The DWmegawad Club plays: Doom 2 the Way id Did

[Phobus]

I haven't been playing this along with the club, but was inspired to give it a go by this thread... I've been surprised by how heavily it leans on the source material (to the point where you can often say in a map "Yep, this is MAPXX") and how uninteresting I've found it. I kind of trashed my way through about half the megawad and then hit the later ones a couple at a time (I'm currently on MAP23) and just been unimpressed with the gameplay and the architecture. In fairness, I feel similarly about the original IWAD, but as somebody who liked DTWID a lot, this wasn't the reaction I was expecting. I can only assume that my apathy towards Doom II is the explanation here.

Speaking selfishly for the next one, I'd like to see MAYhem2048 get played, or something very modern to break up the run of classics and oldschool wads.

[Xfing]

Ok, I might as well join in!

Funny thing - I beta tested this WAD, and I remember there being a level discussed called Hexsoil. I thought it didn't make the cut, and only now I've learned that it in fact did, and is now an ultra-secret level. The way to get to that level is ludicrous, and you literally have to hug each little wall and press space to get it, but luckily the secret exit was placed very early in the WAD to save you the frustration (or augment it if you miss it, haha).

So for a few words on Level 33: Hexsoil.

I remember complaining about the lack of an "underground hell" level in D2TWiD, one reminescent of "The Spirit World". This level is probably the reason why I never got a direct answer to that complaint. Aesthetics-wise, this level is as Spirit World-esque as it gets, with entire areas reminding the player thereof. At the same time, it manages to remain strictly Doom 2 in that department, but the difference becomes clear when one looks at the geometry. The level couldn't make the cut to the standard level set because it is far too large and too elaborate for Doom 2, and I feel that the geometry of the level itself is a slightly modernized, up to date mish mash of Romero, Petersen and McGee. That's right - due to the modular structure of this level there appear to be sections made in the style of each of the three. Yet still, even though more polished and more elaborate, this still feels distinctly Doom 2-ish. I wish that more modern level designers would go this route when designing their levels - the geometry and the puzzles aside, I'm talking more about the tasteful texture usage. This is the epitome of Doom 2 Hell.

As for the difficulty - as the intimidating grandeur of this level may betray, this is by far the hardest level in the WAD. Definitely not Hell Revealed or CC level though, obviously. The funny thing is - there is no Arch-Vile spam (only two of them - that's even less than in "The Spirit World"), not even one Cyberdemon nor Spiderdemon. The monster count may seem huge, but so it was in "The Pit". Most of your enemies will be Imps, but there are monsters of every kind except for the "bosses" waiting to kick your ass. And even despite the above, this level is diabolically difficult. Not in a way where you are pitted against a huge army like in "Go 2 It", but the difficulty stems from the environment itself as well as the lack of ammunition and BFG (I didn't find it at least, only got 2/6 secrets). You are forced to be incredibly efficient with your ammo to get out alive, and 100%-ing the kills seems outright impossible. I was forced to fight Barons of Hell with my chainsaw in an extremely tight corridor and got locked in a room with two Archviles with literally ZERO ammo. Maybe if I were less wasteful or had discovered more secrets, my situation would've been better, but as things were -noo. I only managed around 88% of the kills if memory serves.

So, while this level clearly wasn't suited for an inclusion to the regular roster of levels due to the project's strict formula, it could very well had fit into something like "Doom 2 Better Than Id Did". If this was like level 29 of D2TWiD and you had a BFG, it wouldn't be that difficult and it almost could have fit if it wasn't that big, that modular and had such advanced design. Plus, the main hub kind of reminds me of TNT level "Heck" and Plutonia's "Slayer" (I think), and outside of "Tricks and Traps" and "Nirvana" I don't think there ever was a modular Doom 2 level.

Still, even though this level is larger than Doom 2 levels, more detailed than them and appears to have influences of all 3 of id's primary mappers, it DOES feel like Doom 2. Like the epitome of Doom 2's hellish experience, in fact. So this level DOES manage to recapture Doom 2's atmosphere and does so flawlessly - it's simply too good to have been made by id at that point.

