The DWmegawad Club plays: Estranged

[Seele00TextOnly]

Map 14

I liked this map, but I'm not sure I have much to say about it. Divergent possible paths amidst a canyonesque terrain with many enemies on perches. Lots of fun (to me, i realize it's unpopular) sniping away at enemies in the distance as projectiles rain in from all quarters. One can pick away at enemy after enemy strategically or dart around like a crazy person, i enjoy either method. I honestly expected tougher resistance once I arrived at the techbase portion at the end, but it was fine. Oh and the imps at the start? not a headache or problem, just move to one side, fire, and dart around circumventing them. Makes for a nice start imo.

[rehelekretep]

yeah didnt really enjoy this, as others have mentioned it rewards slow, methodical, 'sniping'. one thing im really getting from this WAD is i would never use revenants the way Foodle uses them - its quite dull to me, shooting them from across the map.

to be fair, the detailing and the lighting in this map looks very nice. also what is up with the HK room - i just ignored them, and the mancubi on the bridge cant actually hit the player at all...

[Salt-Man Z]

SteveD said:

And so it goes, on and on. On one platform you walk out and get fired upon by Revvies beyond auto-aim range. Glad I'm not playing on PRBoom, because if you're gonna be pulling this cheap shit, I'll go right ahead and cheat in return by angling my Rocket Launcher down.

I only freelook for, well, looking, and I didn't have any problems picking off revenants. If they were out of autoaim range, I could always find a piece of terrain at their level from which to fire rockets or (more likely) bullets.

[KBlaney]

Map 11: There are, I suppose 4 main arenas here but none of them are particularly deadly. The main crater in the middle is probably the most difficult, but the diversity of enemies makes for a ton of monster infighting and the circular nature of the map just begs for you to start it. I also can't help but feel the blood lake in the middle was supposed to be a damaging floor. With the presentation of the BFG I was expecting a bigger ambush at the end, perhaps with an archvile. Given the theme of making it through Hell and back to Earth, a cyberdemon would not have gone amiss on that center island... maybe it just wasn't there on not-UV?

Map 12: I'm not sure if this was supposed to be a recovery map from Map 11 (tonally, that is, no need for recovery thanks to the death exit). This is a rather easy map. I think my big disappointment here is the wasted potential after getting the blue key. The critical path of the map wraps back in upon itself and forks off to the blue door, however no new monsters spawn in along the overlap. Previous maps made good use of archviles in this case, so why not here? At the very least monster closets would not be out of the question.

Map 13: This map really represents something of a difficulty spike here. That said the difficulty comes from the density of monsters not so much from the layout of the level which is otherwise rather linear (only minor loops backs upon itself). There is a lot of rev/caco spam in certain places.

Map 14: Certainly starting to up the difficulty here. Lots of long range combat with revs and HWGs to deal with here. Luckily there is a lot of cover and tricky ways to take out the various monsters by weaving in and out of the titular fissure. That said, the end sort of peters out in difficulty which is a little disappointing.

[Steve D]

Salt-Man Z said:

I only freelook for, well, looking, and I didn't have any problems picking off revenants. If they were out of autoaim range, I could always find a piece of terrain at their level from which to fire rockets or (more likely) bullets.

You make a valid point, Salt-Man. As it happens, I was in Sector110, which overlooks Sector61, the path, guarded by 2 Mancs, which leads into the techbase. Sector110's floor height is 192, while Sector61 is at 128. This is the same height as Sector50, the platform with the Revvie snipers way across the map. So you're right, I could have jumped into Sector61 and rocketed those Revvies without benefit of auto-aim, but that was not immediately obvious to me. What was obvious was that 2 Mancs were below me. They couldn't fire up at me, so in one sense this was ineffectual placement. However, racing up to the verge to shoot at them with rockets cost me splash damage even though it looked like they were far enough away, and racing up to SSG them risked getting flamed in return, not to mention exposure to homing rockets fired by Revvies beyond auto-aim range. In effect, the Mancs were there to prevent you from moving forward so the Revvies could have at you.

This may come down to a different strokes thing, but as both a mapper and player I object – strenuously – to ever putting a sniper beyond auto-aim range. Have I ever done that? You bet I have. I've committed most of the sins mappers can commit at one time or another, but as time goes on, I leave more and more of that behind, because it's "cheap difficulty." Better by far to create an interesting and dynamic encounter than to stuff a player on a ledge, restraining them with big enemies below, in hopes that a homing rocket fired from out beyond the Kuiper Belt will smack them upside the head. So rather than wait, rather than hope I'd be at the right height after killing the Mancs and jumping down, and rather than backtrack in search of a plum sniping spot against those Revvies, I did what I did, and I don't feel ashamed about it. I did the same thing in Map10 of Ancient Aliens, when Skillsaw had Revvies shooting at you from even farther away and there was no platform of the same height from which to attack them. Even seeing them through the clutter of trees was difficult. I lodged my complaint at the time because I don't believe in what is legally termed "selective enforcement." No matter who you are, if you put snipers beyond auto-aim range, I will complain about it.

There are mitigating factors. For example, rdwpa's map Eden has Imps sniping from beyond auto-aim range right at the start. But because they're Imps, this is a misdemeanor rather than a Class A Felony. It's harassing fire designed to push you away from comfortable places. By contrast, Revvies can kill you in a single shot, Chaingunners can perforate you into oblivion, and Archie's LOS attack is undodgeable and lethal, and so on. Arguments can be made in favor of long-range snipers, I'm just telling you what the rules are at my house. ;)

Styles make fights, of course, which is the argument Seele made in the BTSX E2 Camping Debate. Seele was right, of course, in asserting that if you Rambo a sniper map, you can have a lot of fun. It's just not in my nature to do that on a regular basis, so as has been established, I'm not on the same waveliength as Foodles. You seem more attuned to that style, so it's all good. Anyway, the next map looks like a potential big-time rumble, so who knows, I might change my mind yet. ;)

[Salt-Man Z]

SteveD said:

This may come down to a different strokes thing, but as both a mapper and player I object – strenuously – to ever putting a sniper beyond auto-aim range.

If it's just one or two dudes, and there's decent cover, I won't object much. I know Whitemare 2 had a map with a whole platoon of imps and revenants out past firing distance (that you could never reach) that just shot at you the whole time, and that kinda crap I just can't abide.

(I will cop to using freelook to aim, but usually only for extreme vertical deltas, like chaingunners perched up over my head beyond vanilla sight lines.)

Here, I actually appreciated the challenge of jumping forward to SSG the mancs and retreat back to cover while trying to avoid damage from both the manc fireballs and the rockets coming from the left. (True story: I wasn't even aware those revenants existed until I took a rocket right in the face when first venturing out bridge-ward.)

[Steve D]

Salt-Man Z said:

(True story: I wasn't even aware those revenants existed until I took a rocket right in the face when first venturing out bridge-ward.)

Oh, man, that's some suckage! :D Yeah, I remember that Whitemare map, too. Which brings up another objection that speedrunners can't get max kills on a map like that. Back in the day, we never thought about those things on the Mac side because we couldn't be speedrunners owing to the MacDoom port's inability to record demos. Nowadays, I make it a priority to produce maxable maps.

On the Manc fight, there it is, the different strokes. To me it's a speedbump, to you it's a fun challenge. And that's what makes the world go 'round. ;)

[Seele00TextOnly]

Map 15

In the pretty tough opening to this map i tried darting past tons of enemies to get to a safe spot and that never worked, so eventually i just won the combat in the starting section and powered up a little heh. Once the tricky opening is handled, it's a bit of a nobrainer killing stuff along the way navigating the perimeter of the fortress. Circumnavigating said perimeter, I feel, should have included plenty of traps and tricky fighting. However other than a couple fairly neutered right-around-the-corner archviles, the fighting is a bit of a slog. I wish this area was a bit more dynamic; moving sectors, teleporting monsters, flying monsters... almost entirely do not exist. At some point there was a switch that i could not figure out what it did for the life of me. Anyway the slog around the fortress takes forever and there's a huge glut of unnecessary ammo, so basically there was no tension at any time other than the beginning.

Once I've finally looped the complex and plowed through half the monster count, I can go 'inside' and hopefully not continue the slog. Immediately i'm greeted by yet another close quarter archvile by itself with easy corners for cover. After some clusters of elevated monsters and a few freeroaming Arachnotrons and two Masterminds, I'm left with a giant room at the center of the map. Inside it gives you its first taste of challenge which is of course a giant clusterfuck of slaughter mess. It's not particularly fun or my idea of gameplay to dart about mowing down a horde with BFG trying to invariably focus in on the archviles. Anyway I didn't go around the map wallhumping everything, though I did keep my eyes peeled. I saw the BK and later retrieved it from the interior. The YK and RK went completely unseen and honestly i couldn't be arsed to find them. Map put me in a real foul mood.

[grahf]

Map 15 The Floating Fortress:

This is a massive map that apparently is supposed to be a gigantic sea-faring vessel of some kind. You might not realize it unless you look off the boat into the water - the detailing is extremely basic even by Doom standards.

The map flow sends you in a circle around the ship, fighting mostly incidental demons, and then you enter the central 'hold' area and engage in some slaughter-like warfare with BFG in tow. This area really just takes a long time to clear out. Before you can attempt the final slaughter, you need to clear out countless sniping Mancubi. That isn't very fun, even if I do have a nearly endless supply of rockets.

