The DWmegawad Club plays: TNT: Revilution

[tmorrow]

map07: No Man's Station by cannonball

I enjoyed this map. The difficulty is closer to that of the TNT maps (which I've played recently). Certainly shorter than the previous maps in terms of monsters to plow through. Quite fair and not as brutal as some of the previous maps. The secrets were fun to uncover and rewarding to boot.

I did have a problem with the starting door that can't be opened from the outside. I was forced to run out past several imps that came in at the start and was disappointed when I couldn't reopen the door to take them out. I was hoping the door might reopen later in the level but it didn't. Not good for the uvmax run. Easy enough simply to restart I guess but I thought I'd mention it in case it wasn't working as intended.

[baja blast rd.]

Map 08: "Fortress of Bullets" by sincity2100, dobu gabu maru

This map is single-mindedly devoted to one purpose: the comical destruction of scads of hitscanners. It's sort of a parallel universe version of "Stronghold" where it's not trying to be as awkward or cramped. It's quite wink wink nudge nudge, probably to the point of standing out as an absurdity among surrounding maps (that barrel usage!), but it's very fun nevertheless. The very last encounter behind the exit door is Dobu at his claustrophobic finest.

[Demon of the Well]

Screwing around with map07 this morning, I've turned up another bug report, though this one's nothing critical like the -cl 2 deadlock in map05. Over by the entrance to the blursphere/soulsphere secret, there are a pair of switches (one high, one low) which both actuate the small manlift down into the eastern end of the nukage trench. If the player hits one, waits a moment, and then hits the other while the lift is in motion returning to its original position, the two thin trim sectors (one directly abutting the hatch into the secret, the other directly in front of the upper switch) will instead actuate as lifts, exposing a large untextured/HOM surface on the wall below the hatch.

2-3 of the imps outside of the enclosed starting room will also see the player through the door/adjacent walls as s/he moves around in there to collect the helmets and such, though this is a fairly minor/common phenomenon which does the proceedings no real harm. If you wanted to 'featurize' it, you might consider changing the door so it can be opened from outside. "They know you're here." ;)

Edit: Other posters already mentioned both of these, it seems! Oh well, no harm done.

Map 07 -- No Man's Station - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Here we have what appears to be a mid-period Cannonball map, bearing some of the stylistic quirks of his earlier mapping (heavily squarish shapes, the big industrial gazebo in the middle of a yard right outside the entry latch, etc.) but demonstrating an emphasis on tightness, brevity, and more pragmatically compact spaces which he endeavored to focus on in the intervening period between ConCERNed and his breakout tour de force, Thy Flesh Turned into a Draft Excluder. "No Man's Station" is an undramatic, no frills sort of affair, set in a disused storage/sampling outpost along a duct of toxic waste, bearing a similar dilapidated, oil-stained look as the previous industrial bases, though without the strangely malevolent glaring red tinge to its color palette, something of a relief to my eyes.

Possessing no particular gimmick or concept of note (incidentally, +500 bonus points for not being a Dead Simple map, though perhaps this should be assumed in this case since Evilution didn't have one either?), I nevertheless found it enjoyable; many of the simple pleasures which make Doom such a timeless game can be found here. While understated, the environment itself has some depth and playfulness to it which helps to enliven the very simple progression goals. The blue card, for example, is actually sitting a few feet away from the blue-locked latch, as you can see from the outset, with the actual issue being you'll have to take a rather roundabout route through the facility's maintenance pathways in order to reach them. I also wanted to make mention of the early secrets; these use very basic/obvious pushwall mechanisms, but are satisfying to find regardless because they don't simply provide you with bonus items in little cubbies, but also let you climb around on platforms and through backstage areas which are visually teased at other points in progression.

Combat is straightforward but snappy, kicking off with a nice visceral opening sequence via inviting the player to brutally cluster-kill the gang of imps gathered around that first gazebo with the SSG (or dance around the pylons with pump-action shotgun if that's more your style), before shifting to something a little twitchier in the Station interior, with lots of enemies attacking from around blind corners while you may be distracted by more obvious threats ahead of you. As aforesaid, the Station is bisected by the narrow, deep nukage canal, separating you from the opposition across the way and presenting the level's major progression obstacle. Both the southern half of the station and the canal itself flow more or less freely from east to west, meaning monsters can converge from both sides or hem you in at a tight spot if you get complacent and allow them to do so (though the canal's not a true circuit for pathing purposes, it should be noted). The space is very compact, but elaborate enough to allow for more than one way of playing it, particularly as regards the issue of where/when you first enter the canal. The final battle feels a mite undercooked, as rdwpa says, maybe having something to do with most of the main damage threats being more or less stationary turrets. Maybe have all of the gasbags be PEs, instead of one PE and some cacos? Rocket-lottery ahoy!

