The DWmegawad Club plays: MAYhem2048

[Demon of the Well]

Map 22 -- Puff - 210% Kills / No secrets
A very simple and humble map, there's really not a lot to say about this one. This shouldn't be taken as meaning that it lacks its own sort of charm, though.

Aesthetically, well......it is unrepentantly nothing but a big grey box, and with a flat floor to boot. Textures are aligned, and there's a little design on the floor, a couple of token detail panels outside, and a railing midtex to demarcate the map's playable boundary (with literally nothing beyond it, note), but this is about the extent of the service it provides in the visual department--very much a case of function over form; what little mood the map has is almost entirely a byproduct of the sky texture, methinks. Edit: Looking at it a second time, it surprisingly does actually use some very subtle light variation--doesn't make a huge impact since everything is just inch after foot after yard of sterile light grey, but the thought is appreciated--shame on those maps which were much more aesthetically complex but didn't bother doing this!

So, it's a smallscale slaughterbox, and you probably know just from reading the words 'smallscale slaughterbox' whether or not it stands any chance of appealing to you. It unfolds in very discrete stages; action begins with shotgun/chaingun action vs. imps and zombies, and escalates to something greater in intensity and higher in bodycount each time a progression checkpoint is reached (usually these are switches, but there's also a teleporter/floorplate combo at the end). Every time a stage is cleared, part of the box-within-a-box initially comprising the play area melts away, simplifying the arena; the dynamic here is that you gain greater freedom of movement and thus become more powerful as the monsters arrive in greater numbers and gain more angles of attack. As aforementioned, the arena is exceedingly flat; only the handful of chaingunners on the outer wall during the first stage add any element of verticality. It does make the action feel exceedingly simple, but I can see why Archi took this tack--it allowed him to maximize the amount of raw running space in the 2048x2048 box, which is essential to the big revenant/cyberdemon reveal if nothing else.

So, does it work? I think it does alright, like a lot of the other maps in the set its simplicity is excused by its brevity to some degree. It's not really very difficult and is perhaps even a bit mindless (mindless if you're accustomed to the standard complement of setpiece/combat/strategy tropes in this genre of mapping, anyway), but the limited play space in combination with the steadily dissolving layout means it is generally very fast-paced, and there's something to be said for that. I was not particularly thrilled with this map's rocket-punching V-sphere spree vs. many revenants and cybs, but I did appreciate the way corpses tended to accumulate in the central box, which of course is where most of the final wave of arch-viles ports into (note my kill score above)--I was rewarded for following my hunch that it would be a good idea to leave some of the cyberdemons alive until the end, so I suppose the map does entertain some degree of strategy despite its simplicity.

Pretty much a 'does what it says on the tin' sort of map (even if you have to be able to read Russian to read the tin, heh). I've played maps that are far better and far worse in this style; suffice to say I respect this one for what it is, working under the project constraints.

[Solarn]

MAP22, "Puff" by archi. Played in prBoom+.

Wow. If the last map was reminiscent of Sunder or Combat Shock, this was definitely a Death-Destiny or ArmouredBlood slaughtermap. Starts off slow enough, then suddenly MONSTERS EVERYWHERE. The map is basically one giant horde fight preceded by a few small skirmishes. I decided (unknowingly) to go hardmode on this, as I waited until the invuln was up and only then started searching for where to go next, so I had to not only find the BFG, but fight basically the entire horde while vulnerable.

Graphically, this map was barely even there, being essentially a giant cube with smaller cubes inside it, all textured in bland gray, with the only concession to detail being a bunch of wall indentations around the outer side of the few walls that never come down.

Overall, this was a fun map for those who enjoy slaughtermaps, and probably terrible for those who don't or who want something nice to look at while they're slaughtering hordes of enemeies.

[joe-ilya]

MAP22
This was real fun to rush everything, and the beginning gave me an impression of a simple map but soon the simplicity collapsed and you had to go to the lower deck and then teleport with BFG and search for a teleporter that will reveal the exit switch on the lower deck.
5/5

[Steve D]

TheMionicDonut said:

Fair enough. I will be living somewhere else, then. And I can complain about Chicago and not get dirty looks.

Consider my dirty look to always be there, in spirit. ;)

[plums]

Seriously behind on this... going to try to get up to speed in the next few days.

MAP15: Nice map by Walter, better than his earlier effort in the wad. Really good use of textures here, I love the look. Enough ammo to drown in, but after the first 10 maps being largely sparse on ammo, I don't mind so much

Secret Intermission 1: oops, I guess a flat got removed that shouldn't have. Sorry for not catching it until now, I haven't been following this thread too much lately, maybe someone mentioned it and I didn't see. Will post a fixed version shortly. Enjoying the intermission texts, TMD!

MAP31: Love Doom maps that have titles that sound like indie rock songs. Not a bad map, nothing too spectacular though. Apart from grabbing the hidden berserk immediately before releasing the hordes in that area and then taking a whole bunch of damage, I didn't have too many problems here. Spend a while looking for the secret exit, probably half as much time as I took playing the map itself. Not that it *really* matters from pistol start anyhow, but it's nice to find the exit legitimitely.

MAP32: Great looking map from a great mapper. Eternal sure isn't fucking around here though, with enemies shooting at you from all directions, and only minimal cover that is actually safe. And that switch! I bet that pissed a lot of people off, haha. Anyhow I liked it quite a bit, the only thing that bothered me is that the elevator was the only way to get back up to the other levels, and it seemed to ruin the flow a bit. Maybe once some stairs were raised, they could've connected to something else. Minor complaint though.

[mouldy]

Map22 - “Puff” by archi

Fairly basic bit of arena slaughter, but with so many of these maps being about struggling to scrape together the resources and cover to survive, its nice to not have to think about ammo and health and have a bit of gratuitous killing for a change. I guess it has to be said the design is not all that imaginative, the gameplay dictates that every inch of map area is needed for movement and monsters, along with generous amounts of cover, so big square room with walls it is then. For me everything was pretty straightforward until the revenants, it took me a few goes to figure out a strategy to not get swamped by them, but eventually herded them all into the middle and ran around in a great big circle while cybers thinned them out. Archviles were fairly simple to deal with using bfg, and the following wave was more of the same (though i managed to die a few times until I just said fuck it and ran into the middle spamming bfg and somehow survived). I can imagine this kind of thing not being so popular here, and to be honest i've played a lot more interesting slaughter maps, but its over pretty quickly - I think i spent more time wandering around trying to find each successive switch than actually killing stuff.

[Demonologist]

Map22 - “Puff” by archi
Simplistic and plain map aimed at fast-paced action. And it achieves its goal well, lots of fun actually. Not much more to say here, I like it.

[cannonball]

Map21 - “Aberinkula” by Tourniquet
Well this is a little piece of awesomeness, looks stunning and the gameplay is pretty darn good too. Going to be up there as one of the best maps in this wad. Great job.

Map22 - “Puff” by archi
I can't really say much bad here without descending into a hypocritical farce. Fare to say I didn't like this map much and that's about it. We can post mortem my brain at the end of the month.

[Seele00TextOnly]

Map21 - “Aberinkula” by Tourniquet

Visuals in this are really nice. I like the Revenants and company lowering down as if on ropes. The structure and layout continues to be really nice, striking even. A logical subtitle for this wad might be "Imps will kill you". That was one hell of an Imp spawn in swarm. The Archvile fight for the Yellow Skull was pretty tough. After some more navigating of the map I'm facing down a Caco swarm followed by more Imps and Demons; it's pretty crowded. And it just keeps coming. Then wave of Hellknights with Barons, wave of Revenants... I'm too tired from moving for this shit and when the Hellknights start pouring in I just godmode it. It's preposterous to have this prolonged fight in this small room. Not my idea of gameplay.

Finally getting the Red Skull, I kill off a couple Revs and take on the Cyber. I have to say, this map really had me for the majority of the playtime. Just that one absurd, underline absurd port in fight with wave after wave in the tiniest of rooms really turned me off and dragged this map back from being one of the more memorably better ones of the set into being a middle of the road affair.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP22: Puff by Archi
96% kills, no secrets

Meh. I'm not a big fan of slaughter maps, and this one is basically just a big grey cube. Okay, there's enough texture detail that it's not horrendously ugly or anything, but it's also not that interesting to look at. I will say that the layout is a bit better than I might expect from a giant cube, with the cyberdemons on the outside while the majority of AVs sit on the inside and respawn everything. Still, it's a slaughter map. Hold down BFG trigger, repeat etc.

[Steve D]

Map22 – Puff by Archi - Kills - 100, Items - 100, Secret - 100. Death Count - 5

UV continuous, GZDoom

This is one case where coming in continuous was actually worse than pistol-start, because I had only 50 bullets and my health was 87%. Even though I had all weapons, this advantage was worthless because Archi stacked up everything except the BFG and RL right at the start, but as I had no ammo for those weapons, I had no occasion to use them until they were given. And to be precise, yes, Archi did not give the PG, which I had, but never used. ;)

That bit of business done, this was a super-fun map, except for the tedious running-away from Cybs when I was trying to find the next switch. This became so damned boring that I switched into God Mode just to find out where the hell I was supposed to go. Once I succeeded, I opened my pre-God Mode save and scooted over there.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The map was super-easy until I saw the Invuln and decided to see what would happen if I pressed the switch and didn't grab it. Well, I got a truly gigantic Revvie trap with a side order of Cyberdemons and I didn't last long. I had figured maybe this fight would be beatable, and perhaps I could save the Invuln for later. For some players this fight might be beatable, but not for me, so the second time I grabbed the Invuln, went to the center of the room, blew holes in the revvie swarm while Cybs attacked them from outside, and when I got the warning flash, I blasted-out a path to the outside and ran around, occasionally pot-shotting Revvies, while Cybs did most of the killing. I still had 4 Cybs – the full compliment, I reckon – and so had to do God Mode to find the exit lift.

At first, I thought, “Wow, this map is over already? I did a slaughtermap and only died once?” Talk about stoked! I was ready to dance a jig until I realized I had stumbled onto a fake exit.

All my deaths at this point came by Archie. There was also some odd behavior from the game because sometimes, aside from the warped-in cell packs, there'd also be warped-in Megaspheres, but sometimes the Megaspheres did not appear. Possibly a Boom fart by GZDoom?

Back to the show. Once I was finally down to a single Archie in the central room, plus his high court of adoring Revvies, I grabbed the last Megasphere and charged in, unloading with that BFG until only a single Revvie was left to hunt down. Too bad GZDoom doesn't give inflated kill numbers, because I ultimately disposed of 527 monsters.

There's little more to say. The map isn't much to look at, but it's cleverly designed and provides lots of monster-beatdown glee. I liked it!

[Seele00TextOnly]

Map22 - “Puff” by archi

It's a slaughtermap with lots of right angled grey walls. I don't care for slaughtermaps. I also don't care for stacking the Cellpacks on top of eachother. And then layering a Megasphere on top of some of the Cellpacks.

[joe-ilya]

MAP23
There are two shortcuts that make this map a pie in the face; it's possible to push the button through the X shaped window and then jump over the bars to the exit by the AV.
5/5 Because I enjoy plowing through hordes like this although the two cybers were too harsh, you could remove one since there's not much health or a BFG.

