Jump to content

The DWmegawad Club plays: Moonblood (it's our 5 year anniversary, golly!)


Recommended Posts

MAP26: Coliseum

Time: 12:57

 

Nahhh... This again is a Map I really didn't enjoy. In the previous Maps I was ok with this surreal setting what Doom is kinda known for... But this just felt like the author didn't know what to do with this Map and made some random areas into one giant mess. It starts with a challenging Fight against many different Enemies and it felt good using different Weapons against different Demons while circle around them. But as the Map progresses most "difficult" Situations are created with Archviles... It really was always the same... one shot this Archvile with the BFG I have more then enough Munition for and then the other one over there... I was pretty surprised when I found Pain Elementals behind the exit door and not 2 Archviles ;) It felt like I searched years for the yellow SkullKey... Don't even know why, wasn't even hidden big. Also the last part felt kinda strange and I first though this flesh thing leads to MAP27 but then found myself in another Tech Setting -_- pls let it not be a Hell-Techbase *fingers crossed*

Share this post


Link to post

MAP29
Most parts of map is dark and gloomy, I even want to raise the gamma correction.
I have big problem in lava area because of radsuit is ended and I running on lava and shooting two archviles.
The view to inner yard is kinda sinister.
Running from revenants after getting blue key is fun.
After final door I realised that is not over yet.
Probably the most longest level in wad - 28 minutes to complete.

Share this post


Link to post

MAP29 - It's the last "normal" level of this wad and probably the biggest so far. Also non-linear, but I guess it's quite easy to navigate here, since there's this huge landmark in the center and rooms/corridors are larger than you would expect from this wad. The name of the level shows mostly the concept behind: Some sort of corrupted tech base where the moonblood ritual was executed in the center and the rest of the base was built around it.



It's not a very hard level, but there are some cool setpieces, like the revenants that gets released after you grab the BK and the Cyberdemon battle which I got inspiration from one of the Dark Souls bosses haha (it might be the hardest battle for some players) The radiosuit battle can also be complicated if you are not fast enough, but it's not really a big deal. Originally I didn't want to add any monster behind the RK door until you grab the BK, but things got surprisingly boring so I had to add some smaller setpieces. The music is also inspired in the original Doom 2 map 30, but it's not hard to recognize at all :P



I guess the ending could've been better, though. Thinking now I would make the exit like a portal in the center, which would make more sense story-wise.

 

 

 

Share this post


Link to post

MAP29, E6-3: Moonblood Ritual Site

 

This is what it's all been building up to, then, this sprawling, corrupted base from the heart of which a mass of flesh and gore has erupted, spreading its tendrils and its influence far and wide to bring about all that you've encountered up to this point.  It's big, climactic, dangerous, and dark; in both tone and gameplay it's a fitting final obstacle before MAP30's expected boss encounter.  If it seems like I'm focused on tone in recent entries here, it's because Moonblood feels like a WAD that is very much trying to tell its own story within the limited storytelling confines of the Doom engine, and I think it's succeeded at that.  In terms of gameplay this one again clusters its secrets toward the early portions of the map, though one of them gives the player the opportunity to teleport right to the far side of the level and come at the various combat encounters there from an unexpected angle; it's not strictly advantageous, but it changes things up and adds to the multi-pronged approach to tackling the map as a whole that the player is offered.

Share this post


Link to post

MAP29 Moonblood Ritual Site

 

Largest level here, big monster count, big layout, lots of variety. Yet if you had to get rid of one thing, its these timed switches. The first one does involve a bit of pressing a switch multiple times, or there's a better shortcut for that. Then it's mostly nonlinear and finding the right weapon for the right combat scenario while exploring what you can. Yay. I'm used to it by now. And then things take a turn after getting the blue key. Revenants start to become a major threat. And at the yellow key area, not one, but two cyberdemons emerge. Taking care of them took a bit of time, but honestly that stupid timed switch managed to make my day far worse, especially since the switch outside the building triggers a lift inside. I really hate these things, and then there's another revenant horde outside, yippee. At the final area, it is possible for the spiderdemon to not teleport in, if you run really fast to the middle, or if the shotgun guy is there, the spiderdemon won't ever be able to teleport in. It's better to put it at the exit area instead of teleporting it in there.

Share this post


Link to post

iUvIgnQh.png

 

MAP29 - "Moonblood Ritual Site"

gzDoom - UV – pistol start/saves

 

Finally some moody and dark music to match the map! Perfect. And what a map it is. I liked how the outside area was done. You needed to spend some time just figuring how to get inside to start the long and dark experience through a bloody hellish base with lots of spooky lighting, oddly rounded angles and blood flowing that made everything look brooding and angry as you moved through it. Great stuff.

 

Had a hell of time keeping up my ammo with the three different rev packs that were let loose. Ugh. I ended up just running for my life straight at the SMM outside and into the bloody fields. That area looks outstanding. Couldn’t help thinking of The Eclipse from Berserk with the red sky, bloody water and all those dead bodies. Loved every second of my time in that space. It really felt like I was a living presence in an unholy site meant for my undoing. Any map that can induce visions of Berserk, gets mad props from me.

