The DWmegawad Club plays: Doom 2 the Way id Did

Blackgaze · February 15

Hi, I'm the creator of map33 "Hexsoil", whilst I'm proud of it as a personal project, it was not fitting for the project as I barely qualify amateur map designer. So of course, they want to keep it well hidden. I thought they didn't include it (for good reasoning) so it was a shock when I was going through old work, that I found out it was as a secret AND there's videos on it on youtube.

Sorry for anyone who had a bad time with the map, it should not have been allowed.

Blackgaze · February 15

On 6/29/2014 at 7:36 PM, Xfing said:

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.

Wish I had saw this 10 years ago, I could've finished my wad happily! Thanks!!!

Edited February 15 by Blackgaze

Andromeda · February 15

5 hours ago, Blackgaze said:

Hi, I'm the creator of map33 "Hexsoil", whilst I'm proud of it as a personal project, it was not fitting for the project as I barely qualify amateur map designer. So of course, they want to keep it well hidden. I thought they didn't include it (for good reasoning) so it was a shock when I was going through old work, that I found out it was as a secret AND there's videos on it on youtube.

Sorry for anyone who had a bad time with the map, it should not have been allowed.

Even if its inclusion was controversial, I have to say I really liked your level.

Devalaous · February 17

I always felt that Map 33 in D2TWID making fun of Betray by Michael Bukowski was in poor taste, turns out its a bit worse as it wasn't intentionally made for that reason.

I did enjoy Hexsoil though, but it definitely wasn't meant to be played so early in a campaign. I suppose its better here in D2TWID than in Lost Episodes, which still hasn't surfaced.

head_cannon · February 26

While this thread is temporarily bumped to the frontpage, I'd like to take the opportunity to post a demo pack I've recently finished. The text file specified that the Par Times had been set by the developers playing on the Hurt Me Plenty setting and rounding to the nearest quarter-minute + an extra 30 seconds in the same fashion as the in-house id Par Times. So I started studying these sandboxes on Skill 3 and trying different approaches to find the shortest, most direct route I could, and these bonus challenges ended up being a lot of fun!

I've long been fascinated at how the same geometry & thing placement can serve multiple different purposes depending on the context, at how the same encounter might play out in drastically different ways between a new player that panics and hesitates VS a returning player that tries to recklessly shove through and skip it. It's cool to see "Minimum Foreknowledge" and "Maximum Foreknowledge" being catered to simultaneously. D2TWID mostly succeeded at its goal of duplicating the difficulty level of Doom 2 without escalating too far beyond it, but I found that it also incentivizes taking more and more risks and narrowing the margin-for-error to attempt stunts, skip stuff, & set a good time. I'm proud to have beaten the par times for each of the 29 main levels (excluding Map30 since the level's already a race against the clock and since the boss maps didn't have intermissions in the original .exe anyway), and present below the solutions I came up with as a series of -complevel 2 demos recorded in Crispy Doom.

Spoiler

MAP01 - 0:08 (Par Time 0:30)

TWID01hc.zip

MAP02 - 1:08 (Par Time 1:30)

TWID02hc.zip

MAP03 - 1:14 (Par Time 1:45)

TWID03hc.zip

MAP04 - 0:58 (Par Time 1:30)

TWID04hc.zip

MAP05 - 1:48 (Par Time 2:15)

TWID05hc.zip

MAP06 - 2:37 (Par Time 2:45)