Demon of the Well Posted January 2, 2017 Still trucking along.... Map 13 -- Laboratory - 94% Kills / 100% Secrets - FDA I tend to think of Egregor more as a Heretic mapper (probably for no really justifiable reason at this point), and so somehow I'm always a little surprised to see something under his name for Doom, and yet every time I play one of his maps they always seem so familiar. Settings and other aesthetic matters aside, they all seem to play more or less the same, reminiscent of the advanced mapping schools of now bygone eras of PWADing, complex freeform layouts hosting consistently and persistently slow-burn action with few real valleys or peaks in pace; my sojourns in his created worlds have always been entertaining enough, but seldom truly memorable, and to be honest, this has again been more or less my experience with "Laboratory." There are, to whit, a few more traps or proper staged encounters present to compliment the otherwise largely direct/incidental monster placements than I might've initially suspected--the initial shotgun brawl, the elevated gasbag closets triggered by landing on the blue keycard's pedestal, and the series of warp-in incursions in the red/metal kaleidoscopic junction chamber near the red keycard are the ones springing most readily to my mind, though I'm sure there were more. I'm tempted (perhaps unduly) to interpret this somewhat increased emphasis on encounters for the sake of them as a product of the collaborative input of a second author, and while the contribution these make is not to be understated, the overall impression is, again and as always, of a rather leisurely base-crawl, almost a Sunday drive really, mowing down pockets of lazily loafing creatures while gawking at the fruits of the UAC's billions of misspent investor dollars. If this sounds somewhat dismissive, I don't mean it to, really--while it's not exactly a screaming thrillride of a level as far as the combat is concerned, much like map 12 before it this is quite smartly designed and has its own character, albeit a rather understated one, with the gameplay emphasis placed primarily on wandering around the facility's wide selection of alternate and diverging paths while seeing the sights. Aesthetically, this is a very sharp-looking level, evincing what to me reads like an oldschool visual sensibility of capricious texture usage and casual alternation between abstract and representational styles filtered through a modern lens; the colorfully variegated wonderland of classic techbase abstraction comprising most of the level's real estate is preceded by a classy diorama-box entry set designed to simulate descending into the bowels of a secret facility hidden in one of the most squalid quarters of Old New Orleans, and this sense of presentational polish persists throughout the rest of the level. Architecturally it's lively without being conspicuously grandiose--almost every room has a unique and interesting shape, mere boxes and corridors are with very few exceptions nowhere to be seen, and the capriciousness in construction naturally adds flavor to actual progression, ala the pair of winding routes leading up to short leaps to the raised pedestals in the BK room. It's a level where nothing in the construction seems slapped together for the sake of filling space and the level detailing, trim and depth of lighting is 'just right.' Again, the selected music track adds another layer to the experience, being both an ear-catching tune in its own right and a comfortable fit for the level's mostly laid back nature. It's a 'comfort food' sort of level, if you like that expression, and while little in the gunplay truly stands out--a mite too little for it to be a set favorite, in my estimation--there is enough depth to the craft here that it reads like a genuine experience as opposed to something laden with filler. One thing to keep in mind about DWMC playthroughs of new/new-ish PWADs is that the first contact with a given level doesn't always quite capture the full picture of a given experience, no matter how thorough we might try to be in review; some maps are of course a vastly different experience with foreknowledge, but some less histrionically flashy or high-concept maps are naturally slow-growers, and I suspect that my appreciation of this map's nuances will increase by degrees on repeat visits, much as was the case for many of the 'deep cut' maps in the classic/iconic megaWADs which "Laboratory" so reminds me of. Map 14 -- The Firewall - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets - FDA Almost certainly the most stylistically modern of Mutiny's maps (at least in terms of its 'trope profile', if you like), "The Firewall" presents a short series of staged encounters arranged along a looping circuit in a nebulous voidhanging fortress of uncertain nature, looking equal parts arcane and technological, a skeleton of cold black iron bedecked in megatons of circuitry and computers and wreathed in nets of glowing neon, the titular Firewall presumably being the pulsing red archway ringing the fortress at a