[Demonologist]

Map23 - “Abandon All Hope” by Phobus
Didn't like this one much initially, many thanks to midtex archs obstructing the view and hiding distant cyber and a bunch of cacos that always appeared in least convenient moments. Later though, I thought this map was pretty good. Epic, even. Some nice architecture and a decent amount of challenge, pretty annoying at times but still interesting enough. Shortcuts were already mentioned, aside from that - the last fight begs to be cheesed/camped, so it's very easy despite its intimidating initial appearance. The latter is not much of an issue in my eyes, the former though... not sure if shortcuts are intentional, it's possible to skip the major part of this map that way.

[Phobus]

Nope, neither was intentional... Sounds like a fail both for me and the playtesters!

[dobu gabu maru]

MAP23: The previous map may be a packed slaughtermap, but Phobus’s stone castle is the more frightening nightmare. I made the horrific mistake of not checking the cyber tunnel for supplies before proceeding through the fortress, which meant that I had to run by a lot of baddies and soon found myself sandwiched between that cyberdemon and an AV-resurrected army at my back after pilfering the yellow key (took some tricky maneuvering to work my way out of that one). The rest of the map went a bit smoother (especially thanks to the megasphere I found), although the switch progression past the yellow key door was a bit confusing. Great courtyard finale too—that was utterly hectic in my run, and I somehow walked away without a death. Cool, grim map from Phobus.

Also it gets major props from me for handing the player the RL first—a great decision I always respect.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP23: Abandon All Hope by Phobus
93% kills, 1/3 secrets

Interesting map with some good combat but also some flaws, most of which have already been mentioned. The start is certainly a good "rock and hard place" moment, with only a RL to hold off enemies coming from two directions in some close quarters. After clearing that out, there's some standard but well-balanced gameplay, as I definitely felt a bit harried but with plenty of firepower to fight back. After the yellow door, things fall apart a bit - like Dobu, I found the progression a bit confusing (switch lowers a lift that's hard to see since it's dark and looks the same as when it's not lowered). I also wasn't a fan of the second Cyberdemon that spawns here... how are you supposed to fight it? I suppose I could've SSG'd it to death, but doing that would've left me with almost no ammo, so I ended up just running past him. The end, as Demonologist mentions, is very cheeseable, as the soulsphere room allows you to shoot the Cyberdemons in the head without fear of retaliation. And then the final battle can be ignored in a rush for the portal.

It looks pretty nice though, generic castle, but it works. I agree though that the archways are a bit awkward - mainly because you have cacodemons in that area, which like to float up behind the arches and become hidden. Just a bad combination.

[cannonball]

Map23 - “Abandon All Hope” by Phobus
Well this looks good and there are definitely some provoking encounters and gameplay decisions. Some work and some don't. I didn't have any navigation issues but this map sure did kick my butt hard. There are probably to many cybers and placed in too harsh conditions. The final fight can be cheesed horribly though which is a shame.

[Steve D]

Map23 – Abandon All Hope by Phobus - Kills - 98, Items - 74, Secret - 33. Death Count - 14

UV continuous, GZDoom

14 SteveD pelts for Phobus! Not bad considering I came in continuous. I did, however, play the start as intended, just to be nice, and a nasty bit of business it was with just the RL and a good fuck-ton of Revvies and Cacos. This situation was pregnant with the possibility of “Good at Doom!” suicides, and though I never quite took myself out that way, I did prep myself for death by other means thanks to all the self-inflicted splash damage. Thanks, Phobus! ;)

Cheers to joe-ilya for describing this map as a “pie in the face.” I've never heard a Doom map described that way, and I enjoyed it, because it puts me in mind of The Three Stooges, heroes of mine, and because in this map I often felt like a “feather-brained imbecile” while it seemed every monster wanted to “tear my tonsils out.” ;)

Anyway, those arches. Man, I strongly urge you to get rid of those, Phobus. I don't know how it looks in software mode, but in GL ports it looks so cool when Cacos fly right through them. Yeah, sarcasm. ;D If you must have arches, you can do it the old-fashioned way and use sector-stepping.

So I got killed a few times by the hidden Cyb shooting rockets down the Revvie hallway. Yay. Seemed a bit cheap, that. I can also complain about the Archie-spamming a bit, although it didn't bother me too much. I shamefully confess that I used DB2 to figure out the Megasphere secret, as I was in a bad way at the time and really wanted it, but that hallway was not amenable to investigation thanks to the unwelcome Cyb prowling about.

I did find the progression a bit obtuse past the yellow door. I had already seen the final arena and died there a couple times, and possibly could have exited if I'd been more patient and waited for those bars to the Soulsphere room to disappear – I'm not sure about the sequence there – so I went back to the yellow door and fought all those fights, which of course involved a major door-camp after killing the Archie guard. Agree with Magnus about that lift in the dark. I don't even know what the point of that second switch was, but I reckon it activated a distant sector, so I'd probably call it “Doom busywork.” And I did activate that one switch from outside the midtexture, near the final arena.

I half-cheesed the end battle. First, I went down there and died a couple times trying to kill one of the Cybs, an endeavor in which I ultimately succeeded thanks to the BFG I brought in with me. ;) Also managed to get the second Cyb to kill a bunch of stuff for me, but it was definitely a windy corner out there, so as soon as I heard those bars moving, I scooted for the Soulsphere room, where I paused to thank you for your generosity in giving me this moment of respite in a rather violent map. And the rest, of course, is predictable, as I killed everything I could see before exiting.

It seemed to me that once you committed to the final battle, there was no way back if you wanted to do some clean-up and find all the secrets.

Anyway, a nice, hardcore map for the most part, with some good-looking areas and some tough fights, plus a few dick-moves and some weird progression. I had all I wanted playing continuous, so no need for me to pistol-start. Overall, I liked it. And cheers to Dobu, because if you got through this entire map without being killed, you're one mighty Doomer. :)

[Seele00TextOnly]

Map23 - “Abandon All Hope” by Phobus

I like the early focus on Rocket play. Always fun. After trying to take on the Yellow Skull fight a few times from the I suppose intended vantage point, I opted for a grab and dash approach and just avoided fighting all of the monsters aside from the Archvile. Just did not care for that fight at the top of the stairs. One annoyance that I'm seeing alot in this map is projectiles comes through midtex of various types. Basically having that reduced dodge time is frustrating.

Just prior to the Yellow Door I notice an 'x' on the wall and get a chance to kill myself an annoying Archvile and pick up a Backpack and some Cells. Eventually I find myself hitting that one 'early access' switch people mentioned the legitimate way. Getting a bit tired of the 'reveal or port in an Archvile to create an encounter' situation. That card is just being played too many times in a row IMO. I also finally kill all those guys I avoided earlier and find a walkthrough wall to a Soulsphere. Anyway, I so I hit the switch and a wall falls. I manage to take out the Cybers with only a couple safety saves (I'm terrible against them) and rather than bother with the final fight I just dart for the Exit.

Okay-ish map I guess; midtex kept getting in the way (or rather, not getting in the way) and the Archviles got pretty tiring. I probably would've tried fighting the final fight if not for the Archvile; I just had had enough of them and said screw it.

[plums]

Well, it's a little late for this thread, but here's an update to the MAYhem wad that fixes the intermission screen graphics on MAP15 to MAP31.

https://www.mediafire.com/?wammtp8mufl3b57

[Demon of the Well]

^I actually thought the missing texture backdrop was intentional, given the comedic tone of the intermissions.

Map 23 -- Abandon All Hope - 119% Kills / 100% Secrets
This is another map I've played before, embarrassing that I didn't catch that shortcut (it's not exactly hard to spot). Again, there haven't been a whole lot of changes to this since the version I first played--there's one less arch-vile that appears on top of the fountain in the library (seemed too repetitive), and Phobus put a measure in place to discourage cheesing the last fight in the outer yard--when you first leap down, some bars come up and block off the stairs up to the soulsphere landing for a time, forcing the player to dance with the duo for at least a little bit. It's still not terribly difficult to just dodge them until the bars are released (and it's still not difficult to kill the first cyberdemon before jumping down if you have a bit of extra ammo), but it's a step in the right direction. The only surefire way to prevent this from happening without actually reshaping the architecture will probably be to trigger some dangerous monsters to start appearing on the landing as the player climbs the stairs, but perhaps that would make things too rough...?

