DisgruntledPorcupine

Agreed, Plasma is a track that felt so married to Toxic Touch for me, and the fact that track managed to not only live up but surpass it IMO is unbelievable. Love to see it get more attention, an all-timer midi.

E1M5: "Mining Complex" by RataUnderground UV, pistol start, no saves 100% kills, 5/5 secrets Another cliff techbase, this time with more water than nukage (although we still have some of that as well). This one looks quite nice, the visual highlight probably being the cute little model of the area you are in past the blue key door. Funnily enough you can interact with the blue key door on this model and it will make a door sound, although I don't see the model shift. The midi by Varis Alpha is just awesome, very complementary to the action in this map which is also pretty lively. Of course, the map's most notable factor is probably the secrets which are both hard to find and very fleshed out, providing you with alternate ways through the map as well as access to big areas you wouldn't see otherwise. See: the dimly lit and spacious cavern full of lost souls and spectres. I had to consult Doomwiki for the secrets here, and also use UDB to find a sort of unmarked secret-within-a-secret to trigger a pinky teleport. I'm not always huge on secret hunts to get all the kills, but this map does make them rewarding. This one is really good.

E1M4: "Mineral Processing" by Death Bear UV, pistol start, no saves 100% kills, 5/7 secrets Here's one with some size to it. A tall techbase nestled in Titan's cliffs, with an ocean of toxic waste beneath it. You have some cool antenna-like structures in the waste, crates no doubt full of rocks, and some crushers that add some moving machinery to this mineral processing plant. The closing area has a stopped conveyor belt that looks like it was feeding some material into a crate. I wasn't able to get a good view of this except by id-clipping, but maybe I missed something. The midi is a Jimmy track which I hear quite often, and you won't find me complaining because it is catchy as hell. The map itself is likely to take you the longest so far, probably around 15 minutes. My first run got a bit prolonged because I had trouble noticing the red key... I killed a corpse in a weird position where it obscured my view of it, which lead me to not search for the way up there. Combat felt on the easier side so far, we're back to only using lower tier monsters (former humans, imps, pinkies). Shells are extremely plentiful and you also get a fair few rockets, which I didn't use until the final encounter. There are lots of secrets and I found most of them, with 3 being given to you in one swoop near the beginning. Great map though, I liked the setting a lot.

E1M3: "Barracks" by Doomlust UV, pistol start, no saves 100% kills, 4/4 secrets A feisty little map by a mapper whose work I am playing for the first time, with again no shortage of neat little details. You have a little exercise area, a rather grim scene past the red key door, and the rocket launcher secret seems to hint at some kind of accident with a big cartoonish explosion mark in the ground. Got a chuckle out of me. This map has quite a lot of shotgunners, which means good things for your shell count but can mean bad things for your health. While I never died, I was riding low health for a decent bit of this map so I had to play more carefully at points. There are some nice bits of action like when you open up the blue room with the invisosphere, and you'll have a mean little ambush of pinkies and imps when dipping into the cremation chamber for that yellow key. The secret exit would have taken me an eternity to find were it not for the automap telegraphing it with a suspicious white line. Enjoyed this one. E1M9: "Excavation Site" by Late Night Person UV, pistol start, no saves 100% kills, 3/3 secrets Our first secret map starts off in a vintage looking techbase, before taking us outside into some caves where a demonic ritual appears to have taken place. Entering the nukage hall greets us with our first cacodemon creeping just around the corner, sure to give some players a nasty surprise. Creeping around the nukage (or wading through it if you find the secret rad suit) you'll get the blue key, which takes us into a small crusher room for the yellow key so we can head outside into the excavated caves. There's a little slaughter on a pentagram here which is quite easy with rocket launcher in hand, but is good messy fun (and also introduces the lost soul). The second big horde of monsters past the red key door is a bit more dangerous since there isn't enough space to merely circlestrafe. I wasn't too huge on the first half of this one, combat felt a bit utilitarian apart from the caco surprise, but starting from the pentagram are some of the more fun encounters we've had so far. Overall decent map.

