Darch

our next stop on the train to Graceland is my review of Gredna by @Memfis. This outing tends more toward the author's classical leanings, so be sure to play if you are a '96-'97 megaWAD enthusiast.

Rule the World! by Malcolm Sailor (review posted May 6, 2018)
 

 
  
 
A little bit of "Gotcha!", a lot of a bit of "Nirvana". Its four disparate areas are joined by teleporter and the light levels are geared toward its more action-oriented gameplay. This was individually published before being re-released as part of 3PACK_1.ZIP.
 
 

Congratulations Mayhem 2012 for being my 666th customer
 

Revolution! MIDI Pack by various authors (review posted April 24, 2018)
 

 
  
 
This release is the end result of a community project devoted to providing a full, new soundtrack to @t.v.'s Revolution!. It's loaded with great music courtesy of the informal Doomworld Musician's Guild but has a bunch of other choice frills including:
 
A snazzy new titlepic courtesy of Thomas van der Velden Replacement text screen to elaborate on its story A script that tells you the name of the track and the author A brand freakin' new level from t.v. in the MAP33 slot! How neat is that? @Jimmy @CWolf @Alfonzo @Akse @Viscra Maelstrom @Doomkid @Icytux @yakfak @lupinx-Kassman @Eris Falling @ClumsyDoomer @Hellish Godzilla @NaZa @Velvetic

Revolution! by Thomas van der Velden @t.v. (review posted 04/17/18)
 

 
  
 
  
 
  
 
Revolution is one of the tastiest classical megaWADs I've ever played. The difficulty is relatively easygoing, the levels are short, and it's chock full of both fun gimmicks and DoomCute centerpieces. I love the Quake II-ish interactive machinery bits and the new, non-stock resources. The latter levels are a little more about the abstract combat which is only understandable since you're kicking around in the Realm of Chaos. I highly recommend it if you haven't already.
 
P.S. thanks to @fraggle and @The Green Herring for attempting to answer my questions about TVR's story.
 
 

Mortiser 4: Chemical Plant by Sam Woodman aka @Metabolist (review posted 04/12/18)
 

 
  
 
Slightly tougher fare from Sam, ditching the arctic theme of the previous levels for these grimy sewers. It still has a pretty flat layout but the action is more intimate and the adequate copy and paste detailing is augmented by some nice lightcasting.
 

Ockham Complex by Sam Woodman aka @Metabolist (review posted 03/13/18)
 

 
  
 
A very short standalone level from Woodsy. Sam cuts down on the trash monsters, favoring economy of design over sheer body count. It's a nice, quick play provided you don't mind the agony of maneuvering through the freestanding torches in the inner yard.

Ugh, I hate the final push to get a Doom WAD done.  SoTNR's is like 85-90% done as of tonight, meaning that once I finalize the tweaks in the maps (plus the boss map still needs some more geometry), all that's left is to pick up the stuff I've either put off, or couldn't do until now.  This means:
Finishing the between-level story text Minor mixing/mastering tweaks in the music Creation of some missing brightmaps Text file writing Playtesting until my eyes bleed and my fingers have blisters on them PK3 optimization Making sure small things are consistent between levels/scripts (e.g., using the same font color for HUD messages) Any last-minute fixes This really is my least favorite part of Doom mapping since tying up all these loose ends gets to be tedious and stressful.  But it also means it's almost finished, which will be very comforting.  So... maybe about a month left?
 
Anyway, new screenshots of a room I did tonight.  I think you can tell I've played a lot of Quake recently:

 
A closer shot of the door:

Am I the only one who thinks that @scifista42 is not human, but actually an AI bot that John Carmack programmed to answer technical questions on Doomworld?

I took a picture of these stair tiles as a reminder of why we should build stairs on grid:

I took a picture of these stair tiles as a reminder of why we should build stairs on grid: