The DWmegawad Club plays: Bloodstain

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP11 Verdant

When I first think about how great Bloodstain is, this is the first level that comes to mind. The starting combat isn't entirely rough, it's those two secrets at the beginning, requiring some bluesy platforming for a berserk and an SSG. I managed to grab both while the cacos are swarming, but they are harder than they look. The cruelties in combat get sparked just right after that, with turreted chaingunners plus arachnotrons. As it stands, there's enough traps to either screw you over if you do them horribly wrong or if you don't pay enough attention. Thankfully, the penalties are not far outweighing the player most of the time, it's likely that the one's who double back at a trap will fall prey to the monsters showing up directly behind them, something I've learned to stop doing. And then there's the spiderdemon, watching and preying as the player goes. The blue key takes quite a while to reach, and when it finally becomes available, another spiderdemon comes into the ring.

And all that is accompanied by the foresty Plutonia-like design and it looks and feels wonderful. After the blue bars is a wonderful waterfall-like section, where my only complaint is that stupid pain elemental. Digging the bridge, definitely. But it ain't over yet. I gotta find a use for that BFG, certainly, and the cyberdemon was going to make up for that.

[joe-ilya]

MAP11
Now the quality is high, the texturing seems cheerful and bright like a dwango map and the encounters aren't shoved in for the sake of having more monsters, it has few problems such as too many boss enemies and arch-viles but it goes swell either way. I like non-linear exploration based maps, in my video I've managed to skip most of the map by a nice trick to get the blue key.
5/5

[Jayextee]

MAP 11 - VERDANT

As soon as the midi kicked in, I knew there'd be at least one thing I absolutely loved about this level; mainly because I love Plutonia 2 (as I have said. Many times). Luckily the level didn't slouch too much either.

Now speaking of Plutonia 2, there's a certain quality to some of the maps that's kinda hard to describe but I'll give it my best shot; and that is when the level, and this applies primarily to those with expansive outdoor areas (although exceptions exist), feels like a real part of an ecosystem. Maps that feel like places the monsters genuinely belong in and don't feel out of place. Nay, it is YOU (the player), who is the stranger here.

This map had a touch of that. Although some of Bloodstain's familiar crampness kicks in a few times, those Arachnotrons with barely enough room to move felt at home in those caves. Imps on ledges seemed to have important business before I got there, and even the Mastermind behind the red keybar seemed to have been interrupted.

I love these levels, and this one was; as noted; the highest point of the wad thus far.

I have complaints. The green gets a little overpowering and a lot of scenery is repetitive; but I'll concede, hardly ever to the point where it gets confusing -- in fact, just the once on the crawl access the blue key (via Revs and Mastermind teleporting in).

It was a pretty damn linear level, but always felt more expansive and explorable than it was. I think that's quite important, and probably adds to the whole 'actually lived in by monsters' feel.

No deaths, but I took a couple of rockets to the face: one my own (damn cliffside Spectres!) and one from the first of two Cyberdemons. The second of which, you bet your ass I ran past it without firing a shot to the exit. No reloading this time. ;)

[Demon of the Well]

^^The first two secrets here are certainly an example of what I was talking about, I suppose, but an odd one in that the items in question don't really qualify as 'secret' in any sense of the word, flags or no, especially not the first SSG. In some of these maps, things that are more genuinely hidden seem like they are intended to factor into the balance of an 'average' playthrough, which is a trait of some remark given the prevalent mainstream attitude of the modern audience towards such an approach (that being that it's wrong/unbalanced/unfair). It's one of many things lending the WAD its self-consciously classic flavor.

Map 11 -- Verdant - 105% Kills / 100% Secrets
Hoho! PCorf cyberdemon! We have fun here, folks, we have fun here.

I largely agree with rdwpa's take on this one--the designed encounters are the highlights of the action (also of some remark how relatively rare true <3 setpieces <3 have been, come to think of it) here, while the incidental stuff is (on UV) again overassertive and drags the pace down a bit, which I think in this case is not so much a function of monster count as of the amount of HP you have to cleave through at every step of the way, with the useless bevy of specters and gang of revenants in the candlelit cave with the blue barricade or the string of arachnatrons crammed into the sinewy tunnels leading out onto the surface of the elevated lake standing out as prime examples. My favorite part was also the spiderdemon + skeletons dance atop the suspended lake, which I handled in very much the same way as rdwpa described, works well if you've the guts to make the initial charge in front of the spider's minigun.