[Jaws In Space]

Demon of the Well said:

(incidentally, +500 bonus points for not being a Dead Simple map, though perhaps this should be assumed in this case since Evilution didn't have one either?)

Oh yeah, that was another reason for putting Cannonballs map as map 7. I didn't want anyone seeing this slot open & think of making a dead simple map.

[cannonball]

MAP07 - “No Man’s Station” by cannonball
Well it seems that I have made a few goofs here, well they were easy enough to fix for the final version and neither were game breaking so no harm done.
So onto the map, when I started drawing this one up, the wad suffered from quite severe bloat, even in the first episode where most of the maps were rather long, the majority of these maps have gone and been replaced by some of the fine examples we have already seen. Contrary to some thoughts, this was the second map I made for this project with Malware coming before this. The objective for me was to make something which was ultimately quite short to at least give a breather to the longer maps, though I suspect I wasn't the best person to try and undertake this and the result is something that feels a bit half baked. From the onset of the project I never expected a dead simple clone to reveal itself, mainly for the fact that the project stated on claiming an episode slot rather than a specific map.
So overall, I am glad that no one overly hated this, though I do kind of wish that I had made something with a bit more bite that could have left more of a mark in peoples memories.

[Steve D]

Okay, so Map04 and the final fight that has drawn some criticism. Before I get to that, I'd like to mention that Jaws is a smart guy. I had long supposed that the 140-monster limit he imposed on me for Map04 was due mainly to the preponderance of big, wandery Kyka maps in the old version of E1. These maps often seemed utterly formless, had very obtuse progression and mostly uninteresting combat, except for the occasional massive and nasty hitscanner traps which to me were the highlights. Over time, however, I began to suspect that he knew about some of my large base maps and limited me for that reason. Still, it was interesting that he cited E1M6 of Shotgun Symphony as one of my "modern" maps, because in reality, I started that map in 1998 and stopped working on it in 2000, when most of what I call the "interior" map was already either finished or existed in very rough form. The only new part of the map is the giant nukage pump room I added in 2012, a single room which is literally bigger than the rest of the map. There are so many ways to fight that room that a player on a blind run may choose a suboptimal approach and get very bored. Indeed, in my previous post, the rdwpa FDA I mentioned was in reference to that room. I'm guessing Jaws played the 2014 beta, in which quite a few flaws were discovered, and still more were discovered last year.

Anyway, by the time Jaws played those maps, I had already started making much shorter maps under the inspiration of General Rainbow Bacon's Fourplay.wad, a pint-sized blast of never-ending combat. My take on that approach is what I call Amiga Demo Party maps, which feature arena-type combat and put the player under immediate 360-degree attack, and usually have an Amiga MOD file for the BGM. Few of these have been released, but they include Heat Miser in MAYhem 2048, which is where I encountered my first Jaws map, and which earned my Cacoswarm rep, which Eris ribbed me about earlier in this thread. Bottom line of course is that Jaws got exactly what he wanted. Like I said, smart guy. ;)

So, that said, since this is a beta-test, let's discuss -- at verbose length :D -- the fights in Map04. I was very interested to see if the hot-start opening would be shouted down, but for the most part, it wasn't. It's definitely a cruel opening, and mouldy didn't approve, but it seems most players are okay with it, so I see no reason to lighten up, apart from Dobu's suggestion of maybe a couple more stimpacks.

The other 2 fights that have drawn attention were both altered shortly before the beta test, these being the Rocket Launcher and Exit fights.

In the original Rocket Launcher fight, the RL was where the Blue Armor is now, and the Blue Armor was in the big secret area that now contains a Soulsphere. The character of the original fight was thus more oppressive, since the player had nothing but the Chaingun, single-shotty and SSG. I wanted the player to feel a bit overwhelmed because the odds were good that they'd arrive in the Manc Room, which leads to the current Blue Armor platform, all torn up and forced to cower against walls as they dodged in and out trying to pick off the Mancs blocking the route to what was then the RL. This is cover-based combat, not always popular in the Doom community where people would prefer to Rambo rooms, but I can advance the argument that the psychological impact of being forced out of your comfort zone, and perhaps getting a bit discombobulated, can lead to a greater sense of triumph in the end.

An advantage of the original fight design is that you knew where the RL was. When Dobu suggested I switch things around, one thing we forgot is that the player on a blind run can’t actually see the RL from the point where they enter the fight. So if you look at Magnus's comments, he chose the suboptimal path by going into the Manc Room instead of the better path of leaping into the blood and entering the Arachnotron Room, where he still might not have seen the RL because it's on a platform above him and he's under fire from 3 Arachnotrons. However, in the original design, If Magnus managed to survive the Manc Room, he could have gone straight for the RL at that time.

As a side note, I put the switch for the RL platform on the side facing the Revvie snipers. Yes, that's a dick move, because the best thing to do when you first enter that area is run for the shell box and leap into the blood, rather than door-camp and try to SSG the Revvies, which mostly wastes ammo. Thus, ideally, at least one Revvie would still be alive when you reached the platform, and you'd have to brave their fire to trigger the switch and get the weapon you've been dying for in order to kill them. Yeah, us mappers are a bunch of comedians, we are. ;D

So that was my original vision for the fight. Dobu suggested the changes, and when I tested them, I still died, so I decided it was okay and advanced that version as the official one. However, because players can't see the RL from the entryway, I now propose to put the RL near the shellbox or at the edge above the blood lake. This will, I hope, encourage players to run for the RL and attack the Arachnotron Room, where they can get a few more rockets. Or, if they instead attack the Manc Room like Magnus and Pete Keleher did, they can brute-force their way through all those Imps and grab 2 full rocket boxes, with which they can launch a missile barrage against the Mancs. That room still remains very dangerous because of the Chaingunners that shoot at you from below and the Imps who serve as meat-walls, slowing you down while the Mancs blast away at you. But that can be exactly the thing that makes it a fun Rambo experience. So what do you guys think? BTW, everybody can state their view, not just the Revilution crew.

Now to the final fight. Originally, there were no Archies in that area. The Arachnotron and the Revvies were stuck behind monster-block lines as a way of keeping the player bottled up in the blood lake so the Pain Elementals had at least a few seconds to work on them, and also to reduce infighting. In case the player got past these guards, the water pool at the top held 3 Mancs who served as "doors with health" to hold you up long enough for the Lost Souls to launch an attack. Once you got past them, there was another Manc "door with health" inside the exit room.

"Doors with health" are kind of a sucky strategy, and there is also a general dislike of monster-block lines. Once again, changes were suggested, and Dobu said that I could put a deaf Hell Knight on each stairway to hold the player up. I ended up using 2 on each stairway as insurance, because it only takes 3 SSG blasts or Zerk-punches to eliminate a Hell Knight. Dobu also suggested that I replace the 3 pool-Mancs with a single Pain Elemental, and replace the exit-room Manc with a PE cheekily turned away from the player. These ideas worked splendidly well, as revealed in the Keleher FDA, so thanks, Dobu! On the downside, once the monster-block lines were removed, the blood lake fight was hopelessly nerfed by infighting. All it takes is for a player to do a half-circle of the combat area and they can leisurely blast away at the infighting monsters. There is a school of thought which says this is not a bad thing, and that you can give the player a sense of accomplishment by providing a battle whose bark is much worse than its bite, but I didn't like it, so I put the Archies in. Even with the Archies, the fight was IMO too easy, and was still nerfed by promoting infights, but at least it presented an element of danger and forced the player to concentrate on immediately eliminating the viles.

If you're not already bored with this discussion of tactics, we now get to the question of numbers of viles – or any other monster – in my maps. I do difficulty settings by what I call "The Power of Threes," which means that on UV, if I use a type of monster in a specific area, I will always use 3 of them. HMP will have 2, and HNTR, 1. If I need more than 3, I don’t use 4, I use 6, and if I need more than 6, I go to 9, with corresponding reductions – 6 on HMP, 3 on HNTR. Health, ammo and armor remain unchanged. Thus players on the lower difficulties have all the resources of UV but far fewer monsters to kill. This type of approach can also be termed Linear Reduction or UV Lite. I use it for the sake of expedience because I only have enough time at my disposal to optimize UV. This can lead to a shitty, boring HNTR, as in this map, though HMP usually turns out fine.

I should note that I've come around a bit to aspects of the "troublesome monster" theory, promoted by Dobu, 40oz and others, which argues that HNTR players don't want fewer monsters so much as they want weaker monsters. Thus, a Revvie could be replaced by an Imp, or perhaps more than one Imp. A hitscanner trap could have a Chaingunner on UV, a Sergeant on HMP and a zombieboy on HNTR. The red key trap in Map04 does exactly that.

All that explanatory BS aside, the real issue seems to be HMP. One thing I noticed is that The Power of Threes was broken when I replaced Mancs with PEs, so that now UV has 5 PEs and HMP has 4, the extra 2 being in the upper pool and the exit. HMP of course has 2 Archies – 1 in the lake and 1 in the exit -- whereas HNTR has none.

I can propose that at least 1 PE – probably in the upper pool – be changed into a Caco. Maybe this can be done for the exit PE as well. If the blood-lake Archie is considered too dangerous on HMP, it can be eliminated and we can settle with the exit Archie. Or vice-versa. Or maybe even eliminate all the Archies, as in HNTR. Then again, we can consider bringing back the monster-block lines to avoid the infighting clusterfuck and remove the stairway Hell Knights, which cannonball objected to and which I'm not fond of, either. Apart from other considerations, the HKs constitute a clean-up burden for speedrunners looking to max the map.

A couple final notes:

@Getsu – if you were shot by Chaingunners at the exit fight before crossing the trigger line, maybe I should deepen their pits. It was not an intentional cheap shot. Memfis earlier noted that he saw parts of the PEs before they rose.

@Magnus – I should know better by now than to provide no path back from the exit. I'll fix that. BTW, you played plenty of my Doom 2 maps before – Realm of Chaos and RoIC Map04. Ah, how soon they forget.

@Dobu – I'll fix that tutti-frutti issue.

A couple continuous players mentioned leaving this map at extremely low health, but there are 2 Medikits in the exit room. Did you grab them first and go back out to fight, or did you miss them because a PE corpse blocked your view? Maybe it would be better to move the Medikits to a more visible location, or make changes in the exit room so they're more easily seen.

[Tristan]

Steve: I declared "fuck it" upon seeing the exit room AV (no ammo to kill it with) and charged straight for the switch - never saw those medikits :(

cannonball said:

So overall, I am glad that no one overly hated this

I'll just stop you right there!

MAP07: No Man's Station - cannonball
Time: 6:32 (1:03:18) | Deaths: 0 (16)

Just kidding :P
A shorter map here, but the odd breather can't be a bad thing when larger offerings are sure to be nearby. Steve mentioned the old E1 being long, I think the MAP03 of those days had something stupid like 400 monsters. The UV average for the whole wad was also about 400. Even Mount Pain didn't come that close!

I've played better maps from cannonball, his other Revilution map - from the late Kyka era - being no exception, but this isn't a bad map by any measure. The rejected cannonball map that Jaws mentioned later ended up in Sparta 2 - it was a surprise to see it again when we played it on TNS.
I always used to play this one by trying to tear through it, and this would always result in an early death, so as such I was expecting a bit of a ruthless arsekicking here but it never came. Again, not a complaint, there's plenty more opportunities for that later in the WAD!
Not a whole lot else to say about this one, not hugely memorable, but nevertheless decent enough.

7/10

[Tompig]

MAP06: Communications Relay
- XenoNemesis, Kyka, dobu gabu maru, Jaws in Space

A mixed bag here, in visual terms I found this map to be very lacking, we have a competently laid out tech-base which has no texture flaws yet nothing in the map ever pops or jumps out at my eyes, it all feels very 'run of the mill' when it comes to doom tech bases and I found this to be a shame as there are no echos of the visual themes that ran throughout previous maps.

Gameplay was a whole different story though, hope you like shooting because oh boy do we have a lot for you to shoot.

This map boasts a very high monster count and these beasties aren't playing fair either, nearly every room and corridor will have you flanked or spring an ambush ontop of you even the levels 'exit' has a few hidden tricks, I nearly died a few times but the encounter that really put the hurt on me involved a dark maze, a arch-vile, and a spectre that I didn't see which kindly body blocked me when I tried to dodge outside of the arch-viles line of sight... possibly the best use of a single spectre in doom history.

Map was a tad too linear for my taste, still good and well designed but felt more like 'Half-Life on steroids' rather than a doom map.

All in all I'd give it a 7/10, not the best map in the bunch but still has enough merit to be worth a playthrough.

[Steve D]

Eris Falling said:

Steve: I declared "fuck it" upon seeing the exit room AV (no ammo to kill it with) and charged straight for the switch - never saw those medikits :(

Maybe the most expeditious answer is to put the Medikits right in front of the switch. I'm allergic to unavoidable power-ups in front of switches, but it makes no difference at the end, right? The important thing is to tank-up continuers before the next map.

The ammo issue can be solved by putting 5 rockets up each final stairway, some shells -- but not shellboxes -- and maybe a bullet box at the top on each side. What say you?