distance. Visually striking enough in its own right, certainly, though its place in the narrative/diegesis is rather unclear (is this maybe some kind of cyberspace plane, ala HACX, perhaps?), and thematically it holds little pretense beyond being a colorful video game battleground, in line with its more arcade-y approach to action. Action here largely takes the shape of 2-front mini-pincers engagements, with small but stout groups of mostly mid-tier monsters repeatedly trying to clamp down on the player as they navigate the fortress periphery, along a route that loops or doubles back on itself several times before the finish, wringing a decent amount of mileage out of a rather small playspace. These thrusts are calculated and pretty transparent as devices for generating frenetic player movement or compelling the player to take specific actions, although in actual fact there's really not much real micromanagement of the game going on; most encounters can be dodged out of, and apart from a dropoff at one part of the route there's usually nothing truly preventing you from backtracking to a different/more favorable position if you want/need to. There is a cyberdemon overseer who materializes on a dais which eventually rises from the circle of candles in the fortress's central yard used to tie the otherwise largely interchangeable encounters together, though the amount of overview he enjoys is definitely not as formidable as it might've been, with the whole of the southern leg and large chunks of the others being beyond his explosive reach; he seems to have been positioned to be able to sneak rockets into some strange/unlikely spots, though during my playthrough he was not very aggressive (just as well, since I apparently found ways to be hit by literally almost everything else), being a major factor during the initial double-back past the exit barricade and more or less a non-entity at all other points, underperforming in particular during the last fight at the diminutive northern keep, already an encounter easy enough to steamroll through with the conspicuously untrapped BFG available a couple of minutes earlier. The overall impression is of a fast-paced though light/not particularly demanding workout where most of the encounters have more bark than bite, and a fairly straightforward fusion of the two authors' styles, the pairing here being a fairly intuitive one as there's a goodly amount of kinship between the two to begin with. Thus, the level's essentially a sort of 'breather from breathers' in the context of this latter half of the mapset, somewhat interesting in its adjacencies with maps 13 and 15, both of which are slower/more casual outings. A breather? Should we maybe call it a 'panter', or something? 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
Demtor Posted January 2, 2017 MAP14 - “The Firewall” by AD_79, Breezeep gzDoom - UV – pistol start Fun with a Cyberdemon! Short and sour but it was good enough. I like the abstract architecture and the use of red and green with black and brown. Getting the Revs to aggro the Cybe was a fran tic tight squeeze running by them but I got it to work quite well. Even managed the Mancubi as well. I ended up killing the Cyberdemon before heading out. Which seemed like an okay idea at the time. I noticed his platform dropped at the end. I suppose he could've been useful but the BFG was really all I needed. Yesssss, there's a BFG!! Felt good to finally one-shot an AV. Made quick work of the final wave too. The hide away secret room on a timer was a nice touch. A secluded secret area with health. Maybe I can just hide out in here for a while.... what the, hey! The final exit had us jump down through the starry sky texture. Huh, I was wondering what this map was going for conceptually given the black cieling and oddities. Seems like from the last map, we've wandered in to some sort of virtual reality computer dimension or something. MAP15 - “Breaching the Unknown” by KevinHEZ, dt_ gzDoom - UV – pistol start A mix of Firewall's visual touch here. Lots of abstract stuff mixed in with a little more of Mutiny's tech variety and stuff. I managed to find all of the secrets and they really helped. The final area with the 4 AVs and a Cyberdemon were made trivial with the BFG. Very glad I saved it specifically for them as the mob before it is tempting. There were A TON of rockets on this level. Not sure why, I didn't need many but that might just have been my play style choice as the SSG seemed to work just fine in a lot of situations and had plenty of ammo as well. MAP31 - “The Brain” by 40oz gzDoom - UV – pistol start I loved the start with just the plasma rifle before you dropped down to duke it out with two Cyberdemons in a big lowering mechanical shaft with strobe lights. I was REALLY hoping that wasn't all there was to this map and am glad I wasn't let down once you see the slaughter design for the next area. The trickiest part of this map to me was figuring out how exactly to get more weapons. I ran around a lot until I found the switch to start unraveling the puzzle by revealing the pieces. Once I picked up the BFG and RL, the fun began. After you survive two more Cybes followed by the wave of Revs before you get outside, you'll never be short on ammo at that point. Ever. The music was sufficiently hyper and really kept your pulse going through all of the high stakes action being thrown around. Lots of meat to chew through waiting for the teleport to lower. Seemed excessive, but what slaughtermap isn't? One of the better wad endings I can think of. I love a good slaughtermap to bring things to a close. The concept of a giant brain hidden inside this massive cyberworld structure surrounded by electric technology displayed in the new sky here, was an awesome idea and well illustrated. I especially liked the end where you teleport inside of it to make bleed from just your invasive presence. You can look back as you run for the exit again to see it flow rivers of blood like it's falling apart. Kick ass. No ending credits, oh well. At least there was a "good job" text. Looking forward to the mission pack... unless that's an inside joke I don't get. Mutiny Lots of really good stuff with only one map I really didn't like and another I didn't really get. Very glad we chose this one. Most of it was very challenging but fair and had a lot of enjoyable themes with great music. The difficulty curve at the start really threw me off as it topped out very early with Shipyard and Warzone and then leveled out again before finding it's rhythm. Map 11 and on was probably my favorite part of the whole experience. They are all very different from each other and kept me looking forward to what was next with it's superb design and structure. Great work and my hat is off to all involved. Hits MAP05 - “Slums” MAP11 - “The Furnaces” MAP12 - “Wildcard” MAP13 - “Laboratory” MAP06 - “Faceless Corporation” Misses MAP09 - “Construction Site” MAP03 - “Crossbug" 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
Demon of the Well Posted January 2, 2017 Map 15 -- Breaching the Unknown - 109% Kills / 100% Secrets - FDA This one didn't grab me as much, somehow. It's solid enough work, really, so I guess this feeling was mostly owing to a bit of fallout from the WAD's sort of inverse difficulty/action curve that a number of the other players commented on during their playthroughs. In a 'big picture' sense this doesn't actually bother me all that much, truth be told--again, having an earlier part of the game be insidiously more dangerous than a later part is something I'm inclined to view as an eccentricity rather than something that's objectively improper--and in the context of what 40oz/the compiler had to work with it kinda makes sense that this level sits where it does: thematically/narratively it only really pairs credibly with "The Firewall" just prior and maybe "Crossbug" from much earlier in the running, and its ambling semi-nonlinear keyhunt approach probably reads better than the condensed action vignettes of "The Firewall" would as a preamble to m31. Nevertheless, I guess I felt on some level that having the easiest level in the second half of the game serve as the pre-boss revel seemed a mite askew, and in hindsight I think I might've suggested putting the surreal and psychologically menacing m03 in this slot, and then using either this map or m14 as the thematic detour much earlier in the set. So, yes, this one's a mite conspicuously slow-paced, and in a way that doesn't read quite as naturally as the neo-oldschool stylings of maps 12 and 13, though I wouldn't go so far as to say it feels conspicuously underpopulated or anything like that. The final fight here is big-ish, though having the BFG 9000 makes the second phase, with the four arch-viles, significantly less of a to-do than it would've otherwise been, though I suppose one could've just as easily hung back a little bit and gotten 2-3 of them to aggro on the cyberdemon with relatively little trouble. The best moment for me was waltzing out of the immediate YK trap like a smartass only to be greeted by an arch-vile just outside the door back into the main mid-level control hub; crafty design there, and I definitely got what was coming to me as a result. Most other fights read like very standard frontal engagements; the monster composition actually skews towards the heavier side of the roster, but you're supplied with a lot of heavy firepower and so most of them wither before your might in short order. The feeling of being unstoppable is perhaps a mite overpronounced at times (again, considering the level's place in the running order, I mean), as the largely rote incidental action is occasionally punctuated by encounters that if anything feel somewhat underpitched--the two piddling HKs on the big chaos-star floor and the small noble group guarding the BK in particular. Again, there's also the issue of the BFG vastly tilting the odds in the final fight in your favor, though since that's a sort of visually teased/telegraphed mini-sidequest as opposed to a casual one-off secret it reads more like a nice little in-map arc than something that just spoils the balance for no real reason. One thing I will object to is that stupid, tacky glowing floor-arrow intended to direct you to the RL at the start of the map. I saw this, of course, but chose to actively disobey it initially, and only went back there later after running up against the BK latch just inside the YK latch in the hub, presuming that those earlier forks might have keys I'd need (and in fact, the dropdown offshoot leads to the RK). This is something of a pet peeve of mine, and while I'm sure some will feel I'm just being silly/ridiculously nitpicky with my complaint about something which is so minor in the grand scheme of things, nevertheless I feel compelled to comment. It's not so much that I disapprove of putting a primary weapon in an early dead-end to begin with per se--I was doing okay with shotgun and chaingun deeper in, so I wouldn't say it presented a serious balance problem--as that I don't like being presented a supposedly open choice of paths but then immediately being told which one I should/must take. In most cases, if the flow and pathing possibilities in your level are janky enough that you feel compelled to plaster little cartoon arrows around in order to keep progression from bogging down or in order to directorially prosecute your intended vision for the experience, I reckon placements and maybe even routes might need some retooling. Map 31 -- The Brain - 100% Kills / No secrets - FDA Well, I quite like the ménage à trois in the slow lift downwards that kicks off the festivities, to the point that I'd say it's hands down my favorite part of the finale. The rest of the action here is elementary entry-level slaughter stuff, blending light elements of ZoI in the caged/elevated firing emplacements with equally light elements of the more modern crowdshaping style vs. the slow torrent of imps and such in the central edifice, and the mirrored armies of fatties/spideys trundling out of the big green portals flanking it on either side. Slaughter novices have no fear; this is very forgiving stuff, with a lot of healing readily available in the region of the map where you're most likely to be damaged, and an embarrassment of cell and rocket ammo usually within easy reach eliminating the need to show any real discipline or tactics in your deployment of your arsenal. There are also plenty of workable safe spots you can use to take a breather at any time, most of which seem to be by design (the ledges on either side or the central hall, or the quiet switch rooms branching off of them), and a couple of which seem to be incidental results of just how unwieldy that manc/tron armies are at actually pathing through the environment beyond the little grass plots that they initially spill out upon. Myself, I played like crap again (what else is new with this playthrough?), but still triumphed easily. To some extent I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak, but it never really did; kind of interesting on an analytical level just how much providing the player ZoI-type affordances (i.e. free zones that s/he can readily escape to, control, and work from) trivializes the modern super-horde attacks, and likewise that stocking the level suitably to wage war against those hordes from anywhere and everywhere eliminates any real pressure to work out an efficient order of operations for your campaign of conquest, ala the most robust ZoI maps. I certainly understand the directorial impetus not to close the game with a level that's vastly out of step in terms of challenge with the rest of the mapset (which is for the most part a rock-solid "medium" in Mutiny's case), but nevertheless I'd tell a lie if I were to say I didn't find just how gentle/unthreatening the main event here is to be at least a little disappointing. As a presentation or spectacle the level does fit the bill well enough, at least--using slot 31 instead of slot 16 is a clever move that allows for the use of a third skybox, depicting a distant horizon of massive subterranean superdomes (perhaps all housing megabrains of their own?). The main building is subtly cathedralesque, I thought, with the immediate brain pulsing under bulletproof glass where a stained glass rendering of a saint or godhead might be found in an actual chapel, a diegetically colorful detail, intentional or not. Also dig the final sequence, wherein Mutinyguy more or less goes Shub-Niggurath on the big brain, which violently hemorrhages as he tears his way out from inside before leaving on his way. On the technical side, I kept seeing a ton of momentarily blinking textures/sectors while swinging around in the outer yards, which was rather distracting to say the least--some kind of node issue, or maybe something having to do with my specific port version or the like? ********************* To be brief, despite some inevitable criticisms and a few oddities which naturally result from what is essentially a community-sourced mapset, I quite enjoyed playing Mutiny. Some of its levels naturally appealed to me more than others, of course, but of the 16 on display there was not a one I truly disliked or found categorically boring, and some of the meatier offerings were quite refreshing and engaging after sleepwalking through the little napdream of Echelon. Thematically, the kinship with older projects ala STRAIN or Dystopia or perhaps The Darkening E2 is obvious enough--solid green computer-tech and dirty buildings under a bruise-blue sky are alone enough to invoke these--though in terms of gamefeel most of what's here is really not much like them at all, occasional bit of incidental nostalgia aside, which depending on one's priorities I suppose could just as easily be taken as a great relief as a conceptual underperformance. As far as the collaborative angle of the project goes, I felt that most of these maps came together quite nicely--it's not always difficult to see that some of these layouts are the work of more than one pair of hands, but in terms of general style and feel there's seldom any real feeling of disunity within individual maps (between different maps in the set, perhaps moreso, though given the nature of the project I think this is basically a harmless eventuality) even where the differences in creative approach are most apparent, which to my mind is the sign of a successful joint venture. Conceptual framework aside, getting down to brass tacks Mutiny is pretty much just what I, as an individual player/consumer, like to see in a new mapset--basically it's a set of levels with a new resource pack and setting and no other real conceptual constraints beyond simply making good/fun maps, a welcome contrast to the interminable procession of limitation-based/meta-conceptual projects which roll out each year. If you were to ask me what it's missing, I guess I'd say that I'd have liked to see at least one truly large/epic map in the running--accounting for the natural inefficiencies and wandering around involved in a blind playthrough, nothing here is really greater than 'medium' in size/length--perhaps as a lynchpin of sorts during the game's comparatively understated second half, though of course this is largely a matter of personal taste. All in all, quite a satisfying trip, this, and incidentally I don't think the experience loses anything of value in being 16 maps instead of 32--no harm in not insisting on filling every slot in a major project when each of the maps is solid enough to stand on its own two feet. My favorite maps from Mutiny were Compactor (m08), Shipyard (m02), Slums (m05), and The Furnaces (m11). 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
rehelekretep Posted January 3, 2017 demo here really enjoyable start to this tech-void map; the revenants can follow you all over the shop and cause some panic! not a fan of that forced damage blur sphere pick-up; what's the reasoning? especially as picking it up lets you do that time-limited rush around the arena, hitting all the hitscanners. if you decide to avoid damage and leave it then you're stuck with a dull plod around the perimeter... the main hub of the level, with the various corridors and switches felt really awkward. all the enemies are at heights slightly above the player with either nothing behind them, or rocket blocking obstacles. makes clearing them out feel like busy-work. perhaps they could simply be ignored? wont be fun to max-run that though. the YK trap almost had me multiple times, including deciding to get a fireball up the bum from the baron. not sure why he didnt make any noise to alert me. pretty fun trap! the enemies in the last arena seemed to wake-up early in the map, which caused me no end of confusion as i thought the area where the sounds were coming from was the next point of progression. luckily going back and forth led me to the PG and BFG secrets so a decent if unintended outcome! final arena is a good size, but a bit too easy to infight-cheese (i dont think i fired a single shot and most of the first wave were dead). also a funny bit that alerted me to the archviles as a HK that died next to their cubby-hole got resurrected through the wall! at least the cyber adds a bit of danger to the last wave. not a fan of the slow-lift block on the exit! and OK map but i would change quite a bit if i had the chance to. 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
rehelekretep Posted January 3, 2017 demo here and we're done! i liked the start of this map (managed to cheese it in my video! :D ) but apart from that its a bit too hands-off a slaughter map. the cyber-lift really is the danger-point of the whole map whereas there's so much ammo and health and space that the remainder becomes extremely boring. of course you can play it more dangerously and aggressively but in the end youre still BFG blasting through hordes of harmless mancubi/arach meat with no real threat. at least it looks pretty cool. *************************** overall i really enjoyed Mutiny. had no expectations coming into it, but as a whole the mapset is really fun, lots of cool ideas and generally enjoyable to play through. good work guys and proof that not every project needs 32 maps to be a success. 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
Dgemie Posted January 4, 2017 Demtor said:No ending credits, oh well. At least there was a "good job" text. Looking forward to the mission pack... unless that's an inside joke I don't get. I don't know if anyone else noticed it, but actually there is a credits map of sorts on the MAP33 slot. 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
40oz Posted January 4, 2017 ^ Nice find When played with a source port that supports original doom demo playback, there is a little credits sequence where the player kinda blasts through a tiny mash up of a bunch of Mutiny's levels. I'll try and get a video up of it for those who haven't seen it. 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
Demtor Posted January 4, 2017 Wut?! That's a great idea! Too bad it didn't work. I had to put "map map33" in the gzdoom console and was able to go through it at least. No music though. 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
rehelekretep Posted January 4, 2017 40oz said:^ Nice find When played with a source port that supports original doom demo playback, there is a little credits sequence where the player kinda blasts through a tiny mash up of a bunch of Mutiny's levels. I'll try and get a video up of it for those who haven't seen it. i dont mind putting up a vid if you want me to? thought it was cool when i was missing around with --skipsec and watched it through :D 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
40oz Posted January 4, 2017 Yeah you can do it if you get to it before i do. Thanks! 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
Pirx Posted January 5, 2017 i said i'll finish this echelon, didn't i? MAP17 - “Neon” a bit plain urban map, basically 2 streets at a right angle, retrieve the key from the end of one and get to the exit at the end of the other. enemies are mostly in front of the player, plus some barrel for pyrotechnics. there's secret plasma gun and a rocket launcher and some boxes of ammo for it when you get to the key, and i could have just picked up the ammo instead of wasting it on 2 doors with health, if i'm playing continuous anyway, hmm. didn't really need the soulsphere, but i saw it shining through... MAP18 - “Possessed Plaza” surprisingly large and open, seemingly administration buildings, banks and the like, although in an abstract doom2-like style, as the buildings are mostly built of green metal panels. the city had been flooded. there's lot of movement in the beginning, as monsters show up all around the buildings, including some cacos and blue piranhas, but overall the resistance is pretty light, the shotgun and the chaingun did the most work, although i had 300 cells left. some funny artwork on the walls ("i want to believe"). the map seems larger than it is first and then it solved quickly when one acquires the keys. MAP19 - “Heart of Darkness” several green metal buildings in the first part, with low ceilings and chaingunners hiding in the darkness (at least that how it appears in my gzdoom with normal gamma, glboom renders them lighter). there are 2 buildings, one with said chaingunners and one with mostly the custom monsters, so you have to be aware of their bouncy shots, or better don't let them shoot at all. the blur sphere is better kept for the second part, as the gate to the bank is guarded by some chaingunners again. what follows is an exercise in infighing the monsters found around the bank. impressive structure, this one. MAP20 - “Mammon” this was over surprisingly quick. it's an onslaught, at least for the difficulty of the wad so far, where, upon descending into a quake-like vault with lots of brown and some lava, you have to kill arachs, cacos and - especially - pain elementals using an ample supply of rockets. once these and the 2 viles behind are gone, and you haven't blown up yourself on some stupid soul, it's just a bit more than flipping a switch and exiting. MAP21 - “Center of the Unknown” a large courtyard with a mastermind. you have to take cover from his chaingun while navigating the corridors around his courtyard (furniture and red carpet, quite noble). i brought enough plasma, +100 cells in a secret near the start, to blast him away, otherwise this works with tedious shotgunning through the windows. combat is mostly <3 incidental <3 with some middleweights and lizards. excellent music, enjoyed listening to that piece. nice colorful custom textures, and that background with the golden cloud city came really surprising. MAP22 - “Sinuous” ho ho ho, now i have a super shotgun. finally. some interesting architecture with those rounded, interconnected corridors in a cave, but i didn't enjoy its darkness and even more its slow moving lifts. perhaps meant to trap the player with the archviles below, but the opposite is also true: let the rise slowly and shoot them. i think the map would have benefitted from leaving those elevators out to speed up gameplay. MAP23 - “The Stone Web” impressive architecture thanks to the net of 3d bridges connecting a net of caves in a mountain of mossy stone. i found it a bit frustrating to