E1M1: "Detention Facility" by Myolden UV, pistol start, no saves 100% kills, 4/4 secrets You start off in a cell, which soon opens up along with the other cells in the block. Every cell contains a dead marine, except of course yours. You don't always get a breezy Myolden map outside of early Nostalgia, so relish this one. The pistol and shotgun are your only weapons, and enemies are limited to former humans and imps. It's lowkey stuff, but Myolden does his best to spice it up with some monster closet and teleporter ambushes. Don't let that 100% secret count up there fool you, the secrets were pretty tough to find. My rule is I only put in the extra effort to look for secrets if I'm missing kills, and there were some imps in one of the secrets. Took me quite a while to find. Gotta say I already have high hopes for the set's gimmick, the premise providing some extra inspiration to give these maps a sense of place, and this one really does it well. The cell blocks with dead marines, the security guard zombieman's desk where you shoot the button behind him to open the door. It's great stuff, and it gets me excited to see more. Nice little opener. E1M2: "Admin Offices" by Peccatum Mihzamiz UV, pistol start, no saves 100% kills, 2/3 secrets An absolutely precious display of Doomcute. Outright Doomdorable. Starting off in a nice looking reception area, you eventually make it to the office areas, where the monsters are all using their little cubicles and tapping away at their little computers. I love the effort into making each cubicle somewhat personalized, some monsters have banana lunches, blue-screened computers, and one has the red key that you'll need later. In the bathroom, you can step over the worst toilet in Scotland Titan for your first chaingun, and also interact with all the sinks and toilets. The indoor park at the center, which has a big fountain, trees, and a cool ceiling design holds the likely final fight. The map isn't too tough, but of course as an early map there are lots of hitscanners that can chip away at you. Loved this one a lot, very charming!

MAP29: "Mapping at Warpspeed" by a whole bunch of people UV, pistol start, saves 100% kills, 0/1 secrets Here we go, the penultimate map, and the final big challenge. It comes to us in the form of a Megiddo style collab between many of the mappers we've seen so far, with a whopping 1533 total monsters to extinguish. It shares its midi with AA's penultimate map, also the final big fight of that wad. It's a midi that captures the feeling of a final heroic struggle quite well. Let's go through the sections. Death Bear: The big scary bear face in the final teleporter in the previous map hinted that we were starting off with his contribution. It takes place in a small rocky moon arena, and features a nice busy slaughter. It's a cool power fantasy to start things off with as you are very well armed. Every time you think it's over, more teleport in and the action starts up again. Similar to his previous map, it's slaughter without being too oppressive and it's a great note to start things off on. Not too mean, but gives a high level of action to rope you in. Myolden: The penguin teleporter shows that it's Myolden's time to shine. His arena is square and Egyptian themed, and once triggered unveils ledges full of revenants, with hell knights, mancubi, and cyberdemons causing trouble down on your level. You can stand atop the stairs with the megasphere at the center if you want a breather from the chaos a bit, but most of this fight will be spent running around the square trying not to get boxed in. It reminds me of the opening fight of AA's own MAP29 a little bit. Muumi: Okay, this one won me over with the crusher gimmick. Thought it was cool but wasn't sure it was my thing in MAP09, but this fight was an absolute blast. We have a giant group of revenants, a lot of megaspheres, and 3 big slow crushers to lure them onto. Bounce around the room, luring as many as you can into the crushers while shooting the ones that decide they don't want to be turned into pancakes. You can lower the crushers again with a button at the head of the room, but the first time you do this you'll have to answer to some archviles when you go to turn them back on. The fight closes with some archviles stuck in a room that you'll have to mow down in order to leave. Lemonlytical: A slaughter on a brown bridge over a black void with wolf spirits in the air. Just BFG your way through this one, using rockets will likely get you overwhelmed if you start off with them. This one goes by in a flash, but can be a bit dangerous with those stealth troopers on the sidelines, as well as all those revenants. Doomcat: A colourful little space arena with monsters firing down at you from ledges, mostly hell nobles and imps with a cyberdemon. This one doesn't give you health so you may still be worn down from the previous fight, but you shouldn't get hit much as long as you keep circling around. The chaingunner will see you on your way out. Danlex: On brand for Danlex, this one is a feast for the eyes. A beautiful curved neon staircase in the stars, with arachnotrons in floating green egg-shaped cages. The fight itself has pinkies, imps, stealth troopers, hell knights, and a cyberdemon on the stairs to BFG your way through, while of course the arachnotrons will pester you from the sidelines. Weird Sandwich: Big ups to Mr. Sandwich, the tight time constraint did not prevent a surprisingly fleshed out arena from being offered up here. It takes place in a nice looking spaceship that continues to open up as you progress and hurl bigger and bigger threats at you, starting with loads of shotgunners and culminating in a spider mastermind with a bunch of archviles. You'll probably want to be careful with the BFG here, I was a bit overzealous with it at the start and ended up having to sneak into the spider's pen to yoink some cells so those archviles didn't torch me. Wonderful job done on this segment. Chookum: Looks like a little park area suspended in space, very sci-fi. Imps, revenants, and stealth troopers will be pelting you from above, while a cyberdemon sits at the center and barons roam the floors with you. This one actually lets you telefrag the cyberdemon, so don't go wasting your cells on him. You have beefy barons to worry about (or you can let him infight most of them). Fun segment, and love the visual theme. NotTyrone: This one starts in a courtyard at the foot of a techbase, not unlike MAP03. It is a lot more populated this time of course. You have a lot of room to move around so you should be fine, but shield your ears. There are lots of revenants and they tend to create a rather noisy ball of missiles for you to break up. After you go inside there's a smaller fight with hell nobles and revenants, and of course an archvile parting gift. PeccatumMihzamiz: What's this, a newcomer? Here we have the lone contributor to not have their name on any other map in the set, and they brought gibs. This one feeds in enough former humans to populate a small city, with the odd caco to spice things up. After you've finished with the gibfest, there are archviles hanging out around the arena with some buddies that you'll need to take out in order to hit their switches and escape. Simple and satisfying, and I think those scientists watching from the sidelines think so too. BluePineapple72: The project lead closes things out, serving up an arena with 4 quadrants styled after the elemental themes presented in his zodiac series. Each quadrant has its own host of baddies, and there are some traps as well. Going for the soulsphere in the fire quadrant causes archviles to join the fun, and you can trigger some more cyberdemons in the earth area. The earth area is the most spacious despite its damaging liquid, so you might want to hang out here a decent bit. Each section looks lovely and the action is great. I've always loved these sort of megamap ideas where each mapper comes together with their own piece, and it makes for a very nice and climactic way to wind things down. Awesome work here. MAP30: "Stargate BP-9" by Death Bear UV, pistol start, no saves 100% kills, 6/8 secrets A delightful little credits map. This one takes you through a variety of visual themes, lightly sprinkling a couple of monsters in, while showing you the credits. There are secrets hidden around that give some little bonus factoids about the set. I'm missing two, might have to go back for those. The map closes with a little teaser for the next PUSS project: Summer of Slaughter. Complete with a beach and lovely little beach towels bearing the mappers' marks. Hard to think of a better credits map than this one. Final Thoughts: This was my first time playing a PUSS project, and this was a blast. Never really ceases to amaze me what people can create under these time limits. Got to play some wonderful work from mappers I'm familiar with as well as got introduced to some talented mappers I was unfamiliar with prior. I liked the way the AA theme was implemented quite a bit, there were lots of maps with clear influences from the set, and some that took the AA textures and made something that you would hardly associate with that wad at all. The midi selection was also a nice mix of AA tracks and non-AA tracks. AA probably has my favourite soundtrack for a megawad, so you won't ever find me complaining. I think I found MAP11 to be the most difficult in the set, although it's a toss-up between that and MAP27. It's very hard to pick a favourite, but the top tier for me in order of appearance would be: MAP08: Combat was fantastic and I loved the gimmick of gradually taking out the cyberdemons as you go. Visuals were also very cool, and a good example of a map that doesn't feel AA in appearance at all. MAP13: Visually striking and just loved the pace this one had. Great action. MAP20: Probably the best you could ever make a Run From It style map. The run itself is very fun and the finish is cathartic. MAP26: A more twilit sort of Culture Shock take. Looks beautiful and plays very nice, and I have a soft spot for it showing me one of my favourite stewboy midis again which I hadn't heard in some time. MAP27: The big slaughter. Loved the visuals and the fighting itself was very well designed and fun to take apart. MAP29: Just loved it as a way to find things to a close. Nice and climactic, and lots of great little fights. Muumi's bringing back of the crushers might be one of my favourite fights in the set. Great set, and I look forward to playing more PUSS entries in the future!

Almost since I started playing with the club I've had the thought rattling around that there are wads that were already covered that I would love the opportunity to write about and read some fresh thoughts on. A spinoff sounds like a solid idea to me.

World 27: "Of Waves and Woe" by BluePineapple72 UV, pistol start, saves 100% kills, 0/1 secrets The quadrilogy of astrology maps closes out with the water signs. This takes place in a ravine filled with that beautiful blue water, where the water level soon lowers similar to Ancient Aliens' Sinkhole Showdown to reveal the fights. For music, we have one of my very favourite stewboy midis, the lovely Ocean Flute from Sunlust. I think this is the first map I've played apart from the map it debuted in that featured it as music, it's an amazing track. If you were waiting for some true blue slaughter, you've found it here. Unlike the previous maps in the series, this one is a linear series of fights that get more and more crowded with each sign. Right off the bat we have the Cancer fight, which is a feisty one. The water lowers and you'll immediately hear the mechanical stomping of arachnotrons, and an archvile will run out ahead to welcome you to the map. I kill him first and run out, hiding in the corner he came from to trim down the rest. You don't start with a ton of ammo so you'll have to scrounge up supplies in this area, while you avoid getting boxed in by the arachnotrons. I also kill that spiderdemon when I get the chance, there's a chance she would do good for infighting down the line but there are a few parts of this level you'll be running through where she can annoyingly potshot you, which I don't like dealing with. The fight for the yellow key is a nasty ambush of revenants, chaingunners, and barons, and the following fight for the red key is probably the easiest fight in the map, featuring some fragile shotgunners and stealth troopers backed up by hell knights. Past the red bars and some unfriendly archviles and mancubi, you have the second sign fight. The Scorpio fight is the first big slaughter. You get a plasma and stepping on the symbol causes the water level to lower again. Right in front of you is a BFG, but guarding it are a cyberdemon and a crew of shotgunners. Use this cyberdemon to do as much infighting as possible. If he stays in his little building, this is ideal as many of the monsters tend to come through there and get mixed up in his rocket fire. Anything that makes it to me I just rocket, taking out the BFG if things get hairy or an archvile approaches. Knowing how to do a horseshoe helps a lot here, especially with the large number of revenants. The cyberdemon should eventually succumb, so once he does take care of the rest and move on. Finally we close off with the Pisces fight, which holds a much bigger slaughter. After stepping on the symbol, walls open up all over the level to reveal about 500 monsters. What I did was step on it, run away behind some oblivious hell knights, and let some of the revenants infight. I have no idea if this actually helped at all, but I did it. I then went back to the symbol area, BFGed through the big group of imps and revenants on that side to the wall with rockets, and then BFG'd back out. I hastily pick up all the cell pickups + megasphere if and when needed, then BFG the rest until I start running out of cells again. That's when I run up the center cliff, restock on cells, grab the megasphere up there, and then force my way out of this starting area. It took me a bit too long to realize, but staying in that starting area is a very likely death, at least at my skill level. With this method of escaping a bit into the fight I tended to pretty consistently be able to do this one. Since almost all the monsters have made it toward your position, the level behind them is comparatively empty and you can kill anything you come across, grabbing any health and ammo needed from the now emptied monster closets. After this chaos is over with, you have one more teleport ambush for the blue key to wind down with. Fans of big slaughter will enjoy this, and luckily I am one of those. This was a hell of a good time. World 28: "Planet Chasers" by Death Bear UV, pistol start, no saves 100% kills, 1/2 secrets Death Bear's moon series makes a return, this time the skybox is the blue falling star backdrop and the hub area is looking mighty worse for wear from your escapades. Your destination through the bear portal this time is another hub area, with 3 UFOs. You'll be travelling to a different world for each of them to make it out of here. Back to AA for the midis this time, it's Featherfall. Very good one. It's another intimidating monster count, but this one isn't too tough surprisingly. The first UFO area takes place in and around an alien techbase and is quite simple, enemies come in droves but there are lots of globs of imps and hitscanners that you can easily destroy. An archvile will make one last effort to cause chaos inside the base when you get the key, but he's not too bad. The second area is the reason for the large monster count. You're on a red planet with a canyon and a lone hell knight, but as you approach the BFG the walls will lower to reveal a slaughterfest. Cells are plentiful and rockets less so here, so BFGing your problems away is encouraged. Dip into a cave full of arachnotrons for the red key, and travelling far enough out the other end will result on more enemies coming in. The pain elementals can be quite annoying here, my first run I left them to their own devices too long and there were an annoying number of lost souls to deal with. The final UFO takes you to a void realm with a small pyramid at the centre. Stepping on the skybox is damaging and it takes up most of the terrain. If you have a full BFG left and you left that megasphere in the damaging pit in the last planet for the end like I did, this area is a non-issue. Go crazy with the BFG and you'll have an extra megasphere if you take a chunk of damage. Stand atop the pyramid to trigger the way out. This one was pretty good, visuals were nice and it was an easier sort of slaughter.

MAP26: "Clandestine Cumulonimbus" by BluePineapple72 UV, pistol start, no saves 100% kills, 5/10 secrets Those on the edge of their seats waiting for a Culture Shock get their wish, and if you were following the zodiac map theme you could maybe make an educated guess where it might end up. This is the air sign map, and like AA's most famed map it takes place in a cloudy sky in a fortress with lots of whites and bright blues. There are differences though, the sky is a brown and gold starry sky, rather than the cloudy blue sky in the inspiration map. There's also more of a balance of the Culture Shock themes and the classic AA textures in this one it seems. The midi is also different. While Imaginarium was a perfect midi to encapsulate the wonder and surprise that the original map conveyed, it probably wouldn't have quite the same effect when you are somewhat expecting it so a different midi is a fine choice in my opinion. It's one I've heard before with the club in one of Interception II's great epics, Slipgate Ex Nihilo. It's a fantastic midi and it's great to hear it again. One thing you'll notice with this map is that it at least somewhat addresses the main criticism of Culture Shock, which is that it's a somewhat awkward map to move around. This one still has some irregular terrain, but you have more space to move here which is a plus. This level can also be very difficult to complete saveless, but it gives you a whopping 10 secrets to find, so with some proper rationing of the secrets I did find and a little bit of cheese I was barely able to come out of this one. It plays somewhere between the fire map and the earth map, a little bit more of a free flowing layout like the fire map but not quite as chaotic. The initial stretch will be you scrounging up your starting arsenal, the shotgun, rocket launcher, chaingun, and SSG (I got them in that order). Even this opening stretch can be a bit tricky to survive, those stealth troopers can be quite a nuisance and they can move around the area better than you would expect. For the sign fights, I began with Gemini. It takes place in a wonderful looking library and is honestly not too tough, more of an ammo sink than anything else. I do think it's neat that the monster teleporters are damaging surfaces to prevent you from standing on them to prevent some monsters from teleporting in. Here I just camped near one of the arachnotron teleporters and rocket them as they came in, then tried to get some infighting with the other arachnos and the hell knights to save a bit of ammo, then rockets/SSG shots take care of the rest. Make sure you find the secret BFG with the hidden bookshelf switch, I definitely needed it. Next I tackle the Libra fight, and this is where the cheese comes in. If you stand in the right spot and try to hit the secret switch with your SSG, the spread can hit it allowing you to telefrag the cyberdemon easily later. He's frustrating to telefrag otherwise, and killing him with cells is not recommended because you don't get a ton in this map. So I perform the cheese, prefire a BFG shot before triggering the fight so that I get a jump on the revenants, telefrag the cybie and then clean up the rest. The Aquarius fight features multiple archviles and some air support from all of the flying enemies. Pain elementals and guardians are a nuisance in this fight, after you take out the archviles they'll need to die asap. Funnily enough I ended up with two cacos infighting each other in my successful attempt, guessing due to shenanigans with the alien guardian splash damage. Screenshot below, not a great one but you can kind of see one launching a fireball at its comrade. Best screenshot I got before one melee'd the other to death. After you complete all the fights, the opening area sees a couple archviles and a cyberdemon come in. You'll likely have some revived enemies to take down as well. There's also a "fake" sign fight for the plasma which I didn't mention, because I did it last. I kind of regret that decision because I had no cells left, and doing the fight with rockets is very dicey. Ended up leaving the map with 5% health despite saving a megasphere secret for it... Wonderful map, visuals were outstanding and combat was very enjoyable and tricky.

MAP24: "Cryptozoophobia" by Weird Sandwich UV, pistol start, no saves 100% kills, 2/3 secrets This one feels like a mix of Xenoarboreum and Trinary Temple from AA. The former for its use of the spinning vats and starry sky as a surface, and the latter for its length and being built about a very large outdoor area. Clearly an alien planet, and while the texturing can be a bit plain a lot of the time I do enjoy the shaping used, particularly for the holes of skybox that you walk on and the bits of ruins scattered around. The midi is Trapeze, a sweeping and epic track used in AA's midway IoS map. There's also an illuminati triangle in the central arena, perhaps as a nod to that very map. Likely to take you the longest of any map in the set so far. The respawning turret mancubi in the previous map turn out to be a bit of foreshadowing, as each of the initial 3 areas have respawning turret enemies, starting off with arachnotrons, then mancubi, then cyberdemons. The first two areas are quite easy, mind the turret monsters and take care of the big globs of enemies the map throws at you as you progress. Predictably, the third area is a bit more troublesome and you'll likely want to take things quite slowly if you want to avoid getting blown up. The big threat is not only the stray rockets, but also just how far away some of the cyberdemons will often be. This makes it easy for you to be going in one direction, and then turn around only to find a rocket that was fired at you several seconds ago is just around the corner. Because of that I found myself wanting to give quite a buffer before I come out from behind any walls, which caused this section to get padded out quite a bit. After these first areas, you open up the central arena to a big mob of angry revenants with a few archviles thrown in. The area is so big and there's so much terrain that you should be able to run off and find a lot of safe spots to take everything out from. The final fight is probably the highlight of the map for me. You're on a floating structure in space and armies of monsters are closing in on you at both sides, with two cyberdemons on the caboose of each end. Once those cybies make it close enough to start firing at you, the shape of the structure serves to test your awareness quite a lot. If you got the secret BFG earlier (which I didn't even realize was triggered by its own secret switch), you won't have to worry about going for the one here and triggering the archviles which helps a lot. I'm not sure about this one, it picks up toward the end but the first two areas with the respawning turret enemies weren't very exciting and it felt like the cyberdemon turret area encouraged slow play a bit much for my liking. Not bad but not really my style I suppose. MAP25: "Grab the Bull by the Horns" by BluePineapple72 UV, pistol start, no saves 100% kills, 1/3 secrets Pineapple's earth sign map takes place in a techbase within a lush flooded valley. The water is that very nice blue colour taken from our AA texture set. The techbase itself has been mostly reclaimed by nature, the ceiling is falling apart, vines are draped down, and vegetation is sprouting out. Very nice looking map. The midi appeared in AA MAP03, and is a suitably pretty sounding midi. Like the project lead's previous map, you'll need to survive 3 nasty encounters marked by a zodiac symbol in order to make it out alive, with the order of the fights being left up to the player. This one is less chaotic though, after clearing out mobs of enemies in the initial area, you simply just have to pick out which of the main fights you'll take on. To go in the order I went with, the Capricorn fight happens in some caves that remind me of the Sunlust cave levels. It gives you a rocket launcher, a boatload of barons, and a cyberdemon. Get the ones in the cyberdemons cubby to infight him. He usually steps outside for a bit during this and you can grab the blue key, and I just leave this area here (and grab any rockets I'm able to from the baron chambers). The Taurus fight gives you a BFG and rudely traps you with it, while another cyberdemon is within full view of you and hell nobles are closing in. If you survive the cyberdemon's onslaught, you can BFG your way past one corridor of nobles and rocket the rest of them. The cybie is telefragged on your way out. The Virgo fight can be very challenging if you aren't armed from the previous fights, but is quite simple if you are in my opinion. BFG the two barons that teleport in as they appear and rocket the arachnotrons immediately closest to you. Then stay out of the cyberdemon's danger zone and SSG the pinkies if they approach you. After the time elapses you can run out and telefrag anything. Then you'll just have to clean up any remaining pinkies and whatever you left behind in the Capricorn fight. Very nice looking map. Gameplay wise it was less frenzied than the fire sign map, but I think I enjoyed the sign fights themselves a bit more in this one.

MAP23: "Neon Desert" by Chookum UV, pistol start, no saves 100% kills, 1/1 secrets The first Chookum map I've played, and the visuals are very charming. A neat little AA style desert area, complete with giant neon cacti, alien tech pillars, and inaccessible cliffs with pulsing blue stalactites. The 3D bridges are cool, using those transparent glowing platforms to create a more hyper-detailed looking walkway. There's some fast-flowing sand too, which shouldn't get in your way too much but it's funny to watch the monsters struggle with it a bit. The midi is from Sonic Adventure, and has a nice sunny vibe like the map warrants. Gameplay is marked by "respawning" mancubi atop the alien tech pillars and a nice open layout with lots of monsters. You won't find any cell weapons here, but that's ok because rockets and SSG are pretty much all you need. Enemies tend to be nice and clumped together and you have plenty of room to move, so people who love blowing stuff up will have their outlet. Some nice opportunities to watch gibs fly with those crowds of imps on those cliffs as well. Additionally, the map isn't too shy with health and armour either, so you can expect a laid back experience all around. Blow off steam, from what I've seen of some of the later writeups we might need it before these next maps. If I had to pick a word to describe this one, it's "pleasant". Visuals are cute, fights are highly populated but pretty simple to take care of, and the midi feels like you're taking a vacation.

Behind the scenes commentary is always much appreciated, it's great to hear the mapper's point of view and get a glimpse into the headspace behind things. Knowing basically nothing about astrology and just vaguely recognizing the symbols from playing The Binding of Isaac forever ago, it's nice to know about the work done tying them into the maps' visuals and gameplay.

+++ Solar Struggle

World 21: "Beyond" by Doomcat, Son of Death Bear UV, pistol start, no saves 100% kills, 3/3 secrets Our young mapper serves us one of the grander maps so far. We start in a ravine with some alien architecture and our UFO way up in the sky, venture through some Egyptian style tombs built into some caves, before getting spat out into a giant arena with a pyramid. The midi selection fits quite nicely, an epic and atmospheric (no pun intended) Tristan Clark joint from TNT: Revliution. Despite its large size as well as boasting one of the largest monster counts so far at 494, this map is neither super long or terribly difficult, at least if you know what's coming in the latter case. The map does give you a not-so-friendly greeting, surrounding you with mid-tier monsters and hitscanners while you make a mad dash to scrounge up your arsenal. Bob and weave around the hell knights and revenants as they infight and keep moving so you don't get smoked. You have access to everything but the SSG and melee weapons in this fight, and the melee weapons come right after, so you'll be well armed to finish everything off. The tomb/cave section slows things down a fair bit, and you complete your inventory with the SSG here. I notice too that the teleporters that send in the monsters seem a bit finicky, which kind of has the funny side effect that you never seem to know when a random imp might sneak up on you. The final fight has you against an all-out army, most notably a seemingly endless streak of alien guardians being fed in through teleporters. You have lots of space to run around, but don't catch a stray from one of the fight's three cyberdemons. You can telefrag one via a secret to make things a bit less dangerous. The cleanup in this fight can be a bit annoying, especially because the cyberdemons aren't in conveniently BFG-able spots, but it's still a fun one and rocketing big groups of alien guardians always puts a smile on my face. I like the backtracking teleporters, that telegraph where they take you with the architecture around them. I do notice some of the monsters do not teleport in unless you take the one with the purple alien pillars back to the start. Guessing that's a little mistake. An enjoyable map, relatively easy going for its large population and the grand architecture is quite cool. Job well done! World 22: "Passions Like Fire" by BluePineapple72 UV, pistol start, no saves 100% kills, 0/3 secrets The mysterious project lead finally makes a debut with a more non-linear and sandboxy sort of map than what we've tended to see here so far. It's a very nice looking map that draws on quite a wide variety of the AA textures, with the main skeleton of the map being lava-covered cliffs. For music we have the wonderful Birdsong, one of my absolute favourite Doom midis. Always love to hear it. This map is relatively small and very chaotic. Right from the start you'll have an SSG, chaingun, plasma rifle, and possibly a regular shotgun from the shotgunners at the start, but with how densely populated it is seemingly everywhere you go you'll wish you had a rocket launcher. Unfortunately for you the 3 rocket launchers in the map will all require you to survive a dangerous fight if you want to leave with them, and these fights also will all trigger one of the 3 platforms you'll need to jump across to advance past this map. Before taking on these fights you might want to clear out most of the enemies anyway, as the archvile tends to travel around the level surprisingly well and the cacodemons can be very sneaky. The easiest of the main fights in my opinion will have you against shotgunners on ledges, an arachnotron on the opposite platform (with an extra to replace it once it dies), and some imps and hell knights to clamp down on your space. It's not so bad, I went with killing the first arachno right away, then occupying the opposite end of the neon platforms so the other one mostly just infights the hell knights, and then I keep the shotgunners and other enemies in check. The second of these fights I tended to visit was in the other neon platform area, and I like to come into this one fully stocked with health and armour as it's quite tough to avoid damage here. I went with spamming rockets at the guardians and pain elementals immediately, then focusing on the archviles. The final fight (for me) takes place in a high-tech indoor area, and is triggered by a berserk pack. To start, pinkies and revenants come in from the two side areas. I just force my way into one of the alcoves and kill revenants and pinkies from there. The pinkies seem to have trouble getting down the stairs, so only the ones in your alcove of choice matter. After some time a cyberdemon and archvile come in with their shotgunner and hell knight buddies. I don't move out of my alcove until I've killed everything but the cyberdemon, which I plasma to death. Note that I did fail to find any of the map's 3 secrets, which contain two megaspheres and a BFG in total. My struggles were likely compounded by this. This was a lot of fun. As I mentioned earlier, there's a more non-linear and freeflowing style to this one which is a cool change of pace.

