The DWmegawad Club plays: Going Down

[mouldy]

tourniquet said:

18: "Burried Alive"
Bugs: the floor right in front of the ufo stays non damaging after the texture change

Hmm, yeah.. thats something I left in hoping nobody would notice, I think I was having problems using voodoo doll to change a sector to damaging floor without it damaging the doll, I could probably fix it though.

So while I'm here..

Map17 - the ambush festival
http://www.mediafire.com/download/z5xqepyvcbm31k8/gd-mouldy-17.lmp

This is a boring 'safe' demo where i spring each trap and deal with it before moving on, and once you know all the traps its not so bad to deal with. Having said that it still manages to kick my arse if I try anything clever. Each weapon is booby trapped, and the yellow key releases random low level monsters throughout the map in a steady trickle, along with some viles, so best to leave that til last. This is what I call a monster playground: make a map that is easy to navigate and has lots of escape routes, let the player get used to it, then add tons of monsters. Its the viles that cause the most chaos here, the optional cyberdemon is mainly a token bit of meat to try out your new BFG on (assuming you bypassed the secret maps).

Map18 - collapsing cave seige
http://www.mediafire.com/download/2lydrh40m812chm/gd-mouldy-18b.lmp

This is a more interesting demo perhaps, because while the mechanism for activating the various attack waves are on a timer, they can also be triggered early by crossing certain lines if you want to speed things up. Of course I have the advantage of knowing where they are, but i shall reveal the secrets: the first can be triggered by entering the tunnel near the SSG, and the second is triggered by grabbing the blue key. The reason for these triggers was just so that things would happen if anyone managed to grab the key early, but they provide an interesting alternative strategy, which is a bit more risky and requires a bit of fluid dynamics exploitation to get the baorns to flow away from the blue key steps. Without that its a case of holding out in the middle unitl the cavalry arrives, which isn't as hard as it first seems if you focus on the rev snipers and any cacos who wander in.

[durian]

Map 32 - Roof Rage

Heh, back on the roof. Not my favourite of the set - a good part of the combat is lots of weak enemies at close quarters, and bigger enemies from long distances. The former is pretty trivial once you have some sense of the teleport points, and the latter tends to not be so exciting - rocket-duck-wait-rocket-duck-wait, etc. The final battle is much more enlivening - fun leaping between the rooftops and firing off rockets. The never ending caco swarm is quite a thing, and really discourages the player from just camping out on the isolated rooftops - I also noticed that if you elect instead to move constantly through the teleporters you can quickly come unstuck as gas balls fired from far away start arriving just as you get back to where you were when they were fired :/ But it gets a little grindy with the cacos in the end. I replayed it and just went for speed, and it was much more fun trying to take out the first cyber with everything else still in there, and getting to the rooftops with the mancs and the arachnotrons still around.

Some slightly iffy cut-offs around the inner wall:

Spoiler

And line 3489 (by the entrance) makes a noise! Is it meant to be a door?

[mouldy]

durian said:

Map 32 - Roof Rage

Some slightly iffy cut-offs around the inner wall

Shameful stuff. That line you mentioned is a switch to open the door, although its already open. Must be left over from something or other.

Also I've just noticed that the secret maps don't have multiplayer starts for some reason.

[The_MártonJános]

MAP18: Buried Alive
The beginning of this map waaay so resembles to the original MAP18.

The feature this map mostly bears with is definitely its hardness. Some at the start would believe this only a scenery for a vehement boss battle, but it turns out even worse: a flood of massively upper-mid- and high-tier monsters, AND a triple boss battle.

At the beginning, you break free from being walled-in. Feeling like "yeah", you breathe all the dusty air of this seemingly unstable and likely-to-be-collapsed-any-minute cave you got into. Pack up some stuff you find in and around, wondering where all the unfriendly reception has suddenly gone. Maybe they're now too afraid of you. Or all this can be for the reason of... holy shit, what is that enormous machinery half-embedded into the rock? This truly could be the tool to keep hellspawn away. Never mind... Oh, look, a demolisher! You always wanted to die by a cave falling on me, so what if you pull the lever?...

Seems like fate inflicted you not dying in a collapse, but instead by the hand of like fifty angry Hell Knights and Barons. Flee, you idiot, all you can do is to awake several more residents throughout, who will be merciless for you interrupting their prescribed siesta, but everything's alright if they're out of reach. Clear some inner spot to take cover somewhere, wait for some of them to come over and finish them like they were nothing. All you have to do is now to take a peek spot, and...

Oh noes. More gets revealed at the most uncertain random places, but at least I was able to finish an Archvile off, before it could do anything that hardens my task. Nevertheless, still a feasible amount of monsters wander by twenty at most places, and of course, long-distance Arachnotron plasma encounters and some homing missiles from the other direction could dishearten my enthusiasm in the active rocket-spamming of them mobs, when suddenly...

*ROAR*

And I'm not even playing on Nightmare. Never mind, I stopped rocketing the Hellknights as I now have substitution, not only one, but three at one time. The very first muscle-cable structure couldn't confront with me face-to-face, as the Knights and Barons finished him off-screen. The other two made them and me wait, then they appeared and cleared most of the area, when I stepped in and blasted one of them by the other wall, whilst the other one was suddenly deadcaught in a crossfire by some freshly incoming nobility, who then died each after each. This is how define pussy mode, the playstyle I mastered in the past half month.

The rest of the map was rather a cakewalk, despite the remaining mob being focused mostly on one spot. Invulnerablity, bitches! - did I shout as I entered the fight realm and made them pay for so much save and reload, despite all of the efforts I made, and mostly due to living up all the supply found in and around. Which was, as usual, bountiful even for losers like me. However, the aesthetical side of the map, minus the teleporters, the demolition switch and that generator thing which is especially very well done, was in this case rather disenchanting, but because it's a cave near collapse, I'm able to forgive the not-so-pleasing major visuals.

It seems like I have to enter the mechanic structure this time. We're playing maverick, eh, again?

EDIT: That's an UFO, eh? I'm now getting to make it parallel with the Archies found inside.

[Demon of the Well]

I can't seem to quite keep up this month, but I'm still truckin' along.

Map 32 -- Roof Rage - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Conceptually, this has a lot in common with map 31--here too you revisit old ground (more directly in this case, as this actually takes place on and around the actual roof from map 01, as opposed to being a new area that references old ones), and here too the combat is both visceral and simplistic. It's actually a pretty easy map any way you slice it, unless you do something really ill-advised (e.g. teleporting back onto the UAC building's roof at the height of the caco/cyber/noble/etc. clusterfuck without the benefit of the hidden V-sphere). You can take a lot of different tacks here, from slow and conservative to brash and aggressive, and still come out on top pretty consistently, thanks again to the extremely generous supply of powerups that mouldy has offered. Resource prosperity aside, most of the main fights can be rendered almost harmless with the proper strategy. I guess a lot of people camped out the initial flood of zombiemen, which sounds very effective, but honestly it's not necessary--just pull out the chaingun and hold down the trigger while running laps of the roof, you'll do just fine unless you take 5 right next to the spider or something (incidentally, both the chaingun and plasma rifle are brilliant in this map, while the shotguns are the least useful of all--that's pretty damned rare). A similar strategy works on the imps, since the structures on the roof will shield you from most of the fire from the mancs/spiderkids on the peripheral rooftops if you keep moving (I find that the imps tend to reliably overwhelm and kill the arachs that actually appear on the main roof). After that, you can skip cheerfully and fancy-free from rooftop to rooftop via the simple teleporter chain while everything else in the map infights itself to death--all you generally have to do is squash a few tomatoes at the end. Of course, if you know about the secret V-sphere, you can also dive in and make the BFG sing. Might be some risk if you go too early (read: ASAP), but still, not too rough. More about spectacle and the twist of revisiting an old stomping ground than anything, again, much like map 31.

Visual issue: when you're on the northeastern peripheral rooftop (the one with a ton of cells/rockets that arachs appear on at some point), the cacoswarm is able to flow above/over the top of the building directly to the west. When they're at the apex of their flight, their sprites become cut off/half-hidden by the sky, very noticeable.

Map 16 -- Black Mass - 105% Kills / 100% Secrets
What's this all of a sudden, a demonic chapel miles below the earth's surface? A marked tone shift here, especially coming off of the winkingly self-referential secret maps (the contrast is probably significantly less pronounced if one comes here from map 15, granted). Generally speaking, Going Down doesn't take itself very seriously, but it does have a darker side to it, which we see here, in what is a very traditional preaching-evil Doom Hell setting, much more redolent of OG Doom than Doom II in this case. Visually, it's one of the WAD's most immediately striking levels, with its tall ceilings and leisurely elevator-to-pulpit promenade, which belie how compact it really is. Effective use of near-symmetry as well--perception is naturally pleased by symmetry, but the eye is also attracted to asymmetry, so the differences on the eastern and western peripheries really add a depth of scene to the long views and aid in the space's believability.

Speaking of symmetry, in gameplay terms this is something like the steroidal/hemorrhoidal bastard spawn of maps 06 and 12.....in theory. Broadly speaking, it's another map where the potential for stumbling about and unwittingly triggering trap after trap until the overall situation has become an uncontainable, roiling free-for-all seems to be the targeted aspect of the design, but I don't think practice reflects theory here as much as it did in similar earlier maps--to achieve that sort of chaotic infighting/spamming escape velocity here, I reckon you've really got to be actively trying to do so ( as in trying for a speedrun, etc.), and stirring up a really 'complete' riot here seems like it's likely to take quite a bit more detailed map knowledge than reaching a similar situation in something like map 12 did. In that particular map, it's very easy for the situation to spiral out of control (read: without the player intending for this to happen) because the encounters are randomized to some degree, the weapon/item placement has less symmetrical redundancy (read: so if you want a bigger gun to take care of the mess you unleashed 10 seconds ago, you essentially have no choice but to go trigger another mess when you pick up said gun), and, perhaps most importantly of all, trigger mechanisms that are simply less evident to the player to begin with.

