LadyMistDragon

Just played some of this. As much as it kind of shares in common with other facility-themed GZDoom wads, the atmosphere is incredibly impressive, gravel piles outside are a nice touch and in general, this only sticks to the Knee Deep in the Dead limits so far as it takes place almost entirely in a base. Not to mention things eventually take a turn after the first map, with Map 02 being practically combatless and largely a maintenance job, with subsequent maps adding both custom enemies and a decent chunk from Doom II! It's probably not terribly difficult but it sure is a turn from the first map!

Mark Lanegan - Carnival

I'll be honest, the gimmick with slight variations just went on far too long. And while the automap hint seems to help, it didn't seem like anything really happened when one goes to those locations, like the doors to the red key opening. Not to mention the passage opening to the stairs in the first place seemed incredibly obligatory. Nice midis though and as a smaller map, this would be good.

yes

There should be a setting somewhere when you click on the file that has private, public, and I think something else.

access isn't public

Escape from Slime City (2023) by @kwc (Nugget Doom) Our favorite tribal warrior really seems to like the realistic spaces! This is a map I almost was going to play but due to the acclaim it got (as well as a Cacoward mention!), I basically kept putting it off and not touching it.....until today! I'm just here to say this map is entirely deserving of its praise! Showing a marked increase in difficulty over kwc's previous effort The Old Bean Factory, this isn't a terribly hard map regardless, with the only proviso being that you should probably learn the spawn points of some seriously nasty enemies. The ending is kind of hard, but truth be told, I was a clumsier git than the massive pools of slime everywhere so that actually doesn't mean too much. But of course, the main draw is the setting and immersion which this map delivers in spades. To start with, there's a new custom enemy, the Slime Imp (really, probably just mutated humans) who throw an incredibly damaging slime attack that seems to have the same power as nobles' flames roughly, meaning things can turn deadly quite quickly if they aren't taken care of. Moreover, the sheer detailing is quite impressive. Bowling pins crash around when you touch them, bumping against an unflushed toilet will produce a disgusting exhumation of gas, and most especially, you can eat food to restore tiny bits of health, like AMC Squad which is the only other place I can remember seeing thse food sprites. As a sort of light collecting activity, you can even collect Doomguy dolls scattered around the map. Are there prizes for finding them all? Not sure, but this is the easiest 8.5/10 I could give. It might even be a 9 to be quite honest. I don't mind sleeping on this map but safe to say it's well-worth your time! ASS #50 (cont) Map 10: Not too bad. Nice amount of openness and a decent, but not unfair, sense of danger. Although the scrolling floors needed to reach the exit are kind of whatever. Blow up some of these barrels and make things easier. Map 11: Just a decent Breezeep map. It's a little less of a pressure map than anything from Scythe. Though the little bit with the AV and Revs and the end will prove quite nasty Map 12: A single shotgun for a gajillion Imps at the beginning? Hitscanners in the windows to punish players who wander carelesssly. Spawning barrels on a flowing river? Revenant appearing in front of the key here? It's actually better than Obsidian's other map here but I'm too over this crap right now Map 13 - ASSazon Werehouse Holiday Special: Pasokon Deacon's kind of an obscure community contributor but his maps tend to have serious flair and style and this one is no different. Mostly appearing to be in a parking garage, it's somewhere around 4th best. Probably. The way he hides Arch-viles away in harmless small room is pretty funny. At least we get to telefrag a Spider Mastermind at the end! Was that teleporter active the whole time? I doubt it. And what made that one large crate bit with Imps on it lower? Map 14 - Don't Piss off Barrels: So Worm sure understood the assignment, didn't he? A fun map to speedrun and one that seems far more confusing than it actually is. Take note of the lack of radsuits though. Perhaps the yellow switch could have been better indicated though.

Yo La Tengo - Here to Fall

Not really, because it can be hard sometimes to tell inescapable pits from those that have some secret chamber at the bottom.

I didn't really have the time to give any map a proper playthrough, but regardless, great job! Layouts show a lot of thought, the verticality is cool and strongly appreciated and the extra little details give this a ton of life!

Even when I was young and not terribly concerned, that would seem like a most abysmally foolish practice, about as bad to most people as me playing with rumble enabled for basically any period of time. Also, a thread necro? smh.

As much as I can appreciate trolling admirers, I've never been scared by Spectres, only annoyed at getting boxed by some barely visible shadows and getting annoyed in a way a map itself often can't invoke. There's nothing I like doing less than the sudden bite noises out of nowhere and probably having less vision than I did 15 years ago just makes things worst. But to be clear, I can definitely appreciate their initial usage in Doom and Doom II. If anything's the issue, it's the tedious clean-up like with pinkies. The most annoying thing is having to punch out like 15 of them in order to have the best chance to get through to somewhere else and I just feel there could be better uses of my time at that point.

For the most part, this does what it sets out to do! It's just a basic mapset themed after KDitD with the largely light homage visible, apart from the two separate references to Nuclear Plant's maze (just slightly unsettling perhaps!).. Although it's a little strange why you'd make this for Doom II when there are absolutely no Doom II monsters. Props for berserk pack too! D: Another, the backtracking felt incredibly obligatory in a way that simply wasn't in Knee Deep in the Dead which did that in a more fluid and organic fashion.. Like no one really likes having to go to the other end of the map to grab something that could easily be placed much closer with simple layouts like these. SV Kaiser got away with it because he put other things into his maps, but even so, they were quite divisive even in their day, and here, we're crisscrossing for no reason other than you decided that we should. If it's just practice for more complex stuff later on, that would be one thing, because otherwise, it's just one more nonsense thing that has nothing to do with fighting. Like for instance, I still have no clue what lowered the bars to the red key in Map 04.

Corrupted Citadel (2021) by Genius Bandit or Doomboy1999 (GZ Doom) I can't say I really care too much for cooop monsters but as to the map being evil, that's not really true. There's just a few places where chaingunners can shoot you from a million miles away, though plenty of places to hide all the same. Map itself has atmosphere up the ass, with a piano accompaniment and a nighttime setting amidst the ruins of some long-abandoned citadel. Although the great hall here has remained remarkably well-preserved over the years, with an arched entrance and an utterly immaculate array of columns. There's also a cute little outdoor garden of sorts at one end. Combat is as hinted at earlier quite hitscanner-heavy, with precious little health that can be recovered so it might seem a little unfair in spots. That being said, the pistol and chaingun both have a basic speed increase applied to their firing rates which makes handling the Lost Souls in the Great Hall not a terribly annoying proposition. The map concludes with a trip into a mausoleum and an encounter with 2 Arch-viles that seems to guarding an inescapable blood pit and if you guessed this was a blood pit that exits you after health drops to 10 or so, you'll win no points! How to review this alternate prologue to Doom 2016? It undoubtedly has a great sense of place, with bits of vanilla detailing that perhaps recall the efforts of notorious challenge mapper xdarkmasterx who apparently gave some advice during the development of this, but at the same time, there's a certain lack of refinement in the layout and quite apart from cheap hitscanners, it's not exactly what one would call above plodding in the combat department, even counting the Arachnotrons which can fire at you from the other end of the garden while still inside 6.5/10 ASS #61 (cont) Map 06 - It's ok, I guess. At least combat isn't exactly anemic here. Although placing a Cyberdemon at the other end of a section of scrolling floor with teleporters scattered about randomly for no other reason than the memes was a pretty garbage move and I'm not talking about the liquid here either. Speaking of which, that's a concise way to vaguely acknowledge the custom color schme. Map 07: A Well-Worded Transvag Convo - Don't think about it too hard. It's ok though. Fletcher has brought us the second best map in the set so far! Quite apart from the excellent midi choice that seems be listed as Unknown (it sounds like something from some Japanese game though) the gimmicks are used in a way that doesn't really enhance the experience but neither does it take away from it in any aspect. Like sure, groups of barrels are scattered around every which way but you know what, we know Fletcher was having fun here! Though perhaps the pathfinding to the exit could've been better, the monster compostion works out! Map 08: A Hastily Arranged Counterqueef - Well, the metaphor speaks for itself. But anyways, this will be most notable for what's initially a profoundly spiral layout, like that Doom 64 map, but with a serious dickishness to the overall combat here. Ammo is quite limited and worst, Revenants will fire from a million miles away in the second spiral while Pain Elementals emerge from the bottom of the abyss and Spectres terrify our attempts at escape. Despite such complaints, it might still be good. And at least the exit, which is in a massive area that was basically taken from the previous level while also taking you through the beginning of this one, is easy enough to find! Map 09: The Tale of Sir Explosive Circles - This map on the other hand, is a simple open rocky circle with switches placed in obnoxious locations. Barrels are cool, but it's pretty hard to distinguish tasks here and the way keys just cause actions is annoying obligatory nonsense I've never liked in Doom maps