World 19: "Hiding the Secrets" by The BMFG UV, pistol start, no saves 100% kills, 0/0 secrets Our 3rd straight map with no secrets, and it's titled Hiding the Secrets. A peculiar little map with the action taking place in one room. Texturing doesn't call a location to mind, it's mostly just an arena area. The midi is from AA's opening map, and kind of fits a little arena like this one. It also feels tuned very specifically for pistol start gameplay, which makes it feel kind of line an opening map that got placed in slot 19 due to the sending order rules. The room you fight in features a lower central area, with two ledges you can climb up to. You start with a shotgun, an alien guardian flying around the central area, and imps all along the sides. The imps guard a berserk pack you can use as you see fit. The next wave introduces more imps, pinkies, shotgunners, and a hell knight. I used the shotgun mixed with some infighting, and when only the pinkies and hell knight were left I berserk punched them from below. Now you get an SSG, and a bunch of stealth troopers. I never really use the SSG on stealth troopers since their health is so low, so funny choice. I regular shotgunned them, and then SSG blasted the guardians behind the fake wall. You can now open up the back wall, which has guardians, pinkies and two archviles. Luckily you get a rocket launcher, megasphere, and oodles of rockets. The exit switch is of course fake, and has a bunch of chaingunners. On one hand this one does feel very speedmappy, and plays a bit odd. I think there are bits of elegance in here though, and I do kind of appreciate a map that feels like a breather while also still having some octane to its action. World 20: "Archvile Arrival" by Muumi UV, pistol start, no saves 100% kills, 2/2 secrets All of Muumi's maps so far have been A. challenging and B. offered up some kind of creative quirk or gimmick. While the title and opening warning are obvious references to AA MAP03, this one seems to take more inspiration from a much more infamous map. Visuals feel in line with AA episode 3, where we see the Egyptian architecture merge with the alien world. Pyramids and hieroglyphics everywhere in a purple landscale with rotating alien vats. The midi is from AA MAP06, and while it was never really one of my favourite AA midis it plays into the map's pace. So initial runs of this map are all but guaranteed to go up in flames, a lot of the time quite literally. After shotgunning a few small enemies, you open the doors to about 50 archviles, which will be pursuing you through a Scythe MAP28-esque obstacle course for the next little while. As you progress, parts of the map open up to make it more navigable for the archies, so that their AI doesn't get caught up and make this process more trivial. So this one will take some practice and analyzing to get past some problem parts. Which ways to run around certain monsters, places to hide so that the other monsters don't damage you, et-cetera. Once you make it to the end, you'll climb up a pyramid to a bird teleporter, which gives you invuln and a fully stocked BFG to get your revenge with. There are also some more ammo and invulns stashed around the area, since just the initial boost isn't enough. Playing too aggressively can result in you getting stuck in the air though, so don't do that. After the insanity in that area is cleared up, you get to backtrack through the level and see all the carnage left in your wake, as well as all the ways the level allowed the archviles easier travel. I think once you do learn this map it's not terribly hard, after doing a bit of practice with the help of DSDA-doom rewinds I actually won on my first real saveless attempt. This is another one of my absolute favourites so far I'd have to say, it was very fun taking this apart and the chaos you get to unleash at the end is oh so satisfying. Super good time.