The DWmegawad Club plays: Estranged

[Spectre01]

Map 07: Scream

Interesting start with an open encounter against quite a few enemies that the Chaingun you're given isn't too great against. There's an SSG just a bit further along but I only grabbed that after clearing everything. Next comes some more cavern crawling, which are packed with Chaingunners and Mancs that would be nice to use rockets against. The RL is found towards the end in the map's only no-really-a-secret secret and it's very nice to have in the surprise micro-slaughter encounter at the end. Foodles doesn't give you more than 100HP/AR here so some extra care is required to not die to some Arachno plasma streams. Not too difficult considering the large area and cover you have to work with and with some clever pathing, it's possible for infighting to do most of the work for you. Just kill that PE quick.

Very linear map with no keys or puzzles but certainly better than beating the Dead Simple horse.

[Demon of the Well]

Map 04 -- Venom - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets - FDA
Here we have a leisurely, slow-rolling base-crawler that ends somewhat unexpectedly in what must be the 17,456th ill-advised slipgate the UAC has commissioned (in this present fiscal quarter). Toxin and other pernicious fluids feature far less prominently in the outing than I was expecting given the level's name--in fact, you are not actually required to navigate any of them at all without the protection of a suit--though I suppose the word "Venom" doesn't necessarily need to refer to damage-floor.

IMO, the severity of the pistol-start here has been somewhat overstated. The rub is that you pick up your token shotgun + 8 shells at the outset, and then immediately run into an arachnatron (and lost soul companion) who blocks the way forward with her body. Between the lost soul and the spider, you probably spend all 8 of those shells, yeah (and maybe even have to finish with a few pistol shots or swipe some shells from under the 'tron's legs like I did), but it didn't strike me as a big deal and the level unfolds in a very conventional way thereafter--a chaingun lifted from a commando follows moments later, and from this point on the level's a very cut-and-dry tradeoff between those two weapons, with only the matter of whether or not the player finds the early secret RL as a real point of departure. The other main talking point is the lack of an SSG, I suppose. Foodles has you use the pump-action and chaingun against quite a variety of foes here, including a hearty dose of mid-tier Doom II beasties, but all told the encounters are light on the ground and essentially all as simple as can be, traditional corridor-skirmishing and a gentle trap or two, and so your relative lack of armament (assuming you don't get the RL) doesn't really represent much of a handicap. What is a little more of a factor than Estrangedguy's kit per se is the oft-mentioned matter that the rolling player status quo seems to be 100% health / 0% armor (which seems to be a characteristic that persists in other maps in the set, from what I've played, and is a more suggestive feature as far as the set being designed foremost from a continuous-play perspective goes); even though the encounters are very basic and only of nominal concern individually, healing items are light on the ground and mistakes can be costly, and so you can't get TOO comfy--I lost around 50% health to the chaingunners at the top of the lift returning from the YK, which woke me up again.

This health/armor situation also indirectly affected when I ended up getting the RL--I spotted the secret immediately but decided to hold out for a radsuit (which was not readily forthcoming), and then passed on it again one more time later because I didn't know how much of a health tax it was going to carry. Ended up getting it later when I accidentally fell into the ooze like a ditz and so said "fuck it, already halfway there." If you get the RL and its companion ammo secret ASAP, the pace of the combat throughout the level is presumably a fair bit faster, though in truth I didn't really find the slowballing that it involves otherwise to be too terribly offputting--hardly the most adrenaline-pumping thing I've played this year, sure, but a Sunday drive's fine on occasion.

Visually, this is sort of a Phobos-in-Doom II techbase patois, very traditional selection for an early map slot. The presentation continues to be generally understated but also quite tasteful--Foodles continues to do his due diligence as regards lighting variation, and the texture/material usage continues to be quite varied while remaining firmly cohesive within its very traditional theme, which is easier said than done. Larger spaces (i.e. the large poison-filled cavern here) have thus far tended to be in a sort of grey zone where they're big enough to noticeably stretch the assets a little thinner but not grandiose enough to compensate through sheer sense of scale or vista (one of my favorite tropes of classic idtech 1 visuals), but this is at this point really only a passing nitpick, and there's still plenty of game left for development here yet.

[Demon of the Well]

Map 05 -- Dust 'n Bones - 100% Kills / 50% Secrets - FDA
Hell already, eh? Don't see that too often, as of course Hell is normally either found as E3 or sidestepped more or less entirely as a theme. I think the two most recent megaWADs I've played which use the traditional 3 (+1) thematic-episode structure but don't slot Hell into E3 have been Resurgence, which as many of you will recall uses Hell as E1, and Hell Awakened, which uses Hell proper as E2 and then does the Shores of Hell/worlds collide theme more commonly seen as E2 for its final episode. Pretty few and far between, things like that.

Anyway, I've gotta say that this map seemed a mite undercooked to me. The most notable (and best) of its features is the fast start where you pick up a combat shotgun and maybe some shells (always look behind you at mapstart kids, eat your spinach/do your homework etc. etc.) before promptly being flushed out into the midst of assorted fleash-eating/soul-devouring pedestrians by a trio of ambushing skeletons--it's a nice change of pace from what we've seen up to this point, and a nice bit of cardio that's not actually too harsh, courtesy of the generous amount of movement space, simple terrain, and relative scarcity of hitscanners, where again most of what threat there is elides from the 100/0 baseline status mentioned before. The combat style du jour is a loose incidental grab-bag of primarily beefier foes who are more or less free to roam the entire layout at will; you can shoot them yourself with the ample supply of shells, make use of infighting, whatever you like; the proceedings are very basic no matter how you slice 'em. The level effectively ends with a brief showdown vs. the game's first cyberdemon, who sadly appears as a fairly milquetoast (and essentially unavoidable) turret. Disposing of him with small arms fire is a fairly dry affair, but I'm happy to hear that there exists a secret way to telefrag him as well, and so won't hold this against the level as much. Incidentally, one general thing I've noticed in the set is that Foodles apparently takes pains to well and truly conceal his secrets on/from the automap, a surprisingly uncommon practice among modern mappers.

Whereas earlier maps struck me as tastefully understated in their clean/classic presentation, here I got the impression that this was either hastily speedmapped or perhaps a much older creation from the depths of Foodles' back catalogue; it's a simplistic box/tunnel affair with a heavy flavor of thinly-veiled orthogonality and (unobtrustive) trim detailing that has little thematic consistency from room to room and generally seemed like an uninspired afterthought wherever it appeared. The layout is open such that monsters can wander around it as you play, as aforementioned, but beyond this there's very little real synergy or interplay between rooms, and some of the small monster population ends up feeling like it's just filling space, particularly the occupants of the room preceding the red door. Apparently this layout might be based on something from another game? If so I guess that might explain a lot of shift in style, but whatever the case this seemed to me like essentially one decent brief encounter with a helping of filler on top.

Map 06 -- Razor - 100% Kills / 50% Secrets - Ugly FDA.
A short linear jaunt through some scrabble ruins and an old sangueduct somewhere in a quiet backwater of Hell, with some elements of grungy industrial metal to add a bit of inflection on the otherwise very traditional Inferno-style take on the Hell theme (marble, blood, ash, jagged rock tunnels, etc.). Starts out framed as a chainsaw map (which would indeed make "Razor" an interesting parallel with map 01 if it had been swapped with "Dust 'n Bones", though I can certainly understand why Foodles chose to kick off the player's stint in Hell with map 05's kickstart as well), although this dissolves as early as the second room, provided you don't hesitate and get stonewalled out of grabbing the SSG like I nearly did. The game's first arch-vile appears as a formidable vagrant squatting in a speck of marble ruins shortly thereafter; I insisted on chainsawing him (perhaps stupidly), but no reason not to shred him with buckshot if you'd prefer. Really very little to talk about beyond this, action is basic railshooting stuff for the most part, and it's all over before having time to make much of a real impression.

The green armor secret is nifty at least, always up for the parkour angle. I must admit I don't see the point/utility of the second secret, though.

Definitely seems like a filler map. A certain quotient of this sort of autopilot stuff is not necessarily a problem in a 32+ map megaWAD, but I hope the majority of the game turns out to be more substantial than the last couple of maps.

[Magnusblitz]

Definitely gonna be real far behind...

MAP03: Survey Centre
85% kills, no map secrets

Gonna admit, this one pretty much bored me. Very linear, and I really detest fighting snipers in Doom because the game's weaponry isn't really meant for it. Combine that with the brown-brown-brown of the canyon areas and I pretty much just ran past everything in the outdoors. The red key fight is pretty weak, at least it dumps you off near the red key door to save on backtracking. No secrets either.

[baja blast rd.]

Demon of the Well said:

Map 06 -- Razor - 100% Kills / 50% Secrets - Ugly FDA.

Might be one of the rare times I had a cleaner FDA (in terms of damage taken, not machismo). :)

This was it.

I guess I missed that it's possible to grab the SSG immediately before the monsters clog up the entrance. But I'm too much of a scaredycat for that.

[Aquanet]

MAP06: Razor

A nice little excursion. The archvile is in a fun compartment for dodging and hitting him with the SSG. A sprinkling of lost souls to taste. On the plus side, Foodles keeps up the feeling of light adventure and moving from place to place.

[mouldy]

MAP07 - "Scream”

This one felt a little similar to the previous one with the theme of going along a winding path meeting monsters along the way, but it redeemed itself with the arachnotron fight which was fun. And finally i got a rocket launcher, it said it was secret so I'm guessing it was a map07 prize for killing all the mancs. That moment when shit started teleporting behind me and I had to wonder if I had actually saved recently, that was cool. I don't feel like I've seen much of that so far in this wad, its mostly been following the monster breadcrumb trail and dusting the shelves.

[rehelekretep]

demo here

another one of my least favourite IWAD midis! great.
didnt care for this map too much; the revenant placement was annoying (aside from the chainsaw-guard, which was quite a fun little battle). but the overwhelming feeling is that lost souls really suck!
i am appreciating the chainsaw use in this wad; too often its forgotten once you get the berserk fist, so that's a nice change of pace.

demo here

is this an IWAD midi? i like this one (you can tell ive played the IWADs a lot :p)
much preferred this map to map03; despite the slightly dull opener where you have to pick off a few arachnotrons with the sg. had a few scary moments with very low health and no ammo towards the end.

demo here

haha! loved the opening to this 'oh so you want the ssg do you? here you go!' *spawns revenants directly behind you* great stuff.
i guess this is where the wad gets its teeth, with the cyberdemon included.
id echo what others have said, the monster placement is pretty cool, with barons/HKs wandering about so you never feel truly comfortable

demo here

my favourite so far (love this midi).
return to some chainsaw action is appreciated, along with some genuine puzzling fights (e.g. the blood-lake outside the fort, with the chaingunners/revenant turret/PE which was quite dangerous on low health).

[Seele00TextOnly]

Map 07

For whatever reason i decided to play this map deaf; i think it added to the excitement and danger, maybe artificially. At any rate it was a good time. Since i make sure to kill everything anyway, i didn't notice the sector effects until the very end where there were still a couple arachnotrons. Pretty straightforward map as has been said, but a nice one.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP07 Scream

Linear, but obviously not as pistol-start-friendly as it seems. The weapons given plus the initial combat always makes me use infighting. Also factor in the mancubi, my least favorite monster ever. It's great to have a good amount of space to run around in as you go, and the transition from outside to cave, to outside to cave again is interesting. That being said, this is MAP07, so expect the tags, except the 666 isn't necessarily a requirement unless for a secret. Why would you think all the mancubi were before the final area?

Speaking of which, it's a goddamn hellhole despite the space. Hey arachnotron turrets and teleporting enemies, now you feel like concentrating on both at the same time and losing your sight and shit. I think running around the horseshoe helps, but the turreted arachnotrons really need to be taken care of first if when possible. I can't remember, but it still might be possible to screw up the tag 667 on this level by killing two final arachnotrons quickly and be unable to exit. I make sure that doesn't happen again.

[rehelekretep]

demo here

well this is another great choice of midi. it always reminds me of the music from the ps1/pc game 'Alien Trilogy'. which i guess was 'inspired' by Doom in the first instance but oh well. p.s. to potential map-makers please consider using the ost :)

lost souls are a nuisance at the start, luckily not used again until right at the end, which mirrors the beginning, both being open arenas. the middle part of the level is doomguy making his way through blood caverns, although being unable to scale tiny changes in elevation. these were quite apparent throughout the level and are always ridiculous, making me think doomguy is 76 with two artificial knees and/or hips.

i liked the spectre use in the caverns; dark lighting and a strong contrast between a dark floor texture/light wall texture make it difficult to see them coming, although i think having another threat would have made it even more memorable.

overall a fun map, and i didnt even realise it was map07 until right at the end, so i guess that's pretty cool (or reflects badly on me but whatever!).
i also found 100% of the secrets! (be quiet at the back about there only being 1, easy to find secret in the map)!

[baja blast rd.]

map07

This was a lot of fun, yeah it's a Dead Simple map (-100 bonus points) but it's not an arena map (+40.5 bonus points) and the 666/667 tag use isn't basically yelled at you (+57.669 bonus points) and it's open and makes use of lots of multi-directional firepower (+pi/epsilon^2 bonus points) and even has the green armor and SSG (+clickclockboom bonus points).

This aesthetic is really working for me. It's a style I recognize -- oldschool sensibilities with newschool neatness, maybe. What this past batch of maps have is a dreamlike feel. I really get a sense that the monsters inhabit this realm and have chosen their places naturally, instead of being placed somewhat artificially to maximize their threat level. (Not that I don't like that style, but I welcome the change of pace.) Of course there are some exceptions: like, do imps have to sign a contract that requires them to spend a certain percentage of their time on cliffs?

FDA with really sloppy start where I don't find the rocket launcher. Last area was really fun without it. At the end I thought there were at least a few more arachnotrons than there actually were :o.

[Aquanet]

MAP07: Scream

I like how the mancubi are used to unlock a secret. The first encounter is spacious, and it's followed by a sudden switch to dark and claustrophobic. I can't say I've ever enjoyed shooting spectres in the dark, but I do like the change in pace. The building and caves you pass through before reaching the final arena are interesting enough. I ended up tackling the final showdown by running back to the entrance and hitting the revenants and company with rockets. If you run ahead you run into a brief arach crossfire, and I'm not swift enough to walk between the plasma.

[Steve D]

Map07

Unlike most of the other players, I didn't find this to be much fun. Maybe I have Doom ADD, but this was the second slow-paced rail shooter in a row. Primary threat comes mostly from turreted chaingunners until the final area, where they are replaced with turreted Arachnotrons, which is where I suffered my only death. Were those silent teleporters? Anyway, I got taken out by Revvies appearing behind me while I was distracted by spiders in front. On my second go, it was ring-around-the-rosie time to start infights, which took care of those pesky Revvies. I did have to take out a Pain Elemental before ducking behind the ash pillars. Once the carnage was complete, I had nothing but 3 Hell Knights, a Caco, 2 Lost Souls, 2 Spectres, and 6 Arachnotron turrets to put away. So aside from that battle, this map is dead easy, and that's coming from The Ancient Doomer, who moves with nothing more than his crippled, arthritic fingers on the numeric keypad.

Foodles again uses familiar tropes, such as placing Meat snipers at a distance so you're encouraged to close on them, and then be strafed by a chaingunner turret off to the side. A classic example is at the green building on the lower level, where you're initially faced with 2 or 3 elevated Revvies in the building, a Manc in the blood, and 3 chaingunners on a ledge to your left. But that's not the one I'm talking about. That one is an example of his tendency to create annoying pin-down situations where you have to try creating infights -- I succeeded at getting the Manc to fight the Revvies -- and/or draw the ground-based heavies towards you so you can SSG them, which is time-consuming and dull, IMO. But the situation I'm talking about is when you go around the building and see a Manc a good distance away. The aggressive player charges forward, and gets strafed by an elevated chaingunner some distance to the left once they pass the building's edge. So in this case, aggressive play is punished and the player is encouraged to hang back and let fatso waddle up for the slaughter. Big wooden upright beams are there for you to duck behind -- further encouragement. IMO this is not the most enjoyable approach to Doom.

Going back to the initial encounter with the Manc, Revvies and Chaingunners, I did run up and take out the chaingunners, and soon discovered that a distant Manc and Revvie off to my right backed up the forces I could see, and then came a Hell Knight. I went back to being bottled up and then had to backtrack for health, which happily enough drew Revvies out of the building so that I was able to play a "curve-abuse" game and SSG them as they pursued me along a curved wall. Thanks, Foodles! Curved walls provide good cover.

The other notable encounter was all those Spectres in the dark, but after killing the first few, it was easy enough to mount a platform in the central structure and pop away at Spectres when they moved against the gray-white background. This was a thoughful touch, though it made a low-threat encounter into an extremely low-threat encounter, in common with most of the encounters up to this point in the megawad.

Foodles demonstrated an ability, in Map05, to construct the kind of wild, chaotic, high monster density encounters I most enjoy. It remains to be seen to what degree he'll employ such encounters in the future, as opposed to simply doubling or quadrupling down on his sniper-oriented tactics.

On the map's appearance, I think rdwpa nailed it -- "oldschool sensibilities with newschool neatness." I also agree about the "dreamlike feel," something I always felt most strongly in my favorite Doom clone of all time, the 1995 Amiga shooter Breathless. Anyone can play it if they have a good Amiga emulator, whereas I played it on the system itself. It looked really amazing at 320x200 on a 20-inch Toshiba TIMM, far sharper than Doom at that rez. There is something about low detail maps constructed just right which puts you into that dreamy state, and the outstanding fog effect in Breathless created probably the most dreamlike experience I've ever had in a game. Foodles continues to delight me with his approach. It really is like playing the IWAD in that sense, and he does it with remarkable elegance.

It was nice to see a return of the Keleher videos, too. To answer a couple questions, the MIDI for Map07 is from E1M8, while the beautiful MIDI for Map04 is not from the IWAD, and I'd love to know what it is. Foodles didn't say in the text file. Bad Foodles! ;D

[Spectre01]

Map 08: Reptile (Huh? Where?)

Got a bit of a hot pistol start here with demons attacking you right after flipping the switch. Nothing too serious that a bit of Berserk and Shotgun action can't solve though. Now this map gives you quite a bit of freedom, with 3 starting paths to choose and explore. As always, when Pistol Starting non-linear maps, there ends up being a "right" and "wrong" way to pick. I took the South door which was the worst of the 3 choices and ended up playing 100HP/0AR for most of the map again. The East door route gives you a green armour very quickly and the West one has a secret blue armour behind a fake wall.

The map took me a long-ass 37 minutes to 100% but it's not particularly challenging or difficult to navigate. Speaking of difficulty, not much of that to be found here either. The combat tends to be full-frontal and what few traps exist, like the Archvile warp, aren't punishing unless you play stupid. The biggest danger is again hitscanners, especially if you didn't grab the early armour. The detailing continues to be blocky and simple, with little in the way of thing decorations or micro-sector aesthetics. Which, after mapping a bit myself, is understandable since it often feels like a big waste of time. In a way, the wad retains the oldschool vanilla style of the early maps.

[Steve D]

Map08

Quite the mixed bag here, but overall I liked it.

It gets off to a fast start when you spawn in with Pinkies and a Zerk in front of you, offering the temptation to rush forward while the unseen Hell Knight behind you pops off with some slime in your back. Cacos soon appear and it's off to the races.

Once this early bit of mayhem is dealt with, you can go through 3 different doors in any order, making this a nonlinear hub-spoke map. I collected all the keys before going through any of the key doors.

The first nasty fight for me was against an Archie in a Skullspine corridor. At that time, all I had was single shotty and chaingun, and no armor, so I ended up replaying this one many times in order to leave with more than 15% health. A really skilled player will be able to do the maneuvers I figured out much more easily. It's all about ducking behind bevels in the walls or in and out of the Skullspine corridor to break contact. It's a good reminder that fighting an Archie without an SSG or rocket launcher is quite a challenging contest. I was never able to stun-lock Archie with the CG, which is what made this conflict so difficult.

You're treated to several more instances of the now iconic Foodles pin-down set-ups. You are also occasionally teleported into various difficult situations, for example, materializing in front of 3 Arachnotons, that offer some good challenge. In that one, I was able to draw 3 Revvies into that arena for some infighting smackdown. That encounter also gives you an SSG, which I only discovered after everything was dead.

Immediately after that comes a classic Foodles Sniper Holocaust as you're faced with a room of elevated enemies -- 2 Revvies, a Manc, a Chaingunner, 3 Hell Knights and some Imps. Dying my way to victory as usual, I raced in to test the defenses, was killed twice, but finally saw that the right strategy was to go left up the stairs, take out the Chaingunner, promote infighting between the Manc and Revvies, go back into the open area after said Revvies killed fatso, dodge the homers from above while keeping some awareness of the ineffective Hell Knights, and after the Revvies were killed, take out the nobles and imps, then climb stairs, dust off the ambush Chaingunners, and victory is achieved. Once I knew what to do, it was fairly easy.

Not so easy was the next Archie fight over the blue key. It was preceded by yet another Foodles pin-down session, as you turn into a narrow corridor and see Revvies across a pool of blood. It's discouraging to race forward against those rockets, and if you do, you get bushwhacked by two more Revvies off to the side, assuming you make it into the open. So it's another long, boring session of Chaingun and single shotty plinking. Why, Foodles? Why? The only purpose I can see is to wittle down your ammo stash, since this is a very inefficient way to use it.

Once all that stuff is finished, you grab the key and an Archie teleports into the blood pool. This is an optional fight, since you can just go into the Archie's alcove and right into a room with a teleporter. I suppose it's possible that the Archie might eventually follow you, but rather than find out, I chose to fight him there. It was a frustrating fight because the RNG hated me. Usually, I can charge an Archie in the open and pain-chance him with SSG, typically dusting him off in 3 shots, sometimes 4. I think I have a 90% success rate with this tactic. Not this time. I got the Mutant Archie who is impossible to pain-chance. I actually got through the fight on the first try, and given all the health I'd left behind me, I could have just topped myself off through backtracking. But noooooooo, I just had to play it again to get a better health result, and died like a dog because I couldn't get the position I had before, of running past the Archie and hiding behind an upright beam. Savescumming doesn't always work out. ;D

Nothing much more was notable in terms of combat. I managed to find all 4 secrets this time, in the order of Soulsphere, Blue Armor, Computer Map and Rocket Launcher.

The map once again looks fantastic. Foodles seems to have a special affinity for the E3 look. His subtle lighting really sets off the textures, and his texture combos, especially in the areas where Gstone or SP_Hot meet wood, are exquisite. He also makes use of deep, heavy metal cross beams, which give the feeling of great weights being held aloft. It all looks truly wonderful in GZDoom. I can honestly say that these may be the best-looking low-detail maps I've ever seen.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP08 Reptile

The action comes quick at the start, but it's obvious this is a nonlinear three-key hub map. I remember having a problem going to the northeast section first, so I put that off for now, and dealt with some annoying chaingunners in a secret area to the west first. If your not bent on using that free berserk pack given at the start, this one will certainly take quite a while, as ammo reserves are once again quite limited. There are a few free chainguns, especially at the yellow key, but will it be enough for the enemies that come in? Also I really don't like how the teleporter closets are constructed. Rectangular closets and cacos who don't teleport in when they should don't mix at all. Also would be better if the key doors were marked themselves, even if they are marked on the bridge.

[Seele00TextOnly]

Map 08

I thought the pistol start of this map was very intimidating, but after a couple tries i got it down no problem. I then took the door behind the start point first, and did some fun cave dwelling for a while. Ended up in a library where disappointingly none of the books were a secret switch, and eventually got back to the start. Went right and the yellow key ambush was fairly tough. Eventually find my way to the blue key and kill the archvile, and it's on to the exit. I liked the layout of this map somewhat, and the combat was okay. Maybe a non-secret rocketlauncher would have been fun, or more ramped up difficulty near the end.

[Steve D]

Seele00TextOnly said:

Map 08
Ended up in a library where disappointingly none of the books were a secret switch,

It wasn't the books . . .

[KBlaney]

Map 4: An interesting labyrinth of a level. Clearly the intent here is that we've broken into some kind of research lab doing experiments in space travel. I don't know how Foodles is doing it, but this is the third or forth time I've found a door before the key that unlocks it. Largely I think this is good level design as finding a key reminds you to go back to a place you've been before instead of leading you to wonder what to do with this thing. The level ends with a rather surprising death exit. Did not expect that so early in the game.

Judging by other people's reactions, it seems this level suffers from being played from pistol starts but works pretty well continuous. What with the copy/paste beginning/endings to level I can't help but wonder if there will be a bunch of levels like this.

Map 5: This map appears to have two distinct paths that intertwine. The first is for people who are more methodical and careful, the second is for the borderline suicidal people who rush in ill considered. Normally on big open map sorts of levels I'm the “activate all the monsters first” variety so it is no wonder that I actually finished the level after my first attempt using this strategy. The major speed bump here is the cyberdemon who I whittled down with some monster infighting and then finished him off with the rocket launcher. I feel like there was probably a more elegant way of dealing with him.

Map 6: Largely this ends up as a mostly linear map that exists to connect the previous insanity to, what I assume will be, the next insanity. It is quiet and calm (by Doom level standards) and would feel right at home in a continuous Half-Life map set after the craziness that was Map 5. The teleporter at the end had me thinking there was going to be another death exit, but apparently not.

[grahf]

Was away for a couple of days, starting to catch up.

Map 05 Dust and Bones:

So here we are in Hell... I'm continuing pistol start for now and that makes for a challenging beginning, with a trap sprung immedietately once you grab the shotgun in the starting room. You are forced out of this room by overwhelming odds and into the level, which is a series of long, open-air halls split by streams of bloody water. Ammo is initially very dry and you'll have to make due by killing Hell Knights, Cacos and Revenants with the basic shotgun. Later you get the RL and plenty of ammo.

The layout continues to be rigidly laid out on the 64-unit grid. Most rooms are rectangular. There are some ugly texture alignment issues (particularly with the 'brain' texture near the cyberdemon). Speaking of the Cyberdemon, it's basically an anti-climax as he cannot move at all and you can dodge everywhere. You just need the single key from him and you can reach the exit.

The gameplay also continues with only incidental monster placement. I don't think there was a single teleported monster and the only trap was at the initial player start position! In one sense that is a bit refreshing but it also doesn't really bring any surprises to excite with.

I like the level in the fact that the challenge has increased and the mapper has started to force us to run and not conservatively snipe demons from afar. But the level is quite ugly and the layout is mazey and basic.

Map 06 Razor:

This is a relatively short Hell level that mostly takes place in some caverns and a few small open areas. Pistol starters will only be equipped with a Chainsaw to start out and will need to be relatively skilled with it to survive against some initial stiff opposition. Razor feels really front-loaded from a challenge standpoint - it is tricky to start out with almost no ammo, but later in the level I was fully stocked with a SSG and felt like I was breezing through it. In fact now that I think of it, front-loaded difficulty is somewhat typical with Estranged so far.

There are no keys on this level either, just a linear travel through the caverns and up a red stone fort. Very few teleporting monsters or traps, once more - I think only a single monster teleports in total! All in all, it is a strange level to follow up the much harder Dust and Bones with.

[mouldy]

MAP08 - "Reptile”

This map has an interesting premise, where you have a choice of 3 routes for the 3 keys, and some connectivity between them. In reality it was a bit of a ball-ache for me, perhaps because I picked the most painful route where I spent a 3rd of the map with no SSG and two 3rds without any armour. While I did have a choice of 3 routes, I found only one of them was viable from pistol start, though perhaps now I know where the armour is I could have gone straight for that. One green armour for the whole map? Or did I miss something. Did I miss a rocket launcher? These maps are quite stingy with the goodies considering the amount of meat there is to grind through at times.

[Spectre01]

One green and one secret blue armour. There is a rocket launcher but you aren't given that many rockets either way.

[grahf]

Map 07 Scream:

My initial impression is that this is a continuation from the style of Map 06 - several open areas linked by cave systems. It starts out fast, with an open area where you are under constant sniper fire. You do also get a green armor right away along with the chaingun, so you aren't really forced into a super-conservative style.

While some of the circular 'cavern' sections of the map are quite simple and somewhat ugly, the overall layout is actually pretty fun. Once again, no keys are used so it's a linear run and gun playstyle. One downside to that is I seem to have somehow missed the RL, which makes the end of the map climax a bit tougher than it should have been.

I like the fact that the author changes up his style to teleport all the enemies in for the climax, and that you have plenty of space and cover to encourage lots of infighting. Overall while there is nothing exceptional here, Scream is my favorite map so far from Estranged. It's pretty fun.

Map 08 Reptile:

Another map that starts out very fast with attacks from all sides without any decent weaponry or ammo. This is a long, complex and non-linear map (the opposite of Map 07!) that I enjoyed quite a bit. The layout is ... odd, and hard to grasp but for the most part it is difficult to get lost. Compared to the previous maps, it almost seems like it must have been made much later - as it seems considerably more advanced than any of them.

There is a good mix of traps and incidental combat on this map - which makes it feel more modern. The texturing and detailing is still quite basic, but that doesn't detract from the interesting combat encounters found here. Two favorites: the trap which unleashes about 10 pinkies in a room with a dropoff ledge that looks like you can jump off but you can't. So no escape but to Tyson your way out. I also liked the lava room where you need to hit the corner switch. To do so you need to dodge Revenant rockets while running over tiny raised platforms. I had only shotgun ammo so it was quite a tense battle over the deadly lava!

Ammo is scarce for the nearly the whole map but I never did find the RL, only rockets. It seems to be a bit of a theme in this megawad, to have a hidden or optional RL pickup. I'm not sure what I think of that, but I did find the difficulty mostly ok on the level even without the RL.

Anyway, definitely one of the better levels so far here.

[Demon of the Well]

rdwpa said:

Might be one of the rare times I had a cleaner FDA (in terms of damage taken, not machismo). :)

I guess I missed that it's possible to grab the SSG immediately before the monsters clog up the entrance. But I'm too much of a scaredycat for that.

I hope you sent that imp's family a fruit basket or a gift card to Outback Steakhouse or something, he came through for you when no one else would (cough cough CHAINGUNNER).

Map 07 -- Scream - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets - FDA (also ugly)
Fuck yeah, "Sign of Evil." Love that track, both cinematic and atmospheric in its applications. Suits the map well, incidentally....Hell episodes are often framed as an approach and assault of some great bastion of infernal power, but this little extraplanar sojourn that we've been on since map 05 really seems more like a drive through the country on a road to nowhere in particular, almost conspicuously so. A diversionary tactic, mayhap? Whatever the case, the desolate vistas and decrepit piles of ruins, in a state of disrepair even by infernal standards, lends the level a certain lonesomeness, which I felt to be its most impactful quality. As mouldy says, in broad shape the level seems like nothing so much as an extendend/enlarged version of map 06 just prior (i.e. a very obviously linear park-trail sort of map), although I did feel that it was somewhat more effective at conveying a sense that you're traveling towards a goal or denouement of some sort (though part of this is probably a personal association that "Sign of Evil" has developed in my mind over the years), which IMO is a subtle but important detail in levels of this type. You can see something that looks like a tower or silo from the starting vantage, and a very similar (but different) structure serves as part of the backdrop for the level's concluding fight, with the overall impression being of a series of beacons or signal towers along a trail.

Incidentally, as is customary, this map is due 1000 bonus points for not being a "Dead Simple" map. Both of the map 07 special tags are used--killing all of the mancubi grants access to a small secret/optional cave with a rocket launcher in what would otherwise be an entirely unmarked location to help out with the final fight, and killing all of the arachnatrons (which only appear as artillery on the gulch walls in the final fight) is necessary for gaining access to the exit teleporter--but neither of these facts properly dawned on me until after I had finished playing, and so suffice to say I found that the level's framing as an adventure-hike was quite distinct from the usual spider/fatso box-arena in close imitation of Sandy's original map 07.

Battles themselves are mostly pretty simple (and with the exception of the final fight you can always retreat if you need to), with the single most dangerous jab coming within literal seconds of mapstart, where a pistol-starter running for the chaingun is liable to be broadsided by a posse of chaingunners waiting in ambush behind a big rock to the right. In a number of the fights we see Foodles starting to play with the concept of crossfire more than he had earlier in the set, probably most pronounced in the final battle courtesy of the 'trons in their elevated positions, which depending on individual player predilections will probably result in either significantly more or significantly less camping/sniping than was going on previously. Generally, these are pretty gentle encounters, I think, especially given the amount of space usually provided; I feel like the vast majority of the damage I took in the FDA was not only expressly my fault but easily avoidable in the absence of poor play. Ironically, I feel like I acquitted myself most poorly versus the pack of specters in the blood-grotto (got bitten at least a couple of times, wasted some ammo, etc.), which was probably the simplest encounter of all. What can I say? Those bastards are really hard to see against some textures and in low light, especially with no gamma correction--in other words, when placed properly. Let it never be said that I do not occasionally suffer with aplomb for my principles! :D

Map 08 -- Reptile - 102% Kills / 100% Secrets - Yet another ugly FDA, wherein the pinky demon makes a bid for being my official nemesis for Estranged.
If you use your imagination and maybe squint a bit, the hub-fort where you start the level kinda looks like the head/face of a chameleon on the automap. There are also a fair few corridor networks which serpentine around a bit. Just sayin'!

