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Road To Hades A 32 map Boom compatible megawad for TNT:Evilution. IWAD: TNT:Evilution (tnt.wad) Compatibility level: Boom Maps: 32 Difficulty settings: Yes Multiplayer: No Build time: About a year and a half Tested in: DSDA-doom 0.27.5 Check rth.txt for MIDI credits :) Download:rth.zip

Tiki torches

Egg carton

I could finally get back to work on some sprites and finish the walking animation (front) for the undog Also, I'm going to finish rotations (one day...) for this "beauty"

As someone who spent a frankly unfortunate amount of time developing a mildly popular TF2 HUD mod and crafting Filmmaker garbage: I think you’ll have far more luck building your own independent future through moderated dedicated servers and sourcemods than leaning on the incredibly mixed success potential of the ever-derided Internet Petition to preserve the survival of the Patient Zero of everybody’s most loved and tolerated genre of the modern era: Quippy Hero Shooters With Cartoon Graphics. Also: If I ever sincerely, non-sarcastically describe something I like and enjoy as a "beloved IP" like that SaveTF2 website does, you have my explicit, written permission to make fun of me for adopting marketer-tongue as though it were human speech.

E3M8 UVFast in 0:36 Zip: e3m8f036.zip

It is a sign that the workers of that company should unionize.

One last set of screenshots: More Screens:

MAP02 A quick and transitionary level, a teleport hub of sort that takes you to the next destination. I appreciate the new textures, such as the map of the complex, but it passes in a flash and there's little to talk about here - some zombies, shotgunners and imps to kill and when you rach the teleporter for Genome Labs, the map is over. About the music, I've heard this track before in Super MAYhem '17, where it scored Aztec Ruins by Killer5. According to Doomwiki, this is a snippet from a soundtrack of Chariots of the Gods, a 1970 Oscar-nominated documentary about ancient aliens (which seem to be classier, though hardly more factual than the slop that airs on History Channel nowadays). I started digging through that movie's OST and I think I found the match. The MIDI seems to be a remixed version of "Return To The Stars", made even more ethereal.

I took a couple cracks at Equinox before I ever really got good at the game and would always get derailed at Map 04, so I'm looking forward to having a reason to clear it out. Map 01 An immediate note to make with the opening shot of Equinox is how it presents contrast. It is entirely longing to be a space epic, to revel in the mind of those that wish to see beyond its boundaries. The opening sprawl of the techbase, with its printed billboard and cascading polished pylons, is such a sight. Structurally, this should inspire awe that is held for the rest of the map, and load visions of sci-fi from the previous decades into our thoughts. This is momentum that the rest of the map simply can’t hold up. On the positive side, the secrets in this map are handled with a curious hand. They’re not terribly difficult, the first being a simple turn away from the grandiose maw of the space station and a trip down onto a beach. The cave is a pique of interest, settled in a way to serve as a home, complete with transportation and a secret treasure stash. It is not elaborated upon after the player climbs back up the stairs, abandoning the character of such profound futurism being housed and scavenged by primitive people. So much of the character of this map is confusing. There are corpses disemboweled and lining the halls, bodies stored in a singular server room, and an entire raid quelled on the stairs leading to the help desk, yet none of it is put into any perspective because of how simplistic the map is. It is dressed in such sheen, connected with energy in the light strips, and refined in the terminals that serve the complex in their affairs with the cosmos, so elegantly communicated through the writing on the headquarters and the decoration of a celestial body in the foyer. There should at least be a view of the sky, somewhere. The other secret path taking the player back outside offers a new perspective on the lot they started in, but it’s back in the same cliffside that already had a shakeup from its oceanside hideout. It’s not even enough of a concern to keep the west switch from having gaps on its sides where you can softlock. Where is the audacity that the front of the building had? The gameplay wants to provide a monsoon of limelight for the updated pistol, visually with an aesthetic retro bulk and audibly with its new punchy, reverberated firing sound that extends on for several seconds, but if you play your cards right you can clear out the entire map without so much as firing it once. The shotgun from the secret cave can do more than enough to clear out the east hallway, giving more than enough ammo to storm the secret path to the Soulsphere to supply for the rest of the map. The behavior is exactly the same, and it only exists to better coalesce with the visual flair of the WAD. Outside of that, this map has the same selection of monster types as Hangar from Knee-Deep in the Dead, so any real attempts at interesting scenarios are impossible. It is more or less a shooting gallery, and anyone that can keep their hand on the trigger will clear the challenges without a hitch. The Shotgunners have their threat removed by the density of health available from the entrance to the complex, scattered about for storytelling and doing little to account for a gameplay loop. The best that they offer is more encouragement to imagine the scenario that would lead to the current condition of the office, perhaps being the perpetrators of the visible carnage. One thing that most definitely doesn’t offer to the environment is the MIDI. Even at reasonably balanced audio levels, it is incredibly loud, overwhelming the firearms of both the zombies and the player. The held choir symphony that shows up about halfway through is particularly abrasive in both its duration and pitch, and the thrashing from the most intense point back to the beginning of the loop is hard to not notice. It doesn’t help that pieces of the music are sourced outside of original composition without any form of credit, so it’s impossible to say how that sample influenced the development of the track. It’s not clear whether technical or cognitive limitations are preventing this map from communicating exactly whether or not the space opera is something to follow along. It is a vastly differing presentation that still roots itself in the cycle of ammo to demon that makes Doom, those roots that appear in weaker form here due to the available units of enemy. It seems to be that there’s a reason why everyone’s immediate first point of laud is the exterior of a now glossy techbase, because the rest of the map cannot carry the weight.

