The DWmegawad Club plays: NOVA II

[cannonball]

MAP15 - "Crumbling Necropolis" by an_mutt
A huge map and fun to play. The monster count is surprisingly low for a map this size, that said the monsters here are used very well indeed. Mixed in here are some nasty fights, especially flooding the map with archviles, I approve.
I only found 3 secrets and felt too tired to go and find the secret map, or play map31 tonight haha.

[SoundofDoomDoors]

Preface: I played some Epic 2 (I'm never playing maps 16 and 31 again) last night after finishing MAP14 of this wad, resulting in me overwriting the autosave I had intended to use for this map. The following comments based on a pistol start.

I dub MAP15 'I'm Lost: The Map.' Between the regular exit and looking up a playthrough to find the secret one, it took me well over an hour to reach MAP31!

I took one death on my route to the regular exit. My preferred method for killing viles is rocket spam, so the large amounts of both things on the map may have made it easier for me. I didn't get the BFG secret until I had killed everything, so that wasn't an option.

To help with getting lost, I'd add arrows on the auto-map to the two pillars that mark the locations of each of the keys' general areas. The idea to mark those areas the author mentioned in his stream is great, it just wasn't enough for me on my blind run. On a map of this size, they should stick out more.

To find the secret exit, I had to watch the map maker play the level through. He commented on a "speedrunning strategy that could bypass most of the map" when he was in the blue key area. That caused me to think of rocket jumping to the yellow key area. Too bad it doesn't work without freelook on. That means it's not really a valid method! I legitimately found the secret switch, but didn't think to run off the map after I walked into the secret portal. The plasma ammo's a good marker, too. I wouldn't change a thing on the secret route. In spite of the difficulty I had finding it, I think it's fine the way it is.

Kills: 99% (I left the cyberdemon) Secrets: 70%

[scifista42]

MAP31 - "Fever Blues" by Noisyvelvet

Nice map, both compact and exploratory, the optional areas + possibly non-linear progression help it greatly. The map's gameplay is mostly OK, but has one major flaw: Too much ammo and too much SSG action. Shells are lying everywhere, and moreso, there are practically no combat situations where SG/SSG would be less than optimal choice, which makes the gameplay a little monotonous. Well, chaingun's got some usage (bullets were lying everywhere as well as shells), but only to snipe down weakling enemies. Core gameplay was all about keeping running + dancing around monsters with an SSG, and all traps and encounters were best handled that way (except the occasional switch to CG/SG to use against weak monsters). So, I wished for more varied battle setups that would demand changing strategies and weapons, for example (maybe) placing some dangerous high-tier enemy snipers to strategic positions somewhere high up, and providing less shells as well.

I've mostly enjoyed the map, though. I've found all 5 secrets, but not the secret exit. I've eventually cheated to find it, but MAP32 didn't give me a good first impression, so that I kept my savegame at the end of MAP31, and later I will decide whether to continue to MAP16 or try to legitimately progress through and beat MAP32.

[mouldy]

MAP15 - "Crumbling Necropolis" by an_mutt

Excellent map, played it a few times now and its still fun. This time I was running around fairly recklessly, which seems to be a good way of playing it given the amount of free space and sniper rev rockets to dodge. Even though i was wasting my health quite badly there was always just enough to keep me going. I guess having a general idea of the layout helped, but I still have only a vague idea where anything is, every time I play i go a different route. This time I figured I'd just get to the secret exit and sod the rest, still it took 36 minutes. These kind of maps can be a bit of a drag, but I think this one does well to keep the action going. Having said that, I seem to remember getting pretty lost on my first go.

[Veinen]

Demos for maps 13-15.

Map13: Monster Dash by Eradrop

Fun map. Simple hubmap layout with four side areas and a pit of blood in the middle, but it feels more like an open playground than anything since you don't really have to spend much time on the side quests and monsters can roam rather freely on the ledge level. Combat can be pretty chaotic if you let things develop that way, and why wouldn't you? It's not hard at all to skip monsters in this map and the fun factor increases tenfold. Storming through the wall of Cacos might be a bit overkill for the casual player but at least it shows a way to make the fight at the second blood pit with the Mancs and Spectres interesting heh. I'm not sure if there's much benefit in it but it looked like a more fun option than rocketing the Cacos from a distance. The Archie is relatively harmless if you left some rockets for him to eat. Ammo balance in general felt pretty good as there's enough rockets' so that nothing gets grindy but not so much that you can spam them. The CG doesn't even need to be touched, which is good in a map like this. The finale is the only part of the map that wasn't that great as the SM is completely useless and Chaingunners don't really feel like the ideal enemy in that environment. Revs/HKs would probably have been my choice as then there would have been some use for the SM as well in infighting. In any case, overall it's a wonderfully chaotic and fun map with very great replayability.

Map14: Purification Plant by Dave The Daring

A little slower paced and exploratory map after the two hyperspeed ones but this was pretty enjoyable to max as well nonetheless. The large scale architecture is a noticeable feature, as evidenced by everyone mentioning it, and it gives the map distinct look and feel. Industrial is the word that is being thrown around and I can agree with that. Color scheme is mostly browns and greys but I like it as it fits the theme of the map. The blue also meshes really nicely with the duller colours.

The map does feel somewhat empty though, like Magnus said, due to the large scale architecture. Progression is slightly confusing but once you get the hang of things, coming up with an effective route is not an issue (unlike in, say, the next map). Combat is decent for the most part but could use some improving for sure. I definitely liked the Arch-vile ambushes at the RL and in the subsequent room, the latter one especially can be a bit of a pain if you don't want to waste time toying with him. The YK ambush is not too bad, maybe one more Rev and a HK wouldn't hurt though? Grabbing the YK in the vat was easily the most problematic part of the map, however innocent it may look like. I simply had to get rid of the Imps at the beginning since the Revs at the ledge manage to get a shot or two in every single time once I tele into the vat for the RK. Literally every single time. Coupled with Imps inside the vat, the Baron and the Imps on the ledge above it was too much to handle in such a small space and with great shame I have to admit that I died there a couple of times before deciding to go the way I did. The Revs still stayed behind though since SGing Revs is not cool. Some of the other perched monsters (Imps) were thoroughly useless though, like the two next to the yellow bars and the ones in the penultimate room.