I would be very, very interested in playing an entire Doom 2-inspired WAD with levels of this quality. I find the atmosphere of the original Doom games the best and most rewarding, surpassing that of third party megawads', Final Doom included. And levels like Hexsoil bring that atmosphere out and amplify it up to eleven. Great job, Blackgaze.

[dobu gabu maru]

Uh just to let you guys know, D2INO and MAYhem 2014 stand at about 4 votes each, so I'm unsure which one to pick for next month. Of course some of the big names here haven't voted yet (you guys know who you are) so if you wanna be the tiebreaker, it'd be much appreciated.

[Magnusblitz]

Mayhem2014 please

[joe-ilya]

Magnusblitz said:

Mayhem2014 please

Me too.

[TMD]

What the fudge is MAYhem2014?

[joe-ilya]

TheMionicDonut said:

What the fudge is MAYhem2014?

This year's mayhem, got amnesia?

[cannonball]

joe-ilya said:

This year's mayhem, got amnesia?

Maybe because it's MAYhem2048 :)

[joe-ilya]

cannonball said:

Maybe because it's MAYhem2048 :)

I know he meant that, but whatever.

[Memfis]

yes yes out of these two definitely mayhem please

[dobu gabu maru]

Alright, MAYhem2014 2048 it is (what is the MAYhem in 2048 going to be called?)

[Magnusblitz]

dobu gabu maru said:

Alright, MAYhem2014 2048 it is (what is the MAYhem in 2048 going to be called?)

It's okay, the guys who decided to name Madden '14 "Madden 25" instead will figure it out for us by then.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP28: The Abyss
92% kills, 2/5 secrets

I really wouldn't compare to this to The Chasm, I don't think they share a lot in common beyond being large cavernous levels with some jumping. There's no horrendously thin catwalks (really Chasm's calling card), and Chasm also has the typical Sandy "sandbox" build with lots of discrete areas. Hell, it even has some Tom Hall-esque mazes. None of that here in Abyss... if anything, Abyss actually seems to borrow a bit from Romero, given the connectedness (despite the large amounts of teleports, not a single area is completely cordoned off) and the four-way teleport/column design, which kinda reminds me of E4M6 in a way.

I agree with mouldy that the map feels a bit malevolent, which is interesting because, aside from the start and a couple other battles (which usually involve PEs combined with chaingunners) there's actually not that many difficult monsters, and getting around isn't super difficult (plenty of radsuits, for example). But just the large number of teleports and switches needed to advance manage to make it feel that way, I too was eager to be done with it. Some might say that's a bad thing ("if I want to leave, I'm not having fun") but I think it lasted just long enough for me.

MAP29: The Mortal Coil
97% kills, 1/3 secrets

This one, of course, is unabashedly an expy of The Living End - a super linear Romero advance around an interior cavern. While Romero maps tend to have a more linear progression than other authors, they usually do have a couple of different ways you can go at the beginning, whereas The Living End is just a straight-ahead assault - which I always felt is perfect for the penultimate map. And so it works here, as well. And I think it does a very good job of copying the feel of that map without actually stealing any of its rooms or sectors. Good job.

[an_mutt]

joe-ilya said:

This year's mayhem, got amnesia?

Donut's still in shock with the quick release time of this year's MAYhem, cut him some slack.

[Steve D]

Mayhem 2048, 'ey? I planned to take July off, and still plan on doing that, but I will at least comment on my map and all the other maps I playtested, most of which haven't changed much. A lot of good, tough maps in that set. Pack a lunch, people. ;)

[plums]

TheMionicDonut said:

What the fudge is MAYhem2014?

Do you still need help sorting out textures? I never got a PM from you.

[Demon of the Well]

Oops, missed my chance to vote. That's okay though, I was fine with all of the major suggestions (and probably would have voted for Psyren, which would've made no relevant numerical difference).

Map 28 -- Abyss - 100% Kills / 80% Secrets
Hmm, where to begin with this one? Well, for a start, it's a really cool map--interesting setting with a lot of quirky little puzzle setpieces, and feels very substantial (and fairly challenging by the standards of this set) despite only using 90-ish monsters. That being said, far moreso than any other map in the set (I have now finished), it positively smacks of its true author's personal style, as opposed to that of its target id author. Towers. Blood. Crackle. Windy little footpaths. Glowing stuff. Parkour. MORE towers. Xaser.