Habitat.

I wasn't initially planning on participating this month but I ended up playing Equinox over the weekend, so I might as well write up a map by map commentary. My impressions of each individual map is still fresh in my mind, so I'll write them up as if I had no knowledge of the later ones, reflecting my state of mind as I played each one. Spoiler alert, my opinion of the wad will not be homogeneous, but then it seems from hints dropped by others that I may not be alone in this. I'm also using the QOL patch that Devalous made (thank you!) and so will assign the map names from the patch, I always find names help me remember distinctive features of different maps more easily. GZDoom, Doom compat, software, HNTR, blind, continuous with saves. Continuous is a no-brainer for this mapset. HNTR turned out to not be a great idea, more on this in a few days. Normally I play with GZDoom's Strict compatibility settings for whatever the map type is, but I made an exception here because BPRD recommends ZDoom as a port of choice. MAP01 "Equinox Facility" In retrospect, knowing The Mucus Flow exists prepares us for this map, but for those who at the time had seen Nuts and expected BPRD to release a quick succession of jokewads, this must have come as a shock. Visually there's a lot to take in straight away: the new status bar, the pistol replacement sprite, that beautiful dark blue sky, and the grand architecture right in front of us. The impressive facade of the Equinox facility looms ahead, an obvious sign from BPRD that he means business. The inside of the facility looks just as good, with the very clean look of the main hall and the not so clean side passages that hint at hidden menace. Combat is very straightforward, but since we have nothing but the shotgun I'm not complaining. Secrets are delightful, whether those hidden inside the facility, or the stairs that take us all the way down to the beach, the footsteps in the sand and the very cute hideout. Short and quick playing map, but what an incredibly promising start!

Bullies took her son, so she murdered those devils, one by one. Her death came with a single amend, she has no choice but, slaughtering more devils. Maria needs her son, Kiritaka needs his mother and so Mother Maria’s next deed shall begun. Mother Maria’s assignment is clear; MERCILESS EXTERMINATION!!! Description: Maria no Jigoku or Maria’s Hell is a small gameplay mod based on Kazuki’s manga Maria no Danzai (Aka Maria’s Judgement), influenced from Doom’s console ports (PSX AND N64), Quake and many works of Skelegant. You’re taking the control of the vengeful, grieving mother Maria Akeboshi (formerly Mari Nagare) instead of our beloved Doom Slayer, she’s not overpowered too much but her weapons does her job. Those devil's will pay for killing your son. Link to the Manga. Itch.Io link: Not yet.

Equinox Equinox is a mapset that I first played a lot more recently than Biowar, so I am expecting my memory of each level to be a lot more complete, rather than the patchy memories I had for Biowar. I foolishly first played it on pistol start, and remember struggling through it due to it being extremely tough on ammo. So now I will be playing it on continuous, to see if carrying forward supplies will make my second playthrough smoother. map01 BPRD seemingly decided not to name any of the maps, so map01 it is. It’s only been two years after Biowar but visually it looks generations ahead, at least from the opening vista, with far more elaborate geometry than in any Biowar map. That said, the music was also much louder too, and I had to turn it down a notch just for it to drown everything else out. Before you enter the space station though, one can descend stairs to the sea and what is presumably Doomguy’s boat. There’s also footprints…which I didn’t think to follow and trigger the secrets there…oh well. The station itself is bright with the classic silver/blue coat, albeit with more elaborate texturing than your typical techbase. The combat itself is a very simple affair of minor hitscanners and imps with the pistol/shotgun, which is not very engaging – the only thing that kept me interested was the secrets and Doomcute PCs. In exploring however I triggered the same softlock that Devalaous did. Not my favourite opener, but I am already liking the amount of ammo that I have leftover from this map – because I’ll need it! map02 The second map takes us to the first of four very short intermission / hub maps (also on maps 5, 8 and 11). This one is especially short because it contains only hitscanners and imps. There is a ‘secret’ but it’s basically hidden in plain sight. These hub maps do help to break up the lengthier and more demanding maps, but the first one comes too early to really see any benefit of that because of how early on it is, and the preceding map is neither long nor difficult.