All in all I think this is a good map and decent fun when speeding through too. The layout enables possibilities for different routes and strategies which is always good.

Map15: Crumbling Necropolis by an_mutt

What a behemoth of a map. I dreaded doing the demo for this way more than for map32 since in my initial playthrough I was so lost I couldn't even find my way to the bathroom in my 35m2 apartment afterwards. Well, the beginning of this "route" I used came pretty naturally actually; get the SSG -> get the BFG -> get the RK -> get the RL, wherever it is. The rest is kind of just running around cleaning up while you progress towards the YK and the secret exit. So many secrets too (11/10 even, too much to handle) in case the general progression wasn't confusing enough. Funny sidenote: I had to ditch one of my max attempts for not knowing how many secrets I had found at like 20 minutes into the map. I was sure they weren't going to amount to 11 but I couldn't figure out which I had missed for the life of me. Combat is pretty low-key for a map this size but definitely enjoyable. Things get interesting at the latest once the Archies start spawning as they are very effective in an open map like this. Good use of Revenant, Mancs and Arachs as snipers too, and I didn't really think they were overused at all. Ammo and health balance were pretty relaxed, especially health was very abundant if you consider all the secrets. Can't really highlight any specific battles being more memorable than the other, what with the map being so free flowing and all.

Visually and architecturally this is pretty wonderful. Everything is grey and brown once again but really stylishly done. Detailing is pretty minimal but it doesn't really need more anyway and excessive detail could just substract from the atmosphere. Love the music track as well and it fits like a glove. Overall this really felt like a abandoned crumbling base in some far corner of the world in my opinion. Fantastic map and I loved every second despite all the initial confusion. Great work an_mutt!

The demo for this map is around 30 minutes long and contains a solid 5 minutes of just making sure I had everything killed before entering the secret exit area. I had to IDDT twice in the end because a fucking Lost Soul inside a wall made those monster roaming noises and I had to make sure it was just that and not something that would matter for maxes. I did it because earlier I deleted one demo where I had missed one monster and REALLY didn't want that to happen again. I hope you can forgive me.

---------------

Good news is that I already have a demo for map32 so there's one more reason to motivate myself to continue. Bad news is that I missed two monsters so I'm gonna try to do a legit one for tomorrow ;)

[TheOrganGrinder]

MAP31: Fever Blues

Chaotic and fast-paced, in stark contrast to MAP15; there are no lulls in the action here. Overall the atmopshere served to propel me towards the (conventional) exit at a breakneck pace, skipping over large portions of the level; I guess I'll look at what I missed and at MAP32 in a subsequent playthrough or at another time.

[SoundofDoomDoors]

MAP31 was pretty good. The revenants guarding one of the keys might have been more annoying if I hadn't had leftover rockets from MAP15. I had to cheat to find the secret exit too. Suggestion: add a light-based arrow on the floor pointing to the left as an additional hint on where to use the yellow key.

I'm getting ready for MAP32 and the monster count looks scary. This may be it for me on UV.

[Urthar]

ZDOOM - HMP - Pistol Starts

MAP31 - Fever Blues

A stylish and colourful romp. Running past stuff and grabbing goodies seemed to work pretty well, and I soon found myself at the secret exit to MAP32. Possibly the fastest map so far.

[Pirx]

Yo,

Nova2 seems pretty popular judging by the number of people discussing it. My last post at the club was almost one month ago, where I said I would write my impressions on the last third of scythe2 from vacation... however using a tablet was such a pain in the ass, and I had better things to do at almost 40°C, so you were spared my ramblings about afrits and evil marines.

When I got back, nova2 was at map05 already, I ran into issues with both my computer (I'll take a good air cooler over that compact water crap any day now) and that FDA called real life, meaning I had to shoot up half of the wad swiftly and make do with a short overview (UV pistol start, gzdoom)


01 - easy first techbase map with a bit of plutonia bricks. just the souls at the end were annoying after I berserked through the map's second half.


02 - light opposition between abstract grey stone and metal structures and railway tracks. Get a soulsphere with a bit of walking on rooftops.


03 - a doom2 style techbase, with the first (easy) archvile. I liked the double revenant trap in the end (the one in front was expected, the one behind less)


04 - reminiscent of mid-90s maps, with basic detail, large spaces to explore and few easy monsters in between. The shotgunners in the underground part brought my health down pretty badly though.


05 - as many have said, the best map so far, both in visuals and gameplay, especially the bridge fight with the YK archvile.


06 - like map05, mostly easy but with 2 or 3 well placed archies that must be killed before the resurrect everything.


07 - simple shapes, abstract layout with the floating baron faces and great music, reminded me of requiem's map21. Really liked joe-ilya's map.


08 - starting in a house with furniture built in doom's crude realism, continuing in a cave and then a techbase part as if the author suddenly switched plans. Nice spooky music. Only the exit, why cram about 10 souls in it?


09 - I expected ruins given the title, but it's mostly an exercise in running circles and getting monsters to infight


10 - combines elements of E1 techbase, E2 marble & speckled stone, and E3 red rock, you progress through these and then come back. All with a sinister quake.style droning.


11 - lol is that a curse for doomguy? The map looks like plutonia, but plays more like eternal doom with its large spaces. Then suddenly a switch to almost slaughter in the hellish area. Get rid of that checkerboard texture, it looks like someone forgot a placeholder here.


12 - so close to the style of valiant's first episode that I checked the credits thinking that skillsaw contributed a map! Even the same discrete switched (the golden one) and arcade music. Great!


13 - visually very pleasing, bloodfalls and brown stone. The start is indeed a dash to get weapons, as you run into more baddies at every corner. The soulsphere trap is easy to get out. I stayed to get imps and revs to infight. Charged the caco swarm to kill the elementals, then retreated. So far, so good, a very entertaining map... then why is that stupid mastermind blocking the exit? So one can buckshot him about 20 times from the entrance? Change that please. Or give a bfg.