 

Even when a cyberdemon would pulverize me again and again, I didn’t mind because I could spend more time running through the bloodied hellscape. Very enjoyable space that was. 3 cyberdemons! First one providing the initial scare before being yanked outside and the other two timed porting in. One after the next. Wow. Great touch. Especially since escaping is easier said then done with the timed switch. Tough spot and I liked that that wasn’t the end of the map. It very easily could have been. Instead you’re forced to deal with the revs you may have skipped earlier and then survive lowering the exit teleport pads via another timed switch.

 

Anyways, I had a hell of a time on this map. It was long and wonderful. I could’ve used just a wee bit more action in general instead of hiding jerks all the time, but that’s okay.

Share this post


Link to post

MAP30 - The Repentant Sinner
ZDoom, UV - PS, KIS(%): 100/94/100

 

The final level of Moonblood gives you a simple platforming puzzle in the beginning. After you enter the mysterious green marble fortress, you need to explore the inside to grab some weapons and a powerup before you confront the final boss. Keep in mind that the level won't give them for free, but at least the fight is pretty easy to handle. But make sure to grab all of them before you step into the brown slime, since there's no way to go back. The final boss is not a generic Icon of Sin, thankfully. But instead, we have the Mother Demon from Doom 64, and she's basically a boss version of Afrit from Scythe 2; a flying badass, shooting mancubus' fireballs and revenant's homing missiles. But just in case you couldn't notice from behind the fireballs, this one shoots cyberdemon's rockets, too...... damn. A BFG can be found as a secret, but you won't have much trouble to figure out how to get it. The tactic is, shoot her until her soul is free, and feel free to use a rocket launcher, since she's not immune to blast damage. In overall, this was an interesting boss level, featuring a custom dehacked monster.

 

P.S.: One minor flaw here. Both Linedef 1270 and 1272 are missing lower texture for their back sidedefs, which will cause HoM effect once you activate a lift from the secret area.

 

 


In conclusion

 

Since the review for Nevasca, I noticed that Deadwing is good at creating non-linear layout for doom levels. And once again, this wad didn't disappoint me about the layout of all 32 levels. The gameplay was designed pretty good as a classic vanilla(not the compatibility, but the style) Doom 2 megawad, without any ridiculous slaughtering scenes. There are some difficult setpieces to deal with, but it would be boring if the wad was packed with easy, mild moments for 24/7. The environmental, architectural themes for each episode were also pretty good and enjoyable to move around. Not to mention that each level is ended with an exit area that directly connects the next level, making this wad feels like a big, continuous journey. The music can be a little bit soft for doom levels, but the author composed all of music for the entire wad, so I won't complain about it. I did like some of music, mind you, and my favorite is the one for both MAP01 and MAP31. There are still some issues to fix, though. It still has some glitches that breaks your gameplay experience, like one from MAP22 that interrupts your UV-Max attempt. Not to mention that some encounters or puzzle designs could be better with slight adjustments. But I believe that those issues can be easily fixed pretty soon, after this month's DWMC session is over. I'm looking forward to see the updated version in the future.

 

 


Intermission summary: Imgur album set

 

* A level with the longest playtime: MAP32 - Archives: Iron Keep (23:45)

Share this post


Link to post

MAP29 | E6-3: Moonblood Ritual Site

100% kills, 2/2 secrets

 

The atmosphere for this map works well, good use of gloomy light. The layout is generally a big ring around the middle arena, so I was hoping for a big fight for the yellow key, and wasn't disappointed. I was a little worried about a lame coda when I reached the exit room with imps and shotgunners in it, but got one last good fight (tougher than usual since I was out of cells, no one-shotting this SMM like his brother by the yellow key!) I like the release of the revenants across the map after grabbing the blue key as well. A very good penultimate level, with only the tiniest of annoyances (those timed lifts, mostly).

Share this post


Link to post

MAP27: Magma Refinery

Time: 9:25

 

No No NO ! You can't pretend a Hell Episode and then make a Tech-Base Map... But not only that, we also get to fight like 100 Archviles ! YEY ! not... Man I really didn't like this Map. Why the author didn't made an Hell Map with some broken Techbase pieces instead of a full Techbase with 1 or 2 Hell/Flesh areas... I never really had fun in this one. Way to small corridors and you get shooted from everything and from every side possible. In every corner a Shotgun/Chaingun guy waits for you and the Archvile parts were the pure SH*T ! You can't even kill those things before they make everything in this Map you shooted, alive again. For me this was clearly the worst Map in the wad so far and Im very Happy it's over... hopefully I get some cool last Maps and a fun Finale :)

Edited by DAZZER

Share this post


Link to post

MAP30
So this is the short boss map. The final boss looks like motherdemon from Doom64, and it's shoots different types of projectiles.
If you have BFG there is no problem to kill it. I finished it with plasmagun second time.
The main tactics is run/shoot in this circle, watching for pits/obstacles and also hide behind big flesh pillar.


