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Helion 0.9.3.0 There is a lot in this release. A ton of performance enhancements, new features and bug fixes. The first thing you will notice is an improved crosshair. Helion now has different crosshair types and options to play with including different colors, scaling, and transparency. The performance for CPU runtime handling and GPU increase for static data has really added up and make up for significant improvements, most noticeably on low end hardware. The Radeon HD8400, which is the current low end benchmark GPU from 10 years ago really benefits from these changes. I haven't done a full benchmark for this release but Summer of Slaughter MAP32 previously benchmarked at 52FPS overlooking the map, and would drop to about 40FPS during gameplay. With these changes it stays consistently above 50FPS during gameplay. You could play all of Sunder on this 10 year old garbage hardware at this point. More compatibility support: vile ghost, explosion, sector sound, and final doom teleport compatibility options. There was some great pull requests in this release as well. Not sure if they are members here, otherwise I would note them here. The relevant pull request links are in the change log above.

Half-Life, the sound design is just so iconic

The current task is compatability and thing placements for co-op/solonet, which will be released as RC6 when it's done. There's also of course a bunch of general changes across maps, but I'll leave the main detail for the changelog when it drops. Pending anything that comes up following RC6, it'll be followed soon by the final release. I don't want to make any promises about when this will be other than hopefully sometime over the summer. A number of us would rather this was wrapped up sooner rather than later!

This pack contains 33 new sky graphics for the Doom 64 Remaster. All skies were created by Rhodenris and were made Doom 64 compatible by Immorpher. Load the ExampleWAD.wad into the Doom 64 Remaster to see how these skies work in-game. Open the WAD in a program like Slade to see how these skies can be setup for use on your maps. Included are two folders of the sky graphics: LoRes folder contains skies compatible with Doom 64 Remaster, and the HiRes folder contains higher resolution skies if you wish to use them in another engine. If you use these skies in your map set be sure to credit Rhodenris! Download it here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/keg9p22e7np7byo565gaw/Rhodenris-Immorpher-Rhodenris-Skies-64.zip?rlkey=2jw7913u4wuoumh149thnsoiz&dl=1 Credits:

I’ve seen a strange amount of people theorize this was once a Quake game in development, but that makes very little sense considering everything we know about it. Hugo Martin mentions in an interview, when directly asked if it’s inspired by Quake or Heretic that the gameplay in this takes major cues specifically from the original Doom. Making a Quake game where the player is “grounded” is not very Quake, considering Quake is very vertical and is all about jumping around and whatnot. There’s also all the Nu Doom-y architecture you see all over the place, you could argue it was Quake very early in development, but again, from what we know this was always Doom. A complete visual rework of the game doesn’t seem plausible considering it’s been in development for 4 years and looks pretty finished. The new games have been teasing out a sword and shield since 2016, we got the sword in Eternal, we get the shield here. I’m just saying the theory this was Quake at any point doesn’t quite add up to me.

om nom nom. burp. I binge through the desert on a horse with no name. I have also decided to attempt to review this big bloody thing. I'll do it in 30 map chunks. PLAYED ON DSDA DOOM V0.27.5 UV-ISH, PISTOL STARTS, SAVES JF3 REVIEWS: MAP01 TO MAP15 JF3 REVIEWS: MAP16-MAP30 More to come when I get to beating MAP60 one way or the other.

Doom 64 Dark Claw, credits to Midway (the hand I used for the first person sprites is my own with heavy editing) chat is this real?

First demo with my son :) E1M1 NM100S Co-op in 0:12 Players : megasphere308 and Draw&play c1s1-012.zip https://youtu.be/8lZqzemghHM

What's with this response? The OP is relatively new to the community, and this is a fairly normal question to ask. I don't know what "memes" you're referring to here.