It's strange how you can actually choose to skip many of the 400+ demons. Some of the areas don't really hold any advantage for you to clear out... Really weird. Why even let us access those areas? So we clear them out, just get a small health pack for the trouble and the joke is on us? Perhaps it's just for completionists to get 100% kills. I feel like any area should at least give me a bit of ammo to replenish what I lost, if it's a dead end.

I do like the hunt for the three keys to unlock the secret level. All 3, as well as the secret exit, were somewhat cleverly hidden.

All in all, the level changes up the style of Estranged in a big way, but I didn't really enjoy it that much.

[Salt-Man Z]

MAP15: The Floating Fortress
1:10:01 | 100% Everything

Whew! This was a loooong map, and not because of any particularly dense or tricky opposition. No, it's just a long and winding (and pretty darn linear) walk around the titular fortress. I jumped overboard at the first opportunity (I'm like that) and discovered what I assumed must be the secret exit right away, which was nice. I did a lot of platforming like that throughout the level, thinking it would be a sequence break or secret, but no, that was almost never the case. It was fun figuring out the island teleporters were shortcuts back to the main map, and only lowered after you made it so far. But the biggest issue was that there were no other shortcuts; if I needed to get to point X after grabbing a key or whatever, I had to follow the path allll the way around.

The big battle in the central keep I put off for a while, thinking it would be harder than it turned out to be. Instead, my absence (and subsequent reappearance) allowed for quite a bit of infighting, and then I just ran in a big circle around the central structure firing rockets at things on ledges until everything was cleared out. Being handed the BFG earlier made the final mob a breeze as well. At this point I had already found the blue and then red keys, but hadn't spotted the yellow key (though I had already noted the lift that would eventually take me up to it.) I then searched a good chunk of the level before looking at the automap and realizing that the YK lift was right next to the lift in the inner courtyard. D'oh. (I confess I didn't backtrack again, just reloaded, as I had saved before heading back out to search.) Anyway, fun map. A lot of fun, actually, though it's earned almost strictly by quantity.

Quick note about a pet peeve of mine: not putting monster-blocking lines around the perimeter of the map to keep the fliers in. I blasted a caco at one point, and he just floated backward...and backward...and just kept going. Eventually I jumped into the drink to chase him down, going so far as to spend some time out in the damaging water to finish him off. Blegh.


MAP31: The Tomb
8:34 | 100% Everything

The music's adorable. The level was much more expansive than I expected, and the combat felt like an afterthought. Well, until the end! I'm not sure what was expected there. Pitch black tunnel that I had to navigate purely by automap, and then a 5-vile ambush? Really? Sorry, pistol starters. I of course (after quickly being nuked the first time) simply set up camp with my continuous-granted BFG and let them come to me: first flicker of fire and my foes were fried.


Now, seeing as how MAP32 has over 800 enemies (?!) I think I'm going to call it a night...

[grahf]

Map 31 The Tomb:

Strange level with a Square RPG-esque soundtrack. Not much going on, just running through blocky 'forest' looking for three keys while shooting a small number of zombies. The keys are extremely easy to find.

The secret exit is the titular Tomb. What it boils down to is SSGing a half-dozen AVs in a pitch-dark maze. I like the idea of this (very atmospheric), but I don't really like playing it.

Map 32 Void Walker:

Slaughter time! Absolutely gigantic map that is split up into 4 sections. I like the different styles that the author uses, both in terms of enemy placement and the look/feel of the level.

Anyway, for gameplay it's pretty much what you'd expect - staying in constant motion while BFGing a massive horde and watching out for all the Revenant rockets just behind you.

Its interesting that the author has made the first half of the map optional. It turns out that you can just run through section one to the teleporter without killing anything, and you can do this again (I think) through section two. Section three it may be possible, but the sheer volume of enemies would make it very difficult to run through without killing a good amount of the demon horde. And in the final, 'Void' section it is likely impossible to succeed without killing the AVs or you will be bounced into the void until the end of time.

For the most part it's a fun slaughtermap, save for a few factors: I experienced massive FPS drops in the first section, scratching the edge of playability (on a very powerful system); the release of the AVs in the third section doesn't seem very fair. There is almost nowhere to escape their LOS in the entire level. But perhaps I unleashed them with a switch too early, not sure. Finally, I'd appreciate more verticality in these areas, it's a bit too horizontal and flat.

