The DWmegawad Club plays: Reverie

[Crusader No Regret]

Time to cast a vote for something that's unlikely to happen.

 

+++ Legacy or Heroes and Eternal Doom 4: Return from Oblivion

 

10 maps for the first, 7 maps for the second.  Those are some big maps in ED4 though; some extra time is almost a necessity.

[dobu gabu maru]

16 hours ago, Catpho said:

Which vote is winning?So i know what to join in for next month.

Tangerine Nightmare, UAC Ultra, & Realm of Shades is at like 8 votes, and ESP is at 2, so we have a clear frontrunner :P

[Catpho]

Heh,ESP will get it some day...We really need TOD in our lives

[Magnusblitz]

MAP27: Godspeed!

100% kills, 1/2 secrets

 

Nice pumping music track here to get me going, and a free-wheeling Living End-style dim rocky cavern that actually turns out to be sorta 'O' of Destruction-ish with a central ring structure that leads to the required keys in areas branching off the circle. Was fun to blast through, though ammo balance was a bit wonky since I didn't do the blue key leg (and acquire the plasma gun) until the very end, so I was running around with 500-something cells while running out of shells and using rockets on sergeants for a portion of the map. Cyber this time wasn't height-disadvantaged, that archway was the perfect height to let rockets through. This was a good map and a much-welcomed one after MAP26, nice to see what can be done by spurning that 64-sized grid.

Edited January 27, 2018 by Magnusblitz

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP27 Godspeed!

 

Hell yeah, my favorite music track in Reverie, and it's done by the three prominent Doomworld composers. The level is quite action packed for a Living End sort of map (or actually Terra Incognita from PRCP, strangely enough). And yet when all is said and eventually done, guess what? Another glorified hub map. Oh my! Yes indeed, get three keys from three distinct areas, find the color-coded teleporters to the actual hub area, and then find the teleporter to reach the exit after using the switches at the color-coded doors. Might want to roll around the rim first, the yellow key can be retrieved from a switch on the opposite end of the rim, and the teleporter for it is just to the right of the key.

 

I'm slightly annoyed every time I reach that bridge, since it always lowers every time you step on it, but hey, the red key is through the caves here, so that's cool. Go through, have a drink on me, and then it's yours eventually. But I go for this key last, why? Because there's a secret in the blue key path that basically functions as a shortcut there. As for the blue key itself, it's main feature is that library room with the mancubi, which locks itself for 30 seconds while you fight an arch-vile and whatever he resurrects. ACTUALLY it is possible to avert the 30-second lock, but tough, you have to go underneath one of the lowering bookshelves quickly (they are all the same sector). Another time bugger in the map is getting to the blue teleporter, due to the slow-rising walkway. I'm just not a fan of those time chokes at all, although the rest of the level serves quite well.

[galileo31dos01]

MAP27: Godspeed!

UV/Pistol start/No saves

Deaths: 0

 

I wouldn't like to compare it with The Living End, but it is alike it. One of the hardest map to plan a route that doesn't require any backtrack, which was a failure from my part since I had to backtrack several times, weapons/ammo and teleport pads are positioned in a non-linear way, and there are specific parts that demanded certain weaponry usage or health care. For instance, I'm a sucker for Living End maps, just in this case I was not a fan of this map, for example the UV cyberdemon was more of a slog than anything else, plus if you get to that room via the secret (row of bonuses) you can be instantly killed by everything there, a secret that punishes you for exploring huh. I did like the blue key trap, just let the revs out first or your get ghosts... revenant ghosts, no, no, no... but oh dear I appreciated that plasma rifle so much, there are some instances where you can face revenants instantly in narrow corridors or after you take a teleport, rude. Anyway, any reason why there are so many blur spheres on the water? I used them all with the spider at the end, I guess they are for coop purposes... 

 

Oh and I did noticed the lightning symbol on the water! 

 

 

[gaspe]

MAP27: A "Living End" styled map where you have quite some freedom on how to tackle the map. I was a bit disappointed by the lack of good secrets but overall it's fun with straightforward action and coupled with a very cool and exciting music. I liked the separated ending area that you have to visit from different sides to unlock the exit.

[tmorrow]

map28: Turbine Accelerator
zdoom2.8.1, uvmax, pistol start, no saves, first time played

A tech based map with a nasty start. Two cyberdemons guarding a red key card can see you through some bars and they don't like the look of you. Pistol starters will want to head for the plasma rifle and ammo in a room off the slime corridor as soon as possible. The action peaks when you finally take on the twin cybies after lowering a platform with 2 cells on it which releases the buggers.

The rest of the map takes you into a sewer system and to an outdoor fight area where the action is not nearly as intense as before. The secret hunt is again quite interesting and rewarding and not nearly as tricky as earlier in the wad. These are the final secrets in the wad, the next 2 maps have no official secrets.

[TheOrganGrinder]

No vote from me for next month's WAD(s) as I'm going to have to take a break from the club for that month due to other commitments.

 

MAP27: Godspeed!

 

Overall an interesting layout that's reminiscent, within the WAD, of MAP10, presenting the player with a large and open environment within which several substructures are built and three keys are hidden, waiting to be discovered.  For all that this is a smaller, more focused, and less ambitious map than The Tech Towers, I feel that it plays better, with a greater sense of genuine freedom and less of a feeling of excessive, unwanted environmental complexity and overstaying its welcome.  The secrets aren't great, one of them providing the rocket launcher without requiring a dip into the drink, the other one trading a handful of health bonuses for the opportunity to pop up into a narrow nook in a room where you will be shot to pieces in short order if you haven't previously explored the area and cleared out its denizens, so I don't know if I'm just missing the point there or what.  I feel like I'm going to remember this one for its squads of shotgun guys trooping around it cavernous halls, each group seeming bigger than the last; it's just striking so see them deployed so liberally as fodder for the player's super shotgun or as instigators of infighting, albeit short-lived in the latter role.

[Roofi]

ESP is one of my favourite megawad for its style and its huge challenge but it must be a struggle to do daily reviews on a wad like this. Just for exemple , the first level contains more than 2k monsters , dozens of secrets and one of the most twisted layout ever made. This my opinion but I can't review a level if I don't finish it and I don't like saving heh. But on the other side , I would like read some reviews of theses maps one day.

Edited January 27, 2018 by Roofi

[Steve D]

+++ Tangerine Nightmare, UAC Ultra & Realm of Shades

 

I've been looking for an excuse to finish UAC Ultra, and now that my hellish work schedule is easing up the teenciest bit, I think I can actually pull it off. Very interested in the other 2 as well. Some sweet screenies for TN make me hungry for citrus. ;)

[Magnusblitz]

1 hour ago, Roofi said:

ESP is one of my favourite megawad for its style and its huge challenge but it must be a struggle to do daily reviews on a wad like this. Just for exemple , the first level contains more than 2k monsters , dozens of secrets and one of the most twisted layout ever made. This my opinion but I can't review a level if I don't finish it and I don't like saving heh. But on the other side , I would like read some reviews of theses maps one day.

Yeah I doubt that WAD will ever get much traction here. But someone could always just start a thread for "ESP playthrough" or something like that and let everyone play through it at their own pace.

[Grain of Salt]

Nope, you all have to play it.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP28: Turbine Accelerator

100% kills, 3/5 secrets

 

And so we come to the three maps that were the onus for the project. And I liked this one a lot! It has a nice Doom2 starbase feel, with a lot of moving bits to keep things interesting (though that one floor by the blue door certainly can get annoying after awhile). The ammo balance was a bit wonky for me at the start, though it might've been for basically going the 'wrong way' - I went to the blue doors first (sans key) and had awoken all the mancs, which I didn't have ammo for and then clogged up my retreat when I realized I needed the key. So, took some doing getting by them. Just enough cells to kill the cybers, thankfully the red key area let me stock up. As is usual, the map does somewhat peter out a bit in its encounters (and no, the six hell knights at the end aren't particularly exciting). The hip-deep water also completely befuddled the barons and made me invisible to them, which was a bit silly. But I really dug the sense of place this map gave, and the organ-type music works well.

[TheOrganGrinder]

MAP28: Turbine Accelerator

 

If I were to try and describe this map in one word it would be obstinate, a great sense of the map's very layout resisting the player's progress and holding its secrets close.  I think the biggest part of that stems from the numerous switchback passages and generally high amount of backtracking; the sheer amount of walking discourages "speculative" returns to earlier areas, you kind of want to know that something has changed, that a new path has opened, that a secret is available to be found before you put in that many footfalls and cover that much ground.  I genuinely don't know if this map could have been built in a less obstinate way, with shorter passages, a more compact footprint, less backtracking; nor do I know if streamlining the level in that fashion would improve its gameplay sufficiently to offset the loss of atmosphere, of the player's sense of its scale, of opportunities to enjoy its dolorous, dirge-like music track.  Sometimes it's worth going about things in a way that's discomforting and even counter-intuitive just for the sake of doing so, right?

 

Setting aside such speculation I think the corridor-heavy layout does contribute to a sense of a map that must be approached in terms of individual "bits," separate set-pieces and scenes, rather than as a single interconnected whole.  And some of those parts are better than others; there was a sense of the grand for me in something as simple as climbing the early staircase that clings to the walls of the silo, room, pumping alternating blasts into shotgun guys emerging from above and below, the slowly rising floor and the columnar shapes giving the whole area the sense of a grungy and technological cathedral.  And on the other hand there's the interlocking "teeth" that form a barrier of moving parts at the mouth of the pump room, there's the moving floor a couple of chambers before the red key and its Cyberdemon guardian, there are other bits too that left me feeling like I was being messed with for the sake of messing, and I can't say I was too much of a fan.  So ultimately my impression of this map is that it's memorable, that it's clearly not afraid to try and do different things even with a fairly restricted subset of game resources to work with, but that even so the end result is on the uneven side.

[NuMetalManiak]

Meh, I wouldn't play ESP but I will explain that it was TimeofDeath who got me into Threads of Fate.

 

MAP28 Turbine Accelerator

 

Plutonia influences far and wide. I wish that the level accelerated as quickly as its title implies, but there's a number of interesting things the level offers. A cyber near the start, where a cage blocks both it and the red key, a nice teleporting secret which telefrags two arch-viles, the lift where the rocket launcher is, and that one outdoor area to name quite a few. There's all these bonuses in between the terminals, which make them hard to actually get in a quick run. Not to mention a lot of backtracking all over the place here. All I see with that is level prolonging, not really a whole lot of fun, especially given this level's monster density. The challenge was best just before the red key and the horde in the outside area. Also the deep water effect meant I could sneak past some enemies. Hah.

[Phobus]

I've not been able to participate in these for the last couple of years, which is a shame as I've been interested in some of the map sets played. Next month looks likely to continue the trend, but at least I've played 2 of the three likely WADs already. On a similar vein here is my newstuff review of Reverie as a contribution to this thread. I like valkiriforce's works, even if certain maps are far from my cup of tea!

[rehelekretep]

uv pistol starts saveless

map27 fda

i didnt like this: too much running about navigating a confusing progression sequence, with the combat not being interesting enough to make up for the lulls. the cyber fight is particularly annoying.

 

map28 fda

much more fun, although drags on a bit too much after the cyber fight (the highlight of the map imo). the deep water effect is funny as you can totally cheese most of it from sitting in it instead of jumping out. i was also disappointed that the AVs were not more dangerous.

 

Edited January 28, 2018 by rehelekretep

[tmorrow]

map29: Salvation
zdoom2.8.1, uvmax, pistol start, no saves, first time played

A nasty survival map, probably the hardest in the wad. You start in the middle of the map but once you lower the lifts you find yourself in the outer square where the cybers appear. There are 4 cybers in all but only two appear in the beginning. The 4 corners can be lowered to collect the 3 keys and open the exit but result in additional spawns. The blue and red key corners produce revenants and are easy enough. The yellow key and exit corners on the other hand each produce a wave of 4 archviles and revenants. There's one invulnerability sphere and you don't want to take it too early. There are several strategies but all of them have a fair amount of risk involved. It took me half a dozen attempts to pull off a successful uvmax.

Edited January 29, 2018 by tmorrow

[galileo31dos01]

MAP28: Turbine Accelerator

UV/Pistol start/No saves

Deaths: 0

 

Not much to say that others didn't, I liked the deep water effect worked as an invisibility cloak, it was funny to see how barons didn't know what was happening. On the other side, the lift in the RL room was a bit annoying but it also helped as a temporary "cover". I particularly liked this midi a lot because I heard it before, but can't recall from where, it's mysterious and suits with the metal textures imo.

 

^{I apologize for the ear-raping at minute 6:00...}

 

 

Edited January 28, 2018 by galileo31dos01

[gaspe]

MAP28: One of the highlights of the wad. The level has a strong presentation of its theme with this waterworks complex with sewers, control rooms and various machineries. The mood is quite spooky thanks to the cool track, and it's quite remarkable the reveal at the start of the hall with the red key guarded by the cyberdemons. I think it only lacks of a more striking ending, teleporting in that separate area to fight few hall knight was underwhelming.

[Pirx]

On 1/26/2018 at 10:30 AM, galileo31dos01 said:

MAP26: Fallen Angel

 

Semi-claustrophobic switch-hunt map, tight on powerful resources but you can get free ammo from zombies. I didn't enjoy this map the very first time, and now my thoughts are more focused on specific monster placement, like the archviles in front of the blue door that aren't quite effective aside from "gifting" chainguns, or the beefy monsters behind some timed doors that only slow down the pace more than needed. Its main "hub" area reminds me of Requiem's maps in mines, I don't recall which one has the two stuck cacos, well that map in particular. I thought the four coop SSGs were funny, more ammo to the stock. 