In 'Black Mass', though they mostly take place in the central open space rather than in specific setpieces, the different encounters are nevertheless neatly segmented off and directly tied to a number of obvious trigger actions, such as picking up a specific weapon or going for an important switch. They also tend to evenly coat the map in a thin layer of monsters--snipers appear in near cages, attackers appear on the far ledges, and stuff starts spawning in on the ground level near the elevator, etc. This makes trying to stick to a single holdout spot more of a tenuous proposition than it otherwise would be, but in concert with a more frontloaded weapon/ammo distribution (e.g. you get your RL and a ton of ammo for it in the first few moments, then you have two possibilities for getting both an SSG and a plasma gun on each side of the map) it also has the effect of discouraging the player from moving to distant parts of the layout to trigger more ambushes--it's less likely you'll need to move to pick up supplies to fight with, and even if you should feel the need, stuff will get in your way if you do, and the more insistent encounters (esp. the ones with arch-viles) tend to be juussst serious enough to make you loath to ignore them when they appear, so on a blind/casual playthrough you tend to clean out the map step by step here, rather than turning everything loose at once and then cleaning it all up at the end.

Nothing necessarily wrong with this more incidentally methodical pace, mind you, but it does mean the level's bark is a bit worse than its bite. I reckon a lot of players will probably appreciate the more staccato flow of the action at work here--nice to feel firmly in control of what is still a fairly bad situation, I suppose. That being said, a strong UVMax route on this one is probably pretty interesting--obviously you'll want to make use of the secret V-sphere, but the question is, when? It's a bit of a logistical to-do to actually trigger most of the monster reveals before you pick it up, and given that there's no BFG and only so many rockets available here, it's probably not going to last for the duration of the 'pressure period' in the theoretical giant clusterfuck fight.

[cannonball]

MAP19 - "200 Mega Hurts"
Certainly an interesting concept for a map, but I feel in my opinion doesn't carry too well as it ends up being a BFG spamfest. The archvile area really cannot be worked into a position where it is fun to play as you essentially need the invulnerabilities to survive most of the stage. The Pain elemental section is certainly a better fit as the never ending lost soul abuse can create some seriously oppressive situations.
Found 6 of the 8 secrets but again they are not really needed for the action as there is plenty of cells to go around.
In the end, interesting concept, but one which was too hard to execute well.

[durian]

Map 16 - Black Mass

As others have mentioned, this level is very pretty - quite the opening shot when the elevator door opens! The shadows cast on the wall by the main pillars are especially classy, and - with the red theme - the cacos are surprisingly well camouflaged. I seem to have found this one trickier than most - it took a while to figure out an optimal strategy. Initially I was just going for the switches, and leaving the SSGs and their associated traps, but this left me with precious little ammo to deal with the HKs guarding the left switch. So decided to grit my teeth and deal with the SSG traps, to access the otherwise enclosed rocket and plasma stashes. Despite mouldy providing plenty of cover, I managed to get blown-up by AV several times :/ Oh well - worth it for the extra rockets. One thing I've been noticing throughout the set, and which really solidifies with this map, is the extent to which the RL becomes the default weapon, rather than the SSG - this is very refreshing! I elected to grab the invulnerability just before hitting the second switch, then zipping to the key past the cyber before - in words of King Arthur - running away. I might replay later to figure out a more heroic way of handling that last ambush. Fun map!

[tourniquet]

19: "200 Mega Hurts"

Very inventive use of the exit door texure inside the spaceship.
The general concept of the map is very novel though i must agree with cannonball that it has a few flaws.
Especially the dependence on Invul's to survive and the uncontrollable mess whilst being thrown through the air almost constantly.
Nontheless this is one of the IMO best concepts in the set, very unique, and those 2 alien cities are insanely beautiful.
I just love coherent themes and all this beauty makes me ignore most of the gamplay flaws here.
Think the dark side with all those PE's was actually harder then the vile side especially when you run out of cell's and get cornered.

max

[The_MártonJános]

MAP19: 200 Mega Hurts
Believe it or not, I could do this map for first play.

An infamous map, with again a nice pun in the title, like 17. Just as in Hadephobia, the mostly hard-to-play level occupies slot 19, but this time, it is way better executed and able to be survived in some terms.

For me, the worst part was definitely the spaceship battle with the 12 Archviles, luckily each of which is labeled deaf. Somehow they could still gather by 4 or five around the little chamber I just flee'd into, and special thanks for the diamond-shaped little windows through which one of the flamey ass-penetrators could still rape me to like 112%. All of this sneak attack cost the lives of him and his 11 fellow comrades within seconds, as the bloodlust gave me a merciless run with it Big Fucking Gun OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAAAND!!

Against twelve it was just a warm-up, but against, like, 94? About four or five separate mobs, each of which consist of at least 15 Archies wander in and around a tan complex, each of which cannot resist the desire to burn my arse andesite solid. I had luck this time: a couple of revenge-hungry aliens blast me onto a part of the roof while Invulsphere on, from which I could eliminate all the undesired encounters in close proximity and deal with the rest in a more comfortable manner, grabbing Invul after Invul.

The PE area meant a slightly sharper challenge for me, as there were no free Invinciblity spheres around, and the douches tenfolded the moster count for the map within mere seconds. Yeah, despite the population consisted of the two infamous species which are the only ones who could influence the (maximal) amount of the monsters within a certain map, only the PE's had the given potential to do so, and with me cornered a few times, but none of them being lethal, a couple of them had plenty of time doing overtime, since some Lost Souls made them angry, so they went spamming more and more. Then I went spamming BFG projectiles and it stopped the invasion. 822 monsters out of 200, that's a deal I guess.

I like the concept, whatsoever. It looks and sounds crazy, but this kind of mutual slaughter comes up to my taste. I also love the idea of how two distinct areas are shaped up identically, with only the texturing being different, but still parallel in a certain meaning. The only thing I disliked about this that in the darker area, there wasn't a liquid flat in the little backyard revealing a secret by a different-looking linedef opposing the stairway. Still, making full usage of nearly all textures which shade the same colour differently just grabbed my liking throughout.

Maybe I'm a bit off the confidence now, but I guess I deserved to live throughout all this madness this time. It was meant to be some pain in the neck, but all the supply made it manageable with my eyes closed. Now I'm heading downward as we had to wait for the level of lava arose by the entrance that we could climb in. Well played, mouldy.

Wonder what kind of terror lies ahead now.

[mouldy]

Map19 - the archvile slaughtermap

http://www.mediafire.com/download/r0y9tfa1q7f4jr9/gd-mouldy-19-noinvul.lmp
Here's a max demo without picking up any invuls, just to prove its possible. Of course, I always knew this would one sink or swim depending on how much you enjoy bfg-spamming hordes of archviles - personally I love it. Its not actually that difficult once you figure out the layout and realise that invuls wont necessarily save you if you get caught in the ping-pong firestorm. The concept here was to drop you into a totally alien world, both in visual and gameplay terms. You can still play it like doom, but played as intended it has more in common with Mr Driller, ploughing through a hostile environment before your oxygen runs out. The entire PE section came as an afterthought when I realised that the enemy people hate perhaps more than archviles is pain elementals.

Story-wise, I guess this is the planet where all the archviles come from. Why their spaceship ended up buried in a cave on earth is a mystery, but its inspired by Quatermass and the Pit, so maybe it crashed on earth millions of years ago and was uncovered by a UAC mining operation..

[tourniquet]

Map19 - the archvile slaughtermap

http://www.mediafire.com/download/r0y9tfa1q7f4jr9/gd-mouldy-19-noinvul.lmp

Nice, guess now is see the purpose of all those secret tunnels.

[mouldy]

tourniquet said:

Nice, guess now is see the purpose of all those secret tunnels.

Yeah they were to give people an alternative option if they didn't want to dive into the sea of viles, or found themselves stuck somewhere without ammo/invul.

[Demon of the Well]

Map 17 -- Rest in Pieces - 168% Kills / 100% Secrets
This is my favorite map in the game, it fires on all cylinders for layout, looks, combat, replayability, and even theme (I adore crypt/mausoleum settings in Doom). It's the apex of Going Down's defining play style: a complex yet compact layout riddled with trap after trap after trap and plentiful teleporting monster waves (indeed, the majority of this map's population beams in from the dead zone) that all feed organically into one another such that the player spends most of the runtime being kicked around from danger to danger, hardly able to catch a breath. At the height of the action, there's literally nowhere you can turn that's not packed with a mob of hellspawn, especially not if you trigger the secret/optional cyberdemon & friends battle at certain times (as I did in this playthrough). The kicker is that most if not all of these mobs have at least one arch-vile somewhere in them, or more precisely, often BEHIND them, as my finishing kill score suggests--you've got to keep moving (which the complex interlock layout smoothly facilitates), looking for the right angle to ameliorate these situations, before the mobs finally manage to corner you or, worse, you run out of the premium ammo you need to finish the job. Not unusually, the secret cyberdemon is likely to be a huge help in cleaning out the central junction, but his aid comes at a price, involving a fresh infusion of arch-viles to keep this crepuscular chaos engine running that much longer.

