The DWmegawad Club plays: Vile Flesh

[dobu gabu maru]

What is the DWmegawad Club?
This is a place where we settle down, have a cup of tea (or drink of your choice) and take a month to play through a megawad on our own, together! Any keen observations, criticisms, or frustrated ranting about it goes here in the discussion. As long as you want to say something about what you've played, feel free to speak your mind.

Can I join?
Sure. The only rule is that you have to play at least some of the levels in our monthly megawad to contribute, but you're generally encouraged to finish the whole thing, even if you've played it before.

What levels am I allowed to post about?
Whatever day of the month it is, is the upper limit for the map you can post on. So if it's the 6th, you may discuss up to MAP06.

Do I have to post an entry every day?
Nope, not at all. This is only for our more enthusiastic members. As long as you play through it with us you’re part of the club.

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The megawad we are playing through is Vile Flesh

>>>DOWNLOAD VILE FLESH HERE<<<

Vile Flesh is a one man Boom-compatible megawad made by Gwyn Williams. It was started some time in 2001 and published on idgames in 2004, and while it may not be as famous as some of the other big names, it does promise some delicious Doom action we all know and love. The maps do tend to get larger in size as the wad goes on, so buckle in! (though nothing as obscene as +1000 monsters!)

Maplist for Vile Flesh:

Quote

Map01 - “Administration”
Map02 - “Nuke Storage”
Map03 - “Processing”
Map04 - “Mainframe”
Map05 - “Outpost”
Map06 - “Secure Area”
Map07 - “Labs”
Map08 - “Gateway”
Map09 - “Weapons Bay”
Map10 - “Beacon”
Map11 - “War Rooms”
Map12 - “Cliff Face”
Map13 - “Subterrainia”
Map14 - “The Pits”
Map15 - “Village”

Map31 - “Rough Draft”
Map32 - “Spider Web”

Map16 - “Cathedral”
Map17 - “Guard Towers”
Map18 - “Boneyard”
Map19 - “The Pillars”
Map20 - “Demon Seed”
Map21 - “Flesh Mill”
Map22 - “Ungod”
Map23 - “Return Ticket”
Map24 - “City Center”
Map25 - “UAC Headquarters”
Map26 - “Service Tunnels”
Map27 - “Dimension Shift”
Map28 - “Tower Block”
Map29 - “Earth Siege”
Map30 - “Hell Revealed”

BONUS CONTENT
Suitepee's playthrough: 1 2 3
4
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OLD THREADS
BF_THUD!
Community Chest 4
Jenesis
MAYhem 2012
Memento Mori
Interception
2002: A Doom Odyssey
Hadephobia
Coffee Break & Fava Beans & Double Impact
HYMN
Stardate 20X6 & Monochrome Mapping Project
Realm of Chaos
Back to Saturn X E1 & Favillesco E1
Kama Sutra
Unholy Realms & Zone 300
Vile Flesh
Ultimate Doom
Whitemare & Sacrament
Scythe
Epic 2
Whitemare 2

Edited May 9, 2023 by dobu gabu maru

[Dragonsbrethren]

Going to try participating again this month. Sat out last month because the first few maps of UR didn't really do it for me and I just played Zone 300. I'd love to record FDA's but my mouse is giving me some trouble so I'm playing in ZDoom with my 360 controller, and I doubt anyone cares about ZDoom demos.

Anyway MAP01's not a bad level, but nothing really stands out. Kind of reminds me of one of my levels in that regard, heh. That computer map is way too hard to nab considering it's likely the last secret you'll find, therefore showing you nothing. The green armor seems a bit too protected too, but if this is meant to be played continuously, maybe it'll be worth it in the next level.

Aesthetically, I would've liked to see more of the high contrast lighting present at the start. I liked the computer consoles, the way they wrap around the walls in some sections. It looks good, I've never considering doing it myself. It would've looked better with some custom corner flats, though. The outdoor area would've benefited from a couple lowered walls, E1-style, give it more a feel of a building and a surrounding wall.

[Suitepee]

I'm getting better Internet on the 8th November, so I MIGHT participate in the Club' this time around via (actually visually watchable) twitch livestreams of Vile Flesh!

[Steve D]

Suitepee said:

I'm getting better Internet on the 8th November, so I MIGHT participate in the Club' this time around via (actually visually watchable) twitch livestreams of Vile Flesh!

I hope to join you on a livestream, John. Schedules haven't permitted me to do so for quite awhile, but things are freeing up a bit this month, so I want to get back in on the fun!

[Steve D]

On to Vile Flesh! Playing on Risen3D, continuous, UV, frequent save/reload, keyboard-only as usual.

Map01 – Administration. Kills – 100, Items – 100, Secrets – 100. Time – 11:14. End Health – 100, Armor 100. Death Count – Zero

So here we have a one-man megawad by this Gwyn Williams character. One-man megawads are impressive achievements in and of themselves. It’s an insane amount of work. As a mapper myself, I’d say making the maps is actually easier than constantly playing them to get the balances right. Takes ages. It looks like Williams maybe did his own music as well? Even more impressive if so.

I thought about playing the megawad in GZDoom for the monster and secret counts, but in that port there’s a major HOM around the yellow key. So then I thought about PRBoom, but that port runs a little jittery on my machine and gets me nauseous, so it was back to the old reliable, smooth as silk and sees-in-the-dark wonder of the world, Risen3D!

Map01 greets me with an E1-style techbase, which is absolute catnip to me. Detail level was nicely mid-range, in the ever-popular “Gimme some more ducting!” style. There was lots of free-standing consoles that I wasn’t exactly in love with. Lighting was stark-contrast in many places, and I really liked it. There were some misaligned ceiling lights, legacy of the days before DB2 allowed us to view ceiling textures. Williams also typically used the wall texture as window borders, a bad idea since they almost always misalign, and even when they don’t, it doesn’t look that good. Difficulty was at the higher end of the Fava Beans scale, which is to say, extremely easy, but based on early experience, plus reading some comments at idgames, it seems that Williams is going for tight ammo/health balances, so it behooves one to be a bit careful in using resources.

None of the fights were memorable, but none were bad, either, more or less as expected in a typical “Hi, how are ya? Let’s shake hands,” Map01. I was able to puzzle out the Backpack secret by looking out the windows. The Green Armor/Computer Map secret was trickier, but having a crate next to a UAC wall insert was suspicious enough to alert me. The leap for the Computer Map was too irritating to bother with, so I clipped to it. Note to all mappers – making me do ridiculous jumps is my excuse to cheat, each and every time. Same with any platforming of any description. ;D

All in all, this was a nice, good-looking intro map in classic oldschool style.

[cannonball]

Ah Vile Flesh, a very interesting wad. This wad was I believe intended to be vanilla compatible and in fact most levels work fine in vanilla, but there are some boomisms here and there. This is a very popular wad amongst speedrunner being one of the top wads in the demo archives.
What can I say before I begin, this is a personal favourite of mine, whilst visually it's probably not the best, it doe provide some interesting experiences along the way.
Oh yeah I think the music in this is very good, composed by the band Gwyn was in.

Map01 - “Administration”
Simple, short, probably quite forgettable in a sort of "it's a map01" kind of way. Relatively clean and simple visuals and the gameplay is easy. The secrets are not hard to find here.

Lets not fall behind this month :)

[vdgg]

MAP01 - this map sets the theme for the first "episode", from MAP01 to MAP09, I believe. Techbases with STARGR, METAL textures, ceiling lights in separate cut-off sectors, wall lights in 64-unit wide corridors (here's just one, leading to the chaingun). Simple yet dangerous (these sergeants!). Looks nice, plays so-so.

[Cynical]

Map 01- Short and quick, filled with weak baddies although that one Chaingunner in the Chaingun/Armor/Computer Map secret surprised a bit. It's interesting that about half of the level is entirely optional; it doesn't even net you any new weapons if you find the previously mentioned secret. Speaking of that secret, unlike Dragonsbrethren, I actually nabbed it first-thing in the map, and it was the only secret I was able to figure out how to get to, despite having the map. Oh well, the map certainly doesn't need whatever assistance is present in the other secrets.

[dobu gabu maru]

Never played Vile Flesh before. Going to be doing continuous playthrough on this since I want more of a relaxing stroll this month.

MAP01: Well, this starts innocently enough. It’s a pretty quick n’ easy opener with the traps being little more than open cubbies as you backtrack. What I really appreciate about Williams’ design is the sense of “roominess” he has for each area—by which I mean his ability to make the rooms feel “full” and “colorful”, whether it be with a change in texture scheme, some METAL borders, or sharp angular supports jutting out of the floor. He has an interesting feel for shapes and sizes so far, and I have a feeling I’ll come to appreciate his style as I delve deeper into this rabbit hole.

[vdgg]

MAP02 - Similar setting as no.1, two new elements: COMPBLUE panels here and there, plus 64-unit wide tiny lifts. Outdoor area after YK - quite impressive.

This is a brutal map, the most difficult one IMO before MAP07. This time I tried playing really cautiously, but without getting the secrets I knew about and I died once. A nightmare for Max speedrunning (I tried it). Adam Williamson set a record which couldn't be beaten for a long time, thanks to his amazing luck with RNG (punching cacodemons). Of course, the berserk fist is the fastest "weapon" available here, but it's damn risky and unpredictable.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Heh, glad the difficulty's not just me being bad at Doom. It definitely seems like that armor in MAP01 was intended for the start of this map. I could've used some more health, I barely managed to get through alive. Wading through nukage because I just had to go back and pick up some guns after the green armor secret was terrifying - I think I was down to 4% health. Of course I went back for those guns because ammo was so tight.

I liked the yellow key area, pretty standard for Doom but it had a nice sense of place to it. The bridge in the outdoor section was kinda dumb, too much space between the midtextures, it didn't look like a structure you could walk on. I found the green armor secret through dumb luck - the same panels are used as detail all over the place. Didn't find the other secret.

[cannonball]

Map02 - “Nuke Storage”
Recovery items are thin on the ground here, which is the reason why this map is tricky. Pretty fun overall. Died once past the yellow key door so yeah I suck too :P

[Steve D]

Map02 – Nuke Storage. Kills – 91, Items – 93, Secrets – 0. Time – 20:17. End Health – 91, Armor – 73. Death Count – 1

Another short, punchy map, though I took a long time because I was searching for secrets.

I got killed right at the start because I was expecting monsters hiding behind the metal columns, so I creeped along the outer wall and was looking inwards when the trap sprang and all the Sergeants and Chaingunners had a good angle on me, and I had the shotgun in my hands. Bye-bye, Steve! ;D Next try I ran through the center, chaingun in hand, then turned and blew them all to smithereens. After that, the map was easy for continuous players. The only really nasty part was when I found the Green Armor secret by pressing on a wall insert with a small vertical offset. I admired the way Williams trapped the secret, that’s right up my alley! It took me down to 23% health, so I decided to open a saved game and not go for that secret this time. :D

Overall, it was a fun map with some decent fights. I liked the yellow key area, very much classic Doom style. I also liked the outdoor area with its sense of epic scale, though I agree with Dragon that the bridge is a bit silly with its widely-spaced crossmembers. The skinny Lite5 poles were a dodgy, fiddly bit of detail, I thought, and the Grnlite1 ceiling textures were horribly misaligned.

Owing to the super-tight health and ammo balance, I’ll play continuously until such time as it becomes a deficit, for example, if I enter a map at 25% health and can’t get more before I’m killed, at which point I’ll either pistol-start on UV or back it down to HMP. But so far, I’m having fun.

[dobu gabu maru]

MAP02: Christ almighty, where is the health? I was reduced to 8% and stayed there for the whole friggin’ map, with every minor bandage being swiftly torn off by a nearby bullet. Since I’m playing in Zdoom I got to appreciate more of the architecture and surroundings without being annoyed by bumpiness, but the health stuff really got to me, especially since I’m going into MAP03 with 18% now. Really like the look of the first room, with the pillars showcased in the megawad club image above.

[Magnusblitz]

I think I've played Vile Flesh before, didn't remember MAP01 before but MAP02 definitely rang some bells. It's definitely been awhile, though.

MAP01: Administration
40/42 kills, 1/2 secrets

Pretty forgettable MAP01, though it's not intended to be difficult. Interesting in that there are a lot of nice details, such as the light fixtures, computer consoles, or ductwork, and then there's some garish aesthetics such as the window edges (using the same wall texture, unaligned) or misaligned ceiling textures. There's also plenty of egregious Romero Floor Rule violations.

The other thing that strikes me is the size of the level - in terms of gameplay, it's short and quick, but the the rooms are a little too spacious and many areas are devoid of enemies or items. I always saw this as a bit of an old-school/amateurism, so a bit surprising that this was made in 2001. Still, shall see what the future holds.

MAP02: Nuke Storage
71/74 kills, 0/2 secrets

A continuation of theme of the previous map, but we start to see the resoure deficit creep in. I played cautiously enough that health wasn't a horrendous problem, but it is rare, and there's almost no armor, meaning that the chaingunners can cut you to ribbons quickly.

There's also a lot of little things I don't like here. We've got the "instapop out of the floor" enemies here - the worst were the hitscanners after the yellow door, especially since the first time I opened the door, I awakened them but didn't cross the line to pop them up, so the chaingunner killed me from his invisible pit. Fun. There's an unmarked exit. Also, I couldn't figure out how to get the green armor, though I was able to figure out how to jump off the lift and walk along the ledges (only some of the fences are blocking, btw) and then fall into the green armor, only to be unable to escape because I hadn't opened the bars the right way. Oh well.

[Demon of the Well]

Alright, it's been a very long time since I've played Vile Flesh, but it made enough of an impression on me that I've been meaning to revisit it all these years, and now the DWMC gives me a lovely opportunity to do so. The things I remember most about it are some of the unusual (though generally fairly simple) themes it manages to wring out of the stock textures, its difficult and sometimes either very obscure or very involved secrets, and its characteristically tight resource balance. Indeed, it seems that some of you have already discovered that Williams probably designed this from a standpoint where continuous play is the default/normal style, although care was taken to make them all pistol-start compatible, as well (though some can be rather uncomfortable this way if you don't find at least a handful of secrets).

As usual, I'm using Eternity with my standard leisure settings (no infinitely-tall actors, freelook, etc.). Also as usual, I'll be playing on UV and pistol-starting all the maps, with the intention of killing everything and finding as many secrets as I can....and even though I've played before there are still a lot of secrets I haven't found in this one, let me tell you. I try to keep the use of the saves to a minimum, although some of these maps are large enough that an occasional indulgence in that regard might be in order. Without further ado...

Map 01 -- Administration - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Very Map 01-ish Map 01, introducing a variety of the game's basic elements like any good first map should--here we get a taste of Williams' very clean (if sometimes squarish) visual style, of the WAD's propensity for nonstandard secrets, including the first of many multi-parters, and the generally tightly controlled health/ammo balance.

Not that it's at all a challenging map, mind--very lightweight appetizer fare, pitting the player mostly against small groups of former humans, sergeants, and the occasional imp, placed directly or in a couple of closets. Despite the general lack of threat, an unlucky or unaware player still stands to take some significant damage in a couple of places (particularly versus the yellow key ambush), and will quickly find that stimpacks and medikits just simply aren't given out like candy in like this one. The concealment of the armor vest and the computer area map is more interesting than it is useful, at least from a pistol-start perspective; the backpack secret, though technically a two-part endeavor, is possibly the easiest secret in the whole game.

I probably appreciate the aesthetics more than the actual gameplay in this one. The actual theme is pretty unassuming but is nevertheless mostly well-realized--it's a mostly well-lit institutional techbase (albeit one that has undergone some disaster causing its courtyard to flood with nukage), one with a decidedly utilitarian/military cast, as opposed to the polished silver/supercomputer or rusty/dirty/damaged themes, for example. Williams has a good feel for sector-based detailing that inhabits the sort of middle range between 'minimalistic' and 'saturated', and he likes his pronounced directional lighting, as well. One can also notice that the play area here, even though this is just a short little map 01, tends to feel pretty spacious at most points, which is characteristic of the WAD as a whole. There are a few low points--the outdoor view is quite bland, and there's the issue of the texturing on the window thresholds that others have pointed out, but for the most part it's clean and crisp.

Map 02 -- Nuke Storage - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
How about that first ambush, guys? It's designed to leave you wounded and on edge for the rest of the map, and the first time people play this it's usually one of the first things they seem to remember about the WAD as a whole, for whatever reason. Having the benefit of knowing about it beforehand, this time rather than subduing it with just the handgun I ran away from all of it into the inner reception room, and killed all of the zombies/imps later on down the line, as they are quite happy to follow you in there, given time.

I reckon the highlight of this outing would be the titular nuke storage area in the basement. It appears very lightly defended at first, but as you progress towards actually obtaining the yellow security card a couple of small barbs spring to stop you--the imps and demons aren't dangerous (and it's fun to punch them down into the nukage if you found the berserk pack moments earlier), but the chaingunners do need to be taken seriously, given how scarce medical supplies are in this map. As to the secrets, it's easy to miss the berserk pack simply because it's harder to spot the telltale misalignment on COMPBLUE than it is for many textures. The green armor is problematic/not really well-designed in that it's very easy to break the map trying to get it (I seem to recall I made the same rail-walking mistake that Magnus did the first time I played), and it has a baffling red herring nearby, as one of those light-posts that Steve mentioned can be lowered like a lift for little apparent reason (it can be activated from the other side of the railing, in fact). The intended method is at least kind of neat, feels like a real 'secret' instead of 'just a powerup hidden in a hole in the wall', if you know what I mean.

Aesthetically this is very much more of the same as map 01, with a similar sense of generous scale. Dobu mentioned the memorable pillared hall flanked by the two broad windows; I kind of like the odd little vertical fluorescent light-tube thingies in places, myself. The 3D bridge is very Kama Sutra-esque (although I guess it's really more accurate to say that KS's bridges are very Vile Flesh-esque) in that it contains an odd-looking amount of blank space between its planks, as others have noted....this doesn't really bother me much, as I tend to think 3D bridges look a little silly in general if you look at them closely, regardless of spacing. I do agree the insta-pop monster pit behind the yellow door is rather tacky, though, if for no other reason than that it's not deep enough, and so you can just see the tops of the chaingunners' bald heads while they're in there.

[vdgg]

MAP03 - almost nothing new. The start is a la Kristian Aro/Paul Corfiatis (this symmetry), say 2002ADO E1M7. Then, some chaingunners in pitch black compartments, it is likely they will start some infighting though, if not, you have to shoot blindly. The SSG, a very generous gift for all you continuous play players, it will make your next maps almost a walk in the park. And a plus from me for the nukage zone (big room + long corridor), they are the nicest areas IMO. An above average map.

[Devalaous]

Ive been meaning to play this some day when I have time for it.

[Veinen]

Unholy Realms will still get the final two maps & reviews from me but I suppose it's time to get this thing going as well. Going with glboom+/pistol starts/no saves (until the apparently mega-sized later maps at least) as usual. Going for a more laidback playthrough though and since there's a shitload of demos already available in the dsda, I won't be doing anything in that regard.

Map01: Administration

The introductory map to this wad doesn't really offer much in terms of combat situations, which is to be expected really for a map01 to be honest. Ammo and health seem to be very tight though and if that continues, it may cause some problems in tougher maps. Visual style is indeed very clean and I'd say logical, but it's super simple and it doesn't really have any particular points of interest either. I found the backpack secret rather quickly but the other one took me much longer to figure out. Mostly because I was absolutely sure that the blue telepad looking thingie in the CG-wing was a secret and spent a lot of time wallhumping every inch of that area to get it lower.

Map02: Nuke Storage

Goddamn, some start this map has. Tore me to shreds and I was on very low health all the way until the berserk secret. Then later in the map the ammo problems showed up and I finally ran out of everything when the final two Cacos appeared from their closets. I had low health at that point too and eventually died trying to punch out the second one. Amazing really how a map with so few monsters and pretty much all of them low tier can be so tricky. Second attempt I made beter use of the Fist and exited with plenty of ammo to spare. This map show a bit more in the visual side too with some nice detailing and variation. Decent fun overall.

[Cynical]

I actually managed to get PrBoom + working on my mom's computer (yes, this was actually in doubt...), so I won't have to skip this week.

That said, the configuration feels *really* weird to me, so I'll be playing terribly. Well, more terribly than normal.

Anyways, map 02:
The big danger for me wasn't that first trap, but the area around the yellow key. Chaingunners at awkward angles + unfamiliar setup = pain. I'd have been in trouble had it not been for finding the green armor, which may be the most random pushwall secret ever.

Is there any way to tell PrBoom + to draw fullscreen on a widescreen monitor, but draw black bars on the side to maintain original aspect ratio? Widescreen feels really weird to me; at home, my monitor automatically detects non-widescreen resolutions and draws the black bars on its own, but no such luck on this monitor.

[Magnusblitz]

Technically the 3rd here, gonna go ahead and review it.

MAP03: Processing Plant
73/73 kills, 0/3 secrets (I apparently suck at finding the secrets in this WAD)

Yeah, generally more of the same, from a hub setup at the beginning. There's some really frustrating placement of chaingunners here - the west section has them in pure dark murderholes (so you can't see them until they start ripping into you) and the east wing beyond the blue door has a terrible placement where the chaingunners can see you, but you can't see them. I entered that hallway with 61 health and died about 10 times to unseen chaingunners before finally getting through. Not fun. The rest of the level is pretty boring and uneventful. Revenants finally show up, but they're trapped behind some bars and are easily cheesed. The start of the level is pretty resource-poor but thankfully by the end there's a decent amount of health and a green armor.

[Cynical]

Map 03- Oh, it's a key hub. Wonderful.
Anyways, the start area and the blue key area were pretty damn annoying (chaingunners everywhere! Chaingunners placed in the dark that you can't see!), but the red key area was ok; the use of windows with the Cacos was kinda neat. I went ahead and let the three Revenants out to kill them; sure, I could snipe them through the bars, but why turn down a bit of easy SSG fun?

[cannonball]

Map03 - “Processing”
Ammo is tight in this one, and health I guess if you don't find the soulsphere secret. Again it's the attrition value which adds to the difficulty, along with a lot of chaingunners. Ok map again with some decent visuals in parts and not so good in others.

[Rook]

So, this is not only my first go at the Megawad Club but also my first-ever Doomworld post. I've lurked for a little while and always liked the idea of these threads, so it was inevitable that I should dive in. I'll be playing Vile Flesh using GZDoom plus the Enhanced Edition of Per Kristian's improved animations and sounds. Continuous with frequent saves.

MAP01: Administration

It's obvious from this first map that Vile Flesh isn't ever going to be one of my favourite WADs but that's absolutely fine – it'll be an experience nonetheless. The main reasons are that I'm so very tired of the default textures and I'm a little intolerant of some basic mapping errors. That said, this is a pretty fun opening map which was slightly more challenging than I expected, what with the early appearance of a lot of shotgun guys.

As SteveD pointed out there's a fairly horrid HOM at the yellow key in GZDoom but hopefully those won't crop up too often. I definitely like the music and wasn't able to find the second secret despite my best efforts (the one with a computer map in it, apparently). At this stage what worries me about this WAD is the whispers I hear of a lack of ammo and armour. I've never understood the point of trying to make players conserve ammo in Doom, it just doesn't seem to fit the game's concept to me – but we'll see.

MAP02: Nuke Storage

Erk, ammo and health are already becoming a fairly major issue here. I actually did a quick playthrough from a pistol start just to test and it's quite tricky, given the early chaingunner/shotgun guy ambush. I'm really not fond of the very high chaingunner to armour ratio, and the amount of work that needs doing just to get a measly green armour. Even on my standard playthrough I died several times to just a few monsters between the two main buildings, just because health and armour were in such short supply. Not a fan of this.

MAP03: Processing

There are definitely some elements I like about this map – the central hub concept, some of the lighting, and the genuinely surprising teleporting revenant trap. Why a processing centre requires a massive pool of nukage at its core is a bit of a mystery, but Gwyn Williams obviously wasn't going for a strictly realistic feel despite the somewhat workaday map titles he chose. The music is still consistently good, which I feel will be a given as the mapset goes on.

As for negatives – well, the health and armour balance is still very poor in parts although at least there is a green armour in a reasonable position on this occasion. The growing numbers of chaingunners is a definite frustration, especially when they're sniping across huge chasms and hidden in pitch-black chambers. It encourages very cautious play, which I think could get tedious long before the final map comes around. I missed two secrets, but then I am pretty poor at finding those in general – something I need to improve on, for sure.

[Melon]

I don't have loads of time but it's been ages since I participated in one of these so lets give it a go. I play from pistol start on HNTR and I decided to record my plays in Pr-Boom+ but I doubt they are even remotely interesting to watch. Something that I have forgotten after playing so many more modern wads is that these really old wads tend not to be so balls hard on all difficulties, and so these levels were not even remotely challenging. Not that that's bad or anything, but there's being non-challenging, and then there's being almost devoid of any monsters at all.

MAP01: To be honest I've already forgotten most of this level, but I do remember it having a nice big sense of scale with a large view between the areas of the building. This large scale motif continues in levels 2 and 3 and it's really nice, these old levels couldn't do much in the way of lots of scenery but the large simple areas work well I think.

Oh yeah, at this point writing this post I checked the age of the wad and it's not as old as it seemed when I was playing it. I assumed it was released sometime before 2000!

MAP02: These comments of no health certainly don't apply to HNTR! A largely empty level but I still ran out of ammo against the cacos. I managed to kill them anyway because I'm awesome, and turns out that I missed some shotgun shells sitting in the same room because I'm an idiot. The green armour secret was neat.

MAP03: This level looked a lot neater at first glance than it really was. Nothing really happened in the hub room and it looked like it was set up for a nice interesting fight later in the level. Compared to the previous level I was absolutely drowning in ammo this time. Nothing to really say on HNTR unfortunately, I don't mind the easiness but I could do with more things to shoot. Maybe I should go up to HMP but I don't really want to spend too long on this this month. Do the levels get significantly more difficult later or should I go up a setting?

[Steve D]

Map03 – Processing. Kills – 100, Items – 100, Secrets – 100. Time – 21:31. End Health – 190, Armor – 97. Death Count – Zero

I would have suffered here from a pistol start, but it was a breeze on continuous. I was never below 45% health, and that was at the start, but I had fun all the way through and this was my favorite map so far.

The opening is dicey as you begin under fire from chaingunners, sergeants and cacos. I cleared the hitscanners beautifully on the first try and was only down to about 85%, and then I decided to charge the cacos to make the shotgun blasts more hurtful, and I got nailed. So I opened a saved game and did better overall, even though my performance against the hitscanners was mediocre and I was dropped to 75%. Luckily, one of the cages had a Medikit, and it was smooth sailing from there.

It was nice to be given the SSG, but shell ammo was tight and I was down to 9 shells after a battle with cacos and imps, but I had plenty of bullets and chaingunned through everything until I built up the shells again.

I was lucky with the “murder hole” chaingunners and only took one bullet. That was really something of a jagoff move on Williams’s part, I must say. I also got lucky with the distant chaingunners across the open gap. Fortune was on my side a few times, that’s for sure. ;)

This map has even more of an oldschool classic feel than the first two, and as a ‘90s Doomer, I really felt right at home. I even liked the skinny Lite5 “neon bars,” as DoTW calls them, and alignment was much better than the first 2 maps. The best-looking area was the start, IMO, with its cast lighting and Caco cage in the middle of the hub.

Secrets were pretty obvious this time and easily grabbed.

One thing I didn’t get was the Revvie cage at the end. If it was supposed to open, it didn’t, so I wasted ammo slaughtering them just to get 100% kills.

I’d also like to say “Hi,” to new member Rook, and I hope you stick around. Great job on the commentary. As to the issue of tight health and ammo, I point to the IWAD maps themselves. Two in particular come to mind – Sandy Peterson’s crazed E3M5 and John Romero’s jagoff-to-the-max Map15. Peterson’s E3M5 is one long, panicked run searching for health and ammo as you’re chased by imps, pinkies and Barons, often across damaging floors, and unless you find the secrets there’s basically no ammo or health and no hitscanners to kill for their ammo. I mean, there’s only 2 shell boxes in the whole map, otherwise it’s just 4 shells here, 4 shells there. You really need to survive long enough to find the heavy weapons and the Soulspheres. As for Map15, from the hitscanners too high to see to the ammo/health starvation as you climb stairs behind your chaingun only to face a PE at the end when you’re down to 15 bullets, this is one of the most frustrating maps I’ve ever tried to play. In fact, next time I try, I’ll pistol-start from HMP or HNTR, because on UV I managed to find a secret stash of health and ammo – guarded by an arachnotron when I had zilch for health and ammo. Not fun.

But anyway, there you have it. Modern players, it seems, are more accustomed to maps that use a lot of heavy meat rather than hitscanners, and with a lot of health and ammo so they can try and kill the meat while dodging their attacks, thus, the survivalist approach is maybe less popular than it used to be. I still like it, though. ;)

[Dragonsbrethren]

Borrowed a mouse so I did MAP03 in PrBoom-plus with complevel 9, but I forgot to record anyway. I've got to say, though, that playing in ZDoom with good controller controls was a nice change of pace and I may go back to it for the later maps, provided they don't get too hard for that to be viable.

I don't have much to say about the gameplay in this one, outside of what was already said about the chaingunners in the darkened areas being bullshit. Apparently I missed one or two since I exited with 96% kills, despite thinking I killed everything. The medikits are very welcome after the previous map. Got 100% secrets, but found the one leading to the soul sphere just by wall humping when I figured the entrance had to be around there somewhere (didn't even notice if there was an indication of the secret on the wall).

One thing that bugged me here, which was also present in MAP02 but I didn't mention it, was that you could go the wrong way in the blue key area and get nothing for your trouble but a dead end. When a map's completely linear, either give me something for exploring there, or just lock the entire area off until I go the right way. I really don't see why both routes in that area couldn't be open from the start. MAP02 did this with the yellow door, where the lock could've taken the place of the switch activated door, instead of you wasting your time (and ammo) going down that route first.

Visuals really remind me of an Evilution map, but more coherent and better looking. The massive nukage hole in the beginning, and the inaccessible area after the blue door. Speaking of that area, I really liked the slime fall walls beyond the grating in one section (the dead end I mention above), but it would've looked a lot better if the nukage floor on that side was lowered below floor level. More use of those consoles I liked from MAP01, although I dislike how they're used as "walls" here.

[vdgg]

@Cynical: try with different resolutions and, especially, aspect ratios. Main Menu -> Options -> General
@Melon: These level really looked empty in your maps, no chaingunners on MAP02, on the next one you got blue armor instead of green, etc. and this trend should continue. Check out monster counts, for example the number of revenants on MAP05 or totals at the bottom. (Left column marked S2 is HNTR, middle column = S3 = HMP).

MAP04. This is the most interesting one so far, but not good, I'm afraid. Good decision about changing main textures, but MODWALL as the dominant texture is a "meh" choice IMO. One plus for cool looks of the corridor (lighting):
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v345/wojtunio/vile00_zps296367cd.png
Here's something strange, a floor lamp gives "negative light" :-P
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v345/wojtunio/vile01_zps391adf4d.png
And one more picture, do you know that you don't need to lower these bars? One of the gaps is 35 units wide (Grazza discovered that, see dew's UV Speed demo)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v345/wojtunio/vile02_zps03fb32fe.png
Gameplay gets thumbs down, as one of the secrets is way too powerful. You get that rocket launcher and two boxes of rockets or (more likely) you have minor weapons and the map is 4 times harder for no reason. Personally, I never played this one at full speed, releasing everything at once (see UV Max demos), as it requires many, many tries for a success.