 

 

 

MAP26 - “Fallen Angel”

 

that was map08 of requiem. if this map resembles "the reactor" at all, then unfortunately in its weaker parts, that is too many cramped passages. after picking up a key you end up with clots of monsters stuck behind block lines at an open door, a comedy of them killing each other and getting revived by an archvile, so your best bet is to save your rockets for these situations and breach the meat wall. the map does have, however, some interesting looking parts, like the 4 shotguns on pillars, the blue bars hanging from the ceiling instead of coming out of the ground, and the stairs you can flip with a switch so you descend rather than go upstairs, a neat trick. 

 

 

MAP27 - “Godspeed!”

 

this one more than cancels out what m26 did wrong. others have described it already in detail, well, a living end style map, but without a damaging fluid at its bottom. it lets the player explore so it's not so obviously a triple key hub map. and the music is simply excellent, light-hearted and driving forward. many shotgunners? indeed, but they're so fun to turn into a shower of meat, and give plenty of ammo, so i ended up with using the ssg a lot, as i found the plasma rifle only halfway through the map, shot the cyb, and still exited with 400+ cells because i can't quite get rid of my plasma hoarding habit. i found only the rocket launcher secret, nicely indicated by 2 torches instead of 1, missed the other you guys were talking about, but if one gets punished for finding it... anyway what's with that spider at the exit, one can hose her down by shooting the legs from behind the pillars. overall an entertaining map though.

 

 

[Pirx]

12 hours ago, TheOrganGrinder said:

MAP28: Turbine Accelerator

 

If I were to try and describe this map in one word it would be obstinate, a great sense of the map's very layout resisting the player's progress and holding its secrets close.  I think the biggest part of that stems from the numerous switchback passages and generally high amount of backtracking; the sheer amount of walking discourages "speculative" returns to earlier areas, you kind of want to know that something has changed, that a new path has opened, that a secret is available to be found before you put in that many footfalls and cover that much ground.  I genuinely don't know if this map could have been built in a less obstinate way, with shorter passages, a more compact footprint, less backtracking; nor do I know if streamlining the level in that fashion would improve its gameplay sufficiently to offset the loss of atmosphere, of the player's sense of its scale, of opportunities to enjoy its dolorous, dirge-like music track.  Sometimes it's worth going about things in a way that's discomforting and even counter-intuitive just for the sake of doing so, right?

 

 

MAP28 - “Turbine Accelerator”

 

now i see what you mean by "obstinate", it's the amount of backtracking that makes this map a much lengthier affair than it could be, plus other hurdles like the lowering / raising rocket launcher platform, which i found very irritating. otherwise, it's a doomed  techbase map, underscored by the foreboding organ music. it has to be tackled in the right order (referring to the experience of magnusblitz, luckily i had read that before, or i would have been trapped by the mancs too), and after you kill the two cybs, you carry more than you need. the secret at the start that kills the two viles also helps. i managed again to exit with a full stack of cells, and found the last fight vs some knights skippable. 
 

 

 

btw, something went wrong here:

 

 

 

and these goats didn't move until i got near:

 

 

 

Edited January 28, 2018 by Pirx

[galileo31dos01]

2 hours ago, Pirx said:

btw, something went wrong here:

 

 

 

and these goats didn't move until i got near:

 

First picture, can't see anything wrong, if you mean the chaingun then it's on top of an invisible pillar, if not then ?????

 

Second picture, did you try throwing water to their snouts?

Edited January 29, 2018 by galileo31dos01

[TheOrganGrinder]

@Pirx yeah, the implementation of deep water here really doesn't play nice with the ability of monsters to detect and attack the player, so some of them you can just ignore, and others you can gun your way through with impunity should you be so inclined.  (I felt cheap doing it, but then again there were moments when the map felt cheap in its insistence that I go for a long walk again so ultimately I swallowed my pride and got on with it.)