Anyway, Phobus' years of experience show themselves here in his efficient use of the 2048x2048 space allotment, which he has stretched to its limit without trying to cram in too much microscale content. As a result it is somewhat evident that the play space is all conveniently encapsulated inside of a bounding box despite the scenery beyond said boundary, but the stylized verisimilitude of the setting handily smooths this over--my favorite bit of the map is probably the watery, shady underhalls--looking up past the spillpoint through the gaps in the support struts, just being able to see the overcast sky and the tops of the trees dotting the grassy plot bounding the pond, is very visually striking in an understated sort of way (which is sometimes the best way), I think. Incidentally, you can count me as an advocate for the arch midtextures--I think the amount of flair they add to the scene, which is considerable, far outweighs their ability to obscure the cacodemons, which is very limited from most vantages, and tactically compensated somewhat by the player's ability to inflict splash damage and the generous length of the hall (and the prime opportunity to force the cyberdemon to do your chores for you). On a purely aesthetic level my main gripe is actually the BGM--I feel about this track the way lots of folks feel about D_RUNNIN, I've just simply heard it too many times and am now sick of it. No accounting for taste, I suppose.

Like many of Phobus' more recent maps that I've seen, a lot of the flavor to the action comes from a nonstandard weapon progression--you get and will have to use the rocket launcher well before you can take a shotgun or chaingun from a dead zombie, and players too spooked to travel down the cyberdemon's firing lane until they're left with no other alternative will go for longer still before laying hands on a combat shotgun. This somewhat regimented progression at least initially encourages players to use tactics other than comfortable old standbys, and is complimented by a variety of fight types--hounded from ground and air in the narrow lanes, blocked in by beam-ins near the yellow key, a bit of twitch-skill concentration vs. the last two cybs, etc. Again, my favorite stuff pretty much all takes place in the underhalls; the opening fight requires more situational awareness than anything that comes later, and I like the way the turret cyber is eventually set loose into the halls themselves, making for a deadly game of 'Chicken.' The low point is probably the library; even with one less arch-vile than the last version had, this area still boils down to just shooting a lot of static (if noisy) targets over and over again, which can seem needless past a certain point given that that area's obviously more about platforming/basic puzzling than about combat.

All in all, it's a very solid map that handily conquers the space restriction, offering a good amount of variety over its short duration.

[Phobus]

Right, so I'll be fixing that switch shortcut and making the final fight less optional... I've had a fair(ly cruel) idea on how to do that :p

Probably the first time I've ever said this in 18+ years of mapping, but I'm going to prioritise the aesthetic over game play with the arches and other mid textures, as I simply like the look too much to compromise it. Game play is staying the same up until the final fight, as I'm happy with it... Might make the lift in the library a bit brighter though, as the progression isn't meant to be obtuse at any point. Glad to see the overall reception is positive - I like to think I'm reasonably good at this stuff after pouring so much of my life into it over the years.

I'll play catch up over the weekend, I think, as I've been quite busy with other things the last couple of days and will be for the next couple, too.

[joe-ilya]

MAP24
Is this called a slaughter map? Cause it had enemies everywhere but I died only once, I'd say to cut down on the medpack on the end to just one medpack, it's not that hard, even if you got damaged by the ending AV. Frenzy freaky map, not too hard though.
5/5 Good challange, just cut down on those medpacks on the ending.

[dobu gabu maru]

SteveD said:

And cheers to Dobu, because if you got through this entire map without being killed, you're one mighty Doomer. :)

I got through the final encounter without a death, while the rest of the map... well, let's just say me and you are probably tied in that respect.

