The DWmegawad Club plays: MAYhem2048

[Demon of the Well]

Phil1984 said:

You can make the RL jump in Map 11 with an SR-40 jump, it's just bloody hard to do.

Made me wish I knew how to SR-50

You can also get it with a standard running jump from the top of the platform with blue key post on it, but you have to aim carefully to avoid clipping the side of the support column.

[Demonologist]

Map11 - “Escape” by Jaws in Space
This one pissed me off initially, but I pressed on and discovered that it becomes more or less good once you clear the safe spot and act from there on, even entertaining, more or less. Supplies are pretty tight here as it was already mentioned several times by above reviewers, but for a map this short it's okay, the previous one lasts much longer. Secrets are visible and pretty easy to get, too. Visuals are pretty bland, mainly due to monotonous texturing and homogeneous color scheme, but in the end it still works. Nice exit. Silently teleporting monsters is a bad idea, I don't mind them appearing out of thin air but at least some indication should be given rather than them being thrown at the player right away without a sound, so regular teleport would be much better here. Overall - not bad, irritating at first but becomes comfortably beatable once you start to move along with its pace.

[Phobus]

Right, I've caught up...

MAP09:
This hasn't changed at all since I tested it last, which is disappointing. This is the best map I've played by the author, but it's still pretty bad. The sparse corridors linking together a few different gimmicks doesn't make for an interesting layout, although the way the map fits into the space limit is pretty cool.

MAP10:
I like the layout and music, but remember this being a chore to pistol start due to the health shortage and the way that, although there is more than enough ammo in the map to kill everything, it's placed such that you'll finish with plenty spare and have had to frustratingly saw your way through and exploit infighting. The fact that the switches have no obvious effect until you've pressed all 5 is also a weakness. Luckily, I came in pretty heavily armed from the previous maps and know where the secrets are, so I could actually enjoy most of the monster placement.

MAP11:
I think the change to a teleporter from a very steep wall to climb is a good one (albeit the only one I remember from the previous version I played), so the map is pretty enjoyable! In continuing fashion with half of this map set so far, pistol starting is a pain due to ammo placement and a shortage of health. I'm still playing continuous so could once again fight the monsters how I liked and enjoy myself. The silent teleports look stupid though, particularly as you can see the enemies just popping in. Good choice of music to go with this theme, by the way!


So, the first 11 maps are pretty mixed. Some real crap and some gems, plus a couple of average offerings. I'm definitely enjoying this more as a continuous play through than I did pistol starting most of these maps. Can't imagine playing with infinitely tall monsters and no mouselook is much fun in a couple of these either, so my preferences are definitely helping my view of this so far!

[Seele00TextOnly]

Map12 - “Compound Invasion” by z0k

Starting right off, the Chaingunners at their perches are kind of annoying, I imagine they're worse for those that don't use freelook. The Archie is more tolerable, you have time to frantically search for cover when he targets you.

Anyway I sneak up some steps to see I might be able to grab the Blue Key, but a door slams shut and it's time to get Chaingunned from behind. None of that bothers me, but what does bother me is the blocking lines to the left and right up there where it looks like you should be able to go. It makes even less sense when I find that navigating around on the ground I can get to the other side of the poles barrier there no problem; unless there's something I'm missing, these block lines should really go.

Proceed to wander around the ground level of the exterior until I come to both an SSG, a lift and hit a nearby a switch. It opens a door to a teleporter, proceed along a few steps to open the door to the Blue Key again (I wonder if what this switch does is at all apparant if you haven't already gone for the Blue Key?). Backtrack to the Blue Key, then backtrack to the lift near the first switch, killing a bunch of riffraff along the way.

Up here I finally pick off that pesky Archvile and continue to get frustrated by block lines. Go through a door, get a Backpack, kill more small fry, and get the Yellow Key and a Rocketlauncher. Hitscanners, Imps, Knights and a Baron port in to cause trouble, and the poles barrier continues to completely mystify me as to its purpose. One can sneak around to both sides easily enough, all it does is confuse gameplay and the player.

Head back up to where the Blue Key was to hit a Yellow Switch; it's here I notice the lack of pegging on some monster closet doors. The port in squad from hitting the switch is especially obnoxious thanks to two PE's, one of whom I focus down with Chaingun fire while the other floods the place with Lost Souls. I run this fight a few times before I finally kill both of them without getting pecked to death by Souls and Caco fire. I clear out the rest and wonder what that Yellow Switch even did.

