BluePineapple72

Today is the final day for public submissions on this thread. Future submissions FOR MAPS IN PROGRESS will only be accepted for a week or so on my discord. If you've got a map in progress and would like to submit something please ping me in there and lemme know. A beta will be out within a week In the meantime you ought to prepare for something exciting...

Well personally speaking, I’d ask that you play more recent stuff not in RC1 to give us playtesting feedback. Like the Chilling Winds of Dis 😎 If not those, a few S-Tiers I’d recommend would be: Pac-Man Doom (9 maps, you can beat it in two sittings. Bite sized FUN!) Th1rt3en (Ultimate-Doom hell maps made in 3 hours), Lover’s Quarrel (our Valentine’s Day deathmatch/SP wad from earlier this year), Summer of Slaughter (title), March of the Speeddemons (our first Rowdy Rudy wad), or any of our Christmas wads. EDIT: OH! While not PUSS, Solar Struggle was a megawad who’s project was held on the PUSS discord. My server began sort of as a community project hub that was open to mappers of all flavors to come and start projects and have an easier way to communicate to project participants. PUSS started as a fun side Dropbox thing but quickly became the feature attraction after a year or so. Solar Struggle is the third project ran by ViolentBeetle on that server following Hellevator and Skulltiverse. It’ll feature many recurrent PUSS mappers and a whole load of other faces. It’s not Speedmapping though so maps have lots of detail and polish. It also seemed to get voted for a lot so uh…

I should add since the credit for it isn’t in the txt, but each of those towels were made by the mappers that each towel represents, and they were originally made for the 6th secret level in SOS. We just pasted them over cause it felt appropriate.

Starting the zodiac air sign's map, I knew pretty early on that I wanted to emulate Culture Shock in some way, given the open, airy nature of the map. And the clouds of course. It was too iconic to not emulate. Some other members in the server played with the idea of doing a Culture Shock homage but ended up not going for it. Air signs are curious, ever moving, and open. Like a breeze! To also emulate the element of air, I wanted the map to be as open as possible with a lot of interconnectivity. Initial concepts involved fights that centered around huge caco clouds that would flood the map. I ended up only doing this for Aquarius. Given the inquisitive adventure hidden in each air person, I wanted to flood the map with secrets a la Clandestine Castle Crashing to give secret hunters a bit of fun and to give a sort of 'puzzle map' vibe to the map without having to actually think of a good puzzle. I wanted it to be full of secret passageways and hidden fights. Time didn't allow for this to become a thing. In my concept sketch you can see that the north west portion had what I wanted to be a huge secret library fight the player could access. The north-east had another planned village thing that I ended up cutting. The south-eastern Aquarius section used to be integrated into the main island and was gonna be more of a sandy temple type thing with another village around it. I ended up going for a big purple circle cause it was quick and easy. All in all, after I cut alot of stuff I have to say I'm really happy with the scale of the map. Ended up felling like a really quiet ancient village in the clouds as opposed to a sprawling city. A quick tip for speedmappers: alot of the edged detailing in this map was achieve using the stair builder. Especially in areas where the clouds would raise or lower or around the edges of islands where I wanted to use a texture that had clouds on the bottom. Libra, being a sort of justice sort of sign of balance, I decided to built a courtroom for. It can be seen as a library, but the Cyberdemon is standing on a Judge's uh... judge place. The gate midtexture around the edge of his perch was supposed to emulate a courtroom rostrum I saw on google images. The raising bookcases are about balance too I guess. The telefrag secret is kind of bullshit, but I did find the other day that you could shoot it from the spawn island instead if you know about it before hand. Gemini's constellation is a pair of twins, so naturally I wanted to do barons. Because my last map had something like 80 I settled on Hell Knights. I remember wanting to have a SMM or two but didn't want to make an arena big enough for that. Aquarius emulated the 'air' the most and stuck to what I had originally envisioned for the map before settled on CCC in the clouds with a big swarm of flying enemies in the air. The teleporting enemies was a coincidence of the edge of the arena having lindefs that prevent the player from walking on the clouds. The third arch vile was the last enemy I added to the map and was entirely impuslive, I made the map in 10 hours non continuously (total time actually mapping was 10 hours. So if I had 10 mapping sessions each of those sessions would be 1 hour) starting it sometime in December 21 and finishing it sometime in August the following year. Don't ask, I have issues. The custom sky was made by @muumi after I looked lovingly into his eyes and asked him nicely. Some behind the scenes screenshots of Map26's development: I have more screenshots of builder.exe for the next map, so I'll hopefully be able to be more indepth with the BTS for that one. This was my original plan for the cancer fight though:

I extended the deadline to the 30th

Maps Featured: MAP10 - “Bad Santa” - @MtPain27 MAP11 - “I’m in your ho-ho-home” - @Jark MAP12 - “Snowball War” - @Lizardcommando MAP13 - “Backpedal to the christmas future” - @Walter confetti MAP14 - “Take Santa's Rocket Launcher out for a walk, will ya?” - @LGmaire MAP15 - “Mt. Frostshire's Keep” - @DynamiteKaitorn MAP45 - CHESTNUTS.wad - @myolden

I'm a glutton for attention, and it's also my birthday. If there is one thing I love more than sharing other's hard work blah blah whatever... it's receiving praise! More specifically, I love reading people's thoughts and opinions on PUSS! Don't know what that is? Look it up on google images. Being a self serving snob, I decided to create this thread to force you lot to talk about our work. I KNOW you've been playing these wads, and me being the desperate attention whore I am, I'm forcing you to ferment discussion about PUSS wads. The only rule on this thread is that you are NOT allowed to have negative opinions on anything with the sopping wet PUSS stamp on it nor are you allowed to dislike anything we've made. Look kid I'm just the messanger. There's also this tier list thingy I think you should have fun with. Here's mine: No, I won't explain my rationale behind it.

Ooh! Forgot I had that as a secret in the last map. I’ll spoiler it.

Sick! Glad to hear it! I'll give some insight into the project as a whole at the month's end. As for my maps, as you've seen three of them I'm sure you've noticed the astrological theming I've used for them. You may have also read that I made these maps to get laid. That tidbit is true. It didn't work. Sometime during the public submission window for the project I had decided to commit to the idea of making a map based on the zodiac calendar. I had plans for a single map where the player visits four environments connected to the four elementals associated with the calendar (fire, earth, air, water). There would be three fights in these biomes each associated with an astrological sign with all 12 fights being needed to exit the main hub. I abandoned the singular map hub thing when I realized that making 12 good distinct fights in 10 hours would be practically impossible. I started with the fire elements, Aries, Leo, and Saggitarius given that Aries is the start of the astrological calendar. Mind you, I did the bare minimum of research into astrology to make these levels so most of the metaphorical significance in fights and whatnot is purely conjecture. Fire signs as people are notable as being proud, brash, intensely passionate, spontaneous, and competitive. The fights I would create for this map would be built with small/medium fights in arenas that constrain and test the player with quick and dangerous fights that require the player to constantly move and fight like a furious flame. Aries I wanted to begin with a brutal melee encounter that quickly escalated into an archie+cyber shitshow. Leo I wanted to have be a significant Archie fight. Naturally since the RL was given here I figured I might as well throw in a few pain elementals. Saggitarius' arena is shaped like an arrow and features a lot of precision based enemies (hitscanners/arachnotrons). Earth signs are stalwart, grounded, patient, and stubborn. I wanted these fights to force the player to stand their ground as they're faced with large hordes of monsters; no less in a very earthy and lush tech base. That one literally forces the player into a small hole so that they have to stand their ground. Using a lot of barons and a cyber in that fight due to their connection to the Taurus constellation I came up with the map name and from there I decided to just go full boar with how many barons I was placing in the map. Capricorn I wanted a small earthy cave that floods with meat doors that the player has to mine their way through. Virgo I don't really remember. I knew I wanted to utilize many monster turrets since that's what skillsaw recommended I use as a rule for the project when I asked him his design philosophies for Ancient Aliens. I'll speak more on the following maps tomorrow. Passions Like Fire was the only map that I had finished and submitted during the original public mapping window from May-June 2021. The remaining three maps I decided to work on after submissions had closed since we were close to a full 32, especially if I had completed my 4 map set and since DB had one more map on the docket. The completion of these three levels sometime in 2022 and the wrapping up of Map29 and the credits map (being a frakenmap from a few unfinished levels by DB and I) allowed us to release this project uh uh uh... last month. Sorry everyone I've been too busy chasing chicks with my doom map resume.

How does the club feel about a mapper popping in to share insights about the map they had made as sort of a behind the scenes thing for the project currently being played? Would it fit in this thread for me to talk a bit about how I used astrology for the past few maps?