MAP15: Heat. Played on UV, pistol start. DSDA v0.27.4. K: 69/69, S: 2/2, I: 38/38. Comp. time 10:25 Yes, we have ventured far from tech bases now, to fiery cavern employing Heretic/Hexen textures. It's a solid map, that I'm finding it hard to write about, it's only real offense is to have highly damaging floor and only one radsuit, whereas low damaging floor without radsuits would have done just as well. (I feel like I'm just trying to find something bad to say; it's lava, I know, and it posed no problem... it was not a major offense). I'm not sure what opened the way to the secret map -- I suppose one of the switches I didn't know what they did, opened the way. Either that, or it was always there like a branching path. Actually, I don't know if there was a way to exit straight to MAP16, I never tried the exit line looking linedef just after the secret exit corridor entrance. * MAP31: Juggelo Funhouse. Played on UV, pistol start. DSDA v0.27.4. K: 52/52, S: 1/1, I: 24/24. Comp. time 7:01 I suppose by 1999 standards this must have been a fun romp, but now peek-a-boo shooting a SMM is not my idea of fun (admittedly, though, it could much worse), and the map ends up being a bit dull. Although the teleport ambush at the red key was quite dangerous for what we've been accustomed to this month. For the final showdown with a cybie we are granted BFG and a few surprise revenants. I don't know how this must have felt like in 1999, but nowadays having the cybie-cyb do the infighting and the player consistently two-shotting a cyber makes this encounter not a big deal. I guess the map's okay. The midi is peculiar, the sugarplum fairy midi so sweetly reeks of 90s stock midis you received with your Soundblaster 16 package. (Although this one was a rock rendition of the said piece, right?). (Added upon posting: I've heard of Insane Clown Posse, but I'm not familiar with it and didn't make the connection - so it is possible I'm missing something that would have elevated the experience).

Your Journey Begins - A 5 level episode for Heretic - RC1 Download: YJB_RC1.rar Target Port: Crispy-Heretic, DSDA Doom, GZDoom Your Journey Begins! Well, I can say this is for me, as a mapper, where My Journey Ends, or at least for this chapter. And what a journey it has been! These levels were originally meant to be part of a collaboration that started in 2015, but the project didn't pan out. After several years of just sitting cold on my computer I decided to finish these levels of mine and release them here in 2024. That's 9 years! There is a flying themed level, and the last few get quite large. Thank you for anyone and everyone who has supported me through out the years, and hopefully you have as much fun playing these levels as I had making them! Levels E1M1: No Turning Back E1M2: Woeful Specters E1M3: Hermes' Cauldron E1M4: Harbor of Dead Dreams E1M5: Fire and Ice Music Title Music : Excerpt from "Legend", from Runescape, arranged by Egregor Intermission music : "Quoth the Raven - Intermission" by Egregor E1M1: "Saboteur" by @Alfonzo E1M2: "Woeful Spectres" by Egregor E1M3: "Haunted Mine" from Runescape E1M4: "Fangs for the Memory" from Runescape E1M5: "The Occultist" by Eris Falling Resources Title Screen: From Freepik.com, AI generated image, free to use for non-commercial purposes. The SKY1 texture based on original by @ETTiNGRiNDER, edited by Egregor Playtesters @TheHambourgeois @DeathBearOfDeath Note: E1M5 has a regular exit AND a secret exit. The secret exit is just a bonus secret ending, it doesn't go to any custom content, sorry! They both lead to the IWAD material. I currently have no plans to add a secret level to this set. Testing Info: Let me know if you find anything from bugs, errors, broken tags, soft-locks, inability to get 100%, as well as thoughts on balance, game-play, and aesthetic suggestions. Demos and videos welcomed! Have fun, and let me know what you think!

MAP16: The Killing Fields I'll be honest with you, this one nearly put me to sleep. The Killing Fields is just too big for the amount of monsters placed. Like, you teleport into a gigantic field that wouldn't look out of place in a slaughter wad, but only has a handful of imps and zombies. There's an awful amount of backtracking, since you'll be hitting switches and trying to figure out what the hell they did. If you add an anemic combat (single mid-tier monsters, small groups of weak ones and generally lack of any difficulty), you have an overly long and boring slog where nothing happens. This is the lowest point of Biowar by far.

Interesting thread here. I must say I'm quite fond of making liminal spaces in Doom but I'm not quite sure if I like them being bright. I guess this is more because I do a lot of shading and lighting on my maps. I find it interesting that what gets a lot of attention tends to be open areas instead of enclosed spaces, but yeah, I do agree Entryway's complete lack of even a door behind you unlike Hangar gives the map an odd vibe. Would be cool to make a community project around the idea for sure.

