The DWmegawad Club plays: MAYhem2048

[Magnusblitz]

MAP24: Canyon Village by joe-ilya

It was certainly a tight squeeze at first, with more buff guys nearby and one-eyed monsters floating around than I'm typically comfortable with, but I'm a professional. Gotta dive right in. So I reached out and grasped my plasma rifle and started pumping away, even though it was a little burning in some areas. After opening the entrance, I kept on down the tunnel, continuing to eject my white-hot plasma down the tight tunnels. Reaching the blue bars provided me with plenty of targets ready for my steaming loads, so I took the occasion to flick my spewing rifle back and forth, emptying onto the willing faces. Continuing into the depths, I soon found my prize tucked away in a bloody slot. I took a brief break to gain back some health and reload, then decided to try the back side. This path, while a bit tighter and treacherous, easily opened up to my blasting away at it. While I got a bit of a rise, it seemed to be the "wrong path", so I went back to the blue bars. Plenty of new co-stars here, some waifs so skinny you could see their bones (nice rockets, though) and some guys so jacked they probably did nothing but work out all day. I happily unloaded on all of them... I'm usually not down with so many bruiser bros, but what you gonna do?

As I emerged from the morass of flesh now sticky with bodily fluids, I thought I might be spent, but no, suddenly there was a monster erection from the ground, and I'm ready for more, pumping away some more with my rifle. I turn and I see the biggest bitch ever, but even she signed contentedly and collasped into the ground after receiving a load of my plasma seed. After taking a small detour to help security with some guys peeking through the windows, it was back to a stready steam of just continuing to unload into whatever piece of flesh got in front of me until my trigger got raw. Finally spent, I stumbled out into the light of the outdoors, escaping the 2048x2048 orgy that had become my plasmabath.

[Steve D]

@Magnusblitz
At last, a Freudian analysis of a Doom map. I howled at the "monster erection." Two thumbs up! :)

[Demon of the Well]

^ I will never think of the spider mastermind's death sound the same way again.

[Obsidian]

PUT THIS MAN ON THE CACOWARD TEAM!

*Collapses laughing*

[Seele00TextOnly]

Map24 - “Canyon Village” by joe-ilya

I gotted my palsma rifle and blew up the wall. Basically this map is nothing but plowing through meat. I sort of liked the off-kilter architecture and layout. The gameplay was mindless.

[Steve D]

Now that my map is coming up, please let me know what you think of all the vines I put in. I was inspired by tourniquet's map, but in mine, the vines cover an enormous area and, I dunno, it kinda looks like the lace fringe on a tablecloth or something. ;D

[Demon of the Well]

I probably shouldn't write so much about this map, but I suppose if I do it once now and get it out of the way I won't have to spend much time on it in the future.

Map 24 -- Canyon Village - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Well, earlier on we talked about novice mappers improving with time. I see only one real improvement in joe-ilya's style here: his texture selection in this map is significantly less abrasive than that of his past maps that I've seen: we have a handful of different types of rock, grass/vines, some tan mortar, and a bit of mildly incongruous tech stuff--quite sensible, really, at least in comparison to much of his other work. There are still some rather questionable decisions in aesthetic design--for example, the grey rock formations are apparently covered in a layer of grey shag carpet on their tops, there has been zero effort to disguise the fact that the level takes place in a big box, and I can't for the life of me tell what that....thing next to the start point is supposed to be (A bulldozer? A generator unit? Some kind of moonshining apparatus?)--but for the most part the level looks fairly sane on the surface. Still ugly, mind you--the jagged, wafer-thin edges of many of the triangular sectors comprising the 'natural terrain' are quite unappealing to the eye--but sane, and evincing some kind of commitment to a general theme.

Unfortunately, in pretty much all other respects the map's quite poor, which is a shame, though sadly far from unexpected. I've never seen joe-ilya use this many monsters before, and in hindsight that's probably for the best, as he doesn't seem to have the patience to put any thought into building actual encounters into his maps--instead, monster and ammo placement tend to look like they've been done via one of those shoddy randomizer programs that many of us may remember from shovelware collections like D!Zone and Demon Gate and whatnot--monsters aren't so much 'positioned in the map' as they are 'shat onto it.' Given this map's small size and relatively high monster density, the colonic-shotgun effect is not particularly apparent, at least not with monsters (with trees and other props, on the other hand....), but the price to be paid for this is that the map's a terrible slog, something a short map should never be.

Clots of monsters clog up the narrow ravines and pathways comprising most of the play space, and the majority of them are mid-tier, meaning that there are scads and scads of HP to bore through, primarily using the plasma rifle (with some rockets later on). I suppose we should be thankful for small blessings in that regard if nothing else, as in the past I've seen maps with similar monster placement that were SSG-based, but I digress--the point is that this is woefully ineffective monster-placement any way you slice it; this plays more like a Roto-Rooter (TM) simulator than Doom. Because the pathways are so narrow and linear, the monsters gain no advantage from their numbers--there could be dozens of them in one place, and it wouldn't matter because in these surroundings only 1-2 of them are actually able to attack the player at any given time; the rest either immediately descend into infighting where groups are heterogeneous (as most of them are) or mill about impotently in the background where groups are homogeneous. Even when the player is moving around above the ravines in the later stages of the map this same pattern still tends to hold sway, since monsters are dispensed in discrete chunks, always in front of the player. With the plasma rifle's efficacy at inflicting painstun on most monsters, this a textbook example of gameplay that involves nothing but holding down the fire button for a few moments and then moving forward--I've played maps for the Catacombs games that have more nuance to their combat than this!

The most dangerous aspects of the map are, ironically, the ones that seem least intentionally so--there's a voodoo doll over by the 'still that you can easily damage with rocket splash before you know he's there (e.g. fighting one of the cacodemons near it that doesn't usually wake up at the outset of the map), and if you ignore the mostly-useless hell knight frat party that pops up on a distant ledge at one point, it's easy to forget about them and then be hit by one of their projectiles flying through the false walls of the 'village's' only building (after they inevitably Boom the equally useless spiderdemon to death, of course). Sometimes these oddities favor the player, at least--for example, the last secret sector doesn't contain any items, and doesn't lead to anything, but if you happen to have climbed the hill that it's on you could theoretically ignore/bypass one of the last chunks of monsters, and thus leave the map that much sooner--sometimes the best rewards are immaterial, it seems.

All of this map's issues suggest a lack of planning and the absence of a personal quality filter on the mapper's part, and that is the main problem that pretty much all of this author's work (that I've seen) seems to share to a greater or lesser degree: it seems like these maps are made so that they can fill out some sort of resume or transcript, rather than to be solid experiences in their own right--very much a case of quantity over quality (or speed over fidelity, if you like), and it shows in how sloppy and shallow the play and flow in 'Canyon Village' are.

[Seele00TextOnly]

Map25 - “Heat Miser” by Steve Duff

Well, right out of the gate every monster in the bestiary seems to be on hand in a cacophony of noise and madness. Armed with a Rocketlauncher and a dropped Shotgun or Chaingun, I spend several deaths trying to figure out where in the hell to go and what in the hell to do. Try after try leads to fatigue. This is the sort of opening madness that in my opinion demands a Megasphere or something. It's just preposterous, and not even slightly fun. I don't feel like I'm figuring out a puzzle because I don't feel like there is any intended solution. Just rely on the luck of infighting and hope your path doesn't get blocked by monsters or projectiles.

Eventually I find out that up by the Mancubus, once one runs partway along the walkway, the door opens up revealing an Archvile has a Soulsphere and Megaarmor just inside it. In the chaos, this is practically hidden yet clearly essential. So it feels like trolling, almost. I hide in there a while hoping for infighting, then using a savestate make several attempts at darting around all the Mancubus to get to the equally essential SSG. This feels like a map that demands savescumming. Now I need to hope I can pick off the Archvile without getting blown apart by either Cyberdemon, and as usual try as much as possible to rely on the luck provided by potential infighting.

Once one finally gets this area cleaned out enough, only the Cybers and Mancubus will remain as immediate threats. This is a double edged sword of course as the Cybers are no longer killing other riffraff and actively targeting you. Rocket the Mancubus and eventually you find there's a switch up there near where the SSG was. Several more runs around the circle I figure out what the switch did, open a small opening near the switch in the wall allowing passage to the other half of the map. Run around hoping to not run directly into a Cyber rocket, hit a couple switches and a whole new hell descends upon you.

The Cacoswarm to end all Cacoswarms comes pouring in through the window. I basically find myself running laps around the map in a complete panic, there seems to be a Cyber everywhere I look (4 of them now) and I once again am at the mercy of the almighty infight. This is a map that must be immensely unforgiving to those purists keeping infinitely tall objects, as the swarm can easily force the player into a no win situation if you're unable to run under it.

I'm absolutely loaded with Cells by now but every time I make a running charge at the Plasmarifle I seem to miss. Precious few attempts feel alotted before the swarm gets too close. Thanks to savescumming I'm finally able to get it before the swarm forbids it. I'll say this for the swarm, they seem to be taking out the Cybers for me. I'm certainly counting on it, at any rate. Finally the swarm has migrated to the half I'm on, and I successfully dart across the former Mancubus walkway back to the other side for some breathing room. At risk of sounding redundant, savescumming is essentially required in this map, it feels like.

Anyway, now that I'm on the damagefloor side I dart for the Blue Key, wait for the swarm to close in some, then dart to the other side and finally I can Exit. I can't tell if this map is brilliant or insane, and I suppose that's at the very least an entertaining mix. It certainly forced me to play in a way unusual for me, keeping in constant motion and racing around the map like a, well, racer. I strongly question its completeability for the more purist players, but I suppose that will be for them to share and me to peruse.

[Obsidian]

Seele00TextOnly said:

The Cacoswarm to end all Cacoswarms

Haha, wait until you see the second map Cannonball made.

[dobu gabu maru]

Demon of the Well said:

I probably shouldn't write so much about this map, but I suppose if I do it once now and get it out of the way I won't have to spend much time on it in the future.

I always enjoy reading your extensive thoughts but I still find it funny that even when being "brief" you still manage to knock out five extensive paragraphs. Then again, the subjects that perturb us are often those worthy of expounding upon.

MAP25: Duff admittedly gets the easiest follow-up act in history to joe’s headache-inducing brawl. “Heat Miser” is a bastard through and through, pitting the player in unfavorable positions on both sides of the arena. One of the things I disagree with in the first half are the use of specters over pinkies since it’s hard to see in the dark place, although I think that’s a matter of preference as I can just imagine Steve’s dumb grin as I bump into them and allow the cyber to lock me in his sights (resulting in death after death).

The real piece de resistance is the gargantuan caco swam that floods the arena, reminding me how happy I am that Zdoom by default turns off infinite height. With that the legion isn’t too hard to corral, as you make sure that all four of the cybers get to helping you out with the fighting (and funny enough, this is the only case I can think of where the cacos will outlast the multiple bosses). Once that’s dealt with it’s a clear path to the exit, although the final cyber can cleverly use the caco corpses to conceal his ballistics. Overall it’s a great and challenging map from Duff, containing a clever theme that’s hard to make work in the small space, but work it does.

(Also the vines look fine Steve; the eye is more often drawn towards the caco army approaching the player, not the drapery around the border)

[Demonologist]

@ Magnusblitz: Five stars material. Erotic \newstuff reviews? You up to it?

Demon of the Well said:

monsters... are 'shat onto it.'

My rich imagination has immediately produced quite a ludicrous picture. He, hehe... Now that's funny.

Map25 - “Heat Miser” by Steve Duff
So, The Old Guard of Doom chooses the rapist ways. First thing I have to say is not really a map-related, just to respond to Steve's motivational notes he wrote back in the day when he made this map: GRB is not the best person to follow since his stuff is always quite... questionable. The ways in which he achieves his darksome goals are far from being optimal. We'll touch them up though, since this little project contains his map as well.
Design-wise - I can't say anything bad about it, though I liked the second half more, looks more appealing to me. All the decorations are for good in general. The main thing, however, is that the space given isn't used in an efficient way, the map is essentially one square arena with the dividing barrier in the middle and nothing beyond this box to please the prying eyes.
The above subsequently shows that the focus of this map is, obviously, its gameplay. Well, what can I say... I'm not the big fan of the main attraction here. It's not because of cybers, even though they add a lot into the mix of annoyance, it's just the general setup, monster/ammo/health placement and some clear dick moves like that archvile appearing behind your back and targeting you right away, or chaingunners that make your already miserable enough life a complete chore if you don't take them out asap. I never say it's unbeatable or unfair up to the point of equally unfair game required on player's part, it's just that this whole situation is... I immediately remembered Rizera's line about SoD m27: "map author should be aware of what's hard and what's annoying". That's pretty much the case for me here. I won't hide away the fact that I got 'steved' several times while overcoming its challenges (not a dying spree, but several pelts are yours, I give you that), and even though I prevailed relatively quickly - all this mess left a bad taste in my mouth.
Is there any redeeming factor here, you ask? Well, there is, you just have to live long enough to reach it, and even then this could look more like redemption denied, but I already said before that I like such scenarios. Yes, it's cacoswarm vs. cyberswat. I think this encounter killed me once thanks to unawareness and, inevitably, bad planning, and then I've come up with different solution - I've left all the cybers intact, so there were all 5 of them when the flying tomatoes arrived. In the end though, the cybernetic team has proven to be too efficient in my playthrough since only one of them got slain, while others finished the last flyers off and then suddenly remembered about me. To be fair, I had to help them out a little as well to clear the vital space for myself and not get overwhelmed by the red threat, but still. So, after the cacovasion it was long and tedious elimination of the fantastic four. I had to kill at least one of the cybers before the invasion, now that I think of it... Killing both cybers overlooking the first half led me to my only death in this mess since the other three got defeated quickly, and I was too hesitant to start my own war. Still, this may work, too.
In the end - this map tends to be both simple and complex, fast and slow, annoying and fun. I don't know what to choose, frankly speaking. It has a bit of everything, both good and bad. I'd say it's still somewhat interesting experience, and cacoswarm is the meat of this map for me, but I doubt I'll return to it in the near future.

EDIT: Phrasing and grammar again... I suck at English and type like one-handed slut. Oh well.

[Steve D]

Demonologist said:

EDIT: Phrasing and grammar again... I suck at English and type like one-handed slut. Oh well.

You did fine. Everything was perfectly clear to me. ;)

Map24 – Canyon Village by joe-ilya - Kills - 100, Items - 100, Secret - 66. Death Count - 2

UV continuous, GZDoom

Hordes and hordes and hordes! ;) I DNFed this map during playtesting, but if memory serves, joe did follow some of my advice, because it seemed the earlier version had more dickishly-placed Chaingunner snipers overhead than this one does.

I find this map a lot more enjoyable coming into it continuously. I had the BFG and the SSG, both of which saw extensive use.

As I observed in playtesting, this map is essentially a rail-shooter, with narrow tunnels loaded with mid to high-HP monsters. If played as intended, with mostly the PG and RL, this is a bit of a chore and can lead to a lot of SteveD pelts being handed-over, because the Barons, in particular, don't die easy, and the PG tends to blind the player with spray-pixels when used at close quarters. A dickish aspect of the map is also seen if one rushes through the early stages, because when you kill the first shotgunner and chaingunner, Doom auto-selects their weapon as you walk over them, potentially leading to disaster if you were hosing-down a Baron or Revvie with the PG.

I can't agree with other commenters that the gameplay is “mindless” or “simple.” The big complication is the flying monsters. If you don't take out Cacos and PEs once they first appear, they will start flying over the walls and fuck your ass up with attacks from unexpected directions. This works especially well against a keyboarder such as myself, since I can't turn as fast as mousers. Aside from the always-difficult Revvies, the flyers were my biggest problem in this map.

It's also the case that while this map is a rail-shooter, it has cross-connections, so you can get yourself in trouble if you tend to fly into situations impetuously, as I often do, especially if I'm panicked, as I was a few times in this map.

The progression was a bit obtuse, although I found the rising-stair switch to be quite interesting in that it had a miniature rising stair just above it – as if you couldn't see the stair rising in the background. Funnier than shit! ;)

The nadir of the map for me was the building with the shoot-through walls, the cheapest trick in the book, or maybe the Voodoo Doll was cheaper. Not sure if I injured myself with that thing. As to the shoot-through walls, a bitter memory from Obituary and that one IWAD map, perhaps joe would defend it based on the idea that the walls had windows, but that is a texture. If you want windows monsters can shoot through, just make real windows. Also, the switch behind the Midgrate is very hard to work, requiring almost pixel-perfect accuracy, and thus an annoyance.

I also have to deduct points for the insta-popping hordes. Whole armies rising from the ground! Oy.

Overall, though, I thought the map had a certain amount of charm in its extreme over-the-top display of extremeness. It certainly had no shortage of action! ;)

[mouldy]

Map25 - “Heat Miser” by Steve Duff

Interesting set-up. The opening section is a run for your life and keep running affair, basically a cyber rocket lottery as you try not to bump into things and hope they all start killing each other. I found this a bit tiresome after several rockets to the face, til i found a couple of spots that allowed some cover from the cybers to catch my breath. Once the start area was clear, a desperate run for the plasma gun and hope the archvile doesn't attack me. Still not quite enough ammo to deal with the cybers, so onto the next section, tooled up and ready for action.

Wow, thats a lot of cacos. More than even the cyberdemons can handle, in fact now its you and the cybers versus the caco swarm. I really dread to think what this plays like with infinitely tall monsters, I was continually having to dive underneath them to avoid getting swamped. Maybe there's a tactic for dealing with them properly, maybe they move differently with infinite height, dunno. Its always fun though, rocketing caco clouds, I wish i had more rockets. So anyway, the cybers pretty much melted under the corrosive wave of tomatoes, time to grab the blue key and exit. Except for one more cyber guarding the exit door. Bit of a time waster that one, I'm guessing its to stop you from grabbing the key and legging it without dealing with the cacos, but if you don't grab the key then after the battle is over you get an angry wall of meat to grind away at before leaving. Seems like a blunt solution to the ever present problem of getting people to stay and fight, but what can you do...

So anyway, an ok slaughtery map, maybe a bit messy and chaotic with the constant fear of instant rocket death, I'll be interested to see what others thought of it. One thing I should say is that in hindsight the second area of the map is entirely useless to fight in, so it pretty much renders that half of the map nothing more than a glorified storage room. In a project, and a map, where space is at a premium that seems like a bit of a waste maybe.

[Solarn]

Oh shit, I fell behind.

MAP23, "Abandon All Hope" by Phobus. Played in prBoom+.

Cool map, visually similar to MAP32, but with more of a focus on evading enemy projectiles in tight spaces. Fortunately, after the initial swarm of Revenants and Cacodemons was cleared out with the help of a well-placed Cyberdemon, I could start picking off the monsters in the rest of the map at a much more leisurely place. And then the Cybie started teleporting.

Now I'm a Doom veteran. I have been playing the game since it came out and I can't remember the last time the sound of a Cyberdemon's footsteps actually filled me with dread. This map managed to rekindle that fear. Low health, low ammo and a Cybie stalking around the outer part of the map with convenient windows for it to shoot through, not to mention the fact that it seemed to follow me, teleporting into every new area I found. The final battle with the double Cybies was almost a relief, because at least I knew where the rockets were coming from.

All in all, an intense and fun map. I liked it.

MAP24, "Canyon Village" by joe-ilya. Played in prBoom+.

Now Joe's nonsensical reviews in this thread start to make sense. He has terrible taste in map design. Awkward, cramped rooms where I got stuck on seemingly every wall, with unseen monsters shooting at me from across the map, every step revealing a new bunch of strong enemies, and only the plasma rifle to use against them... it was absolutely atrocious. I actually gave up on this one about halfway through and just IDDQD'd through it to see if it gets any better. It doesn't. I couldn't even complete it because I couldn't figure out where to go after exiting the brick building. Eventually I just killed the random voodoo doll for fun. Joe, you have literally no right to criticize anyone's maps because yours is pure shit.

MAP25, "Heat Miser" by Steve Duff. Played in prBoom+.

