CapnClever

Playability notes: Requires ZDoom-based ports to function. All maps are technically made for pistol start, but continuous is recommended. The Community is Falling 2 is a sequel to the first installment and, while the story is more dramatic and refined, the gameplay takes an entirely different approach that at least entertains those with an open mind. As something of a jokewad the idea plays out similarly, with the player needing to cleanup the mess of what can only be described as "forum drama", and after a brief introduction is thrust into no more than three encounters across three maps. Also similar are the return of the "newb" enemy, basically a Demon with sometimes more speed. Overall, these maps should be considered gameplay puzzles. The first is a matter of finding where to go with the least necessary movement; the second is a matter of understanding available space and being able to quickly analyze your surroundings; the third is an extreme test against enemy AI. All of them are simplistic in their approach and none of them are easy, so they very quickly turn into a practice-until-perfect scenario and generally lack replay value. Least interesting is the first fight, which distills into getting in the correct position and holding down the fire button. Most interesting is the second fight, as it plays out uniquely in the form of BFG-spam that must be tightly controlled to stay alive. The most frustrating by far is the third fight (if you don't have a megasphere's worth of health left over) and is basically the previous final boss but with a single pillar for cover: one's personal enjoyment may vary here, as this is an incredibly precise dance with little room for error. Ultimately, because the fights don't align with vanilla gameplay but are oddly fine-tuned regardless, I can't recommend this to most. Try it out if you're interested in a change-up, but don't feel obligated to see it through to the end.

Playability notes: Requires ZDoom-based ports. It can be finished: you may have to do some unexpected backtracking. The Community is Falling is an amusing jokemap, fitting neatly into its time period from the perspective of the mapper, and manages to hold interest long enough to be entertaining. There is the occasional cinematic to wait through and the general layout is nothing special to behold, but it serves its purpose adequately. As a jokewad you may not expect particularly engaging encounters, but this one does try to at least give the player something new (if completely unexpected) as the journey continues. Being a single map, there is a believable progression of difficulty over time: harder enemies, stronger weapons. What changes up in this mapset is the use of different enemies altogether, whether it be Doomguys of varying color (all of which have different weapons to worry about) or the "newbs" that are no different than Demons, albeit occasionally given a different speed. While the absolute number of fights is few and contained, rarely are the themes repeated, leaving the only tedium either in learning how to handle a fight or in the non-combat situations. While there is enough variety and amusement in most of the fights, the major drawback is the final fight, consisting of what is essentially a Spider Mastermind with the hitbox of a chaingunner and around three times as much health. There is some modicum of strategy to be found here, such as manipulating their position until spamming rockets or plasma is consistent, but for the most part the enemy simply has too much health, turning this encounter into a listless endeavor. I recommend a run through the map if you don't mind a few little cutscenes (won't take that long anyway) and if you're not interested in the final boss then MDK it to clean up.