[Tristan]

Yeah, I can understand the problem with obligatory power-ups at a normal switch, but the exit is an exception IMO, both your ideas seem good to me!
I also noticed a similar thing going on with MAP05 - I only seemed to start having a half-decent ammo supply in the last 20 monsters or so, heh.

[Jaws In Space]

Map 8 is Fortress of Bullets by sincity2100 & dobu gabu maru, it was accepted into Revilution by Eris Falling near the end of November 2015. Sincity stopped by the thread & gave us a map, I love it when I don't have to ask people to make a maps. I was against having any remakes in Revilution, this one wasn't an exception, there were a few problem areas that were a bit to similar to Stronghold so I had Sincity edited them before this map was approved. There's still 2 areas that are reminiscent of their Stronghold counterparts, but I feel that the rest of the map is different enough that I can overlook them.


It was last month that Dobu decided to make a number of changes to this map. The initial version was quite linear, but it opened up as you played through the map, Dobu went in & made it so you could go in pretty much any direction at the start of the map. Thing placement was changed up a bit as well, Dobu put something special in the exit room. You will find that the blue key door has the exit door texture, there were a few too many fake exits in E1 so we decided to cut out a few unnecessary ones. We got rid of the exit sign here, but we forgot to change the door texture to something else.

[Spectre01]

MAP03 - “Access Denied” by Chris Hansen

Obligatory nukage processing facility map. Well designed, but reminds me of the many "fair and balanced" modern maps in vein of BTSX with completely forgettable gameplay and dragging slightly longer than what remains interesting.

[Spectre01]

MAP04 - “Blood Factory” by Steve D

Now this is a good map. Challenging encounters and good use of space/monster placement to keep the action going. The traps are quite effective as actual traps that can kill a player slow to react and not just serve as predictable monster reveals. I assume there was a secret Plasma Rifle somewhere due to all the cells but I missed one secret and ended up having to use rockets in the final fight. Made it quite a bit more challenging ,evident by the Lost Soul getting stuck in my Rocket Launcher and putting me within one-shot death HP of a Vile attack. Fun stuff.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP07: No Man's Station
100% kills, 2/3 secrets

This was alright, nothing great but nothing bad. Theme-wise it's a quite common danky Doom sewer, and gameplay-wise the fights are decent but suffer from everything always being in front of the player. Lots of entering a new room, seeing a variety of monsters scattered about, and that's it. The toughest fights are at the start I think since they're really the only places the player can get flanked in.

[Spectre01]

MAP05 - “Graveyard Shift” by Jaws in Space

Uhh... what? Is this supposed to be a joke map or some meme I'm missing here? The start is all well and good, aside from the lack of armour considering all the heavy-hitters presents. The map takes a sharp nosedive after grabbing the red key and entering the main building. What follows can only be described as chainsawing Spectres for days and gunning down weaksauce dudes. Feels extremely flaccid considering the hardness of the previous map, especially with that lame ending fight. Oh, and sick single Chaingunner trap from behind! Got 'em! No idea what's going on with that midi either. Very weak map.

[tmorrow]

map08: Fortress of Bullets: sincity2100 & dobu gabu maru

OMG! Hitscan city. Doomguy must be on to something because they are trying to kill him! An extremely fun map, chain gunning the entire way if you can. Ammo is a little scarce to start with but quickly stops being a problem after you can cover some ground and retrieve the fallen enemy ammo. Every steps seems to open a new alcove chock full of more chain gun fodder. Another nicely balanced map in terms of difficulty without any outright cruel traps.

Half of the secrets have health/armor and are needed due to the inevitable damage you will take while the other half have more powerful weapons that you don't really need on this map (but can be fun just the same).

I did have a problem with the secret in the north computer room with red flooring (sector 154). Without giving too much away, once you find out how to open the secret and collect the items inside, you cannot get back out if the door has closed behind you. You are basically stuck in the corner closet with no way to get out. The problem can be readily avoided in future runs of the map but getting stuck is definitely no fun. If intentional all good, but if not I thought you'd like to know.

[Spectre01]

MAP06 - “Communications Relay” by XenoNemesis, Kyka, dobu gabu maru, Jaws in Space

That's quite the development team for one map. Almost a KDiZD kind of deal. I enjoyed this one and found the gameplay engaging throughout. That first Archvile did give me a fright though when I only had the standard shitgun and 20 shells while he was rezzing dudes. Not sure which fight the invul was intended for but I used it to punch-out a Manc and some other stuff. For some reason this map stands out as more "oldschool" visually but maybe that's just the brown tech + blue carpet combo that's not really the rage these days. Cute midi too.