[TheOrganGrinder]

MAP29: Salvation

 

So this one's an arena map focused on survival against successive waves of enemies; the square footprint and staged nature of the whole thing had me mentally referring to it as Dead Simple II: Deader and Simpler, despite the lack of mancubi or arachnotrons or other Dead Simple hallmarks.  So there's a couple of nasty surprises here, the first being the presence of arch-viles starting with the third wave of reinforcements, transforming what had previously just been a matter of running around and dodging revenant fireballs consistely while steadily wearing down the horde into a mad scramble to pop the arch-viles before they return an overwhelming number of defeated enemies to the fray, and the second being the fact that the fourth and final wave triggers not on the lowering of the key-bearing platform but on the opening of the yellow door, which might be just enough of a hiccup in the pattern to catch a player off-guard.  One way or another this is a map that's over quickly.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP29 Salvation

 

Bet you weren't expecting the penultimate map to be a simple arena map, did you? In some ways, this level takes its title well, and in others, it's a disappointment. Regardless, here's the last super short map, really a 2-3 minute map, with arena things in it, ammo on the sides, useful powerups, a mission statement of "wait for this thing to lower all the way to get the key" and then move counter-clockwise as the enemies spawn in. The invulnerability on low settings honestly isn't needed, as you only have revenants and two Rocket Dongs coming in, but it might be necessary for higher skills since arch-viles do join the arena fray at some point. You know, that waiting for the metal bars to give me the key (or exit) is the main reason I am not a fan of certain slaughtermaps. Waiting for things, especially when the combat is done, just plain sucks.

[galileo31dos01]

MAP29: Salvation

UV/Pistol start/No saves

Deaths: 0

 

No, I didn't expect that, NuMetalManiak. A compact hub that connects the previous and the final map of the set. Somewhere I read that valkiriforce wanted to put his three personal most dangerous enemies in a short map based on a dream... fair enough, archviles are my top dangerous enemy too, cyberdemons depend on the case, and revenants are more annoying to me for many reasons. A few zombies too because it wouldn't be Reverie. Simple tactic was off the zombies and three of the cyberdemons, leave one as company, and circlestrafe for the win, using the generous invul sphere for when the archviles arrived. I did not understand the purpose of the computer map and blur sphere, whatever, the map was fairly easy and it probably needed more bite for a penultimate map, still liked it overall. 

 

 

 

[tmorrow]

map30: Final Doom
zdoom2.8.1, uvmax, pistol start, no saves, first time played

This is the final map of the wad and the third map without a secret. An icon of sin map with a difference. The atmosphere is not nearly as gloomy as in many megawads. Here we start outside a building ringed with blue water, enter caves and a water section for the blue key card, then head indoors for battles for the red and yellow key cards, and finally finish up final fight over water again.

The final icon of sin room is not as nasty as in many other wads. Far more difficult rooms lead up to the final room though. Overall you need to fight your way through 6 archviles, 3 cyberdemons and 2 spider masterminds as well as a host of mid and low tier enemies before you reach the final room and any of the battles can easily ruin your run. You've got to lob a good 20 rockets at the icon of sin to finish off the map as the bossbrain has been placed far enough from the walls so it only takes a small amount of rocket splash damage with each shot.

Overall Comments

Reverie is a high quality, classic style megawad with a lot of variety, jam packed with challenging secrets and fights. Big and small maps and easy and hard fights are mixed right throughout the wad, keeping the player interested, refreshed and on their toes. The wad has no bugs to speak of, all kills, items and secrets can be obtained.

Reverie makes extensive use of deaf monsters throughout the wad. On many maps (but not all) a player can take advantage of the deaf monsters to make difficult sections much easier by triggering each enemy one at a time if they wish. Players can make their own choice to what extend they take advantage of deaf enemies.

This was my first play through of Reverie. I found the secrets to be more difficult than the fights overall. A handful of maps were quite challenging on UV with pistol starts. Overall I had a blast!

Favourite Maps

• map08 - great secrets and fights
• map10 - a fortress of high buildings full of challenging fights
• map31 - challenging secrets and switch progression
• map23 - fun map half slaughter half key hunt

Most Difficult Maps

• map10 - many tough fights and traps
• map18 - ghost imps and switches protected by fatal plungers
• map29 - a brutal survival map
• map30 - tough fatal fights leading up to the icon of sin
• map31 - difficult secrets and switch progression and some hard fights

[Pirx]

21 hours ago, galileo31dos01 said:

First picture, can't see anything wrong, if you mean the chaingun then it's on top of an invisible pillar, if not then ?????

 

Second picture, did you try throwing water to their snouts?

 

well, now, upon restarting the map... lol. that's me playing while half asleep. i didn't realize that i had not pressed the switch that lowers the pillars with the chainguns on top. invisible pillars, that is. weird choice, but acceptable in these maps that aim to recreate doom2's endgame abstract landscape. so when i went upstairs, i wondered why the weapons would float in the air...