14 - a techbase made of concrete and rusty metal, many mid-tier monsters, and it's a btsx-like sprawling base... I planned to finish this here and catch up, guess i'll have to leave this for tomorrow.

[gaspe]

MAP32 - Megiddo II

Kills: 98% | Items: 96% | Secrets: 63%

Allright here we go. Like Megiddo of the first Nova we start in a hub section where we can choose which section visit. I don't remember so much the original Megiddo, so if there are some others references to it I probably missed them.
The starting hub is just gorgeous, as well as the last arena. I also had some frame-rate drops. The five sections are marked with a diamond draw on the floor, that helps to see where we have to go next. I'll review each section in the order I visited them.

1)The green marble underground. This is my least favourite. All the windows and openings make the monsters dangerous if you leave them behind. A few surprises but nothing so difficult. Not bad but it doesn't offer so much.

2)Red key. A nice castle set in island. I really like the big tower you climb up. Visually pleasing and many interesting things, and the club easter egg!

3)Yellow key. I would say this is the most difficult section. Health isn't so abundant and mistakes are heavily punished. At the start its hard to clear the area and create a safe spot. Visually varied and a solid layout. Good job, my second favourite part.

4)The big square room with the Cyberdemon. Not bad but overall it didn't catch me though it has many nice things that make it interesting. Quite tricky the room with 20% damage lava.

5)Blue key. This is my favourite among all the sections. Very abstract and the combination of black/red used is nice. I had lot of fun with all the snipers, and the damaging floor keeps you to going for the next radiactive-suit, which some are guarded by crushers. There are enough suits, but not enough to be wasted.
Idk about the big AVs battle. Purpose is to make you fall back into the blood I guess, but I got hit 5 times in sequence and I reached the tall rock area on the border. From there I could spam them with rockets in total safety from their attacks.

Idk if I missed something but after I completed the 5 sections I haven't any idea of what to do :/
The door near the five red "diamonds" on the floor wasn't open, nor I found any new switch in the area. Last resort I just went with idclip behind to find the teleport that takes to the final area.

This was really difficult. Damaging floor and only 3 suits make it hard as it's dangerous to stay near the tower as you dont have so much place to dodge. The blood keeps draining your health making any possible hit you take very dangerous. Great conclusion for the super-secret map.

Overall in all the map most of the difficult is to be smart on the resources you find. The full arsenal picked at the start gives you the freedom to choose how to use it and making the experience very varied. It was really fun and well balanced, kudos!

Edit: various typos.

[SoundofDoomDoors]

MAP32: I did three of the five sections. HARD, but fun. I didn't think the final area was possible when the viles zapped me 6 or 7 times. I still don't know how I did it. If you can, make all of the areas required. I think I missed a key and still completed it. If that isn't done, maybe a teleporter in the exit tower could warp people who missed things back. Gating the tower area with all the keys could work, too. You'd just need more than three keys: one for each area. That still lets players tackle all the areas but the finale in any order they like.

63% Kills 36% Secrets.

[Jaws In Space]

This is a nice small breather map right after the monstrous map 15, or map 32 if you play the secret maps. Nothing too difficult here as far as monsters are concerned, this is mostly just a nice map to look at with quite a few moving parts to keep things interesting.

[dobu gabu maru]

MAP32: Ah, Megiddo, how nice to see your ugly face again. For those that don’t know, the original Megiddo was the final map (MAP30) of the first NOVA, featuring sections by me, cannonball, mouldy, kildeth, and Arjak. While having such a long finale was out of the question for NOVA II, it was cannonball that suggested a "Megiddo redux" for the secret slot this time around. I influenced its development by handpicking which mappers would be a part of it, singling tourniquet out to design the hub and final battle since his architectural finesse is nigh-unparalleled (I was originally just going to do a lazy copypaste of my hub from Megiddo, but thank goodness we got this twisted beauty instead). I specifically chose these mappers in order to give them "another shot" at submitting maps to NOVA II, as this was before a couple of them (AD, Pinchy) were given the green light to create a second map for our hell episode. The only one I wish we could've fit in was U.O.D., but luckily he gets two maps into our set anyway.

Out of all the maps in NOVA II, I’ve actually never played this one to completion until now, so I was real excited to see just what a monster it had become. And goddamn is it long. I mean, that's not a mark against it—it just winded me by the time I got to the merciless finale. Here is who designed each section for those that are curious, and my path went Dave -> Noisy -> AD -> Jaxxoon -> Pinchy (The first three I had never played before). I was pleased with how each section turned out, glad we had some variety between the five of them.

Dave's was an open and fun romp, as he punished the player with some nasty traps (that 20 damaging lava is especially malicious). Noisy's was the most impressive and jaw-dropping, utilizing the damaging floor to its fullest and having some absolutely cruel encounters (like the AVs that warp in near the end and just send you flying off into space). AD's was excellent and promoted a lot of movement from the player, though the combat seemed to dwindle near the end. Jaxxoon's is the Arjak of the group, with an easy and short segment that's a necessary breather between the more robust portions (I like the ending brawl and dark lighting quite a bit). Pinchy's is the most diverse and adventurous of the group, having a decent array of encounters and battles. And finally we return to the hub to jump into tourniquet's funhouse of horrors, with ammo and health balanced so tightly that I exited with 30 health and no cell left. When I played the first version of the finale I told him it was way too easy, so I guess I got my wish fulfilled!

Overall it's definitely a worthy successor to our first Megiddo experiment. I've always liked the idea of multiple mappers coming together to work on a single map designed to kick your ass, and my ass indeed was kicked quite thoroughly; I couldn't be prouder. Good work guys, and special thanks to KevinHEZ for that outstanding midi composition.