HUZZAH! THREAD BUMP FROM HELL! As we prepare the final touches on release 1, here is part 1 of my video playthrough spectacular! MAP01 - "And an archvile in a pine tree" - @Lina MAP02 - "A Hot Start was NOT on my Christmas List" - @Death Bear MAP03 - "North Pole Massacre" - @muumi MAP04 - "Holiday Hustle" - @Blast_Brothers MAP05 - "Have a Very Pineapple Doommas" - @Peccatum Mihzamiz MAP06 - "The Yuletide Spray" - BluePineapple72 MAP07 - “Xmas Tree Map” - @Amiga Angel MAP08 - “Happy Birthday Jesus Christ” - @Walter confetti MAP09 - “Crushy Christmas” - @SCF

Monster sprite created for What Lies Beneath

It’s the 20th, so I’ll just share a quick opinion on Map20. It’s my personal favorite map in the set, and one of the best maps to be submitted to a PUSS event on top of that. It’s fast, frantic, beautifully textured, beautifully lit, and chaotically cathartic. The terror of a constant threat at your heels and the escalating dangers facing you as the map opens up create an exhilarating experience. I’m not a big fan of huge wide open rooms with clean-up tights, but the audacity of placing 58 arch-viles in 1 room earn the grand finale.

You're playing the most current version. I'll just have to swap the names of the keys to fix the error on my end.

I've extended the deadline to the 30th of April (so I can finish my map). That means there are 13 days left! EEK unlucky number! Quell your superstitions by watching me make a level! Perhaps you'll catch some inspiration for your own?

This is something I’ll need to talk to the author about… mainly cause I uh… I added the crusher linedef. Wasn’t possible to kill the Archie before. Had been a year or so since I got any updates from any mapper so I just took the executive decision to make any bug fixing/soft lock fixes on my end for the idgames release rather than waiting for a dozen or so mappers to get back to me when it’d be so long since the project started.

When do y’all usually leave comments on Map31/32? On the 15th or the end of the month?

The textures are animated mid textures. Essentially they’re like 256 tall or something but the brick is only 64 pixels tall. Each frame of the animation moves it up etc. etc. With regards to the maps, I’m playing through this wad again for the first time in awhile so I’ll share some brief feelings on the levels. Gameplay wise I think Death Bear’s strongest is Ursae Minoris (insofar). Have lots of thoughts on his maps for the project, but I’ll share them towards the end of the month. Amazing contributions from him though. Backbone of the wad. I forgot how much I love Myolden’s levels in this. Map02 is stellar (and has a really special untagged secret <3). I had first played these back before I was really familiar with his stuff so it’s nice to see his earlier mapping efforts in style. I think Moon Funeral is his strongest. Tyrone’s maps are also really sick, loved his participation for this wad (his submitting three early maps made me choose him to do a warpspeed secret map for the following PUSS wad). Really nice and chill temple maps. His UFOs are also the most unique outta the wad since you can go inside them. His maps being breathers brings up an interesting point about the difficulty of the wad. I just put the maps in the order they were given to me without care for difficulty. I think the gameplay of the wad turned out pretty good. Some PUSS wads we’ve messed with the order. I’m curious to see what y’alls thoughts are on the matter. Muumi has a super strong showing of maps in this project. Alien Tartarus blew me away when I first played it. The boat is the best UFO. Paradise is a bit long methinks but it’s still really well made. Beautiful too. Fun fact: he made the animated star fall sky from the original static shooting star sky from aalien. His best map (the best map in the wad) has yet to come tho. Can’t speak on it. I really like the visuals of Lemon’s map Spirit Fracture. The first few bits feel like an arcade to me with the intense purples and pinks contrasted against the hard blacks. I think the pyramid fight could’ve used more ammo tho.

I’m cool with it! Think you can do a 15 minute map?

Just barely two weeks left for submissions! Miss out not ye should!

I personally think that maps 22, 25, 25, and 27 are the best. 29 has a good part at the end. That's just me though. 🐸 ☕️

Ya! Love how folks make their own interpretations and maps based off of the rules of the project. Makes some really fun experiences. You’ll see a lot of that, especially in the second half of the wad.

These are ordered by chronology of submission. Where did it say that they knew what slot they were mapping for? I’ll have to edit that if that’s the case on the text file.

This level is actually by Muumi. It has the best starting UFO in the whole wad methinks. Side note: if you pay attention closely, every map begins with a UFO created by the mapper of that map, and it ends (usually), with a UFO created by the upcoming mapper. It kind of makes the wad a Grand Theft UFO simulator if you have a good imagination.