The DWmegawad Club plays: Going Down

[Magnusblitz]

MAP14: Secrets and Lies
100% kills, 2/2 "secrets"

And so we start to move out of the UAC building proper and end up in the first of the 'secrets' buried below, a partially excavated alien tomb of some sort. As the title implies, there's a lot of what normally would constitute secrets as requirements to advance - slightly different wall textures, marble heads which aren't usually switches, etc. Of course, once the player gets the general gist, it isn't that bad, since those two are pretty much the main triggers used - if it's a marble head, push/shoot it, if a wall texture changes, push it.

One aspect is that it's not always clear what a trigger will do, and it will often just unleash a storm of hellspawn upon you. I was doing alright until the last main area (with all the rocket boxes) as I decided to run back to the original main room and try to thin out the herds, only to realize there were two AVs in there resurrecting everything. So I had to force my way through the pinkie/hell knight meat to the megasphere since I was low on health and finally take out the AVs from behind. Probably the worst possible way to approach that fight, but ah well.

[cannonball]

MAP15 - "Gladiator"
Pretty basic encounter design, but it's fine as this is very blatant with the colloseum-esque design. Found 3 of the secrets, the small battles killed me whilst the final big wave was a piece of cake.
3/4 secrets fund. Ironically the other secret was very obvious and I'm shocked I didn't find it.

MAP31 - "Stair Crazy"
What can you say, it's a simple stairway crawl through tonnes of monsters. The tense fighting certainly makes up for the restricted design elements though. Also seeing various previous levels was a nice touch.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP15: Gladiator
100% kills, 4/4 secrets

Down into a demon arena, making one wonder just how close of a relationship the UAC and these demons have if there's a staircase going down towards it.

As one might expect, this is some straight-up arena fights, but does have an interesting design point in that it allows you to choose your weapon and which fight comes with it. I ended up doing them in numerical order (SSG -> Chaingun -> RL -> PG), and the fights were actually fairly easy for the most part. The only one that gave me trouble was the plasma gun one (with the spider) so I also activated the main switch that lowers all the spectators into the match too and let them rip into each other. Didn't explore for secrets until later, I suppose the V-sphere would've helped, ah well. And yeah, might be one of the best Doom bathrooms I've seen, heh.

MAP31: Stair Crazy
100% kills, 1/1 secret

So the secret map in a WAD about taking elevators is a staircase. Cute.

Gameplay-wise, it's fairly one-note - monsters ahead and monsters behind, since there isn't much else you can do with a staircase. My favorite section was near the end, since I kept getting forced forward in true mouldy fashion, just making my current situation worse (though I was eventually able to just camp by the yellow door). The attraction for me was being able to look through and see the previous levels... though I was disappointed to find that those grate windows don't exist in the original maps (even though there's probably room to fit them in). Boo :( Anyways, back to the roof...

[Suitepee]

http://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/c/5302753 = part 2 of my playthrough (continuous), covering maps 14-19 plus both secret maps.

As I said in the first part, if this quality keeps up I will be voting this for a Cacoward in 2014 and I don't think I would be the only one.

The variety, the visual detail, the music, the fun gameplay flow.....all still as engrossing as the first 13 maps! There's even a cool sense of continuity/backtracking in the secret maps which was pretty sweet.

I sincerely hope the final third of Going Down is as excellent as the rest, especially since seeing the start of map 20 gave me 'The Seventh Circle' flashbacks....

[Veinen]

14, 15 and 31: http://www.mediafire.com/download/pt42n8p25pak88p/gd14-31_Veinen.zip

Map14: Secrets and Lies

This is a map I didn't really like much when I first played it back when E2 was released. The smaller traps at the beginning seemed awfully dickish without foreknowledge. Now, though, I managed to enjoy the map much more as I could prepare and plan a bit beforehand.

So yeah, the map is very, very trap-heavy and I like to think that these are a little more orchestrated as opposed to the chaotic ones in pretty much all previous maps. The only moments that steer closer to chaos are in the "big" open area with pillars, where some hitscanner start dripping in from the pillars in a somewhat random fashion. All other fights can be quite easily constrained and there's less room, or maybe I should say need, for improvisation. Ironically the demo has a few moments where it looks like I face certain death because I couldn't take a hold of the situation; most noticeably the part where I'm backed into a corner and the HK horde starts creeping too close for comfort. Another weak ass Mastermind sighting; the mighty Pinkie got the best of her this time... Pretty good map overall, although perhaps not the best of the bunch.

Map15: Gladiator

Okay so THIS is an arena map. I imagine the invuln-sphere makes a massive difference since this was pretty much the easiest map thus far with the way I played it. This is an extremely reliable tactic too; I had like three or four tries and I always managed to get back to the elevator with the red key in a decent shape. Then it's just a matter of cleaning up from a point of advantage. The Mastermind gets evaporized in the heat of the battle but the Cyber stands his ground and comes pestering if you can't lure the audience to start pitching in on the good fight. The thing is over very quickly either way. Thumbs up for the amazing bathroom you've crafted here.

Map31: Stair Crazy

Yes, stairs. Interesting gimmick although it heavily limits the possibilities for combat design. Basically what it is here is just introducing enemies in front and in back so that the whole thing doesn't turn into a camping exercise. Nevertheless it's not a very difficult map to conquer. The bigger fights later require some determination on the player's part since the space is quite limited and waiting around ain't gonna work here. I opted to take care of the AVs immediately, sacrificing "some" health in the process, since they would have been a bit of an annyoance otherwise. Plus, the alcove is a good spot for the cowardly to thin the herd a bit. Also dig the sights to previous levels. Decent map I think.