Overall verdict, pros and cons:
+Non linear layouts
+Proper monster placement
+New music
+Good final boss idea
-Lack of "scenic" locations
-Some levels lacks of medikits
-Not many of Boom features used

So I rate this megawad 3.8/5

Share this post


Link to post

MAP30, E6-4: The Repentant Sinner

 

Compared to the preceding map this is a relatively low-key affair, a little bit of parkour followed by some fairly soft combat before the final boss arena.  That said, at least it's not just an arena fight; there is a bit more to the level than that, some additional fights and exploration and a couple of secrets to discover.  And the boss itself is an interesting departure from the usual Icon of Sin monster spawner/Romero head combo, in an arena that's fairly compact by Doom standards and which allows the levitating boss to use its mobility to greater advantage.  The storyline comes to a satisfying conclusion as well, even as it makes it clear this isn't really your story; others are responsible for the situation, bringing it about and reaping its terrible rewards, and the player's role is more akin to a ball-bearing rolling slowly through the guts of a machine, triggering one process after another, necessarily but unwitting.  This has been a WAD that makes the most of the game's limited storytelling toolset, and it's memorable for the tone of melancholy and tragedy that pervades it.

Share this post


Link to post

MAP30 The Repentant Sinner

 

Again with a strange case of time switch hysteresis at the start, going across the catwalks until you trigger the wall to lower, oh wait is that other one a secret? Yep. The whole warmup phase before the boss doesn't really light much in the way of candles, but what is with that one switch that needed to be shot? As it turns out, the boss is an SS replacement. One with the almost usual projectile spam seen from several other monsters in other wads. okay fine.

Share this post


Link to post

ObMxqA8h.png

 

MAP30 - "The Repentant Sinner"

gzDoom - UV – pistol start/saves

 

Well, this is it. The finale. Lots of build up collecting weapons and ammo while taking in the sights. Couple of AV encounters for good measure. Nothing too pressing until… “Whoa , what’s that?” Grab that megasphere and get to it!

 

Pretty sweet boss fight. Didn’t expect a new enemy. Pretty scary looking flyer. Yeuck! I made lots of parkour-esque jumps in circles over the tricky environment with rockets flying while avoiding the caged bastards in the corner. Again, I failed to figure out how to get the BFG as I frantically ran around just keeping alive but thankfully I didn’t need it.

 

 

My take on the story

 

So, in summation we had (in order of appearance)...

 

The Girl

The Foreigner

The Miners

The Marine

The Scientist

and The Sinner (Grammatical errors aside, very neat ending.)

 

This idea of the “Ganymede fields” confuses me. Is it an actual place or a dreamscape of some sort? The UAC built a facility there, so it must be tangible in some respect but knowing them, it doesn’t mean they weren’t looking into some alternate world of sorts. The easiest explanation might be that it’s the name of Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede. However, it feels like there’s more too it than that.

 

In any case there is this girl who was born in the fields there, apparently left and then returned home when she felt an urge to seek knowledge before finding some place in those fields where she was able to seek more than others through the use of some divinity within the moon which can bleed at times to reveal itself as an evil force that corrupts minds. (Wow, what a mouthful of a sentence.)

 

Was she a UAC scientist? It says she came back home. So where did she go and exactly what baggage did she bring back with her to spread prosperity? Perhaps her science knowledge? Medicine and such?

 

Hell was unleashed with the UAC (as they do) and she became corrupted along with them but she chose to sacrifice everyone for some sort of peace. (Peace seems like a relative term here but it is what it is I guess.)

 

Hmmm, who’s who though? How many actors are there? 6? G.F.M.M.S.S., eh? Okay then. What if the girl was both the scientist and the sinner? Does that make 5 different factions then? What if the girl was all of those things? A girl but also a foreigner. A miner, marine, scientist and ultimately a sinner? That doesn’t make much sense though as she was born in the Ganymede fields so she can’t be a foreigner. She can’t be a miner either, as they are described as being local old timers who looked to the moon for guidance but lost their minds before UAC arrived to break the peace. Perhaps the marine is the foreigner? 4 main actors then? The miners (locals) on the moon, UAC, the girl, and the marine. 

 

What of ourself though? The player. Did we make it out alive? Who were we then? The marine? Was I a different marine or am I suppose to represent the one described as saving the survivors for naught. Hmmm. I guess we ended up saving the girl from her cursed existence but I have mixed feelings about that ending. 

 

The idea of someone being repentant after killing “everyone and everything” is nuts though. Then with me killing her, somehow this sets her free because she can then “sacrifice” her knowledge to wipe away her sins? Whaaaaat?! Just like that? LoL. That’s nuts to me but I never did subscribe to an aspect of some forms of Christianity (Catholicism?) where all is forgiven if you just repent before your death. (Yikes, lets not follow the rabbit down that religious hole, shall we.)

 

Whatever the case is, I like the idea of a space marine forcing an evil demon out of the body of the host (exorcise the demon!) who made a pact with it in the first place. A marine's holy ceremony of his own sorts brought to fruition through the use of his ol’ double barreled problem solver... and RPG’s. Hahaha! Good stuff.

 

I look forward to reading everyone else’s thoughts on the story.