The main concept of this level is, as others have said, that it follows the partially non-linear 3-key/3-leg progression, making for some CYOA play, a welcome addition given that the legs themselves are either precisely one fight long (the YK's little yard among the fort's battlements) or very much in the simple linear trail-strolling style that has characterized several of Estranged's maps thus far. The overall impression is not particularly cohesive beyond the aesthetic level, I felt; to me the map seemed more like 2.5 little standalone maps ala "Razor" from earlier dovetailed quickly together via a hub (and in fact, "Razor" almost seems like it could've actually been this map's YK leg at some point before being repurposed as a standalone) rather than a contiguous multi-part adventure, largely because each of the legs stands almost wholly apart from the rest of the map. Each of the three legs does contain an extra key-locked shortcut into one of the other two, but these are purely practical in function (read: they're designed to save you from having to backtrack all the way to the hub after each key), containing no encounters, no secrets, and no scenery of note, and so read like an afterthought rather than as a feature uniting the level's disparate parts. I may not have been paying enough attention, but it also seemed to me like these were key-sequenced a bit oddly, such that they would only be usable to full extent if you happened to play the map in one specific order.

The CYOA slant is naturally the main point of note as far as the level's gameplay goes (at least from pistol-start, anyway); fights themselves are again mostly the simplest kind of incidental fare, save a small trap or two. All three legs seemed like they would be very viable as a first visit to me (though some might require more use of the berserk pack the player receives at mapstart than others), and so the map seemed carefully balanced in that regard. Not that there's no noticeable difference in intensity between the three legs, mind. I guess I ended up going into what would probably be considered the hardest leg to start with first, that being the YK yard fight, where ammo was at a noticeable premium; I finished with the RK library, which could fairly be described as "sedate" with some degree of understatement. Most of what tension there was once again elided chiefly from my bad play rather than from anything inherent to the encounter design; I haplessly allowed the hell knight at the start to hit me in the back for max possible projectile damage (64%) to get off on the wrong foot, and then was later comically nearly bitten to death by pinkies from a kitten-cuddly closet trap as a result of pure unadulterated fuckuppery, leaving me near death for the end of the BK leg and occasioning an embarrassing backtrack to scrounge for some healing. My special incompetence aside, this underscores something that's been said by many Club players several times already, that being that a lot of the real threat in these maps seems to come from Foodles' preference for keeping Estrangedguy at a very basic 'starter' level of power/momentum, making all mistakes more relevant. There IS a secret soulsphere here, but I picked it up below full health and then squandered a bit of it shortly thereafter, and so barely felt its effects. In my defense, I lost a chunk of this bonus to rather questionably-placed pinkies who seemed to exist expressly for the purpose of infinitely-tall trollery (also cost me an earlier grab of the RL secret), not something I found particularly amusing or endearing in this case.

One general observation I'd make at this point is that I actually seem to prefer Foodles' techbase stuff to his Hell stuff, both in look and in feel, which is weird. For me it's usually the other way around, at least with most authors who choose to work in a less-is-more classic style.

[Salt-Man Z]

MAP07: Scream
16:26 | 100% Everything

Yes, it's possible to screw up the 667 tag, because that's apparently what I did. The last two spiders were lined up with my chaingun and I killed them nigh-simultaneously, and then...uh, what now? (Saved, quit, checked out this thread, saw Getsu's post, checked DoomWiki, read up on tag 667.) Fortunately Foodles didn't MAPINFO out jumping, so exiting was a piece of cake. Still, man, that's annoying. Otherwise, another decent level. I guess killing all the mancs opened the secret RL? I skipped the final one at first, thinking the stairs would take me to him, but when they didn't I backtracked and finished him off, and then I'm like, wait, that alcove wasn't there before. Clever. That last arena battle was quite the surprise, too, though I was sure something was bound to pop up. At least the pillars made dodging around doable. I did actually save all the spiders for last, first I ran around dodging and taking potshots with my SSG until the floor was clear, then peeked around corners to snipe the spideys.


MAP08: Reptile
34:45 | 100% Everything

This one was a lot of fun. Though that start...the first two times I started, the RNG laughed at me and made sure I couldn't one-punch the first pinkie, resulting in slowing me down enough that I'd take a couple HK blasts in the back. The third time, though the RNG wasn't any kinder, I had the foresight to at least dodge to the side. A lot of good stuff here, a kind of standard 3-key hub with some interconnectivity depending on which keys you're already carrying. Love the theme and the architecture, and just the overall variety. I almost missed the soulsphere secret, but laughed when I finally found it (I usually check those!) This one might be my favorite so far.


MAP09: Torture Chambers
19:02 | 100% Everything

Short and sweet, continuing that E4 theme that I enjoy so well. Couple of nasty traps, mostly notably the vile that teleports away from the green armor; he gave me fits, as did the revvie/baron pincer at the teleporter just down the hall. But I was proud of myself for negotiating the wooden hallway archie maze taking minimal damage. I was surprised by the large secret area(s); or rather, I was surprised by how much level seemed to be left when I opened the exit. But, hey, plasma gun, frigging finally!