Whew. I'm sorry for calling Phobus' map intense. THIS was intense. From the moment I left the start room I was under heavy fire and it didn't let up until I killed the last monster. Cyberdemons (my god, the Cyberdemons), Mancubi, Arachnotrons, and of course the Cacoswarm all conspired to make me die from sheer exhaustion. Not to mention that of course I had to make it harder for myself than necessary, because when the swam started filling the map, I hid in the small room that used to house a pair of chaingunners, which was the only safe spot from the Cybies' rockets, and obviously I got blocked in by the tomatoes. Eventually I did manage to thin them out enough to leave (at 1% health) and after that, I mostly just strafed around while the monsters slaughtered each other, killing the two Cyberdemons that were left.

Overall, a really good map, visually very boxy and simple, but made fun by the gameplay.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP25: Heat Miser by Steve Duff
64% kills, no secrets

Well, anyone who's read Steve's reviews here know he's a bit of a masochist, given how much he appears to enjoy maps that kill him over and over. This is certainly one of those maps. From the very get-go the map is merciless, with heavy monsters surrounding the weaponless player right away, even with cyberdemon snipers up above. There's a shotgunner and shells to the left, a chaingunner and bullets to the right... but I feel like these are red herrings, and the real right move is to grab the armor/RL then immediately try to hoof it to the SSG/plasma gun above (granted, it helps to get the mancubuses in the way infighting first). Hit the switch, then run to the other side, spawning a ridiculous caco swarm...

Now, I admit, caco swarms are actually one of my most-hated opponents in Doom. Cacos in general just seem to be a poorly balanced enemy, they take too much damage (just a bit above two rockets, which really means three), they like to float in the most annoying places possible, and even with infinite tallness turned off, Doom's weird Z-axis movement bug means they'll often happily swoop down instantly into your way and bite your head off. With no BFG and not that much rocket ammo, you can't really fight them, so it's more about managing the swarm and keeping it out of your way (or infighting the cyberdemons) while you press switches and grab the blue key. My low monster kill score attests to this, the amount of monsters I actually personally killed was probably under 10.

It looks nice (though the spectres in the start against the dark grey is kinda a dick move given everything else already there), but the gameplay really isn't my style... dying a shit-ton in the beginning hoping to just get the monsters to move the way I needed to, followed by more dying and reloading while trying to run circles around the giant gasbag swarm... it's probably notable that I haven't even mentioned the Arch-Vile that appears behind the player in a generally open area, because it's pretty low on the list of frustrating setups in this map. I think the reason I find this gameplay so unrewarding is because when I finally beat it, it doesn't feel like it was because of anything I did, but instead the game just "let" me beat it by finally moving the monsters in the right direction I needed to get in and get out without getting splattered.

[Steve D]

Map25 – Heat Miser by Steve Duff (UV pistol-start, Risen3D) - Kills - 100, Items - 100. Death Count – 3

Map25 – Heat Miser by Steve Duff (UV pistol-start, GLBoom-plus) - Kills - 100, Items - 100. Death Count - 39

I get the day off because it's my map! The results above are from earlier plays against a version of the map that differed only in decorative details. Note the vastly-inflated death count between Risen3D, which has infinite tallness turned off by default, and GLBoom-plus, where you can't get rid of it. ;)

It's worth noting that when I signed-on to this “Boom-compatible” project, my idea of “Boom-compatible” is “generic limit-removing map that will play on Boom and not break it.” Boom features? Worries about infinite tallness? Fuggedabboutit! ;D

I also want to say that my initial vision of this map was to strike a middle course between two maps I'd already playtested and greatly enjoyed – pcorf's Death Dungeon and cannonball's Unfair And Square – with the goal of combining a pcorfian layout with cannonballian brutality, the latter of which y'all will be coming face-to-face with very shortly. ;)

As usual, because I don't pencil-out maps on paper, except for E1M1 of Shotgun Symphony and the cavern section I did in a team map with purist, the map soon took on a life of its own. This is because whenever I work with an orange sky, I have, as Devo would say, an “uncontrollable urge” to put a Metal skylight in the map, and usually a big one. And so it came to pass. I looked and looked at that bigass skylight, considered acting like a grown-up and shrinking it, but decided that wouldn't do and I'd make an Amiga Demo Party-style slaughtermap instead. Thus, if you look at the opening room, that is derived from pcorf, but with bars instead of his more sophisticated breaking stained glass. And if you look at the Metal columns in the giant windows the Cacos pour through, that derives from a similar but less massive detail in cannonball's map, so at least I have nods to my inspirations.

As Demonologist noted, we can't forget the influence of General Rainbow “Slaughterfest” Bacon, whose fourplay.wad ranks as one of the 3 most fun maps I played last year, and which, in a very timely way, jostled me from the course of making large attrition/exploration/resource management maps with sneaky but violent secrets, which I'd been doing since 1996, thus “Old Guard of Doom,” to small and exceedingly violent blasts of pure carnage. ;D It takes so damned long to do the kind of thing I'd been doing, endlessly playtesting and tweaking 1,000-sector monstrosities, that I needed a break which involved making maps that could be finished and polished in less than a week. GRB's fourplay was the map which pushed me in that direction.

I played that map on HNTR after I died early and often on UV. When UV is either unwinnable for me, or pitched above my skill and patience level and therefore unfun, I typically drop to HNTR to learn a map before trying HMP or UV again. In this case, fourplay's HNTR gave me all I wanted, and to attack the map at higher difficulty would only lead to frustration. Thus, it helped me break out of a mindset that left me feeling unfulfilled if I couldn't beat a map on UV. Not every player can beat every map on UV, or at least, have fun doing so if it becomes a nightmare of save-scumming. HNTR is not a lesser experience in that case, it is a better experience. If suffering through a map on UV is as much fun as drinking a gallon of sulfuric acid, why do it? When I play Ribbiks maps, I play on HNTR. I am the HNTR playtester for Cynical's Impure Offering. I also playtest for cannonball and can usually make it through his maps on UV, but when necessary, I go to HNTR.

I personally never intended to play this map on UV at all. I'm aiming UV in my slaughtery maps at elite players. I am not an elite player in any way, shape or form, so it's quite a challenge for me to “map above my weight.” I'm still working out the kinks. ;)

In this map, I wanted to correct one flaw which is endemic to my Sandyboxes – the tendency to peter out towards the end. UV has 144 Cacos pouring through the windows to solve that problem. ;)

I considered warning players to use a non-Boom port, or to not play on UV, but none of the other mappers did so, so I kept silent. For the record, I tend to set difficulty by The Power of Threes, thus, if you see 3 Revvies in one area on UV, HMP will have 2 and HNTR, 1, but the health and ammo will be unchanged. This allows for more aggressive play at lower difficulties.

I can't seem to stay away from UV in maps like this, so I playtested it on Risen3D and was very disappointed to UV-Max it with only 3 deaths. I actually conquered the Cacoswarm right in the 2nd arena. When Cynical said the map wasn't “Boomable,” I knew that was untrue because DotW had successfully FDAed the map on PRBoom-plus. So I decided to prove that even I could beat this bitch on PRBoom on UV, and although I got my ass wasted 39 times, I actually kind of enjoyed it. It was a real sense of accomplishment when I realized I finally had this map by the short and curlies.

Here you can see me using the “Running in figure-8s” strategy in the 1st arena, using Mancs as meat-shields against Archie, and then dying in the 2nd arena as I try to mimic my Risen3D strategy in a failed HMP demo of an earlier version with identical gameplay. This time I'm including a link to the resource WAD, which I forgot in my pcorf demo;

Map;http://www.mediafire.com/download/70mjtctre6ceh1l/Mayhem2aju.wad
LMP; http://www.mediafire.com/download/7tgmwfitvbr8inl/maysd.lmp
Resource; http://www.mediafire.com/download/6rb7bj6z66obot2/RETRES.WAD

Of course, I once again failed to obtain the long-sought DotW pelt. Here we see his masterful FDA, using the above map and resource WAD;
http://www.mediafire.com/download/x67k7k5p9p1q277/mayhem2aju_RUtall.lmp

Almost got 'im, if only that Cyb rocket hadn't missed him by a whisker. But DotW makes his own luck through well-honed skill.

By acclamation, I will change those Spectres into Pinkies. The Archie stays, though. The jagoff inside me wants him there. ;)

One last note -- my death count of 39 was only the second-highest I recorded in playtesting. There's a map coming up that killed me 69 times and in the end I had to despair-quit because I couldn't beat the end fight. It's a fantastic map, and this time I WON'T play it on UV. ;)

[Seele00TextOnly]

Map26 - “Unfair and Square” by cannonball

Love the name. This map felt, to be a bit contrarian, more fair to me than the previous map. At least the opening didn't quite so blatantly feel like I was completely at the mercy of the RNG. That's not to say I didn't find myself saving occasionally, a habit I've been both unable and unwilling to break since forever. I simply don't have the patience to redo the same stretches of a map over and over and over in a quest for perfection; the truth is I'm really not all that hardcore.

At any rate, I charge ahead and dart around columns and cover, hitscanners and an Archvile harassing me but the real trouble being a Revenant and waiting Arachnotrons. Thankfully there's a Berserk not too far ahead and with that and the later SSG I'm all set. Soon I find myself grabbing the Yellow Skull and it's about now that I reach the first truly 'unfair' feeling part of the map: the charge across several wooden columns to a waiting Revenant. I suppose if I'd saved up more Bullets I could Chaingun snipe the guy, but then again I think if I picked this guy off from afar it'd ruin this perfect moment. The map has me completely at the mercy of its random machinations. Will it fire? When? Will it home in? Eventually I finally reach him and give him both barrels.

Now the Blue Skull and Rocketlauncher are mine and I must face down a squad of Lost Souls and a loose Archvile. I manage to dispatch them and thank myself for having dispatched the caged Archvile earlier. Now I can finally do something about those pesky Mancubus and their new flying friends with tactful upclose SSG blasts followed by retreats, saving the Rockets for the last Archvile. Now the Red Skull is mine and I make way for the Exit.

A fun punchy map, hardly unfair though in my eyes. A decent challenge.

[Demonologist]

Map26 - “Unfair and Square” by cannonball
Can't see anything unfair in here, I suppose cb's slaughtermaps can be considered less fair than this one. Square... maybe.
Anyhow, I didn't care much about this one to be honest. It relies on simple but more or less nice looks (mostly camouflaged by low lighting level) and effective usage of individual monsters. That means that there are many areas where player is exposed to attacks from many angles or has to balance on edges under crossfire. In general it's not bad, and this map is still more or less fun, but I've seen better examples of this approach.
Not bad, but nothing groundbreaking or truly special. Maybe I'm biased towards anything from cb that is not slaughtermap (mostly), but I must say that his works become ten times more entertaining when he goes hardcore.

[mouldy]

Map26 - “Unfair and Square” by cannonball

Neat little map. It soon becomes apparent that standing still and shooting stuff is not going to keep you alive, indeed this map seems designed to encourage you to keep running into enemy territory. The ranged attacks pretty much give nowhere to hide, but there is ample cover to be had from slow moving missiles just by moving. In fact even when you have cleared a safe spot and scraped enough ammo to start picking off the snipers, it almost seems better to leave them alive. The mancs especially became very helpful in keeping one of the teleported archviles busy. As is the way with maps that start with their trousers round their ankles, the action fizzles out as time spent increases. I guess that depends on how conservatively you play though, judging from the set-up I imagine its designed for a more gung-ho approach, treating the whole thing as one running battle. Certainly not a walk in the park, but not as unfair as it was square.

[dobu gabu maru]

MAP26: cannonball heard that everyone was making dick maps and threw in his 2 cents, this time attempting to keep the monster count under 50. If I’m to be honest though, I think this is my favorite E3 map because it just works. It’s like the antithesis of joe’s map, showing you how much you can do if you focus on space, layout, ammo and enemy placement. It’s rough but never overbearing, and evil but never malignant. The final AV placement can be a bit cruel (especially if you’re low on ammo), but since there’s plenty of space to move about there’s always a chance to survive. Phenomenal stuff.

[Solarn]

MAP26, "Unfair and Square" by cannonball. Played in prBoom+.

The map started off pretty hectic, with me being under fire from all sides and nowhere to run except into more enemies, but after a bit of frantic running around and shooting, I managed to clear out most of the monsters and afterwards, surviving was mostly a matter of running out of cover, shooting once or twice, then running back in. It never became too easy, especially with the constant reinforcements teleporting in, but it didn't quite reach the same level of intensity the previous map or Map 11 had. Nevertheless, it was a fun map with a simple, but effective layout and a dark Hexen theme that many of the best maps in this set seem to have.

Overall, I enjoyed the map and it was the perfect follow-up to SteveD's orgy of violence, letting the player unwind, but not too much. Now I'm interested in what else cannonball's done.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP26: Unfair and Square by cannonball
100% kills, 1/1 secret

Pretty nice little level, I'm always a sucker for maps that manage to create dangerous setups with a small number of monsters. While the start is hectic, the main danger for me was the lack of ammo early on... maybe I was supposed to use the berserk to take out some of the early enemies, but punching arachnatrons isn't something that's easy. I ended up saving at something around 11 hp, so that also contributed to difficulty going forward - trying to take out the arachnatron on the left side of the map with 11 hp, 10 bullets and 4 shells is... interesting (I ended up finding the plasma gun secret at this point entirely by luck, thankfully). After grabbing the ammo over there, it got a lot easier. Unfortunately, the map kinda peters out at this point - there's not even any monsters between grabbing the red key and the exit. Still, it looks nice (though I wonder how much of this is due to the lighting, which is fine) and one can tell there was effort spent on placement and location design, as opposed to just vomiting up random rooms.

[Steve D]

Map26 – Unfair And Square by cannonball - Kills - 100, Items – 100, Secret -100. Death Count – 13

UV pistol-start, GZDoom

My 3rd play of this map sees me reduce my death-count by exactly one. It's all about the start in this front-loaded nightmare. I always get owned there.

The start is a very dickish set-up where you materialize into the world only to find yourself the least popular person in town, with every hand raised against you in a shooting, rocketing, biting cascade of angry citizens intent on ripping you to pieces.

Savor the savagery for which cannonball is so well and justly known; a tunnel with a Sergeant blasting at you, a window that alerts Archie to your unwelcome presence, a Revvie waiting for you along with a Pinky to block your desperate lunge for – which? – the Chaingun or the shell box? Hard to get both, so you must choose. Then another tunnel climbing stairs, where awaits another Sergeant, and around the corner, usually, a Chaingunner eager to fill your back with a blizzard of bullets. And are those Archie flames licking up around you? Better hurry, but – oh, no, not fast enough by half! Dead again. Or maybe you turned the corner to get a rocket in the face from one of two Revvies pretending to be part of a window diorama, or perhaps one of the 2 Arachnotrons used you for plasma target practice. Woe betide thee! Dead, again and again.

Most notable event for me was grabbing the Zerk, punching-out Chaingun Charlie, and then punching an Arachnotron until we died simultaneously. ;)

I must mention the most subtle jagoffery of all, the Archie hanging out in the exit. For those of us who rely on auto-aim, he's standing below you just enough to screw it up, and it seems he can eat 5 times the buckshot he normally can, so if you go for an early kill, you'd better save your game first, so you can change your mind as your ammo counts down and down. Now that, my friends, demands a certain evil genius on the part of the mapper. ;)

Once you survive the start, the map loses its steam as it becomes a door and window-camping spectacular – at least for me, it did. Snipers target you from across the toxic blood pools, so I conquered them with a lot of corner-abuse. I paid special attention to the Arachnotron and his Imp buddy in the deep, deep darkness, taking them out before crossing the blood thanks to dread memories of having to fight the spider while that damned Imp scratched me to bits. ;D

After getting the blue key and Rocket Launcher, trial and error showed that cannonball gave the right weapon, as the PG failed, as usual, to pain-chance Archie. Save-scumming prevented death and I was able to take him out with rockets. The Lost Souls were pesky, though, and you have to go after them and make certain they're all dead, or they'll sneak-up behind you at the next fight.

The final battles become pretty easy as it's nothing but heavy-monster traps and snipers. Getting the Mancs to hit the final red key Archie is a bit tedious, but worth the effort, since he killed both of them for me and was weakened enough to be exterminated with two single-barrel shots. Then it's the Caco/PE clean-up, blast the exit-Archie through the windows now that you have enough ammo, and away you go!

A good, strong map by cannonball, a reliable Action Jackson mapper. Unlike Demonologist, I can't compare his traditional maps to his slaughtermaps, since I've never played the latter, but if his “normal” maps are any indication of what to expect, you'd better pack a lunch before taking on his slaughters.

I suppose the only suggestion I could make for this map is to maybe teleport in some hitscanners and Imps in the latter stages, maybe even some Revvies, and not into sniper positions, to spice up the latter half of the map. It's a bit easy at present, at least for save-scummers like me. More ammo to go with more monsters would be nice, too. ;)

[Steve D]

Hmmmm, it seems to me that I managed some potentially offensive wording in my comments on Heat Miser, when I said that I'm aiming UV in my slaughtery maps at "Elite" players. This sounds a bit arrogant, and also can seem like I'm slighting people who disliked my map, as if they were not good enough to play it. That is hardly the case. I've had plenty of maps disliked, so that's no big deal, and I'm at best a middling player, so no pridefulness there.

What I should have said is that I'm aiming UV in my slaughtery maps at players who like slaughter, getting killed a lot, and so on. I will also put in the text files and the beta posts for such maps, that most players should try HMP or even HNTR first. So if anyone felt offended or targeted by my comments, please accept my apologies.

I'd also like to make a special apology to Magnus, because I'm afraid that there are new and exciting Cacoswarms comin' right atcha in my future maps, maybe even bigger than this one. Blame Capellan, he got me interested in all that. ;)

[Demon of the Well]

Map 25 -- Heat Miser - 102% Kills / No secrets
I didn't even notice the vines, Steve. Too busy not exploding into a cloud of crimson mist.

Another map I played an earlier version of, although in this case it's essentially exactly the same map (um, except for the alleged vines....). As joe-ilya as map 24 is, this map is even more Steve Duff; it is essentially just one huge fight in a large open-air quasi-Krause arena. Arguably moreso than any other map we've seen in MAYhem2048 to this point, it is very evidently just a big square box, but what a box...no other map we've seen thus far is paced quite like this. Action is essentially nonstop from the moment it begins until the moment it ends (although I suppose a continuous player might experience a brief lull in the middle if they have enough ammo to kill the two turret cyberdemons before crossing to the northern half of the arena), and there's not much in the way of buildup--sort of a 'zero to sixty in 3 seconds' deal. There's a ton of ammo to use, and a lot of health as well, although a disproportionate amount of it is found on the northern half of the map, which eventually becomes a no-go zone on account of the cacoswarm.

Yes, the cacoswarm, indubitably the fight that defines this map, for better or worse. Sure, the opening furor is rather chaotic and all--it really is a situation where you can't hold still for a second (at least not out in the open), or you WILL die almost instantaneously--but it's the ridiculous avalanche of tomatoes that I reckon most folks will remember after the map's done. There are simply so many of the damned things that they decisively dominate the 2048x2048 space once they start hitting the scene...there is very little architecture in the arena that impedes their flight ability, and their sheer volume allows them even to reliably smother at least 1-2 of the various cyberdemons per game, not something you see every day.

I played this map previously in order to investigate whether or not it was realistically possible to beat it using MAYHem2048's target port (i.e. PrBoom+ -cl 9), as there was some very legitimate concern that it might not be--the cacoswarm, made infinitely-tall, for all practical intents and purposes essentially causes 80% of the map to stop existing within a few moments of its arrival. There is really no time to beat them back before being devoured--especially not without a BFG and only 40 rockets or so (the free-roaming cyberdemon that eventually appears on the southern half of the map doesn't help matters, either). Nevertheless, the map CAN be reliably beaten in -cl 9, without savescumming or lucking into optimal RNG or anything like that--you just have to apply some strategy, or, less euphemistically, you just have to shamelessly/shamefully hide in the soulsphere closet and try to weaponize the cyberdemons' AI as best you can. That's exactly what I do in that demo Steve posted--after watching Corsair play the map I felt that it might be winnable with some cowardly tactics, and lo and behold it is. Hell, it's probably even winnable in -cl 9 without camping the soulsphere cubby--maybe a skilled player could optimally micromanage the infighting or something--but I personally wasn't able to pull it off despite a number of attempts (and I played the map in Eternity without infinitely-tall things this time around, just to see how different it'd make the map feel).

So, in conclusion, the map IS playable in the target port, but it doesn't play particularly well in that scenario, which is hard for me to entirely overlook when evaluating the map. Outside of a purely 'classic' game environment, though, it's a pretty fun little spate of directionless violence. I was surprised Steve's style fit into the 2048x2048 space as well as it did, honestly, but looking back I don't really see why it wouldn't anymore--this is basically just like an excerpt from one of his larger/unrestricted maps in terms of general style, although I suppose it is more intense overall by way of compensation for its brevity.

[Demon of the Well]

Map 26 -- Unfair and Square - 116% Kills / 100% Secrets
This sure wasn't anything like what the title (and author credit) led me to believe it was going to be. Well, it was square, I guess, but.....39 monsters? I ended up playing it twice because I suspected that I might've accidentally booted the game on HMP skill instead of UV (last time this happened to me was back when CC4 was new), but no, same story on the repeat play. Those 39 monsters are deployed in a sensible/reasonable fashion from a gameplay standpoint (not surprising, monster placement has always been perhaps Cannonball's primary strength), sure--there is a heavy slant towards the Doom II bestiary, and the layout is set up so that distant monsters often have better angles on the player than the player does on them, meaning that one does consistently need to pay attention and maintain situational awareness in order to avoid getting walloped for 50% damage from the other side of the map. But unfair? Nah. Not by a longshot.

The single most dangerous moment in the map is the very start: the game loads with the player in front of a considerable hitscan firing squad, and there are some wise-ass revenants lurking just out of camera that will happily troll you just in case you decide to try your luck and end up winning against the RNG lottery....so, as was the case with SteveD's map, you need to move fast, or you'll die very fast. Unlike 'Heat Miser', though, the action very rapidly tapers off in this one, to the point where it becomes quite leisurely. It's true that taking even one solid hit in this map is bad news, given the relative scarcity of health aids (especially if you gobble up the berserk pack in the first few moments of play)....but it's really not hard to not take many hits, unless you have absolutely horrid luck with the shotgun sergeants' RNG or somesuch. Monsters are positioned to find all kinds of angles on you, sure, but their sparse numbers coupled with their mostly static and often distant placement gives you a lot of time to react to their attacks and a lot of leeway for handling them in the manner of your choosing, be it conservatively sniping them from relative safety or aggressively advancing on their position for a more personal confrontation. Basically, as long as you don't start daydreaming and you make it a point to use your limited medical resources efficiently, you should be fine (I guess not killing the arch-vile in the exit skyhole until the end probably helps with the ammo balance, too). The first few seconds are the most dangerous by far; by the time the arch-viles and other monsters start warping in, you should have control over enough of the map in order to be able to engage them comfortably. If anything, I'd say the action is a mite too sparse--there's no real climax, and the worst danger you face is some potentially shitty RNG in the first few seconds. Reckon it needed to be more 'unfair' than it really is. ;)

It's equally understated aesthetically, but I think it looks just fine. Cannonball's usual orthogonal, chunky 'McGee XL' architecture is here simple and unassuming, but quite functional, with just enough incidental complexity to serve both the actual gameplay and the map's eye appeal (e.g. the prominent presence of a murky morass of tainted blood always roiling unwholesomely in the area's underpinnings). It is very clean, and only very sparsely detailed, really only a few steps away from what I'd start to refer to as aesthetic minimalism--but it's not at all boring to look at, and I think we can attribute this mostly to texture selection and lighting. The stark, uncaring grey/brown/mossy bricks look a natural fit for the map's blocky frame, and the generally dim lighting pairs with the generously-sized windows and the dourly downcast sky beyond them to create a straightforward but very solid mood for the setting. I can't stress enough how important the lighting is to this map's visual appeal; if we look at it in terms of things like sector count or sharp shadowcasting or the like it's quite simplistic, but it works very well in respect to the color/texture scheme and varies just enough to give the location a sense of depth--more than what some of the much more structurally elegant maps enjoy, honestly.

Overall, while the map certainly has virtues (lighting!!!!one) and contains little if anything to actively aggravate or annoy, I honestly found it rather underwhelming. I think I get what Cannonball was going for here with the minimalistic but tactical monster placement, but I feel he went a mite overboard, if you'll pardon the inappropriateness of the term--the population is sparse to the point where it can't really capitalize on the situation despite its carefully considered positioning. I think this type of action works best when it's more acerbically unforgiving, and this really isn't. It's not nearly unfair enough, just to reiterate.

[dobu gabu maru]

MAP27: Corsair upped the theme of this map by adding an additional 2048 units here. But while you may think this would make it too monster-heavy, it’s likely that you won’t see ~1700 of the monsters before you exit (assuming you run through it as I did), since most of them are just the balcony mooks. The main theme here is to get your two keys and get the hell out (before your balls suffer any 3rd degree burns), pushing through the crowd and looking for the right switches. It’s a neat map with some interesting details here and there, and certainly changes up gameplay from the rest of the set, but does feel a bit more like a detour than a regular outing.

[Seele00TextOnly]

Map27 - “Balls on Fire” by Corsair

Um, okay. *looks at monster count* ....... I, uh... this is going to be karmic revenge for my making speedmappers use 1024 monsters in 100 minute maps around a year ago. I decide to spend my opening tour of the map withholding fire as long as possible, so many backturned enemies that I have no interest in waking. This doesn't last long though, as I can't seem to sneak my way anywhere meaningful. Drat. Okay, so trying again barrels blazing, I focus on Hellknights and try my hardest to avoid the onslaught of projectiles. The worst by far is the presence of the Revenants in the balcony, unassailably distant and numerous, and I die many times to their fire sneaking up on me.

Soon I have a Rocketlauncher and have managed to snag myself the Yellow Key. Next I've circumvented a Baron to get the Blue Key. In my running about I'd found where to use the keys, so I head there and... wow it's the Exit. I'm... surprised I pulled that off so easily. So, to challenge myself, I decide to try and do this without saves. Once more unto the breach.

And I did it! I beat the map without any saving. Kind of a first for me. The plentiful health is really what allowed this, but it's kind of needed what with the madness of crossfire going on everywhere. Nevertheless I'm pretty impressed with myself. 2 minutes 14 seconds, btw.

A pretty ruthless and fairly fun map, if a bit quick and simple once you know what you're doing.

[Demon of the Well]

Map 27 -- Balls on Fire - 27% Kills / No secrets
Yeah, this feels more like a 'bonus round' or the like than one of the regular maps. The object is to quickly get a couple of keys by jumping and climbing around in the upper levels of some vaguely computery tech stations, and then use them to lower the gate blocking the exit (which is very lightly guarded). The catch is that you do all of this while under a constant hail of heavy fire from a couple thousand monsters packing the stands overlooking the play area--the vast majority of them are imps, but the few mid-tier monsters in their rank can be quite bothersome, especially the revenants. There are a ton of shells and a generous supply of rockets and health items littering both the upper and lower levels, but I ended up not using much of any of them--it doesn't seem like you're really intended to kill the enemies in the stands, they're really more like a sort of quirky environmental hazard than a group of 'monsters' in this case. I killed most of the monsters that were inside the playable area, but you could probably get away with ignoring most of them, as well (although it's probably prudent to beware of infinitely-tall hell knights when you go to make the conveyor-jump if that's the tack you take)--the only real obstacles are the hunks of meat that can block your jumps to the platforms with the keys on them; get past them and you're golden. Oh yeah, and presumably flipping the various switches is important, but I've no idea what I actually accomplished in doing so.

Aesthetically it didn't really leave much of an impression. Again, it's blatantly a box with stuff in it, but the way the map is designed embraces the fact and so kinda gets away with it. The 2048x2048 space limitation also doesn't really seem relevant here, as the map isn't any bigger/doesn't run any longer than it needs to. Very grey, and very flatly lit (although not really offensive on the latter count, as the default light level is soft/neutral, as opposed to untowardly bright. I don't really like some of the texture choices/combinations in the detailing beyond the playable area (especially not the Santa's workshop paneling on the sides of the time-gates), but it's not like one really has much chance to stop and peruse them under normal circumstances.

Not really my cuppa, but a harmless diversion that does at least make an impression.

Seele00TextOnly said:

And I did it! I beat the map without any saving. Kind of a first for me. The plentiful health is really what allowed this, but it's kind of needed what with the madness of crossfire going on everywhere. Nevertheless I'm pretty impressed with myself. 2 minutes 14 seconds, btw.

Careful, that quickly gets to be an addiction. You're already a UV pistol-starter, so you're already halfway there. Faster than me, incidentally.

[Phobus]

Alright... Catch-up time:

MAP22:
As previously stated, I think this is an unimaginative map that serves as a multi-round square arena fight. It does do this pretty well, though and escalates nicely. I think the major winner here is that it doesn't outstay it's welcome, with only 200+ monsters rather than thousands that you're continually slaughtering your way through until you die of boredom. The fact that the arena is constantly changing and can the later rounds can be approached with a few different tactics is pretty nice too.

MAP23:
My map, so I'll do a brief post-mortem on it instead. Basically, this is the sort of atmosphere I'd go for in my MAP29 if ever I was to make a classic-styled 32-map megaWAD - dark, foreboding and with gameplay based around the heavy hitters. This is my third attempt at such a map (first one that I've seen through to completion though), but with the stone archway textures and limited size to work in, I think this was the easiest to do as well. I'm pretty proud of the waterways and the gameplay set up in them, whilst the library was one of those ideas that seemed a lot better in my head than in execution. Cheesing seems to be a major problem in the final fight, as I've already redrafted that a couple of times, but once I'm done playing catch-up today, I'll be sure to have one last attempt at making that end area work. Overall, I'm both happy with what I've made and happy with the reception it's had thus far. I think sitting between an arena map and joe-ilya's poor offering probably helps my map stand out a bit though, as it actually feels quite "par for the course" in this map set otherwise!

MAP24:
I believe my initial response to this when it was first submitted as along the lines of "sector soup crammed full of monsters". This pretty much sums how I feel about it now, too. Monsters aren't used intelligently, the map itself is a haphazard jumble of shapes that fill up a square, texturing almost feels random (although does broadly conform to a rocky theme) and there's a couple of higher-fidelity objects in an otherwise wildly abstract space. Playing continuously I found the gameplay more tolerable as I could BFG the bigger walls of meat, rocket clusters of enemies, chaingun-snipe the odd farther-off baddie and use the SSG for finishing. His intended play-style of plasma-barraging your way through is both mindless and unrewarding, whilst the constant "and suddenly, enemies!" once you get up top is tedious. Probably the map I most strongly dislike in this set.

MAP25:
As I came into this one well-stocked and with a reasonable amount of health and armour, I figured I'd play this one like every time I died, SteveD got a pelt back from when he played my map. Therefore, with pre-knowledge of the Astral Dreadnought (it's what I'm calling this giant swarm of cacodemons) firmly in mind from my previous play test, I methodically destroyed every threat as I saw it, rather than relying on the Cyberdemons to do my work for me. Whilst this did mean taking out those two turret ones was a bit tedious (particularly as I was saving my plasma to take on the Astral Dreadnought) and things got very hairy when I only remembered the free-roaming Cyberdemon after he was already shooting at me, I did get through with no deaths, or, as I like to think of it, with all 14 of my SteveD pelts intact :P Thank you ZDoom, continuous play and foreknowledge for my illustrious trophy collection! As for my opinion on the map... It's an interesting arena set up, IMO, with Cyberdemons doing a lot of area denial, but the Astral Dreadnought being the highlight and the main challenge, as even just going toe-to-toe with it using my BFG (and then rockets... And then stocking back up on BFG... Then back to rockets and final SSG and chaingun for clean-up) was both a strong challenge and an exciting war of attrition, because they constantly encroach even when 5 or more of them are dropping dead per shot. I think the ending Cyberdemon is perhaps a bit too much of a speed hump though, as I didn't even trigger him until the end of the map, by which time it was just a case of popping in and out from a safe distance to keep my pelt-collection intact. The vines do wonders to break up the squared-off skyline, but I did think the texture tiling was a bit obvious.

MAP26:
I like the look and feel of this map - kind of like a Romero map, but using the Return textures and persistent low lighting. My play experience was a lot like coming into a Doom II map after having beaten most of the map set already too, in that I could proceed at a leisurely pace and only had to really get on my toes and scrap for a couple of encounters (that Arch-Vile when you pick up the blue key is definitely well timed). At only 48 monsters, it serves as a nice breather between Heat Miser's violent arena and the projectile-hell that comes up next. Remembering my previous test of this, which was a pistol start, the map plays a lot more frantically as you have to push ahead for resources at the start and you're never really over-armed for any of the fights. One negative note is that I managed to skip the 2 Cacodemons and the Pain Elemental closet opening up when I went through and opted to double back to trigger that fight for 100% completion. Not sure if the linedef isn't in an ideal location or if I did something unexpected, but that little ambush is definitely skippable!

MAP27:
Now, I do know that you can hang about at the exit before you finish and have a computer-slowing reward of everything being crushed, but I figured having done that once before was good enough for me. It's a fun challenge that feels like a bit of a diversion from the norm, as constant motion and not staying in any one area too long are key to survival, whilst combat is almost entirely optional. Fun little gimmick map, I think!