The DWmegawad Club plays: Vile Flesh

[Cynical]

Map 17:
This has to be the ugliest atmospheric map ever. From the crackle-textured first room to some glaring misalignments in the towers themselves, this place never manages to live up to any kind of modern aesthetic expectations... yet, the atmosphere remains compelling. I think that it's actually because of the blatant flouting of any kind of "good level design"; the shapes are strange, the locations are bizarre and unexplainable, the MIDI is even weird, and it all adds up to an oddly unnerving atmosphere, which I rather liked.

Likewise, the action sometimes seems like "random monsters tossed in weird shaped boxes", but it's that "weird shaped" part that gives this its character and makes even the action compelling; even moving through these rooms feels strange, much less fighting in them. More flouting of any kind of good taste can be found in that gonzo "Invuln + Mass PE" trap, yet... it works, and is an oddly entertaining fight. Yes, it consists of blasting a bunch of stuff while under invuln, and when the invuln runs out, camping a chokepoint. Yet, the sheer number of Lost Souls spawned, combined with the "under-equipped" nature of the player at that point makes camping the chokepoint somehow tense and compelling.

There's maps that are fun despite amateurishness. This is fun entirely because of it; it's just so full of weird and bizarre ideas that it's impossible to not like it, either at an atmospheric level or as concerns the action. I don't know if the overall effect was intentional on Gwyn's part -- I somehow doubt it would be possible to do something like this intentionally -- but this is a compelling map that is definitely worth the time it takes to play.

[Demon of the Well]

Need to catch up a little bit...

Map 16 -- The Cathedral - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Must disagree with the general consensus on this one, I rather like this map, although I can certainly look at it and point out ways it could've been improved. I like the setting here, a pretty natural-looking combination of marble and various types of stone/masonry with a few fleshy accents. As I think I said when talking about Rob Berkowitz's maps from the RoC playthrough, I also seem to find grand/oversized scaling intrinsically compelling on some semi-conscious level, and so the generalized bigness of most of what's here also works for me, even if the spaces seem underfilled by actors/things as a result. I like the BGM, too, I think this one is unique to this one level (a lot of the other tracks repeat at some point). On the downside, most of it does have a sort of washed-out look to it, simply a result of an extremely lackadaisical/lazy approach taken to lighting (read: it is non-existent in many areas); some simple shadow effects would've done absolute wonders for this map, I think, given the many windows and the glaring red sky.

The structural symmetry is not something that really bothers me in this particular case, as it makes sense given the setting, and is broken up a bit by the excursions to the two different outbuildings. Symmetrical monster placement is usually much more of an issue, and a goodly amount of it is also seen here, although in several cases it's sort of smoothed over by the way the scads of running room you're given makes it very tempting to stir up infights--in fact, knowing as I did how the map would eventually unfold, I ignored a lot of monsters at first and concentrated on releasing the cyberdemons. This was fun, but of course it's quite fair to say that it's something one would only know to do with foreknowledge. Played blind and very conventionally (e.g. fight everything directly when it first appears), the pace is naturally a lot slower. I feel the switch/key progression is reasonably intuitive; the main snag that several players seem to have hit is what to do after hitting the switch behind where the cybers start. The answer is that this makes two switches inside the central support columns in the main hall (that is, where the first cyberdemon teleports to) accessible--the way that teleporters that open up on either side of the switch take you to the overlook on this area was presumably supposed to be the hint that you should search this area again. It probably would've gone off better if the two new switches had been visible at the start of the level as being covered by marble slabs or something, but alas, they start out essentially invisible, and thus are likely to evade players who don't interpret the aforementioned teleporters as anything other than shortcuts.

While I don't agree with the overall assessment that the action/flow of the map are categorically poor, I do think the main criticism as relates to combat is nevertheless valid: in terms of enemy population, this is simply screaming out for more in so many of its areas/scenarios, both in a ratio sense and an encounter-specific one. For example, one can imagine how much stronger a combat-climax the map would've had if the three cyberdemons had been accompanied by a generalized teleportation flood of lesser creatures into various other parts of the map, as well. As it stands, ammo/supply balance is really well-done relative to the amount of opposition that does exist, I think, as it at least forces you to forge ahead in order to collect more at a few points, hardly an unreasonable challenge given all of the space, particularly relevant when the cyberdemons appear if you never found the secrets. On that point, the backpack secret, while simple, is a bit obnoxiously difficult to spot given how useful that item is here, but I quite like the plasma rifle/megasphere two-part secret complete with small bonus battle, a fine reward for a bit of that outside-the-box thinking I mentioned before. It's also interesting that Williams provided a way for clever players on a continuous run to avoid losing their weapons in the course of the 'death exit'; again, this is something that requires a bit of foresight/foreknowledge (or luck), but I think it adds an interesting quirk to the level--in fact, I can't think of any other PWAD level offhand that does it quite this way--even though it's irrelevant to my own preferred playstyle.

Map 17 -- Guard Towers - 100% Kills / 80% Secrets
So, after jumping into the burning gate at the heart of the Cathedral, we end up in Williams' version of Hell, although the shift may not be immediately evident to those not given to paying much mind to the implied story the maps have been telling, given that he made the odd decision not to make the change after a text intermission or to use a sky transfer. Moving through this and the next few maps it will become evident that his is a non-standard take on the general concept of Hell, which I imagine some will appreciate (I certainly do). That being said, Guard Towers itself is not a particularly charismatic introduction to the minisode. In many ways, it's similar to map 16 before it, with similar strengths and similar faults; the thing is that here I don't really feel the strengths compensate for the faults as well as they do in that previous map.

Actually seeing the titular Towers for the first time is undeniably striking, given their humongous scale and the way they loom in the distance across the lone long bridge, but once you get inside of them most of sense of place is lost. Texturing throughout the map is pretty drab--just too much brown/beige for such a big area, I guess--and interesting lighting effects are again conspicuously absent. Rooms themselves sometimes have interesting shapes, and the two towers are not very internally symmetrical, but monster placement itself often is (particularly in the western tower), and the generally small/congested aspect of most of the individual rooms combines with some very suspect monster-blocking lines on thresholds to create some very static, lifeless combat. There are some better parts, though. I think the pain elemental battle that Cynical talked about really is a very good usage of that monster and a surprisingly pressuring battle (I would've left out the IV sphere entirely if I'd have been Williams), and I also kind of like the crossfire that can develop over the massive lateral distance in the final area. The most immediately useful secret (the SSG) is pretty easy in this one, but the others are quite tricky; I've found the soulsphere before, and was able to unravel the riddle of the combat armor secret (which actually involves two secrets for some reason) this time around, but damned if I know where that last secret is. I assume it houses the rocket launcher, wherever it is, as I found many rockets but never the weapon itself (not too big a problem given that the plasma rifle is a free eventual acquisition in this one).

So, it does have some positive aspects, but I think it's fair to say that this map is simply too big/long relative to the amount of gameplay ideas it actually contains.

[Cynical]

There's an SSG hidden in map 17?!?!

I have to say, in this particular case, I do not approve of that decision. This map does not justify having such power before the Plasma Rifle pickup.

I'm surprised to see DotW speak of it as being "long for the amount of gameplay it has"; this one actually seemed a lot shorter to me than a lot of the other levels have.

[Demon of the Well]

It's in a closet-within-a-closet where the first revenant pops out, so you can get it very early if your intuition is good.

Still can't find the damned rocket launcher, though (not that one really needs it)...

[vdgg]

Hm, in single player thare is no RL and no boxes of rockets and no single rockets.

[NuMetalManiak]

Right, this'll be my only contribution to this thread.

MAP19 The Pillars, played in continuous style, HMP, double ammo enabled in ZDoom options because I tend to waste ammo often without noticing it.

It's a pretty neat level, but without too much in interest, other than perhaps height variation in the outside areas. The secrets can be cryptic to find without a full map, but they don't really involve cutting-edge methods of actually finding them. There's actually plenty of ammo that I didn't need to use double ammo flag, plus I played it extra slow here. Combat wise, there's imps and hitscanners, then hellknights and barons start to show up. There's plenty of room to avoid projectiles. The SSG part was pretty memorable but easy. No plasma weapons available AFAIK, so those who missed the BFG back in the previous maps will take longer to kill the spiderdemon at the end. Pretty easy on HMP. Final Time 17:19.

[Demon of the Well]

vdgg said:

Hm, in single player thare is no RL and no boxes of rockets and no single rockets.

Hmm, you're right. I did the writeups a couple of days after actually playing the maps, so I guess they got a little mixed up in my mind. I was probably conflating 16 with 17, as in 16 you can pick up 50+ rockets before you actually find the rocket launcher, and in 17 I only had shotguns + chaingun until the free PR near the end, plus one secret I never found, which I just sort of crassly assumed was a launcher.

[Steve D]

Demon of the Well said:

As I think I said when talking about Rob Berkowitz's maps from the RoC playthrough, I also seem to find grand/oversized scaling intrinsically compelling on some semi-conscious level

Ah, nothing like the mention of Rob Berkowitz and Realm of Chaos to drag me out of hiding to sing his praises. ;)

Even though it seems that Rob was tied with Boy Wonder Slava Pestov as the least-popular RoC mapper who was not Jim Bagrow -- the Undisputed Champion of Hated -- I still find myself liking Rob's maps on the whole, and Map15 in particular. Map 15, Infestation, was the grandest of his works in Sheer Size For The Sake of Sheer Size, in particular his Fucking Ginormous Ziggurat Room, which was a total hoot for me to play, even if it was only difficult if you went for the yellow key atop the ziggurat rather than taking the easily-found secret exit. I even liked the Bigass Metal Room and The Crazy Red Key Room. The whole map was fun for me even if some places, like the Spider Mastermind Area, were "eye-rapingly ugly," as DoTW would say. ;D And it was a pretty easy map, too, all told, but sometimes a high death count isn't everything in a Doom map.

Basically, I think every Doomer should play Map15 of Realm of Chaos at least once, whether they enjoy it or want to vomit all over it, because it delivers a heapin' helpin' of pure 1996 Epic Scale Enormousness For No Good Fucking Reason, and that, of course, is the best reason of all to have it. :)

I'd even go so far as to say that I like it better than Epic2A, a 1995 map by Matt Williams which is notable for its Mayan Temple Epicness and a few other sophisticated features, but overall I prefer the gameplay in RoC Map15.

And with that, I'll crawl back into my hole, noting that the typical events that usually happen on the 20th of the month to take me out of Dooming for awhile happened earlier this month, which is why I'm falling so far behind. I still have hope that I can at least do a bunch more Vile Flesh maps in a marathon session or two before the month is out.

[vdgg]

Warning, spoilers below

MAP20. The architecture is sub-par here, there is a sense of scale, but not much to fill up the empty spaces. And the player will spend lots of time with STONE walls and RROCK13 floors and ceilings, which doesn't help. But this is not the point. The point is: the map is fun. I played this more in my life than MAP15,16,17,18,19,31 and 32 combined.

There is no SSG at all and this decision has my approval. Now you need to use rockets and count rockets, as big baddies from revenants to barons are numerous (monster count reveals double the hit points compared to MAP17 or 18 or 19). Sorry for FDA players, but both plasma weapons are hidden in secrets. Worse yet, there is another strange path alternative. You go left, you'll have shotgun and chaingun for a good while. You go right, you'll get stuck unless you find your way out through a secret passage. Where is the way to the blue key? you may keep asking.

Very nice and unorthodox finale, as well.

[Suitepee]

http://youtu.be/ozOJw5BJsu4 = promo video for part 3.

Time for my third (and hopefully) final part of my livestream playthrough of Vile Flesh for the Club, coming up this Thursday night at 7pm GMT/BST! Perhaps the wad author himself will materialise, who knows? Maybe some Vile Flesh debate can happen once again!

[Demon of the Well]

Indeed, Steve, I kinda liked Berkowitz's maps, as well (except for 'Deadstay', which was...terrible in every way and easily the worst map in the WAD), even a lot of his really quirky/widely panned stuff like 'The Fountain.' It occurs to me that I probably enjoyed them more on account of scale and setting than I did on actual gameplay, and that's actually true to a lesser extent for Vile Flesh as well, come to mention it.

Map 18 -- Boneyard - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
At the base of the titanic guard towers lies a vast, dusty field dotted by assorted mastabas and mausolaea. This new environment solidifies Williams' intent not to resort to the classic redstone/hot lava convention of outdoor Hell maps, which helps this part of the WAD stand apart from many of its contemporaries. It's not really the most interesting layout in the world--heavily orthogonal, a lot of symmetrical rooms/yards, etc--but it's not without aesthetic merit; the moodier lighting makes a most welcome return, with most of the field bathed in perpetual shadow, and the texture scheme, while practically as beige as that of the previous map, creates a more interesting setting here, with some effective implementation of some relatively uncommon flats/textures (skull floors, tanned human hides, etc.). Moderate height variation is also a persistent feature, which goes a little way towards compensating for the overload of right angles.

While I scored 100% secrets before finishing, the truth is that I found none of the secrets during the actual course of the main game, only finding them after doing another pass through the level upon having opened the exit with 0% secrets and several monsters still unaccounted for. While this meant that I used nothing but shotgun + chaingun for the entirety of the map, the actual ammo balance was very adequate for conventional play--I was pretty much never anywhere near full, but I never actually ran out of either shells or bullets. Unfortunately, gameplay was not particularly compelling, partially exacerbated by the extra time not having the SSG took to kill the many pinkies and nobles. While I've played the apologist for a lot of the encounter designs in Vile Flesh up to this point, and I personally am not generally heavily put off by direct/unchallenging use of HKs (Barons being more problematic), there isn't a lot to write home about here, just a lot of direct placement and no real traps that I can recall, other than the last group of revenants who can very easily be left in the (bone)dust if one so desires....hell, I could see a player in a rush not even noticing they'd appeared. About that, for a 'boneyard', there sure aren't as many revenants as one might expect, which is perhaps a bit of a shame, since they're arguably the most versatile (in an implementation sense) of all of the mid-tier demons. Incidentally, I felt this to be an unusually easy map for its mapslot--I was over 100%/100% status most of the time, simply by virtue of picking up the glut of health/armor bonuses sitting around and only seldom being damaged, due to a general lack of pressure.

At least the secrets themselves are pretty cool in this one. The SSG secret is pretty clever, its concealment involving a large degree of environment dynamics, which will become more common in these later parts of VF. The plasma rifle secret is one of those 'must have ESP' deals, but I like it because it includes its own battle, rather than just being a hole in the wall. The final secret is fairly dynamic, like the SSG secret before it, though I think it's grotesquely overpowered given how easy the map is, awarding the player with both a soulsphere and a combat armor, amongst other things.

Not terrible, far from great.

Map 19 -- The Pillars - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
This is one of the maps that I get a really strong Eternal DooM vibe from. It's actually not terribly long or complicated if you know what you're doing--basically you need to pick up both the blue and yellow skulls in order to reach the final battle, and you can do them in the order of your choosing--but the abstract setting and the quest-like progression drive the similarity home.

Aesthetically I reckon one might say that it's sort of the opposite of map 18: it's not really much to look at, being a bizarre, brightly-lit combination of stucco, red cracklewall, and lava, but it's fairly interesting from a structural/layout standpoint. The obvious theme here is catwalking/platforming over lava (no radsuits, incidentally, although the lava is always escapable and just does basic damage rather than a heftier amount), and each of the two main wings either eventually loop back on themselves or otherwise provide the possibility of a handy shortcut to return you to the central junction once you're finished. As to just what the place is supposed to be, the whole is so abstract that you're pretty much left to pull something out of your imagination's ass (which is fine)--I eventually decided it was some kind of huge crematory oven, a natural adjunct to the land of corpses from the previous map.

Again I found this very easy, although this time that likely had something to do with my finding all of the secrets as I progressed through the map, eventually becoming a rolling juggernaut as a result. All but one of the secrets here, taken in a vacuum, are very well-hidden in that they offer little or no visual clue as to their location, instead being of the purely 'inductive' sort I was harping on about previously (the one exception is #6 of 7, which has a more noticeable visual clue). The thing is, if you can find a way to reach the computer area map fairly early on (its presence openly advertised to you), it will reveal all of the other secrets in full. Actual combat is generally not particularly pressing, but there's more imagination in several of the encounters than in anything seen in map 18, ala the arch-vile commanding an area with well-spaced cover from a lofty central pillar, or the strange hell knight/baron 'miniboss' setup near the blue skull. The final area serves mostly just as catharsis, an easy battle against a large mixed group of hellspawn in a big arena, with a mostly nonthreatening spider mastermind guarding the exit gate. Even the incidental combat's better than in the previous map, simply by dint of the environment--it's not hard, but a lot of the time you at least have to watch where you're stepping as you fight.

On the whole I found it solidly entertaining, although again I can see several areas where big improvements could easily have been made--for example, why are there so few flying monsters? This kind of layout is prime ground for them.

[Cynical]

Map 18:
Well, that was bad.

We're back to shotgunning helpless meat endlessly. Cacos, Pinkies, Nobles, single Mancubi- you name your helpless meat, you'll shotgun it down here.

Not much to look at, either. It's more competently built than the previous level, but that actually works to its detriment, since it's also a lot more boring to look at; endless decently-aligned brown. A bit of cool lighting at once circular hallway, but that's it.

Also, once you grab the red key, a green marble wall rather annoyingly blocks you from retreating back into the early parts of the level. If you did like I did and left several boxes of bullets behind early, this can become troublesome later (I had to run from the Revenants at the end, since I simply didn't have enough ammo to kill them).

The "make the Arachnos fight the Revs" bit early in the level was kinda fun, I guess I'll give it that.

Demon of the Well- check your PMs (here, not on the other site).

[Veinen]

Oookay, time for an update. These latest maps have been rather lackluster so I haven't felt very motivated to start writing anything about them. Vile Flesh doesn't really seem to be my cup of tea but I'll play through this anyway.

Map17: Guard Towers

Another needlessly huge and plain level. It's not as bad as Cathedral but I can't say I would have been very excited when playing this either. It looks extremely boring with basically nothing but brown everywhere and the combat is pretty easy for a map17 to boot. One thing I appreciated was that this did not include extensive switch hunting to the extent of the previous levels. I seemed to be progressing always which really makes a huge difference for me in enjoyability. The switch to lower the YK was not very intuitively placed though and I mistaked it for a lift-switch at first. Thankfully I found the SSG early which sped things up a bit too.

PE fight was a decent one I agree and I ended up not using the Invuln at all since I noticed it only afterwards. Oh and I somehow got stuck in a fucking secret in the final area to make sure I leave in bad mood. Noclipped out but that's some nice surprise after 20 mins of playing.

Map18: Boneyard

This was actually ok compared to the previous two. The visuals have infinitely more personality with just a little bit of decorating and I actually kind of dig the overall look of this map. It's still very empty in the same vein as 16 & 17. Combat was pretty standard Vile Flesh -material and pretty unmemorable overall. I played this a couple days ago and I only remember the Arach/Rev -fields, the Plasma Gun secret and the "finale". The aforementioned field was pretty neat, as was the PG secret area but the finale was pretty terrible. Huge arena with a handful of Revs is apparently not a working combination.

[vdgg]

MAP21. I skipped playing this one, as I played it competitively in August 2012 and I remember it very well.

Perfect weapon placement? The chainsaw right at the start. Not gameplay-wise, as shotgun/chaingun ammo should be more than sufficient, but thematically. It's Flesh Mill, isn't it? So cut these pinky flesh providers. The more I progressed through this metal base, the more I appreciated little details here and there: machinery (mincers?) / rows of hanging "meat" / "guillotines". The use of SKIN and similar textures is tasteful.

Another plus: all the weapons are collectible (not in secrets), quite rare in VF, isn't it?

The action is non-stop here, as well as unique and well-executed ideas. I think the map is brilliant overall, if you accept bizarre-looking classics, it is a classic indeed.

[Suitepee]

http://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee

Time for part 3 of my livestream coverage of Vile Flesh for the Club happening right now, resuming from MAP 20 and hoping to perhaps finish this megawad tonight. Feel free to hop on and say hello!

[Rook]

MAP19: The Pillars (UV, NecroDoom)

It's a Vile Flesh map. It's big and ugly and empty as hell - besides that I remember nothing of it except for a room towards the end which had the kernel of a decent aesthetic (the interestingly-shaped ceiling) - and I literally just played it.

I've had it with this WAD. It pains me to say it as I had meant to play the whole thing, but it's just too boring, ugly and there's almost no threat at any point. The environments are often large, and the monster count is relatively high, but each encounter is just a dull trickle of enemies and life's just too short for that.

Instead I'm watching Suitepee's playthrough, which is a lot more entertaining. Hoping for something better for next month, as I'm really keen to see something all the way through.

[Suitepee]

http://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/c/3279529 = part 3 on-demand.

This one was a right old slog through maps 20-24. I'm getting 30-40 minute map completion times now, mostly due to the levels being somewhat spread out and containing the odd puzzle or switch hunt.

Demon Seed is a horrible level, that seems to literally trap the player if they take the wrong turning at one point, thus being unable to beat the level. (I couldn't find the secret passage, despite using IDDT. I found the BFG secret with this, but not the escape passage!) And then has some plain backdrop texturing to it. I did not enjoy this level very much.
Flesh Mill was visually nice to play through.
Ungod contained an annoying timed switch puzzle, which I decided to noclip due to remembering that Doom was a First Person Shooting game, not a Fucking Puzzle Solving game! Otherwise interesting use of that green/white texture and some nice technical trickery at times. Sloggy.
Return Ticket was alright.
City Center is arguably the best level in Vile Flesh for me right now! Nice flow to the level, good level backdrop of the city in ruins and just generally didn't feel like a slog to playthrough.

Vile Flesh remains "average" for me in my overall thoughts, but now getting a bit more lengthy and tedious at times. Here's hoping the last few levels blow me away!

[Demon of the Well]

Map 20 -- Demon Seed - 101% Kills / 83% Secrets
Ah, yes, I remember this one. Just what it's supposed to be is anybody's guess....while we're still ostensibly in Hell, the landscape is fairly green and earthly in appearance; nestled in these hills is some sort of complex arrangement of tall temples of wood and grey stone, connected by a series of open (though guard-railed) elevated walkways. Pools of both water and liquid fire can be found here, and at the heart of the main temple rests a hidden core of blood and living flesh, presumably the titular Demon Seed. The Seed itself is not actually a seed at all, but apparently some kind of portal to a much deeper part of Hell than the one we're currently in, depicted here by a pulsing and undulating veil of organic tissue from which demons spawn.

As vdgg says, larger monsters make a much bigger splash here than in most previous maps, although the overall difficulty is not really much higher, given that the layout is once again very spacious, and, in the cases of the main stone causeway and the yellow key room, quite conducive to productive infighting. The total lack of a supershotgun, the limitation on rockets, and the very clever concealment of both the plasma gun and the BFG are sure to have some players pulling their hair out, but bullets and shells are both quite plentiful, and so you'll have enough to make it through even if you fail to find any secrets, though you'll certainly be in for a chore when it's time to take down the cyberdemon at the end.

Despite the larger number of stronger monsters, I feel that this map, like many others in the WAD, is focused more on exploration than on combat. There's a fair bit of non-linearity here, as you can explore most of the main complex without needing any keys--once you do start using them they'll be spent in quick succession, and the end of the map won't be far off. I'm not entirely sure that the blue key is even mandatory, as I'm not really clear on what the blue switch did, but the only direct application I found for it was as a shortcut, opening up the iron gate in the stone causeway. Contrary to Suitepee's experience, the map is not actually broken, although if you take the right lift out of the central junction first (which you should do, since the rocket launcher is over there) you need to find a secret (albeit a pretty easy one) to get back out. Given all of the space, the incidental combat's pretty leisurely, but there are a few traps and setpieces to spice things up. Apart from the finale, which is more of a visual spectacle than a really fine-tuned encounter, the ones that stick out most in my mind are the yellow key teleporter wave where you mostly use infighting and the central crushing piston to dispatch the monsters, and the surprisingly very nasty backpack trap. There's actually an arch-vile in the map, as well, hence my 101%, but he only comes out to play if you find the secret chamber housing the plasma rifle.

On that point, if you like secret-hunting there are a number of pretty good ones here. I particularly like the BFG secret, this was again the first playthrough where I was able to reach it. Despite finding the hidden computer area map, which made the location of the last secret obvious (some compartments inside the two marble nodes forming a teleportation point), I was unable to figure out how to get them to open. Nevertheless, by the end of the map I'd still gathered plenty enough scratch to obliterate the last cyberdemon in a few moments with ease.

Again, I think this is an entertaining map to run around in, although if you've not liked Vile Flesh much up to this point I don't reckon it'll change your mind. Might try the next map, though, it's in a little bit of a different vein.

[Cynical]

Falling a bit behind here...

Map 19:
Like it a lot.

The combat here is a lot more pressuring than normal for this wad, not because the monster composition is any scarier than normal - it isn't - but because the monster placement really takes advantage of a layout that constricts your movement heavily while giving the enemies lots of firing angles. The blue key is pretty scary if you don't realize that you can skip the first grid by jumping into the lava, and that yellow key Vile wins an "excellence in obnoxious Vile placement" award; very nice. The rocket launcher fight was easy (I let it mostly take care of itself), but a bit of mass murder is always welcome.

The sole drawback was the badly misused Mastermind. Oh well.

Out of curiosity, given that with my astounding powers of observation I managed to find 0% secrets, how on earth do you get to that Soulsphere at the start? I was able to figure out how to lower the wall to reveal it, but couldn't find a way to actually get to it.

[LodiB88]

It's the 22nd,so probably time to get this going :

For December (modern wad defined as last twelve months) I suggest either Concerned, D2TWID, or Hellbound. Maybe not Hellbound for those who want some recovery from the size of the VF maps.

Concerned is a bit short in levels so maybe play Ribbicks' latest wad with it, Simplistic Evil, 900 Deep (two levels a day), or probably a few other possibilities.

Oh and if you are leaving VF early (like Rook) I highly recommend giving Map24 a play first.

[Rook]

Played MAP24 - can't say that I really get it. More of the same in an urban setting.

[dobu gabu maru]

Actually LodiB88, if it's cool with everyone, I think December would be fit for playing through Ultimate Doom, seeing as it's Doom 1's 20th anniversary on December 10th. We can play a modern wad if people would rather do that, but I think it'd be fun to give the "original" wad a go in honor of its influence.

[vdgg]

@Demon: Indeed, MAP20 can be finished without the BK.
@Cynical: the soulsphere can only be accessed from the other side of the wall. I would recommend watching any UV Max demo from DSDA.

MAP22. One of the most aesthetically pleasing maps, but very long and confusing, as well. Some pcorf convention and a very strange 4-door intersection. After the red key you have access to the red key door, but also to a non-key door (it is recommended to explore this non-key door first). Unlike our British commentator, I like the switch pyramid. My point of view is "wow. it is tricky to construct something like that so the player runs a few times like crazy, up, down, in and out". This map was discussed in the previous DWmegawad Club thread as Cynical had played it and run out of ammo. No idea what to say, I think ammo is just fine, there is a berserk for free, and I use it on single revenants or hell knights almost always when no better weapons are present.

Both RK and YK can be grabbed by running onto them, but the first grab does not solve anything, you must use the intended route just to get out.

MAP23. The opposite of MAP22. I dislike the looks, I like the gameplay. This may be the most action-packed map of the WAD! Good for Max running, there are no decent weapons at the start, so some fireworks are needed. I had a thought one can run through the pit-area with teleporting monsters quickly without killing them (then kill them with better weapons) and finally last year I think j4rio was the first one who did it, maxing the level in just 17:19.

A very scary (and stupid) single revenant placement in one moment (when you play it, you'll know which one).

[Rook]

dobu gabu maru said:

Actually LodiB88, if it's cool with everyone, I think December would be fit for playing through Ultimate Doom, seeing as it's Doom 1's 20th anniversary on December 10th. We can play a modern wad if people would rather do that, but I think it'd be fun to give the "original" wad a go in honor of its influence.

I think that's a nice idea. I'd been planning a playthrough anyway, and it would be great to discuss the iconic original maps together.

[LodiB88]

It's an interesting idea for sure. I'm good with it. Hopefully Cacos are on time this year and really well done for the special birthday.

[Cynical]

Map 20:
Another one I just don't have the patience to beat; I made it to the Cyberdemon at the end, got splashed to death in the ridiculously confined quarters, and didn't feel like playing ninety hours of tedious encounter after tedious encounter again.

The start is a cool idea, but badly executed. If an HK decides to get on one of those lifts to the chainguns, time to restart. And the "payoff" for the whole setup is - what else? - shotgunning nobles. Ugh.

[Suitepee]

Ultimate Doom would be pretty cool. I can relive the pain of Episode 4's start again!

[Veinen]

Map19: The Pillars

More of the same. I found little excitement in this map, although it does have some kind of a difficulty boost which comes from the openness. More mindboggling secret that are only found by the means of extensive wallhumping. I only found the soulsphere because I happened to accidentally open the entrace to that secret from the opening area and really tried to find my way into there later.

YK area with the Archie was a decent gimmick I guess, and the teleporting monsters ambush finale was alright as well. Sadly a bit too easy though. The Mastermind at the end is really harmless and equally pointless. My final grade is meh.

Map20: Demon Seed

MUCH better. Somehow only having the shotgun did not bother me at all, despite the high number of middleweights. I guess the plentiful opportunities to cause infights had something to do with that because I did use that strategy a lot. Now I read vdgg's spoilers before playing this so I tried to use the RL pretty carefully, too carefully even afer all was said and done. For what though? Well, naturally only to fucking waste like 40 rockets shooting the solid fence in front of the Cyber "insert a dozen facepalm emoticons here". Thankfully the stupidity didn't cost me my life in the end, only some time, since had I died I seriously doubt I would've restarted. Even with my retardedness I thought the finale was pretty cool though. Cool idea and good execution. Good map!

Map21: Flesh Mill

Well I'll be damned, this map was actually great! The theme and the visuals overall are really well done instead of the boring one coloured blandness of the past maps. Combat was fun as well, not very tough but fun nonetheless. The finale was really memorable, despite again being not a very hard one. It's the combination of a nice setup and plenty of enemies I suppose. Found some secrets too, for a change. Perhaps they were easier to find because they contained nothing essential? But yeah, best map in the wad thus far.

Map22: Ungod

Fifty goddamn minutes is what this map took me to finish. Around 15 was spent wandering around in confusion in the BK section because Gwyn has an obsession for obnoxiously placed switches. In the end I had to stop and watch one the maxdemos on DSDA to get a clue on how to make some progress. I find this a sign of a poor choice made by the author. I had had enough of switches for the day after that so the switch puzzle sections were not very amusing at that point.

Combat? Ehh, certainly a step back. Nothing really memorable and even the second Cyber is made pretty non-threatening with the addition of the invuln. I used the invulneranbility to actually start infights instead of clobbering the Cyber but the surroundings are open enough so that fighting the Cyber one on one with the PG is not a big deal. The first Cyber was much more interesting actually or at least for me since I dueled with him in his little lair.

[plums]

So I've actually been keeping up with playing these maps for the most part, but just slacking on posting about them. Oops. Instead of a novel, here's a few sentences about 12-17. I'll do the next batch soon.

12: Huge difference in look, level feels much larger. Too much swtich action, and has a problem common to levels like this were if you fall, you'll do a whole lot of backtracking.

13: Didn't like this level, has a lot of the same faults as previous levels. Inescapable lava pits though! That's new for this wad I think.

14: Worst level so far, looks interesting for about 30 seconds and then boring and ugly. Actually looks a little nicer with a software renderer. Chaingunner bunker at the start was perhaps the most annoying thing yet.

15: Suddenly, it's like a whole other wad! Got a bit lost and didn't find many secrets but I enjoyed this one quite a bit.

31: Just when you thought it was safe to not get killed by hitscanners... I like seeing maps in early stages sometimes but this is close enough to the finished product that it's really total filler.

32: Gimmicky gameplay, but fun concept. Lots of good 3D-floor work here. Some monster closets didn't seem to work right, a problem I've had with a few levels - not sure if GZDoom or bad design is at fault.

16: I'm a sucker for a good castle, and it's nice to see VF showing some teeth. I can see how some people, especially the no-save players, would be annoyed at some of the dick moves here though. Weird map number to have a death exit.

17: WOW. What a shift. I liked parts of VF before this, but a lot of it was frustrating or boring in equal measure. This is the level that really won me over though. I guess it's not that much of a change from what we've seen before, and it would've been nicer had Gwyn moved away from hitscanner enemies towards more demons - we are in hell now, aren't we? But the new look combined with the music really make a difference to me. The level designs are much more interesting both in layout and visuals, starting with MAP16 but especially here and (hopefully?) going forward.


I think doing Ultimate Doom would be a great idea.

[Suitepee]

http://youtu.be/AEEyhyCda5w = promo video for the finale.

The final part of my livestream coverage of Vile Flesh is going to be happening this Monday at 7pm GMT/BST! Will Vile Flesh remain just an "average" wad for me, or will maps 25-30 pull off some grand surprises?

I don't expect much to be honest, other than more annoying switch hunts and puzzles.