[sincity2100]

MAP08 - “Fortress of Bullets” by myself , dobu gabu maru

I probably won't talk much about what I did in this map, so I'll let you guys taste the experience for yourselves, have fun with that hitscan hordes that I brought to you guys.

[Tompig]

MAP07: No Man's Station
by cannonball

10/10 Better than No Man's Sky.


On a more serious note, we'll start out visually.

Whilst playing it safe I think this map has a better aesthetic look to its predecessor, yes we certainly have a tech base through and through here but it makes good use of multiple levels, and has the overall feeling of a working defensible building. Use of demonic torches throughout was a nice touch also.

Gameplay, not much to say here really, it is very competent and does what it does with grace and ease, but aside from the firs encounter in the main sewer room there isn't that much pressure placed on the player, a few imp rushes happen throughout the map and they are very satisfying as always to deal with.

[Tompig]

map08: Fortress of Bullets
by sincity2100 & dobu gabu maru

Visuals:

Well now, this is the prime example of a map that plays how it looks, what does it look like?

A full functioning military garrison, how does it play?
Zombie soldiers everywhere!

This level looks exactly how it should, its detailed, its bright, its militaristic, no complaints there what so ever.

Gameplay:

Gameplay can be summed up with 'DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA WOOSH BOOM BOOM DAKKA DAKKA'

A more indepth analysis would be, 'Open door, hold down trigger on chaingun, hit a few explosive barrels and watch gibs go flying, rinse and repeat.'

It's simple, its fun, it feels like you are RAMBO.
I got exactly what I wanted out of this map 10/10

[Spectre01]

MAP07 - “No Man’s Station” by cannonball

Short and straightforward nukebase affair with a light monster count. Another secret at the end of the map which I grabbed after all the monsters were dead. I assume these are there to help out continuous players, which is cool.

[TheOrganGrinder]

MAP07: No Man's Station

Nothing experimental or particularly unique to be found here, but this is a solid map regardless, invoking classical Doom II period techbase tropes and presenting the player with a steady escalation of monsters, culimating in the manucubus-arachnotron-revenant-Hell Knight combo meal in the final outdoor arena, though at no point does the intensity rise particularly high. It's satisfying on both the exploration and gunplay fronts.

MAP08: Fortress of Bullets

Did someone say "gunplay?" 'Cuz I think I just heard someone say "gunplay." This map is a love letter to the chaingun, packing shambling imp and zombie hordes into its rooms and corridors just about as solidly as it can, presenting a multitude of opportunities to just hold down the fire button and deck the halls with blood and entrails. It's low-stress and enormously satisfying, and the proliferation of hitscanners (and abundant availability of health) seems tailored to engender an attitude of "you win some, you lose some," constantly bobbling about the 100% health mark and not worrying too much about the inevitable chip damage that will doubtless be recovered quickly enough. Bullets are likewise in abundant supply, confirming the weapon of choice for this particular adventure. It's all nicely interlinked, with doors and panels flipping open to reveal new monster hordes and lines of fire whether the player chooses a cautious approach or a reckless one. The red key vault with its teleporter cubbies is a fun way to repopulate the map and make the trip back to the exit room an entertaining one; chaingun troopers really can be anywhere as you retrace your steps through a knee-deep sea of bullet-riddled bodies.

[NuMetalManiak]

Steve all you really should do for those chaingunners is flag them deaf. Not sure about pain elementals though since I never have any trouble with those monsters.

MAP08 Fortress of Bullets

Emulates a Stronghold-feel with the hitscanner amounts, so let's look for cheapness here and there. I'm gonna blame dobu for the monster density here, because I experienced similar bits in MAP06 and dobu's the only mapper between the two maps. Also early trap activation here and there from two sides is also around. Some devious key ambushes, and the blue key door thing was not what I expected, even if it's easy enough to just shoot the barrels behind them. The zombieman surprise at the exit room was funny too.

[Demtor]

MAP08 - “Fortress of Bullets” by sincity2100, dobu gabu maru
gzDoom - UV – pistol start/no saves

This map is hilarious in all of the best ways. In your face violence. Loved every second of it. Reminded me of Jimmy Sieben's "Stronghold" from Evilution, but on crank. Loads of small frys, wall to wall, ready to be mowed down. Few Revs to make things bite harder than a fist full of chaingunners. Some Cacos mixed in with some pinkie meat shields to grind down. Lots of ammo everywhere too. There were a few rooms I never took my finger off the trigger. I couldn't even hear the music! ROFLMAO! Go, go, go. Destroy!!!