I backtrack looking for what to do and find a door near the lift that I hadn't tried before; seems I actually found the way to proceed. Get the Red Key and hit a random wall to open up access to a teleport outside that nets me the secret BFG and a Megasphere. Anyway after that backtrack to the Red Switch (sensing a pattern?). Clear out all sorts of meat that ports in on the ground floor, including a squadron of annoying Spectres. Rocket some Revenants and explore the other half of the map, now accessible since concrete walls lowered.

Up a lift, hit more switches and more monsters port in. This time another two PE's are included as well as a handful of Revenants. Oh and that frustrating poles barrier is finally down, happy day! Now more switch/lift/switch parlay yet again until another teleport-in party happens, this time with a pair of Archviles. I'm stuck fighting half of this one from a lift because of monsters crowding it, but eventually they're all gone. Without the BFG this fight would have been very annoying and difficult.

The unavoidable Berserk placement right before the Exit is just ugh.

This map completely irritated me. It was long and repetitive and I can only imagine the frustrations it would cause without freelook or the secret BFG or savestates. I suppose other than that it is an effective map, it feels like a well used space economically, and it doesn't look bad either. Those blocklines should probably be replaced with tall sectors that block the player or something. Furthermore I defy anyone to explain to me how that barrier of poles serves any purpose whatsoever.

[Demon of the Well]

Map 12 -- Compound Invasion - 116% Kills / 100% Secrets
I'm not at all familiar with this author, but I was pleased with what I saw here. While one of the most noticeable things about the WAD up to this point has been the contrast between the more open maps (06, 08, 11, etc.) and the more tightly packed room-centric offerings (01, 09, 10, etc.), 'Compound Invasion' takes a little from column A and a little from column B--the compound is comprised of a few small comms-monitoring stations and a modest admin center loosely clustered together in a natural depression in a temperate mountainous environment, or, in game terms, of a number of compact little buildings (most of their viable play space elevated above ground level) arranged around the periphery of an open yard which takes up the majority of the 2048x2048 space. The yard begins sectioned off into three unequal portions by walls and a barricade of steel bars, but over the course of the level these obstacles are removed, which accounts for most of the sense of progress afforded by the key-fetchery and switch-hittery which comprises most of the player's task.

It is really a very simple layout. Despite the techbase theme it's arranged in a basic city/village box fashion, but there's no element of nonlinearity--the entire path is strictly mandated by the series of barricades and the key-hungry usethings which liquidate them. This means that in order to keep things interesting, z0k has had to wring a lot of mileage out of the limited real estate, particularly the central yard(s). As one might expect, there's a lot of backtracking involved--you go to one end of the map and hit a switch which makes a key on the other end of the map accessible, you go and get the key, and then you return to the other side again to use the key, which of course activates something on the other side again, and so on and so forth. It's not particularly elegant, and the start of the sequence may be a little obscure, but one of the advantages of using such a small map space is that most of the ills of backtracking and switch-hunting are handily ameliorated.

The kicker is that each time you hit some significant progress milestone (which you do every couple of minutes or so, it being such a small yet elaborated map), a fresh gang of extraplanar assholes materializes to further lower the UAC's already ailing property values--so there's lots of bloodshed in the yard, to the point where there are mounds of corpses cluttering it up by the time you're ready to beam out. While there are other combat themes at work as well (e.g. the way monsters in the towers and surrounding rocks all get to attack you from their superior positions in the early going), this teleporter-driven repopulation of already-covered ground, and particularly the central yard, is the driving force of the combat, and so one's enjoyment of the map will depend on one's patience for fighting in the same space several times. I myself have never had an issue with this (or indeed, with heavy usage of teleporting monsters, which I understand is a pet peeve for some players); on the contrary, I think fighting several times in one space at different points often helps flesh out a map's sense of location. While this is a simple space that can only support a limited number of monsters at a time, I think the action is paced and varied nicely--different monster types are used at different points as the player gains access to more and more space to run, from hitscanners to basic hell-grunts to flyers, culminating in a duo of arch-viles who enjoy a good opportunity to make use of their resurrection powers. The author has also staggered the monsters' beam-in times a bit, so that each wave doesn't appear instantaneously but sort of trickles in at a somewhat variable pace, keeping you on your toes.

It's not terribly complex or difficult action, but it's nice and bloody, and the vaguely sandboxy setup that has come to pass by the time the map reaches its end stages combines with an ammo/health balance that's a lot more generous than anything seen in the past several maps to afford the player a decent amount of freedom in choosing how to deal with his/her foes. Pretty nice-looking to boot, probably the most coherent use of the Eternal techbase textures we've seen thus far; turns out they work pretty well in combination with the Hexen-rock. The earthy green/grey/brown color scheme is very pleasing to me, as well, and looks so good with that starry sky that I don't mind at all that it is once again very flatly-lit.

On the whole, this one suits my tastes fairly well, although I can see how some players might find it a bit too long-winded in some respects. It actually reminds me more than a little of Hellbound in terms of the way it looks and plays, come to think of it (maybe my tiny brain is just fixated on the 'Z' in the author's handle, though); I mostly enjoyed that WAD, myself, so I guess it makes sense I enjoyed this.

Edit: Oh, Seele asked about those steel bars. Well, near as I can tell, on a practical level all they really seem to do is force you to fight a whopping one(!!!1) cacodemon at the map's outset, although perhaps they might make ignoring some of the early teleporting monsters harder to do (in that too many milling around at once will easily choke off the passage you use to circumvent the bars while they're still in place), although the presence of hitscanners in those groups makes ignoring them less than advisable to begin with, I suspect. So, I reckon the main reason they're there is really just to impress upon you that you're making progress in the map once you cause them to disappear; just window-dressing, in other words.

[plums]

MAP12: I had basically the opposite reaction to Seele00TextOnly with this map. Played without freelook and without saving, and had a blast. While the design is cramped in places, and pretty linear, it's a nice change of pace to get loads of ammo and lots of monsters to shoot at. I also agree with DotW about the good visuals. BFG is definitely helpful but I found it a rather easy secret to get, especially since you can see that it's available. The blocklines did annoy me a little though, just because I don't like artificial movement restrictions in general.

[Demon of the Well]

Oh yeah, my post was already getting really huge, so I forgot about those blocklines, but I agree completely. It's understandable that a few of them are present to prevent certain types of sequence-break (although more elegant solutions probably could've been found in these cases), but a lot of them are just in the way for no really good reason and so just end up hampering immersion a bit.

[Phil1984]

Map 12 -- Compound Invasion
HMP pistol start on pr-boom+ 2.5.1.4.test
Deaths - 0 / Kills - 100% / Secrets - 100%

First map I haven't completed without saves on UV. I have completed it on UV with saves and I don't think their is anything particularly difficult about the map, I just kept getting screwed over by infinite tall monsters and/or Reverent Rockets. Given enough time I would make that level pay for all the pain its inflicted on me, I am simply tight on time at the moment.

With that out of the way, I enjoyed the map even though parts of the level flow just seemed very odd to me. Those big bars separating the first two areas just seem completely pointless to me and just cause frustration as I have to go around the back way a few time for no apparent reason. The block-lines are also frustrating as they do impede progress and feel very unnatural when you can't just walk over some areas. Finally I didn't realize you had to hit some of the switches twice which is another mechanic that just seemed really weird to me and not conducive to good map flow.

The map did look quite good to my eyes though with a good use of space in the 2048 limit imposed with some decent areas to fight in. The game play its self was also fun and furious with good usage of monsters to keep fights interesting during the map runtime. I just wish those damn Pain Elementals wouldn't block my path from up on high.

[Demonologist]

Map12 - “Compound Invasion” by z0k
I recall this map having a different sky judging by club's OP screenshot... Though probably it looks better this way, it's up to author to decide if it does.
This one is cool. Feels more reminiscent of 1024 wads with its combination of cramped interior and more open (but still small) exterior, but overall it's not that tiny and busy thanks to 4x size. The length of this map is notably bigger, as it involves lots of backtracking, searching and repopulation of the already visited areas. None of those bugged me, so all for good. I was slightly bugged with those blocking lines, however, just like the others. I see their purpose, but they're not very well done, just invisible blocks in a seemingly accessible areas. Still, not a dealbreaker.
I see nothing irritating or frustrating in here, it's pretty easy but still fun. Found the secrets, but I remember missing some monsters that never appeared. That was adequate for some of the early versions of the map though, maybe now this issue is eliminated, I'm too lazy to check tbh.
So overall - good work.