Nothing bad ever happens in Brazil

A bit long overdue, but here's a video of me playing through my submitted map. After watching through the video a couple times and playtesting the map a bit more, I ended up updating the map once more. I added in some more minor details here and there throughout the level, updated the RAMPSHOT image and added an extra step in the control room so you can observe the gates opening up more easily when you hit the buttons.

TNT Map32 UVSpeed in 1:51 Zip: ev32s151.zip TNT Map32 NoMo100s in 2:01 Zip: ev32os201.zip TNT Map32 UVMax in 3:53 Zip: ev32m353.zip Video: https://youtu.be/pXuIj7VQpzE?si=a4olEUaUx3ElynHz

I'm a bit late on this one (sorry), but around 6 months ago at Christmas, a new update was dropped for specifically for DSDA, but not for /idgames. Well now that update is here! /idgames: Final v1.1 Changes include: Refreshed sprites and textures from Doom Christmas Enhanced Tweaks made to MAP25, now making it possible/easier to UV-Max

200 Line Massacre has had another minor update (doesn't affect demo recording, of course). /idgames: Final v1.3 Changes include: Fixed incorrect animation definitions used by the Eternity Engine. This specifically caused animation desyncs on MAP25 in the port. (Thanks @_sink) The Infopack is now included in the main wad itself, instead of being a separate /idgames file.

Equinox: I've got the impression that these maps are uniquely unkind to pistol starters, so I'll play each level continuously first, then try pistol starts when I already know where everything is. Map01: It's amazing what detailed, imaginative visuals and architecture can do for a level. In a vacuum, the combat here is nothing special: there are narrow hallways with single-file imps, a few flat rooms full of zombies, etc. It's just such a cool map in other ways that I don't mind. More than just an impressive piece of Doom architecture, it has environmental storytelling as well, and other details that stand out. The little boat with footprints leading to a secret cave is my favorite. The boat has a little chest just like the ones in the secret, and you're free to speculate as to why. Another nice touch is the optional switch that only turns off all the lights, but can't turn them on again - not sure what to make of that, but I pressed it. There are a few places where you can get softlocked, unfortunately. Many people notice the softlock by a required switch, but if you're adventurous enough, it can also happen if you're messing around near the soulsphere secret. Still, this wad is off to a great start.

I think my old response still holds true.

@senpaigru went to get some difficulty settings and never came back. Maybe he's still around lurking. The map lingered in limbo long enough, so I'll accept it; will just remove some monsters on lower difficulties if author doesn't show up. Which means, only one map remains unaccepted. Unfortunately it's a pretty tough one, so it might take me a little more time to gather strength to play it again, lol. Hopefully not very long. Also, check out the swirly thing I may or may not use as intermission background.

I would be E1M7 because I'm complex and full of toxic waste

It's finished Orii.... E3M8 Tyson in 1:13 e3m8t113.zip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_JdNajy5h0

New release, FastDoom 0.9.9e! Changelog: * Fixed diminished lightning issues on high resolution VESA modes * Fixed some 2D status bar and menus misalignements * Fixed rendering corruption on VESA 386SX codepath * Fixed MS-DOS 7 crash #187 * New fonts for 320x100 resultion modes (half height) * Optimizations (C) https://github.com/viti95/FastDoom/releases/download/0.9.9e/FastDoom_0.9.9e.zip

Equinox Okay, cards on the table. This isn't exactly my first rodeo with Equinox. I've had several cracks at it over the years, but don't think I've ever made it past level 4. Until last weekend, that is, when instead of going out and enjoying the summer like a normal person, I decided to beat Equinox. And succeeded. And failed. Because I didn't write a word for the club. Whoops. But whaddaya know, I don't actually mind playing it again for the commentary, because I really liked the wad this time. Somewhere along the way, I might've been operated on by aliens... or by B.P.R.D. Same difference, really. MAP01: Enter the Equinox (UV, pistol start, K: 100% / S: 100%, DSDA-Doom, complevel 2) The first map of Equinox sees us enter the island facility we'll later learn we've come to destroy. The wad certainly isn't shy about putting its best foot forward in terms of visual design, with obvious special attention paid to the entrance we start the map facing. The outside area is no slouch either, with the moonlit clouds in the sky and a clever wall secret revealed by footprints on the beach. The inside of the base is spacious, well-lit, and reveals more of B.P.R.D's impressive custom texture work. Those first two attributes are something we might as well enjoy now, while we can. As one might expect for an introductory map, this one is generous with health and ammo and garrisoned with nothing but groups of low-tier monsters. This might trick a newcomer into thinking that the set is going to have a nice and smooth difficulty curve, which just might've happened to me in the past. The map probably won't take you that long to finish either, unless you decide to stick around for the secrets and are having trouble finding them. The computer area map found in the beachfront secret will help nicely with the rest. One aspect of Equinox that I don't enjoy that much is the music, due to a variety of issues with many of the tracks, which we'll get into when we get there. The track for the first map is fine when it comes to the composition itself, but the levels seem all out of whack. I needed to lower the music volume several steps from where I usually keep it to prevent it from drowning out all the sound effects. In conclusion, a nice and breezy opener that feels adventurous while revealing a few hints of the wad's sinister side. That storeroom off to the side of the lobby might give you some indication. Remember to turn off the lights before you leave. Electricity's expensive these days.