The actual encounters here don't appear to be fundamentally randomized in terms of composition or running order as in some of the previous maps (although the slow-trickle approach to some of the teleporter waves naturally involves some degree of variability in intensity), but the layout itself more than compensates in this case. There are a lot of discrete paths at the outset, but as the play unfolds many of the boundaries between these paths are removed (walls crumble, a staircase collapses, etc.), which as aforementioned facilitates player movement, but also enemy movement as well--with so many monsters active at the height of the action, they're like an amorphous mass of evil that flows organically through the map in unpredictable ways, making for a different experience each time. There's at least one hidey-hole of sorts in the form of the SSG room, but camping out is a pretty tenuous proposition in general in this map--even in this sort of stronghold, there are so many windows into the room that the tide of monsters can still levy a great deal of pressure, especially where the multiple arch-viles and some complex line-of-sight possibilities are concerned. For that final layer of gutsy flair, I also shouldn't fail to mention the map's rocket-centric opening: early on, the layout is less sprawling and the monster hordes are a bit weaker, but still present a very real danger because they are numerous enough to overwhelm you unless you apply some explosive dissuasion, which of course is not a trivial feat to manage safely in the initially tight confines--in moving around to find comfortable firing lanes, you're liable to start kicking off the snowballing series of traps, which of course naturally tends to result in total chaos sooner rather than later. Neat thing is, though, that it's not really an RL-centric map overall....I was able to make relevant use of every weapon in Doomguy's arsenal this time around (excepting the chainsaw, which isn't present).

Anyway, long story short, this one's really brilliant, gets my blood moving every time. Moving, and flowing too--back when I was FDAing Going Down I think I remember dying several times in this one before finishing. Its undpredictability and relentless action really had me on the ropes, and I enjoyed every minute.

[mouldy]

That reminds me, I think DOTW mentioned archviles ressurecting ghosts on map14, I've never experienced this (probably due to my compatibility settings) and I'm curious if other people have. Its definitely not intended, and I can probably fix it with the mapinfo.

[The_MártonJános]

MAP20: The Mouth of Madness
Holy shit, what an Imp overload at the beginning.

This might be the epicentre of all and the worst. Hellish textures, lava and the way the entire level shapes definitely sign that this is somehow an intermission for everything happened before, and even the strongest will won't make you remember anything, just the intention to head into the utter craziness remains.

I'm just wandering downward, eagerly waiting for whatever this map holds for me, when suddenly, blasts. The whole shaft breaks into half, with the bottom part falling onto the rough rock of a volcanic caldera. All I see is a gigantic monster's head in the far distance. Suddenly the sharp (Ahem!) teeth open and the enormous mouth starts vomiting. Imps. An unbelieveable amount of them. Even the full BFG9000 couldn't handle them in one piece, so many they were.

Somehow I stopped the invasion and took one of the sidepaths, just to realise I released a black horned kind of the giant brown rocket-emitter cyborg creature. Luckily, all the massacre he was intent to make aimed against a tad of Arachnotrons peeking at the top of a wide lava fall cliff, crossfiring him, so I could easily ambush him with a sneak BFG shot. The shameful thing is that not only he didn't die, but I knocked him out of the way down into the lava, so a couple of greenish plasma could get me, but at least his attention didn't get distracted do me, so I could finish my job.

The other path was, well, a bit underestimated by me. Somehow my keyboard makes my marine go crazy sometimes, which results in some unexpected moves, one of which dragged me into like four HK shots in the same time, I find myself lucky I outlived this serious injury, given having some blue armor stuff on me. As the swarm again, well, somehow I remembered this level a bit easier, but that should have been a beta version of a lesser aggressive manner. Instead I found out something I certainly did back then, but forgot to remember.

Spoiler

To reveal the teleporter guarded by some "pink snake" columns, you're supposed to make the sector monster completely blind.

The above mentioned secret gives you some Radsuits to extend your safe playspace whilst fighting them Cyberdemons and the massive mob surrounding 'em. Given that health and ammo are not a sparse thing to find throughout, this should be easier then. Your job is now only to finish a leftout Cacodemon off and find the ex- Eh, am I supposed to jump down the throat of that... thing? You should be kidding with me.

After 138 roundabouts, I was eventually convinced that there's no other choice. Risking to get molten in stomach acid, here I freefall again... oh shit, I'm dead before even landing. This should be the revenge of the beast for putting his eyes out.

[Demon of the Well]

Map 18 -- Buried Alive - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
I like this one a lot, too. It injects interest into what would otherwise be a fairly nondescript (though certainly well-realized) lava-cave/earth setting by way of the UFO and the apparent quest to get inside of it, but again, it's the action that really makes it a memorable one for me. It's a lot like map 13 before it in that focuses heavily on one narrowly-defined type of combat setting: stronghold defense, in this case. Essentially, you get almost completely tooled up before the action begins (the 'breadcrumb' health and armor bonuses communicating that pervasive sense of playfulness that is one of Going Down's most defining aspects), and can even look around and learn the basics of the layout a bit if you're insightful. Once you trigger that explosion, though, it's on--a tidal wave of powerful monsters floods the outer caves, leaving you with little recourse but to retreat to the shelf of rock where the elevator shaft is embedded. This very small but vertically/structurally complex area is your castle for this engagement, and it's your job to defend it from the infernal siege. There's a ton of health up here to help you hold out, and you're already flush with ammo at this point (although you will eventually have to venture out again to get more, if you play your cards right it won't be disastrously dangerous to do so by that point), but the stakes are high--if too many monsters get in at once the situation can rapidly become untenable. The longer you can hold out, the better. Eventually some cyberdemons arrive and start helping to clean out the outer caves, meaning you can probably credibly go out there and come back alive at that point--if you get budged out too soon, there'll probably be too much meat and too much heat for you to stand a chance (particularly if actors are infinitely-tall).

So, where map 13 successfully turned corridor-clearing action into a thrilling experience, this map makes good on an equally 'limited' type of action, that being the camping/holdout exercise. Some of you out there have likely played the hi-gloss GZDooM project 'Stronghold: On the Edge of Chaos', which is a big hefty mapset built entirely around the concept of defending some set goalpoint or object of importance from progressively large/extreme waves of hellspawn. That WAD has often (and fairly) been criticized for the repetitiveness of its action, and in a sense it exemplifies the pitfalls of camping-based gameplay: you can only ask to player to focus fire on a given chokepoint and shuffle from side to side for so long before the action starts to lose some of its vibrancy. While the comparison may not be entirely fair to Stronghold (its stronger maps being significantly less straightforward through some wrinkle or other), 'Buried Alive' avoids the former's pitfalls and energizes the holdout style of combat by injecting a lot more dynamism (and thus unpredictability and tactical complexity) into the proceedings, achieved largely by virtue of layout. The elevator stronghold point is topographically complex to begin with, as aforesaid, and it also has several entrance/exit points (with more developing as the level unfolds), which influence the action in various ways from play to play, depending largely on the vagaries of monster pathing. Furthermore, the player is never allowed to get too comfortable up here--even if s/he makes mincemeat of the early waves of attackers, eventually some of the walls start crumbling, allowing the external monsters more ins and more angles of fire, even as new threats continue to appear inside the player's perimeter (e.g. the lone megasphere arch-vile). It's this complexity, this manic ebb and flow to the bloodletting, that make this particular camping trip one to remember. As the icing on the cake, if you can survive up to a certain point and are observant (or have a bit of foreknowledge), you can eventually turn the tide, accessing a BFG and potentially a V-sphere, thus leaving the stronghold and sowing death and destruction in a cathartic extermination excercise. It's great stuff, and just like map 13 before it it stands out all the more precisely because there's no other map in the set like it.

Small visual error: Immediately outside of the elevator, the little sand-border in the pit below it is untextured on the two sides adjacent to where the impact-activated sectors were, and thus there are some small HOMs there.

Map 19 -- 200 Mega Hurts - 100% Kills / 88% Secrets
By contrast, I can't say I really care much for this one. As far as the gameplay goes, it's probably the single most high-concept map in the set, being based around using the BFG 9000 in conjunction with a steady trickle of V-spheres to brutally evaporate what many players consider to be the game's two most irksome enemies: arch-viles and pain elementals (though I'm sure Suitepee and probably at least a few others would argue that revenants ought to oust one of the other two as 'most irksome' ;) ). Doing this without the aid of V-spheres is probably an interesting (if somewhat slow-paced) proposition, but played as intended it's exceedingly one-note, and almost entirely without threat if the player evinces a bit of discipline and foresight. Now, it's certainly not fair or accurate to say that the map is entirely without threat--if you screw something up here, you will in all likelihood die a very swift, very painful, and very undignified death--it's just that the real threat isn't the enemies or environment per se, it's simply the player's potential hubris/hastiness. Being given a BFG, a megasphere, a ton of cells, and a V-sphere would seem to prompt one to charge and go full-offense, but if you do that you're liable to end up being rapidly rendered comically impotent (and then soundly dead), either because you get batted around like some ungainly human volleyball by the arch-vile fraternity's mass nukings, or because you get overly rambunctious and blow your load too quickly vs. the pickled tomatoes and end up running out of cells (which leaves you with a pistol and sixty bullets) while you're still immersed in a sea of flaming skulls. Deadly though these situations are, you essentially only end up in them as a result of amateurish brashness, a very dumb mistake, or extremely poor luck (or some combination of the three); conversely, survival in this map is very simple, and due to the combat concept in play, either very rote or very slow-paced. Some people will understandably appreciate the map for its novelty/uniqueness (indeed, I've praised some of the earlier maps for this kind of reason) or for its unusual setting, but it leaves me almost completely cold, with the only parts I find interesting being the opening arch-vile setpiece (where you don't have a V-sphere to cover your ass) and the search for secrets in the surprisingly complex layout. Incidentally, I still couldn't find one of them for the life of me, will have to watch one of the other players' demos to see what eluded me.

[Demon of the Well]

mouldy said:

That reminds me, I think DOTW mentioned archviles ressurecting ghosts on map14, I've never experienced this (probably due to my compatibility settings) and I'm curious if other people have. Its definitely not intended, and I can probably fix it with the mapinfo.

It won't happen in the ZDooM family of ports unless the user has tweaked his/her compatibility settings to allow it, but it shows up in default settings in most other ports (in some Boom-based games, presumably you might also see an instance of an arch-vile resurrecting a monster 'inside' of himself or another monster, resulting in them being stuck together--this doesn't happen in the WAD's target -cl 9, though)--what happens is that the opening and closing of the marble pillars crushes any monster corpses that happen to fall under them, and then when the viles appear in the area they resurrect those crushed corpses into ghosts.

I don't think you actually need to worry much about fixing/preventing it. Given the nature of this particular setup, the presence of ghosts is hardly map-breaking or even particularly difficult to deal with (there are tons of rockets nearby, and the tight confines gives you lots of things to create splash damage with) although I suppose one could object to their potential presence on aesthetic grounds.

[Veinen]

maxes for 32 & 17: https://www.mediafire.com/?56a7w8e7h2w1c5j

Map32: Roof Rage

Eh, this was alright I suppose. First part is a map01 replay with the Zombiemen and Imps, then it turns into a BFG & rocket spam. Ideally you skip killing the Zombies and Imps and concentrate on taking out the first Cyber asap but it's pretty dangerous due to the blast damage you receive when the Cyber's rockets explode in close proximity. I used the invuln to take out the two Cybers and as much of the roof level foes as possible and then there was just the Caco swarm left to be dealt with. Bit of a chore this part since the swarm can't pressure the player that much, unless the player willingly steps out into the open, and there are a lot of healing items sprinkled all over the map so health is not a huge concern either. There is actually enough ammo to destroy everything with very little infighting (some will occur always) if you're somewhat effective with your ammo use. I did pretty much this, camping on the smaller rooftops and waiting for a sufficiently big horde of Cacos to gather nearby before unloading my BFG shots on them.

Map17: Rest In Pieces

Now this is a very fun map. Really nice looks and the way the layout opens up as you progress is really cool. Even though the action gets hectic at times, there are so many passageways and openings that there's always a way to escape. Or "escape" I should say since usually that just leads to more trouble. Love the BFG here as it opens so much more possibilites from a speedrunners point of view. Too bad the moving lifts -monster closet can be excruciatingly slow to empty, like it is in my demo. The final few Pinkies take so goddamn long to show up, and I even take things rather slow here, and that's a huge motivation killer should something like that happen during a serious maxing attempt. Otherwise it would be an immensely fun map to record on, by the looks of it. Casual playing it's not much of a problem unless you're a very fast player and really want 100% kills.

[mouldy]

Veinen said:

Map17: Rest In Pieces

Too bad the moving lifts -monster closet can be excruciatingly slow to empty, like it is in my demo. The final few Pinkies take so goddamn long to show up, and I even take things rather slow here, and that's a huge motivation killer should something like that happen during a serious maxing attempt.

Interesting, I might look into doing something about that, like speeding it up when you use the yellow key or something.

[tourniquet]

20: "The Mouth of Madness"

A playground according to my taste, spacious and filled with hundreds of enemies.
Gameplay felt very comfortable, even the 3 roaming cybies offer not a huge threat cause they're mostly distracted by the endless wave of imps.
The "Mouth" itself is another delicious eye catcher, great map and a great closure for the 2nd episode.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/3bvz0pg3kptdw5g/gd20_TNq.lmp

[dobu gabu maru]

Coming back from behind!

MAP11: Really strong cyber reveal in this map. The tight space means that he's more of an adequate hunter than, say, the mastermind ever could be, and the splash damage makes avoiding him pretty tricky. A great closer to E1.

MAP12: A pretty wild scuffle in a vat of acid, thanks to the psuedo-random triggers. This is a pretty fun one to replay also due to the tricky nature of it. I feel like I should like this one more than I do since the gameplay is right up my alley, but perhaps I just don't find the locale stimulating enough (brown + green combinations always feel a bit drab).

MAP13: Ah, this map. This is one of the few that can become impossible if you don't manage your space/the horde well enough. There's a lot of clever tricks implemented here (having all the stairs descend is a simple but brilliant way to extend gameplay in the same area), and I think I like it more than its step-based sibling MAP31.

MAP14: moudly at his dick-iest. Every trigger here is primed to kill you, and kill you it shall. I'd be interested in seeing which route through here is "optimal", as I've never figured out if there's a "preferred" path or not (especially since some of the traps spill over). Goofy stuff. Also can't remember if this misalignment is intentional or not.

