AnArchaicApparatus

I've been mostly doing junk in the Discord, so I may as well actually post here too when things are done. Anyways, here's a candidate for both title music and TITLEPIC that I threw together two weeks ago: LINK: AnArchaicApparatus 1 Sector Title Pic + Music Thing.zip MIDI title is Seasoned Sector Soup (Served With Salted Sidedefs), which I credit to my music project Enimapod. The music was finished June/06/2024, and the visual is from June/04/2024. The background of the image was stretched in Nearest Neighbor or similar to add a bit of extra crunch, so if that looks shlocky lemme know, and I can stretch it in a less aliased way. If any of ya'll want a MIDI for yer map, lemme know in DMs or the Discord.

Hell yeah, good on ya for fixing that. I'll playtest it at some point, probably after I finish my 1 Sector Community Project map and some other bits. I def spent more time than 15 minutes playing the map, but not in the map with the ingame clock ticking and processing stuff going on, so even if there is that jank, it should be perfectly good in-practice. -- As for the MIDI, I'll definitely try to do it... though just for clarification, these are the references you mean, right? For Maximum Horsepower, I assume you mean "Hell To Pay map13, 28 / Perdition's Gate map05, 26", which is def a good one to go after, but it was hard to search on Youtube (though linked here as a double-check) For I am the Doomguy with the Gun, ya used that in your level already, so Ik wassup. The one thing I should note is that I'd probably try to make the MIDI a bit longer (3-4 minutes or more) and go a few more places, just to alleviate a smidge of repetition-strain, especially since your map sure as hell ain't a pushover, and lots of saves will be loaded for those who aren't in their element here. Also, that's just how stuff almost always turns out when I'm jamming away in Sekaiju - though I'll try to not make a 6-10 minute Krautrock/whatever jam like the stuff I've been sharting out in the Nova IV Discord, unless ya wanted. =V If ya want any other influences of songs to shove in there, lemme know before I start lol. Just gonna @ ya incase you wanna spitball some more things in there. Gonna @ ya again after playtesting of course, sorry bout' the bugging ofc. It should be a relatively quick midi to microwave anyways, so I'll prolly try and package the MIDI in with the playtest post. @Djoga

After some brainstorming in the Discord, I'ma request an extra slot for a more showcase-ey funtime level. The idea I have might normally fit more in a secret slot, but a non-secret slot would also work perfectly fine, and it could maybe float-around w'out a designated slot like my other level, in case anyone else really wants a secret or non-secret slot. TLDR: EDIT: Also, a note for other mappers here, I do MIDIs too, so if anyone wants one custom-made for ya level, lemme know.

Also, just as a note w' the UMAPINFO map-count thing, having only one sector is likely to spawn a lot of (at least relatively) short maps. It can be easy for even normal MegaWads to get tiring imho, but this would be a perfect candidate if there ever was one to take advantage of that, leaving aside any strict-compatability-by-principle kinda thing.

I might take any slot. 'Coming off making two maps for 30 Sectors (and currently being in the process of playtesting,) I have sectors-stripped experience! Also, hi Spectere.

@stochastic 'Played the iterated version of this level, and the handful of changes you made definitely were for the better. Full notes taken while playing: Screenies: Yerp, is big good.

@Moustachio This kicks major ass. Nothing needs changed I don't think, everything just works, no bugs that I see at all, etc. Brief notes taken while playing: Screen Shot by Swans: Not much to say, bigly good, perfect post-opener to keep a player digging a bit deeper.

@Matt Eldrydge @stochasticAite, went through this one. 'Still pretty as ever from Matt, and plenty a Stochas'm. Regrettably though in this case, this one ended up being kinda tiring to play/100%, which was likely from starting w' the details, and building the encounters afterwards, with said type of fight design largely being scattered big guys, though. Anyways, stream-of-conscious gameplay notes and critiques, etc: Standard-issue screenshot barrage. DW suddenly gave me a limit that I somehow didn't hit w' the last two posts, and it's mildly infuriating. Also, as a final note, since this was initially gonna be an, "adventure," kinda map, that definitely makes sense w' the architecture and so on. Honestly, the encounters would make a lot more sense if it was much more focal on having smaller fights and much less and/or less hefty windowdressing, then hitting the player with the cybie and the larger hoards later, maybe even having it be bigger hoards that are harder to just go past given all the space, which could definitely have more jerks in it - though in a more formal fight. Again, larger guys in incidental combat is a delicate balance. Beefcakes have a role, but just throw em around and they become moving fences w' hitpoints to either jump around, or laboriously dissassemble with wirecutters like I did. Personally, I think it'd be cool to have it even be no monsters initially, all buildup, then as soon as the blue door is activated, all hell breaks loose into a fight that's more considered but extreme, much harder to just cheese and just run through, and so on. Here's a few ideas off the top of my head that ya might be able to iterate on if ya wanna try to rework junk from the ground up, though removing a lot of the incidental guys would make it much more well paced imo: - Maybe have the soulsphere fight be mostly low-tiers, so it's a sudden challenge, but still saving all the big boys for the big blast - Remove almost all turrets/snipers, they barely do anything and can be cheesed effortlessly - Have the blue door be guarded by thick groups of Mancubi/Barons right at the doors, so they serve as walls with health points that keep the player from going in to run to the exit immediately, so they'd need to retreat and actually face what was going on - Some of the hoards like the imps and so on that were released really early on w' the rocket launcher, the cyberdemon, etc could be released now intead of earlier, so the foot'age to move w'out fighting through it would be greatly reduced The overall desired result would be to have a much more mellow beginning to soak in the surroundings, let stuff kinda slow-cook, and break that tension with a more focused fight, so it's a dynamic adventure w' a blast at the end instead of lots of noise that's harder to account for. Just throwing ideas around, brain melty, bleh.

@RED77 Not much to say here, but it's def a nice lil romp. It's much more primitive and minimal in result compared to a lot of entries (in your case likely due not being used to the limitations,) but it's a nice, charming lil romp that feels like a lower-end CC entry that isn't the most famous, but is very charming, thankfully not infamous, and does its job w'out much fuss. It made me quite happy. Play-by-play notes from while I was going through it: Screenies (contains spoilers for secrets):

@Djoga I just played through your map (as much I could,) and it's got a lot of really cool stuff in it, though it def has a handful of things that could be tweaked - be it to be more fun/approachable but still challenging or... well, actually playable on lower-end computers. TLDR: The biggest, most glaring issue is that on my older computer, it literally went from a good framerate at the start, to a teeth-pulling 4-5 FPS right before I could go to the end after finishing both areas. I think it likely has something to do with how you dispose of the hard-to-reach monsters. Here's my unfiltered stream-of-consciousness that I wrote while playing (though the start was written on paper, so I had to re-write it w' a few iterations in a .txt file): EDIT: Screenshots! Again, this is def another really cool entry, and with a few tweaks this could be a perfect map w' cool challenges, a lot of polish, and so on. The highest priority though is definitely making sure that it doesn't make semi-lower-end computers shit themselves like in my case. Good luck on that, this one's really cool, just needs a good bit of tweaking and that big fix.

@Biodegradable thank ya so much for playtesting my level! If ya haven't already, ya don't have to do the HMP run if you don't want, your UV go-around told me what I screwed up on quite well, thanks again. Now, long story short, I definitely know what to fix, cos' the parts that sounded like they almost gave you an aneurysm are definitely a product of me not thoroughly going through all the gameplay factors on my own! The only big note that I can say for ya in this testing session is that you didn't go back through the alternate route shown by the red light and the health/armor bonuses. That's a big chunk of the level and - while intended to be optional - gives some cool stuff. Either way I'll probably try to mark it better, though I am kinda curious if ya just didn't wanna go go back there for whatever reason. Here's a play-by-play that I wrote while watching, in case anyone is curious: Here's a summary of the last little note w' slaughter fights in there that might help ya in the future. It has a few spoilers, but would be good to note: Once again, thanks for playing and filming! It'll be a be a bit prolly until I get to tweaking, but it shouldn't take too long when I get on it.

Either this website has fucked up upload-ification stuff, or my internet is just that bad. I tried uploading this as an edit, but it keeps giving me an error each time. Anyways: ---- UPDATED LINK, hopefully I don't have to do this too many more times, if any. ----

It was a bit wonky trying to understand what you're saying w'out screenshots, but now I'm looking in DoomBuilder and get what you're saying. The door screwup was probably a result of me being... uh... 13 when I made the map, and I was big stupid back then, but I didn't double-check all the stuff going on now. Nice catch! The markers are just differently arranged for variety probably. The lift not working is just because I forgot to add a lowering speed when I slapped the walkover actions on to aid backtracking, and forgot to test that quick when I did it. Another reason for me to stick with Boom. Idk what you're really saying about the Cyberdemons. Thank ya! I have the doors and lift sorted out, should have the fix uploaded shortly. Bless ya for finding that.

Alright, my level is pretty much done aside from whatever I might add/have to fix if there's any technical or gameplay issues. Author: AnArchaicApparatus Map Name: Alpha Sector 21-B - (Who Up Playing They Station?) Format: UDMF (ZDoom-Based Ports) Custom MIDI: Scrapmap Pamparcs by AnArchaicApparatus/Enimapod (Me, lol.) Custom Resources: Textures & Flats, CWILV, credited in the readme, below, and in a file inside the WAD named CREDITS Base: Two unfinished levels that I made in 2016 inspired by PSX Doom and Threshold Of Pain by John Gourley AKA scalliano (should be just under the image for archival purposes; was gonna put them in a different post instead of DropBox, but the zipped folder is just squeezed above the file size limit.) Notes: - This level has some challenging stuff later, and needs ya to use ya brain a smidge at least once. be forewarned. - Requires jumping in a few spots. - Hardware rendering recommended due to colored lighting - Even though this is obviously a ZDoom-Comp. level, most of the script-ey stuff is Boom style w' voodoo rigging and so on, cus I ain't learning ACS for just one level, and voodoo stuff is more fun/tactile imo. - Bonus external playtesting by Isabella Chains -- OLD [- LINK -] LOOK AT THE POST BELOW! I be having uploading issues out the ass. -- Version history: Archival old WADs used to make the level: OG post in here when I was starting the tweaks and adding new stuff:

You just gave me the widest smile of relief. 'Just checked back and you're absolutely right. I basically just have a few 128x64 and 64x64 textures with a 32x32 or two for custom switches w' a likely 128x128 or two, and a midi, and that's it, though I might add some sounds later for ambience, so I'll definitely be good on that front. Thank ya so much, now I can keep that smile as I keep working!