(Three things to fix. The three soulspheres and a megasphere in the hub is a bit reduntant, especially since Jaxxoon & AD’s sections end with a soulsphere and megasphere respectively—I’d remove the second soulsphere at the top of one of the hub lifts and delete Jaxxoon’s ending soulsphere. The second is that the metal bars that block areas off in Dave's section and the GSTONE bars at the ending of Jaxxoon’s section really don’t need to take that long to raise, as they kill the pacing of the gameplay. And the third thing is that the door that closes off Noisy’s section from the hub isn’t completely black like the others. Other problems might be radsuit leaks in Dave’s section and the inability to go back and get secrets, but neither of those really need changing IMO)

[tourniquet]

gaspe said:

MAP32 - Megiddo II
The door near the five red "diamonds" on the floor wasn't open, nor I found any new switch in the area.

On which source port did you play the map gaspe?

[ArmouredBlood]

Going to stream map 15 and the secret maps in a little bit.

http://www.twitch.tv/armouredblood

[Demon of the Well]

Map 15 -- Crumbling Necropolis - 104% Kills / 80% Secrets - FDA (uses beta D3)
The demo's quite long this time, 57 minutes or something like that. I didn't die (miraculously), but I did take quite a while exploring, looking for secrets, and gradually cleaning out the ruins (using a variety of tactics, from slow/stodgy to Rambo-style), and eventually found and used the secret exit. Quite the time investment for a single map, some might say, but I hope the amount of time I was willing to spend soaking it in communicates in some way how much I was enjoying it.

Anyway, unlike is the case with many of the other NOVA II 'newbies', I actually do have some experience with some of an_mutt's previous work, mainly his maps in D2INO, I believe he made 'Waste Tunnels' and 'Tricks and Traps' in that one. Even between those two maps, there are several worlds' worth of difference and stylistic maturation/growth--'Waste Tunnels', presumably one of his earliest efforts, is a quite homely, cramped, obstructively-detailed, paperclip-linear (e.g. you walk to one end of the map in a straight line, then you walk all the way back), two-dimensional mess of a thing, whereas 'Tricks and Traps' almost looks like it's by an entirely different author, very spacious, airy, multi-tiered, non-linear, and stylistically much more broadstroke and abstract. In fairness, I seem to recall its combat was somewhat undercooked, and that the map had almost nothing in it that made it actually fit the basic D2INO project goal, but from a structural and layout standpoint it was already showing a very great deal of potential and character--the smooth, flowy layouts repeatedly feeding into themselves that are so in vogue in the current era of mapping are difficult to do on that kind of physical scale for even many of the genre's modern masters, and yet there he did it, placement/pacing hitches aside. And here with 'Crumbling Necropolis' he has done it again, crafting an expansive, complex, and immersive setting that is a genuine pleasure to get lost in, and this time with much more consistently entertaining gameplay, to boot.

The titular necropolis, perhaps something like a colony or a particularly large military base, is a huge compound of brick, cement, and steel, presumably once grand indeed, now fallen, forgotten, and being rapidly reclaimed by nature as it slowly drowns in a nascent flood-lake. Its huge, chunky, multi-tiered buildings, paired with the outlying mountain/river terrain and the large planes of flowing water that dominate a few of the widest spaces, make for quite the playground for Doomguy's boundless agility and speed while also providing Hell's children with a practically endless variety of vantages, overlooks, path-routes, and angles of attack. It's a joy to simply speed through without a care, leaping and diving and charging, with what feels like a welter of options for traveling between any two given points of interest, and that before one even begins to consider the wealth of carefree parkour shortcuts. Highly non-linear in nature, the level's overall progression is loosely gated by sets of key-locked doors found mostly in the largest building, but even once you start collecting those keys the feeling of open-endedness doesn't really taper off much, as you'll soon find that the majority of the locked doors lead to a hearty helping of optional content--scads of supplies, and scads of extra battles to fight if you're so inclined, often hosted on a plane of play you'll have seen earlier, just out of reach, from some other angle or vantage.

Aesthetically, it is beautiful in its (relative) simplicity--other than some bits of debris and holes/broken walls on some buildings, it is very clean, trading on the immersive power of grand scale and long vistas in combination with an eye-soothing blue/green/grey/tan color scheme more than on whimsically-shaped and ornately-detailed geometry. Lighting is spot-on--the broad swathes of moonlight cutting through the night and the dim interiors, in counterpoint to the heavy blankets of shadow cast by the surrounding hills and looming piles are brilliantly moody, and show that no area is ever too large to treat lighting with respect (incidentally, if you decide to brighten this whole thing up for whatever reason, I WILL haunt you, an_mutt!). On the level of nitpickery, over the course of the map's considerable expanse there were times when I saw some fairly jarring texture transitions--the green calico bricks directly into brushed chrome w/ neon lights) in the computer map's watchtower is an example that sticks in my mind--and some odd alignment choices (read: they look to be deliberate rather than oversights) on short corners of buildings and different faces of dark metal braces and such, but generally speaking it's a resounding success, the excellent BGM track being a perfect complement, it has that sort of 'lone/lonely hero' vibe to it that I so enjoy.

Given the way the thing's laid out, combat is naturally for the most part incidental, a blend of skirmishing in and on the buildings while monsters of all sorts lob projectiles at you from all manner of points, angles, distances and heights. Given the amount of space you usually have I wouldn't say it's exactly a projectile hell or the like--not nearly stressful enough unless you're playing like an obstinate fool--but it certainly insists that you get the lead out and move around, prompting you to pick your holdout points carefully. Feels like the monster population is split very evenly between the different tiers of baddie--hitscanners in strategic places, droves of imps (who tend to fill a harrying sniper-saturation role rather than acting as infantry), mancubus/arachnatron artillery, revenant stormtroopers in the halls and hills, and lots of specters in the drink to trick you into making a bad move and getting dogpiled. Oh, yes, and the arch-viles, of course....as aforesaid, outside of the more enclosed exit-battle setpieces, heavily choreographed/controlled encounters are rare, so instead the map as a whole is subjected to 'world events' at a couple of points, the most pronounced being its infestation by a veritable arcanum's worth of arch-viles upon claiming the blue key, who bustle through the ruins undoing much of your fine handiwork, thus giving you the pleasure of finding a new way of kicking old ass, something which the freeform terrain and very generous supply of armament so readily lends itself to. Lovely, lovely--the balance is very nearly spot-on, with or without secrets; I was getting pretty antsy for a rocket launcher before finally getting one, but I would consider this a design quirk rather than a balance problem (that, and my dumb ass never did figure out how to get the rocket launcher on a post in plain sight near the player start point).

Not much I would change--I think the final battle at the secret exit could probably use a soulsphere or something (since avoiding damage there is so heavily reliant on favorable RNG vis-a-vis the blursphere, might want to cut the player a bit of extra slack), and my single biggest complaint about the map is actually that said area is inescapable. Of course, the fight there doesn't work if the player can retreat from it at will, but it shouldn't be too hard to rig up some kind of time-released switchplate or teleport pad to let the player back out into the main map after things have quieted down--I would have very much liked to see the little bit of the 'regular' path I had left before dropping into the secret exit area. Very minor detail, but I also suggest having the exit teleporter appear visually different from all the others in the level--maybe a more traditional square pentacle pad instead of the rounded blue ones, something like that.

I could go on and on about this, but I guess I should've already cut it at this point. Excellent work, an_mutt, you can expect me to start casually harassing you about doing your own mapset any day now. ;)

[Demon of the Well]

Map 31 -- Fever Blues - 102% Kills / 100% Secrets - FDA (uses beta D3)
Hmmm.....not sure about this one. In its way it's very D!Zone (albeit with a higher minimum threshold of visual/construction fidelity, of course), plays out more like somebody's doodle-book in PWAD form than as a really coherent experience. I guess it reminds me in many ways of Mouldy's "Bad Blood" from the original NOVA--you can see the mapper's general approach, and get a whiff of his potential, but the map itself is just sort of a hodgepodge of disconnected/unrelated ideas held together with scotch tape and rubberbands, both aesthetically/thematically and in terms of gameplay.

I guess the analysis I want to make is that it's kind of like a qualitative inverse of KevinHEZ's map 03, and of the KevinHEZ/Impboy4 joint in slot 10--there's some interesting ideas in the encounter department, but very little sense of identity in terms of theme/aesthetic. It's not just a function of the various different areas all having drastically different texture themes as that, other than the blue key recess/central 'mesa', the areas don't have any real interplay between, each being its own discrete idea that plays out in a very self-contained way, e.g. the whole yellow key/super-secret exit quest all being limited to the anomalous hidden crate area. Visually it's passable--I like the generally airy scale, again--but lacking any real thematic or conceptual identity does it no favors in that regard. One gets the impression that it's not really supposed to be taken seriously in spots (e.g. the rather hideous/gaudy area around the standard exit), and in fact this applies to some of the encounter setups as well (e.g. the spider mastermind who starts being crushed all of .47 seconds after it becomes aware of your presence), but this tongue-in-cheek aspect doesn't really change that the map feels like it has no real identity.

As to the bits I did like, from pistol-start finding a way of not getting blasted to shreds by the early hitscanner brigade is an interesting little proposition, the cacos get good mileage out of their flight ability in the hidden warehouse section (especially with the arch-vile prowling the stacks at ground level), and the first keycard cascade interacts better with other local encounters better than anything else in the map, but there's also a lot of silly stuff that doesn't do much for me--revenants on their little silver lanes overlooking the keycard, the aforementioned banana-peel spiderdemon, the senseless soul-spam near the regular exit, etc.

I guess you could say I just don't "get it", but I don't think there's really much to get in this case in a big picture sense--this map feels like it's just an early experiment (or a pile of them, rather), basically margin-scribblings, like I said. Not to my taste.

[TheOrganGrinder]

MAP16: Red Morning Light

Assuming one doesn't visit the secret levels, there's a major shift in gears here, from MAP15's open, exploratory gameplay to this short, sweet, and compact little number. Visually it's a shrine-like environment of pale brown stone, not large enough to lay claim to a temple or castle theme, with much of the gameplay taking place in or around rooms flooded with murky brown water and the occasional side trip into a grimy dungeon; it's describe it as "deliberately understated," everything is modest in scale, soft and subtle in tone and contrast. The music, on the other hand, is more upbeat, and its beepy, "chiptune" quality feels like it would better suit a techbase redress of this map, though it fits the faced-paced progression from one small encounter to the next perfectly.

Gameplay isn't enormously challenging and you're never asked to hunt for the way forward or for more monsters to shoot. Most interesting to me were the plasma gun secret that spawns an arch-vile (proof that the reward for finding a secret can be interesting gameplay as much as additional weapons or supplies) and the nearby dungeon secret that lets you soften up one side of a horseshoe-shaped monster closet if you find it early enough. Coming on the heels of MAP15 this is a very pleasant way to unwind and cleanse your palate for different challenges ahead.

[scifista42]

I've made a "spin-off savegame" for MAP32, postponed playing it to another time, and continued with MAP16 for now.

MAP16 - "Red Morning Light" by SFoZ911

Yet another nice compact map, this time small, short and sweet. It seemed too easy at first, since I'm playing continuously, but I've eventually got killed more than once. The challenge / monster usage / difficulty curve was well done, and visuals and secrets too. Good breather map to come after one of the extensive ones like 15 and 32, but playing it after MAP31 wasn't any bad at all, either.

[gaspe]

tourniquet said:

On which source port did you play the map gaspe?

Gzdoom.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP32 Megiddo II

welcome back lag. so we've got five places to go just like the first Megiddo, with tourniquet providing the hub along with every weapon.

AD_79's section: 4/5 Again I went to this one first. brutal Plutonia-styled section. difficulty settings now implemented but it's still quite hard on easy. because of that I took a very long time beating this section but it's alright.

Dave the Daring's section: 2/5 This one second, an arena mash-up with a cyber trouncing the other enemies. Had to kill the archie in the middle as well as the revenants, as they were the biggest annoyance. the extra setpieces are fine, but I still don't like the bars that take you back, since you open them directly and they take a while to go all the way up.

NoisyVelvet's section: 1/5 Went to this one third. a very interesting outgoing section with a lot of action. plus crushers which may or may not be of use. hardest part was actually biding the time for radiation suit collecting. it was all so varietic that I had to spam BFG and rockets until it was quiet. the bulk of monster population seemed like it was all here too.

Jaxxoon R's section: 4/5 the shortest and easiest one for me. kinda confusing to figure out how to exit though. still I like it.

Pinchy's section: 4/5 This was the last section I did, and it's quite expansive. a few setpiece battles make this map, like the first caco ambush, or the even better imp ambush. the tower climbing section NE of that might be the only annoying point, due to the cacos who like to sneak up on me. the square room with the baron in the center is also hard, because it's easy to run into the torches. I liked the final send-off.

tourniquet's finale: 5/5 After wailing through the sidesections, this final section seems like an amped-up version of NoisyVelvet's section, chaotic combat + damaging floors. tourniquet pulls a TimeOfDeath using lost souls in dummy sections creating the illusion of pillars moving up and down. the fact that radsuits aren't as freely available and run out quick makes it a hard finale challenge. at least the archies were replaced with revenants for easy difficulties. the next batch of monsters after the initial one is pretty nasty, a cybersniper, plus waves of teleporting revenants and nobles, and OH MY GOD IS THAT A CACO WAVE FROM THE BACK? Very stunning ending to a colossal collaboration.

[tourniquet]

gaspe said:

Gzdoom.

Hmm in that case i'm clueless because for me and others it works fine in GZDoom.
Perhaps you've played with a compatibility setting that screws up the "objects can block doors" behaviour.

->
Oh well map32, whoever finds some enjoyment in my stuff here should thank Dobu that it's still in the set since i was tempted to scrap my part very early in it's development. Personally it's the least favorite from all 3 submissions i made for NovaII, i certainly have a affinity for highly detailed stuff, nonetheless i think i've exaggerated a bit too much here.

[obake]

Map16 : Red Morning Light by SFoZ911
Played on HNTR, HMP, and UV, 100% kills and secrets on each. Average time: 8 minutes. Death count: 7

Another short, punchy map, similar to maps 12 and 13. I definitely had fun with this one, and it was a nice break from the super long map before it. (Which, I will be getting to the secret levels at some point, too.)

Overall, Red Morning Light is a fun map that isn't really difficult except on UV. I only died once on HMP, and that was just me being careless. Granted, I was pretty careless on UV as well, but the ambushes were notably more fierce, especially the one with the Vile, Revs, and Mancs. There also was more Chaingunner spam, which led to a few fatalities.

[cannonball]

MAP31 - "Fever Blues" by Noisyvelvet
This was an interesting map with a nice mechanism for the secret exit. The visuals are kind of all over the place, but not too over the top. Gameplay is a little on the tough side given the lack of higher powered weapons. Still it is manageable.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP16 Red Morning Light 4/5

Fast-paced, but short enough, it's a good map with alright design and good gameplay. I ended up getting the plasma gun secret while running from monsters.

[SoundofDoomDoors]

Note: I didn't pistol start on death for MAP32 or 15. Those were too long. I would have never finished the former if I had!

MAP16 was a lot of fun. I got killed by the last ambush because I didn't take the invisibility, which actually works really well because of the chaingunners in that room. Due to its short length, pistol starting wasn't a big deal. The map's a little short on shotgun shells whether you bring some over or not. The teleporting vile in the plasma rifle ambush was really well thought out. On my first run, I got stuck in a corner with him constantly reviving enemies (I lived through that and died at the end). On my second run, I took off after him to the other side of the map, dodging the newly-spawned mancubi, and rocketed him to death before he could do much. That was very rewarding!
100% Kills 50% Secrets

[Pirx]

Demon of the Well said:

Map 31 -- Fever Blues - 102% Kills / 100% Secrets - FDA (uses beta D3)

very entertaining as usual, thanks. nice to see a more thoughtful approach than my impatient jumping around after clearing out everything.

Demon of the Well said:

As to the bits I did like, from pistol-start finding a way of not getting blasted to shreds by the early hitscanner brigade is an interesting little proposition, the cacos get good mileage out of their flight ability in the hidden warehouse section (especially with the arch-vile prowling the stacks at ground level), and the first keycard cascade interacts better with other local encounters better than anything else in the map, but there's also a lot of silly stuff that doesn't do much for me--revenants on their little silver lanes overlooking the keycard, the aforementioned banana-peel spiderdemon, the senseless soul-spam near the regular exit, etc.

that berserk pack in the starting corner is a funny trap, if one picks it up thinking his fists will do him good, and faces a squad of hitscanners instead.

the revenant trap also works, when one thinks he's safe from missiles near the wall, and suddenly the revs teleport out of their guardhouses. i laughed at the one in the blue wall area you shot 5-6 times with little effect, was that a blockmap bug?

[gaspe]

tourniquet said:

Hmm in that case i'm clueless because for me and others it works fine in GZDoom.
Perhaps you've played with a compatibility setting that screws up the "objects can block doors" behaviour.

It's kinda weird. Maybe I will have another run on it.

MAP16 - Red Morning Light

Kills: 100% | Items: 100% | Secrets: 100%

It's nice to have a short map after two long ones (15,32). Very simpe but good looking. Nothing so difficult but if you drop your attention you may find yourself in trouble.

MAP17 - Zebetite

Kills: 100% | Items: 100% | Secrets: 100%

A very cool tech-base. There's a lot of care everywhere for the detail. I really like the outdoor part, it gives a good sense of the place, and we have some nice visuals there. The use of cement textures and the white rocks is a nice touch to add more variety.
We have some interesting traps. At the Yellow key letting the Cyberdemon to do most of the job was really helpful. Fighting the floating monsters outside was tricky due to your limited space with the damaging floor pit. The last fight was really tough as I found the Blue Armor after I killed everything. There everything was staged very well, and the Spiderdemon use was cool.
Maybe the secret with the Cellpack could be more rewarding as it's really hard to notice it.
In the elevetor where there's the first Baron if you stand stuck to the fence while it's raising it will cause the sector where you are to stop moving as long you stay there, but the other sectors of the elevator will keep going up.
Great job! I only wish there was some exploration of the outside as it looks really cool.

[Jaws In Space]

[Demon of the Well]

Pirx: I don't think I noticed that some of the revenants from the windows in the blue area where the same guys that ported down to chase me after I grabbed the card--charged in and out too fast! That's an interesting layer to the encounter if so, although one liable to be rarely seen--reckon most folks will either run in there and haul ass like I did, or alternately have a snipe-out with the revs from afar before trying to approach the card. As to that one buckshot-proof skeleton, definitely a blockmap artefact, but I doubt it was intentional, just something that happened to develop with him being roughly fixed in place relative to the way the area is oriented. I didn't have trouble hitting the guy whose position mirrors his on the other side of the hall because I was firing from a different angle, I think.

Map 32 -- Megiddo II - 105% Kills / 90% Secrets - FDA, 2 Deaths (uses beta D3)
Alright, this map's a behemoth, and thus so is the demo file. Having experienced the original Megiddo prior to this, and seeing the monstercount here the first time I loaded it up, I opted to use -cl -1 for the FDA (allowing savegames) for the sake of thoroughness and some vestigial level of brevity. The resultant .lmp is probably cumbersomely long for both casual viewers and map authors looking for a run at their particular segment alike, and so in the interest of common courtesy I've got some rough -skipsec landmarks flagged below.

1. Entering 1 'o clock portal, DaveTheDaring's Big Setpiece Emporium: -skipsec 100
2. Entering southernmost 6 'o clock portal, Pinchy's Island Getaway: -skipsec 1035
--Sorry for the long pause in this segment, phonecall I had to take. -skipsec 2425 or so to skip it once it starts.
3. Entering 5 'o clock portal, NoisyVelvet's Crimson Demesne: -skipsec 2920
4. Entering northernmost 6 'o clock portal, Jaxoon's Shrine Cellar: -skipsec 4095
5. Entering 11 'o clock portal, AD_79's Cliffside Temple of Fuck You: -skipsec 4625
6: Entering 3 'o clock portal, Tourniquet's Final Battle Royale: -skipsec 5410

Comments by area:

DaveTheDaring's BSE: I guess I'll preface this first bit by saying that while the authorship of some of the map's parts is unmistakable (esp. NoisyVelvet's and Tourniquet's parts), some of the others are bit trickier to call, and so I had to reason them out while playing. I ultimately decided this must be DaveTheDaring's area for two reasons: the general scale/height of the rooms, and the ceiling detail. ;) Probably the most expressly 'amateur' of Megiddo II's components in aspect, this looks like a much earlier effort by the author than what we saw in his map 14 earlier on. Rooms are large, open, very simple in shape (generally bilaterally symmetrical, with one exception), and very flatly lit. I did not find this section to be very attractive, mainly on account of the (lack of) lighting. From a gameplay perspective, coming into this one first thing was fairly interesting...it immediately pits you against a lot of high-HP opposition, and while you start the map with your full arsenal, at this early point having/finding the ammo to fuel all of your implements of destruction is somewhat of a to-do. I left the cyberdemon alive for a while for that reason, thinking he might be useful for something, but he's not, really...it turns out that the relatively few monsters that get released into the central hub are all trapped on the periphery by monster-blocking lines, presumably intended to keep the mancubi initially populating the room doing their intended job of creating heavy crossfire through the center. I would suggest retooling this, I feel like the cost of having those blocking lines on later encounters (esp. vs. the pain elementals) outweighs the brief pressure benefit of not allowing the mancs to clump up early on. Should also make the arch-viles out there more of a threat (at least once the unwieldy gate-bar mechanisms are addressed ;) ). The battle theme of the area is, of course, gimmick-based setpieces. I felt the one to the east was the most interesting, good use of damage-floor (20% might be a bit much, though) and inconveniently-appearing arch-viles makes you sweat while you try to use the thin columns for cover (spoiler: I screwed it up). The other areas feel like they are more time-consuming than threatening, though, particularly the spider-podium room to the west.

--Saw a small texture bug on the floor of the rocket/bullet corner-room with zombies outside.

Pinchy's Island Getaway: Moreso than any of the other segments this feels like a map unto itself. Stylistically, it was the most difficult for me to pin down, and ultimately I concluded it to be Pinchy's more through process of elimination than anything. Again, setpiece battles are the name of the game here, surprisingly horde-based, although generally not too severe unless it's late in the runtime and you're feeling fatigued (I was fortunate to come here fairly early, I think). Despite being fairly long and involved, it's deceptively simple, a very linear adventure from setpiece to setpiece, the majority of them being lock-in scenarios of one sort or another. Most are straightforward crowd-control/space management exercises, although the one in the round tower is more about traversing difficult terrain in a roundabout way--I didn't struggle much in that particular segment, but it did occur to me that many will probably find the combat in there obnoxious on account of the severe height differences, might be better to cut down on the level of enemy HP present. Ironically, this segment is probably nastiest early on--I suspect the first caco-trap will draw some complaints of unfairness, since it almost certainly injures or even kills you unless you happen to have the BFG equipped when you jump in there (playing without infinitely tall actors would probably help as well), but, well, that's what reflexes are for! I quite like this one from an aesthetic perspective, very clean and open visually with a simple but pleasant evening-sky lighting scheme (the 'additive' directional lighting in a couple of places is perhaps a little suspect though, e.g. the cones of light on the ceiling of the early imp/vile pen) and, like map 02 before it, good use of height variation and resultant vistas as an aesthetic perk, certainly has a sense of place to it.

How in the world does one reach the revenant-ledge that is apparently flagged as a secret?