 

 

 

Final Thoughts

 

Well that was a fascinating ride. This is how a wad with smaller maps should be done. Smaller? Sure. But With purpose. Each one has it’s own personality while sticking to a recognizable style alongside great visuals, fun challenges and thoughtful presentation. Then, later not being afraid to go a little bigger with maps and concepts. While not really even the biggest maps ever, by comparison up to that point, they felt gigantic. Which was great.

 

Some of the music missed the mark in the later half but overall very cool stuff and I really appreciate the effort. I really can’t think of any maps that I disliked other than “The Coliseum” and even then it wasn’t that much of a chore to play.

 

Small maps though, aren’t my favorite style. No matter how well they are done. That’s why I preferred some of the later maps over the earlier ones and there weren’t enough of them to please my tastes. I prefer massive areas with sprawling intricate dungeons that expand beyond comprehension. Something you could get lost in for an hour or so. My personal life and free time might not like it (especially for a daily review club) but those are the kind of maps that really scratch that itchy part of my brain the best.

 

Also, the style of combat was a bit trying sometimes. Everyone’s always hiding!! Sometimes I just want to take on a horde face to face and get busy. That rarely happened in Moonblood. This wasn’t that kind of wad as it’s mostly not designed for that kind of action. Which is fine but for me it’s what kept this from getting a full 5 stars. 4 is as high as I think I can go. Excellent stuff that just didn’t match my preferences to the utmost to earn a perfect rating.

 

Kudos for the unique story. I love the effort put forth in that area.

 

Great maps

MAP05 - "Infrastructure Sector"

MAP06 - "Central Command"

MAP10 - "Toxic Treatment"

MAP11 - "Logistics"

MAP12 - "Mining Site"

MAP15 - "Decaying Industries"

MAP18 - "Hidden in the Dungeon"

MAP19 - "Obstructed Zone"

 

Favorites

MAP20 - "Moonblood Gateway"

MAP23 - "The Archipelago"

MAP29 - "Moonblood Ritual Site"

MAP32 - "Archives: Iron Keep"

Share this post


Link to post

MAP28: Remains of Zeta Labs

Time: 10:39

 

This one is what MAP27 should have been. A mostly Hell themed Map with some Tech areas in it. I don't get why we have to move back to Tech theme and I don't like that choice at all but I guess I have to accept it. This Map had some hard ambushes (mostly Revenants) in it but you always get fair amount of Health and Munition. Sure we again have some Fights against group of Archviles but not quite as heavy as in the last Map. The first Room you enter fels like a Boss Battle area. I liked how I found myself moving around an dotch Mancubi or Arachnotrons attacks and this is how it should be ! not entering a room and killing all from the door entrance or blasting Archvile after Archvile with the BFG away. A solid Map I guess with fun Fights :)

 

 

Share this post


Link to post

MAP30 | E6-4: The Repentant Sinner

88% kills, 2/2 secrets

 

A small little build up (with a couple of AVs, of course) before the boss battle, which thankfully turns out to be a custom boss instead of the usual Icon of Sin fight, so +1000 there. I know lots of people (myself included) dislike Dead Simple ripoffs, and I extend the same to Icon of Sin battles, and it's more work to get a new enemy involved so it's definitely appreciated. As boss fights go it's alright, pretty quick actually but also pretty easy to get killed quickly.

 

Final thoughts for the WAD as a whole tomorrow maybe.

Share this post


Link to post

Still plugging away at this. (Been playing a lot of Eviltech and Shovel Knight lately.) But maaan, I'm starting to regret not dialing it back to HMP now. But my stubborn self (as well as my loathing of pistol-starting) is keeping me at UV.

 

MAP18: Hidden in the Dungeon

26:48 | 100% Everything

 

The very first thing I did here was jump out the window, which found me in some underground catacombs or whatever with my nightvision goggles. I had to wonder if this was the titular (hidden) dungeon? Anyway, I mostly enjoyed this one. Crazy how the monsters were able to roam around freely: in an early attempt, I dropped into the courtyard from a ledge, only to be swarmed by a couple HKs, a revenant (?) and a chaingunner, among others. Over and over I kept getting killed there. Eventually I gave up and remembered there was a path I hadn't taken, down into the room with three reset-able lifts. When I made my way back out to the courtyard, there was no one there. Did they wander inside to be killed there? I guess. The switch-maze behind the yellow door was nice and memorable: just puzzle-y enough to be interesting, but any more would have been obnoxious.

 

MAP19: Obstructed Zone

19:54 | 100% Everything

 

Ugh, these traps. (This includes a few in the previous level, as well.) I actually survived the first encounter pretty handily. A lot of the others, though... grrr. It's actually impressive how effective/difficult a lot of these encounters end up being with just a couple of monsters. Often that has included being pinned between an archvile and some revenants or barons. That ending encounter... getting through the flood of imps was fun. Then having to deal with two archies and their meat shield of revenants? (And having to attempt it over and over and over?) No fun at all. At least the teleporter to the zerk pack afterwards was a nice gesture.

