The DWmegawad Club plays: Going Down

[Linguica]

I like the "seamless" transition into Map30.

[The_MártonJános]

Gez said:

Nearly everything. The TV screen uses custom textures. (Also the billboard outside but it's not part of the house's furniture.)

Okay, I correct: anything that doesn't contain references to the wad you're playing. Period.

Also...

mouldy said:

Also I've been enjoying Cell's write-ups, very entertaining. Long may they continue.

I was convinced me myself that the stuff I write is rather lame and in serious lack of humour, yet getting said the opposite by the author himself, I'm gladly surprised. As for the second sentence, I sure don't want to disappoint you, so I may join DWM on their further playthroughs, too, despite the fact that initially I've only decided to do this because I felt great sympathy towards Going Down itself.

Ahem! Here I should say something summary shit about this masterpiece, but I haven't done anything in advance to easen my job, so I'd just list some of the notable maps... no, I cannot choose, because they're all great, so better make my top 5 out of the soundtracks themselves. This makes no difference whatsoever, because it's mouldy who composed 'em all.

1 - 'The haunted aquarium' (maps 5, 13 and 23)
2 - 'Robo-zombie mecha-brain boss battle' (maps 10, 27 and 32)
3 - 'Wedding march for the princess of death' (maps 16 and 28)
4 - 'Hiding from the robo-zombies' (maps 18 and 25)
5 - 'Chased by dancing skeletons' (maps 12 and 24)

Had fun playing this wad and commenting it. I guess it's time for me to retire back in busy work. See the rest of the people in some days!

[cannonball]

I played map29 a lot earlier and enjyed the special boss. Likewise have seen Map30 which was fun.
Maps27 and 28 are probably too much for and I haven't had much spare time to play those.
Overall this was an excellent experience, maps were good to great in quality and offered something a little different to the usual wad. Great effort Mouldy and hope to see more of your work soon :)

[Gez]

In my playthrough, when I arrived on MAP30, I thought the game was actually over and was vaguely disappointed there wasn't an actual map to play as it robbed me of a last story screen. The madness is a bit subtle...

Note that there's one soul sphere and one blue armor in the map, copy/pasted from MAP29, that are impossible to get, because they're in an area impossible to reach. That makes getting 100% items impossible.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP22: Constipation Station
100% kills, 3/3 secrets

The level begins with the player being pooped out of a giant demonic anus. That alone would make the level.

As it is, it's another one of mouldy's patented circular, inter-connected, DM-ish layouts, with some monsters laid around the area for the player to fight while he arms up and gets his bearings, then unleashes a horde of hellspawn from every angle, sending the player in frantic circles. It works pretty well, for the most part - some of the constantly-moving lifts can get annoying, but they're somewhat necessary to allow the monsters to get to the player in spots. Much of the needed ammo is in the blue key area, so the player has to make a tough choice between immediately turning around to take out the Arch-Vile (and letting the Hell Knights wall off the ammo) or grabbing the ammo and letting the AV rez everything. Looks-wise, very nice with the flesh permeating and spilling out of the techbase.

MAP23: Demonology
94% kills, 2/2 secrets

Probably my favorite level in the WAD, which is saying something since most of these levels are pretty dang good. This one has another interconnected, looping level structure, but is much more exploration-focused than arena-focused, with the interconnectedness just letting the player choose which way to proceed through the level as he searches for the seven yellow skull keys. There's a couple puzzlish aspects (nothing too bad), but also lots of varied combat encounters. I ended up hightailing it to the elevator as I didn't have enough ammo to deal with the last few AVs and their resurrected mates, ah well.

You can also get a glimpse of the red castle stuff that showed up in the last map, guess it'll show up more later.

[mouldy]

Gez said:

Note that there's one soul sphere and one blue armor in the map, copy/pasted from MAP29, that are impossible to get, because they're in an area impossible to reach. That makes getting 100% items impossible.

I think that might have been fixed for the current version.

Ok, time to talk about the final maps..

Map29 - the boss map

http://www.mediafire.com/download/wqosd1ilvoqxqq9/gd-mouldy-29.lmp
This map was always on the cards from the beginning of the project, though I never knew for sure if I would be able to make a custom boss for it. In fact for a while there wasn't, but I realised it really needed something to mark it as the end of the adventure. The boss itself is less dangerous than the surrounding minions, but a one-on-one fight didn't seem in keeping with the Going Down theme of general chaos, so it made sense to use a mastermind which would be easily visible amongst all the wreckage and monsters, and also less of an instant-death threat while still enough of a danger to be wary of while clearing up the rest of the mess. The cacos probably aren't such a great idea, they seem to have trouble even coming out of their dens, but the boss is usually dead before they even arrive so whatever. A short and messy end to the journey.

Map30 - the epilogue

And it was all a dream, or was it? This map was also planned from the beginning, though the idea of it stems from a time when I didn't think the project would stretch to 30 maps. In such cases megawads sometimes use an ending map without an exit, to serve as a farewell and stop you from being dumped into one of the original doom maps. But i always wish those maps had some secret gameplay hidden within, so the idea was to include easter-egg monster spawners and let the player kill stuff for the rest of eternity. Then it turned out I did have the full number of maps, so I included a secret exit as well. For players who want to stick around and kill as much stuff as they can, there is a secret plasma rifle in the tv, and a switch in the final monster closet will make more ammo appear in the living room (and a frosty megasphere in the fridge). There is a bug where the front door of the apartment can be opened from the wrong side by a monster, its fairly rare but I should probably fix it. I didn't record a demo for this one, I always end up trying to use up all the ammo killing monsters which probably wouldn't be very interesting to watch really.

[dew]

Last part of my FDAs: http://www.doomworld.com/vb/post/1318271

map26: Insanity

Fantastic map, probably the sort of stuff I'd expect if I was told Cyriak was making Doom maps for the first time, heh. I had a good laugh over the initial room, you got me there, not opening the door automatically. :P And the elevator maze is an awesome idea too. Never mind repetition or dullness or plainness, it's all about the pure mindfuck. Of course in my first attempt I pressed a switch while still fighting stuff and then I died while still in shock over the transformation. Wow, that's an impressive one, very well done!

My second attempt was kinda map breaking I'd say. I'm not sure you should keep in the switch I used... it's too close to parts of the map that don't sink and it was way too easy for me to stay up on the rim and enjoy the weird caco cages. That was far too meta, you should probably try to avoid contact with the trapped cacos, at least that soon. It also made me not want to jump down. I may have been running out of ammo, but that position was kinda comfy compared to the rest. :p

And wow, nice outro. So much effect for so little showtime, haha.


map27: Hard Cover

I expected vicious slaughter sooner, to be honest. :) Enough was said about the DM-like layout (it's not really that, but it's what passes around here for "open non-linear"), that's cool indeed, but I'd like to point out how you make the map challenging by using relatively weak monsters. There are no bosses, relatively few arches and barons... even arachs and mancos are somewhat limited. So it's all revs and cannon fodder. It's impressive that it works so well in combination with that coverless layout, but it also makes for excellent gratifying slaughter. I already mentioned it earlier, but I'll repeat it - it's so enjoyable to just obliterate hordes of weaklings with overpowered weapons. They actually do posess some threat, but mostly to fools like myself. I found a relatively safe spot for the final invasion and I camped it rather terribly. I'd suggest a backstabbing additional monster teleport destination, because it was kinda lame, I really think all those baddies should be mowed down with BFG/RL, not with SSG. Hamstring such idiocy!


map28: Necropolis

Ah, the great finale is a new age slaughter, how appropriate. It's not that hard, really, but challenge is there in spades. The big mean thing is the revenant horde, that's easily the hardest fight in the wad and it'd probably match extremely challenging slaughtermaps without the invuls. With them, difficulty stays contained to manageable and the map stays "strategic" - players can decide when they're going to use the temporary cheat to remove the biggest threat instead of a fight only pandering to slaughtertards. Basically, it felt like a condensed Speed of Doom map (the visuals were up there too), which I hope is a compliment.


map29: Demolition

Awesome idea, narration strikes back like... uh, Hamlet or something else smelly & from the north. Tying everything back to the starting point is so endearing and "speaks" to players. Full marks. It's also a pretty good and fun fight. I'd say release those cacos earlier though. They woke up just around the time I killed the red beast and if I wanted to max the level, I'd have to ignore the spider for most of the time, because not knowing its health makes it harder to plan a time-effective run. Oh god, now I sound like I want a health bar for the boss.


map30: Game Over

Well, heh. A cute good bye level, how thoughtful... and then I was panicking so hard when monsters started popping up. I'm absolutely not a fan of IoS setups, but this was cheeky and playful, so I could stomach it. I do think I got help from monsters opening the door out.

[Suitepee]

dew said:

map30: Game Over[/b]

Well, heh. A cute good bye level, how thoughtful... and then I was panicking so hard when monsters started popping up. I'm absolutely not a fan of IoS setups, but this was cheeky and playful, so I could stomach it. I do think I got help from monsters opening the door out.

The monsters also helped me out of the building at the end. I wonder if that's intentional on mouldy's part or not....

[mouldy]

Suitepee said:

The monsters also helped me out of the building at the end. I wonder if that's intentional on mouldy's part or not....

I think on your play-through they helped more than they should. What's meant to happen is the front door is eventually opened by monsters outside (which happened in dew's demo), but sometimes I see a monster opening that door from the inside, which lets the player escape early (I think that happened for you). Its a bug that I've seen speedrunners using (I think on map27 of doom2), where a monster can open a door from the other side of it.
http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Monsters_open_locked_doors
I can easily fix it so I should really.

[raymoohawk]

i dont know why but the spawn cubes (if thats what they were, im playing with freedoom) on the last level nearly gave me a heart attack lol. it reminded me a bit of the lone lost soul that appears during the invation on doom 3

[Demon of the Well]

Map 29 -- Demolition - 101% Kills / No secrets
....except, it's not the end, not quite. There's still the little matter of catharsis. Dew's right, we can make light of it, and it's true it's a cliché, but the whole 'ouroboros effect' thing really does work, hard to deny it. That's the cool thing about story/setting/narrative in Doom, though....by virtue of what the game is and is built to do, it doesn't take pages and pages of script and blocking and exposition to make an impact--just seeing a place you saw many battles and thousands of kills ago is enough (bonus points since that actually potentially happens twice in this WAD, but I digress). Of course, adding lots of explosions and senseless carnage always sweetens the deal.

Speaking of bodycount, it's really the rank and file hellspawn that make this fight, not the boss itself. In the case of the initial classic spider mastermind, its perch is small enough that it tends to spend more time fidgeting about and trying to get comfortable than actually firing, and the angle between its perch and the ground is steep enough that it tends not to be very effective even when it does fire--the ring of replenishing revenants that surrounds it is the real threat. Similarly, when the, um.....'engorged' head-on-legs makes its appearance, it immediately loses the (theoretical) advantage of the high ground, making the remaining bits of cover more powerful and greatly increasing the likelihood of productive infighting. In other words, in this second phase, it's very likely that you'll be given a generous number of free point-blank BFG shots at the boss's back as it squashes one of its many underlings--even with its augmented vitality, it's not going to be able to stand up to that kind of punishment for long. Having played through the WAD twice and also having watched John Suitepee play this level on his stream, I've still yet to personally witness much of the boss's actual attack behavior (apparently it adds mancubus and revenant projectiles to the standard spiderdemon minigun attack), if that's any indication--again, it's the other monsters that appear at around the same time that are more of a concern, like the arch-vile presence from back by the detonator switch or the cacos flitting between the buildings (they seemed to make it out to play well enough for me, incidentally, although the boss the can be killed so fast sometimes it's hard for them to show up before things are practically already over).

So, yeah, the boss is a bit of a pushover in purely practical terms, I guess. Still, I'm kind of glad he's there, instead of a mob of standard monsters or a traditional 'narrative' use of a regular spider mastermind or cyberdemon or whatnot. If we accept that map 28 is Going Down's real climax, all that's left becomes denouement, and in that case spectacle starts to outpace substance in importance, and having a thing to kill that I've never killed before is a decent enough nightcap, even if said thing isn't particularly HARD to kill.

Map 30 -- Game Over - 5,100% Kills / No secrets
But wait, it's still not the end! We close out the WAD with a smallscale 'endurance' setup, the actual difficulty of which is largely dependent on one's luck as far as what kinds of monsters spawn in. I haven't had Dew or Suitepee's luck in being able to exit early, but it's not too rough once you get the proper rhythm down (e.g. how often to teleport between the bathroom and the uh, meatlocker)....never mind that during the FDA session I died more on this map than on any other in the WAD. Probably would've helped if I'd not been a dunce and found the somewhat intuitive plasma rifle secret, but alas.

Too bad I already used the line about 'as it was in the beginning, etc. etc.', but the ending speaks for itself. Very classy little touch, that.

I'll try and post my top 5 and such tomorrow. For November's WAD, are we sticking with the prior plan, then, or are folks raring to play something else that's come up?

[Veinen]

29 & 30: https://www.mediafire.com/?6809g3v23a1nhk8

Map29: Demolition

This is an alright little boss map and certainly much much better than the usual IoS gimmicks. It's pretty easy all things considered but it's the thought that matter really. Dew is right in that the Cacos, and also the last two AVs, are way too slow to show up for maxes (and in the case of the Cacos too stupid as well as they seem to have a hard time getting out of the buildings), which leads to some waiting around. It's not a big deal honestly and if you want to leave it as is it's fine. It's actually the stupidity of the Cacos that is the biggest problem for maxers as it's just pure luck whether they decide to cooperate or not and that's something that is at least for me personally kind of a motivation killer.

Map30: Game Over

Pretty cool epilogue and that's pretty much all there is to it. The game is sadly really over after this.

-----

Overall this mapset turned out to be a great experience and I had a lot of fun playing and maxing these. I sucked so hard in my FDA playthrough that it somewhat killed the enjoyment for me so my expectations for the month were a little lowered despite knowing from his Nova maps that mouldy is really an excellent mapper. Suffice to say, foreknowledge of the maps helped a lot and any frustration was nowhere to be seen. Well, except for that fruit map which definitely pushed all the wrong buttons for me. But I think it tells you quite a lot about the quality of the wad when there is only one map that you didn't like. So great work mouldy, hoping to see more maps from you in the future! Tough to pick any top maps when all of them are high quality... 27 & 28 are my clear two favorites but then there are many competing for the next spots.

[dobu gabu maru]

Demon of the Well said:

For November's WAD, are we sticking with the prior plan, then, or are folks raring to play something else that's come up?

For the sake of convenience we're sticking with the Psyren set since I don't think we'll get a decisive entry by the time November 1st rolls around (which is already here for some people). Would someone refresh my memory and tell me which ones plums suggested?

[Demon of the Well]

Which ones by Psyren, you mean? Rylayeh and Crimson Canyon. There's also a third one called 'Azagthoth' (his early work), but I can't remember whether we were doing it too, or the first two and something else, or just the first two, or what.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP24: Bridge of Blood
80% kills, no map secrets

Probably one of the least-inspired ones, especially gameplay-wise... definitely what it says on the tin (it's a bridge! it gets bloody!). Even so, the cavern surrounding the bridge is very nice looking, and the gameplay, while simple, still plays well as just a straight-up slaughter affair with plenty of infighting. Not really challenging despite the monster count, I coulda stuck around to 100% it but didn't feel like playing clean-up. I like being able to release the (optional?) cyberdemon for more infighting purposes. And the moving chains on the first door are pretty cool.

MAP25: Forbidden Fruit
100% kills, 0/1 secret

After the relatively beaten path of the last map, comes a pretty unique setting - some sort of demonic greenhouse, complete with a demonic Ticket Oak as the centerpiece (what, DotW already made that joke? Damnit. Uh... Grandmother Willow? Giving Tree?) It's a pretty nice look, especially since it's surprisingly achieved with a low amount of vine textures... more reliant on sector detail.

At it's heart, it's another inter-connected pathway map, with a bit of clearing out at the start followed by unleashing a huge swarm of cacos, followed by dealing with teleporting revenants and resurrecting AVs. But the theme allows for some fresh layout bits, and it works pretty well. And, as usual, you can see the previous map - another nice bit of detail.

[mouldy]

Just want to thank everyone for playing through my megawad (again in some cases), I've enjoyed reading all your thoughts and watching all your demos. Lots of useful feedback and bugs to fix.

[durian]

It's a shame that I fell behind - pressure of work :( But I should say that this is easily one the most enjoyable and ingenious megawads I've played, specifically with respect to the way it tells a story through the levels (I don't mean the story in the intermission text, which was a great counterpoint to the otherwise grim atmosphere), and the way it gives the player the impression that they're moving, from level to level, through a vast interconnected space. Exemplary stuff! Looking forward to finishing it.

[dew]

I picked the wad on a whim halfway through the month with no real plans to join the DWMC, so all that text from me should be indicative of how much I enjoyed it. Very creative, very fresh. Even when I didn't like a map, I could rely on the next being one of my favourites. 5/5 for all the BDLs out there still on the fence about playing it.

[dobu gabu maru]

MAP27: An asymmetrical, unforgivingly brutal METAL + red map? Yes please. MAP27 is my favorite E3 map due to its frantic nature (it’s like plopping you down into the middle of MAP17’s finale, except that's how the map begins). I like that you always have options to work with, and the map promotes scurrying about rather than staying in one place. The single use invul is a great addition too, letting you take heat off of any encounter you don't quite enjoy.

HNTR comments: I’d change the megasphere next to the red key to a soulsphere—there’s so much health on this map and so few enemies to corner you that this much assistance isn’t really necessary. It's pretty easy going otherwise, nothing quite as hellacious as UV.

MAP28: The first map of the dual finale, this one is full slaughter in the largest playable area of the wad. It's a really fluid, gorgeous area, with some tough-but-not-too-tough battles thrown your way. I still like MAP27 quite more due to the cramped and unyieldingly dangerous nature of it, but MAP28 is no slouch in the difficulty department either—perhaps just of a different type. IMO this is the real closer to Going Down.

HNTR comments: Interesting that core of the fights are still intact here, sans archviles. Hopefully the player will be wise with their invuls (they will only need one for the previously horrifying rev avalanche). Only thing I might suggest is putting some of the medikits from the elevator platform over to the back of the arena, as it can be a bit of a hassle for "newbie" players to heal (not detrimental though).

MAP29: The second map of the dual finale, this time featuring a two-phase final boss. Despite the building collapsing on her, the mastermind sits happily atop the rubble, pelting anyone that gets close to her royal wreckage. Shooting her down only fills her with steroids, which will also change her bullets into great balls of fire. The first beta of this was quite silly since the original mastermind was the finale battle, thus ending the set on a whimper. Luckily the souped up MM makes the battle much more of a struggle, especially when the AVs come up from hell to rain on your parade.

HNTR comments: Nothing here really—coming in with ~300 cell from MAP28 can quickly turn this fight into a joke, but there's not much you can do about that. I assume it’s reasonably balanced otherwise.

MAP30: IT WAS ALL JUST A DREAMVIDEOGAME. MAP30 is a doofy little puzzley map, where mouldy gives one last hurrah with making a realistic setting out of stock textures. IMO it's a bit of a throwaway, but at least ends Going Down on a consistent note.

HNTR comments: None.

Overall: I think Going Down is one of the best smaller-sized megawads ever created (along with Unholy Realms, which I was also a tester for). It features an insane amount of variety, high intensity of frantic fun, and never becomes so grueling that anyone starting on UV is unable to complete it. It’s subliminally wise, unforgivably entertaining, and so violently chaotic that it’s worth a run through for anyone that’s ever had any interest in Doom wads—hands down. One of the best (and arguably the best) megawads of the year; congrats mouldy, you are goddamn brilliant, toilet-obsessed bastard.

MAP16 > MAP27 > MAP17 > all else. Maybe MAP19 or MAP21 at the bottom?

Best part of the wad: Sniping the imp that's pissing in MAP31, I still feel bad every time I do it :(

[durian]

A little late I know, but just played 18 through to 21 - what a blast! I won't go on at length since things have wound down, but 20 is brilliant from a visual design and story telling perspective, and tremendous fun - I replayed it immediately. As with the previous maps, 20 and 21 seem to play best when you release everything as quickly as possible for lots of high-octane fun, and nothing too tricky as long as you keep on your toes. 18 required a bit more strategy, but it was pretty straightforward once I had a handle on the layout, and 19 is hilarious - the endless noise of dying AVs is something one doesn't hear very often - with a very neat design (I found myself spurning the invulnerabilities whenever possible, just so I could look around more). One misalignment:

Spoiler

Oh, and the placement of the exit sign for 21 is genius - I really chuckled.

EDIT - had the numbers wrong :/

[Demon of the Well]

Wanted to post some final thoughts about this before getting too far into this month.

Well, it's an excellent set of short/small maps, probably the best such set I've played in years, perhaps my new favorite, even. If you take the pulse of the community, short (or "punchy") maps seem to be having their turn in the sun at current (which, if you look back at the history of PWADs, is something of a natural, cyclical thing), but this type of map has never really been my preference. So often, and especially when we're looking at entries in a multilevel mapset (read: where no single map needs to carry a particularly large share of the load), I find that even well-made shorties tend to leave me somewhat unsatisfied, even if I play several at once. Action in a map has an ebb and flow to it, a beginning-middle-end progression if you will, and in short maps this needs to be condensed not only into a shorter runtime but also often into a physically smaller environment, equating to fewer, smaller, quicker, and sometimes less 'optioned'--and thus ultimately less variable and nuanced--encounters in less grandiose surroundings. Short/small maps can serve well as fast shots of tricky combat-puzzle challenge when tuned cleverly, but more often than not, 'small' is a watchword for 'straightforward', and even the more brutal short maps (e.g. those in the recent 'Swift Death') tend to become somewhat one-note played in succession, perhaps because with conciseness tends to come a certain degree of predictability, as well. The other form that short-map megaWADs tend to take is that of a concept/doodad showcase; 'Countdown to Extinction', which the Club played earlier this year, is a good example of this style. The thing about these is that they tend to feel more like concept demos than complete engagements, sometimes to the point where the actual action--what little there is given space/time constraints--often feels simply tacked on for the sake of the thing passing as a sensible Doom map. 'Countdown to Extinction', again, exemplifies this--it's very much a WAD that I would personally describe as 'more interesting than fun.'

But it doesn't have to be this way, not at all! The point I'm trying (very longwindedly) to make is that I personally enjoyed Going Down so much because it manages to marry many of the very real short-map megaWAD virtues--a punchy pace, a constantly changing setting, lots of quirky little concepts, a high degree of variety in presentation in general--with a style of bloody, chaotic action that is much more to my taste. The majority of these maps are small, some very small, but mouldy has crammed so many monsters (often introduced via teleports for purely practical reasons if nothing else, of course) into so many of them that they all feel either like very substantial battles despite their small size, or alternately, as whimsical breather maps between massacres (this is a very good place for high-concept maps, it's just hard to make a whole WAD out of them). As opposed to the series of highly specific puzzle-box/setpiece encounters typical of many small maps, most of the maps in Going Down contain essentially only a single battle, but these are often quite protracted and dynamic--over the course of one of these battles, fresh waves of monsters appear, sometimes seemingly at random; the environments shift and change, generally increasing flow and navigability (for both Doomguy and his foes) at the cost of holdout points; and the momentum between Doomguy and the enemies is constantly seesawing back and forth--it's consistently and eminently fun! For such small maps, it's amazing how replayable/unpredictable some of these can be, and this replayability is underscored by the mapset's variety. It's fundamentally varied, not just cosmetically or technically--there are levels in the set that exist almost entirely as pure concept pieces, true (e.g. '200 Mega Hurts', 'Insanity', 'Stair Crazy', etc.), but there are also those which integrate novel progression concepts with quality, staple action to keep things fresh ('Time Warp', 'Forbidden Fruit', 'Demonology', etc.), and even those where the concept is expressed subtly via a sea changeup in the battle scenario ('Buried Alive', 'Hard Cover', etc.) rather than via map progression or theme. It's a very well-rounded package overall, with very little real filler--even those very few maps in the set which I didn't actually like playing very much feel unique and fully-realized in their own right. It's fine stuff, and considering its fairly accessible overall difficulty level, something I would not hesitate to recommend to the majority of Doomers. May there be more to come.

Anyway, as per usual, my top 5 maps from the set, in no particular order, were:
Map 17 -- Rest in Pieces
Map 18 -- Buried Alive
Map 09 -- Broken Records
Map 13 -- Deep Trouble
Map 25 -- Forbidden Fruit

I imagine those last two might be seen as unusual choices. In 13 I felt that a very cool structural concept was married well to the ultra-violent (if somewhat simplistic) action--I guess this map was to me what map 26 seems to have been to lots of other folks. 25 is one of those things that commits some textbook 'do nots' of modern mapping (heavy crampedness, floor-bumpiness, etc.), but it's a great example that 'execution is everything'--it didn't blow me away the first time I played it, but I had a fucking great time with it when I replayed it for the Club, foreknowledge allowing me to draw out the map's hidden potential for some really frantic combat. Honorable mentions to maps 10, 11, 16, 23, and 28 as well, all eminently enjoyable maps for which I've little but praise. So, that's the vast majority of E2, I guess--it truly was the pinnacle of the WAD in its almost absurd bloodiness, methinks, which is saying something considering how charming E1 and E3 are, as well.

[SoundofDoomDoors]

Okay, I was told earlier this month in the STRAIN thread to post here after I finished the WAD. To avoid bumping it more than once, I'm going to try and put my comments for all 32 levels of Going Down in one post. I hope this doesn't hurt the forum like it hurt the million (more like 900 on HMP) enemies in MAP28! Only 14497/100000 before this message. I made it! I think.
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Going Down

Due to playing in GZDoom with smoothdoom and perekristan's (sp?) sound replacements, I'm not recording this. I'll do a level a day until I finish. Also, I'm playing on UV. When I die, I'll pistol start on death, but play from that pistol start with saves. This was my policy with NOVA II, and it'll probably be what I do with Sunlust eventually too.
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MAP01 was a simple map. The first thing I thought of when I saw the elevator effect was "what happens if I jump off? Can I get back up?" Yes you can.

Other than that, there were zombiemen. Lots of zombiemen. I shouldn't have left that invisibility orb lying around. I left with 100 health, but I could have taken less damage.

100% Kills and Secrets
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MAP02 was...busy. There were hitscanners everywhere, yet I forgot to use the inivisibility again. That might have been for the best, given the HK guarding the key. I like how you run around the different rooms in this level as oppposed to the last one. It's not as straightforward.

100% Kills and Secrets
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MAP03's pretty early for a tyson map. The baron room got me, but I managed it well on my second try. Invincibility melees are fun for me. Give me a cyberdemon to punch next time! The baron survived, due to a lack of ammo from a pistol start.

98% Kills 100% Secrets
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MAP04 gives a hell of an introduction to the rocket launcher. That fight marks the first time I've died multiple times to a level in this wad. The one secret reminded me of the computer panels in STRAIN, except you actually NEEDED to press them there.

100% Kills and Secrets
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MAP05 reminds me of the same-numbered level in TNT. They both use the same idea of a warp gate connecting near-identical areas. This one just happens to be better. I died once, pistol started, and it still went pretty well. My ammo, excluding rockets, was low at the end even with all the secrets.

100% Kills and Secrets
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MAP06 is straightforward like 01 (2 rooms total), but packs a lot more of a punch. I died at the end on my first try, pistol started, and got through on my second. Finding both secrets on the latter attempt helped. I liked the infighting in the dance floor-looking area. I also liked how the spawns around the outside made me think about my preferred place to circle to provoke infighting a little more than usual. Also nice were the radiation signs indicating the hurt floors in the side rooms, plus the suit in easy reach. It's not green, so marking it like that is a good thing.

100% Kills and Secrets
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At this point, I started reading the thread's comments on levels I'd already beaten.
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MAP07's a dead simple knock-off, boo. It just happens to be a lot harder. By far, I died more times here than I have so far in the rest of the wad combined. eventually made it out, but the stairs leading to the megasphere appeared to be glitched in GZDoom. That's probably why I died so much. Changing to Boom compatibility fixed it.

100% Kills and Secrets...but no megasphere.
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As of now, on mouldy's recommendation for first-time players, I'm no longer pistol starting on death.
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MAP08 is a good break after all the trouble I had with the last map. 1 death from the yellow key sequence, but there's nothing terribly difficult here. It's a simple map, but it's the RIGHT map at the RIGHT time.

100% Kills and Secrets
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MAP09 had an interesting start. Discretion is rewarded with an easy SSG, RL, and some ammo. In terms of the level, I wasn't able to max it. I kept dying, so I just grabbed the key and left.

67% Kills 0% Secrets
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MAP10 was easy until I got trapped after getting the key. I took > 20 deaths just trying to get out after my ammo ran out and I got knocked down to 4 health. The AV at the entrance at the end made things very difficult. Isn't one for that part enough? My monster count broke 180.

No idea what my kills were, 100% Secrets
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MAP11 was a pain. I started with absolutely no ammo, died 5-10 times to get out of the initial hall, then died another 10-15 times after releasing the cyber. It may be time for me to scale back the difficulty. I was technically dead when I hit the level transition (killed after flipping the switch) so the next level will be pistol started.

Kills: no idea Secrets: 0/1
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I don't think I breathed for the first few minutes of MAP12. That part was great. It's the 3 AVs guarding the plasma rifle I didn't like. I killed myself more times with rockets trying to secure that thing than in the rest of the map combined. The exit was a little unclear, but I found it after having a little trouble with the end. The AV section was worse, though.

88% Kills 100% Secrets
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MAP13 seems lower-key than the last level until you get to the end. That was difficult, at least until I trudged back to the top and killed the 2 AVs guarding the blue armor. After taking them out separately from the final wave, I managed to get through on my next attempt. I correctly figured out where the exit was, dodged a baron a few times, and shockingly didn't die after I pushed the button, like last time I ran from a huge battle.

not 100% Kills 50% Secrets
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MAP14 has one of my favorite level themes ever. The whole idea of mandatory (obvious) secrets is just brilliant. I even called the latter one leading to the exit. The gameplay feels like a breather after the last few levels. I only died once to a mancubus in the back early. That was a little low, otherwise the level was good. Later on, after getting the beserk pack around the mastermind, I turned around and saw a pack of demons. I think I said "thank you mouldy," out loud.

P.S After seeing mouldy play through this map himself, I just wanted to say that all the optional secret passages in this level were great. I missed quite a few of them, but still knew exactly where I was going. I'd call that a mark of great level design.

87% Kills 100% Secrets
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MAP15 lives up to its name. I didn't die until the spider demon. That took about 3 or 4 tries. Triggering the audience to mob him let me grab everything and high-tail it out of there. That's starting to be a theme in this wad: running for my life to reach the elevator after getting the key, and I love it.

Oh, and I missed the secret level, resulting in me pistol starting map31. That's what I do if I can't find it on my own.

74% Kills 0% Secrets
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Where's the ammo at the end of MAP31? I literally ran out there with a few imps left in the map. Beserk was a possibility, but my health was around 85 and I wanted to keep it there for 32. Reducing the number of enemies that teleport in during the vile section might help. I spent 30-odd rockets (if not 40) + hundreds of plasma to kill them all. Then I had to kill the AVs for the key with only a few shells and repeatedly raised hitscanners to help me, all without letting them into the sea of corpses outside, or they'd raise too many (projectile) enemies for my bad ammo supply to handle. Not a favorite of mine.

98% Kills 100% Secrets
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Thanks for reminding me I haven't played GO2IT yet. MAP32 reminds me a lot of it, with the whole expanding on another level thing. This time I actually FOUND the trivializing V-Sphere to exit the level easily, unlike in Gladiator.

50% Kills 100% Secrets

P.S: I beat GO2IT after playing MAP32, with saves of course. This was harder. GO2IT's only difficulty came from cheap cyberdemons behind doors. How far we've come...
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MAP16 is starting to get out of my skill range on UV. Not much else to say, it's a cool concept, lots of good crossfires, I died a lot/ran for the exit after killing the cybie...oh and I survived with 2 hp.

90% Kills 0% Secrets
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MAP17's quite a bit easier than the one that came before it. I particularly like the enemies appearing to rise out of the coffins. I escaped this one with 7 hp.

87% Kills 0% Secrets
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From MAP18 onward, I'm playing on HMP. It's a lot more manageable for me right now. The transition to that was accomplished with a pistol start here. Chipping away at the rock wall at the start was cool. So was bringing all the monsters out with the rigged barrels. I didn't note my kills again. It wasn't 100%. I left the cybies.

??% Kills 100% Secrets
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Well MAP19 was...different. I couldn't see what was going on most of the time! It was still fun, though. That's probably the most archviles I've seen in a (serious) map. Nuts may have more. I should look into that sometime.

87% Kills (I left some pain elementals) 0% Secrets
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MAP20 has imps. Lots of imps. What MAP01 is to zombiemen, this level is to imps. I killed about 300 of them with my carryover plasma supply and shotgun, then checked out the wings of the map which had some much-needed rockets and a plasma refill. The cybies would have been pretty helpful with the imps if I'd stuck around/spawned them sooner, I'm sure. I just decided to cut a path out after I resupplied.

Why do I keep getting 87% Kills!? 0% Secrets
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MAP21 is a tyson map I actually like for a change! It starts out simple with demons and imps, lets you CRUSH a few HKs in the middle, and throws in more mid-range monsters at the end. I like how flipping the switches and leaving is perfectly reasonable at the end. You don't HAVE to fight the mancubi, HKs and revenants if you don't want to, just go around them. And thank FUCK for no cacos on HMP, at least. The last tyson map I played (STRAIN 31) expected me to punch them out to progress. Bad idea. Beserk + V-Sphere in this level? RIP AND TEAR! (but only on HMP)

92 (?)% Kills 100% Secrets
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I thought I remembered MAP22 from a survival game I played online once. The problem is I remember the lighting darkening dramatically in the middle of the level, but that didn't happen here. Nonetheless, it waspretty interesting this time around. I thought it was fairly measured in terms of the challenge compared to prior levels, though that could have something to do with the difficulty being on HMP and mouldy knowing everyone would be stuck with a pistol here. I also found all the secrets. A lot of the maps I've struggled with would have been easier if I'd found everything, notably 16 where I missed a megaarmor, a megasphere, and a v-sphere.

100% Kills and Secrets
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Okay, I was either playing a beta when I last saw these few levels in MP, my lighting settings in Z& were/are different, or both, 'cause I could never forget the troll keys on MAP23. Unlike the previous map, where I was the last one alive and won it once on UV, this map killed everyone. It wasn't so bad on HMP. Like MAP22 before it, I escaped in 1 try. Secrets helped. Maxing it wouldn't have been hard, but I got to the end, saw an AV and a few zombies chasing me, and decided to keep my ammo and hit the damn switch.

94% Kills 100% Secrets
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Here's where all the enemies from the last few levels went! MAP24 is the first map in a while that actually slowed my ZDoom + SmoothDoom down. Lots of enemies + GOTCHA-style infighting made for great fun. I even died a few times trying to set it up, 3 I think. The start being a nod to Doom 2's....oh wait that's the FUCKING CHASM, Barrels O' Fun, was great too. I even got some infighting going after detonating the barrels.

100% Kills and Secrets
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MAP25's pretty light compared to the last one. The wad overall's had a good feel for alternating between heavy slaughter-ish levels and less crazy ones like this. The concept of needing to destroy the fruits throughout the level is pretty good. It took me a minute or two after the initial sweep to get them all, but that's not too bad for this sort of thing.

94% Kills 0% Secrets
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Holy shit. MAP26 has the best special effects I've seen in a Doom map. It also gave me a pretty good run-around after the walls literally came down. So far, it's my favorite map of the wad. Everything in the blood area was dead when I left. There must've been other monsters/1 secret in the walled area.

82% Kills 0% Secrets
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MAP27's less about running around and more about killing tons of bad guys. On HMP, the second wave was pretty underwhelming, being mostly comprised of trash monsters with a few chaingunners and mancubi. I got the v-sphere after everything was dead.

100% Kills and Secrets
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The first thing I noticed about MAP28 was the monster count. I think this level counts for the most monsters in a Doom map I've ever cleared in a solo game. The first half was pretty easy for me. The second half (from the key on) took a few deaths to get right. After hitting the first of the four exit switches, my gut instinct told me to run for the elevator. It didn't work and I died. That's a pretty good change-up.

80% Kills 0% Secrets
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The demolition of the building that opens MAP29 was good, but it pales in comparison to MAP26. It's also MM boss. He just happens to have a second form with randomized attacks. I much prefer reskinned bosses with unique behavior like this and the yellow baron-thing at the end of NOVA 2 over the IoS.

60% Kills 100% Secrets
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MAP30 crushes the fourth wall to bits...or not. It's really an IoS map, except you don't kill the IoS. The whole thing is timed, the battles random depending on what he spawns. The first time, I got a million pain elementals and died. The second time, I got out easily. At lest it subverts the typical boss shooter, making this a tongue-in-cheek end to a very tongue-in-cheek wad.

80% Kills 100% Secrets
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Final thoughts? Going Down's a great WAD in many ways, from the excellent music I should have mentioned sooner, to how the wad's changing play styles keep it from getting stale. The closest thing I've played to it is the original Scythe, and that's a bit of a stretch, because Scythe is focused on a straight-up Doom experience. Contrast that with Going Down, which is more about trying lots of different things, both in gameplay, scripting, visual tricks, and even humor, of all things. The only fault I can think of is that the small maps mean it's not the best fit for MP. For solo play, it gets two thumbs up from me. Well played, Mouldy.

[mouldy]

Cool, cheers for the playthrough comments. I was curious whether smoothdoom would interfere with any of the dehacked stuff, i think its ok if you load them in the right order though. The only changes are the final boss and the blue torch (which makes a demolition noise).

[SoundofDoomDoors]

The final boss showed up fine. He literally turned red after I beat him up enough. Then I hit him some more and the level ended. I assume the plunger from MAP18 is the blue torch replacement? That was fine too. My whole playthrough was done with gd.wad loaded last. Due to wanting to hold on to my weapons, I didn't update to the new version that came out a week ago. If I'd known MAP20 was a death exit, I would've done it there.