MAP15: A good, big, bloody arena battle. A lot of E2's themes are "variance", allowing you to take a variety of weapons in whatever order you choose. As long as you know that the pillars with the soulspheres are activatable, this one isn't nearly as vicious as it may seem.

As a little bonus, I was drunk one night and recorded a demo for MAP15. I had a little debate at the end about whether or not to go back and fight the cyber, and as you can tell by the way it closes out, I guess it didn't matter much :P

[Veinen]

Yeah, speeding up the teleport mechanism in map17 after a certain point would definitely be appreciated, if it's possible to do somehow.

18 & 19: https://www.mediafire.com/?b6kl04kxafh4cb1

Map18: Buried Alive

Another nice map this although visually not as impressive as previous maps. It's just a cave though so there's not much to work with in the first place and to be fair, mouldy does make the cave look as good as cave like this can look. Gameplay... well, I didn't know of the possibilities speed things up so I did what others seemingly have; sticked around the elevator until the BFG was obtainable and then started the cleanup. The first part is mostly just waiting around with little pressure on the player and the second part a BFG-massacre while invulnerable. Not a very tough map overall but somehow it did kill me a number of times while attempting the max, each death dumber than the other.

Map19: 200 Mega Hurts

Well that's a great name for a map! The map itself is a pretty cool gimmick level; only two monster types, only a BFG and again this light & dark side of the map thing. Yeah it's easy, bit of a break map even, but the concept is cool and it looks awesome. Combat-wise it's an honest BFG-spam and it doesn't even try to hide it. The only danger in the AV-side is running out of godmode in a wrong place at the wrong time but even then it's the player that is entirely at fault. The PE side does not offer invulneranbilities so it's a little more of a challenge. It's not saying much though and the amount of soulspheres an ammunition makes it, well, really easy as well. In any case, it's short enough and a relaxing romp so I'm not very bothered about the lack of challenge. The concept is pretty novel and well executed, and this serves as a break map if nothing else.

[cannonball]

MAP20 - "The Mouth of Madness"
Pretty fun hellscape map this one. Though playing consecutively you can remove a huge percentage of the bestiary without much cost (aka all those imps). This one would probably be pretty rough for pistol starters as the imps floods the middle of the map.

[mouldy]

dobu gabu maru said:

MAP14: I'd be interested in seeing which route through here is "optimal", as I've never figured out if there's a "preferred" path or not (especially since some of the traps spill over). Goofy stuff. Also can't remember if this misalignment is intentional or not.

I'm not sure myself which is the easier route, its engineered so that the final fight is slightly different depending on whether you took one way, the other way, or both at the same time. I can't even remember how it all works. That misalignment, where is that? I can't work out where it is.

Funny demo by the way!

[dobu gabu maru]

Here

[mouldy]

dobu gabu maru said:

Here

hmm, it looks like this when I play it:


What port are you using?

[durian]

Map 17 - Rest In Pieces

Further behind. Oh well. So we're in the crypt! The monsters rising from the coffins works really nicely. Anyway, this is a great map. I didn't have a clue what I was doing at first - everywhere I stepped, new waves would teleport in and seem come from all directions, making pretty short work of me. I had to reign in my headless-chicken play style, and once I'd gotten to grips with the layout, and the various triggers, it turned out to be quite straightforward. I really like the interconnectivity, and the way new parts keep opening up. As has already been mentioned, this is another one that feels like it could be a DM map. Indeed, once everything is opened by the final trap, tearing around with the BFG felt pretty DM-esque. I'll probably replay this one before moving onto 18, just because it's fun.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP18: Buried Alive
90% kills, 1/2 secrets

Didn't like this one as much as the last. Somewhat similar idea - a shitload of monsters get released at once in a small level with lots of interconnected places to go - but the execution just feels not as well-done as MAP17. Lots of places to get stuck on this one (especially around the UFO), with all the barons and cyberdemons, can make for a quick end. I ended up running over the heads of the barons/hell knights to grab the invuln, a bit cheesy some might say since some source ports don't even allow it. Didn't bother to stick around and finish everything off.

Thematically, it's a bit interesting... leaving the elevator again, this time for an alien UFO (that's apparently full of Arch-Viles). So... not just demons deep under the UAC ground, but now aliens too? This is just like the History Channel said!

[mouldy]

Veinen said:

18 & 19: https://www.mediafire.com/?b6kl04kxafh4cb1

That map18 demo has the most ridiculous escape from a sea of barons and hellknights. There are ways to speed that map up which I mentioned a few posts back, its dependent on exploiting various hidden triggers that no one except me would know anything about.

[dobu gabu maru]

mouldy said:

What port are you using?

Ah, nevermind then. I usually play stuff in Zdoom 2.4.1 on my mac but there's a couple of misalignment issues here and there that I notice that's not in usually in PrBoom or Zdoom on my PC. I tried the map on my PC's Zdoom (2.6) and it's fine so don't worry about it. I was confused how no one had spotted that misalignment before :P