Again, a perhaps disproportionate share of the combat here takes place through thresholds of one sort or another, and while some of these encounters are tuned in such a way that they make credible contributions (i.e. the 'trons + chaingunners fight the first time you pass through the lower plane of the half-moon lake, which does a good job of making you constantly swing and shimmy back and forth while you try to reduce the amount of artillery flying at you), others, like those aforementioned, feel like they exist purely to extend runtime for no good reason. Of course, whether placements work or not is not a binary issue (much like how visual tricks like the 3D bridges have their benefits and their costs), and so there are also some instances where it's 'little from column A, little from column B', ala the first cyberdemon, who serves the useful function of backstabbing players who run for the most intuitive panic/camping-spot upon porting into the clusterfuck after getting the RK, but on the downside is something of a minor chore to actually remove/bypass once that encounter is through. Again, in a vacuum a lot of these instances represent fairly minor issues; it's just that the issue is so omnipresent that there's something of a flavor of 'death by a million pinpricks.'

On the brighter side, again the visuals here are very pleasant, even soothing, not just in spite of but to some degree because of the straightforward theme. So many years of looking at those wet, green Phobos mountains off in the distance....it's almost revelatory to hike around in a place that seems like a credible depiction of what they'd actually be like, and is a pleasant contrast with the traditional dusty brown plains scenery of the earlier techbase-themed levels. The cataract wind-cave feeding out into the narrow gorge with the arcane wood-railed bridge zig-zagging over it is a particularly memorable sequence here due to visual flair alone, and there is a definite sense that the levels are getting better and better looking (and more flavorful in a broader diegetic sense) as we progress, which is itself some pretty solid incentive to keep trucking on.

[Benjogami]

MAP09: Mountain Outpost

Long, sad FDA 103% kills 50% secrets

I liked how the layout was open with lots of views into different areas, while still managing to play in a very cramped way. The yellow key fight worked quite well, but I got sick of doing it after dying a few times, so I just left, which turned out to be a much more interesting and effective way to deal with it, since the cacos drift over into the yellow door area and infight quite effectively there, while the barons and mancs later kill eachother when you peek over the edge of the arachnotron platform.

The plasma rifle fight was bad (either die, or run away and clean up a chokepoint for awhile). The cyberdemon fight was bad (he can't hit you if you drop into the plasma rifle area). I didn't even know an AV was loose while "fighting" the cyberdemon, so I guess that was bad too. Lots of various meatwalls (HKs in front of the red switch were especially bad since they can't even hit you).

The start of the level is fun, trying to get a toehold somewhere.

Another really loud midi much to my prboom-SDL-using dismay, but it's a good midi.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP11: Verdant
100% kills, 2/4 secrets

A pretty nice one, for the most part. The setting is, as the title implies, pretty garden fresh, with lots of green vines and water everywhere, not something often seen in Doom... despite being largely monochromatic, it works. I like the use of the teleport ambushes here as they do a good job of keeping the player moving and avoiding getting bogged down in the 'come to the next room of meat, clear it out' problem that's plagued a lot of this mapset so far. There's still a bit of that, especially early on - those demons who can do nothing but ineffectually mill around below the player stand out in that regard - but the bulk of the map is pretty good. For me, my favorite was grabbing the blue key, immediately getting surrounded by mancs, running back to the ruins only to find an AV there, running away from him only to find another AV up above... good stuff, and my favorite way of using Viles. The end is a bit sloggy, with the final encounters being a single cyberdemon, single spider mastermind, and single surprise instapop cyber, but it's not too bad since the player has a free BFG.