MAP24: I hope you like the deafening noise of the plasma gun because joe’s map is all about holding that fire button down. It’s densely packed with meaty enemies so you’ll be grinding away for quite some time (WHY SO MANY BARONS??!!!!). It’s only made worse once you get up to the higher levels as armies pop out of the ground and the single building of refuge has enemies firing out of its closed, 1-way windows. The finale is perhaps the biggest middle finger to the player as an AV pops up with two PEs far back that do nothing other than infight with whatever they set their grubby eyes on, extending gameplay out as you clear the area of baddies. It’s a map that’s a clear reminder that you have to be very conscious of space, and not just filling that space with enemies until the player can’t breathe.

Also, why no SSG? : (

EDIT: also I agree with Phobus's idea to keep the midtex arches, as I think they do contribute a lot to the atmosphere (barring the caco trespassing of course)

[joe-ilya]

dobu gabu maru said:

Also, why no SSG? : (

Because there's a RL and a soulsphere.

[mouldy]

Map23 - “Abandon All Hope” by Phobus

Nice map, quite scary with the unpredictable monsters filtering in at the start, it turns into a fight to find a safe spot. Midtextures aplenty, almost to the point of being hazardous, looks very cool though. A spot of exploring in rooms and passages, and then nearly bumped into a roving cyberdemon who came from somewhere. I left him to wander the empty corridors, but then jumping into the final zone I meet 2 more. Thats a pretty damn small space to deal with 2 cybers, although I guess you could run into that switch room and see what happens. However, I managed to get one to trigger before I jumped down, so was able to finish him off in relative safety. I liked the extra bonus archvile attack at the end, the fights in general were very enjoyable, hectic but with various options for how to handle each situation. Didn't find a single secret and couldn't get back to look for them, oh well.

Map24 - “Canyon Village” by joe-ilya

The usual mess. I'm pretty sure joe thrives on the negative attention his maps get, he spams them in every community project and takes pride in how bad they look, so it doesn't really inspire me to play them or talk about them. Nevertheless I had a go at this one, and got as far as the archvile before realising there just wasn't any reward for playing this, other than getting it over with.

[Demonologist]

Map24 - “Canyon Village” by joe-ilya
Straightforward plasma-melting lots of heavyweights in front of you and above you in crude passageways. Overall looks of this map aren't completely bad, but the gameplay is a snoozefest with vefy few brighter spots that hardly help to get rid of this shooting gallery feel. Average at best.

[plums]

MAP16: Good if not especially noteworthy to me. Back to low ammo maps, but it's not a dire situation. I liked the secrets. SMM fight was very cheeseable, get the AVs mad at her and they'll damage her a bunch and then blow themselves up eventually.

MAP17: I do like Obsidian's maps, and I think this was a good one. I think small-scale puzzle maps work well, if you don't hate the concept of puzzle maps, since if you can't find the way forward to the next step, the area which you have to scour is much smaller than it might otherwise be. Secrets all came in handy and the map would've been much harder without them, at least from pistol start.

I know Obsidian likes libraries, and so I'm not surprised to see use of that Hexen texture a lot. In fact if anything I expected more of it. Nice visuals all around. Gameplay takes a sudden violent twist toward the end, but it works all OK. Only thing I didn't really like were the instant Hell Knights. Eh.

MAP18: I didn't like this map. It was visually unappealing even though I thought I should like it -- someone used the term 'garish,' which I agree with. Not to mention frustrating and dickish and generally unfun. I'm surprised so many people had trouble with the cyberdemon -- in my game he was a harmless and boring ammo tax.

The one thing I did really like was the use and re-use of raising platforms, which were done well and an enjoyable section for those of us who like platforming.


psst, dobu, update the download link!
https://www.mediafire.com/?wammtp8mufl3b57

[cannonball]

Map24 - “Canyon Village” by joe-ilya
This...... was a map. A bad map. Next