Playability notes: It is designed with vanilla limitations in mind, but avoid Chocolate Doom as I found multiple game-crashing VPOs over the course of my own playthrough: other than that, pick whatever flavor of source port suits you (prboom-plus on -complevel 4 for Final Doom). Though the maps have pistol start in mind, continuous play is recommended, as the former adds yet more challenge that may be undesirable. Urania is a mapset that is difficult for difficulty's sake, and while it is incredibly good at doing this it simply does not know when to let up. The visual theme is that of Plutonia, using the very same textures and a few others, and crafts an intriguing architecture that is reminiscent of both it and TNT: Evilution. Many clever twists are included that extend vanilla gameplay far more than would otherwise be expected, producing maps that are quite long to get through in spite of their apparent size. All of this, however, is overshadowed by the intensity of the gameplay, best likened to a jigsaw puzzle of which each piece must be meticulously and carefully selected, arranged, and combined to form the full picture. While this is a valid, though uncommon, means by which Doom can be constructed, to fashion this in nearly every map becomes desensitizing, and when combined with its dense difficulty curve the experience is depreciated. It's difficult to briefly describe what Urania provides as a mapset other than density, which itself carries undue connotations. I would do better to instead submit some overall patterns relating to said density witnessed over the course of playing: Ever-present turrets, usually hitscanners or Revenants, placed in small holes or along the walls or within towers; occasionally obscured by midtextures that make it difficult or unable to see the enemy; and distinctly though infrequently exposed in an intermittent or random manner, either brought up and down using slow elevators or scattered on long walkways, capable of messing with the player's relative safety for long periods of time Monster closets or teleportation activated by unnoticeable linedefs such as stairs or short jumps, or as a result of unintuitive sound sector-joining, or placed far beyond the current location; often managed in such a way that requires retreat on some level (though which direction is not always apparent) Progression that requires simple yet thorough exploration, with switches hidden behind typical purview, lifts that must be followed to all destinations, and plain walking into nooks and crannies that lower a wall; as well as key-markings that don't necessarily indicate the requirement of a key, occasionally used to allow for more than three effective key-use pairings (though at times the visibility/intuition aspect is outright ignored); and repeated handling of key-switch-door triads to increase length between key points of progression Enemies, often Barons or Hell Knights, placed so as to certainly delay progression: sometimes as an ammo tax, sometimes as a weapon requirement, but most often to allow the player to be inflicted by the rest of the encounter should it not yet be handled Recurrent use of compact space, mostly in the form of hallways, giving the player very little room to navigate and easily bump into walls that negate speed buildup; combined with variations in height that tend to give enemies the advantage rather than the player, or sector detailing that trips up both player and monster alike Occasional intermittent platforms, used for lifts or walls, impeding the ability to progress in the face of enemies that simply cannot be dodged If several of these things sound bothersome and unenjoyable to you, then I would say that Urania is not a set you would want to play. If they do sound enjoyable and interesting to you, then you will be delighted to hear that this is how Urania is structured at its very core. Some highlights of the set: Maps like MAP04, MAP13, and MAP19 do a good job of keeping the player under pressure without suffocating them, with a number of ways to approach progression and a steady pace of combat. Then there are maps like MAP02, MAP12, and MAP17 that really close in with specific requirements and goals, in which the player has little agency of their own and must explicitly carry out the expectations of the level. Filling out the spectrum are maps like MAP10, MAP26, and MAP28 in which combat is almost an afterthought, a mere impediment to progression, and the quality of encounters suffers greatly for it. MAP32 tries to be a kind of slaughter map but ultimately lacks dynamics, leading to a map that mostly contains more hundreds of enemies than it does encounter types. There are a bunch of instances where progression feels incredibly lacking, where there is a sense of "one step forward, two steps back". MAP03, MAP31, and MAP22 embody this sensation. By contrast, there are some well-progressed levels, like MAP09, MAP20, and MAP27, consisting of a definite flow from start to finish. MAP18 is a set-piece of a map that fits what Urania does in a small package, showing that the pervading intensity can exist in small sizes, and is an oasis in the desert that comes with the rest of the pacing. The finale, MAP30, is a clever double-take that employs an obvious Icon of Sin setup, averts it, and then reverts the expectation. If these general observations and inferences sound more like a 3 (at least on my scale), of being quite playable while not standing out, then you'd be right. I want to be clear that these maps probably rate higher individually than they do as a single mapset (and why a simple numerical system will always lack the sufficiency of a proper recommendation). Difficulty in Doom can occur from a number of places: non-combat progression, resource scarcity, static and dynamic zones of threat, and so on. Urania excels in balancing all of these things simultaneously, which is its greatest strength but also its greatest weakness: anyone looking for only one or two types of challenge will be turned off by the rest, and while none of the aspects are exceptionally hard, it is a rare player that seeks such a degree of mental fortitude. Ultimately, there are very few moments of brilliance seen here, though also few moments of ineptitude, and as such most of these maps play favorably as far as game design is concerned. What really drags Urania down is the pacing of the set. Even though many of these maps carry some subtle variations in how they are approached and progressed through, it remains that these variations are noise when compared to the enveloping signal of repeated elements, over and over again. Often this isn't felt by mapsets that lack the necessary difficulty to make it noticeable, but because Urania tries (and primarily succeeds) to bring along so many types of difficulty, it becomes numbing to deal with them over time. Every map is a puzzle, every map is a mountain, every map is a walk through the mud, every map is a blitz: with rare exception, this is the story that Urania tells. And while there are still players that will relish such a monotonous challenge, as a point of game design this is a flawed approach that engenders dissatisfaction and apathy. I recommend that this mapset be handled quite slowly, never expecting to go more than 2 or 3 maps in one sitting. Play carefully and thoughtfully, and make use of markers on the automap. Maybe even play other maps in between sittings. There are unique maps to be had here, if not particularly outstanding, and if you like to be challenged then it's worth a try. This was played for the Doomworld Megawad Club, and my reviews of each individual map are available in the following posts: