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The DWmegawad Club plays: Doom 2 the Way id Did


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Map 08 -- Quarantine (a.k.a. Starstruct, Inc.) - 101% Kills / 100% Secrets
Saaaaanndddyyyyyy!......by way of Tom Hall, I'll venture? This has the ambling, incidentally exploratory feel to it that a lot of the maps from The Shores of Hell had (less so DTWiD's E2, sorry guys--it was a good episode, even great in places, but it was also the most off-model). The spine of the map is a long series of oddly-shaped and generally unadorned chambers--some huge, some small, most somewhere in between--with very few doors or lifts or other topographical obstacles to interrupt one's walk (or one's dead-run) through them. The peripheral areas of the map, often locked behind key-doors and themselves containing keys, are generally more deliberate in form and tend to play out as one-shot setpieces; these are much more readily identifiable as Petersenesque, save for the random/optional toxin maze, which seems very Tom Hall. The overall scale and the almost absent-minded nature of the progression/mapflow do remind me to some degree of 'Refueling Base', but perhaps even more heavily of 'Deimos Lab', courtesy of the big computer-crusher setup, the eerie red key shrine (which is much less an eyesore than the YK shrine in E2M4, but has a similar overall impression), and indeed the texture scheme in general, which is again mostly a throwback to the original Doom outside of a couple of the peripheral areas; there's even a secret room plastered with the seldom-seen gargoyle-bricks. More of the 'meta' details show up here as well, e.g. the initially 'barren' pain elementals (ala 'The Pit') that most likely stay that way until you clear the many lost souls out of the toxin maze.

As to the action, one of the things that I like about Sandy is that he alternates periods of hamfistedly hurling shit at you (moreso in his Doom II maps than his OG Doom maps) with more structured, detailed encounters, lending his maps a nicely varied battle cadence. That dichotomy is captured fairly well here, with scads and scads of zombies littering the halls, backed up by regular packs of demons or specters (as well as the comic-relief null PEs, although I explored the toxin maze early enough that I did have to fight a few of them for real); I used the hell outta that 'secret' chainsaw in this map, let me tell you. Again, the early blue armor, somewhat spacious chambers, and rather haphazard zombie placement (tons of blue-on-blue on their side without me even having to try for it) tend to blunt a lot of the hitscan danger in the meat of the map, but the extra body count (nearly double what was in map 06) and some of the action in the peripheral areas tends to compensate for this fairly well.

Those side areas....the blue key setup was the first time in the WAD that I felt like I really needed to haul ass in order to avoid being shot full of holes; it's almost like the chaingunner is given a second debut here. The bald bastards are just oozing out of the damned woodwork in that general vicinity--I had to take the second battalion of them rather seriously because I'd already used the blur sphere in the first part of the fight. Speaking of, I'm happy to be educated on the matter by those more studied than me, but....that blur sphere is legitimately quite useful, how often did that happen in the id maps? Anyway, the yellow key trap ups the trash-monster dogpile ante even farther, frankly bordering on full-on bullshit....and I say that in a very fond way. Some players are put off by dirty tricks of this sort, finding them 'unfair' or too demanding of foreknowledge, but for my part spurts of adrenaline like these are one of the things I still play this game for after all of these years. May there be much more dickery like this in the maps to come, I say. Regardless of what I think, nasty, even 'unbalanced' boobytraps are very much a Sandy trait--when he decides he wants you dead, he goes farther than any of the other id authors--and so it certainly works on that level, as well. The arch-vile's introduction, by contrast, is much milder and generally in line with Romero's introduction of it in 'Circle of Death'; this encounter garners most of its weight from the menacing air of the room where it takes place, rather than from the fight itself--more of a cinematic encounter than a bloody-knuckles fight, not unlike the spiderdemon's debut, I suppose.

At the outset I made no bones about the fact that the Sandymaps are what I came to this party for, so I'm looking forward to seeing what else his parallel-universe doppelgangers can dish up.

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Map08 - “Quarantine” by Purist & Tarnsman

From pistol start this map is a warzone, shit is coming at you from everywhere and you only have enough shells to deal with the most immediate threats, so either spend a few deaths working out the routes to the resources or scrape your way through on luck and determination. It soon became apparent this was not like any doom 2 map I remembered, its sprawling chaotic interconnected sandbox layout is more reminiscent of doom 1, and in fact when I saw the COMPTILE texture I had to double check I was actually playing the right wad (further confusion caused by the map title being different than advertised).

Putting all that aside I really enjoyed this map, its a real battle to get a toe-hold at the start, desperately trying to conserve shells while multiple pain elementals are suddenly appearing, and monsters keep crawling in from every direction. There are some nasty traps involving chaingunners (particularly blue key one, I only survived by accidentally reversing into thee invisibility sphere), and the return navigation is a little bit awkward when revisiting the southeast portion of the map, but its a good feeling when you start to take control, and if you find all the secrets you are a damn superhero by the end.

Talking of secrets, I know there was a general policy of leaving in texture mistakes, but this is just OCD torture

Come to think of it, I don't remember that texture from doom 2 either?

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Doom 2 The Way ID Did- MAP 8: HMP, Continuous, Keyboard Only

This is the map were I quit the last time I tried to play through this wad 7 month's ago. I don't remember exactly why I quite here, this map isn't that bad, I guess I was just underwhelmed with the wad as a whole up to this point. This map is clearly the Refueling Base of D2TWID, it's got some Tom Hall moments & reminds of E2M4. Then there was that blue key trap that is taken right out of the pit, that took me quite a few deaths to fighure out. The Arch-Vile is introduced here & he is only slightly more of a threat than he was in Doom 2. Overall a pretty good map, except for that blue key trap.

Out of curiosity does this map happen to be a rejected DTWID map similar to how Refueling Base was a rejected Doom map?

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Jaws In Space said:

Out of curiosity does this map happen to be a rejected DTWID map similar to how Refueling Base was a rejected Doom map?

It would have been a nice little bit of trivia to talk up, but no. I think we did search through the reject pile for some potential candidates to convert, but purist's map presented itself at the right time and as a good enough base to turn into our missing Hall/Sandy hybrid.

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MAP08: Starstruct, Inc.
100% kills, 8/10 secrets

Yeah, definitely got a Tom Hall vibe from this map, between the toxin square spaghetti maze at the top and the "fill these areas with random-shaped chunk-sized rooms" vibe of the rest of the map. Being a Tom Hall map, of course, it has the Sandy Petersen aspects a well. Sort of a Refueling Base vibe to it in places, but texture-wise it's more like Tricks and Traps in that it's probably 90% Doom 1 textures. And, as DotW points out, most of those come from E2M4 (why do I even bother doing writeups after he's posted? Meh...)

Gameplay-wise, the blue key fight is certainly difficult, and gave me about 3-4 deaths before I beat it comfortably. The blur sphere can be easy to miss at first, but helps considerably. Had no problem with the yellow key fight, though the close quarters of it does give a good scare. And I can't complain about the first Arch-Vile here, it's appearance in Circle of Death was similar, and the pulsing light does a good job of making him scarier. My disappointments would be poor use of the Pain Elementals (they feel as if they were just thrown in as an afterthought to fill some early rooms) and the fight at the end with the arachnatron/spectres being pretty toothless.

I also really appreciate the 10 secrets... part of what makes Petersen/Hall maps fun to explore.

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Ah, you can probably get some use out of a blursphere in uh... Inmost dens... but that's Mcgee so it doesn't count as much. Perhaps we could chalk up the useful blursphere to Hall or blind luck on Sandy's part.

It almost seems like the introduction of the Blursphere on map07 was to demonstrate "hey guys this thing can work against you too" but then it was never followed up intentionally, rather just universally poorly used :/ It's a great powerup when placed smartly.

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Map06 - "The Gorge” by Esselfortium
This map is very pleasing on the eye with a lot of Romero like stuff in there, so from the design and visual side this was good.
The issue is the gameplay. This map is a real bitch at the start but as soon as the rocket launcher and ssg are acquired it's pretty much over for the map with very little in the way of threat. The gameplay could have probably been tweaked to balance this out a little.

Map07 - “Counterpoint” by Tarnsman
Finished in 2 minutes, had fun, special sectors used reasonably well and the map is different enough to the original to cause any complaints there. So nice work.

Map08 - “Quarantine” by Purist & Tarnsman
I will come back to this one, pistol start this is proving o be rather horrid.

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Map08 - “Quarantine” by Purist & Tarnsman
I will come back to this one, pistol start this is proving o be rather horrid.

Somewhat inclement pistol-starts are another of my favorite things about Sandy's maps. The first mid-game map I ever really pistol-started was 'Barrels 'O Fun', suffice to say it was an eye-opening/life-changing experience.

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Catch-up day!

Map06 – The Gorge by esselfortium – Kills – 97, Items – 60, Secrets – 0. Time – 25:27. End health – 96, Armor -144. Death Count – 1

A great-looking map by esselfortium, what a shock! ;D As others have said, this looks like a mash-up of several Romero maps, including some bits of Tenements, one of the few Doom 2 maps beyond E1 that I know anything about, along with a nod to 'O' of Destruction.

I obviously sucked ass on this map, indeed, I sucked ass all day, as more embarrassments are to come in Map08. I died right at the start by being impetuous and triggering the HK trap, which kept me discombobulated long enough to miss the saving Zerk and also to have fumble-fuck fingers on the keyboard. It was slime city after that.

There were no more deaths, but a lot of save-scumming as the hitscanner crossfires kept draining me while I stumbled around like a total fucking moron. This was one of two factors that bloated my time as I kept replaying fights and wandering around searching for health. I was one bleeding sonofabitch throughout this map, even at the end that most players found relatively easy.

But let it be said, I enjoyed the fuck out of this map. This felt very Doom 2-ey. And it was pretty damned nasty. The ending became a bit of an aggravating switch-hunt, and I was in complete DoofussVille when it came to secrets. There were areas that I thought contained secrets, but I just couldn't figure them out, which left me very pissed-off at myself. Whatever essel was hiding, I wanted it, and that means someday I'll have to pistol-start this thing, and that's gonna be painful.

I also appreciated the extremely complex lifts and layout, very impressive – in classic id fashion – for a map with only 223 sectors. Shit, I can barely design a decent room with a sector-count like that.

Whereas it seems that id usually decided, “This is when shit gets real” in the 3rd map of a game, D2TWiD waited until Map05 for the turning point, and having already played the next 2 maps, I am happy to say things are continuing apace. This is turning into a coolass megawad.

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Map07 – Counterpoint by Tarnsman – Kills – 100, Items – 96, Secrets – 0. Time – 6:10. End health – 101, Armor – 25. Death Count – Zero

Not a bad map here. As others have said, it's easier – much easier – than Dead Simple, one of American McGee's many masterpieces. To be honest, I'm completely mystified as to why it seems, based on comments, that so many Doomers dislike McGee's maps. Dead Simple and Hell Beneath should be enough to cement his reputation as a mapping legend, so if anyone would care to explain the anti-McGee viewpoint, I'm all ears.

Anyway, Tarnsman has done a more Sandyesque take on the Dead Simple theme, and though it's dead easy – heh! – for continuous players, it still made me haul ass, and I had fun starting infights and shooting everything up.

The Spider Mastermind was killed for me by her children. I don't think I ever even opened fire on her.

The big descending wall trap was a kinder, gentler preview of an exceptionally nasty trap in Map08. You know what I'm talking about! ;D

If there are secrets in this map, I again failed to find them.

So this is a pretty good take on Dead Simple, but an even better map is just around the corner . . .

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Map08 – Quarantine by purist and Tarnsman – Kills – 100, Items – 100, Secrets – 90. Time – 44:53. End health – 182, Armor – 183. Death Count – 8

Well, purist and Tarnsman can start wallpapering their houses with SteveD pelts. This is now my favorite map so far, and is certainly among the coolest Ultimate Doom maps to be found in Doom 2. Indeed, we get to revisit a whole heapin' helpin' of Deimos Lab, IIRC my fave E2 map.

This map starts fairly easy for continuers, but over time your ammo gets drained, especially rockets, which I used a lot on all those Pain Elementals. Still, it was going along nicely. Even the nukage maze was no big deal, and thanks for the surprise BFG. The rooms are also huge, which can be a problem when Chaingunners are on the other side of them. I got a lot of health chipped-off here and there, but was still feeling quite confident. And then . . . I saw the blue key.

Holy shit, was that a nightmare.

I'm pretty sure that all 8 of my deaths came here. This trap was similar to the one in Counterpoint, except this time the mappers wanted to kill you. I could have died less than I did. I had several almost-successful runs, only to be taken out by some wandering Chaingunner I hadn't seen. I mostly used the PG, then rockets. One time I used rockets when I should have used a Chaingun. “Good at Doom!” Loved the darkness and the absolutely sincere, “Fuck you, player!” nastiness.

The secrets were quite devious, especially the wonderful Stonegarg room. I love Stonegarg, which is odd, considering that I hate Stone3 and hardly ever use it. I bloated my time by foolishly wandering around searching for a way to lower the threshold after failing to enter the room. Then, somehow, synapses started firing and I did the right thing. ;D

So wow, almost 45 minutes in a map with only 148 sectors. Great job, guys! This map was fun and interesting from start to finish. I hope the megawad can maintain this high standard. And let it be said – a phrase I'm overusing, I think – that the 2 mapslots I'd most want to avoid in Doom 2 are Map08 and Map29, since these maps, Tricks 'n Traps and The Living End, are unimpeachable masterpieces, arguably the best maps ever by Sandy and Romero, and failing that, certainly iconic. And for me, personally, Tricks 'n Traps was a journey of terror, where I found myself on one side of a wall, hyperventilating and sweating, while on the other side prowled the Cyberdemon, as grimly determined as Chun The Unavoidable. I had never before encountered in a game anything so monstrous as Herr Cyb, and listening to him pace back and forth, with all the sound of moving metal, and having seen his towering size and felt his instant-kill capability, the sound of him moving, grunting, stalking, hunting me, is one of my most vivid memories from first playing Doom. Nowadays, even 20 Cybs on the other side of a wall would have less effect, so that memory can never be topped. But as luck would have it, purist and Tarnsman did a map so good that I spent no time at all thinking about Tricks 'n Traps, and that's probably the highest praise I can give.

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Same deal as yesterday, not sure what the rest of the 9th looks like, and I had some free time.

Wad: Doom 2 the Way iD Did
Slot: 9
Map: The Gambit
Author: Richard Frei
Notes:
Tricks and Traps! This was a pretty solid Peterson map. I had a blast figuring out how to get through it from pistol start; after a couple attempts ended on the revenant / spectre room, I decided to bypass that particular room completely, and exited on the next attempt. I really like that you can do that. I had trouble in the RK room, not because I didn't know what to do to flip the second switch, but because I couldn't manage the timing, and then I started doubting that I had the right answer. I like the minor puzzling in my maps though, so no issues with that. The run of maps from The Crusher until the second episode is my favorite part of Doom 2, and so far D2TWID is living up to my expectations for that section of the game (if anything bettering it, because I really like the punchiness of Pav's map 5 too).

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Developer's Notes:

...
MAP07: Counterpoint
The name "Counterpoint" was an accident. Tarnsman isn't the sort of person to make his maps based around a given name, and it's a fact that's made doubly obvious by his recently patented and obscene naming convention ("Alfonzo [Performs X Function]", eg. "Battles The Golden Ninja Clan for Control of Mount Fuji"), so when he finally dusted up the billionth iteration of D2TWiD's MAP07 it was someone else’s job to give it one. I slapped this title on as a temporary solution after multiple brainstorming sessions on IRC couldn't come up with anything better. It stuck, as you can see... and so too do my apologies.

But the tale of how this map actually developed - or rather didn't develop - is much more interesting.

MAP07 was always a troublesome slot because of the special tags. Since the project goal demanded that we not pay homage to any of the original maps, we had to try and come up with a use for them that was nothing like Dead Simple's, but at the same time strong enough in concept to make sense of why id included them in the first place (remember, we're remaking Doom 2 in a historical context as well). A previous submission for MAP07 by Zodiac made a less pronounced use of arachnotrons to accomplish a key piece of progression, and it seemed unconvincing that id would code the tags in for such a "backstage" reason when any number of other map-specific actions could have been used or otherwise coded in in its place. Clearly the monsters would have to be front and center stage for the inclusion of the tags to make any sense.

Gradually, however, Tarnsman and the other TWiD enthusiasts came to the conclusion that Dead Simple was an unbeatable model, and that Sandy had basically done with the map much the same as he had done (or would go on to do) with Downtown or Tricks and Traps, for example: He had taken an idea and watered it down to its most basic and elemental form. Trying to pull off the same gameplay feats without drawing dangerous parallels would be an ongoing problem for the project and its contributors (The Causeway vs. Downtown, for instance - more on that when we get to it), but in this instance it was a concession we'd have to make, else the slot would just seem wrong.

The spiderdemon was an integral part of trying to give the map an identity of its own, and we were in dire need of a boss monster for the early stages of the game, so in it went. Convenient, really, since we were made to use arachnotrons and Sandy's spiderdemons are totally maternal!

TRIVIA: For iteration no. 1,520B, Tarnsman had Xaser try and hack in an effect that would have the exit door open upon the death of the spiderdemon. It didn't work: The map turned into a door.

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Map09 - “The Gambit” by Tarnsman

The tricks and traps troll map. It certainly does its job of being annoying at least. The one puzzle that had me stumped the first time I played it (and i ended up cheating) was in the yellow key area where you have to run across a triangular platform which drops when you attempt to, and no amount of running (or even strafe running) seemed to get me across in time. I only figured out how to do it today thanks to some experience with the mechanics of moving sectors, and the knowledge that the platform wouldn't drop if I crossed it while it was still moving up. If that is the intended solution I think it is a bit too much to ask of players who are not familiar with doom triggering mechanics. Some of the puzzles appear to be about learning where the switch is and getting the hell out rather than staying and fighting, particularly the rocket launcher room. Anyway, as a concept I get it. And as a map I hate it. So, mission accomplished.

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MAP09: The Gambit
95% kills, 3/5 secrets (plus the non-secret tagged BFG/soulsphere)

Well, this is definitely the Tricks and Traps maps. A hub with teleporters instead of doors, lots of descrete areas with their own theme, lots of Doom 1 texturing, etc. This one feels a lot more puzzle-ly than Tricks and Traps, but that's fine for the most part. I think the one main drawback to this map is that it lacks the good "oh shit" moments from the original, whether it be the Cyberdemon behind the audience of Barons, or the imp/revvie ambush near the end, or the UNLEASH THE DEMONS! in the green STAR area. The only area in this map that gave me any pause was the blue armor (northwest teleporter) area, and even that's easy to beat if you're smart enough to retreat up the stairs.

And yeah, that red room raising triangle puzzle... I had the same experience as 7hm and mouldy, where I initially figured I must've just been doing it wrong, before finally remembering that if it's still going up, the trigger for it going down can't activate. Which seems a bit unfair as it requires some real knowledge of how the Doom engine operates.

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For what it's worth, the intended method for that triangle is to raise it up a bunch then jump off so it starts lowering, then teleport back up and run across it as it lowers.

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Tarnsman said:

For what it's worth, the intended method for that triangle is to raise it up a bunch then jump off so it starts lowering, then teleport back up and run across it as it lowers.


That's what I figured, but I had an easier time running on to it while it was raising.

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Map08 - “Quarantine” by Purist & Tarnsman
Well playing this today I suffered.... zero deaths.
After the start, the rest is fairly manageable though there is some really nasty spots (especially the blue key). This map was strangely fun in the end.

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Tarnsman said:

For what it's worth, the intended method for that triangle is to raise it up a bunch then jump off so it starts lowering, then teleport back up and run across it as it lowers.


wow really? I think I even tried that and the timing was so ridiculous I figured there must be a different way. Don't think I could do that before throwing my computer out the window.

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I was able to repeatedly do it in vanilla with keyboard only so I just never figured it would be an issue. As for the "alternate" method there are some "jump on this platform as it's going up" moments in stock Doom so it's not that much of a stretch to apply it there even without knowing the engine.

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Some Sandy mechanisms in The Factory and Downtown are pretty obscure and I never fully understood them before the era of dew dissecting maps in an editor.

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Map09 - “The Gambit” by Tarnsman
I didn't really have much trouble navigating this one, though the invulnerability pit I did just simply brute force it. The rest was fine for me. As for the gameplay, I yet again regret not setting it up in the command prompt to play in complevel 2, lot souls everywhere :P

Otherwise a decent map and fits the Sandy design principles well.

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Doom 2 The Way ID Did- MAP 9: HMP, Continuous, Keyboard Only

Here is our first Sandy puzzle/gimmick map of the wad. The goal being to navigate the puzzle beyond each teleporter to get the Berserk, Soul Sphere, Mega Armour, & Red Key, of course only one is required to progress, but I went for everything. Getting the Berserk is the easiest, & once you obtain it you are also rewarded with some teleporting Pain Elementals, this room was not a threat whatsoever. The Mega Armor room was next & was also quite simple, I did take a bit of damage though when a specter walked in front of one of my rockets while I was taking care of the revenants. The red key room was also fairly straightforward, just figure out the teleporting lines & the lost souls were completely useless as an enemy in this room. The Soul Sphere section proved to be the most tricky in that you had to be quick on you feet to hit a switch, get to a teleporter, & then up a lift on time. Now while that was tricky the yellow key room was a bastard. At first I tried to hit the switch 3 time & just speed across the platform, but I wasn't able to do this as it lowered to fast. Next I by hitting the switch a 4th time & running onto it while it was going up, but again it raised too fast. I then realized I was an idiot & then was able to get onto the platform while it was raising from the 3rd hit of the switch. Then there was some more switch hitting telepoting lift shenanigans, so yeah this whole room pretty much ruined the map for me. Finishing up the rest of the map was fairly straightforward.

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Tarnsman said:

I was able to repeatedly do it in vanilla with keyboard only so I just never figured it would be an issue.


Watch this demo of me attempting it to get an idea of what the problem is:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/51uaba08vwr5w6c/d2twid-mouldy-09.lmp

If you watch all of it, you'll see that I eventually manage it, but if you get that far you might understand where I'm coming from. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, who knows... but I only made that many attempts with the knowledge that it is possible, otherwise I'd have just assumed this was too difficult and there must be an easier way. I don't think something like this would have made it into the original game to be honest, maybe as a secret or optional extra, but not as a compulsory part of the map.

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Map 09 -- The Gambit - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Yes, this does remind one of Tricks n' Traps, certainly. I was also reminded of The Pit, myself....not just because of the mapslot mind you, just some of the scenes (like the poorly-lit exit area with its sharp-angled computer platforms and pit-specters, somehow evokes the 'burst' platform and its specters from doom2.wad map 09) and a setup or two (the smaller number of route choices at the outset somehow reminded me of The Pit's 'spade' room). The Petersen idiosyncrasies are laid on very thick in this one, arguably to the point where it might start to toe the line between emulation and caricature just a little bit--apart from the whole thing being a collection of largely unrelated conceptual setpieces, we also have the wildly fluctuating light levels, a few very strange texture combinations (e.g. the silver computer-screen wall juxtaposed with battle-damaged stucco) and some huge alignment offsets, and even more meta-details in the form of some secrets that aren't tagged as such, and even some flat-out mapping errors, ala that one imp stuck in the wall at the end of the timed lift/slime pit puzzle. It's true that all of these things (and more) appear in Sandy's maps, but seeing them all together all at once, it's hard not to feel like the 'fourth wall' is being broken a bit more actively in this one, so to speak.

A more subtle aspect of the Petersen experience that this does do a very good job of highlighting is how drastically the danger-level can vary within his maps, both in the sense that some areas are going to be flat-out child's play while others are horrible deathtraps, and in that the player's success in his maps can vary heavily based on the route they happen to take through it. A lot of his DooM II maps sort of offer you a whole bunch of different directions to explore in from the outset, but apart from the occasional signpost indicating places where you either MUST go or really REALLY should go (ala the arrow in Downtown, or the one silver teleport pad here in The Gambit), there'll often be very little indication of which routes are safe/beneficial early on and which lead to intractable clusterfucks. If you get lucky you might pick the 'right' starter route and face relatively subdued opposition while getting kitted out for the challenges ahead--in The Gambit's case that'd probably be the northeast teleporter, where you face mostly imps and puzzles and can get a chainsaw, a lot of shells, an eventual soulsphere, and maybe even the hidden plasma rifle and armor in a couple of secrets. Or, you could end up in the rocket launcher trap or the 4-PE berserk room....far less hospitable locales, to say the least. All of these areas can surely be cleared even if you happen to visit them first from a pistol-start, mind you; it's just that some are much easier to conquer early on than others, and by extension, your experience of the map as a whole can change drastically depending on arbitrary, mostly-unguided choices you make early on. That's Sandy for you, or at least Sandy in DooM II.

Oh, on the issue of the yellow key puzzle room, I got over to the switch that opens the arachnatron/switch/teleporter closet just by timing my hops onto/past it while it was still rising (so, just after three switch-presses, I believe). I did this instinctively and without any hiccups, didn't really even stop to think about it until reading the other comments here, honestly--backstepping out of the slime teleporter to catch the big platform as it rises seemed like the primary aspect of the puzzle to me. The intended method for that earlier switch that Tarnsman describes probably only would've occurred to me if I really had been playing this back early in my Doom career, I think (when the facility for movement necessary to reach the switch the other way might not have come so readily).....so in that sense I guess you could argue that it's a reasonable/realistic alternate-history design decision, but it's also apparently a bit of a conceptual misfire in purely practical terms, as here in 2014 the alternate way to do the puzzle is liable to be what's first to occur to many, many players.

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Yeah, I just tried it Tarnsman's intended way (raise it all the way up, jump off into the teleporter then across the triangle as it's lowering) and wasn't able to do it in 12 tries. Half the time I couldn't get onto the triangle in the first place, half the time I got onto the triangle but couldn't get across onto the next platform. Maybe there's a difference in how ZDoom handles things here or something but I found it very, very difficult (if not outright impossible).

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Oh oops. So apparently between the latest version and the original version of Map 09 the angle of the wall that triangle was on changed so that you clip it most of the times trying to run across making it a lot harder to accomplish it. Also it's still possible and pretty easy to do with an SR40 but originally it was like a "get it every time first try" deal. I don't know why the angle changed.

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Yeah, I eventually was able to make that leap across the triangle, but it took like 10 straight minutes of trying. Playing catch-up tonight, and I saw when MAP09 loaded up that it was that map, and I'm like, "Yeah, that's enough D2TWID for tonight."

MAP06: The Gorge (UV/continuous/keyboard)
I remember getting lost in this map my first time through, but I blitzed through it this time around. So much fun. 100% everything, and don't think I died once. I'm still not a fan of mandatory leaps into lava, but I vaguely remembered what I was doing, so managed to avoid much damage (oh, except for when I fell off fighting cacos in the blue (?) key moat.) Anyway, such a fun level; lots of dudes shooting at you from all directions and heights, but also lots of opportunities to snipe 'em through a window or from a distance, which I enjoy.

MAP07: Counterpoint
This map gave me so much trouble the first time, I don't know what the deal was. I don't think I died this time, either; just pumped rockets (thanks, continuous play!) into the mancs and spiders while strafing back and forth between the corners of the starting sector for cover. Then I grabbed the invul later and took out the mastermind and her friend. 3 minutes to play, another minute to run around and pick up all the items I overlooked. A quick, if fairly memorable, battle.

MAP08: Starstruct, Inc.
Ah, big old, giant base exploration map. I love these. That blue key chaingunner trap marked the first death of the night, as well as the second through probably the ninth. Man, I just got my ass handed to me every time. Like SteveD, most of my deaths came during mop-up time, from some random chaingunner that I had missed wandering around—though I'll confess that there were two or three times where I was just immediately gunned down upon entering the area. Still a super-fun map (and probably my favorite so far): tons of zombies to mow down, lots of secrets to sniff out and explore. Good stuff.

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