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/s-u/shovl11 A final release for idgames. Didn't found a way to fix the node mess of MAP02, unlickily.

Run Think Shoot Live is where single player mappers ply their trade.

"Fight the people doxxing players by entering your e-mail or signing in with Google"

Due to how insane the past week has been for me, and that we're already starting on Equinox, I'm just gonna have to put away Biowar for some other time. I last played MAP12 I think. As a whole, at least from the two-thirds of it I played, Biowar was not a WAD that inspired words for me. It was a charming 90s experience, but it didn't thrill me either on a gameplay level, nor a deep emotional level. Equinox on the other hand I have a LOT of thoughts on, being the flawed masterpiece that it is, not to mention my obsession with BPRD's entire release history from the early Doom PWADs to Commander Keen 58/59 (the latter of which were my introduction to his work). My decision to participate in the Club for the first time was due to this WAD being selected this month. While I played on UV for Biowar due to its minimal difficulty, I'll be doing what I do for most WADs and playing on HMP for this. The strengths of this WAD are in the environments and atmosphere anyways. And of course this is NOT a wad for pistol starting, so continuous it is. Equinox MAP01 (HMP, continuous, saves): Fun fact: An early iteration of this map can be seen in MAP01 of "Bdw Hell". The opening shot sums up one of BPRD's greatest strengths across this WAD: Impressive large-scale sci-fi architecture. I struggle to make buildings look that intricate even armed with a 3D editing mode. The music in this map is almost perfect, but the drums only coming from the left is aggravating, even more so when I currently have a splitting headache. In a way, the music track symbolizes this whole WAD: it's almost perfect, but some (likely unintentional) errors hold it back somewhat. How much these hold it back varies from person to person, but BPRD's body of work has such sentimental value to me that I can look past the flaws and appreciate it for the sparks of deep inspiration that brought his stuff to life. Now for a bit of my personal history with BPRD's work. I didn't get into the Doom modding community until last year, but Commander Keen has been a constant in my life since I could use a computer, and I've been modding it on and off since 2014. Two mods in particular struck me: the duology of "Keen 58: The Ruin of Roib" and "Keen 59: Underworld Ultimate". At this point I wasn't too keen on one Bernie DeWint's take on the titular genius hero as a depressed 35 year old, but the graphics were unlike anything I had seen with the EGA palette. Even though I barely got a few levels into these mods without cheats, which is where I am in them to this day, I would often just gaze upon the amazing visuals from the level screenshots on KeenWiki, inspiring me to improve my EGA pixel art skills. Fast forward to 2023 and I'm starting to get into the Doom modding scene after a few years of burnout with Keen content. I was aware of NUTS.WAD for a while at this point, I hadn't played it but I saw a Karl Jobst video about it with over a million views, I generally knew how infamous it was. Then one day I look at BPRD's DoomWiki page and realize... the madman behind NUTS.WAD was in fact Bernie, the mastermind behind the far-flung Keen sequels. This provoked me to look deeper into his wadography. The first one I downloaded was Grove, which remains probably my favorite BPRD production to this day. It was July 4th, and at the same time I was playing it, I was walking around the quiet neighborhood at night trying to catch glimpses of fireworks. It's hard to describe, but the similarities between the experience of that night with Grove, running around a dimly lit forest from who knows what, while melancholy music plays, truly seared this WAD into my mind and cemented my love for BPRD's work. I didn't even play his most beloved map, the Mucus Flow, until December, but it impacted me all the same, all thanks to its truly incredible MIDI which is easily deserving of it's own wall of text, but I can't even give one if I wanted to. I'm just sent away into another world for the entire roughly 7 minutes it plays, and then some. (Side note: The restrictive license of Equinox's .txt annoys me to no end. I love the graphics in this WAD and I'd love to make a mapset with them. I tried emailing BPRD about this a couple months ago to no avail. sigh)