[Demon of the Well]

Melon: Difficulty increases as the WAD progresses, but even on UV it's pretty rare for this one to throw shit-tons of monsters at you, at least relative to the amount of space it gives you. It works more based on advantageous placement of a smaller number of monsters and scarcity of health/armor, so that smaller mistakes hurt more. A lot of the latter can be significantly mitigated by finding secrets, but the secrets in this WAD also tend to be pretty damn tough/involved, so that's the tradeoff there. In general you get more monsters and somewhat less stringent health/ammo placement the farther in you get, but the above summarizes the WAD as a whole fairly well, at least from what I remember from my last playthrough, which was many years ago. I've only ever played it on UV and so I'm not sure what HNTR is like, but if you're not ever having to scrounge for health on HNTR due to simple attrition then the WAD is never going to challenge you, so you might as well try HMP.

Map 03 -- Processing - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Yeah, I remember this one quite clearly, even the location of the double-hidden soulsphere, which makes the rest of the opposition in the map pretty inconsequential if you find it. I don't really care much for this one as a whole.....it might even be what I'd call the WAD's weakest map, although I have some dim recollection of not really liking map 11 either, so we'll see when we get there.

So, why don't I like it? The simplest way to summarize it would be to say that it has pretty awkward gameplay. From a pistol-start you have the option of either picking all of the zombies to death while trying to use either an outer cage-door or one of the floodlights the sergeants stand on for cover (dicey and inefficient) or running a lap to collect the shotgun and shells and then using that (dicey and only marginally more efficient); what I ended up doing was running the lap and then just leaving. As in map 02, the commandos eventually follow you (they are actually able to open the cage doors), but this seems almost too easy this time, since there will only be two of them (sort of illustrative how dangerous just two little chaingunners can be depending on how they're deployed, though). Continuing through the map, the theme that quickly becomes apparent is that almost all of the most relevant opposition--usually chaingunners or shotgunners, but also the later revenants--has no direct access to you, or you to them; so you end up potshotting away at each other for most of the map, so it's more a game of cover and peeking than of motion and dodging. Maybe some folks like this sort of prudish hands-off gunfight style, but it needs to be a lot more over-the-top than it is here for me to enjoy it.

Aesthetically it has its moments, but I'm not as keen on it as the two previous maps. The whole thing about being a lot more spacious than it needs to be is quite alright with me, given the attrition-based gameplay (having too much space can sometimes be a little problematic in maps where encounters are supposed to be dangerous more due to monster volume), but the central space leaves me unsatisfied simply because it seems like eventually something besides the first scramble should happen there, but it never does. Similarly, some of the green composite halls around the gravitationally-sifted nukage column and the outer walls of the start hub look quite bare. I do still like the lighting style, though, particularly that one flickering floodlight in the hub.

[plums]

So I totally failed last month, partly because I wasn't feeling UR so much but mainly because I don't like playing megawads a few levels at a time. I'm going to try again play the whole wad as I feel like it, take notes, and only post about it on the right days.

I'm also in the mood for a little variety, so I'm going to play this with Pirate Doom! I hope it doesn't break gameplay too much. Pirate Doom generally makes things easier, but it sounds like it's not a cakewalk on UV (or Cap'n, in this case), so hopefully that will balance out. Also, I won't abuse the cutlass dash for sequence breaking, etc.

MAP01 (100% kills, 100% secrets): easy enough, a good intro base level. Nothing that hasn't been done before but a megawad has to start somewhere. Jump to the computer map was a bit hard, though uncovering it wasn't.

MAP02 (100% k, 100% s): A bit more exciting. Chaingunner surprises hurt, I think they're the one enemy in PD that hits a little harder. Finding the first secret is quite helpful and I can see how people that don't get it will be hurting for health. Random wallbanging FTW. Took me a while to find the "right" way to get the 2nd secret, you can get it another way that can potentially make you stuck (verified in PrBoom+). Thanks to those secrets I'm in good shape for Map 03.

Spoiler

The green armour in the area with the slime river; you can jump off of the lift, and walk around the ledge.

I like the music so far. Other than that nothing about this is too exciting, though it is early in the wad, so I think playing with a game mod is the right choice to keep me interested.