[durian]

Map 13 - Deep Trouble

Eugh. This map. I had to give up playing this one last night after one too many frustrating botched attempts. I like the concept behind the shifting staircase, and it's impressive given the quantity of moving parts, but I found working my way down to be a real trudge. This is in marked contrast to the ambush at the bottom, which was lots of fun, but then - numerous times - by the time I'd made it down there I'd be too bugged out by the shenanigans on the stairway that I'd handle it like a lemon. Anyway, played again this evening and made it through in one piece - phew. I really like the large asymmetrical brickwork in the hallway containing the (fixed!) elevator - that whole area is very nicely done.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP32: Roof Rage
100% kills, 1/1 secret

Back to the rooftop, this time with a gazillion more tough enemies. The first part of this map is probably one of the weakest-designed setpieces, I think... it's far too easy to just sit back in the opening elevator and just take out the zombies/imps one-by-one as they teleport or walk towards the player. Unlike many of the other maps so far, there's no reason to leave this safe cubbyhole, and plenty of reasons to not (for example, this wall doesn't protect you from the Spider Mastermind, even though it seems like it should, likely because Doomguy has his eyes in his chest).

So, after the drudgery of ending the lives of a hundred zombies and imps and giving the Mastermind a blast of BFG juice, its off to zip around the outer buildings, dealing with a huge revenant/hellknight/cyberdemon brigade, as well as the requisite 99 Red Balloon army. This part is fun - dodging basically takes the form of teleporting from roof to roof, but you need to be quick, because it's not always enough (especially from those magic tracking revenant missiles). As usual, didn't hunt for secrets until after everything was dead, so te V-sphere went to waste, ah well.

[mouldy]

Suitepee said:

http://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/c/5302753 = part 2 of my playthrough (continuous), covering maps 14-19 plus both secret maps.

Shame i missed the live stream, but I just watched the whole thing, very entertaining. I'll try and be there for the final part if I can.

So where were we...

Map15 - the arena

http://www.mediafire.com/download/bh63vm9wtbn9579/gd-mouldy-15.lmp
Of course, the best way to play this map is grab the secret invul and press all the switches at once, and its not too difficult as long as you aren't unlucky. Lord Cyber gives you the thumbs down, but ends up being your buddy, which becomes a recurring theme in these maps. I hate fighting cybers, but I like using them as volatile allies.

Map31 - stairs and stairs and stairs

http://www.mediafire.com/download/zvdubsedib8ssob/gd-mouldy-31.lmp
This map in particular gives me trouble without saving, mainly because of the archvile bastards at the end, but then I hit upon the tactic of just rushing in there and blasting them straight away. Pretty simple map with unsophisticated gameplay, I was more interested in the scenario than the fighting, but its a secret map so I'm allowed to go a bit whacky. I'm wondering if I can make it so the imp at the end actually falls into the toilet when you shoot him..

Map32 - the rooftop warzone

http://www.mediafire.com/download/lfk9r874fcv63kw/gd-mouldy-32.lmp
Its possible to play this map slowly and carefully, but yet again the best way is to summon everything at once and cut your way through the chaos. Its a fairly reliable method, and if you know the secret invul you have the option of exiting the map in a jiffy, though if you want to max it I think you will have to hang around to get the cacos infighting because I'm not sure there is enough ammo to cope with it all yourself. I haven't watched Veinen's demo yet but I am pretty sure he will have beaten my leisurely 5 minute time here. (edit: he's not done this map yet, my mistake)

[Demon of the Well]

Map 12 -- Dead End - 107% Kills / No secrets
A map purpose-built to overwhelm an off-balance player--everything is staged so that the battle scenario snowballs as the player stumbles around from trap to trap, to the point where there are so many demons active at once that it could be difficult to regain control of the situation. Insidiously, it's also not the kind of thing that one could simply learn by rote by eventually--mouldy's randomization mechanism means that there are numerous different significant variations on the map's early monster reveals (three possible groups that teleport into the central chamber as soon as you drop down, two variations on the traps in each side chamber, etc.), which can make a surprisingly large impact on the scenario's initial flavor and difficulty (especially from a pistol-start, and especially if you play fast/aggressive). I was lucky tonight (which is good, because apparently I'm under some kind of voodoo curse, I'm just awful at Doom today for whatever reason) and got the zombies/gasbags group, which is probably the softest possible start, as they didn't get in the way much while I dashed around collecting weapons and activating switches. As mouldy surmises, if you do this you can get a lot of the enemies to kill each other off, although survival tends to require eliminating a percentage of the population fast enough as to still have room to move when the final cacos and such make their appearance. The central settling pool is actually a pretty good dodging space (at least once the barrels are cleared out of it), and assuming there are no arch-viles on the loose it's not difficult to stay alive by scampering around out here, but if luck of the draw deigns that the wrong traps spring at the wrong time, you can come to a stalemate and be gradually chipped to death if monsters are clogging up the side chambers and walkways, where nearly all of the ammo and artifacts are found.

Oddly, the optional arch-viles who guard the plasma rifle are potentially the map's biggest threat, as if you wander up there and trigger them at the wrong time (e.g. later on when there are a lot of corpses and then end-level monsters are starting to appear) they can be a truly formidable force. The earlier you get up there the better, although on a blind run it's possible you may not notice the area has become accessible until several minutes after the fact, as it is counterintuitively tied in with the activation of a couple of the side chamber traps. Once you've learned this, though, it's simple to go up there and liquidate them without having to worry about anything else, which highlights the flipside of this map's personality--it's harmless as a blind kitten if you know how it works, and use that knowledge to play against the intended design, taking each trap one at a time in leisurely sequence. Not as fun, but sure is effective from a win/loss standpoint, anyway. Assuming you don't metagame it, though, this map is emblematic of Going Down's overall gameplay style--chaotic, manic, and uptempo, but also chock-full of goodies and other player-aids that allow you make a metric ton of mistakes and still manage to win just so long as you don't get yourself irretrievably cornered.

Map 13 -- Deep Trouble - 101% Kills / No secrets
A very cool level, like the majority of Going Down's maps it's thematically quite conceptual, but this one is also heavily conceptual from a combat standpoint as well: except for the free-for-all at the end, all of the action here takes place within the constraints of a railed-in spiral staircase which loops along the circumference of the large central cistern. Essentially, it's one long turkey-run, and it's lousy with blood, viscera, the maimed, and the dead by the time you manage to escape it, so persistent is Hell's onslaught hereabouts.

I think this kind of thing really underscores just how much the devil's in the details when we talk about gameplay setups that generally do and don't work well in Doom. After all, what is the majority of this map but one simple corridor (albeit a gently spiraling one) where at any given moment what you're likely doing is is holding down the fire button to bore through scads of meat that's more or less consistently deployed to approach directly along one narrow path from one set direction? It's just "shooting monsters in front of you", to a tee, but it works really well here, I think. This style of action feels like a very pronounced change of pace (if not much of a shift in overall intensity) at this point in the mapset; its extreme simplicity and long-but-narrow path is refreshing in contrast to the compact battle-boxes that defined so many of the previous maps (and several of those to come, incidentally), and so it comes off as a confident, idiosyncratic concept rather than as a result of uninspired progression/combat design (which is really what most of us are referring to when we play the "monsters in front of you" card, I reckon). While simplistic, the action is also paced very well--there's this constant seesawing of momentum between Doomguy and the demons here, with each side turning the tables on the other several times before the action spills out into the arena-pit finale. Finally, I reckon it also helps immensely that the corridor itself is disguised very well from an aesthetic standpoint--it's not just a hallway for the sake of it, the constricted playspace makes perfect thematic sense here, and its looping nature and the view out into the central cistern adds a lot of visual verve to the scene, at one point even serving a gameplay function when stuff from way down on the spiral starts shooting up at you if you hold still too long. Perhaps the central space could've hosted more cacos at some point during the descent (cool that they can fly over the railing up high, though), but for the most part the map does a fine job wringing a lot of mileage out of this very straightforward setup.

Speaking of 'straightforward', the final battle is just that, a moshpit whose only real tactical wrinkle is the steps it takes to keep you from either camping in a hidey-hole or just endlessly circling around the periphery while the majority of the opposition infights itself to death. There is no truly dastardly monster use here (e.g. no arch-viles, no pain elementals, no cyberdemon); it's a test of nerve to see if you've got the guts to make good use of that rocket launcher while stuff swarms you from all directions. If you have, you'll be fine. Incidentally, this fight's back on form in regards to the general rule of thumb about infinitely-tall actors in PWAD fights--while map 10 was actually harder without infinity-tallness in effect, this setup's a little trickier under classic settings, as high-floating cacos can more easily block you as you try to scamper around at various points in the fight. Still quite manageable as long as you mount a decisive offense.

Good thing that poor imp finished most of his task before Doomguy happened along, or the adventure would end right here....

[Joshy]

Thought I'd give this club a crack and play this.

Difficulty- ultraviolent, port- prboomplus, pistol-start each level.

Map01: A pretty neat start, I liked the city surroundings. The gameplay was hitscan-frenzy, nearly died since I was pretty careless to start with. A good indication that this WAD won’t be messing around.

Map02: Cool office map. Was getting short on ammo and realised I totally missed the beserk pack. Fun usage of the chaingun here.

Map03: First death here, that close quarters baron was pretty nasty. Fun Tyson map. I liked how the gameplay was designed so the demons were the main danger.

Map04: The rev/rocketlauncher trap series was neat. The usage of cacodemons here is commendable. So far, this map is probably the neatest looking. I like the simple architecture (there’s not a lot to work with when designing exclusively indoor rooms) and the detailing here melds in quite nicely.

Map05: That green armour crusher was just nasty, heh. I really like the time-warp concept (I reckon time gimmicks in doom is always a great thing) and the green armour platform is a great part of this. The trap after grabbing the yellow key wasn’t very threatening though, was able to rocket a bunch of them through the window. Still, good stuff.

BUG: Not sure if this is fixed but I was stuck at sector 148 with no way out- door wasn't open (I checked doombuilder, not sure what’s supposed to happen here)

Don't know if it would sound like a compliment coming from a deaf guy but I thought the music suited the maps, kind of like a nifty muzak for elevators in doom.

[Steve D]

Fell behind again. I actually played these maps ages ago, so time to start the write-ups.

Map03 – Crawl Space – Kills – 98, Items – 100, Secret – 100. End Health – 98, Armor 128. Death Count – 6

Pretty high death count for a relatively easy Tyson map, but then again, my keypad-movement layout makes me duck soup for this encounter type. I also played more aggressively than usual for Tysoning, and I did some stupid things, like trying to kill the Baron. Died twice there, then once to Queen Spidey's chaingun, once to HKs after telefragging Queen Spidey, once to the HKs at the end, and once to Pinkies, the only death for which I feel a deep and profound shame. That one came before I had the Zerk.

All that said, I enjoyed this map more than the usual Tyson experience. I found the layout and structure clever, with plenty of giddy-up traps to keep me on my toes. It wasn't the prettiest map in the set, but it still offered a nice view of the city outside, like a glimpse of hope to one trapped in a nightmare of air vents populated by hungry demons.

The library rooms had some sharp wall angles and free-standing detail Things that I got stuck on. Wasn't thrilled about that, but overall, this was an effective map with more of the goofyass music I'm finding so enjoyable. One personal regret is that I didn't write down my end-ammo, though there wasn't much of it. ;D

Map04 – Blood And Rockets – Kills – 100, Items – 100, Secret – 100. End Health – 100, Armor 102. Death Count – 6. Shells – 29, Bullets – 55, Rockets – 25

This map was a blast! Hitscanners everywhere! I love me my hitscanners, and they repaid that love with a blizzard of lead that accounted for most of my 6 deaths. When they didn't kill me directly, they encouraged me to flee, screaming like a maniac, right into hordes of angry meat. I died at least twice trying to reach that batch of rocket-boxes after the hordes teleported in, and kept teleporting, and kept teleporting. That was a really cool way to keep the pressure on. I finally decided to escape that room and go into the central area where I had room to run, but the horde followed me down that nicely-carpeted staircase. It was like being at some kind of debutante's ball, but instead of good-looking girls coming down the stairs, it was a bunch of ugly, demonic thugs. Very cool!

Before reaching that mid-point of the map, I really enjoyed the collapsed-office area with the Chaingunner platform. One of the most effective traps came after I killed him and jumped to his platform, only to get Caco-spit on my back from a tomato that appeared, like, right now. That was amazingly immediate, and made a single Caco much more uncomfortable to deal with than usual. Very well-done.

By contrast, the final Caco horde was very weak if you killed everything sequentially. If you activate that horde while still fighting monsters in the rocket-box area, it's quite intimidating, but if you've killed everything already, it becomes casual clean-up. The blue key trap was so predictable that I had my RL out and pointing to exactly where I expected the Revenants to appear, as they did. I killed both of them while standing on the fountain.

In spite of losing steam after the big teleport battle, this map had so much action earlier that it's become my favorite up to this point. I also found it quite good-looking in its kind of oldskool level of detail. It demonstrates that a simple but solid layout, with modest but tasteful detail, can become an aesthically pleasing and memorable map when paired with clever and savage fight design.

[The_MártonJános]

Double shoot! It's secret map time.

MAP31: Stair Crazy
For the very god sake of this map, today I doubled the stair-climbing routine jog of mine, confronting with random residents of the hostel, as if they were Zombiemen, Imps, Revenants, Hellknights, etc. None of them took this as a gentle act towards them, but they sure helped me practice what awaits me in the map.

Quite narrow and congested, and if someone shoots a projectile in the middle of the straight stairway, it sure will hit you. I took advantage of every corner and other kind of hiding spot, but still, risky situations made me consume each and every resource one's able to find throughout the entire map. My personal favourite moment is when on the dark blue carpet stairs near the very end, it gets literally flooded by various and yet an Archvile continues to warp into the sidecages. Enjoyed every moment, cause I love the uncertainity of sudden death in any second.

The sometimes overwhelming combat goes along with the usual nice views, I could recognize parts of maps 12 (secret place), 11, 08, 03 and 02. Even though it remains a mistery how I could bypass e.g. the MAP06 generator room - seemingly no place both the stairway and it can fit besides -, but it's a fairly minor issue. As I could see in the very last sequence of battle, some of the surrounding buildings have been damaged - this sure brings MAP05's prediction forth.

Oh, and a distinct elevator for going atop?! Sure I'll take it.

MAP32: Roof Rage
Seems like we're revisiting MAP01 again.

The elevator activated in the previous level brings us to a brown building which used to be an ambush and partially supply room. Now nothing can be found in, besides our very existence. Let's just go out and explore the long time no see overground, shall w-

Oh. It seems like some unfriendly creatures made serious damage to the building on intention I suppose. Once it was just some Zombies and Imps trying to corner me, now it became a lethal warzone, the vicious crossfire of all the most powerful creatures escaping from Hell and invading Earth. This. Must. Be. Stopped. Right. Now.

The Spider Mastermind encounter with a few troopers around is just the first taste of what appears further. After killing the eight-legged superb intelligence, comes about half of the real challenge, the surrounding rooftops are being invaded by strong distant-fighter enemies, who are advised to be taken down with Cyberdemon-last. Killing aforementioned creature will activate the teleport gateway to collect all tools and equipment required to proceed.

Once you touch the ground with the Cyb's corpse, two another do appear on the main building, along with an intense swarm of Revenants and Hellknights. Furthermore, Cacodemons start to escape some buildings, and Jesus how many. This Caco-flood reminds me of Mock 2's MAP08 in many terms. Ahem! There are two options to survive this incredible mass of invasion.

First: you go around just a few times and then stick to the outer perimeter of the first teleporter - to which the raising-lowering sector brings you -, look at the automap's monster count and see how intensely they get killed caused by infighting. Then take down Cacos, 90% of which will survive, because they always follow you in air, therefore they won't be involved that easily. This is the pussy method I used, after several attempts failed to knock the entire bagage out.

Here comes second: be more aware of what the map holds to you, explore secret - the only tan crate on one of the rooftops -, grab the Invulnerablity and take things into your hand, given you now possess the entire mapset's first Big Fucking Gun Nine Thousand, oh yes. Half a minute is more than enough to take care of all the shit that comes to your screen with this and the required ammunition given.

Wow, super intense and quick process of going down is experienced right here, right now! We'll see each other again, depending on whether my neck breaks or not.

[tourniquet]

16: "Black Mass"

First of all amazing music, this track is my second favorite in the set.
The Map itself is compact slaughter at it's best, waves of enemies out of all directions, nasty viles a Cyb and even an SM, all packed into a beautiful scenery.
Really like how the the elevator shaft breaks through ceiling and floor.

As usual not worth watching...

[Ribbiks]

Joshy said:

Don't know if it would sound like a compliment coming from a deaf guy but I thought the music suited the maps, kind of like a nifty muzak for elevators in doom.

this sentence made my head asplode. only partially deaf?

[cannonball]

MAP32 - "Roof Rage"
To be honest, this map just didn't do it for me. There i too much going on to play this in any kin of way apart from cautious and slow. Even imps and zombiemen can be a real pain when trying to deal with monsters that can only be taken down with the big guns. Most notably the cyber. The map got a lot better after I took out the first cyber though.

[durian]

Map 14 - Secrets and Lies

Mostly good feelings about this one - some brutal traps, that reminded me of Plutonia insofar as they tend to use only small clusters of monsters but to deadly effect, e.g. the rev / lost soul / AV set up could be lethal (though, perhaps less so without infinitely tall actors). It took me an untold number of deaths before I realised that it really was worth taking a detour and going for the plasma rifle on the ledge - even though there's one given away elsewhere - not only because it significantly bolsters the ammo supply, which really comes in handy later when dealing with the final round of cacos, but also because it gives you an opportunity to take out the arachnotrons and the chaingunner, which otherwise pose an additional unwanted threat, and generally get in the way, later on in the large hall of the last big trap. The latter was surprisingly easy though, once ammo supplies were more balanced. Two things I didn't like: the two AVs that come in last take way too long to get there - holds things up, insofar as there's some motivation to wait and get the jump on them - and the Mastermind was kinda tacked on; not really sure why she's there. Otherwise, a fun, clever, brutal map.

Some alignment issues here:

Spoiler

And I thought this was dead classy.

Spoiler

[mouldy]

Map16 - the obligatory hell-cathedral

http://www.mediafire.com/download/j17a944j8i9s2bj/gd-mouldy-16b.lmp
I'm sure its possible to hit both switches and unleash everything fairly quickly (hitting both switches triggers both the rocket-ammo traps as well), but after several suicidal attempts I decided to take things a little more methodically. Its still a good map for charging around recklessly though. I originally had 4 switches to press but that was just padding it out and overcomplicating things. As it is I was rushing around in this demo and it still took 9 minutes, which is a bit longer than I intended for these maps, but I just couldn't help pouring in more monsters. If you stand in front of the altar and turn right you may notice that one of the gargoyles has better hearing than his colleagues. There is no reason for this other than my own amusement.

[Joshy]

Ribbiks said:

this sentence made my head asplode. only partially deaf?

I'm profoundly deaf actually, but learnt to hear well with whatever I could hear with my hearing aids (my brain is very familiar with noises/sounds so recognising stuff isn't hard really and which is why people assume I have more hearing than most deaf people, they actually have more hearing than I do, I just 'know' how to 'use' it). I had a cochlear implant put in my left ear recently, and it is certainly an improvement over what I could hear previously.
___________________________________________________________

Map06: Pretty frantic map. I’m not sure about the texturing though, it definitely looks visually busy, but the prevalent usage of blue flats, lite textures and shawn is certainly not my cup of tea.

Map07: A neat challenging map. My strategy was to kill the arachs first, then kill the mancubuses 2nd, blast away the imps, grab the weapons and infight as much as possible.

Map08: Ooh, I liked this one. The central room really reminded me of Plutonia Map01 (Congo)’s crate room with the archvile and the SSG. Someone said that this was a cross of Hunted and Containment Room, I think that’s a very apt description.

Map09: This is a very pretty map, very nice lighting and texturing. Definitely a very brutal map if you don’t know what happens around you. I managed to save at a point where the cacos were still alive while the other traps were sprung- an impossible feat to overcome. So I started again from scratch and attempted to destroy the monsters as they come ASAP, it was easier this time but still quite a challenge considering its chaotic nature.

Map10: Nice map. It seems pretty noticeable by now that Mouldy is pretty good at cheese-proofing traps, heh.

I find it quite admirable that people can have a lot to say for each levels. I can only think in very limited terms- did I like it or not? Heh.

[Demon of the Well]

Map 14 -- Secrets and Lies - 110% Kills / 100% Secrets
This one's a little nastier than I remember it being (probably doesn't help that I haven't stopped my current spate of being horrible at Doom yet)--seems like there are a few more arch-viles now than there were back when I first played it, anyway, most notably the guy who pops out near the SSG. Anyway, that's the name of the game here: traps, traps, and more traps, although how 'trappy' some of them are is a bit questionable, given that one tends to start expecting them in due course. The marquee concept here is plainly that pretty much the entire map progression unfolds via finding secrets; in fact, both of the 'official' secrets are part of the mandatory route, where those items that could pass as the real secrets (e.g. the first plasma rifle) are unmarked. I imagine that someone somewhere out there is going to have a problem with this on principle alone, but honestly it's not too difficult to find your way around. The most obscure bits (relatively speaking) come very early on; past a certain point the reveals of and segues into new areas start bleeding directly into one another in short order, so it's difficult for me to imagine anyone truly being hopelessly lost or stumped here (outside of some willful obtuseness, I mean)--the real threat is going to be the packs of monsters that persistently burst out of all manner of unlikely cracks and crevices to attack at point-blank range. Incidentally, the secrets concept aside, this map's most defining trait is its nonlinearity (or bilinearity, at the least). After the first fight, depending on which secrets you uncover you'll progress through the map along one of two main paths that play out within inches of one another--indeed, a few of the fights can be experienced from more than one angle in this way. Fortunately, being on one path doesn't preclude you from going back to explore the other, although certain points of interchange can be quite dangerous if done in certain sequences.

As aforesaid, the majority of the fights take place at point-blank range, which makes them pressuring in spite of their simplicity. Unfortunately, the most complicated (in terms of staging, I mean) encounter usually seems to fall flat: the southwest marble vault has four strange marble pillars that periodically rise into the ceiling to allow monsters to beam in underneath them, only to lower again momentarily. There is no immediate pressure here, as the monsters are all very weak (zombiemen, imps, the occasional shotgunner) and they tend to arrive at a slow trickle. Naturally, this tends to entice the player to slaughter them in turn as soon as they appear; naturally, being killed where they stand as soon as they appear, many of them end up being crushed into paste by the relevant pillar when it lowers again. Eventually, an arch-vile shows up....when I first played the map I intuited what was going to happen and got pretty worried about it, but in truth the room's cramped enough that just firing rockets (of which there is a huge stockpile mere steps away from this site) at the vile when he appears tends to handily vaporize any ghosts he might manage to create with very little effort on the player's part. I do like the little nip in the nail where a second vile shows up in the same place on a significant delay (read: when the player may have stopped paying attention to that room), but he and his ghosts really aren't much more threatening, again a function of the cramped play area and plentiful rocket ammo. Come to think of it, I'm not even positive the ghost scenario is what's really intended here...in ZDooM (which I think mouldy has said he uses in his own leisure play) that behavior is disabled by default IIRC, so maybe just a straightforward monster-rezzing scenario was intended? Whatever the case, the teeth just don't seem to be there in this one, but perhaps I've yet to move through the map in the particular sequence where it would become really problematic, perhaps if the caco-cluster right beforehand succeeds in pushing one into that area?

Anyway, that's all a relatively minor complaint. For the most part I think the map works well--one of the things that makes Going Down as satisfying as it is is that those maps that have simpler gameplay are often nicely compensated for by an interesting theme or progression gimmick, whereas those with a less unusual theme are often host to some of the set's best raw combat setups.

Map 15 -- Gladiator - 114% Kills / 100% Secrets
Despite the fearsome setup, I think this is actually one of the easiest maps in the second episode. Played conventionally, it posits something of a test of endurance in the form of a 'choose your fate' sample platter of small encounters, with a different group of monsters attached to each of the weapons in the arena. The arena is small enough that it's possible to lose control of the situation (at least in some of the set encounters) if you are too indecisive or casual in your offense, but generally speaking you have more than enough space and everything else you need to win each successive fight as long as you can avoid too many costly mistakes. And that's the thing--mouldy's item placement style tends to allow a lot of costly mistakes, and so as long as you aren't getting your ass categorically kicked and having to use a bunch of the generous supply of resources (two soulspheres, a blue armor, a berserk pack, extra medikits, and of course the large stockpile of ammo you enter the arena with) in every little fight, you should have enough left to see you through by the time things start to get a bit more real later on. Even here, you've got a lot of tools and options at your disposal--the ability to leave the area and head back for the elevator as long as you can muster the strength to cleave through a cloud of imp groupies, a nice clean restroom (albeit with some tacky decor) where Doomguy can 'powder his nose' to regain some stamina, and of course a formidable tagteam partner in Emperor Glutius Maximus, who is all too eager to unleash his rocket-powered clothesline on the whole mess of infernal jobbers that eventually start crowding the pit.

And all that's not even accounting for the secret V-sphere, which can essentially trivialize the map if used efficiently. Doing this may require a little bit of initial trial and error--it helps to know that none of the weapon-ambush monsters will appear until you've fired a shot, for example--but it's not a difficult sequence to execute, and allows you to pretty much totally ignore all of the combat that's supposed to happen in the arena, giving you the option of either just leaving or letting the situation mostly clear itself up before heading back in to finish any survivors (which you'll need to do if you want to reach the secret exit, at least). Honestly, I think the V-sphere may be a little too powerful here; that is to say, I reckon it's available a mite too early, especially considering it's a pretty obvious secret as well. Oh, well....speedsters will appreciate it, I'm sure. Other than that, I also don't like that it's possible to hit the switch on the redstone post that the skull key sits on before its marble faceplate has lowered, but for the record this is a purely aesthetic complaint--hitting it early won't break the map, won't even really change the basic progression sequence, near as I can tell.

Map 31 -- Stair Crazy - 106% Kills / 100% Secrets
This is even more of a straightforward kill-tunnel than the earlier parts of map 13 were. No doubt it's violent, but there's not a whole lot to say about most of it....space is very tight here, both in terms of lateral dodging room and the persistently close-range deployment of most monsters, so it's very much a game of momentum. Really lean on that trigger, beat back the stream of miscreants, don't lose too much ground (especially where the arch-viles are concerned), and watch out for pincer traps--that they aren't difficult to anticipate doesn't make them any less hazardous. The most interesting scenario is the pair of nurse-maid viles that hang out behind some mesh screens in the stairway's upper reaches. Exploiting Doomphysics, they are able to extend their healing touch into the stairwell, reviving any cadavers that happened to come to rest too close to the lefthand wall as a result of the demonic Pickett's charge that immediately precedes their arrival. Decisive action (and/or foreknowledge) handily neutralizes this threat, but many players are liable to be blindsided by the revived monsters from farther down in the stairwell sneaking up from behind while they battle the teleporting stream from farther up--a very clever trick, if a meanspirited one.

That being said, the real draw of this map is simply its thematic concept--apart from the obvious layers of irony (both in-narrative and extra-narrative), it's really neat that the path is dotted with little peepholes and other vantages that reward any moderately observant player with brief views of memorable scenes from previous maps, including the crate basement from 'Hide and Seek', the tomato-juicer from 'Vivisection', and of course an imp who, when all's said and done, probably deeply regrets his decision to have that extra Fresca on his lunchbreak.

[The_MártonJános]

Here comes the playthrough of two maps again.

MAP16: Black Mass
Oh, I'm getting an eye massage right fucking now.

An impressive temple structure, perhaps aesthetically the best map in the entire set, I bow my hat. There is also a fitting music, mostly giving up on the funky, loose style of all other tracks and turning dread instead, I love it, almost as much as I love the MAP05 and MAP10 musictracks in particular.

Combat here takes an interesting turn. Instead of being placed in the middle of an anger crowd, rather the monsters' moving place seems to be quite restricted. And I'm not only speaking about the ones caged or in a special alcove which cannot be escaped at least by they themselves. You can always find a spot where you're safe, even from Cacodemons excluding a few examples. As you proceed, you can always duck and cover behind some physical obstacles before setting foot to the battlefield again.

Nevertheless, this map is meant to be hard, and so is that, as every gothic keep that occupies a "middle slot" (maps 14-17 in particular) in a certain mapset. Even some optional goodies induce a Manc and a few lesser threat monsters appear, and yet I haven't spoken about the tadly tad of meatier monsters, like Hell Knight, that suddenly invade a narrow red corridor, taking away all will you need to trespass. Unless you a continous player right from MAP32.

As usual, I've taken advantage of each and every corner and column, strafe and fire, health and ammo found on the map. I suppose mouldy - at least on HMP - continues to give second chances to renitent mistake-makers, such as I. Despite all of the shit I've done, dying about 4 times on the same ambush, while on none of all other, I still managed to make a complete playthrough on it. Aaaand... how mechanism appears between the walls of an underground Satanic temple is a distinct thing to mention and congratulate to. Might use it to explore further depths.

MAP17: Rest in Pieces
What a sweet pun it is! I'm quite appreciating it. :D

This map takes up a brownish scale on texturing, almost rendering the entire level look one-colored with a few red and green appearing here and there. I really dig all the use made here with skull textures, particularly the solutions on them, WOOD4 and FLAT5_6 in most cases.

Gameplay, however, turns out to be quite a douche in some cases. This map sure wants to prove me that it lives up to its name: almost every time I activate an ambush, pretty sure can I expect to be attacked in the back, there's a fairly low chance you'll encounter foes only straightforward.

Things, if they still can, go absolute nuts after you pick up that precious idol, the not even yellow: golden key regarding the intense viciosity the followingly inwarping swarm bears with. Not particularly because all enemies were such powerful, but if teleporting to about 10 different locations within the entire map, even troopers and Imps can become annoying if not lethal.

That secret-activated Cyberdemon is quite a troll, but at least we're getting a BFG9000 in a regular play. The more troll is the irony that I found the Automap secret the very last. That column in the middle of the main arena just felt outta place, so I just pushed on it and holy shit.

For good luck, I didn't become one of the inhabitants of the level, instead I feel a bit uneasy how the keeper of this beautiful underground tomb chamber will ever finish to clean off the gory carnage and put all the remains into their well-deserved place. But I have to minimize bad feelings, as I'm still going into downer.

Literally, nah.

[tourniquet]

17: "Rest in pieces"

Lots of masonry and some moody lighting, thats all it takes to create a very pretty scenery as we can see here.
The difficulty elevates to prior unmatched levels.
Every trap rewards you with even more traps and ambushes and all the tunnels and corridors of this long forgotten mausoleum get flooded by enemies within seconds.
Discovering the secret BFG rewards you with more Viles and even a super pissed Cybie joins the party.
Kudos mouldy this map is hard and nasty as heck.

Phew!

[mouldy]

Joshy said:

Map05:

BUG: Not sure if this is fixed but I was stuck at sector 148 with no way out- door wasn't open (I checked doombuilder, not sure what’s supposed to happen here)

Well now, that is interesting, and I think I know what caused it. I added a door-open-wait-close to the starting elevator door (even though it doesn't need it as the door opens by itself at the start, and doesn't close). So if you open it manually it will then close, and for some reason when I copied the whole map for the future version I left that door tagged, so it will close as well. That will teach me to fix things that aren't broken, good find.

tourniquet said:

17: "Rest in pieces"
Phew!