NoisyVelvet's Crimson Demesne: I liked this quite a bit more than map 31 by the same author, in fact I might say it was my favorite part of Megiddo II outside of the final battle. It has all of the quirkiness as map 31, and, despite a drastically different and much more aesthetically coherent theme, many of the same architectural/structural characteristics as well (check out the automap, notice the similar shapes and interconnections), but where that one lacked any particular sense of direction or purpose this one delivers a very pronounced concept that unifies the whole area, that being the idea of constantly managing the lake of harmful blood the area is swamped in, either by wearing a radsuit while wading in it (which requires good situational awareness, since they're dotted around erratically and tend to run out on you at the most inopportune times) or by scampering about on the rocks and ruins jutting out of it (which requires decent agility and perhaps a good sense for indirect pathfinding). Combat is catch-as-catch can, shit perched and roaming and flying all around, with the cyberdemon on the central podium an ever-present threat that dominates the area for most of the runtime. The heavy slant towards rockets in the ammo department (and the need to constantly run all around to gather them, since they aren't conveniently stockpiled in once place) adds an interesting spin, as well. Of all the areas, I imagine this one is the biggest bitch if you happen to attempt it first thing, but that's part of the charm. Not a lot I would change here, perhaps a monster-blocking line to keep the cyberdemon back a bit more from the landing where the player is supposed to finally jump onto the central podium, to save you from feeling obliged to grind away at him from down in the blood, which is not much fun, and also indirectly makes cleaning up the big vile-dump take longer.

Jaxoon's Shrine Cellar: I think I identified this as Jaxoon's segment by the tighter scale, odd 'burrow' connections between rooms, and perhaps most of all the generally low light conditions (which again, for posterity, is a quality I generally like). Without the low lighting I suspect it'd be a mite ugly, some of the trim textures seem questionable and doortrack makes a number of appearances in some decidedly odd/inappropriate places. Gameplay-wise, this is almost certainly the easiest area, letting you develop momentum while facing relatively modest opposition (the worst traps can be smelled coming a mile away) if you tackle it first, and acting as a breather/downtime area if you hit it in the middle of your run, not something I object to. One thing that almost certainly should be changed, however, is the pair of ambushing revenants near the western window you're supposed to hop through to make progress--they only gain the ability to enter the map after you've done some stuff at the west end, but you can hop through the window well before doing it, and so it's very possible to miss them entirely, something that seems counterintuitive (and not at all speedrun-friendly, imagine a fellow like poor Veinen having to discard an otherwise great run of this map just because they didn't go up to that landing at the 'right' time). The trap should probably be primed to spring the very first time the player passes by it, no matter when that happens to be.

AD_79's Cliffside Temple of Fuck You: One of the shorter areas, but with a decidedly beefy monster composition, given its size. If you come here first thing I imagine you feel rather uncomfortable in the first few minutes when hi-test ammo is in relatively short supply (especially with no rockets for the gasbags who see you from a distance as soon as you port in), but all told it's probably a good starter area, since it eventually loads you up with tons of ammo and a free megasphere at the end. Getting to that point involves doing some cleaning, of course, but the maplet has a sort of vaguely HR-lite feel to it (I wouldn't really agree with its characterization as 'Plutonic' in terms of action), where you wrest control of discrete areas from the monsters initially thronging them and then gain more and more momentum (and more and more easy opportunities to kill monsters without them really being able to retaliate) as you go along. There's only one real surprise, but what a surprise it is.......THAT cyberdemon. All I'm gonna say. Well, okay, I'll say one thing more: "What a dick." From an aesthetic standpoint it's one of the better-looking segments, not as much organic feel in the shapes as in the stuff one sees from AD_79 these days, but works well enough for what is, with a (mostly) reasonable texture scheme and decent lighting (the yellow key landing area is perhaps a bit flatly lit, though). Incidentally, the fetish for festive neon striplights in places where they don't really seem to belong is how I identified this as AD_79's segment.

(The cyberdemon would've tipped me off otherwise. ;) )

Tourniquet's Final Battle Royale: Megiddo II certainly is quite the memorable journey (especially if you opt to take the full tour like I did), but by far its best quality is that it saves the best for last. The strange necro-cybronic...whatever it is....rising out of the endless underground lake of rancid blood in whatever stygian corner of Hell hosts this place was far too good a backdrop not to be used for some lively action, and after passing the other trials you are rewarded with a colorful multi-stage massacre in the cesspit housing the lone tower to the northeast of the portal-hub. Slaughter skeptics need not apply (and doubtless they'll opt not to), but this encounter, apart from having a number of entertaining layers to it, is more outwardly intimidating than it is genuinely merciless, no doubt the NOVA crew didn't want to end the long and exhausting trek through the map proper with anything too unswervingly stressful. BFG route-dashing solves the majority of the early furor, but there's a twist in the static arch-viles locked inside protective "shells" that control parts of the field, with the only really efficient way of removing them being to find an opening to literally cram the BFG down their throats. The second wave at first blush seems like more of the same, but the caco-cloud looming in the background mixes things up nicely--don't kill those perched cyberdemons too early, you may regret it! For a final bit of catharsis, the map closes out with a time-pressured (but ultimately very doable) V-sphere-fueled pogrom-rush against the final coven of arch-viles, leaving you standing atop a mountain of corpses, triumph embodied, ready to flip the apoptosis-switch in the tower and blow the whole cursed mess to wherever stuff in Hell goes when it gets blown to hell. The catch here is that Tourniquet's not really handing you your victory on a platter, even with that final V-sphere--if you've been wasteful with your resources in earlier parts of the fight, you might find your ammo is not enough to liquidate the coven before the sphere wears off, in which case you could end up in some rather deep shit indeed.

Very good stuff indeed, an excellent way to cap off what is presumably the set's largest undertaking. Changes I would suggest are pretty limited: the time delay between the different monster-waves in the second part of the battle probably needs to be shortened, and I would advocate for replacing the tan brick texture used on the viles' shells for a more orthodox flesh texture or the like, and having the eye switches be open instead of closed to start--I think this will look better, and more readily communicate that there are switches on the backsides of these things that need to all be hit in order to make progress.