[Spectre01]

Map 12: The Slimy Dens

Hey, it's that weird Battletoads pause music sounding track from AV map01. I mentioned previously that there should have been a death exit before this map, and I still maintain that as it feels like an introductory map to the new episode that's easily facerolled with a carry-over BFG on continuous play. As said in the text file, this is obviously inspired by The Inmost Dens from Doom 2 as well as the homage map15 in Scythe. It's mostly brown, but with a bit of green vines added and the central area resembles a mini town square. I'm also a huge fan of the sky texture used for this episode.

Even on pistol start, this map is not particularly difficult aside from the slightly tricky start. Thankfully Pipicz is nice enough to give you a shotgun, chaingun and a backpack right away so you stand some fighting chance. Although it's still very likely the Hell Knight and Demon horde will overwhelm you if you just start shooting. What worked best for me was to bait the two Chaingunners into distracting the Hell Knight, allowing me to sneak past to grab the Berserk and start punching. The town square is densely packed with opposition and a rambo approach is very likely to go horribly wrong. Also, those two Pain Elementals sometimes fly out to the doors for easy punching and other times like to hang out in that sewer section, which is the one safe spot, assuming you take out the two caged Revenants at the entrance. Also, there's some weirdness with the Archvile, who can do one of those reduced damage hits if you slightly sidestep into the PE area.

There's a Blur Sphere behind the waterfall that seems trollish once you get warped infront of the fast throwing Baron, but proves very useful for the Chaingunner trap after flipping the switch. There's a tricky Revenant and Chaingunner in the distance that's obscured by the vines past the yellow door. Another notable scenario is the reappearing Archvile in the town square that will mostl likely Revive a bunch of stuff as you make your way back. Looking at the walls surrounding the map, it seems like you might be in some kind of castle, with the hanging corpses doing a good job of creating that unpleasant, demonic atmosphere. The ending has two Archviles that spawn in a way that makes it difficult to avoid their damage, but since I had enough health, I just punched them out.

Good E2 intro map. Here's a max run in Zandronum as I was testing out OBS recording.

[SoundofDoomDoors]

MAP10: Shimmering Grotto
100% Kills/50% Secrets/0 Deaths (6 total)

-I can't see in here! Maps this dark should have a pair of light goggles around. It's not scary to me at all, just annoying. I turned my gamma up so I could see more than a foot in front of me.
-Cramped! I could barely move for most of the level. I guess this is how pipicz chose to implement difficulty here, but it's more frustrating than entertaining. The props are especially bad.
-The blue switch mosh pit was fun.
-The laughing vile near one of the switch sequences was great. I knew what was going to happen when I cleared everything but the exit switch though. The pcorf viles have overstayed their welcome by several maps now. *yawn*
Overall: One fun spot amidst a dreary, nearly pitch black slog can't save this level. I might have a new least favorite. The wad's been a roller coaster so far.
---
MAP11: Verdant
2 Deaths, incomplete. I'll get back to this. It's pretty frustrating about halfway through. Every time I try to get out and run, I lose 3/4ths of my health or die. Gigantic area that looks made for fun? Try a spiderdemon/archvile/chaingunner crossfire with popup skeletons to stop you from cooking the vile quickly. I need sleep.

[Benjogami]

MAP10: Shimmering Grotto

FDA 91% kills 50% secrets

I quite liked this one. Aesthetically, a nice change of pace and an interesting take on a cave level. Some of the fights were made really annoying by blocking rock decorations, but I think that's kinda charming in a way, and ties in with the ragged cave theme. It would have been a lot more charming if most of the wad up til this point hadn't been similarly cramped. ;)

So yeah, gameplay is still banging away on that one note, but this one was pretty fun to work through.

[Aquanet]

MAP11: Verdant

In BStainfo.txt, Pipicz says the design of the second major room/area came to him in a dream, and he mapped it out. As a result, the map has a mostly linear layout until looping back on itself, which he doesn't like. Well, I think this is a pretty memorable outing with some entertaining and varied combat. On HMP, the big outdoor area is manageable, and the main channels get repopulated with monsters in some challenging ways. It's a straight tunnel, but my favorite architecture is the long passageway with arches above.

There are so many soul spheres!

Zdoom, pistol start, HMP. I love pistol starting levels with lots of cells because it turns into plasmageddon near the end with no reason to conserve.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP12 The Slimy Dens

Obvious homage is obvious. Compared to the previous, this don't hold a candle. I find myself annoyed at the central room with turreted shotgun guys and the arachnotrons, it's a pretty small room. The outer portions I can handle better. For some reason this not only reminds me of Inmost Dens, but also Bloodsea (Master Levels) and Crimson Tide (AV). This doesn't play as well as those though. The ending segments were a bit annoying, getting past the hellknights to take down an archie before he takes you down, or the two switches where an archie teleports after each one. Really cramped.

[joe-ilya]

MAP12
I don't really see the homage here, I know it's "The inmost dens" refernce, but it's not obvious besides the name, I bet if the title wasn't so obvious; no one would've ever know.

Just a cluttered map with enemies everywhere, you start off with chaingunners shooting you behind your back and you can't hide because the area infront is fully cluttered with demons, you can kill most of them before dying by the chaingunners, luckily there's a berserk pack, so I guess that's a fair game.
Then there's two symmetric paths that to the same area where you camp every monster you see in a boring fashion that I've been doing through this wad many times already.
Getting the yellow skull key is dull as well, just push a switch and run back to the same area you've been in, behind the yellow door you just kill enemies in tight corridors with a view, when it's time to backtrack; more enemies teleport into places you've already been in twice, behind the red door there are more symmetric and boring corridors, but now they lead to another cliche exit with AVs, how original!

0/5

[Jayextee]

MAP12 - THE SLIMY DENS

Stupendously not-noteworthy, this felt like the inmost (heh) courtyard was too small (and what's up with those miniature teleport pads?) and the trek outside was too long.

I did like the double-Archviles-on-switches at the end, if only for twisting what we've come to expect as the default level end by now... a little bit.

No deaths once more, wondering if playing HMP is starting to be a bad idea. Although the chaingunner reveal in the battlements took my health down to a 'measly' 73%! Shock! Horror! It remained above 100% for the majority of time though, thanks to VERY liberal soulsphere placement; and I ended up not picking up the berzerk pack at all.

[baja blast rd.]

map12

This is the first map I played almost entirely on autopilot. It's kind of a snoozer. The combat in the central key hub is mostly a waste of time. Most egregious are the pain elementals (one of which is often too shy to leave the backstage room), and the second archvile that warps in solely to resurrect stuff and eat up even more time. The red key breadcrumb trail is surprisingly tame. I would have expected a lot more after a soulsphere and two battery packs. Being sandwiched between two sets of teleporting mobs would have been more fun.

Some of the other thing placements are quite questionable. The first pair of caged revenants can be sniped with impunity from the adjacent hallway, because their rockets crash directly into the ceiling. Allowing this sort of cheese feels like sloppy design, as if map geometry and thing placement were conceived independently of one another. The secret blursphere is useful for one fight, and it's behind a slime curtain in which it can't be seen. Finding this one annoyed me. The caged pain elementals outside are about as effective as turreted pinkies. But I actually liked this one. I assume they exist for comedic relief. Nothing else makes any sense.

Highlights of the map were the short-lived berserk action at the start, the battlement chaingunners looking over the yellow key, and the instapop barons at the end. The last of these is a double dose of crassness: the popup out of the solid wood floor, followed by a pair warping right behind your ass with only awkward terrain to slip around them. But after all the frontal clearing, I appreciated the meanness. The Exitdemon™ usage is decent I suppose, although I got there with full health and a lot of cells, so I was able to calmly tank both hits instead of having to slip out through the narrow hole. (Yes, they both broke painstun, the bastards. And slipping out through a narrow hole sounds dirty.)

[Aquanet]

MAP12: The Slimy Dens

I like how much of the progression happens around the margins of the central structure, and I thought the double archvile battle was actually a fun implementation of a close-quarters archie fight. I don't like how the structure itself never really comes into its own with the turrets holding down most of the opposition. My general prejudice is against putting revenants in turrets since running around them and sometimes triggering their melee attack is part of the fun -- and fighting a turret with homing projectiles is not that interesting.

The teleport at the bottom of the slime pit in the central room got me thinking about tactical teleporters since jumping down to it came in handy while shooting a crowd of lost souls.