Map15: Heat The resource balance is relatively tight here, and I could really feel the lack of health toward the end since I wasn't very careful. It didn't even occur to me that one of the switches I pressed was for the secret exit. Map31: Juggelo Funhouse A little awkward and unsatisfying for a map with a BFG and hundreds of cells. Those resources are placed at the very end, so this map is practically begging for a "full speed 'til the end, then clean up" max route, but those slow-ass elevators get in the way. Perhaps the best option is to kill everything in the first area right away, only revisiting the barons and Mastermind. There's not much to discuss about the fights themselves, but the cyberdemon at the end is a fun inclusion, and dodging his rockets to press the switches was the best part.

Map 14 : Absolution I didn't remember that "Absolution" suffer of such ammo drought and damn I always manage to get softlocked in the red key's courtyard ! I'm exagerrating a bit as there's enough to kill everything but you still have to be a bit more strategic how to spend ammo. For instance, in order to reach the rocket launcher, several cacodemons can be left alone so that you can eliminate the Hell Knight and small foes guarding the weapons. Moreover, the non-linearity feels a bit illusional here as not obtaining the most powerful weapons upstream can be a bit disabling. "Absolution" reminds me a little of "House of Pain" from Ultimate Doom even if the progression is a lot different. This map takes place in a forsaken fortress and the soundtrack coming from Memento Mori also succeeds at creating an eerie and somewhat sad atmosphere. It makes me feel something horrible happened here but I have no way of knowing. To be frank if I put the efforts put on the ambiance, I like this map with moderation. Grade : B- (12/20) Map 15 : Heat Biowar can be categorized as a "mini megawad" for me, as it can be completed in 1-2 hours, but the variety of its natural scenery is a selling point. We traversed dense forest , threaded our way through icy crevasses and now we venture into a volcano. What a ride ! And as map 10 or 11, Chris Harbin manages to offer convincing visuals by economizing details. The height variations are pronunced among the outdoors areas and and these high rock walls simply show how tall the volcano is. Also contrary to most of the maps, "Heat" can be distingued by its consistency. The laval surrounding the rocky paths, the distorted rocky passages and the bosterious midi coming from Memento Mori again, immerse you in this hostile place. Heat definitely figures among the tougher maps of this megawad and I like this map because it provides a particularly energizing sense of urgency, as if the volcano was about to erupt and I had to escape as soon as possible. Heat is one of the highlight maps which shows that Biowar should not be ignored despite its age, in case you're looking for vanilla-compatible adventure wads. Grade : B+ (15/20)

E2M4 UV Max in 9:28 / back to Urania/Adonis... n2e4-928.zip

I notice a few patterns across all these images that seem to really make them feel lonely, and dreadful. Much more so than regular Doom maps First, and this is the most important, they all have very flat, bright lighting, making them seem harsh and foreboding. Humans rely on shadows to help us define perspective, and when they're taken away, we feel disoriented, and disorientation sparks fear Second, they're empty and hollow, with only a few distinct features to break up the monotonous flat textures and patterned walls. They're also devoid (or nearly devoid) of monsters, and whenever there is a monster in one of these images, it's distant, and its pose is static Third, there are no natural features beyond a few stray, dead vines in these images, nor even any remotely earthly skies. It's all sterile, purposeless structures and galactic nothingness as far as the eye can see Last but certainly not least, a few of the images make use of long, repetitive stretches of flats with distinctive patterns. I don't know what it is about them, but I think it's the extreme perspective distortion that makes them reminiscent of infinity

I did my 11th round of randomized deathmatch mapping! I rolled the randomizer at the start of the stream, and this time I got 'GothMash'! The map only took me 2 hours, 30 minutes to complete beginning to end. Here are some screenshots from tonight's session! Random Doom2 Deathmatch Mapping (STREAM 11): MAP12: Keep of the Damned: List of packs used in streams so far: I'm more than a third done this new megaWAD already! :D

