret exit is essentially the quest for the blue keycard; reaching this involves both uncovering cordoned-off areas specific to this quest and finding some hidden things along the main route....it's very pleasing to see a secret exit setup that is so naturally/cohesively integrated into the main map progression, and doubly so one that is involved enough (though not totally obscurantist) that uncovering it grants a real feeling of accomplishment.

Given the somewhat claustrophobic and labyrinthine nature of large swaths of the Looper's square footage, the opposition tends to be a lot of smallfry monsters that come at the player in 'pulses'--sometimes appearing in fairly large numbers, as in the steady flow of imps and zombies out of the various doors/corridors connecting to the junction at the map's outset, and in others appearing in much smaller groups or even singly, lurking around bends and in the many nooks and crannies of the various maintenance corridors. Occasionally this contributes to that ephemeral state of affairs where monsters from distant parts of the map sort of follow you around and eventually catch up to you in ones or twos during some downtime; in a mapset that has tended to have a lot of relatively static monster deployment, this is certainly a welcome change of pace (probably makes the thing a bit of a to-do to maxkill, though--indeed, in my playthrough I find all of the secrets and seem to visit most/all of the complex, but still manage to miss some monsters somewhere). I also can't neglect to mention that the generous application of explosive barrels is much appreciated; this is another thing that BTSX as a whole has been pretty good about, but it really shines, here.

Fortunately, however, the map also contains several larger, more scripted setpiece battles. Perhaps the most memorable of these is the veritable swarm of cacodemons that descends on the cooling tower when the red keycard is taken; in my playthrough, I hesitate a little bit and thus end up playing 'king of the hill' with them over the small amount of space available at the top of the tower (spending a lot of time doggedly defending the tiny red key room, thanks in part to the logistical inconveniences of infinite-tallness), but I can imagine at least two or three other distinctly different ways to tackle this situation off the top of my head....that is good setpiece fight design, right there. Most of the other hotspots are less variable than this, but effective in their own way through quirks in execution--for example, I found the ambush in the dangerously tight space near the plasma rifle to be in good taste simply because it's somewhat unexpected (although I had the BFG by this point and was thus able to trivialize it), and I liked the application of the cyberdemon as a turrent near the normal exit more than I did the basically similar idea in map 05, probably because the cyberdemon is more mobile in this case, and thus a little more threatening.

So, to sum up, it's another really strong map, with enough character that it easily remains engaging from beginning to end. There was one problem, though, in that in PrBooM+ the music track for the level ends in a long, awkward silence before looping back to the beginning again. I eventually grew weary of this and IDMUS'd to the tune from track 03, myself.

On that note, here's my FDA for Tricyclic Looper. As aforementioned, it's a bit long and probably not terribly thrilling to watch at some points, but I do find all of the secrets (thanks in part to a few instances of stopping to look at the computer map) and make it out in one piece.

But wait, there's more:
*UV-Max of Underground Initiations. - Fairly entertaining, I think. A couple of snafus in places, but things mostly go smoothly. I shot for under 20 minutes and came in at under 18; a real speedrunner could probably cut minutes more off of this, but I'm pleased with my results. One thing to note is that while the program rounds kill percentage to 100%, my actual tally is 459/460; at least a few missing monsters are accounted for by the nodebuilding bug that causes them to get trapped in the floor in places (a zombie sergeant is clearly visible down there in at least once place in the demo, for instance), though I also likely missed a straggler or two in one of the yellow key zone's side areas.
*UV-Max of I'll Replace You With Machines. - Not a lot to say here, this was actually the first recording attempt. No real issues.
*UV-Max of Big Chief Chinese Restaurant. - I play with reckless abandon in places here, really the only way to make said places entertaining. There's probably a more elegant way to deal with some of the ledge-monsters than some of the approaches I take here, but damned if I felt inspired enough to find them. Ends on a bit of a blooper, with me having to kill the last two monsters with infinitely-tall rocket splash.

[Jayextee]

MAP17 - Navigating Flood Regions

I liked this one, didn't love it. Seems to be that BtSX is at least consistent with that. Great stuff were the ever-lowering areas in this map, quite clearly-done as well -- the map is very linear and occasionally rather narrow in scope but ends up opening up nicely.

I loved the general atmosphere with the slightly-overgrown section leading to the Cyberdemon fight (which was a breeze, I got his attention on Revenants and pelted him point-blank with the BFG) and the yellow key.

I also liked the lowering slime leading to the Archvile fight, which caught me unawares. I actually took a hit as the remaining imps got in the way of my retreating to cover. No deaths though.

[Veinen]

DoTW, the DL-link for your map13 demo is not right. Gave me the demo of map12 instead.

[Suitepee]

http://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/c/2757734 = on-demand for part 1 of Back to Saturn X E1.

Well this wad is so far proving to be quite the venture. Made it through maps 01-09. Entirely new textures and music, with no stock Doom 1/2 stuff whatsoever. Thanks to esselfortium's presence during the livestream itself (also thanks to Jimmy for showing up so I could talk about his music!), I was told to use the 'software' mode in GZDoom to get the full experience; granted this was after I finished the first episode area, but it's impressive how much visual detail this wad has. The changed palette (particularly the light blue adjustments swapping out the dark blue) really adds to the distinct feel of the megawad. It has a sort of techbase/Quake/Darkening 2 feel to it, with lots and lots of small details and well-crafted level design. I also love the spacey skybox.

The music is also excellent thus far, without being overbearing. I wasn't the biggest fan of the Revenant positioning at times, but then I just dislike Revenants anyway. The secrets can be tricky to find at times (I was told by esselfortium that random wall-humping rarely reveals any!), and one in particular on Metal Mothers can only be described as obscure to the point of you'd have to search the entire level with a fine-tooth comb to figure out the sector 666 reveal. Or see it in the first place.

Pistol starting each level seems ideal, as was also suggested by esselfortium. Gameplay balance is very good thus far, and the levels seem to get progressively trickier as I've played through them.

Brief thoughts on each level:

Back to Saturn X Radio Report- I liked how the level started out with no monsters for about a minute. Also liked the train hub area at the end, particularly the sofas.
Postal Blowfish- À nicely crafted level overall, nothing too specific to say on this one.
The Room Taking Shape- Some obvious, if not nicely executed traps here as the room "took shape" with them. I especially liked the 'crusher' trap area on this level, very creative. Reminded me of Prince of Persia guillotines.
A Good Flying Bird- Ouch, this level had some nasty parts. The outside area with the yellow keycard with particularly devilish; Revenant sniper nests initially, then going up the small tower triggers an Archvile and distracting Cacodemons, then running down onto the yellow keycard/armor platform teleports in more Revenants around you. First real struggle I had with BTSXE1.
Total Exposure-`Liked the idea of starting on the lower ground and then wrapping back around to the upper areas later on. The Cyberdemon area was somewhat brutal, mostly due to the Revenants and Archvile. Rushing through that part is not recommended. Odd 'secret' choice, in that it's a secret to nobody.
Mix Up The Satellite- `Kind of a sizeable level. The 'lock' trap near the start is kind of evil if you rush the area, which I struggled with a bit. I liked the room with the demon corpses and the teleporting Archvile duo scrambling to resurrect them all (turns out this area is full of barrels beforehand, which trigger somehow before you enter the room). Nice small natural areas here.
Metal Mothers- A nice open-ended level. Tackle it any way you wish! The "Metal Mothers" refers to the Spider Masterminds you'll encounter throughout the level. A secret BFG tempted me but couldn't find access. The sector 666 secret in the cave wall via killing the Mancubus inside was obscurely devilish.
MAP08 Episode Hub- Nice creepy ambient music here to transition between parts one and two of the wad. Silent Hill 3 esque.
Some Drilling Implied- Rough pistol start here for the second section opener. Died a few times getting past Revenants. (prompting esselfortium to suggest "not playing on UV"....unlikely!) Good level overall, this is where I noticed more color hue changes due to switching over to software mode.

Can't wait to play more of this amazing wad next week!

[cannonball]

MAP16 - Episode Hub by Esselfortium
It's a hub map, I was disappointed that I couldn't get lost.

MAP17 - “Navigating Flood Regions” by Esselfortium
I liked this map, had some cool effects, some good fights which encouraged some fast and aggressive playing. Not much else to say as going into detail may spoil the fun for others.
I liked how this map was much more in your face compared to the first map of the second section.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP17 Navigating Flood Regions

I got a new favorite level!

Flood pertains to nukage here, but the new nukage kinda shines a nice spark. Not too complex to get lost in, and again, barrels help in dealing with minions. Even though, it was after a hub level (meaning slightly easier than other levels before it), it still packed a lot of enemies, including a cyberdemon. Didn't watch xAn's video of the level but I definitely noticed on the thumbnail there'd be a cyber here. Took a while to reach him, but the fun is how I can run past a majority of monsters and leave them for later. Meaning, I grab blue key and press switch that goes to the rest of the level before killing everyone initially. Something rather unexpected happened at one point though, an arachnotron was actually killed by a zombieman while I was fighting it. Nukage area was, interesting, to say the least. This may have been the weak point though given that I'm attacking more enemies on ledges again. But I liked how grabbing the soulsphere causes the area to drop. Onwards to the indoors portion, this is where the cyber was. I ended up stumbling in the nukage in the southeast, and found a teleporter leading to an invulnerability! Guess who's getting front row BFG blasts to the face now! Nothing too interesting until I backtrack to the final yellow door where some resistance greets me, or rather, resistance is futily given to the resistance. Others will most likely disagree with me on this being a great map, but I absolutely loved it. Final Time 6:05.

[scifista42]

MAP16 - Episode Hub by Esselfortium

If your aim is not to rush to the exit as fast as possible, you'd find this level quite atmospheric (although short), as you'd expect from a hub, knowing the previous ones. Different part of the train station now, looks great as usual. What's nice about this map is that somehow you don't even fully notice all the small blood pools in the corridor between trains, they don't stand out that much (unlike the scene in the background). It's like if only your subconscious mind notices them, connects them with the moody music and this results in a slight unsettling feeling. But only slight, since you in fact know there cannot be anything dangerous here.

I also spent some time studying the burning-barrel glowing scene, which is overally really well set up. Noticed slight lighting abnormalities at floor, which later proven as a thin illusio pit for decorative-only purposes, apparently. I wonder if the look of the room as a whole would be spoiled too much if the illusio pit wasn't there. Oh that my nerdy need to rummage in everything...

MAP17 - “Navigating Flood Regions” by Esselfortium

Although a "cluster" starter map, it's quite loaded with powerful foes right from the beginning (revenants!). Though I doubt sommething like "a start of a new cluster" now even takes any role.

What to say about visuals and gameplay? That it's an Esselfortium map. It uses textures and shapes in ways that are every time new yet some unifying vibe is present. It has that sort of classic gameplay which is always fair, yet the author made sure you'll get hurt. Now think about that. The whole map, from the visuals and gameplay mechanics to monster encounters, gives a feeling that Esselfortium has tried and done nearly everything during his mapping carrier, he's bored by it to some extent, and he himself feels the need to each time prepare something unique, pleasureworthy, and not seen yet, for both the reasons of player's high expectations and of his own satisfaction (I first wanted to say "sanity"). But at the same time, thanks to his experience, he's competent enough to not go too far. Essel's maps are never pushed to extremes, and I have a feeling it's deliberate because then a map wouldn't be comfortable for the player to play through. See? Well, maybe it's me who went too far now...

Sooo this map has barrels, it has a well worked out mancubus encounter with successively lowering barrier, it has exceptionally developed height variation (which however doesn't obstruct you to see or shoot down any monsters in a standart way), it has a flooding part in which you get panic and run back and you only make your situation worse by that (but thanks to soulsphere you survive with ease), it has a hard to kill cyberdemon, it has a cleverly hidden secret containing something actually useful, it has some massive encounters, it gradually (as we've seen several times already) opens connections as you advance and transforms from linear to deathmatch-friendly nonlinear, and thanks to all this I found the map nice and fun to play.

[punnyone]

Map 16 - Hub - Essel

Not too much new to say about this, although again, I like the music and the fact that this is a different part of the train hub. The optional outdoor area with the distant buildings is a nice touch.

Map 17 - Navigating Flood Regions - Essel - 100% Kills, Items, Secret - HMP Skill.

This map certainly is a hard one for a cluster opener. Right off the bat there are a sizable amount of revenants to contend with, and moving through the map, there are tricky mancubus and archvile encounters and of course, a memorable cyberdemon shootout.

Visually, this is a really nice looking map. The indoor areas are nicely detailed and lit, and so is the outdoor yard at the beginning (which was the very first part of BTSX we non-developers/playtesters got to see). The level's namesake, (the flooded and sinking slime pit proved to be a fun challenge with the archvile and arachnotron thrown into the mix.

However, my favorite area was the aforementioned cyberdemon den. The dark heightless ceiling effect is what makes this level stand out for me, and not only that, but for the first time we get those awesome BTSX vine textures, which, when they are plastered all over the walls reminds me of the rooms in Duke Nukem 3D where there are abundances of those unsettling protozoid slimers. (shudders).

The invuln secret proved to be my achilles heal as just as I made it up the lift to BFG that Cyberdemon, I was blasted a good 100 feet to my death as the invul wore off!

Combine this whole nice looking atmosphere, with the challenging gameplay and excellent monster placement, and the phenomenal music track, and you have a surprisingly stellar level this late in the game!

[dew]

Playtester's War Journal, day12: Underground Initiations (travers/skillsaw)

YouTube: UV SoloNet Max in 19 minutes (played on v. 099j8)

This map is a coop project, but I have to say it's more travers than skillsaw - and he nurtures it like a favourite child. He keeps improving and prettifying areas for over a year since he internally released the map. Skillsaw's main addition is quite easy to recognize. Yep, the final arena, which he added to drain players out of cells and rockets. :) He also added the bonus rooms you access with keys from other areas and generally made some areas more complex. I'm not sure which one of them added the megasphere ambush in its current form, the one in v1 was very tame, heh.

The map is pretty, non-linear and cleverly woven together, still manages to progress nicely no matter which route you pick... and of course, it's very long and quite hard in some spots. All proper megawads need their epic massive journey map, right? Such an early spot can be a surprise to some, but then again... Black Rain was map12 as well, eh?

I also like how wildly pace changes in various parts of the map. Yeah, the cave area in the YK wing has a lot of the hated sniper imps, but in this case it's for the good - I usually found myself low on health there and even their weak fireballs suddenly seemed threatening, not to mention radsuit management. On the other hand there are busy moments like the mega secret, the BK room or, of course, the final arena. So yeah, I think the team (and travers and skillsaw especially) can be proud of this one.

My demo is more of a playthrough than a speedrun, because the map is quite demanding and long. I'd need more time to produce something polished, but this is good enough for me. Especially with the ending I got, which veinen should enjoy. :) I agree with whoever said the best progression seems to be BK->RK->YK, even though the BK room is risky like that.

Fun Fact: The cyb in the final arena started as a coop-only idea, then he became an instant hit... so coop had to get another one. Double the fun!

Fun Fact 2: I got to say this: "sector 1567 shouldn't have the ceiling 128 units below the floor, because it makes the map impossible to exit."

[esselfortium]

dew said:

Playtester's War Journal, day12: Underground Initiations (travers/skillsaw)

YouTube: UV SoloNet Max in 19 minutes (played on v. 099j8)

That ending was beautiful.

[mouldy]

MAP31 - “The Hard Way” by Skillsaw

This was a slice of fun, maybe not as hard as the title suggests, but there is plenty of meat and ammo to hammer it with so I can't complain. The one bit that killed me a couple of times was the trap when you skip across the pillar and drop down into an ambush of various monsters, my own fault for trying to brazen it out with SSG when I should have just nuked everything with the BFG. Good fun, was expecting more punishment though.

MAP16 - Episode Hub by Esselfortium

hub shenanigans

MAP17 - “Navigating Flood Regions” by Esselfortium

Exciting start to this one with sniping revs making life difficult. Thereafter some familiar techbase action, easy enough to allow for fast and reckless behaviour. I found the secret invulnerability, though it ran out before I got any use from it. Nothing to write home about I guess, but no complaints either.

[Capellan]

map12
Much of the commentary on this map has been about how long it is, but it didn't feel that long to me. That's probably partly that I'm playing it on HNTR, but I think also it's because it felt more varied in gameplay than map11, which for my tastes went to the same well too often.

I liked that there were multiple routes open most of the time. Progression was generally easy to work out. My only moment of difficulty there was not finding the lift at sector 1576 for a while.

I wasn't really a fan of the end game, after the triple-key-doors. It felt a bit tacked on.

Thing 401 fell in the dummy sector for me, as he has for several other people.

[j4rio]

Map 13 - played twice, once UV once solo-net, glb+, pistol start

Heh, well, I liked all obvious skillsaw bits and wasn't too thrilled about the rest. Solo-net made this much better than regular UV. I think this is the first map of saturnx with av usage I've genuinely liked all the way through. However quite a few rooms felt rather meh.

demos - http://filesmelt.com/dl/saturnx-stuff-j46.zip

[Tarnsman]

Please tell me what you think the Skillsaw bits are.

[j4rio]

Well let's see, parts around blue keycard and probably some encounters onwards, exit room, lava bit with 2 archviles closet (on coop), wild guess would be something about first room, even though nothing really exposes itself from that part to downright persuade me. The circular room with co-op av reminded me of btsx's map 4 for some reason, so I'd be surprised if he is behind that chunk. Then again, after map 10 experience I can't say I'm exactly sure about anything, but some encounters did bear a few vanguard trademarks, so I'll eat my hat if I'm wrong about everything. Now that I think about it, I'm curious exactly what is each author behind here.

[dew]

jario, you also need to keep in mind i added all the coop placement for this map after everything else was finished, so basing your judgement on solonet battles difficulty would be, what's the popular term, objectively wrong. :)