[Benjogami]

MAP11: Verdant

FDA 107% kills 75% secrets

Really good. Enjoyed the platforming at the beginning. It's a bit worrisome that you can screw yourself out of the SSG secret by missing the lift once, because it would be a long grind to the non-secret SSG, but I think it's interesting still.

Pipicz continues to apply the "secret" label liberally, such that it's more of an "extra stuff that you might have missed" label, of which the first SSG is an example, but I like it. The soulsphere secret near the start too, which would have been a legitimate secret if there was something else of interest up that staircase to make the player think they'd found what they were supposed to. I'm not very good at finding more subtle secrets, so I appreciate it. :D

Maybe it was just me, but there was a bit of ammo pressure when emerging into the outdoor area, which was a new feeling for me during my playthrough of this wad, and I thought it was really cool. It encourages the player to charge out into the open area to find ammo.

[Benjogami]

MAP12: The Slimy Dens

FDA 101% kills 33% secrets

Probably my favorite map so far. Short, not very grindy, cool aesthetic that goes nicely with the midi. The berserk starts have been fun, and this one especially fun, but it would be nice to have some different sorts of starts mixed in. Another archvile exit as well. This one is cool, but pretty harsh if you don't know that it's coming. The caged PEs are pretty sad. Should've been chaingunners!

[Magnusblitz]

MAP12: The Slimy Dens
100% kills, 2/3 secrets

I sorta see the homage here, obviously the texture scheme (though with brown mud instead of blue water) is taken from The Inmost Dens, but unfortunately the best part of that map, the layout, isn't. This map is a big step backwards I'm afraid, as everything either consists of using the doors to clear rooms, or fighting enemies in spots where there isn't much room to move (such as the linear pathway to the red key). The Pain Elemental placement here is depressingly poor (as they can't do anything) and it's happened enough times in this mapset that I'm wondering if the author doesn't really understand their use, or understands it but dislikes it enough they he doesn't want to effectively use 'em. The Arch-Viles are generally getting old, too, especially the ones at the end. The tiny teleport pads are... cute, I guess?

[Demon of the Well]

Map 12 -- The Slimy Dens - 103% Kills / 100% Secrets
Yes, indeed, "The Inmost Dens", but by way of "Crimson Tide", as Getsu says. The influence is strictly aesthetic; this is a very short, very small, and very simplistic intro level for E2, and so conceptually it doesn't have time to develop as much of an identity as its influences. The setting is a musty old keep wallowing in the midst of a festering sump, its walls bedecked with the mutilated corpses of previous visitors as a warning to all who would dare enter. As before, Pipicz does a lot to tastefully detail and add a sense of diegetic depth to what is again a rather simple layout (both in terms of flow and geometry in this case), and the music track is well chosen, a fairly confident first step for the theme of this ensuing episode.

Gameplay is more than a little rough around the edges here, and again this is due primarily to some unnecessary overstaffing at a few key progression points. The initial impression is that this will be an austerity-type or even a Tyson map (as both of these are frequently encountered as episode starters), with an opening setup that offers you the choice of enduring gunfire from out of your range while you hold the first porch and thin the welcoming party with some small arms fire, or of worming your way past them to net the berserk pack and some cover, which is trickier to do but likely gets you off to a much stronger start if you can manage it (some early silence/passiveness can be useful in this venture). From this point, the action becomes almost entirely camp/threshold-based, which is most egregious in the initial clear of the main hub (before you have any rockets or the like) and leaned on far too heavily for what seems like it's supposed to be a brief, sharp intro map. There is a pincer trap of sorts to mix things up on the outer walkway (good time for plasma), and many will probably remember the point-blank pair of viles which have to be tangoed with in order to open the exit (the first one has a good chance of getting you if RNG is unfavorable, but you should learn from this and be able to cleanly handle the second as a result), but other than this there is little variety and even less levity to be found. I did derive some satisfaction from intuiting the correct timing/use for the secret blursphere on my blind playthrough (i.e. I correctly surmised I should juke the YK Baron and hit the switch he was guarding in order to move the encounter to its second stage, where the blursphere is quite useful), but other than this the level left little impression on me beyond the notion that it was too HP-rich for its own good.

[Spectre01]

Benjogami said:

It's a bit worrisome that you can screw yourself out of the SSG secret by missing the lift once

You can try the SSG platforming as many times as you want because you can manually lower the bottom pillar. I didn't get it the first time in several ports and had no issue trying again.

[Benjogami]

rileymartin said:

You can try the SSG platforming as many times as you want because you can manually lower the bottom pillar. I didn't get it the first time in several ports and had no issue trying again.

Oh cool. I though I tried that, but I guess I missed!

[Spectre01]

Map 13: Autumn UV-Max slowrun (30 min)

I love that opening shot of the map. The textures just fit perfectly with the sky and it looks great. In fact, most of the map is detailed quite nicely. That, however, brings about a problem where there is a lot of obstruction in every room and your movement is very limited, especially with the threat of getting stuck on something. With the exception of the flooded alleyway, every encounter feels very cramped, and door funneling/camping tends to be much safer whenever possible.

Map 09 was quite thicc with monsters, but presented several paths and avenues of attack. Here, there's usually one path, and rushing in gets you punished severely. The exception is the final area, where it is indeed possible to run past the Barons, flip the two side switches, trigger the Cyberdemon and then bail out and use the door/bridge to get everything to infight. Another notable section is the arena fight after the red bar, in the space with the Mastermind. This can be a rather tricky encounter, and the best way I found is to just camp the spot where you flipped the switch and, assuming you saved up enough plasma, shoot stuff that runs in and isn't infighting. Then, break out once the bars lower and escape. Otherwise you'll get caught in the crossfire and have a bad time.

Another annoying factor is the stacked turret Chaingunners, where after killing one another takes his place almost immediately. There's a 3-stack by the rocket launcher and a 5-stack in the final room. I will say that the ammo/health balance on UV feels quite good, although the fist secret Plasma Rifle is almost mandatory to grab early. Also, it's easy to grab the fountain Soulsphere but not get the secret tagged. 300+ is definitely way too many monsters for a map like this, and if Pipicz ever gets around to making any changes, this might be the right map to start with.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP13 Autumn

We get a nice opening shot of what to expect out of an autumn-themed map, an opposite to the Spring-themed levels that Whitemare 2 had. Unfortunately it ends up being just as cramped, if not more so, than the previous level. The Plutonia-style monster placement of things don't help the case, traps abound, turrets in places, or the moments where you can half-see but can't shoot the enemy but they can shoot you just fine. As far as traps go, they are thankfully predictable enough, but in cramped indoor-environments, most notable at the red key, there's a "nope" brewing in the mixture.

The secrets are getting much harder to find in the level, and I'm pretty sure one of them is another luck-filled straferun for a soul sphere. Haven't found another, easier way to it, but these kind of secrets are almost impossible to reach due to Doom physics. The ending area is the best thing about this map by the way. It's a WOS-style gambit with a ton of enemies while taking to the sides and hitting switches. The cyberdemon can come as a complete surprise though.

[Spectre01]

Getsu Fune said:

The secrets are getting much harder to find in the level, and I'm pretty sure one of them is another luck-filled straferun for a soul sphere. Haven't found another, easier way to it, but these kind of secrets are almost impossible to reach due to Doom physics.

If you mean the fountain one in the first area, you can straferun to it from a few directions, but the easy way is to spot the pillar with a step you can walk on and just run forward.

1

The other one is where you telefrag the Archvile through a warp gate thing.

[Aquanet]

MAP13: Autumn

Pistol start, HMP. This is first level on HMP that I've felt seriously challenged. Much of the map requires a very particular approach to avoid turrets and such. I'm of two minds about the final arena. On the one had, it's tough and looks great. On the other, I found myself retreating down the same pathways so I could hammer stuff with the rocket launcher. Unlike the cave-y part of MAP11, which is a fun little tangle of hallways, the geometry in this arena tends to squeeze you out like a foreign substance.

[joe-ilya]

MAP13
This is the same as every other map I didn't like, the only thing I liked was the atmosphere. The spider mastermind's only placement's awful.

1/5

[baja blast rd.]

map13

Yet another map clogged with demonflesh, but surprisingly I liked most of it. The monsters aren't sturdy, largely imps and hitscanners and pinkies, and many of the mid-tier monsters are fodder for infighting: the mastermind can be trained on the hell knight pairs, and the cacos on the eastern side of the 3D bridge are perfectly placed to intercept a lot of mancubus fireballs. The action is well paced, too, punctuated by a number of simple close-quarters skirmishes, my favorite being the good ol' pinky trap around the berserk pack, quite spooky in the dark caverns. It isn't spotless, however. All of the cacodemons look totally ridiculous milling underneath the 3D bridge. The regenerating chaingunners are another headscratcher -- they don't deny any useful areas, so I'm not sure of their purpose.

Near the end are a couple of violent <3 set pieces <3. The first is a claustrophobic squeeze that seems to make the plasma rifle secret essential. Shells and rockets will run too low otherwise, and the offbeat strategy of slipping past the spiderdemon to unleash the mobs will result in either a Doomguy colander or a stuck mastermind followed by a Doomguy smoothie. The second is almost really good, but there are two perfect camping spots in the U-shaped tunnels inside. That does reward the ballsiness to dive off the wooden platform into unfamiliar territory, but at that point it becomes too easy. I'd prefer the switch-triggered mobs to be set loose instead by walkover triggers not too far deep into the tunnels, maybe with an extra soulsphere lying around to make up for the added chaos. The ending is somewhat rough. Another instapop cyber, which really startled me, but it's nothing more than a chore to dispose of. And hey, guess which species of monster you fight last?

[Magnusblitz]

MAP13: Autumn
100% kills, 2/4 secrets

Well, after the bright summer green that was Map11's Verdant, we get brown Autumn. So brown. Overwhelmingly brown.

Pretty much more of the same here, monsters crammed in tight spaces. The monster blocking lines rear their ugly head as usual - I didn't like the cacodemons in the mud pit (as they tended to just ineffectually gather around the outer edges of the "windows" where they aren't threatening but a pain to take out), the hell knights near the spider mastermind, and the line between the RL room and the mud pit. The last area is remarkably open in this respect (except for the revenants near the blue gate) which is nice... look, Pain Elementals which are actually threatening! The instapop hidden Cyberdemon pissed me off though, mainly because I had already killed everything else (so he was useless for infighting) and being stuck on the middle island makes him feel like a meat tax (ditto for the now-expected Exit Arch-Vile Wall.)

Given that these levels are appreciable more for their detailing and aesthetics than their gameplay, it's a shame the color scheme here is so bland. While the sky does help (and that opening vista is good), it can't carry the super brownness of it all. It also affects the gameplay somewhat (I didn't notice the staircases out of the mudpit until I backed up them by accident). I can't help but feel this level would be a lot more visually interesting with another color thrown in the mix.

Oh, and fuck replenshing chaingunner sniper cages.

[Spectre01]

Map 14: Dryad's Garden UV-Max slowrun (20 min) because why not

We're back in an overgrown green setting, only this time it follows the temple theme, similar to that of Scythe 2's 5th episode. This map is also heavy on the meat, although there is a lot more space to move and more opportunities for a faster gameplay approach. Pistol starting on UV is quite fun as there is an overwhelming amount of Imps and Cacodemons swarming around you. I like to rush the SSG and ignore the regular shotgun that's closer, as it's just too weak to handle the opposition. The starting area has two "free" secrets that require some trivial platforming to grab. As Pipicz mentions in the text file, the map is indeed linear, and combat is in the slaughter-lite arena style, without the whole lock-in deal. Although this is one of the cases where getting trapped would improve the gameplay, like in the previous map, as the threat level is extremely low if you trigger the enemies and then retreat to fire rockets or letting them Duke it Out. The amount of sphere powerups is also very generous, even on UV, so you should be running around with 200/200 for most of the map.

This was mentioned way back in the wad thread, but the flying enemies in the central arena are very easy to bait into the upper vines, where they huddle up nicely for some rocket splash damage as well as blocking any Lost Souls from flying your way. I do like the spider hallway with the Cyberdemon and the final BFG spam arena with the Mastermind, where you can grab a secret Invulnerability and blow your plasma load at the cyber-arachnids. The map looks very nice though, especially with dynamic lighting on due to all the torches and vegetation sprites. I like that little pond before the final arena too. This is also one of the few remaining "easy" maps as the wad gets harder, and a lot more interesting, in the second half.

[Demon of the Well]

Map 13 -- Autumn - 97% Kills / 75% Secrets
Another slow-mover. This was the first level in the set to really make me sweat, not so much through combat intensity per se as through resource austerity during the first two thirds or so, although this evaporated almost instantaneously after passing the blue barricade. In keeping with the analysis I've been making that these levels seem to have a specific way in which they are intended to be played (and which, in most cases, seems to be the way in which they would be most enjoyable), I think my struggle here was a result of my playing it all out of order. First I went into the stuffy candlelit imp-den, failed to see the E2M4-esque rabbithole secret leading to the (extremely useful) plasma gun on the first pass (got it on a later visit), ran up against the mancubs/brownie love-in just beyond, thought "I don't feel like punching all that" and so went somewhere else, where the pattern repeated itself. Of the three paths you can take out of the central spring area, two end in major weapons and the third (guarded by the spider) ends in a temporary dead end but is still feasibly worthwhile as an early destination on account of the generalized cache of ammo which it happens to contain; my fundamental error in judgement during most of the proceedings was that I kept going halfway through a given path before bailing out (generally in response to being presented with a big immobile meat-wall) when it would've been better for me to see one through to its end as early as possible, which meant I went without a bigger gun for a goodly stretch of time, which put a heavy strain on my staple ammo as I ended up doing a lot of heavy lifting with less DPS-endowed starter weapons. This in turn meant there was a brief period of the level where I was spending cells and rockets on targets that didn't really warrant them by dint of having so few bullets/shells, with the end result that I ended up running completely out of both early in the red switch bolthole fight (where cells/rockets are paramount), which I had to finish out with a stonewall SSG strategy, where I myself moonlighted as a glorified Door With Health.

So, yes, I rather made a hash of this one, and one doesn't need to be especially perceptive to see that things can go a LOT more smoothly here when a more ideal route is used. Again, there is something old-fashioned about this ratiocinative sort of approach to design, where the process of learning a level and playing it are closely intertwined and occasionally difficult to distinguish (although it can certainly be argued that there a certain kinds of modern maps where the nature of play is much the same). This has its upsides and downsides. I quite appreciated the tension that my ammo situation added to that bolthole fight, and I am able to find enjoyment in that learning process (i.e. looking back and thinking "this is what I SHOULD have done", etc.); it's just that the moment-to-moment play leading up 'moments of truth' like that--fighting meatwalls through narrow doorways and constantly fiddling with cheesy infight potential in order to maintain some ammo momentum, that sort of thing--generally doesn't make very good grist for the experiential mill, especially when there's some significant measure of it in almost every map.

Pipicz occasionally shows some indication that he knows it's generally good to mix things up a bit, and so here we have the somewhat more open and orchestratable scenario on the other side of the little footbridge; there's enough space (and supplies) here to get in for a looser scrap, and with foreknowledge one can presumably turn everything loose in the first 30 seconds or so and then let the cyber-turret do most of the work. If you like, you can also camp the shit out of it, unsurprisingly, though there's again an ammo risk associated with this latter approach. All well and good having options like this, but again there are hitches which potentially leave a not entirely welcome aftertaste--the cyberdemon, who again is not very entertaining to manually dispatch (and can't be ignored because he's squatting over the last key), is something I can overlook, simply because he legitimately startled me (I figured stuff would port in around me, not pop up right in front of me), and because he can be put to use in the context of the larger setup once you know about him; but it's harder to rationalize the useless viles at the exit or the strangely ineffectual replenishing chaingunner turrets, which again add nothing but runtime.

Restraint, Pipicz, restraint.

Edit: Forgot to mention, but the apparent trap by the berserk pack malfunctioned for me--when I picked the pack I heard something like a crushing ceiling activate somewhere nearby, and then nothing else happened. Apparently the walls are supposed to open and beset you with pinkies?