[baja blast rd.]

map14

I liked this. Monsters are placed strategically and in thoughtful configurations, and there's an element of picking up radsuits you're given and rushing to higher-tier nukage to pick up ammo there. Revenant placements aren't so great. They really just encourage you to repeatedly take several seconds out of actually doing things until the rockets hit walls, and with that approach you'll basically never take damage, but possibly start getting bored. The last area felt anticlimactic; I'd move a bunch of the revenants there.

[Spectre01]

Map 15: The Floating Fortress

Foodles redeems himself here with a large and impressive industrial complex in the middle of the ocean. The map is massive and took me nearly a good 40 minutes to max and find all the secrets. Speaking of secrets, all 4 exist for unlocking the secret exit and you don't need any keys to finish the map the normal way. The keys require some minor platforming from the upper walls to grab which are used to access the switch that lowers the secret exit teleporter on one of the outer islands. I was slightly disappointed that there were no goodies or rewards for exploring the outer area or jumping to various places that looked like they might have something.

Despite the large size, the map is very much linear, with you taking a circular path around the perimeter of the base until you end up back at the map start. There's a questionably placed Archvile when you ride the main lift up that doesn't seem fair and balanced to me. The combat is purely incidental and I can't recall any teleport traps or monster closets. There are quite a few ambushing Archviles placed around various corners, but the main danger comes from the mastodonian amount of <3snipers and turrets<3, usually in the form of Chaingunners, Mancs and Revenants. Knowing your surroundings and using cover as you fight the ground forces is essential to success. There's a bit of an easy slaughter area in the main courtyard and the central building. Thankfully you're armed extremely well with the BFG and all the rockets and cells you could possibly want to exterminate the demons. Good midi too.

Map 31: The Tomb

Cute small maze level with trivial combat. Didn't like the pitch black maze at the end since I had to use the overlay automap to see anything. The Archviles were annoying rather than intimidating because I can't see shit captain.

[baja blast rd.]

map15

I found one key but didn't bother looking for the rest, because the action was mostly boring. Past the start it's essentially a shooting gallery, the sort of incidental combat I really don't like. Blocks and blocks of low-threat monsters and a whole lot of bullet and shell ammo, some of which you inevitably have to spend plinking away at mid-tiers; at one point I killed about four mancs with the chaingun, just because I had 400 bullet ammo. The last set of encounters are incredibly light. I would have combined them if the switch were immediately obvious. I hope we don't describe these as "slaughter" encounters. :)

The layout is cool though; I like how vertical it is, you can eventually rise way above it and look down at places you've already been. Would have appreciated a bit more decor in the form of extra rocky islands.

[baja blast rd.]

map31

I get what the map is going for, and the music is cute, but ultimately the visuals are too bare and homogeneous for them to hold any interest. Not a lot of lighting variation, not a lot of sector detail. The map could sell itself for example by being an abandoned forest mining village, with, like, boats and cabins and trees and abandoned fireplaces and all that, with mysterious secrets to unlock (a useless soulsphere!). But it's mostly a Zimmer outline for what such a map might be.

map32

I saw the turretted cybers at the beginning and decided I wouldn't bother killing things in this map. I don't like that sort of placement unless they can be telefragged or lowered later -- they are way too high to be BFG'd swiftly, so it's mostly boring. I noticed a crapton of inconveniently placed imps and mancs and whatnot in the second arena too, which isn't very maxrun-friendly. The arenas are completely linear, which is an interesting choice; if you could warp back to the start at some point, the optimal strategy for UV-maxing would be to set everything loose and stir up infighting, but we already have more than enough maps where that's the right approach, so I like the contrast. Anyway, Ancalagon might record a max demo when he finds out about the map.

Here is a casual UV-speed run. As you see it's pretty easy to run past everything.

The set of viles in the third arena is the most dangerous part, but you can hold down fire with the BFG and tracers will do a lot of damage. The final set of viles is kind of an annoying setup for UV-speed, because getting to the exit quickly is pretty luck-based. This time I got there quite quickly. Anyway, decent map, though. I'll never complain about cyber-staffed <3 infight simulators <3.

[Spectre01]

Map 32: Void Walker

Oh no! A slaughtermap in my nostalgic 90's vanilla wad?! There's a somewhat common misconception that slaughtermaps are an inherently harder category of maps, which is simply not true. This map packs 800+ monsters but is easier than Go 2 It due to the low monster density and strong lack of enemies like Archviles or PE's that prevent you from running circles around the map and spamming your fist. Here you can circlestrafe every encounter or camp the beginning of each arena section without much punishment. The hardest part is killing all the stupid Imps and other crap on super high ledges. It is possible to have a bad time if you happen to miss the radsuit(s) in the places with damaging floors, or eat a stray Cyber rocket or something but otherwise this map isn't very hard at all compared to Scythe 2, Speed of Doom or especially Ribbiks stuff where 50 monster encounters are more lethal. Also, the final area with the AV spam blows because of getting repeatedly knocked off the platform. The map title, while cool, is also misleading as it's mostly generic hell aside from the final area with an actual void floor.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP15 The Floating Fortress

YES!! Fortress level! This was one of my favorite levels in the set by far, and although I alluded it to Aluqah's work, I'd say it's a killer map anyways. This music apparently comes from a Halo game, but it wasn't in MIDI format before. It still fits the map.

Now, it's a slow crawl, from the start to the end, but it works well enough for me. The mancubi as usual are the annoying fiends, and one has to be careful of lost souls from the outside plus the arachnotrons and other snipers. In the meantime, up against a horde of a certain type of enemy means backpedaling just to make sure you safely take each one out while scrounging for supplies. On the left side of the fortress, the chaingunners make their appearance too. The combat tries to get nastier with arch-viles as well.

Moving on, the first of three keys are here. Wondering why they're where they're at is going to lead to the secret exit. This red one requires a switch which can be seen a bit later, but can be reached soon enough. Oh great, more mancubi. It's a damn good thing there's a ton of rockets to grab, to get these sniping shitheads out of the way. And you thought revenant snipers were bad. Lovely enough, going all the way around the fortress leads to the starting point again, but also the lift to reach the inner sanctum of it all.

Along the way, the inner part of the fortress is rife with monster activity. I pry the blue key from a secret then head right into the fray. This is a very fun place to run around in, get enemies to infight and such, although the spiderdemons should be fried right away with the BFG since hitscan attack. After that is done, I figure out the yellow key and then find the room with the key bars, also a secret along with the key platforms. That's the secret exit open, but wait! Where are the rest of the enemies. Turns out a good chunk of them are behind the final door leading to the normal exit, and they aren't exactly happy there. The BFG sure is necessary for that part. The secret exit, by the way, is off in the distant island seen from the start.

MAP31 The Tomb

Just wait until the secret exit in this level for the real action.

So yeah, not much to this level. Try to get 100% items here as it's not that hard. There seem to be only sergeants around, and the three keys once again are only for the secret exit. You sort of expect a teleport ambush after at least the red key though. The yellow key took me some figuring out but it's no biggie. It's the go for the secret exit that turns into a crapshoot. It's completely dark, and finding a flashing switch opens it up but you'll deal with about six arch-viles, Hunted-style. On the lower settings I remember there being not only an invulnerability, but also a light visor.

MAP32 Void Walker

You probably shouldn't have bothered playing this unless you want to shed a carrier-load of demon blood or deliberately want to run out of ammo, as this is a full-on slaughtermap. At least it's in a secret slot. I guess Death's Bells fits the map alright, but I'm pretty sure a midi version of that Breaking Benjamin/Halo 2 song this map used to have exists somewhere. It was loud as fuck the first time though.

Okay all these weapons, of course, my least favorite enemies greet me and there are also all these enemies on the roofs. Those cybers are next to impossible to kill. Ideally, running straight through the lava and getting all sorts of shit infighting is the strategy, but there's a dearth in the radiation suits, which really limits the fun with all this lava I can't indefinitely stand on. It feels like you killed about half the enemies in the map, and it's just the first area!

The second area is a bit easier with less damaging floor hassle (read: none). Still one to wander around to get infighting done, but some of the guys will get in the way so BFG them as they go. Keeping the cybies busy while sniping the snipers was my main strategy here. Those damn cyberdemons either don't want to infight at all sometimes or they are pretty useless regardless.

Third area returns to a base, but a damaging nukage basin is around it, so staying close is key while letting loose on enemies. Especially considering I only found ONE radsuit near the nukage. It's tempting to hit the switch in the northwest right away but that only summons arch-viles into the mix and that's not the kind of thing you want right away in a field like this. The finale is just an invulnerability-fueled walkway with archies in front of you. You NEED the invuln, and there's another one behind the exit portal too for some reason. 100% kills is almost impossible without mayble infinite ammo or something. It's, of course, a secret level, so treat it like one.

[Seele00TextOnly]

Map 31

A sort of non-incident map. There's navigating a bunch of bendy walkways to assemble the three keys for the secret exit, along the way picking off occasional shotgunners. Once that somewhat pointless exercise is over, one proceeds inside where they eventually find a dark catacombs area where one unleashes a squadren of archviles. Sometimes a couple of them can pin you down so you have to be careful, but basically taking them out involves the usual corner ducking and upclose SSG blasts. Not much more to say.

Map 32

Let's see, it gives you every armament at the start, there's 802 monsters, and no walls showup in the automap. Right off the bat I can tell I probably won't like this one. One march out into the direction of enemies confirms it: this is a slaughtermap. It's not even the sort of slaughtermap that I find remotely fun or even playable. Just too hard, no cover, too many monsters, no fun. I try speedrunning it and do a pretty good job a few times and eventually somehow beat it. I'm not exactly a speedrunner and I did dawdle in some parts sometimes, so it took me around 3 minutes to beat. But I don't personally feel I've conquered a map unless I've wiped out the enemy, so whatever. Next.

[mouldy]

MAP15 - "The Floating Fortress”

Bloody epic. Took a while for me to twig that I was going all the way around a massive fortress. It looks a lot more complex than it is, which is good because something on this scale with all those various levels could be quite a nightmare to navigate if it wanted to be. I started off seeing how far I could run without killing anything, not realising that I would be going in a great big circle. But after a while I figured this needed a bit more method than madness. its quite a lot to chew through, but once the size of the place started dawning on me I got caught up in the adventure of it. Some keys to collect along the way for a secret exit, which I managed to find. And I guess I could have left there and then, but the final battle was too tempting, with all that bfg ammo to spam. Fun stuff.


MAP31 - “The Tomb”

Cute map, secret exit wasn't too hard to find, but i didn't fancy sticking around for the archviles so I switched to automap and legged it.

MAP32 - "Void Walker”

Slaughtery fun. Very chaotic, lots of high perched crossfire in big arenas with largely no cover, and the overwhelming temptation to run in circles generating infighting. This ended in a lot of deaths for me, mainly from dicking about. It looks like you can just run through most of it, but the enjoyment here comes from messing about with hordes of monsters and acres of space. There is some sensible use of damaging floors to make you wary of too much circle strafing, but the main danger is all that crossfire from above and beyond, most of which is too much of a chore to clear out. Not the most organised of battles, but I like that kind of thing.

[Salt-Man Z]

Funny story I forgot to mention about MAP15: When I first jumped overboard early on, I ran a full circuit around the fortress, exploring, and in doing so set off a number of monsters around the edge. Once I got back up and made it around to the (I think) northern edge, I came across one of the funnier sights I've seen in a while: two chaingunners on adjacent but uneven platforms (with the bottom guy's head about at the level of the top guy's feet) facing each other just a step apart and just firing away at each other nonstop. The wall above the bottom dude's head was pierced with a solid black line of bullet holes, as was the wall beneath the top dude's feet. I first saw them from a distance and wondered what was going on, but I had to deal with the baddies in my area first. They never paused in their attempts to perforate each other the entire time, even when I eventually just walked right up and blasted them both to kingdom come. It was just this ridiculously-funny thing to see; I'm kicking myself for not just hitting the screencap key there.

[Aquanet]

MAP14: Fissure

I'm often slow to pick up on times when you need to advance by simply running off an accessible area and onto a lower and otherwise inaccessible one, as can help here. Besides some annoying long-distance revenants, I had fun with the general layout, the mazey tech bases merging in and out with the rock. For some reason the opening reminded me of e3m2, but that's probably not a fair comparison.

MAP15: The Floating Fortress

Suddenly we're operating on a completely different scale. It's much bigger and for most of the level, rather firmly rooted to the ground. The hot opening is good, but I thought the long trek around the perimeter slowed down beginning around the red key. When the battles shift to mostly little standoffs with a couple-three hell knights or mancubi, it gets kind of dull. The detailing is spare, this is definitely a level that looks cooler on the automap, but it all adds up to a structure that will probably stick in my mind. I even kind of like the orthogonal rat maze parts, maybe because I like to corner-screw archviles. The interior encounter is some fun run and gun with lots of rockets and just enough varying monster fire to keep things unpredictable, especially the arachs at ground level. I hung around to kill everything, I just really wanted to bring some peace to the fortress (which I thought for sure was going to be surrounded by void, but no).

[Salt-Man Z]

MAP32: Void Walker
21:25 | 83% Kills | 85% Items | 100% Secrets

So, uh...hm. Definitely some slaughter here. At one point I was enamored with Ribbiks' stuff (which is still awesome, don't get me wrong!) and played through Deus Vult I and the first half of Sunder, but for the last couple years, I just have not really enjoyed the subgenre. This at least is relatively light fare, as such things go.

The first arena took me roughly half a dozen tries to figure out what I was going to try doing, and another half dozen to get past the cyberdemon guarding the exit portal. Mostly I just booked for the exit, only circle-BFGing the main crowd once or twice just to take some of the pressure off myself. The second arena I took at a more leisurely pace, since I could always retreat to the (relative) safety of the marble fortress. I eventually cleared out the entire valley before proceeding. Man, when I ventured down the river of (thankfully non-damaging) blood and saw that army of revvies coming at me (1) my eyes bugged out, and (2) I had major flashbacks to Deus Vult. The third arena gave me fits. It wasn't too bad at first, I just ran around in a big circle over and over and over, firing the occasional BFG blast and picking up cells wherever I could, and just generally avoiding everyone; it really is amazing how easy it can be to just charge into an oncoming mob of revenants and nobles and dodge everything that comes your way. The trouble came upon hitting the switch releasing the archie mob, and my strategy (after many deaths) ended up being one of just charging one with the BFG if he was alone, and running the other direction as fast as possible if he had friends. That section I also vacated as soon as I discovered the exit. The final challenge is the titular void walk, which had me completely stymied until I discovered the lift on the back of the main island. A pretty maddening end, but boy did it feel good to finally escape!


MAP16: Battle Room
15:36 | 100% Everything

Things slow down a little bit here...but only compared to MAP32. Whoof! Only two spots really gave me any difficulty, and those were the blue and red key teleport ambushes, which I totally saw coming, but was (both times) unprepared for the sheer volume thrown at me. Sooo many revenants! I lied, the exit room (also predictable) gave me some troubles, too. Next death exit that comes along, I may have to just dial this baby back to HMP.

[Magnusblitz]

Back from my trip, only 11 maps behind. Let's get cracking.

MAP04: Venom
87% kills, 1/3 secrets

There was some discussion last month where I said I felt that needing to take out barons, even a couple, with limited weaponry could feel grindy if the barons weren't threatening in any sense. I'd say the same here in regards to a lot of the monsters, especially some of the early arachnatrons and mancubuses... they're unable to move, next to easily abusable corners, and thus pretty toothless and boring to sit there and slowly whittle down with the single shotgun. In general this map suffers from the lack of larger weaponry... I assume there's a rocket launcher hidden in a secret I didn't find, big shame.

What does save this map in some regard is that the architecture is flavorful and varies throughout, which is nice. It has a lot of that IWAD feel of the more abstract rooms, but doesn't feel slavish or beholden to the same precepts and thus still feels fresh. Another very anti-climatic ending though, there was nothing in that final room except a surprise death exit. Really should've done something to spruce up that portal to hell I think.

MAP05: Dust n' Bones
100% kills, 1/2 secrets

Much stronger opener here, I love how the surprise revenants force the player forward into a swarm of other enemies. Having the SSG and plenty of ammo also makes things a lot more fun. Visually, the first area struck me as really bland though - and I like GSTONE! - but it needs more detail, or some better lighting, or something. Unfortunately this is another level that ends just as I was getting into it, specifically in this case, I was having fun figuring out the IWAD-ish multiple pathways in the left side only to realize the red key was basically the end. The cyber duel is nothing to write home about, he's stuck on his platform and there's not much interaction beyond holding down the RL trigger and sidestepping rockets.

MAP06: Razor
100% kills, 0/2 secrets

Bit of chainsaw-only fun for pistol starters here. After the AV the map gets pretty boring in my opinion, being a very linear corridor crawl with nothing really of note either gameplay-wise or visuals-wise. Nothing wrong with it, just kinda flavorless.

[Spectre01]

Map 16: Battle Room

That's the cage brawl at the end I assume. So this is a bit of a weird one as the difference between continuous play and pistol start will ludicrously stand out here, assuming you come in from either The Floating Fortress or Void Walker packing close to max cells and rockets. Frankly, this seems like a large design mistake when it comes to a megawad with more continuous focus than pistol starts.

Anyways, I did a reset here since I had a feeling this would be the case. This map is almost entirely full of mid-high tier enemies, aside from Demons and Chaingunners. The start is interesting as it gives you a rare opportunity to punch out a Mancubus after clearing the Pinkie Stampede. There's a rather large amount of meat, and not enough ammo, to chew through with your SSG which encourages either punching some Hell Knights or running ahead to grab the extra supplies needed. The key pickups trigger some Revenant spam which mostly involves funneling them into hallways and holding fire on the Rocket Launcher. The long hallway fight can be slightly tricky with the lone AV if you don't open the Berserk secret alcove to be used for cover. The Battle Room at the end involves not getting perforated by the Mastermind while also not getting stuck on Demons or eating Revenant rockets. Pretty descent setpiece fight, although I feel the exit lowers way too early, allowing you to accidentally or intentionally bail out of the map.

I like the blue carpet style but the design remains rather blocky and minimalist.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP07: Scream
78% kills, 0/1 secret

Ran past everything at the start, then remembered it was MAP07 and decided I should kill the mancs after reaching the weird dead end room. Having an unreachable circle rock in the spectre area that allows the player to safely kill the spectres was a bit weird. As the map went on I got bored and the highly linear nature combined with lots of annoying ledge enemies made me rush through (and give up killing mancs), unfortunately costing me the secret RL. This made the final battle a bit more of a pain in the butt, but still probably less annoying than clearing out all the previous enemies in the map. At least it's not Dead Simple. Also, really could use a block monster line in the final area on the skybox to keep the goddamn Pain Elemental from floating a million miles away and flooding the area with lost souls.

[Seele00TextOnly]

Map 16

At the first fork in the road early on, because of the level of crossfire in both directions and the fact that sound isn't blocked between them and thus one gets hopelessly surrounded by Hellknights, I found that I had to dart in, wake enemies, and backtrack to lure them out and kill them. Most unfortunate as I dislike corner camping as much as anything but it really seemed to be the only way. Same with the RK fight sadly, as too many monsters port in too close too quickly, with just the SSG and CG it's there's absolutely no time before they close in for the kill. After numerous attempts, I decided that both the YK and BK fights were no fun whatsoever without armor or a BFG, as the flood in amount is tantamount to slaughter levels. So I decided to once again say fuck it and run around as fast as I could, not even engaging the enemy. I managed to survive the wait in the final exit room as well, and got the hell out of dodge. Not a fan of this map at all; the challenge at too many points felt unfair and almost untested.

[Spectre01]

Seele00TextOnly said:

Same with the RK fight sadly, as too many monsters port in too close too quickly, with just the SSG and CG it's there's absolutely no time before they close in for the kill.

For that encounter, there's no lock-in so you can quite easily run out and lure the monsters to the ledge above the spawn area and force them to infight/clean up.

[baja blast rd.]

map16

Once again I'm not such a big fan of the clog of monsters; Foodles seems to be fond of these non-threatening pinky setups. The midtier monsters crammed into the rooms exist to be infought to death. There are easy places to stand to facilitate this (e.g. on the ledge of the RK area), but yeah, it's almost certainly going to play a lot less smoothly when you don't know this. The <3 set pieces <3 are nice though. Not anything unique, but sleek and fast.

The spidermastermind set piece is probably the most challenging of them by only a slight margin (the first strategy I used turned out to be probably the most effective one: kill the pinkies first, without worrying as much about clearing out the revs), but I think it's the best place to spend the secret soulsphere, to offset the chance of the SMM just wrecking you. The mastermind use is quite good, but unfortunately the encounter is weakened by a problem inherent to masterminds, that they get stuck so ridiculously easily. Like map13 or whichever it was, shells are basically free, but rockets, though ample, aren't, and some of the strategy comes down to where to spend those. (Well, it's the marquee encounters of course! Not so tricky, that one. :)). I think the BK encounter would have been better without any cover to the sides of the key, and without the archvile to offset that.

Here's a video where I play the map:

Haha, there's some accidental stupidity in the middle. :D I actually broke out laughing while playing once or twice. I also left by accident, with a few monsters still alive.

Speaking of the exit lowering so early. That seems like an offshoot of the map being balanced for continuous, where the player can clean house very swiftly with the BFG or even the PR. I think it would be somewhat more flexible to place a couple of switches in mastermind hideyholes at opposite corners, have those become accessible at that time instead, and have the exit lower when both switches are hit. Getting out ASAP would be a bit more testing in that case. Anyway, another highlight map for me.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP16 Battle Room

Battle Room huh? I didn't remember this level at first, and then I realized it's that gray and blue one. Never cared much for it though. The berserk at the start tries to be interesting, but then you'll need the rest of the work. The southwest corner seems like a good place to run to once you reach the next few monsters (and they are all fucking bigwigs too). Then again, you'll probably need the rocket launcher for better fender-offers and the red key ambush, and it's at the back of the central area. The yellow key might be even worse, especially with the arch-vile extravaganza that came in afterwards. I don't remember that. The blue key ambush plays out like the red key one except nastier. In truth, a lot of rockets WILL fly in this map, and it may have some enjoyable moments but I never was one for this type of combat. Oh right, the final room. It's another wait for the exit to drop while a spiderdemon, demons, and revenants converge in. Foodles really should have given this level more space to work with.

[Steve D]

Magnusblitz said:

MAP07: Scream
Also, really could use a block monster line in the final area on the skybox to keep the goddamn Pain Elemental from floating a million miles away and flooding the area with lost souls.

I just looked at the map in DB2 and it's tempting to say this is a feature, not a bug. Foodles put a huge blood lake past that final line of spiders, and you can't see it from anywhere in the map because it's so low. So if it's not there for decoration and a sense of scale, is it possibly there to allow the PE and Cacos to retreat far out? Lucky for me, this didn't come up in my playthrough.

The other explanation is that this is simply something most mappers tend to forget unless it's brought up in playtesting.