navigate, as the caves are partly dark and look pretty much similar, plus i had to repeat the whole way up if i happened to fall down from to the starting area below. then running into a cyb at the exit can send a more cautious player right back to the start, the manly way of course was staying on the platform and melting him with plasma. MAP24 - “Fumes of Alchemy” a mix of industrial map with steel structures, computer panels and warning stripes, and hellish/rocky exterior. more angled and geometric this time. resistance is not really heavy but you should refrain from charging headlong as some arachs and mancs can still do much damage. an outdoor area has lizards on pedestals of rocks. the biggest threat is perhaps the group of yellow piranhas at the exit, they're best sniped with rockets from afar. MAP25 - “Bastille” it's a dark building surrounded by walls with barbed wire, reminiscent of a prison. first some tunnel crawling, the caco in a 3d hole was remarkable, as he rather belonged in a true 3d game like quake and came surprising here. one inner court has rising pillars with monsters on them, followed by a room with 2 archies and some rabble, which are quickly dropped by the plasma gun, i expected more resistance here. MAP26 - “Inner Palace” a dark, blocky fortress made of rusty metal, it seems, with 3d upper floors that should be cleared first of some revs and imps so you're not getting sniped at while fighting in the lower corridors. the outer courtyard of the fortress is home to some yellow fiends that just bunch together near the wall and can be killed quickly (probably very different if you pistol start the map, but i've been playing continuous here since map01). the notable trap is the one with 3 archviles, vicious if you panic since they attack immediately, but that box with the megasphere is just enough to dodge the attack so you can snipe them from the corridor or through the windows to the rocket launcher's pad. the teleporter probably will trap a player who thinks of retreating here. MAP27 - “Fire and Brimstone” this one is over quick on continuous. we're in lava land here, a cyb on a central island and 4 viles on pillars around. plus some imps in the alcoves, and you have to use a radsuit to pick up the ammo inside. pistol starting just for fun proves being much more complicated, as you have to pick up the ammo in the alcoves while avoiding rockets, and make a mad dash for the plasma gun right under the cyb's nose. MAP28 - “The High Places of Baal” amusing map. it starts a bit 90s-like, with monsters casually placed on a diorama-like plain and on an aztec pyramid in the middle of that plain, especially that mastermind which is harmless from a distance (i still ate a bit of lead because i circled the pyramid believing that there's a more elaborate method to kill it than shooting at it until it dies, heh). that diorama looks surreal thanks to the heart pedestal and the red trees, and the most surprising fact was that enjoyed the mandatory secret although i'm usually not a friend of it, perhaps because i found it quickly. MAP29 - “The Elder” i didn't see that coming. a "real map", this castle on a island in a sea of blood, with tunnels, towers and battlements, is easily larger than many of the previous maps together. and it offers resistance, a quite heavy one considering the mostly sedate pacing until now, from the caco swarm in the outer sea to the cybs in the revenant horde in the upper hall at the megasphere and the cybs guarding the access there. the castle is mostly conventional in an e2-like blood and marble theme, although i hoped to see the golden city here. excellent music. MAP30 - “A Chance in Hell” oh well. don't pick up the invisibility, circle strafe the cybs. protip: shoot at it until it dies. nice moody lighting however. off i go to playing tnt, before i end up like in december, and knowing tnt, i should be able to do mutiny along the way. echelon proved to be an entertaining mapset, although it's pretty clear that sverre used scraps and simple concepts, but then you can hardly have a megawad of map29s. thanks sverre. 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
Demon of the Well Posted January 5, 2017 That credits playback demo is a really cool idea, 40oz. Never even occurred to me someone might use the 'attract mode' that way. 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
dobu gabu maru Posted January 5, 2017 Yeah the credits map is actually the coolest and most inventive thing I've seen in a long time! 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
Varis Alpha Posted January 6, 2017 the credits map is pretty neat. inspired by Hellcore, perchance? 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
Soundblock Posted January 8, 2017 Pirx said:thanks sverre. You are of course, quite welcome. But I fear DWmegawad Club is totally overqualified for Echelon! :) Keeping things hors d'oeuvre was the only way I'd ever finish an entire megawad for your consideration... 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
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