[Phobus]

MAP12:
The second episode starts off well, with a map I consider the full package. It's high-fidelity looks actually are very pleasing to the eye, whilst still allowing smooth egress (the only hang ups being artificially placed by the mapper to stop sequence breaking); the 2048 square is very well used, with the map feeling much larger than it is due to the way you're lead around the compound in search of keys and switches, each time having the central arena repopulated, plus some aerial threats (that you can defang easily by going into the blue key tower, as the lost souls can't get through the windows). You get a couple of useful secrets, plenty of health and ammo (a welcome change from half of the previous maps) and the TNT music used fits perfectly, IMO. One of the highlights of the set.

[Solarn]

MAP12, "Compound Invasion" by z0k. Played in prBoom+.

Started off in a small open area, where I came into direct view of two chaingunners on high ledges as soon as I moved. That didn't exactly endear the map to me. It got better, but it also got worse. The progression up to the blue key was tough, but in a fun way, but afterward it became really repetitive. Find new tower, enter new tower, press switch, kill monsters, go back to courtyard where a new horde has teleported in, rinse, repeat. The map looked good, but it didn't disguise the fact that it was essentially the same segment copy+pasted three or four times. The secrets were at least fun.

Final verdict: Not a bad map, but aggressively mediocre. I'd still much rather have this than MAP02 or MAP10.

[mouldy]

Map12 - “Compound Invasion” by z0k

This is a cool map, very nicely constructed, visually busy but in a way that makes sense. I like the way the action starts fairly low key and steadily climbs. The switch hunting is maybe a bit on the repetitive side, but it does force you to familiarise yourself with the layout which will be to your advantage when the place fills up with monsters and you want to know where to run to. The health seems a bit generous at first, especially if you find the bfg/megasphere secret, but the action revisits the central area a few times, and it allows for more gung-ho style of play. Some of the switches were a bit obscure in purpose, I guess maybe the map could be accused of padding itself out by making the player run back and forth, but its a small space and very accessable (even for the monsters, I think I noticed some of them using one of the lifts), so its not a big deal for me. Definitely one of the best maps of the wad so far.

[joe-ilya]

MAP12

This is actually what this map about: An invasion! To be honest, invasion type of maps can be fun, but this one is just hard because the shitton of floating enemies (Cacos, PEs and lost souls) are too hard to see so I just quited this one as soon as the first invasion started.
The detail is the best thing about this map, that's it.
1/5 Worst map! So far.

[Steve D]

Map11 - Escape by Jaws in Space - Kills - 99, Items - 0, Secret - 100. Death Count - 1

UV pistol-start, Risen3D

This map had nice organic rock shapes and was effective at what it sought to accomplish, but overall I didn't enjoy it much.

First, I tried to play it yesterday during daylight hours. It was a little overcast outside, and I thought that would be enough for me to handle the darkness, given that I like my gamma just the way it is and have zero desire to alter it for anyone's map. ;) Well, things didn't turn out so well. First, I foolishly tried to fight the Archie that appears very soon. A 1-handed keyboarder with a chaingun is not a good match in the open against Archibald. He moves around too radically for me to keep a bead on him, especially with overhead snipers laying into me, and natch, I can't clean the cliffs because then I won't have enough ammo for the big jagoff. So, after several deaths, I realized the only solution was to run like crazy, which saw me encountering a seeming horde of utterly invisible Spectres. And if they and the almost equally-invisible Dark Imps weren't killing me, then it was Archie catching-up from my rear.

Well, I was getting a bit frustrated, and then I ducked into a cave that was extremely dark and, yes, full of Spectres and Dark Imps. This was starting to seem pretty damned cheap to me, but what kept me from being totally infuriated was realizing that it was my fault to be playing this map in daylight in a room with western exposure and no shade trees. So, after getting killed 17 times by enemies I mostly couldn't see, I decided the best course of action was to wait until a darker hour and start a new game.

And so it came to pass. When you can actually more or less see what you're up against, this map becomes rather easy. Of course, this time I had the advantage of having learned much of the map by braille the day before, so, in a move so slick I surprised even myself, I grabbed the Green Armor from under Archie's nose, turned on the jets, and reached the cave without getting a blast! Since I knew I couldn't pain-chance him with the chaingun, I went into the cave, killed all the Imps and Spectres with ease, grabbed the SSG and shell-box, and went back to the entrance to kill Archie with a proper weapon.

This, for me, was the most exciting – indeed, the only exciting – part of the map, because there followed the first of many door-camping exercises occasioned by the map's lack of – not ammo, which I found quite sufficient – but health. So I'd save-scum after every hit, after every big monster killed, and I'd door-camp some more, often getting infights going. The best one was the huge Hell Knight/Revvie/Manc battle I started while running like crazy near the blue key, afterwhich I dropped down, and then watched, and watched, and watched, from the cozy cave entrance. ZZZZzzzzzzzzzz.

If I was a more skilled player, perhaps I could play kamikaze in situations like this, but with only an SSG and chaingun against lots of heavy monsters, I did what I had to do. Indeed, my view that the map had enough ammo might well be challenged if I had gone HAM against all those high-HP critters.

I initially exited with 91% kills, fleeing the horde that appeared when I grabbed the blue key. I hadn't even seen the rocket launcher, either, so I opened the map in DB2 and saw that Jaws had hid it out in the open, using its grey color to blend with the rock. Clever.

So I started up Risen3D, opened my last saved game, blasted the horde with the BFG, barely survived the PE onslaught plus 1 Archie blast, and then wasted a whole bunch of time trying to make that annoying RL jump. I typically strafe-jump from the left, but that didn't work for me, so I finally nabbed it when I switched to the right.

So for me, this map was really more annoying than fun, I guess. It wasn't bad, but it doesn't really suit my playstyle or my attitude towards what's fun in Doom. Too much meat, too much door-camping. But it is solidly made, looks good, and has that killer BGM that I remember so fondly from Sunder, though it's Agony Rhapsody from Map06 of TNT:Evilution. It fits this map well.

Edit:My death occurred in a Hell Knight/Revvie crossfire near the blue key.

[cannonball]

Map12 - “Compound Invasion” by z0k
A bit too much hit-scan attrition for me in this map, those pesky sergeants and chaingunners can really chip away at your health, especially when they are so heavily involved amongst other monsters. Otherwise I liked this map. It looks really cool, I guess the progression is very similar to the Claustrophobia series in some way which is fair enough. Overall I think the levels execution is fine.

[dobu gabu maru]

MAP12: An extremely solid map from start to finish. The visuals stand out the most here, being an ornately detailed complex with various watch towers and windows spattered about, giving the baddies here a myriad of viewpoints to attack you from. I really can’t stress how much I enjoy the feel of this map, both the indoor and outdoor sections, as well as the finale hectic finale that gets thrown at the player. That said, there’s a bit more backtracking here than I’d like and it’s not properly conveyed at the start that you can’t jump over the bars, leading me to be sniped time after time by the overly cruel starting chaingunners. That said though, hoo boy is this a swell map.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP12: Compound Invasion by z0k
100% kills, 1/2 secrets

Not an author I'm familiar with, but after playing this map, definitely one I'd like to see a lot more of.

The map looks great. The general color theme is a nice one (dark grey base with light grey/tan interiors, matched with dark natural greens/browns/blues and yellow hazard stripes). Lots of good detailing, with rounded corners, support arches, elevators with moving beams (always look nice to me, for some reason). I'll probably end up coming back to this map just to look at some of the aesthetic details as teaching examples. It really is nice... and shows that there are some nice, useful custom textures in the pack, as opposed to all the ugly ones Getsu Fine found for his map.

Gameplay-wise, it's pretty good as well. I should probably mention I'm playing with mouselook and non-infinite tall actors, which I can definitely see making a difference here. There's definitely a steady uptick in difficult as the map goes on, as the player moves from shotgunning zombies to rockets, plasma and maybe the secret BFG against barons and arch-viles. The last ambush almost seemed a bit anti-climatic as it was just hitscanners, then the two Viles ported in and made things a lot more interesting.