Share this post


Link to post

MAP29: Moonblood Ritual Site

Time: 21:50

 

This is a very good and very Big Map for the 29th slot ! We are in an Plutonia like Base covered in Flesh and Blood. You get to Fight against every possible enemy but I think I didn't see any Pain Elementals... Thanks for that ! :) This Map is very very non-linear and finding the Key Doors was sometimes a problem ^^ For Everything you get tons of ammo but in this Map again Shotgun shells are pretty rare. Medkits are everywhere and for an extra hard Revenant Situation you get a Soulssphere. I like that this Map was made something special and it was given it's own Music Track. A very cool Music track with an nice Piano in it :D The Yellow Key Area wasn't that hard cause if you don't use the Plasmagun or the Bfg long enough, you have alot of Munition for it and cybers or Spider Masterminds aren't a problem anymore. Also is it possible the Ending Room is the Base from MAP01 ? just with Flesh surrounding it ? All in All a very very good Map and if MAP30 suck I will take this as the great Finale :)

Share this post


Link to post

MAP30: The Repentant Sinner

Time: 5:00

 

I was kinda confused when I entered the first areas in this Map. It looked like the Map before but this time just with a few Enemies. The Special thing in this Map comes when you enter a little arena with a soul pillar in the middle through a teleporter. The Pillar lowers and you see the Endboss ! A harder Version of the Motherdemon from Doom64 ( never played that one) which can kill you very quickly but also is killed pretty easy. I'm glad you have to use the BFG at the End of MAP29 pretty often so you don't have much munition left for this Fight and you have to use your shotgun or Rocketlauncher. So this doesn't end in an BFG Spamming Bossfight :) cool Map and a good Finale ^^

 

Final Thoughts:
Total Time - 5:10:03

 

A good little compilation of Small Maps mixed together so you get a Fun bringing Megawad. Through Hitscanners and good placed Monsters the Maps were challenging and sometimes pretty difficult. In later Maps sometimes difficulty was created through things like Archvile Spam which I am not a friend of :/ But other Levels like MAP28 or MAP29 are really good with their surreal layout and Fun Gameplay. "Deadwing" did a good Job making this wad and I am looking forward to see more :)

Edited by DAZZER

Share this post


Link to post

MAP 30 - So here's the final boss. It's actually not a very large level and it feels quite modest, without big rooms, epic architecture or very well elaborated setups, which might not meet some expectations, but in the other hand this kind of design was all over the place in moonblood haha. Anyway, I hate Icon of Sin (never finish an IoS level fairly), I'm not found of slaughter levels and I think just going by a regular but very hard final encounter wouldn't be cool enough, so I decided to try creating a new boss.

 

For this I had to learn how to use DEHACKED propely, which was easier than expected, but somewhat more limited than I was expecting (which wasn't really a bad thing, IMO). I had for some good years the sprites of the mother demon and decided to use it, since it feels a bit "doomish". Making her a challenging boss was a quite difficult task, and I probably didn't made it with success =x

 

I tried to look at what make some monsters hard to deal in Doom, which IMO are the Cyberdemon, Archville and Revenants. All of them have modest sizes (unlike the SMM, which isn't a very good boss, IMO), and they move fairly fast, especially the later two ones. I didn't want to give her a big hp pool (I think it's smaller than the Cyberdemon's), because I used that strategy in the past (with the Discovering The Hell - The 5 worlds wad) and the result was only big and boring HP sinkers haha. It needed to be somewhat fast and deadly, like the Dark Souls bosses. Then I decided to make her to be flying because this makes rockets to be more powerful with the splash damage, and this coupled with a modest arena would raise the difficult bar a bit, and force the player to move more strategically.

 

The initial idea was for her to shoot only rockets, in a way similar to the manc shots but in a much more spread out angle so the player would have to move carefully to deal with splash damage. I realized then that was impossible in DEHACKED (or it looked like haha), so I had to try to mix out the current possible attacks, creating the current version.

 

In the end, she wasn't hard to beat, maybe she should've had a bit more HP, but I guess it was still a fun fight.

 

 

Edited by Deadwing

Share this post


Link to post
18 hours ago, TheOrganGrinder said:

@Demtor, thank you for that analysis of the story.  :)

 

Hah, no problem. I don't know if anyone else even cared, lol.

 

Was I close to guessing what you were going for @Deadwing? Some official corrections are welcome ^_^

Share this post


Link to post

Oh yeah, I guess they're pretty much accurate @Demtor :D

The story was some silly stuff I wrote where I took some inspirations from Berserk and Bloodborne, but this vaguely storytelling is more like a poor-man's copy of the Soulsbourne series. I'm no english native, so I'm not surprised that there's lots of grammatical errors. Anyway, it's supposed to be open to different interpretations, but I don't think there's a lot, though haha

 

I didn't want to go to the route of "you did this and are going to do this", because it's already shown in the gameplay that you're going through an UAC facility and then it would be too boring and previsible. I also wouldn't expect the people to care about the story at all lol So I took some liberty to try something different.

 

In general, the players plays more of a role of an observer, instead of being an active actor. (like in the Souls series) So his purporse is really open to interpretation, although it's easy to infer that's he's a marine and wants to do something in the UAC Ganymade's facility, which ends up in killing thousand of monsters, the Mother Demon and uncovering the facilities secrets. Whether any of these is his primary goal it's unclear, but I liked the idea that he could be some sort of exorcist in a more religious way D:
 

It is also unclear what Ganymade fields is, but it's definetly a tangible place with some sort of spiritual connection, a past and you can arrive and leave as a "normal human". Also, it is that supposed spiritual connection that attracted UAC to create a facility there. That spirituality would mostly manifest through the Moon.