RealDOOM 0.21 is released Main Changes: - R_DrawColumn, R_DrawSpan, R_MapPlanes render functions in asm and optimized - FixedMul functions all in asm and optimized - A few bugfixes (re-fixed doom2 timedemos which i somehow broke before the 0.20 release days after fixing...) - Memory usage up 8k, so 8088/v20 builds temporary on hold since they wont fit in memory easily. I have been running a lot of benchmarks over the past week. They are now in one easily accessible google spreadsheet here. Generally everything was stock settings - don't take the fastdoom ones super duper seriously.. I'm sure choosing the appropriate EXE for a given machine may give even better numbers. The general gist of performance gains from 0.20b to 0.21: - 35% FPS gain on big screen (screenblocks 9) hi detail - 70% FPS gain on big screen low detail - 30% FPS gain on small screen (screenblocks 5) hi detail - 45% FPS gain on small screen low detail - 45% FPS gain on potato over low detail (there was already some semi-optimized drawspan code in high detail already, hence the disparity, i think) In general, on big screens, RealDOOM 0.21 low detail is a tiny bit faster than DOOM 1.9 high detail. RealDOOM Potato is a bit slower than DOOM low detail. RealDOOM Potato is a bit faster than FastDOOM hi quality (lol). I'd say 0.21 took all the 'easy performance gains', and got us halfway to the goal of matching DOOM 1.9 speed. That means finding another 50% performance improvement... There's not much that's an obvious big (10-20%) performance gain anymore, it'll be a fight to make small gains here and there. FixedDiv is an obvious target, as is the rest of the render pipeline being asm handwritten. Eventually the busiest physics code (movement and collision stuff) will probably be looked at too. I also want to move from the TASM assembler toolchain to something a little better, either MASM or NASM. I need to figure out some very basic issues, like I don't know how to call into C from ASM - maybe it's a linker problem. I'm juggling a lot of hardware projects right now on the side - many related to older motherboards and hardware and being able to run realdoom benchmarks. In a few days I'll have some real 286 SCAT chipset based boards that can run proper benchmarks hopefully. Same for XT class stuff via memory boards. I'll keep adding to that spreadsheet and post here once there's more interesting data. I also will go back and run some timedemos on 0.11/0.20 to have more data on older builds. Meanwhile I'm going to take a short break to try and work on an EMS 4.0 driver for the VLSI SCAMP chipset, which is what my fastest 286 boards are. If I write something generic enough, it may hopefully be of use to some other chipsets, hobbyist hardware, 86box devs, stuff like that. But once it's done, hopefully I can run this on 30-35 mhz 0ws 286 hardware. EDIT: Whoops, the benchmarks link should have the right permissions now!

Brick | 2 wads | 2 maps Adventure | 7 wads | 19 maps Hell 77 N°02 (2018) by Gillibert Raymond ak (Ramon_Demestre). 1 SP map for Doom II in limit-removing port. After @Endless gave such a superlative review I felt compelled to try it out. I'm glad I did, because this is indeed an awesome map. I didn't even bother with difficulties and started straight at HNTR; even there the combat is not what I'd call easy, but it's manageable with some patience and reloading while learning the layout. And more importantly by learning that there are very few safe spots at first. What's masterful is that Gillibert doesn't go for the easy way by just having everything be open so that projectiles come from all directions. There are offshoot passages and plenty of things to hide behind, but openings are positioned and passages bend so that there's always a little bit that's exposed, enough for the occasional fireball or pellet to hit when least expected. And speaking of open, the architecture is beautiful, the marble cavern with red rock and lava and blood is a marvel to behold, everything is interconnected and windows open the side passages onto the cavernous main rooms. Gillibert doesn't have a lot of wads on the archives but this has made me want to check them out. Europa 3 - The Dark Side of Vrack (2002) by Erik Alm. 1 SP/coop map for Doom II in Boom. This is the last in a loose trilogy that Erik released before he hit it big with Scythe. I admit I'm not a huge fan of the previous Europas, they are large and expansive maps with confusing layouts, way too much backtracking, and large and completely empty open spaces that quickly fill up with projectiles travelling from miles away (as mentioned in my Hell 77 comments that this isn't my favourite design). Europa 3 retains some of the design philosophies but refines them into a much better map. As you can guess from the subtitle it draws inspiration from the famous Vrack trilogy, most obviously by using its textures, but it still carries Erik's gameplay at its core. The outdoors are a large open space and indeed many projectiles will fly, but there's enough cover to make rushing from one section to the other very fun (this must be a blast in coop). There are two obvious arenas indoors, neither is very hard, the trickier combat parts are actually outside, as several progression points trigger a new wave of enemies and many opportunities for infighting. Some of the setpieces are trivial but are entertainingly cinematic, such as the windows opening on the distant archvile that can then be sniped with rockets. Visually the map is gorgeous, detailing is incredibly high but manages to remain uncluttered, much of it is ceiling eye candy and so doesn't interfere with gameplay or movement at all. Despite its size it's not a very long map, I was surprised when I realized I had killed everything and already opened up the exit, but it feels like it has excellent pacing with very little filler. It's probably the best of Erik's early maps. I'm pretty sure this isn't aimed at me, but just in case I wasn't clear I wanted to point out that I was playing on HNTR and continuous, as I always do unless the wad explicitly claims pistol-start is the only way to play (and most of those end up enforcing it through death exits or mapinfo). I think my problem with balancing stems from a darker version of "the way it's meant to be played", namely when UV is the intended difficulty and is the only one that is balanced for and tested, resulting in HNTR being more ammo-deprived and effectively harder than UV. I just realized that I could have remedied this, GZDoom now allows switching skill difficulty even during continuous play (it switches at the next map) so I could've confirmed this myself, but it didn't occur to me while I played. I'd like to come back to the wad in the future and try it out again on UV. I really enjoyed your review even though we have different opinions on some aspects of the wad (and the mapper in general). You also made me realize that I didn't focus on the visual storytelling as much as I should have, many wads try their hands at it (and there was some of it all the way back in E1) but Equinox has some of the best and most consistent I've seen, and all without a single typed word. Thanks for a great write-up.

And now we move on to Equinox. This was B.P.R.D.'s first major Doom release. (Nuts was created purely to test the FTP upload system.) When I first started playing custom Doom maps in 2019, I went through the Cacowards of years past. B.P.R.D. was mentioned often. The way he was talked about made him seem like the greatest Doom mapper of all time. I played The Mucus Flow and I despised it. I wrote up a long post detailing why. I then tried playing Equinox because that too was highly praised. I ended up rage quitting halfway through MAP03. Now I have returned to force my way through the rest. Suffer with me. MAP01 DSDA-Doom, UV, Pistol Start I will admit that B.P.R.D. is a master at presentation. The gigantic entryway gives you the impression that you're about to go on a big adventure. There are custom textures, custom sounds, and even a custom HUD. It's obvious that a lot of time and effort was put into this. Too bad the gameplay doesn't live up to the expectation, but I'll get to that later. If you've watched Dean of Doom, then you'll know what to do first. Don't let the entryway distract you. Take a left, head down the stairs, follow the footprints on the sand, press use on the wall, and get a shotgun early. The map layout is straightforward and the gameplay is run and gun fun. There are lots of hitscanners, but also lots of health. You can even find a slightly overpowered secret. If the entire wad was like this, I would have enjoyed it. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

My first finished map. It's designed for Ultimate DOOM and replaces E1M1, so it should boot up as soon as you run it. There are known graphical issues on Chocolate Doom that aren't present in GZDoom, I'm not sure why they happen but they don't impede the gameplay any. Also, monsters are more likely to get stuck in Chocolate Doom, turning them more into punching bags than immenent threats, likely a result of how packed together they are in their current state. The latter issue is also present in GZDoom, but to a much lesser extent. There are different difficulties, but they are reversed for Ultimate Evil. There is one secret, one that should be very easy to find. Download for the WAD is here, and a PNG preview is attached.

Equinox MAP02 (HMP, continuous, saves): The first of 4 "hub" maps. This is the only WAD I've played where multiple maps pretty clearly take place in the same area, that concept should be used more often. Interesting, I never thought to look for the exact song MAP02's track was based on. I did try to find the source of MAP01's music some time ago though, with my only clue being "Level 1 music is a back-choir of an Enya song that has a beat to it", but after searching through Enya's entire discography up to 2001 I still couldn't find it. The fact that the MIDI was heavily altered from the source makes sense as to why I couldn't find MAP01's music either. And don't even get me started on MAP13... :P

Stardate 20x6: map03 max in 18:22 map04 max in 17:55 map05 max in 21:41 map06 max in 36:44 Stardate 20x7: map07 max in 11:14 map08 max in 17:14 map09 max in 22:56 map32 max in 8:49 sd20x603m1822.zip sd20x604m1755.zip sd20x605m2141.zip sd20x606m3644.zip sd20x707m1114.zip sd20x708m1714.zip sd20x709m2256.zip sd20x732m849.zip

https://dsdarchive.com/wads/tnplhome E1M1 in NM 100S in 0:40.57 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgJ_e7sb12Y tnplhome11s4057.zip

ATTENTION: TF2 Heavy needs YOUR help to save TF2 from the INVASION of BOTS! All you need to do is send him your parents' payment details, the 3 numbers on the back and the expiration date! BE QUICK, before Valve DESTROYS TF2!

During the "prework" phase, a lot; palettes I thought would work just plain don't, textures that look good in the editor look awful in game, traps and setups are more annoying than I thought, etc. During the "grind" phase, probably around 20% gets cut due to refinements but I mostly have an idea of where I want things to go. In the "polishing" phase, very little gets cut, mainly because I do this as a hobby and I don't enjoy re-doing huge portions that are already serviceable.

I don't know for what purpose such maps are made. 🤷 Everything is visible on the screenshot, this is the whole map. Literally one corridor stuffed with barons who are stuck and rubbing against each other, at this time the player simply holds BFG and invulnerability in his hands and simply smears them. The game takes a couple of minutes and one click and hold of the mouse. 🤷

Demonfear might be my longest legit gameplay vid haha, entire magawad of short maps: But yeah most of time rather do shorter ones , time constraints these days and easier to digest Ps here is map 23 airing soon:

This looks awesome. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2828860/The_Forever_Winter/ Right now, the team at Fun Dog Studios is developing a game called The Forever Winter, which looks... interesting. In the game we will have to play as a simple scavenger, who is literally in the middle of a theater of war in which Big Guys are taking part. So big that they barely notice our presence. This game even now looks like something different and not what AAA developers usually make

EQUINOX MAP01. Played on UV, continuous. DSDA v0.27.4. K: 105/105, S: 5/5, I: 22/23. Comp. time 10:48 I decided to play Equinox on continuous style rather than pistol starts, because I have a sneaking suspicion I'm going to have bad time in the long run otherwise. I've seen Dean of Doom coverage, but I can't quite remember what was being said there, but I think I saw someone mention something about ammo scarcity on pistol starts. Anyway: Equinox 01 looks great, considering its texture usage is largely monotone silver metal. Areas inside the silver metal base are a bit more mundane, orthogonal corridors... For some reason you can switch off the lights for good part of the base. I don't know why would you do that, but I did. I also liked the rowing boat area, like the secret wall is hinted by footsteps in sand. Cool stuff. For whatever reason, I kept on thinking of slightly similar area in Dark Souls 2, a sort of "secret rowing boat", and I guess my brains were mushed by the heat wave here in Finland, but for a moment I thought interacting with the rowing boat would change Doomguy's gender as the Dark Souls boat did :P Anyway, I digress... Good start. Let it be noted that this is the first BPRD map I've ever played, but call me excited to give this one a go. Perhaps one day I'll attempt a certain infamous map in Community Chest 2...

Equinox is known for being pistol-start and UV Max unfriendly , so im playing more cautiously from the onset Map 1: 'Equinox Facility' I chose this name instead of the default Entryway that MtPain27 used as the level name, as you are standing right in front of said Equinox facility This opening shot wowed me and countless others back in the days when it was released, from a visual standpoint this level is outstanding, especially for its release year. I'll never forget the secret on the beach down the cliff, the footsteps leading to a wall with a secret cave hideout, and the second secret of hidden treasure chests. But what happened to the person who walked in? One set of footprints that only go in.. Could be there's yet another passage (in-universe) we don't know about in there. The facility proper is large and imposing, and full of enemies, yet using the pistol alone here feels much better than it should thanks to the pistol replacement graphic and sound effect. And use it you must, as Equinox is infamous for ammo shortages. Pace those shots to keep it at high accuracy, you'll need the bullets. A secret leads to a soulsphere, backpack and a bunch of shells, but I still advise against going ham with the SG, unless your pistol starting (Which is whole new tier of pain in later levels). Real marines turn off the lights of the entire facility with a secret switch and go the rest of the level in near total darkness :) I love the little PCs, back then who could predict how small and thin our modern PCs would become? There is a softlock I found on the left side of the map, theres a raised platform with a switch that you can walk off the side of and be stuck without a jump key bound. I'll be back in two days, as the Transport Hubs are not really full maps.

MAP17: Sacrilege 100% kills, 2/2 secrets This one is on the stronger side, another decently fun map that doesn't outstay its welcome. I like the throwback feel of the blue key wing, with stuff like the trap floors that drop into slime or the combo wall/bridge halfway through. The red key wing has tougher combat, but isn't as environmentally interesting. It also has a rather problem in that the pinkie swarm that gets released from the switch near the manc can't cross up the ledge due to a poorly placed block monster line. Cybie is easy to telefrag by hitting the red switch and luring him into the teleporter, and the Spider at the end isn't difficult in the slightest with the resources you have at that point. MAP18: Die Heuschrecke Weird name. There's some perfunctory brown hallways to clear first, then some switch hitting under the gaze of the IoS, which surprisingly doesn't lower a lift to shoot rockets in its brain, but instead lets the player drop down to an exposed core to grant it an easy death. Some AVs pop out to defend but it's far too easy to pound a couple rockets in before they can do anything, the end. Overall Thoughts: It's okay? To be honest, there's not very much memorable about this set at all. There's a few interesting attempts at atmosphere/theme, and some okay combat maps, but overall it's just very tepid. Outside of the two softlocks (closeable S1 door in MAP05 and the red key column in MAP14) there's not much to complain about either, except a couple of terrible sound replacements (heavy breathing zombies and dog imps). It does have some 90s charm but for something that came out in 1999 I expected a bit more. Best maps: 9 (Security), 13 (UAC Prison), 15 (Heat), 17 (Sacrilege) Worst maps: 1 (The End), 10 (Dark Woods) Overall rating: 2/5 (3/5 adjusting for era)

Way 2 Many Dead Guys (Beta 1) by Urthar 5 Boom-format maps for Doom 2 Urthar is best known for his efforts in the style of Quake, but the unfinished W2MDG remains my favorite work of his. It was formative in my love of Shapes in Doom. Every map is built around its own shape motif, like looping semi-circles and triangles with beveled corners. The nonorthogonal architecture is designed to accommodate Doom's standard texture lengths, and this sometimes required multiple attempts* at areas to get right. Outside of that, the overall craftmanship is strong. Urthar gets how the stock textures work together, finding far-flung combinations and unusual recontextualizations that jell. The best are creative composites, like BROWN96 and BROWNGRN being combined to form a grimy dirt-caked wall. The texturing and detail, combined with the shaping, gives the set a sleek, futuristic sci-fi character. It evokes a modernized early Doom 2 starbase not so much through greatly increased detail as through amped-up stylization. Maps two to four, despite not being large, have an expansive character and wondrous mystery to them -- with secrets and dark side areas that lurk behind windows and gratings. The level design is consistently smart in how objectives are broadcasted, and in the subtle ways you can transform the environment. The creepy atmosphere hits the strongest in the dark sewers and empty back alleys -- or when odd shapes recur close-by at different scales like fractals, which creates the vibe that maybe the world was twisted into these forms. Fans of easier wads will appreciate how Urthar prefers using lots of Doom 1 popcorn enemies, and how Doom 2 enemies like revenants are treated with reverence, as if a group of three can be a mini-boss encounter. The abrupt hell finale is the clearest sign of unfinishedness, but even in this form W2MDG is very worth a play. *source of dev pics (what do you mean that "W2MDG" is cheating to lower word count I'd never do such a thing)

Map 17: Sacrilege I don’t have that much to say on yet another meander through currently the most boring rooms in the WAD, but I will give some appreciation to how the boss monsters are used. The Cyberdemon is a pretty interesting obstacle to negotiate when you have to rush between the two main progression rooms, and it’s really funny that he can get stuck in the Red Teleporter and telefragged with minimal finagling from the player. The Mastermind, a monster that has now been pretty frequent in use across these maps, is just enough discouragement to keep from interacting with the raising and lowering rock pillars, which I figured would be much more annoying than it actually was. Map 18: Die Heuschrecke As token as an Icon map can get, not at all helped by how much BFG you’re allowed to sling at very meaningless threats. I enjoyed the brief powertrip, and any WAD with the ingenuity to have the player go inside the boss to kill it is really cool, but everything else that is very clearly riffing on Last Call from Evilution is entirely forgettable, and passes by quick enough to where that fact is not remediable. Summary I think it’s entirely fair criteria that good work in Doom mapping should at least surpass the original IWADs in some areas. Mark Klem’s original score, entirely repurposed for this WAD, provides much of its staying power, and it succeeds when those elements work together. Any of the maps that went all in on the atmosphere, like Biolabs, Absolution, even Frozen Terror for its simplicity, they are what allowed the ideas of dread and drama to survive Plutonia. Its imagination sees runs of narrative that its custom content is easily able to convey. The more chemical, mutagenic form of demonic engineering is clear. Of course, it goes without saying that a lot of the layout scope and intensity is below the bar of even amateur work of the time. This comes after several Chords, STRAIN, Requiem, hell even Evilution beats a lot of this set’s worst. The time it has to talk doesn’t improve the quality of its ideas, evident in the last stretch from The Killing Fields onward, and good fights are entirely driven by the player deciding to make them dangerous and exciting. Exposing yourself to Masterminds, watching hitscanner parties fall apart, these are probably not things that were thoroughly considered to intentionally make the maps interesting. The flexibility is very low, and from what I watched Pseudonaut do, there looks to be very few optimizations to these maps beyond simply being good at the game. It’s a period piece, one I probably wouldn’t be curious about outside of sharing it with others. Operation: Power Rankings

More updates to my RAMP 2024 map. Not sure what I'll call it yet, but the second half of it is about halfway done.

could a merciful moderator please finally put this thread where it belongs?