No map is perfect, of course. The one thing that stands out as a bit of a misfire is the large invisible wall blocking off certain parts of the map. Obviously it's needed to stop the player from just jumping into the last half of the map and skipping the keys, but it was quite an awkward way of doing so - I'm sure there was a better way. Some of the chaingunners are placed in places that are very difficult to see. And there's probably a few too many barons in the level in spaces where they don't really pose a threat but just take up space/ammo. The map was starting to feel a little long by the end of it. Still, it's a very well-crafted map, one I don't think would be too much different if the 2048x2048 restriction was removed (aside from having some slightly larger buildings/hallways). Definitely my favorite map so far, and might well end up being my favorite map of the whole pack.

[Phil1984]

SteveD said:
A 1-handed keyboarder with a chaingun is not a good match in the open against Archibald.

How in the heck do you play with one hand?

[Steve D]

Phil1984 said:

How in the heck do you play with one hand?

I probably worded that wrong -- I am not physically 1-handed, but I do all my movement in Doom with my right hand on the numeric keypad. I do all my shooting with the index finger of my left hand, using the 'A' key. And I've played through Quake, Quake 2, Half Life and most of Doom 3 this way, without ever using the mouse except when I had to find a place to snipe at a high monster. ;)

BTW, I watched your UV-Max demo of my old Realm of Chaos map Machine Gun Etiquette (Map09) a couple days ago. Two thumbs up, dude, it was very entertaining. The Realm of Intensified Chaos public beta, with all those old RoC maps revised and nastified, is coming soon. Yeah, I love to pimp my shit. ;D

One last thing, since you enjoyed Realm of Chaos, keep those memories alive when you reach my map in this set. It might go hard on PrBoomers . . .

Wait, one last, last thing, didn't Espi play with 1 hand because he was actually 1-handed?

[Steve D]

Map12 – Compound Invasion by Z0k - Kills - 119, Items - 98, Secret - 50. Death Count - 14

UV pistol-start, Risen3D

Congrats on getting the SteveD pelts, Z0k!

I'll second, third, fourth and fifth all those who described what an attractive map this is. A bit busy in places, perhaps, and maybe a little too many hazard stripes for my taste, but overall, the construction is exquisite, very attractive, and very much design moderne. Not only did the towers look great, but so did the organic rock detail. I'm with Magnus on this – here's a map that will likely have an influence on my own work.

As I always say, beauty is its own reward, alas, for me, the gameplay in this map was the most annoying, irritating and unfun experience of the set thus far.

This is mainly because it was a switch-hunt that forced me – and note those words, forced me – to go back-and-forth, back-and-forth, over and over and over and over until I wanted to fucking kill someone. And it was the same trick again and again – go up to the top level of a tower, press a bunch of switches, the last of which unleashes yet another teleporting monster horde. And hey, cool, there's only one way out of any of these buildings. Good on plums that he had no infinite-tallness issues – as if I should talk, considering my map ;D – and lucky for me that I play on Boom-compatible Risen3D, which has no infinite-tallness, because on several occasions, I left this or that tower by walking on the heads of monsters below. How much that would have sucked had it been an Imp who'd get a cheap scratch on me in GLBoom.

The map was also pretty easy for the most part, with slow, stately combat. I took out the Cacos and Lost Souls mostly from inside the towers, and when I got the plasma gun, I shot through the windows to take out PEs, though I also torched some from the ground outside – an act I later dearly regretted.

The monster mixes were the kind of thing I've been seeing often in this mapset, especially the last 2, with large numbers of Pinkies and Spectres who serve mainly as ammo sinks and moving walls to block your progress and/or hold you up long enough to get slimed, rocketed or shot by some heavy beast. A valid tactic, but getting a bit wearisome for me at this point. Natch, I do the same damn thing often enough. Pot, kettle, black and selective enforcement is always the rule of the day when mappers comment on other mappers. ;D

I was a bit frustrated by the bars, but much less than by the invisible blocking lines that drove me nuts. The main issue I had with the bars is that they caused me to waste ammo shooting at Hell Knights, which then encouraged me to open a saved game and encourage an infight between a Hell Knight and some Imps, which was a really boring experience. Starting infights as a way to survive is exciting, but starting them to conserve ammo is, at least for me, quite dull. My first death came in this battle, because at this point I wasn't loaded with weapons and ammo, so with hitscanners and Imps on one side of the bars, and a Hell Knight and Imps on the other, I elected to, alas, door-camp the hitscanners and Imps, but while I did that, the Hell Knight snuck up the tunnel behind me. I survived the first slime blast, but not the second. ;D

Another irritating factor was Chaingunners and Revvies placed too far away to activate auto-aim. I view this as a major design flaw, but I dealt with it by going into mouselook long enough to target the offenders and take them out.