[Steve D]

Map09 - Torture Chamber indeed! Foodles shows his teeth again in a harrowing Archie fest. Oh, this would've been so much easier on continuous! ;D

I ran straight into the opening melee, taking a fair amount of damage from Sergeants, while trying to avoid being cornered by Pinkys and then the platoon of Spectres that came to the SteveD weenie roast. Got slimed by the Hell Knight -- always a grim embarrassment -- spat on by Cacos, the whole 9 yards. Savescummed out of a few deaths until I figured out where everything was coming from and survived a full battle. Was attracted to the Blue Armor secret, and props to Foodles for showing it. I didn't actually find it until after I exited the map because it was one of those old-fashioned secrets where the route is so obtuse that everyone except me will find it easily. ;D I, on the other hand, had to use DB2.

After this thriller of an opening it was back to mostly single combat against Revvies, which involved much running around corners, and soon came the Archies. After my dismal experience with the Mutant Archie in Map08, I was cheered when I pain-chanced 3 Archies in a row in open combat, no dodging around corners or any of that nonsense.

I died several times in this map, including the first time I encountered the Baron/Revvie maze, and then after I teleported into the narrow corridor guarded by a Manc assisted by overhead hitscanners. A true Jagoff Move there, I must say. This made me smile, since it indicated more Jagoff Moves to come, and that's what I live for in Doom.

I met my Waterloo in the Archie Maze. I did quite well at first, sort of. That first Archie had me confused as to where he was actually teleporting to, and I had to save my way out of some painful encounters with him. Once I killed him, I went through what I believe were 3 more, pain-chancing all to oblivion except for the last one, who forced me into corner-abuse and then took a nasty bite out of me. I stood over his corpse with but 4% health and 7% armor, saving the game and admiring my handiwork just long enough to be flameballed when the last Imp he rezzed waddled up behind me and finished me off. I opened my save only to discover that I had apparently saved just as this green-skinned pipsqueak was winding up to toss his educated knuckleball, so it became a sequence of spawn-die, spawn-die until I finally broke away and killed the little murderer. I'll confess that I found this rather amusing.

The encounter with the Revvies at the blue key was annoying, because my shots flew over their heads, and with my low health, I was unwilling to drop down and duke it out. So I . . . did a bad thing. I angled my gun down. That's right, I cheated. I could have just jumped down, grabbed the key on a run and kept going, but I wanted 100% kills, so I did what I did. It's Foodles' fault for creating another pin-down situation anyway. ;)

After this it was exit time, wherupon I discovered that I had only 79% kills and zero secrets, so off to DB2 I went, puzzled out the weird secret path, and opened up a save to play this out. In the end, I expended literally every last bit of ammo, killing the last Hell Knight with my final 2 shells. Better players will have more ammo at the end -- especially if they didn't waste it shooting over the heads of those Revvies! -- but for me, this was Base Ganymede level ammo starvation.

I suppose I shouldn't like this one. The Archie Maze, with its up-close encounters against Revvies in dark, narrow halls, reminded me of the dark maze in Bloodlands, by Rob Berkowitz, in Realm of Chaos, circa '96, which I enjoyed, btw. Yes, I keep finding ways to mention that megawad. :D But it's true, isn't it? Anyway, for the many harrowing moments this map gave me, I have to give it a thumbs-up.

Edit:In a possible indicator that continuous play was intended for this mapset, you have a rocket box but no rocket launcher. By the same token, in Map07 there was a cell charge but no plasma gun.

[Spectre01]

Map 09: Torture Chambers

I don't know what I expected but compared to Bloodstain's Chambers of Suffering this map is rather family friendly when it comes to gruesome details. This is a bit of a weird map, which again reinforces continuous play as the intent with the box of rockets, despite not having a Rocket Launcher, and the Plasma Rifle secret, which seems rather pointless if it's there to give you 80 shots to clean up the Hell Knight ambush. I actually ended up finishing the map first with 69/88 kills and 0 secrets and ended up loading a save to see what I was missing. The wall in the starting area opens, revealing a teleporter which leads to the 2 secrets, which again aren't very useful in the context of the map, as by the time you find it, it's pretty much over.

The combat remains easy with a few exceptions, and a decent portion is spent using the regular Shotgun on meaty foes. The triple Revenant trap in the fenced area successfully blocked me and I died in a few hits. There are also some Archvile teleports, as well as a group of 3 in the maze area. You can safely kite them into the hallway as you deliver SSG blasts which isn't particularly exciting. This map didn't do much for me. I got another "Oh, that's it?" reaction after the walk-over exit line past the blue door. Perhaps there is a build up to something and the wad is best considered as a whole, rather than on a map-by-map basis. So far though, it kind of feels like we haven't done much since our Hell Trip.

[baja blast rd.]

map08

Seems like a collection of some of map05-07's design ideas, along with some new ones belonging to the same consistent ethos, packaged into a larger and unabashedly hub-spoked three-key map. Not bad, but I would have appreciated a meaner moment or two.

I wrote that yesterday and then ran out of, like, thoughts, so reading other comments, yeah I agree with a lot of them. Combat itself was reasonably satisfying (I went down the SSG wing first, luckily), but this feels underwhelming for the first longer map of the episode, in large part due to how segmented the individual areas are.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP09 Torture Chambers

I remember this one being rather cruel on ammo supplies even on ITYTD, and here is not much different. Again, I recommend infighting here. There's quite a few nasty traps, in rather congested areas to boot as well. Yep, I don't really like this level much, but I ended up letting it slide in order to practice some infighting tactics. The megawad's first plasma gun is stuck away in secret, which involves a bit of backtracking, and could really help out. I'd also take a moment to complain how the SSG, although seen early, is acquired quite late, and makes fighting some of the enemies a lot longer than should be. And then there's the pseudo-maze with arch-viles in the middle who teleport to other places. It's possibly a good idea to get one of them at a time. This level could really use the rocket launcher, if I remember if it even was in the level.