Like many of the other D2TWiD maps, this has a very rough 'n tumble start--suffice to say that so many lost souls were spawned that eventually the pain elementals stopped being able to spawn them, and I was forced to flee (fortunately for me the endless soul-generator thus created is not well ventilated, so most of them stayed stuck in the start area as I went on with my life). This early scramble for me underscores how surprisingly tightly-balanced the ammo/supplies are for much of this map--while we're used to seeing our fortunes vary wildly with Sandy's style, that doesn't really happen here; I was constantly getting more rockets and more shells just as I ran out, contributing to a certain impression of flying by the seat of my pants. I still eventually got on enough of a roll that the monsters weren't likely going to be able to stop me, but it took longer in this map, and didn't happen as suddenly--despite finding 4 of the 5 secrets (couldn't figure out how to get the megasphere), I never felt like the rewards put enough fat on me to allow me to just coast through the rest of the map, if I wanted.

Eventually the sense of monster threat does still taper off, in this case partially because the little traps that all of the Sandymaps have had aren't generally nearly as over-the-top here, but also because it's the environmental interactivity and the simple joy of moving around in the game engine (as opposed to fighting in the game engine) that really comes to the fore--the whole map is marked by gradually reshaping the environment in ways that allow you to use Doomguy's physical prowess to reach new areas (typically with flying leaps), and more than one setpiece asks you to actually think about the ways in which you can effect the architecture in order to proceed. My favorite of these was the rising tower sequence in the water-flooded corner of the map: understand what you're doing and you can raise the tower all the way up in a matter of seconds, the sequence of switches/jumps/teleports for doing so being strangely satisfying to pull off. This particular area also feels like a conscious callback to some kindred ideas earlier in the mapset (the center building in 'The Shipyard' being the one that most readily springs to mind, but it's not alone), helping to tie the whole game together in a way that the IWAD doesn't really bother to do.

On that note, it's passable as a Petersen map, sure, as far as checking all of the boxes goes--spacious, loosely nonlinear, weird texturing, little self-contained concepts that site aside from the main play areas (although they are not entirely disconnected in this case, as Magnus notes), a few dirty tricks and a nasty opener, etc. etc.--but if you've played any of Xaser's more recent maps (and if not, I'd certainly recommend them), I defy you not to see this as a Xasermap (albeit one that's more shabbily-dressed than usual) rather than a Petersen emulation. But, as I've said before, while it's no doubt a very interesting subject, and one I've blathered about endlessly over the course of this club playthrough, the aspect of authenticity is not really terribly prominent in determining my personal enjoyment of these maps; suffice to say that while this is very much a Xasermap, it's fitting as a Sandy in spirit if not in letter, because it has many of the same basic characteristics that make his maps--and many others, past and present, in many other styles--so enjoyable to me.

[mouldy]

Map30 - “Hell on Earth” by Alfonzo

Jesus, that was a head-scratcher trying to work that puzzle out. While it does seem ridiculously convoluted i guess its not totally beyond the realm of possibility for such a puzzle at the end of the original doom 2. That whole shooting in a hole while falling off a platform thing was ridiculous to start with, but who said the final boss of a game should be easy? Personally I don't think a puzzle like in this map would have made it into the original game for purely aesthetic reasons though, that fact that you shoot the boss from another room is clever, but if this was the final boss of your new game and you were designing it, I think you'd want the player to have more of a connection with the thing they were trying to kill (your view of the icon is even blocked by that pillar while it is being hit). It works perfectly well in the context of a hypothetical DLC that id might have released after the original game though, which is how I like to think of this wad.