Anyway, this is all adding up to a bad taste in my mouth. And it's starting to take a looooonnnnnngggggg time, as if Z0k is trying to stuff 5 gallons of gameplay into a pint pot of map. This really comes down to a central tower with peripheral towers in a relatively small area, so let's be done with it, already. By the time I laid eyes on the exit, I just wanted it all to be over. But no! Dear God in Heaven, there's more switches! And two more peripheral towers to go into, that have even more switches! Help! Somebody save me! ;D

I forget if I had died only once or 3 times by the time I got into the last tower, but that's when Hell really began. When I saw the forces arrayed against me, I thought, “You gotta be kidding me. You're shoving me up in this tower, with a slowass lift that high-HP monsters gather at the bottom of?” Oh, yay, that's the SteveD definition of Colossal Doom Fun.

My natural instinct is to go kamikaze in these situations, because the alternative is to wait at the top of the lift, like we all did in Phobos Lab, but making that scenario 100 times harder doesn't necessarily make it 100 times better. So, of course, I tried bulldozing my way through rather than wait, and this is where I regretted using all that plasma on those PEs, because there were 2 Archies out there, and I only had enough plasma to BFG-slap one of them. So in fairness, I have to admit that it was my own profligate use of limited plasma resources – along with a lack of clairvoyance – that made this final situation so incredibly ugly for me. And it is also my habit that certain monsters turn me into a heat-seeking missile, so I go after them to the exclusion of all others. PEs, and especially Archies, are on that list. I will literally run between 6 Cybs to attack a single Archie.

Well, the kamikaze approach got me nothing but a high death count, so I resorted to, God save me, camping the lift. But even that didn't work out well until I went back into the switch room, because that increased the flow of monsters coming up the lift, but it was such a pain waiting for them, and especially, waiting for an Archie, and having to switch weapons all the time. But in this fashion, finally, I prevailed.

Of course, it sounds like I'm coming down hard on Z0k, but I'm only doing all this whining because Mr. Z is very talented, and if you look at the Mayhem thread, he got right on the job of tweaking this map according to the comments posted thus far. And obviously, many of you enjoyed the gameplay much more than I did, and it's true that I'm not big on puzzles or switch-hunts or chokepointing the player. The latter is an example of the Control Freak Mapping I mentioned in a previous map. In this case, it's like we're being dragged through The Stations of The Cross, and we have to visit each and every one, with several visits to some of them, and if we don't do what we're told, we're sent to bed early with no cookie. ;D

So my advice to Z0k on future maps is to rely less on switches, less on scripted encounters that seem all the rage these days, and open things up more for chaotic combat. For all I know, that's what he already does. In any case, Z0k is a mapper to watch.

[Demon of the Well]

Strange thing about the chaingunners and revenants up in the rocks, almost everyone has said they seem annoying and difficult to damage without mouselook, but that wasn't my experience at all. I think I used the pistol to kill the guy nearest you when you start, and then just ignored all of the other monsters in the rocks until a good firing angle presented itself--they hardly troubled me at all (I didn't realize the revenant that appears by the waterfall was there until I was on the other side of the map looking out a window back in that direction). I reckon all of the buildings and such deprive them of most of their firing angles, to the point where they can only hit you very well if you stand still out in the middle of the yard, so if they're guilty of anything I'd say it's more that they don't really contribute (and hence don't strictly need to be present) than that they cause an annoying/unreasonable amount of attrition.

Bait the monsters that appear on the ground outside of the last tower to the far side of the tower while you're still inside by standing still for a moment, and then run for the lift. Should be able to easily get by them that way, although if you're unlucky one of the viles might show up early and complicate things.

[plums]

Demon of the Well said:

Strange thing about the chaingunners and revenants up in the rocks, almost everyone has said they seem annoying and difficult to damage without mouselook, but that wasn't my experience at all.

I didn't find them particularly troublesome either. There's enough cover that it's easy to stay out of their line of fire, and then pick them off when it's suitable.

