The DWmegawad Club plays: Going Down

[The_MártonJános]

MAP03: Crawl Space
ARGH, fucking shortage of ammo.

Cost me like 5 lives to get it right, mostly due to me starting with seven shells and eighteen bullets altogether (should've collected more from the previous map, I'm such a retard), sacrificing the latter on the very first Pinkydemon encounter, and the former on the early sneak peakers, which was a tactical issue against some aggressive Chaingunner ambush.

Truly a speaking kind of map title, duh. Not even strafing is a victorious decision to avoid projectiles most times, not only because you get a tight time crawling inside, but 1. most projectiles won't even get into the vent system you're in, 2. all you encounter down there are Pinkies, the General Frontiers of Melee. So, after wasting all the precious ammunition, you're basically stuck to a chainsaw or two - depending on which direction you take, you're given one whatsoever, not to be sacrificed barely.

Even with this it won't be a cakewalk, especially if you get to the caged Hell Knight who will certainly blow two nice barrels of explosive waste in your face if you aren't aware of the true situation around the corner. Expect some sneaky spider snipes, too, and two-way demon ambushes, the douches of which you'll have to eliminate in close range combat, of course. No snipe for the crawling guy. But at least I'm involved in an Invulnera-telefragging funfair, which includes Zerkpunching foes that warp inside the arena, for a time limit.

I'm not gonna review this map gameplay-wise since it came to me as spoken fact that I'm a sucker for Tyson maps. It was barely manageable for me, and only because after some ingame research, I've found out how to get some hidden shit open, and, of course, the location of the mid-generous health supply. Not a favourite map for beginners, to roll up.

The visual design and representation of the sharp contrast between the vent system - about five or six different "vent themes" throughout, love it - and the "outside" is impeccable as usual, just mouldy-style. I also like how the ingenious "taking advantage of each mappixel of space" layout is implemented, and it slowly begins to converge the full aesthetic potential which will clearly be encountered towards the end of the levelset - I'm digging the insertion of the Hitler portrait into marble bordering, to mention one.

Getting downer sooner or later...

[tourniquet]

3: "Crawl Space" aka cramped space

I'm not a huge fan of tyson stuff so gamepay-wise this wasn't really that interesting for me.
Even if you'll play continuous you'll get short on ammo very quick here.
Nonetheless a cool map with some interesting visuals.
I like the fact that you've 2 different routes to choose, each one leading you towards the SM fight sooner or later.
Managed to die once there, somehow missed the V-SPhere while SR50'ing into the teleporter.

Max for Map03

[cannonball]

MAP03 - "Crawl Space"
Another rather bland location, I guess the premise here doesn't help matters to be honest. I enjoyed this more than map02 to be honest, there were a few nice touches in there gameplay wise.
A monster closest did not open for some reason and robbed me of 5 kills.
2 deaths, one by the barrels and the other in the mastermind room.

[scifista42]

MAP03 - "Crawl Space"

Unusual concept. Even despite all the narrow corridors and almost tedious sawing, it worked for me. I found it fun. The atmosphere, setting, and well-interconnected nonlinear layout helped it a lot. Corridor density is really unique here. Mid-tied enemies at maximum + one telefraggable SMM = managable challenge. All in all an interesting map, and it turned out well for me.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP03: Crawl Space
100% kills, 0/0 secrets

Yeah, it's not the prettiest map, but it's not like a bunch of tiny crawl space tunnels is gonna be interesting visually. At least there's several different themes used, which helps keeps things from being monotonous. I'm usually a fan of Tyson gameplay, but the chainsaw parts are actually a bit dull, since pinkies don't really pose a danger against a chainsaw, and whether or not the hell knight/chaingunners/baron hit you is pretty much up to luck of the draw in the tight spaces. I think I punched the Mastermind half to death before remembering that you can just telefrag her, heh. Then there's the standard Mouldy 'teleport a shitload of enemies onto the player' trap after the red key, which is well-timed with the invulnerability to not be too easy or too hard.

[mouldy]

Map03 - air vent chainsaw adventure

http://www.mediafire.com/download/818ab3cth0qol5f/gd-mouldy-03.lmp

If you like air ducts and chainsawing pinkies then this is the map for you, but I kind of figured that might be a niche market so I got it out of the way quickly in an early slot. I liked the idea of staging the whole journey outside of the map itself, peeking in on the more interesting looking rooms you aren't allowed access to. Gameplay is going to annoy some people though, and if I'm honest I never get too excited about chewing through this map again, when I know the fun is going to start on the next one.

[durian]

Map 03 Crawl Space

Gah! Damn pinkies. After a few failed attempts with the keyboard I got serious and moved from the laptop to the desktop + mouse. Otherwise, this was alright - I enjoyed how the very cramped spaces made otherwise weak enemies more threatenning. I couldn't resist restarting a few times, just to see if I could get the seargant to drop his SG into the crawlspace - no joy, though. The Mastermind telefragging was a nice touch. I didn't bother with the caged Baron - seemed to risky. Is the path around to right supposed to be an equally viable alternative to the path around to the left? I went rightwards first when I was still keyboarding and got repeatedly munched, but didn't check it out again as an alternative route.
Nice use of the Wolf3D textures!

[Inkie]

MAP03: Crawl Space

Interesting use of architecture, a circular set of vents and pipes around a handful of rooms. Also a fancy portrait of Der Fuhrer.

The main play is using the chainsaw versus pinkies, which isn't really that big a deal. The mastermind took a big hunk of health before getting the telefrag, what a butt. Then when on a sawing spree on the imps and pinks that port in on the spider's death, because why not, I'm invincible.

I also gave a chainguner a serious ankle biting.

You may not have noticed, but the shotguner corpses in Elevator have decayed into mush piles.

[scifista42]

Inkie said:

You may not have noticed, but the shotguner corpses in Elevator have decayed into mush piles.

Good catch, I haven't noticed them at all! :)

[Demon of the Well]

Alright. I've technically played through this whole thing in 'episodic' format once already (each third of the game as mouldy debuted it), but there were at least a couple of secrets (and at least one hidden battle that I missed), so I'm going to try hard to max the whole set this time (UV, pistol-starts). Probably gonna leave most or all of the 'visual aids' to Veinen and the man himself this time, though, reckon they've got that well covered.

Map 01 -- Going Up - 100% Kills / No secrets
Very fitting that we start our descent by riding an elevator up to the roof. I remember being somewhat surprised by the relatively modest height of the UAC building the first time I got a look at it--when mouldy first announced the project, from his description I immediately started imagining an inverted 'Blake Stone' sort of thing where the game would begin on the top floor and end with the ground floor (I was even envisioning an SoD-esque 'huge waves of monsters converge on the tower from the surrounding city' finale), which of course would've required some monstrously ostentatious UAC empire-spire. Instead, what we get is a relatively humble and unassuming corporate branch office, just six stories high (and this is quite accurate in terms of structure if fudged slightly in terms of scale, as we shall soon see). Expectations aside, I think the approach mouldy took is cooler by far than what I had imagined--it just means that much more of the game takes place below the ground floor, a space where you can execute far more zany setting-concepts of all kinds than one credibly could in a corporate tower (to the extent that we're all terribly invested in Doom's characteristically painstaking realism, of course).

Anyway, this is a pistol map, and that alone probably says most of what there is to be said about it. 90+ enemies might sound like a high count for map 01 of what is ostensibly a set of 'small' maps, but natch, the vast majority of them are mere former humans, with the odd imp or two and a couple of pairs of shotgun guys for emphasis. So, it's pretty fast, or it can be, anyway. If you like, you can put your handgun through its paces and carefully clear out the roof while taking minimal damage, as even the wave of teleporting flybags that feebly attempts to guard the blue keycard can be choked/camped from any number of tactically sound holdout points. However, for something as simple as this is, it's neat that there's a lot of flexibility in how you can play it if you use a little bit of imagination. For example, you can grab the blur sphere (this is a mapset where that powerup is usually genuinely useful where it appears, incidentally) and coax the zombies in mostly killing themselves off by turning everybody loose and then doing a lap or two of the roof; what I did on this playthrough was rush for the shotgun in the shack (setting off the blue key attack in the process), and then used it to efficiently de-brain the zombies by threes and fours. Spiffy.

I like this as a map 01, but there's one thing that'd make it even better: put a berserk pack in there where I can reach it early, mouldy!

Map 02: -- Evil Admin - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
My favorite thing about this level is actually that it conveniently co-opts the zombie corpses that you'll have thrown down in the elevator seconds before finishing map 01 as a means of supplying you your complementary pistol-start shotgun. Well, maybe that and the little views out at the surrounding cityscape from within the little secret area, itself hinting at the next map's main theme.

....right, that's not saying much, I guess. Well, I think I can say that this is what I'd consider to be the weakest map in the entire set (there's one other much later on I'm also not very keen on), both aesthetically and playwise, although in fairness it seemed to play a little better this time around, when I went into it knowing exactly what it entailed. Again your enemies are largely zombies, but imps make a stronger showing here (particularly if you knock over the office's cherished jug of Fiji Water), and there are a dash of pinkies and a hell knight or two in the mix. The basic idea here is that while the floorspace is sectioned off into a few different discrete areas (drone cubicles to the east, senior drone cubicles to the west, king-drone's office, and the bathroom) separated by the reception hall, as you go along a bunch of window-shutters fly open and you start taking fire from sections other than the one you're actually in. Assuming you rush through it (which is the most fun way to play this one, IMO), things get to the point where you'll be in the main office, but stuff will be attacking through the windows from out in the hall, even more stuff through the windows in the senior office where you were earlier, and a bunch of stuff will be spawning in right near you, including a bevy of imps throwing a class 9 shit-fit over the ruined watercooler. It can be kinda hectic if RNG is unkind to you, but if you pick out the shotgun guys and heavy weapon dudes first it's no big thing.

I guess it's not offensive or anything, but I just seem to really have some kind of problem with the way this one micromanages your movement. You have to take a very specific route through it (with the only point of variation being a booby-trap of sorts which springs if the first thing you do is approach the floor's reception desk), which is fine up to a point, but soon enough you reach a point where it looks like you really should be able to climb on the desks and really should be allowed to hop through the windows in order to outflank your enemies, but you're prevented from doing so by blocking lines, with all traversal being handled by a linear sequence of switch-hittery. Basically this functions to make you directly fight everything that beams in, but I think the loss of tactical flexibility isn't worth the insurance in this case, since the stuff that teleports into the hall is numerous enough (on UV, at least) that it's going to get in your way if you try to exit without cleaning it up a bit no matter which direction you approach from. Not being able to climb on the desks at all (which is presumably to protect some monster-introduction mechanisms) also feels really weird and greatly adds to the feeling of crampedness in the east office. Granted, creating a chaotic/congested battle space is this mapset's bread and butter, but it just feels really artificial/unnecessary to me, here.

One other gripe: I think the admin should be a mancubus. A mancuboss!

[tourniquet]

4: "Blood and Rockets"

Finally, from now on way more action upcoming.
Looks like another kind of office complex, this time Wood/Panel themed with a large blood foutain right in the middle.
Once again some very cool visuals like the carpet on the stairs, the crumbled office part and of course the beautiful panorama outside of the building.
I think this is the only map in the set that doesn't represent a paritcular kind of place or function despite introducing the RL into gameplay.
But thats not a point of criticism cause the map works well this way, gameplay is enjoyable, still on the easy side but with first signs of the chaos we will encounter a lot more in later maps.

Max for Map04

[durian]

Map 04: Blood and Rockets

Ah, some open space! This was a welcome change of pace - some bigger monsters and some bigger weapons to shoot them with. I'm enjoying the bite-size nature of maps, whereby the small extent of the space, and much of the layout, is more or less evident as soon as you start. I'm also enjoying that the entrance also always serves as the exit, simplifying DOOM's traditional gameplay in way which works nicely. The action was pretty breezy, as mouldy provides the player with the RL early on, and a steady stream of rockets. The trap with the imps and the zombiemen was fun, as I positioned myself behind the incoming zombies, chaingunning through them to the imps, and so keeping my ammo topped up with all the dropped clips. Fun caco swarm near the end, which nearly finished me when I rocketed myself in the face, but otherwise there's more than enough health around to cope with everything. Very nice use of CEIL5_1, and the broken floor was great.

[scifista42]

MAP04 - "Blood and Rockets" has one of my favourite music tracks in the megawad, there's something catchy about the melody. To the map: It has a weaker concept idea compared to maps before and after it (not really a complaint), but gameplay is fun, more so than in previous maps. With revvies and zombie/imp/cacodemon swarms, challenge amount leaps up and I've actually died 2 times. I should have managed it, though, there's even a free soulsphere. The cacodemons flying in through the building's windows are a nice touch. The theme [corrupted lobby] works, and the central area indeed makes the map look and feel more spacious and "better". Nice details, good structure. I've enjoyed it from pistol start.

[dobu gabu maru]

MAP03: Perhaps Going Down's greatest strength is that you're unlikely to play the same type of map back to back. From a pistol-powered opener and then an old fashioned window shootout, we arrive at a clausterphobic punch-happy affair. It's been some time since I played it so I can't remember how certain fights hold up, but I recall being plenty amused with most of the encounters.

MAP04: This is the first map that begins to treat the player like the punching bag mouldy sees them as, thanks to a healthy use of revs on UV. The RL also gets its first use here, and due to the tight nature of most of these maps it can be as dangerous to you as it is to the demons (especially if you're trigger happy and blast the cacos coming out of the window).

[cannonball]

MAP04 - "Blood and Rockets"
Fun map, took a few attempts to figure out how to play certain areas of the map, but nothing too unfair. The caco swarm was a nice touch, I had plenty of fun with the rockets.

[mouldy]

Map04 - rocket playground

http://www.mediafire.com/download/pup1ilpiz612vu9/gd-mouldy-04.lmp

Two of the best things you can do with a rocket launcher is pop swarms of cacos and squish corridors full of minions, so I made sure there was opportunity to do both in this map. There are 2 prongs to the horseshoe mezzanine, which you can deal with in any order. Going left gives you a rocket launcher, which would seem to be the best option to take initially, but for the chaotic demo above I decided to try going right first, and it works pretty well as long as you know you can jump out the window to escape the teleporting hordes.

[The_MártonJános]

MAP04: Blood and Rockets

Funny fact that I died less in this map than in the previous. Maybe I'm more accustomed of ranged fights and open spaces, the opportunity for both given in the central area. I could finally unleash my potential in circlestrafing, fooling a crowd of Cacos before the final showdown. ;)

Flooding monsters did could gang around me a couple of times, and the door opening rapidly, releasing a Revenant caused one of my couple deaths. Still no sweat, though: after I grabbed da RL, shit turned opposite in a split second, yo. Some hitscanner mothafuckas could still get my ass sometimes, but those bitch niggas were soon fucked to gibs, yo.

Visuals are eye-pleasing as usual. I'm really digging the layered stair texturing, to mention one for instance (even if with the sideways look of the stair steps it isn't that nice). The level progression has a nice touch when an entire metal bar sinks down to throw you onto the Revenant ambush door mentioned above. Still can't really understand that strange computer room, but let it be the biggest fault.

Supply is well-balanced, gameplay is mildly lethal to beginners like me. Don't get yourself dragged along like a rapid rocket, like me. Instead, progress leisurely and eliminate hitscanners as soon as they show up in your eyesight, like me. After dying fourth time, like me.

Next time comes the level with my favourite tune in the entire levelset. Good night, folks.

[Veinen]

More casual maxes, maps 04 and 05

Map04: Blood And Rockets

Fun map! I like how the map starts slow and innocnet enough but after a bit of switch pressing it just starts getting more and more chaotic as baddies start pouring in from every direction. It's pretty easy still though as the RL is freely available and the hordes of monsters comprise of mostly small fry cannon fodder with a few mid-tiers sprinkled here and there. Caco swarms are usually cool and the one here is no exception; works nicely with the layout that allowes them to use their mobility effectively. Visually it's nice like all mouldy maps. Highlight in that department would be the carpeted stairwell.

Map05: Time Warp

Basically what I said about map04 applies here as well. Nice map, fun combat with the chaoticity increasing as you go yet nothing overly difficult. This one is much more flat though as there are no major height variations here. There's enough on the "dark" side that it affects the flying projectiles and the gameplay a bit though so I definitely wouldn't consider this as a problem. The gimmick here is this Wormhole theme of light/dark side of the map and it's pretty well executed. Figuring out the switch & platfrom is a little puzzley but it IS clever so I can live with that. Didn't really find a very good time to use the secret invuln but perhaps there is one after all.

[mouldy]

Veinen said:

More casual maxes, maps 04 and 05

Nice times, especially on map05.

[Da Werecat]

MAP02: "Evil Admin"

Sector toilets!

The main challenge of this map came from the ammo shortage. Especially after I had to shoot a bunch of slowly teleporting imps that weren't happy about me destroying the only sludge dispenser on the entire floor. Oh, and I missed a lot. I'm sure that the zombies on unclimbable tables were placed there specifically to mock me with their weapons.

The offices were nice. The music was fitting. The painting was ugly.

FDA

[Demon of the Well]

Cell talking street, now I've seen everything.

Map 03 -- Crawl Space - 100% Kills / No secrets
Ah, the executive lounge floor. Weird that it's not the top floor, but whatever. Weird how the different Doom tropes effect each of us, too. I'm at a point now where I don't care if I ever see Dead Simple or any of its offspring ever again, but one Doom tradition that still fills me with childish delight is being given a chainsaw and/or berserk pack and being told to go to town on a herd of pigs (and/or stealth-swine). As such, this map works for me, even if it is really just a roto-rooter simulator masquerading as Doom. I'm not really a fan of the caged Baron, but other than that I think mouldy does a pretty good job of keeping the pace lively considering the very limited choice in combat setups that the pipes/ducts setting affords him--some nice pinky-pincer traps in there, and a couple of cacodemons who make decent ushers. The handful of zombies and other malcontents in the two lounges are sometimes annoying, firing through the grates while there are demons in your way, at other times are comically irrelevant (read: infighting themselves down to near extinction in a matter of moments), and cleaning them up at the end is easily the least interesting part of the map, and yet I'm glad they're there all the same, simply because it's so amusing to hear zombies angrily cry "WAH?!?" as you casually saw off their legs through the grate. Also dig the spiderdemon who exists for literally no reason other than to be telefragged seconds after its formal introduction. The two-path aspect also adds some light replayability (I prefer to go left first), although by its nature it does make any obvious maxroute for the map considerably less smooth/efficient.

Aesthetically it's not exactly the flashiest thing in the world what with being 2-3 rooms and a bunch of airducts and all, but the intricate construction and brief views outside make it feel like one of the most fully-realized and believable locations in the whole first episode. I admit I'm one of those soulless philistines who doesn't really care for most of the music in the set (just too silly for me), but the track here seems to fit somehow, what with this being one of the most absurd maps in a set full of them. The humorous little touches to the decor that define many of the more 'mundane' settings in the set are in full force here, as well--many people have mentioned the portrait of Hitler (complete with votive candles!), but what really gets me is that demonic marble relief that greets you as soon as the elevator doors open....I like to imagine it was there long before Hell started bubbling up from below. ;)

Map 04 -- Blood and Rockets - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
This floor is being remodeled in a vaguely Caligulan fashion (the west wing is still very much a work in progress). We could spend our time wondering where all of the blood in the fountain is being piped in from (hint: we'll get there eventually ;) ), or we could do something more wholesome and constructive with our time, such as sending shell after explosive shell screaming into the clammy, slovenly ranks of this year's HellCon attendees. At least, that's the general idea, if the map's title is any indication. It's not quite as straightforward as it may seem, though. Just like in map 03, you get a choice of itinerary, as both the east and west wings are open to you at the outset, and you can also pitch a penny or two into the fountain if you like, but there's nothing down there at first except for some pinkies and a berserk pack (which is fun but not particularly useful in this particular map). Unlike in map 03, though, where either direction works out to be more or less analogous in terms of what stuff you get and what kinds of battles you face, going to the east wing first and having to fight a bunch of stuff without the rocket launcher (which is at the end of the west wing, naturally) differs drastically from the alternative option. There are enough bullets about that you can get through the flood of imps and zombies here with a bit of elbow grease, but suffice to say that coming here with the RL ready to go is a lot more fun and efficient--so do that!

Incidentally, the floods of teleporting monsters, which start to ramp up here to a more robust degree after their relatively light introduction in the previous maps, are a device we will see time after time after time in the mapset, so it's best to take stock of how this kind of encounter plays out here and now while it's still early days in a relatively simple environment, because things will get quite a bit more frantic later. Here, the biggest tactical concern is actually ammo management of all things--even if you do the west wing first and thus face the teleporting hordes in the east wing with the rocket launcher, your supply of rockets at the start of the encounter will be too low (especially if you missed the secret) to actually see you through it, so you need to be decisive and cut a swath through the ranks so you can reach the rocket cases in the initially sealed southern chamber. Later on there's a cacoswarm, but by that point you should easily have enough momentum to handle them--if anything, I think the swarm needs to be slightly bigger (mainly in the form of sending in more flankers from the east/west windows) to be really effective, but perhaps it's too early for that kind of pressure.

Minor aesthetic issue: there are a number of noticeable misalignments of the ashwall texture in the 'pit' in the western wing.

[The_MártonJános]

Da Werecat said:

I'm sure that the zombies on unclimbable tables were placed there specifically to mock me with their weapons.

That. I forgot to point out.

MAP05: Time Warp
Funny how I remembered the after-YK ambush in the bright section far more vicious than what actually awaited for me after cleaning the other.

Pretty nice concept, derived from Wormhole. The drawback of this map is far more restricted in playing size than the aforementioned is tenfold compensated by the view of the surrounding buildings, most of which are damaged or destroyed in this hopeless and cruel future horizon depicted.

The trip to the base in its form decades later holds various hazards, including larger and more dangerous enemies than those troopers and Imps in the present timeline. Maybe the toxic fluid made Imps mutate into Hellknights, zombiemen into Revenants, Lost Souls into Pain Elementals, etc. Of course there is a bigger challenge, not only you have to fight the vines taking over the ruin, but also, these bastards won't make it your best day in the future. A nifty attack-from-each-angle ambush can easily be expected once monsters on the other sides of the window awaken.

Of course, this progression is not one-sided. Once you visit a hidden sideway corridor, you'll get your first SSG along with your first backpack, making it easier to both stock up and leave the demolished base's residents the same condition as their headquarters are. You're also aided with an Invulnerablity sphere that used to be a backpack as well, before sludge mutation took over it. The major ambush can be withstood once grabbed and ran to it Yellow Key.

There is a mechanism breaking the continoum of time and space for each and every machinery which can be operated in the present and isn't fully destroyed in the future. One of these reveals a secret, whilst the other is a madatory pathway - the main reason it took me ages to finish this level for the first time. Then somehow I could figure the connections out, after that all went like bedwetting.

Somehow the supply generosity of this map, along with the few lucky coincidences, could save my ass from dying even once, though there were close ambushes of all vicious kinds of hellspawn, caught in a close quarter with RL as current weapon, switching took ages, BAM! Suddely Cacodemon hit Hellknight which he didn't take as a good gesture and during their disagreement I could escape without a bruise. Luck of the beginner.

So, I was trying to point out... map is well-equipped as usual. Map is beautiful to look at it as usual. Map is even more realistic when representing shade differences between dimensions, LOOOOOVE IT. And also love the music track. Despite I got lost in this map first time, I've gotten to directly adore this funnily funky, yet dark and sinisterly foreshadowing composition. The absurd dissonance of, like, a bloody circus where clowns' smile is painted with the gore of fellow victims of the unicycle bear.

And it represents mouldy stuff!! (Pun intended, sorry mouldy. :D )

[tourniquet]

5: "Time Warp"

Very interesting concept, i remember that it took some time to figure out how to get the YK when i played it the first time.
It's a cool gimmick that you need to activate several mechanisms to make them accessible on the other side.
Really like the estehtics of the "dark side", crumbled burning buildings, cracked walls, acid and muddy water leaking, beautiful stuff.
The difficulty curve raises again and we encounter PE's for the first time.

Another Max

[mouldy]

tourniquet said:

[b]5: "Time Warp"

Another Max

I see the cacos got stuck outside, that seems to happpen sometimes when I rush from the YK room to grab the invul, not sure why..

Anyway, here's my max for map05:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/ogoqxc6jtzw7bub/gd-mouldy-05.lmp

Veinen still beats me by a few seconds even when I'm rushing my arse off. What can I say about this map? I'd wanted to do a time travel map for ages, I even have a half finished one somewhere which I planned all kinds of time travelly puzzles for. Did the monsters infiltrate the UAC building from the future? Who knows, but it gives you a glimpse of what will happen if you don't kill em all.

[tourniquet]

mouldy said:

I see the cacos got stuck outside, that seems to happpen sometimes when I rush from the YK room to grab the invul, not sure why..

Yeah this actually happened twice, recorded another attempt before and spent around 5 minutes searching for the final 2 monsters until i realized that those 2 were stuck outside.
Well still a sucky time in my second attempt but i'm a rather slow paced player so i'll leave the race up to you and veinen :)

[Veinen]

Heh, well I don't really pay much attention to the final time in my demos since they really are extremely casual playthrough-max types and not much else :p I am a relatively fast player when it's a familiar map though since I have been a somewhat active contributor to the speedrunning community here as well.

Well anyway, I briefly checked out what a real maxrun would look like for map05 due to the discussion here. Here's a bad first-exit maxrun in 3:52, I think something like 3:30-ish and below would be decent for a proper max :)

[mouldy]

Veinen said:

Here's a bad first-exit maxrun in 3:52, I think something like 3:30-ish and below would be decent for a proper max :)

Nice one!

[The_MártonJános]

MAP06: Painframe

This map sure has the most vicous encounters of the Hellspawn so far. Took me quite a while to figure out how to handle each.

Opener fight with the backholding placesteppers was just a brief taste of what this map really holds for us as we progress forward. After that freshener came that even picking up a few Medikits would unleash a horde of those bastards, and how many. That means before we actually enter the "real" battlefield - the one which goes for the red key itself - we get two madatory and two "optional" (doesn't know whether those are unleashed anyway) ambushes in sum, and there go two more fights, each of which are quite tremendous. Once you fight in the "painframe" itself - the red-and-blue checkered arena -, then you get all the main area flooded again with various enemies.

The latter it got me quite a few time to get right. The first few times I just stood onto the middle reactor, shooting blindly at whatever is below, until I either ended up in a lethal crossfire or fell between the mass who then took me apart. Then I got the winner idea - eliminated the Baron of Hell patroling in front of the exit door, got into the lift and pressed the switch turned against the crowd outside rocketing them to their gory death. Eventually I got all of them, so I could continue my way down with my precious 3x100%.

Precisely made fights, requiring both practice and skill (which I don't really have). Again, sometimes just supply saved me from my ass being burned andesit solid. Ammo shortage wasn't really a problem to speak about, and we also get some madatory hazards as the water seether(?) reactor vats on sides of the entrance-exit. Pretty well designed - just as the rest of the map - stock texture usage and combination comes here handy and clever, making perfect use of that CEMENT texture's sides. Also an astonishing revival of the base style, somehow an overpowered style of the Phobos Lab's certain area came to my mind, not valinly. The "painframe" area was well executed, though should have made a different flattexture (CEIL4_1 OR CEIL5_1) for the inbetween lines, flashing caused by shots can reveal and ruin the illusion of this ingenious implementation.

Guess I should see the street again, only from inside.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP04: Blood and Rockets
100% kills, 1/1 secret

A title that's more based off the gameplay than the map setting, though there is a rather large blood fountain in the middle... some sort of lounge area, perhaps? There's two very large hordes here, one being the imp/zombie horde that punishes you for grabbing the soulsphere/rocket ammo, and the caco swarm that guards the blue key. Thankfully, the small quarters makes the cacos less annoying than usual... the zombie horde caught me by surprise, I had switched to berserk fists to take out the imps only to get sandwiched with hitscanners on my rear, forcing me to blast my way out. Grabbing the blue key itself triggers a couple revenants, which seem wholly insulting after the swarms. A decent map, shows a good way to create some difficult encounters with a small amount of space. Definitely more focused on gameplay rather than theme (whereas many of the other levels have been the other direction so far).

MAP05: Time Warp
100% kills, 3/3 secrets

I always liked the concept behind 'Wormhole' from TNT Evilution, and mouldy basically follows suit here, with the level switching between the clean, silvery-tech present day and the dilapidated, vine-ridden future. Thinking laterally across the two levels is mostly just for the secrets, but also for one bit involving the green armor column that I actually figured out by accident. Ammo is given freely, but there's plenty of cacos/hellknights/revs to use it on, and they'll quickly swarm you from god knows where if you don't pay attention.

I will note that I was missing one enemy for a long time, before using IDDT and finding out it was a cacodemon hiding outside the window in the slime-filled yellow key room that only activates if you fire while in the room, easily missable.

[Demon of the Well]

Map 05 -- Time Warp - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
This map looks like it will have a slightly slower pace until you make it into THE FUTURE, where the decaying tower has become a buzzing devil-hive far beyond the mere morgue-truancy ward that it is in the here and now. Naturally, it's hard to include a really robust time-travel mechanic in a Doom map's progression (as opposed to a time-travel theme or setting, which have been done successfully on more than one occasion), but mouldy takes a pretty good stab at it here. It's not just a question of different paths simply being open in the future than are available in the present (or past, depending on perspective)--you have to actually have the presence of mind to create them yourself, which is pretty neat, I think. I remember the first time I played the map the puzzle aspect threw me for a couple of minutes after I finished the first major round of killing, perhaps precisely because the time-warp schtick is most commonly just a purely aesthetic factor in PWADs; but, because the map is so small and has a handful of very conspicuous moving parts, I don't reckon the main puzzle will waylay most players for long enough to bring the mapset's pace to a grinding halt. Bonus points for committing to the idea beyond just setting up the one-off trick for the yellow keycard--two of the three secrets are involved with the time-travel idea as well.

From an action standpoint, this actually plays quite similarly to the previous map, being heavily rocket-centric, and mostly stuffed full of trash monsters and some clusters of gasbags, although there are a decent contingent of knights and revenants in the future. Anyway, rockets, rockets, rockets. You can even use them to handily dispatch the zombie groups in the present-day tower if you ignore them and make for the timegate from the outset, making for a quick and efficient tour. There's an SSG you can get early on, but I didn't fire it a single time on this playthrough, just using the RL and chaingun with a couple of early shotgun blasts and a few knuckle-sandwiches here and there....how often does that happen in most Doom II maps that include the boomstick? Incidentally, the V-sphere Veinen mentioned, while hardly necessary for map completion, can be pretty useful for allowing a demented rocket-punching jamboree after grabbing the yellow key.