 

About the characters, the idea was to the reader to be able to combine the characters and see how they fit, creating a bigger picture of what happened to the facility. The Foreigner doesn't need really to be a person, but an entity such as UAC, which would become obsessed in studying the red light of the moon. The girl is the central character, and her story definetly matches with the Scientist and the Sinner. I also think that she could've been the Marine in the past, because the first invasion seems to trigger to the second one (which fucked up things even more).

 

My idea was that she's native of the ganymade fields, and, as a local, she had this fascination about the moon and the stories told by the miners. So, she left her home to join UAC, and by the knowledge acquired, she brought the entire company (the foreign + her baggage) to try to discover what was happening. It's not really clear where things started getting fucked up, but my idea was that UAC messing up with demons, to the point of some of the researches turning up into them wasn't so uncommon. Anyway, at some point, the first hell invasion happened (which is actually a reference to the first version of this wad from 2005, eclpseii), prisoners were made and the girl was responsible for cleaning the shit up in the first time.

 

After this, peace was supposed brought back again, but not her obsession, and then she got convinced by the Hell (which could've been behind everything since the beginning) to perform the Moonblood ritual in a promise of finding peace. The ritual is pretty much an inspiritation from Berserk, where she decided to sacrifice her mates and let Hell take over. (map 29 is where the ritual was performed) So, when she regains her senses, she realized what happened, became repentant and then decided to isolate herself in the very depths of hell, using her demoniac form to bring all the UAC Ganymade's facilities with her, but apparently only the Zeta Labs got warped (creating the Moonblood gateway, level 20). This is also why I decided to leave maps 20 and 27 beginning the same.

 

After that, the player arrives and cleans up the mess, exploring the facilities, accessing the moonblood gateway and bringing peace to the girl by shooting some good amount of rockets haha

Edited by Deadwing

Share this post


Link to post

That's awesome! Thanks for clearing that up and pointing out a few things I missed. Fun bit of fiction there. Bravo!

Share this post


Link to post

Finishing up!

 

FDAs pack (skill 4) for Moonblood's endgame, maps 27-30.

 

Rather badly played for the most part, this bit, though in its way this is a good thing, as much of it probably stemmed from my finally having to shake a certain complacency engendered by earlier parts of the game. Fun fact #2: Map 27 was played with intermittent sound outages (don't ask)! Christ in a casserole dish, that's incredibly disorienting. Don't know how ToD does it.

 

Generally speaking, I'm quite pleased with this endgame episode. Moonblood as a whole has suffered somewhat from what I feel to be excessive modesty, repetition, and a certain understatement of spectacle that started striking me as a mite artificial on some level after a point--aiming lower than needed because aiming high would be hubristic or unfaithful to the pre-ordained mapset concept, something like that--and this last bit bucks pretty much all those tendencies to a greater or lesser degree and so sends the game off on a high note.

 

In terms of visual/aesthetic theme, I saw the thread register some disappointment that the setting here is, yet again/still, more corrupted military/industrial base (emphasizing the Plutonian flavor from the midgame more than the sci-fi/OG Doom flavor of the early game) rather than anything obviously 'new', though it's not a complaint I find myself sharing in this case. A major/unexpected shift in theme can be an excellent way to lend weight to and in-world investment in a game's final chapter--the m29/m30 surprise in Jenesis is the example I often like to use, though there are many others--but the real point is not so much that the texture scheme changes as that the mood itself does, and I found that was carried off nicely here. This is owing to a complex confluence of a lot of different things. These levels are bigger (i.e. they're 'medium-sized' instead of 'smaller'), more fleshed out, more conceptually distinct one from another, all true; but something in the presentation I can't quite put my finger on seems to lend them some extra gravitas as well, perhaps a function of aesthetic touches like the unique/memorable music tracks for maps 29 and 30, the increased emphasis on flesh/snakeskin as a visual element, or more generally the use of textures (deliberately or otherwise) that more obviously show the cooling/dampening effect of the WAD's palette filter (which, let's be honest, is pretty easy to forget about entirely for most of the WAD).

 

Map 27 depicts a return to the UAC base after what was presumably a sojourn in Hell proper during the previous episode. As aforesaid, while in practical terms this means it looks quite a lot like what has become before (it actually most reminds me of m06 from much earlier in the game, in hindsight), it has a certain 'oomph' as an actual in-game point of contact with the WAD's story, whereas the set as a whole depends almost entirely on the player's imagination and capacity for investment to form some semblance of narrative out of its largely interchangeable servings of eclectic texturing and spartan sectors, an unusual choice in a set that cares enough about its story to try to adopt a nonstandard way of telling it through its intermission scrawls.