[Steve D]

@Demon of The Well
@plums

Yes, I could have dealt with the particular Chaingunner and Revvie as you guys did -- the Revvie for sure rocketed at me, but did not hit me, when I was in the tower containing the blue key, and test firings verified that auto-aim would not work against him. I decided to take him out with rockets at that time rather than risk forgetting about his bony ass and eating a homing missile later. ;)

There was at least one Chaingunner who may have opened fire on me from a great distance during a different visit to the blue key room. That little jagoff scored some points on me and he needed to be put down immediately. Auto-aim again failed, wasting ammo, so it was mouselook once again. Antoni Chan pulled that trick on me years ago in one of his Escape maps, and I've been gritting my teeth over such hooliganism ever since. ;D

Overall, I wasn't really bothered by the high snipers, except that on principle it's dirty pool to go all Industrial Zone on us. There was one potentially troublesome Chaingunner way high, but when he revealed himself I was able to charge him with rockets, so no biggie.

As for drawing the final teleporting monsters in this or that direction from above, those are Doom skills I need to work on. I ain't there yet. ;) What I really wanted was another path out of that tower!

[Phobus]

In most of the towers you can throw yourself out of the windows with no real problem with infinitely-tall monsters off. It was my preferred method of travel ;)

[Steve D]

^You're right, I overstated my case. I opened my last saved game and discovered that maybe half the towers have windows you can jump out of, but not the blue key tower or the final tower. However, Z0k has modified the final tower so that you'll be able to, yes, leap out the window. Now that's a cool dude! :)

I also discovered that my memory was wrong, the Revvie that I had to kill using mouselook accosted me while I was in the tower with the red key switch (Sector 60), not the blue key tower. D'oh! ;D

[Demonologist]

Map13 - “Death Dungeon” by pcorf
This is great, pcorf does this once again. Very nice Hexen-esque appearance, fitting music and adorable fast-paced gameplay that's focused on pretty hectic and well thought out monster placement. The beginning may seem irritating, but the right direction will save you from trouble. I can't think of anything else to say since I'm not the writer like some peeps in here, just play it and you'll see. Definitely one of my favorites. Great work, Paul, thank you!

[Phobus]

@SteveD: I found camping the blue key tower generally worked, as the flying monsters were mostly ineffective and easy to hit, whilst the monsters below couldn't see me at all and could be landed on safely enough. The final tower is probably one I just lucked out on, as I was always out in time to just shoot a couple of hitscanners as I came off the lift and then go slap an Archie or two.


MAP13:
A good-looking map that makes solid use of the HeXen textures (maybe a bit of Heretic, too, I'm not sure) to create a grey castle-y map with good flow. Oddly, almost all of the damage is front-loaded in the first encounter. Everything after that is pretty easy until the very final monster, which is likely to cause the unprepared (or slow to react) some easily managed pain. Another highlight of the set, IMO. This one didn't seem much easier for me coming in with every gun and a ton of ammo either, as the SSG is definitely the workhorse and I didn't really switch away from it much at all.

[Solarn]

MAP13, "Death Dungeon" by pcorf. Played in prBoom+.

This map starts tough, I died in the first room more than anywhere else. Everything else was kind of easy after I mastered that area, although some of the ambushes still gave me a bit of trouble. No further deaths though, except for the occasional death due to stupidity. The design is more than a bit claustrophobic, not only in the sense that almost all of the map takes place indoors in a very darkly textured dungeon, but also in the way it coils and circles upon itself, making you visit the same area multiple times from different directions. It felt smaller than 2048x2048.

Overall, it was a fun map. I didn't really find anything specific to complain about, but it did become a bit dull after the big fight at the beginning. And, as I mentioned, it felt small. I still enjoyed it.

[joe-ilya]

MAP13
Finally a good map in this pack although I was really pending on the soulsphere before the trap. The plasma helped out very much indeed but I didn't find the other one. Fast-paced and short map, the first room kind of frustrated me but I got past it once I knew where to go.
5/5

[mouldy]

Map13 - “Death Dungeon” by pcorf

A nice well made map, fairly chilled out difficulty. I didn't die once despite the promise of the title. The start was a bit of a pressurised scramble for shells, but that turned out to be the most threatening part, beyond that I had the tools and the health to breeze through. Probably helped that I found all the secrets as I was going along, but I'm not complaining, its sunday afternoon after all. The layout is interestingly folded, it pretty much holds your hand leading you through it, but its a very scenic journey. I especially liked the exit portal effect.