MAP15: Heat DSDA-Doom, UV, Pistol Start This map was a lot more fun than the previous one. The action is thrilling and fast-paced. You can find the SSG pretty early on. Ammo is pretty tight, but you can find a berserk that will alleviate that problem. Unfortunately, this is hampered somewhat by the wad's bad habit of over-complicating things. It expects you to know that you need to jump into lava to hit a switch to open a door. The sole purpose of the yellow key is to open up the bars that hold the red key. Pointless. After you open up the red door, it takes you to a teleporter which then sends you to the top of a rocky column. It then expects you to know that you need to make a running jump to the north to reach a door. I still enjoyed the combat despite the level design faults. MAP31: Juggelo (sic) Funhouse DSDA-Doom, UV, Pistol Start https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP4AVPuao7Q If you look past the ICP thing, you'll discover that this is the most fun map in the whole wad. It gives you a berserk right from the start, which I like. The teleport ambush in the funhouse's entryway was pretty intense. The blue room looked really cool, but I didn't like SSG-ing that group of Barons. What is this, Hell Revealed? My favorite part was the Cyberdemon arena. I just ran circles around him, pressed all the switches, grabbed the BFG, and went to town. Of all the maps in this wad, this is the one I've replayed the most. It's that enjoyable.

E3M8 UVMax in 0:36 Zip: e3m8m036.zip Video: https://youtu.be/HDuKMnrEcek?si=T1Kn0Kw2P3D5_7Ny

E3M8 Pacifist in 56s e3m8p056.zip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-7HcD970tM

Oopsies I missed A Lot Of Maps I'll do some of the maps now and more of the maps later, short reviews this time MAP11: Frozen Terror Kills: 98% Items: 59% Secrets: 0% Time: 4:18 Continuing with Chris Harbin's for-the-time rather out-there themes, here's a snow map! It's impressive how this map actually doesn't look too terrible while only really using 2 different textures, though I guess the main snow texture used doesn't look rough enough to bother me. The combat still isn't particularly great, though that's a rather common remark. I can feel Chris Harbin's clean plain-spoken style kinda slipping a little bit here. Back in MAP05 I praised that I only needed to ride a particularly long elevator once because a teleporter appears when you have to go back up, but here you have to ride a long elevator again at least twice. C'mon. Fair map otherwise. Nice MIDI btw, works surprisingly well. Grade: C+ Difficulty: D - MAP12: Military Center Kills: 100% Items: 79% Secrets: 50% Time: 3:57 My personal favourite map so far in the wad, Military Center is a much needed shot of adrenaline. Despite still not being the hardest map in the world, it has a simple, clean structure and a general Scythe E1 appeal to it. This map feels like a bit of a self imposed challenge for Chris Harbin, to make several little challenge rooms in rather small areas just to see how it would go. I think it went pretty well. Chris Harbin is easily at his best when he doesn't overthink his maps too hard. If he's making a fun challenge map or a quiet tech base, the common quality the best of these iterations share is being simple and brisk, and we can find a fair amount of that here. Best map so far. Grade: B Difficulty: C- - MAP13: UAC Prison By John Bishop Kills: 92% Items: 55% Secrets: 100% Time: 11:03 Peculiar choice for a final guest map I suppose. John Bishop's UAC Prison is unquestionably the beefiest map so far. I mean, not that it's huge, but it's got about triple this wad's average run time and monster count. I think it's close to being pretty fun, but kinda similar to MAP11 in a few regards, I don't exactly think it flows as well as it could to be honest. I suppose I appreciate the ingenuity of reusing a single arena four or five times, though more often than not these reused fights end up feeling a little clunky. The prison area near the end is kinda neat, even if there's Several long elevators to get there and you need to randomly shoot a wall at the end of a corridor to open it. The "hell" area is kinda neat too, almost qualifying as "a big fight" as far as I'm concerned. Also, seriously. What is up with John Bishop and shotgunners. MAP06 was like this too, both maps had exactly one invisibility sphere, so clearly he knew sometimes opening a door to two shotgunners who hit you about 5 or 6 times in total instantly for 40 damage and you scream because you physically did not have time to react isn’t very fun. This map has literally 185 shotgunners. Okay maybe not literally, it has about 180 shotgunners in it. That’s almost half this map’s total monster count. Did they just never tell John Bishop that Doom II has a lot more monsters? They pepper every major fight in some form or another and there’s always at least one in this map’s quieter more hallway-ish moments. Also, while we’re on this topic, shotgunners are worse than chaingunners. Chaingunners at least have the decency to give you a window, a small window, but still an existing window to react and hide before they do even one hit of shotgunner damage. Whatever, this argument is broader than the map itself. I’m not petty enough about this to reduce the map grade over it, but man if I was single-segmenting this I sure would be. Who cares, kinda fun map all in all. (I wrote all that yesterday when I beat the map I didn't intend for it to be well over half the review LOL) Grade: B- Difficulty: C+

Map 22: Cowboys & Aliens | UV-Max in 7:22.14 jf322m72214.zip

Hotline Miami by far, has my favorite sound design. Not only do the guns sound good, but melee combat has these sort of crunchy/juicy sounds that tie in with the visual game feel.

Operation: Biowar MAP15: Heat (UV, pistol start, K: 100% / S: 100%, DSDA-Doom, complevel 2) A compact map set inside a fiery mountain, Heat is both visually cohesive and fun to play. Instead of limiting your weapon options or excess hitscannage, this time the challenge comes from avoiding damage while navigating the lava-filled environment and devious placement of mid-tier foes. The map gets a lot of mileage out of just 69 monsters. The ending room archvile/pikie ambush especially could smoke an unwary player who's already spent their plasma allowance. I did have to go back looking for the switch that opens the secret exit, but it wasn't that difficult to find after I actually started looking. I like this one a lot, actually. It's not crazy difficult or anything, but it's got some attitude, a degree of measured cruelty toward the player that feels good to overcome. Probably my favorite map by Chris Harbin thus far. MAP31: Juggelo Funhouse (UV, pistol start, K: 100% / S: 100%, DSDA-Doom, complevel 2) I don't have much to say about the map itself nor the music act that inspired it, beyond the fact that I'm not a fan of clowns. However, this map is something completely different compared to the other maps in the wad, and I like that. If the secret maps don't stand out at all from the others in the set, what's the point?

Small progress update: I have made it through about 300 monsters before I stopped to make some tweaks. So now I'll have to do it all again, but it's going fairly smoothly so far. Smoother than the first one in any case.

Hi! I've been lurking here a while gathering inspo and finally have a map to show for it~ This is a medium to hard difficulty single map mixing up puzzles and small scale slaughter~ Tested mainly on UV but does have difficulties implemented~ Maps: 1 (MAP01) Port: GZDoom 4.10+ Format: UDMF IWAD: Doom II Freelook enabled, no crouching or jumping pls This contains some new textures I made (quality not guaranteed) [Download] Screenshots~

MAP13: UAC Prison Consider this to be an episode finale of sorts. A massive monster count and malicious traps compared to everything else we've seen so far. Enjoyable at times but the flow of the level is all off. An excess of backtracking leads me to believe there wasn't a whole lot of forethought put into the design of this one and all of the elevators make a lot of the gameplay rather clunky. Don't think I'm not going to notice those Darkseed textures, either. MAP14: Absolution Sounds like somebody got their ominous drums for Christmas. It's a good introduction for what I'm going to cleverly call the Hell portion of this wad. Combat isn't as grandiose as in the last one, but still around just as challenging. Ammo distribution is tight enough you'll have to make most of your shots count while health and armor can be scarce at times. Still has that dreaded problem concerning an excess of backtracking, though. Oh, and what might be one of the easiest softlocks I've ever seen unless I'm just a massive idiot. Don't go through the yellow key door until you've already lowered the red key pillar. MAP15: Heat I thought it was pretty good, but I don't have a whole lot to say about it. There's lava, weapons laying around, monsters to fight... can't forget about the secret exit either. Pretty well hidden if I say so myself. bio13-15.zip

MAP14: Absolution The MIDI sets the stage perfectly for this dark and atmospheric map. Combat is decent and the architecture feels fresh despite traversing familiar themes. I think this mapset is inspiring me to decorate the sides of my lifts more. Just one question: if you go through the yellow door before lowering the red key, how are you supposed to get out? MAP15: Heat Combat remains weirdly understated (despite a start that leaves you vulnerable), but I'm happy the damaging floor wasn't as bad as I feared it would be. I like the lava theme and the visuals in general, but everything else feels conspicuously undercooked. It's like playing the version of a 4-hour speedmap that exists after 2.5 hours of work. Had to look up how to get to the secret exit and I don't feel guilty. Maybe I'm too green to get what passed for an obvious secret in 1999, but how the hell was I supposed to figure that out? MAP31: Juggalo's Fun House Short, kinda silly, kinda interesting. Is it worth seeking out if you couldn't find the secret exit? Probably not.

MAP15 - “Heat” by Chris Harbin Visually cohesive this is! We are in a hellish cavern filled to the brim with lava. Whilst I wouldn’t call this hard, it still continues the more challenging trend seen since map 13. It’s also unusually scarce with ammo for most of its duration, and I had ration my ammo to avoid falling short. The combat didn’t strike me as anything particularly special, and yet I quite enjoyed this map. Perhaps it was down to actually having to think about my weapon use for once. I also found it quite amusing that you can cheese the red key trap by just staying by the red key as the lost souls can’t hit you. Although I’m not sure why mind you as the lines aren’t marked as monster blocking. I get the feeling that Chris wanted most players to find the secret exit because it wasn’t particularly well hidden :P although in fairness it’s hard to hide too well in a map with as short a scale as this one. Not complaining to be honest as a lot of secret exits in wads (at least in more modern ones) are pretty cryptic, it’s nice to have an easy one for a change. MAP31 - “Juggelo Funhouse” by Chris Harbin An Insane Clown Posse tribute to the tune of a MIDIfied version of Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy, we have another hub + 3 map of sorts, except one you have to do in a specific order. The central hub plus each of its 3 offshoots present a different combat scenario. The central hub is pretty much ‘try to survive the hitscan’, whilst the blue key fight is actually quite a neat fade in-out light battle where you have to try and work out where the monsters are in between the bouts of light. This map will likely be an unpleasant experience for any player insistent on killing what they see as soon as they see it, but when four barons were released with only an SSG, I got the hint and anti-grind mode kicked in. I ended up preserving all of them, plus the spider mastermind and the cyber until the BFG was accessible right at the very end of the map, which made maxing the map a much more fun experience. Ultimately, a very simple map, but one that raised a smile.

By the way, here, have progress report I will now go through individual rooms placing pickups. After a few iterations, it will be refined enough for releasing a beta.

ever wonder where that random maintenance door in that dark corner leads you to? (bonus: guess the time period this office space was inspired by!)

MAP08-MAP14 MAP08: Harmany by Tango MAP09: Wormhole Zone by Gusta MAP10: Cosmodrome by Thomas van der Velden MAP11: Arch-Violence by Gusta and Thomas van der Velden MAP12: Imprisoned by Ebola, Thomas van der Velden, Metabolist, Pagb666 MAP13: Hard Facility by Fredrik Johansson, Metabolist and Gusta MAP14: Charon Eclipse by Eternal

Quake, Quake II, Quake III, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Doom 3, Heretic and Hexen series, Half-Life 1, Unreal/Unreal Tournament, F.E.A.R. (the first one), Fallout 3/New Vegas, Manhunt, Carmageddon series (especially those ped collisions in the first one!) Resident Evil 4, Silent Hill 1-4, Devil May Cry series, Hotline Miami 1-2, and Fromsoft games. Honorable mention to Aubrey Hodges for his sound design for PS1/N64 Doom.

I had no small amount of help from savescumming, plus a friend (@KeaganDunn) playing the map alongside me on Discord, who was already intimately familiar with the workings of the Divine Contraption. He was giving me pointers on each fight's hyper-specific criteria for survival and how best to conserve resources. It was a considerable test for the both of us.

Half-Life 1, hands down. Easily some of the most satisfying and responsive sound design in gaming.

i made an ak or some sort if i didnt sign some credits feel free to note to me

map01 max 54 https://youtu.be/pP4u_CeIBC4 mdnt01-54.zip

just wanted to express my admiration. it might be a shitpost but this was cooked with love and care

I didn't think Doom had any liminal spaces until you mentioned this and it unlocked a very similar memory of me playing Doom2 as a kid. Except for me it was the chainsaw area in Entryway that triggered this feeling. Just seeing the world beyond that fence, realising that's where you must have come in, but it's so empty. The big outdoor area in E1M2 also tickles my brain. Just this big weird empty space, where you can look into different parts of the map.

Bryan is cool, though in 3 he was kinda like Bruce copycat. Personally I like King and A King.

IMO the biggest problems with the light mode options were (1) their names, which were so unhelpful it's impressive, and (2) the default setting, which was simultaneously not faithful to vanilla and also dark enough that it led people to change it before they knew what they were doing (it also doesn't help that seeing an option that literally says "Dark" leads one to believe it has something to do with brightness). Its being configurable by users isn't the problem, especially with mappers being able to set it through MAPINFO. That I can agree with.

It's extremely funny you say this because I mentioned this exact xkcd comic as well in a private conversation about this thread. Sort of the main problem with this "feature" and the complaints about removing it is people were using it for something it objectively wasn't for, the sector lighting model only coincidentally changed brightness but it never had anything to do with that but rather how light diminishing even worked, or in some cases how it didn't, it only existed as a function to provide compatibility for a specific subset of maps designed around entirely different rendering models. GZDoom already has a brightness control, and it can now fully replicate the intended lighting model of most maps so the feature actually outlived its entire purpose, and it was a mistake to even have it as an option instead of automatic detection (it should have been possible for example to detect Doom Legacy maps and thus switch to that).

Map01 UV Max in 55.43 mdnt01m55.zip https://youtu.be/Nxu03Q7-Zns

Map 15 was oddly easy for a map so near the end. It does look nice though. The archvile near the end has a fun little ambush set up, first time players will likely be eaten on both sides by the sneaky demons that are woken up when you inevitably instinctshoot the vile in your face. Secret exit was pretty much totally unmarked wallhump level to access, figured the archvile platform from earlier that needs an AV jump to get onto was the key, seems no? Map 31 is where I realised I am using an outdated version of my own patch. The current version clears all the intermission text, while the one im using does not, and also 'fixes' the typo of the Secret level name, which I reverted due to the 'typo' being right there in front of you in the level textures. As for the level itself..hooboy, definitely the kind of thing one expects to find in a secret slot. Its pretty much 'look, its my favourite band at the time! *fanboy noises*' in another short hubspoke of challenges. It actually has both boss monsters too. I died to the opening chaingunner trap the first time, which is lessened if you get the secret invisibility. Blue room after it was more lethal than the other two rooms, amusingly enough. Cyb was easily taken down by getting him to attack the revenants, then sliding two BFG balls up his butt.

MAP15: Heat It's a network of caves filled with lava, so the name checks out. The shorter maps make a return, though I feel like there's a lack of standout moments in Heat. Don't get me wrong, it's a solid level and I like the fiery caverns it takes place in, but there's little to grab me. Go to one place, flick a switch or grab a key, return to open a previously locked door, sometimes take out several monsters that appear, rince and repeat. One thing of note is a pair of archviles, since Biowar has been rather reluctant to use them so far. Neither is particularly threatening, but hey, it's something. I've found the secret exit by accident, pressing on a random wall opened a cubby with a switch, which in turn lifts a bar in the final room. This one is fine, I guess, but I doubt it will stick with me. MAP31: Juggelo Funhouse I don't know about you, but I find the stock MAP31 text screen funny and weirdly fitting. New textures aside (which I won't comment on, since I'm not familiar with Insane Clown Posse), Juggelo Funhouse ditches the dungeon crawl for a series of distinct arenas. After riding down an elevator into a basement, you are greeted by a two strobing rooms of teleporting monsters (though the barons were a drag to kill). The mastermind room gives you a plasma rifle if you flank her and eliminate the archvile guardian and the last fight is a large arena with a cyberdemon. Either kill him outright or avoid his missiles, press series of switches and obtain a BFG. At that point, the map is done. The single-colour visuals of the basement reminds me of Killer Colours (which is funny, as AV wouldn't have been released for 2 years) and the combat style offers something different from Biowar standard, as far as weird, gimmicky secret maps go, it's a solid one.

I noticed a cool penguin-silhouette design on a cardboard box for the temperature section, so I cut it out, scanned it, and made it transparent. I don't know what practical purpose this texture would serve, but I thought it looked cool.

It's a stress thing. If the health bonuses give twice as much health, they only have to place half as many of them in the levels, so the levels have less things to worry about, meaning increased performance.