 

On a more practical level, the map is probably most notable for the way it uses arch-viles, groups of the gangling bastards initially seen in stasis, ominously waiting to lope into action en mass when the player collects some McGuffin or other. Openly showing the player the general nature of a fight before it actually occurs is something that never once occurs in Moonblood before this point (a side-effect of its gameplay design nearly entirely eschewing combat setpieces and most forms of arena fight) and never occurs so clearly again afterwards. The fights themselves are not particularly remarkable, esp. after acquiring a BFG, but this kind of more overt mischief or toying with the player effectively imparts a more sinister tone to proceedings, playing into the episode's subtle (but significant) tonal shift from the rest of the game.

 

Map 28 is a different beast entirely, and reads something like the set's semi-requisite 'challenge map', emphasizing combat over the usual dungeon-crawling to an extent even beyond what was seen in m26's 'coliseum' earlier, and featuring more staged encounters during its modest duration than the rest of the game in its entirety has fielded to this point. I particularly liked the playful way the level's opening throws a curve into the set's ongoing focus on resource-austere starts, providing you a BFG and other heavy weapons up front but framing the first fight in such a way that the average player will only get to fire the BFG a single time during due to ammo scarcity, emphasizing the value of a skillful and well-placed shot (and in turn, movement and technique rather than the set's usual focus on management and awareness). Secret-mongers get a second shot if they get to work as soon as they clock in; there's also a third shot pieced out via two backpacks in the fight itself, but gathering those while some of the viles/others still live involves some measure of risk. Later fights vary in style and framing, and while none are quite as clever as this first one, in sum they're appreciated simply for trying a gameplay style that the set has eschewed almost entirely to this point. The author's discomfort with the style is perhaps suggested by an overabundance of spheres which potentially remove a lot of the potential threat (though I was playing quite badly as aforesaid and so used all of them!), nevertheless the spectacle itself is most welcome.

 

No complaints about the crusher-runs from me, incidentally, I think it's pretty clearly signposted that something bad is going to happen in either of those two suspiciously empty corridors. The little gore-blobs do suggest a crusher, though it had also occurred to me that maybe the floor would collapse in sections, or perhaps all of the walls would open into a huge monster ambush or the like. While you can't tell what's going to happen before you actually hop down, pretty much all of the likely possibilities are best handled by running down the course as fast as possible, and so I don't buy the notion that this design is categorically "unfair" or "bullshit."

 

Map 29 is the best level in the game, full stop, and actually the one I will say the least about, I think. The surreal tone the set has been taking its sweet time building to finally comes good here, and I was quite taken with the way the layout wraps in a many-windowed circle around the strikingly grim/gruesome central ritual site, which holds a number of surprises, chief among them perhaps being that that area isn't actually the end of the level. I don't think it's any coincidence that this is the largest level in the game, either; the general form of the non-linear progression, the somewhat austere start, the thing balance and placement style, and other aspects of the game design are really not anything we've not seen many times before in the set at this point, but having much more room to breathe here lets Deadwing instill the map with more variety and much more of a sense of ebb and flow in its pacing than any single level in the game (or, I daresay, even the game in its entirety to this point) has had the opportunity to muster prior. No mapset needs to be comprised entirely of ambitious behemoths to be successful (though this is hardly a 'behemoth', really, it's more like the upper range of 'medium', IMO), but I think Moonblood would have benefited significantly from having a few more maps of this size scattered throughout the game.

 

Apart from its use of cathartic tone, with a striking opening shot and a lovely mapslot-nonstandard midi that I'd love to hear again in future maps, the most salient feature of the final map is of course the presence of a custom deHacked bossfight instead of the traditional IoS ritual. I generally am not nearly as easily impressed with these as many others seem to be, but I did feel that the Sinner made for a fitting/satisfying final battle in this case. Visually the creature's nothing particularly special, an adaptation of D64's "Mother Demon"; in terms of functionality, it's essentially an afrit with an additional ballistic rocket attack, and a somewhat deceptively quick airspeed (initially looks slower than it is due to its size, I'd imagine).

 

As a fight, though, I think it's more interesting than the above description might make it seem, since its speed and power stacked up against the (pistol-starting) player's relatively small arsenal require a lot of movement around its small and topographically complex arena, key elements being a 'random' flesh pillar which is extremely useful for blocking shots and buying time, and some tricky fissures where you can slip into a mildly damaging pit in the arena's center, which is dangerous mainly because it gives the boss a prime opportunity to attack you. Par for the course with this session, I played rather poorly against her, but still ended up pulling out a win, mainly because she doesn't actually have a particularly large amount of HP. I like that the fight here is made by the environment and the boss's abilities working in tandem; real thought seems to have gone into this encounter, as opposed to the author simply being satisfied with plopping a custom boss into a generic arena and saying "it's not an IoS, so it's good enough", as is so often the case with final encounters of this type.

Edited by Demon of the Well

Share this post


Link to post

I wish I could have done more videos but I had a craving for some speedrunning and also had to do some playtesting. Likewise I'll probably only commit to Crumpets in the trio currently running -- a month is a long time to play a set schedule. :)

 

Edited by rdwpa

Share this post


Link to post

Same, lots of commitments, Doom and otherwise. I'm glad I managed to finish Moonblood, though, even if I've been very critical of much of it it was crucial to get out some words about the last bit, which left a much better taste in my mouth in hindsight.

 

The biggest issue, I think, is simply that it shows stress/wear from being a megaWAD by a single creator making their first megaWAD (though I know the first part of Moonblood was initially conceived episodically, and that Deadwing made some other significant stuff before this), and so is highly repetitive for much of the duration, though I also suspect that a lot of this doesn't even come from the author lacking ideas per se (he clearly doesn't, especially if you consider the nature of some of his earlier work) as from an over-commitment to the small/minimalist Scythe model. "Short and punchy" only gets you so far over the extent of a long mapset, especially if your personal inclinations in gameplay design tend to de-emphasize the "punchy" part! It doesn't feel like it even begins to really come into its own until E3, but from that point things look up quickly and there's more variety and vibrancy in those last 10 levels (which are of more recent make) than there are in the first 20-22, so in future I would expect to see better and better things from the author.

 

It will probably just be Stardate 20X7 for me, incidentally, since it's the only one of the three I've not yet played.

Share this post


Link to post

map29 fda

map30 fda

 

MOONBLOOD FDA PACK

 

overall a fun mapset, but one that doesnt stick in the mind much and i probably won't come back to. i did like that m30 wasnt a IoS, but the reveal felt a little bit anticlimactic after the big m29. in fact, i wonder if you couldve had 1 or 2 of the dehacked bosses in the m29 arena instead of the cybers?

@Deadwing keep it up - people seem to really like your mapping, it just wasnt really for me in this instance.

Edited by rehelekretep

Share this post


Link to post
  • 4 weeks later...

Oh hey I finally finished this!

 

Firstly, hats off to Deadwing for making this set—it was a lot of fun! The dude absolutely knows how to construct intricate layouts and use enemies so that they're constantly intimidating, even at low numbers. There were a lot of occasions where I'd get hit or die but I'd only be facing at like most 3-4 foes in a single room, which rarely happens (as long as I'm not playing like an idiot). Honestly, I don't think there was a low point throughout the entire set, as every map presented some level of challenge or pathway that I found enticing. It's kind of uncommon to see such high, consistent quality out of a one-man megawad, but like I said before, Deadwing knows Doom. And the new music was great, if slightly unconventional, too! I gotta use MAP28's tune some time.

 

But of course, the most obvious downside to Moonblood is that rare few maps stand out. All of the maps are good mind you, but a majority of them approach you with the same level of challenge and play, namely 10-15 minute nonlinear base crawling with only a handful of enemies at a time (plus very strict ammo/health placement). I think that each level focusing on Doomguy's entire arsenal really helps (I appreciated whenever I could get the RL/PG early in a map), so it's not like the combat and exploration ever became tedious, but it was rarely surprising. I think that's why I probably stopped playing around MAP20 and was hesitant to return; there was really nothing in Moonblood for me to look forward to. Sure, I enjoyed the maps plenty, but without a strong sense of atmosphere or interesting combat puzzles, I kinda felt like I had experienced the entirety of the set from what I played.

 

Like Demon of the Well mentions though, the latter half of Moonblood is significantly stronger, and there are a couple instances where the layout really surprised me, namely MAP26. It's the curse of a lot of amateur megawads though: the back end of the set feels significant stronger as the mapper develops their skill set. Which brings me to another minor point of contention: the difficulty. There's nothing wrong with Moonblood's demanding, austere level of play, but wow do those first few maps really not prepare your for the jump in harshness around the middle of the set. This is kind of a gripe I have with Scythe and a few other wads as well, since I feel like the player gets conditioned for one type of play early on and then is harshly tasked with adapting to an uncomfortable level of skill. I'm not frightened of playing difficult mapsets, but sometimes when I sit down to play Doom I just want to have a relaxing, trouble-free time, and Moonblood kinda pulled a fast one on me. It was a shame too, especially because I preferred some of the enemy placement on UV, like the quadruple AV struggle at the start of MAP28.

 

The last thing I'll bring up is a personal matter, but I really didn't like the ambiguity in the lift textures. SUPPORT3 is used for lifts you needed to find a switch for as well as lifts you can directly press, and in the heat of battle it's important to convey to the player where they can go and explore. I feel like some of the maps lasted an especially long time compared to their modest monster count because I couldn't find the right path, and sometimes this was due to missing a lift I didn't think I could press (there is a lot of lift hitting in Moonblood), and other times it was just because I missed a single door somewhere. Speaking of which, there really weren't a lot of set piece moments or distinguishable points of reference from map to map; every single locked door in every map looked more or less like every other usable door. I used the automap to find my way around more than remembering "oh yeah, this cool gate was the red key door".

 

Moonblood blurs together for me, but it was a good blur—a fun blur. A part of me considered streaming it just because there were a lot of times where I was like "oh, this is cool" or "oh, this is really clever" and I feel like Deadwing deserves to know that he's doing a lot of things right. Perhaps if this was a single episode that started with a strong level of difficulty and maintained that pace through a variety of map styles, it could be my favorite set this year. As it stands now, Moonblood is just a really, really good megawad that's rewarding and fun to play, as long as you can overlook the rough blemishes.

 

(No "least favorite" or "most favorite" list from me this time, unfortunately)

Share this post


Link to post

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...