So that's the end of doom 2 the way id might have done if they decided to make 32 new maps for doom 2. Its an interesting experiment, and a pretty solid set of maps. Some of them ended up a bit similar to each other maybe. To me the original doom 2 maps feel very distinct, each map has something in it that characterises the map and makes it memorable. Maybe thats just nostalgia, but I got a similar vibe from a lot of the maps in this wad too, however a few of them seem to fall into a generic pattern based on the 'styles' of the original authors. I'm not sure if its possible to avoid that in a project like this, as you only have the existing ideas of the map makers to work from, whereas the original authors were able to make anything they wanted. Thats a minor gripe though, and this is still a cool set of maps. There are a also a lot of maps in here of a kind that people don't seem to make any more for whatever reason, particularly those ones which have lots of separate buildings which you can explore in any order, I think those were my favourite ones.

Good stuff

[Magnusblitz]

MAP30: Hell on Earth
1/1 secret

And now we come to my other "fuck this map" in the WAD, along with MAP19, which also happens to be by Alfonzo. Hmmm...

It's an Icon of Sin map, of course, but with a much more difficult puzzle and setup. There's still a series of ledges descending into a pit, but rather than just work your way up with some easy elevators, hitting a switch to raise a column, then jumping on the elevator (and shooting as you go up, c'mon mouldy), we have this, as far as I can tell:

Spoiler

Jump into the pit, find the door, grab the red key, run back across the damaging pit for a switch, run back to the now-revealed teleporter (which is only a pretty short timer, so hope nothing big got spawned in your way). Hit the red switch, move across to the other revealed teleporter. Run towards the rocket launcher, hit the switch, grab the RL (which teleports you facing the right way), fire rockets, then run back to the other part of the room into the slime teleporter, and hit the switch and hope that you've timed it properly so the rockets you fired hit the brain.

It took me a few times playing it before I finally figured it out (mainly - "there must be some reason this weird RL teleporter exists). But even after figuring it out, it proved to be extremely difficult. Firstly, it's basically designed to fuck mouselook users - I need to bind a key to "center view" just to line up my shot. Secondly, the timing is very exact, as there is a good chance you'll either 1) be too late to hit the switch and you won't open the column in time or 2) you'll teleport in front of your own rockets, ha ha, fuck you player. There's also, of course, the chance it'll hit some asinine cacodemon or lost soul that decided to just hang out there.

I think the teleport landing with the switch is also extremely poorly designed - it's basically a big cage inviting all the monsters to instantly blast you (either killing you or knocking you away from the switch), and even if you do, somehow by the grace of god, manage to get a rocket through, you have to jump back down to the lowest level and hit the switch to lower the teleporter again and OMG WHY ARE THERE SO MANY ARCHVILES AND LOST SOULS AND MANCUBUSES AND I'M DEAD AGAIN ARGHHHH

On top of all that, it's ugly asthetically. I mean, "Icon of Sin" is no Mona Lisa, but the huge cavern looks somewhat impressive and really draws the eyes to "holy shit, what's that giant demon face on the wall??" This one kinda hides the face in a small bunker, around a corner, and doesn't provide that same effect. There's also just some weird stuff like the slime door that instantly stands out as bizarre and reminds you that you're playing a game and kinda breaks immersion/tension.

But in the end, for me, the real fatal flaw with this map is that the puzzle is just too damn hard (unless I'm missing something).

[Marcaek]

it's basically designed to fuck mouselook users - I need to bind a key to "center view" just to line up my shot. Secondly, the timing is very exact, as there is a good chance you'll either 1) be too late to hit the switch and you won't open the column in time or 2) you'll teleport in front of your own rockets, ha ha, fuck you player.

Well, first off mouselook isn't a feature of the original game, so I don't think you can seriously criticize a map designed for vanilla Doom with this, and I'm pretty sure that in vanilla your own rockets will pass through you so the second issue is a fault of your port.

[Magnusblitz]

As far as the mouselook, yeah, I realize that, and I found a "fix" myself (mentioning the "center view" bit). Even if it's designed for vanilla though (and to emulate vanilla design principles), I'd be surprised if the majority of people playing WADs in 2014 aren't using mouselook, so it should still be in the back of designer's minds in my opinion (but of course others may differ).

As far as the rockets, on further thought I think they actually weren't hitting me but were hitting either the column or nearby monsters, with the splash hitting me, since I never got splattered instantly if the rocket hit me dead-on. The teleport exit is also out of the way of the rockets.

[Phil1984]

Map 30 did seem a little convoluted for me. An enjoyable Map 30, don't get me wrong, but I'm not sure if that particular map would ever had made the cut in 1994.

Overall though I can safely say this mapset pissed me off because it emulated Doom 2 which also pissed me off. So I can safely say mission accomplished guys! In my eyes you achieved what you set out to do.

[phi108]

Played it through, and wow, map31 was one of the coolest things ever, for how it made me feel. An amazing hub design, and everything seemed so familiar though in 3D. The search for the last 2 hidden monsters and secret bothered me for a long time, I just was never looking in the right spot as I ran by.

Map32 was one of the most scary moments from my shareware gaming days, nice.

[Jaws In Space]

Doom 2 The Way ID Did- MAP 29: HMP, Continuous, Keyboard Only

Well that was pretty confusing at first. Also I actually couldn't beat this map, I find that PRBoom has trouble activating switches when I'm moving at a rushed pace so, maybe it's just me, but after about 10 minutes of trying & only 1 rocket getting through I just called it quits. So yeah I didn't really like this map, it took me a good while to figure out the puzzle just so that I could kill him & by that time the map was filled to the brim with monsters, so I had to start over just so I could attempt to beat it.

So episode 3 as a whole has been overall pretty consistent quality wise compared to the first 2 episodes up until the last few maps, but they have been consistently ok maps with only a few that I would call good so I'm going to have to call this my least favorite episode.

favorite maps of the episode are map 29, 25, & 21.
least favorite map of the episode is map 28

[Demon of the Well]

Map 29 -- The Mortal Coil - 103% Kills / 100% Secrets
Here we see the final iteration of that subgenre of Romero map involving circumnavigating a pernicious central chasm. Perhaps unsurprisingly, and perhaps fittingly, this one is the closest of the D2TWiD maps to the grandaddy of the style, 'The Living End', in that it features a trek towards an imposing central edifice that establishes itself as the goal from the moment it is first seen. I don't feel that it's guilty of feeling or playing too much like that map, mind; for example, once the looming tower of dried flesh and iron is reached, it's not actually the end of the map--instead, there's a further descent through a glowing red ravine towards the true exit. In some small way, I reckon this distinct feeling is also at least partially a product of some of the aesthetics coming off as slightly off-model for Romero; in this case, it looks to me like texture variation might be a bit out of hand, in the sense that many of the discrete parts/buildings comprising the route are clothed broadstroke in single textures that look a bit odd together (especially when they are seen together, as in certain views of the main cavern)--looks more Sandy-esque to me somehow, although the generally dim lighting smooths this over somewhat. And, in fairness, I haven't looked at The Living End (or Industrial Zone, for that matter) in a while, maybe it's got a bit more of that broadstroke texture-medley thing going on than I remember.

Anyway, it's also more vicious than any of the other Romero maps (especially Essel's previous entries), and for that reason I found it to be the most enjoyable. Many of Tarnsman's maps (Romero and otherwise) start out with a sharp, bloody blast of bullet-hell, true, but these soon taper off into the much more sedate pace that has characterized the Romero maps in general, and also held them back to some degree, I think. Not so, here. Monster placement is much more consistently conducive to fast action; much of the first half of the level is characterized by a series of multi-directional ambushes that are well-timed or well-placed to prevent the player from simply backing up and chokepointing them risk-free--a lot of them involve drops into monster nests, etc. Interestingly, few if any of these feel set-piecey in nature; they spring in the open at odd moments along the route, which is an effective way to infuse some organic action into a highly linear map (which this is) without having to rely on setting up a series of enclosed, self-contained battles. The balance of ammo and particularly health is also noticeably sharper than in many of the other maps in the set--I made a bad decision while fighting in the first blood pit (made worse when that bastard arch-vile teleported in from his watchtower to the upper ledge), and was limping around on 13% health for several minutes afterwards, suffice to say that you're held a little more accountable for your mistakes in this one.

The action does taper off a bit once the player reaches the eastern side of the map, and it's not all golden (the Baron-cluster at the exit seems more like an in-joke than a constructive part of the map), but between the early furor and other odd highlights (e.g. a fairly well-used spider mastermind in the flesh-tower, which puts an exclamation point on first reaching that obvious landmark), it's satisfying on the action front for most of its duration, feels thematically suitable as the grand penultimate map, and thus seems to be the most 'complete' of all of the Romero offerings.

[Demon of the Well]

Map 30 -- Hell on Earth - 1,300% Kills / 100% Secrets
It's better than Icon of Sin. I say this as a player not averse to traditional map 30 rocket-slotting maps, mind you....many players report feeling disappointed upon first encountering the Icon of Sin from Doom 2, but apart from the questionable texture selections that define that map (dammit Sandy), it seemed a fitting conclusion to the game to me. Granted, perhaps this is because I'm slower on the uptake than most--I only figured out how to damage the boss after several failed attempts through a combination of trial & error and blind fumbling, which means that all the while I was growing desperate slaughtering an endless horde of demons. This is an experience that has stuck with me, and is why I particularly appreciate IoS maps conducive to sticking around and fighting it out for a while--it's sloppy and often crass, sure, but also has a certain peculiar grandiosity to it. As such, I don't think that the specifics of actual gameplay need to be very refined or innovative for a traditional map 30 to successfully fulfill its purpose. Moreso than any other mapslot, I would argue that it is a place where atmosphere, aesthetic, and cinematic presentation trump all; all it really needs to be is cathartic, not a masterclass in the game's dynamics, and the original map 30 was that (although I'll grant you that given its shabby appearance and abrupt presentation, its atmosphere was mainly a product of novelty and the BGM track).

That being said, I certainly don't balk at IoS setups that attempt to build something more substantial on the basic rocket/wall groundwork, and this is one of the cleverest attempts at doing so that I've seen in a while. Let me say right off that I absolutely agree with the other players that this seems far too involved to be a believable alternate origin of the concept; personal anecdotes only count for so much, of course, but it probably would have taken me forever and a day to figure out the solution to the puzzle if this really had been map 30 back in the day....some arcane aspects of the game's mechanics, such as the notion of being able to somehow outpace one's own rocket, simply weren't widely understood enough back then for this to seem very viable, even by Sandy's 'the player's tears are my ambrosia!' standards. The puzzle here is more complex than anything in D2TWiD, and vastly more complex than anything in Doom II, and so I reckon it's difficult to deny that this is more than a bit outre as far as authenticity is concerned.

Authenticity aside, it is a great idea, and I'm glad the team kept it all through development (if I'm not mistaken, this was one of the earliest of all D2TWiD maps). It occupies that sweet spot in the spectrum of puzzle play where I initially have no idea what the fuck is going on (compounded in the Doom II idiom by the monsters endlessly spawning in, of course), but then begin to have some vague inklings after experimentation which culminate in an inherently fulfilling "Eureka!" moment--hard to achieve in puzzle games, let alone in Doom. All told, it took me about 8.5 minutes to finish the map. I did succeed on the first attempt, albeit narrowly, so I got to experience some of that random/endless map 30 incidental combat (saving me from that guilty feeling of having gamed the system somehow that I get when map 30 ends in seconds), without feeling like the puzzle was too obscure to be overcome without a great deal of hard-earned foreknowledge. As aforesaid, the puzzle probably only seemed reasonably quickly solvable because I'm playing this in 2014 rather than in '94, but eh......I think the dissonance is worth it, in this case. The aesthetics/presentation don't make this map (they're only a little less tacky than the original); the concept does.

[esselfortium]

In MAP29, the archvile teleporting down from its perch was actually a happy accident. I set up the teleport there for the player's use, relating to a secret, and the archvile soon surprised me with its new capability on one of my next test runs through the map :)

[ella guro]

sad that i didn't manage to finish this =(. ah well, it was fun. i'm too busy july to do the mayhem one, but i'll definitely try to do this again.

[Demon of the Well]

If/when you've actually finished the rest of the maps, there's no reason you can't keep posting in this thread even though the month's over. Better late than never!

********

Overall, I was suitably entertained by D2TWiD. The main thing I wanted when I voted for it was The Sandymaps, and it was full to repletion of The Sandymaps, and so in the most basic sense it left me a satisfied player. On a less purely single-minded level, I think I would firmly hold that D2TWiD is a more successful endeavor than the original DTWiD, both in terms of the consistency and detail in the emulation of the id authors' styles (e.g. The Sandymaps remind me much more of Petersen's specific personal style, whereas many of the Petersen maps in DTWiD seemed more like PWAD levels inspired by the most general tropes of Sandy's design style), and simply in terms of the consistency of the entertainment value the maps offer....it's full of exploration and optional content, and more importantly, full of Sandy's bullshit.

But then, I liked Doom II's cavalier attitude towards playing with quirky map concepts and its strangely seesawing game balance, so it's not surprising to see players with a more cynical attitude towards the second IWAD's homely whimsy think less highly of the mapset, as it not only evinces the same characteristics but arguably exaggerates them in small but perceptible ways. By the same token, those whose primary interest in the mapset was concourse issues--that is, the minutiae of how sector-perfect the emulation of the id authors was pulled off--are liable to be slightly disappointed, as certain aspects of the mapset as a whole seem to skew slightly away from the IWAD median (most notably in terms of scale, and the arguable over-representation of one particular style of Romero map). On the whole, though, of the many different present-day PWADs that aim for an 'origins' feel in general spirit and loosely in letter, D2TWiD stands apart as one of few that aims for the same general spirit while being far more histrionically fixated on the technical specifics. Playing it reminded me of just how rare maps that feel truly akin to McGee's/Romero's or especially Petersen's really are these days; while this fact isn't something I personally spend any significant deal of time lamenting (enjoyable modern PWADs that participate in the same basic design principles that made the id maps fun while being entirely different in style/execution are the lifeblood of the community, after all), hearing these old ghosts rattling their chains again is certainly a refreshing change of pace.

In terms of specifics, naturally I most enjoyed the Sandymaps--some significantly more than others, granted, but none left me completely cold. While I had expected to be least generally enamored of the McGee maps, this wasn't quite the case, as it was the Romero efforts that I found most liable to be underwhelming (while other than map 23 I found most of the McGee maps palatable enough, if not all were particularly memorable)--not for failing to evoke Romero, but simply for being too liable to have too much white noise in the combat department. That being said, the Romero maps did improve in this regard in the later parts of the mapset, so the representation of no particular id author turned out to be a total wash. Top 5 maps, in no particular order, were:

1. Map 21 -- Passage to Exile
2. Map 25 -- Dead Sea
3. Map 18 -- The Sanctuary
4. Map 28 -- Abyss
5. Map 13 -- The Wharf

GO TEAM SANDY

Favorite McGee map was Pavera's 'The Boiler', and favorite Romero map was Essel's 'The Mortal Coil.'

Best of luck on future TWiD-brand projects. It will be interesting to see how the Plutonia WAD ends up handling the original's juxtaposition of heavy thematic consistency with plentiful IWAD homages, and there are so many different directions that the Evilution WAD could be taken that it's an intriguing prospect simply for what a wildcard it is.

[Xaser]

Demon of the Well said:

...suffice to say that while this is very much a Xasermap, it's fitting as a Sandy in spirit if not in letter, because it has many of the same basic characteristics that make his maps--and many others, past and present, in many other styles--so enjoyable to me.

This part makes me a happy Xaser, since it's kinda the best success I coulda hoped for. I don't think I could ever tune out my own "voice" completely while mapping, and the prospect of emulating another author is scaaaaaaaary as hell to me. I ended up making a wonktacular black sheep of a map (where any vague sandiness is really thanks to the other teamfolk who told me how to fix it :P ) so it's good to hear that it's struck a chord with a few despite the semi-Sandyness. TBH, I still have no idea how the other fine mapperfolk can get so far inside the other authors' heads, and I'm a bit terrified about my role in the upcoming UDTWID given the nature of it. Welpo. :P

Anyhow, glad folks enjoyed it! Or loathed it, as it were. :P