It's funny to me how at least 2 of the hardest secrets to find are hiding in plain sight. It's an interesting bookend to be low on ammo in both the start and the end, with the middle being somewhat better in that regard, even if most non Super-Shotgun weapons are withheld to quite a bit.

My dude this is all so familiar.... Although I've always been pretty popular like Baron so it would be hard to speak on that aspect specifically. But when it comes to strong emotions, I've always felt like kind of an outlier as someone with a rather purely logical approach to basically everything, except when it comes to just getting up and doing something. Although I've always felt comfortable with it since I became old enough to have self-awareness, I do find myself wondering if having more empathy would be an an advantage. At the same time, I think I understand people well enough that faking it isn't terribly difficult. The one thing that seems to work is being positive and supportive to the people around me, but I have no idea if you'd get tired of that after a while. I can't say I mind it though.

no back start teleporter? Oh wait, that's been brought up already

Happy early Treason Day and God Bless America.

Oooooo!

Oh hey, I remember this from /idgames!

Abyssal Speedmapping Sessions #50 (2021) by Various TheMionicDonut, et al From Doom wtih Love To wash out the taste of the last drivel, I immediately hit 'random' again and got this. I would not normally be doing this, but I decided I might take a slightly more liberal attitude toward something that seems to be fading as a Doomworld legacy and in any case....let's just get a move on! Firstly, the themes though, copied rote from the ASS 50 text file. Note: not all of these had to be used Map 01: Oh Fuck, The Red Key's Melting - Redead-ITA is responsible for this one. Like a lot of his speedmapped stuff, it's pretty short, may be not as dense as it could be on monster encounters but still have a moment of two of satisfying progression. Like going up a circular stairway to get at a red key where a Revenant is also located for one Map 02: Stupid Wendel's Bathroom World - Alper002 made this one. So there's a few different buildings, barrels scattered everywhere (naturally) and a few different buildings with some mildly fierce enemy placement. Perhaps I'm missing something though but the only way to reach the exit is to walk across the opposite direction on scrolling floor.....very.......fucking..............................slooooooleeeeeeeeee. Lame Map 03: This guy was involved in Community Chest and incidentally, he hasn't had any map credits since one of the later ASSs. Pretty cool though! The parking garage climax was a nice setting and the overall construction and commitment make it probably the best map here! Plenty of health and not-insignificant amounts of health either. People that shot everything will be punished at the end by not one but THREE Cyberdemons and not enough ammo to take them out without infighting. Map 04: Alper brings this sewer map, barrels on individual platforms and fierce Revenant placement that makes things pretty treacherous. The big room with the single Cacodemon can go die though. While better than Alper's other entry, this room is a pain to deal with since you have stay in the dark area while navigating scrolling floors Map 05: Hugo Weaving's Dumptruck Emporium: You've seen one Obsidian map, you've seen them all. Although his use of scrolling floors and gimmicks is far more intellgent than anything seen thus far. Ammo is tight until the point two shell boxes are located at least. Deliberate enemy placement is noted no matter how you look at this. Damn Hell Knights. Perhaps I'll play more later

Sure! It's a little silly that many Doom playthroughs are saveless when the majority of players aren't really like that and for one reason or another, won't make too many attempts towards saveless playthroughs of say, Ancient Aliens maps.

Black Label Society - Blessed Warning