Nice! I never think of unleashing the cyber early, he didn't do so well (probably helped you a bit too)

[tourniquet]

yeah think the cyb helps a lot cleaning this place.

Another thing even when it's a bit ahead.

2 HOMs in map 18 right next to the elevator very hard to spot and they're only visible once you shot the debris that block the door, there's another one on the other side of the door.

[cannonball]

MAP16 - "Black Mass"
This map was fun enough, though playing continuously made the start trivial. A tad predictable perhaps but the encounters were all fun enough.

MAP17 - "Rest in Pieces"
I preferred this one though the monsters tended to be a little slow to be released. I was going to say that some monsters didn't come to the party, but it seems like they are embedded in the secrets I did not find. Nice map.

[mouldy]

tourniquet said:

2 HOMs in map 18 right next to the elevator very hard to spot and they're only visible once you shot the debris that block the door, there's another one on the other side of the door.

Nice, another one I'd never have spotted, cheers

[Magnusblitz]

MAP16: Black Mass
100% kills, 2/2 secrets

One of the first maps that, visually, just makes you say "yowza!" Really great use of textures and lighting here, and I really dig those red light fixtures on the ceiling, as well as the texture combinations to make up the outside of the elevator (which seems to have given up on being part of the architecture and is just slamming downwards into the demons' lairs).

The hardest part is the start, if beginning from a pistol start, as there's a bit of a effort to figure out how to grab the weapons without getting vaped. After that, though, despite the monster count, it's actually one of the easier maps in the set I feel. Every weapon grabbed or switch pulled unleashes a new set of monsters, but the architecture gives the player plenty of room to run around, plenty of columns to hide behind, and the levels are vertically different enough to stay safe from one group while working on a different group of monsters. Most of the enemies teleport in far away from the player, so there's no real 'gotcha!' moments or sudden ambushes that will force the player to give up their immediate cover.

MAP17: Rest in Pieces
98% kills, 0/3 secrets

Yeah, so much for the ease of last level. This one lures you in with the dim lighting and small corridors, making you think it might be more of a quiet level, but nope, soon enough the level is teleporting imps on top of your face and arch-viles galore to resurrect all your hard work on the other side of the map. It's got a nice looping layout that would make for a good DM map. I probably contributed to my own pain here by rushing too far ahead and tripping all of the ambushes at once, and then saving when I was at 12 health and little ammo (and still had one AV left resurrecting monsters) but finally managed to savescum my way through. Also didn't find any secrets this time around, bit surprising since the others have usually been fairly easy to find.

[Veinen]

Gonna skip 32 for now since I haven't had the time to record anything for it.

Here's a slow and lame max for map16 in the meantime: https://www.mediafire.com/?udsuvu300x3qia9.

Map16: Black Mass

"Fun enough" is pretty much how I feel about this, like cannonball put it just above. Visually it's probably the best one thus far but gameplay doesn't really offer anything new at this point. Flip some switches and survive the chaos is what this is in a nutshell. Maybe it's just because I lack the skill to really go nuts here and instead had to do things a little more methodically than I expected. Or maybe with a little more planning even I could actually go all in too... When to use the invuln, how to get the Cyber to contribute as much as possible (the Mastermind as well but I don't really have high hopes for her possible contributions) are things that I felt I didn't really succeed with very well in the demo.

[cannonball]

MAP18 - "Buried Alive"

Simple invasion map when you finally decide to detonate the explosives. Survival would very difficult from a pistol start with the requirement of a lot of infighting to do a lot of the work whilst you try and nab the BFG and blue key. I died a lot here as I couldn't grasp a decent strategy of playing this map. The invulnerbility secret was of great help.

[durian]

Map 15 - Gladiator

Heh, this was fun - the moment where the audience suddenly goes mental is especially amusing. I played through this a few times, as I was interested to see what strategy worked best, and how different infighting situations resolved themsevles. I also had some fun with trapping the mastermind on top of the pedestals. In the end, I settled on releasing the AVs first for the RL, then the revs for the SSG, then the rest all at once, and moving carefully around the arena while the cyber takes care of business. I didn't realise there was a bonus soul sphere until later, but that was a very nice touch (I couldn't resist opening the map in the editor to uncover the mechancis of the toilet chain). Fun map!

Map 31 - Stair Crazy

Hmmm... I found this one a little tedious, although I like the concept - it was nice peeking into past levels - and it has some interesting mechanics. But I guess this is the kind of map that suffers if played (badly) without saves, since, given the structure, it always goes more or less the same way up to the point where you die (in my case, this was consistently the last big trap with the AVs) and so there's less fun to be had in replaying it back to that point. I used a save in the end, so I could figure out how to handle that trap (immediate rush for YK and then plasma spam!) without having to work through the earlier sections.

[tourniquet]

18: "Burried Alive"

I assume the main purpose of the map is to act as introduction of the Space ship.
Mostly brown on brown the alien vessel is the only thing that stands out.
But once you blow up the explosives, the whole place slowly fills with lava and certain areas become even more lethal, pretty cool.

Not sure whats the best strategy here, i tried to defend the area around the Elevator until the 2 Cybies get released and then i started my cleanup.

another one

Bugs: the floor right in front of the ufo stays non damaging after the texture change