If you can get past all of the blood and guts you can tell these rooms were lovingly crafted as well. The red and blue areas were pretty cool. The rocky center piece wasn't just for decoration. Recreational rock climbing demons just kind of haning out, waiting to get blasted. The lift up added an optional path choice. I do love waterfall columns and a surprise barrel wall! LoL

The fake exit was nice too and welcome as I didn't want it to be over, muwahaha! Side window optional to make things easier before going in. Barrels to help clear things in front and on both sides quickly followed by the pile on the zombiemen for nested killings, ahahahaha! That was great.

[dobu gabu maru]

cannonball said:

MAP07 - “No Man’s Station” by cannonball
Contrary to some thoughts, this was the second map I made for this project with Malware coming before this.

Oh wow, I stand corrected!

SteveD said:

So what do you guys think?

I think all the changes you've made are fine as-is. The RL is in a great spot because the player is naturally driven there by light & the trail of rockets, and it's not like the map is impossible if you don't head there first—hell, you had us SGing the mancs in the original version, so it's not a big deal if a player accidentally does that in this rendition! Also I think the exit medikits are in a good spot—if you're going to be a coward (sorry Eris) and bolt to the exit, you deserve to miss them as a punishment for fleeing. Also you need to keep one of the AVs down in the blood for HMP; two archviles is too much but I think zero would turn the fight back into a snoozefest.

MAP08: The first time I played Sincity’s level, it was one of those instances where the potential of the map was staring me in the face everywhere I went, begging to be unleashed. Even though my name appears on the title, the layout and 90% of the monster placement is all Sincity’s design—my major contribution was opening all those doors to other areas. Sincity’s original map had these doors in place, but they only opened up after you had already cleared out the previous sections, meaning you’d be running around and then see a wall give way to a legion of freshly-slaughtered corpses. That, and this was another instance of a map being entirely linear for almost no reason, so I went out of my way to stagger the key requirements, letting the player pick up a couple of goodies in an order of their choosing.

The other major thing I did was swap all of the shells out for ammo boxes. “Fortress of Bullets” is a pretty baller name that I wanted the map to fully embody, but the original version had too much “start and stopping” in regards to the shotgun, prompting the player to corner camp rather than hedge their bets on the pain chance oriented chaingun. Plus the midi is so delightfully zany that I had to do something speed up the gameplay a little bit. There are a couple instances where you simply stand in place and mow down hordes after hordes of zombiemen, but hell, “Stronghold” had that too! I also applied Alfonzo's sage wisdom he provided me back in NOVA II and sprinkled in some barrel clusters for additional fun, which probably remains one of the best ways to spice up low-tier gameplay.

[baja blast rd.]

Map 09: "Startan Complex" by Whoo, Kyka, Jaws in Space

The secrets and the exploration angle are the main things this map has going for it. To put it bluntly, the combat is consistently bad. A lot of stationary turrets that you can just camp for days against and are awkward or tedious to kill: the encampment with the two chaingunners, the arachnotron, the mancubus, and the popup revenant; the "marquee" fight where two viles warp in and only the cacos can actually reach you. Many setups that are designed to punish you for doing anything BUT camping: the early group with the PE, HK, and rev, where the PE apparently can infight if you want to get creative and push forward instead of door camping everything; the outdoor archvile and its battalion of shotgunners. On top of that, a lot of the monster placement is awkward: the two revenants in that outdoor area that are annoying to bring down with rockets; the last pain elemental that you pretty much just have to ignore because it'll take a good minute to get to you if you decide to stick around and kill it because it's a PE (luckily it paths over to the "marquee" fight very nicely :P). The monsters behind the closed door to the very last area are awoken by sound (most likely when the player kills the secret imp) because sector 225 is joined around the door. Seems like a mistake.

This, more than map 06, strikes me as a map that was "dead on arrival"; the layout doesn't feel like it can accommodate much fun at all. Even the large outdoor yard outside is full of bumpy floors. It's possible to skip half the map with an early SR50 to the fireblu contraption. Unfortunately it's only half.

Suggestions:

1) The fight triggered by the red key could be beefed up a lot and turned into a more interesting "hold the breach" style encounter. Get rid of the rev overlooking this area so that the first-time player won't be tempted to bore themselves by killing it, because it looks tactically useful to do so. Put a bunch more monsters than just two imps in the adjacent tunnel that the player warps into later -- this is a good spot for a non-awkward entry fight.

2) As mentioned, remove the vile and two revs in the outdoor area adjacent to the start room. They add little in the way of actual threat (campfest) and just prevent you from running down and maybe spamming rockets at stuff, which would be pretty fun.

3) In the two-pronged vile fight, get rid of everything that currently exists, replace with lots of fliers that can bridge the gap to the player (maybe leave a couple HKs or something near the switch). In sectors 328 and 333 have some low-tier monsters warp in and encroach on the player from both sides.

4) Beef up outdoor fight prior to the last area. As is, all of the directly placed hitscanners just clump up near the entry, where they are dealt long before the player enters the area proper, leaving a very naked-looking fight behind. The nukage is a good place to put monsters that can't be alerted by sight prior to entry. A second manc would work too.

5) Remove or reconfigure any other encounters not explicitly mentioned in 1-4 that feature harmless turrets/PEs. The first and last PE seemed fine, as does the 'tron overlooking the RK.

[Tristan]

MAP08: Fortress of Bullets - sincity2100, dobu gabu maru
Time: 6:34 (1:09:53) | Deaths: 2 (18)

Just absolutely damn fucking fantastic. Holy shit. Very easy map, yet I died twice. Why? Because playing carefully and actually giving a fuck in this map would be criminal. You rush forward and don't take your finger off that fire button. I only stopped firing to switch from chaingun to plasma gun for some of the larger fights. Normally I can't get away with playing like this at all, so this was a very fun breath of fresh air.

The inspiration from Stronghold is very clear, nearly all 300 monsters here are either imps, or the zombies - and there seems to be a particular emphasis on strategically placing chaingunners where they pose the biggest threat, and cramming the remaining empty space with troopers/sergeants, as these can be effortlessly mowed down in no time at all with even a chaingun. Health and ammo are very plentiful throughout, though the sheer volume of monsters and those tactical chaingunners will ensure that you still need to pay some attention to them.
Barrels also feature heavily, another carryover from Stronghold (I think?), and of course in a map like this, they can only turn the insanity up to 11, and the best examples of these are that wall of barrels by the blue key switch, and basically that entire exit area. And of course that tiny room that finishes the map off is completely silly and still awesome. Never seen stuck monsters exploited like that before, great stuff.

I'll second Demtor's observation that the music track got drowned out for me in all the chaos, an impressive feat as I remember this particular MIDI being really fucking loud, heh. A bit of a pity really as it remains to this day one of my favourite MIDIs by Viscra. It's also the second-longest entry in the soundtrack, clocking in at just over 6 minutes, so it's only just short enough to last a whole run through the map, deaths aside. It was originally assigned to MAP11, but no doubt about it, it is perfect for this carnage of this map.

I think this may be among the most fun maps I've ever played. Usually it takes more than just gameplay to rate a map as such but screw it this was awesome.

10/10

[cannonball]

MAP08 - “Fortress of Bullets” by sincity2100, dobu gabu maru

A very fun little romp with a lot of unpredictable moments, the map is very much in the vein of Stronghold from TNT, nothing wrong with that of course. Chaingun is sufficient here but you do get some bigger weapons which can be fun to use on the weaklings on show here.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP08: Fortress of Bullets
100% kills, 6/6 secrets

Fun little romp, despite clocking in at 330 monsters on UV. Obviously this map is meant to showcase the chaingun, which is a difficult weapon to design for, I think - it's only really good with hordes of small enemies or going between a couple of larger, pain chance-vulnerable monsters, which is pretty much what this map is designed around. There's some cute placement of the enemies here - the first is that a large part of the level woke up at once, so dithering in the opening area led to a lot of enemies constantly piling in to the first few areas. The second is the red key trap, which teleports chaingunners around to the rest of the map, which made for an interesting game of cat-and-mouse. Fun stuff, I'll always vastly prefer cutting through hordes of small guys as opposed to dealing with the larger bestiary.

It's possible to jump from the windows at the start to the ledge, nothing game-breaking, but might want to put block player lines on the ledge to prevent seeing the skybox.

[tmorrow]

map09: Startan Complex by Whoo, Kyka, Jaws in Space
playstyle: ultra-violence, pistol start

Another thoroughly enjoyable map. The secret hunt was fantastic. The fights are possibly a bit on the easy side when you discover the tougher enemies can't actually reach you (e.g. the archvile encounters). I see that rdwpa has some suggestions for beefing up the fights that might help maintain the challenge for subsequent playthroughs.

The final secret in the exit room will only benefit the continuous player since everything is dead by the time you reach it, it's useless for the pistol starters.