Klear

Is nobody going to mention how much fun Entryway is for Deathmatch? It being so tiny makes it super fun in four people. At least back in the day we only ever played it or Dead Simple and I always liked Map01 more.

MAP03 - "Reservoir Dog" Eternity, HMP, blind, continuous, saves Well, I kinda have no new things to say. Music is still awesome and feeling like a poor fit. The gameplay is still solid in theory, but I'm not having fun for some reason. The environment looks nice but I don't have a sense of goal at all. I'm starting to think I might just be a curmudgeon, not liking the little changes that feel like they were made just for a change's sake. I liked the moment where the room you're in starts filling up with bombs and you have to make a split-second decision to jump out of a window. I find moments where you have to jump out of a window based on a split-second decision to be some of the most memorable in gaming and this one is no exception, and the crowded fight that follows was kinda fun too. I'm still not convinced the headed kamikaze is a good enemy though. I mean, they cost me a death or two just by making me nervous and not ready to decide which weapon to ready, but they're kinda annoying when they ambush you, super annoying when they get stuck in geometry and killing them in the middle of other enemies doesn't produce as much carnage as I'd hope. Also, did the lost souls get an HP nerf?

MAP02 - "Bruce R. & Son Construction Co." Eternity, HMP, blind, pistol start, saves I was planning on playing continuous, but since I wanted to switch difficulties, I just IDCLEV'd into level too this time. I also might have wiped out all my saves and settings when upgrading to the latest version of Eternity. This map is less sprawling, taking place on a single construction site and taking great advantage of the verticality that Eternity allows. I was glad I started using free look, since there's a lot to look at here. As for the floors over floors, they look awesome, definitely, but at times it slightly got in the way of gameplay. There was at least one occasion where the autoaim decided to target an enemy on a completely different level than I was expecting, for example, so that took me out of it a little bit. Might be just that I'm not used to seeing this in Doom and the map definitely feels very much like Doom, so the extra features are breaking my mind a bit. The progression, while not exactly cryptic, kinda made no sense to me. It's obvious you need to climb to the top of the building, but I wasn't feeling the need to go there beyond the old "because it's there". It felt a bit artificial. New enemies! The rocket troopers, I'm not sure what to think of it, mainly because I've for the most part avoided their probably very dangerous projectiles. I'll have to make a more solid opinion later on whether they fill in a new niche or not. The cyber barons (Cybruisers, apparently) look very intimidating, so I let myself be intimidated, ran past and took them down from a relative safety of a corner. The fight for the blue key with an arch vile and a pair of revenants felt a lot more dangerous and interesting in comparison. Overall this was more enjoyable for me than the first level. I'm still not quite feeling it. I think it might be just the result of all the small changes, none of which makes the gameplay significantly less doomy, but together create a sort of uneasiness for me. The music is lovely again, though again feels a bit off compared to the general mood of the wad.

MAP01 - "Subway Sandwich" QuestZDoom Eternity, UV, blind, continuous, saves Guess I'm playing flatscreen which means the jig is up - you will all be able to see how terrible player I am and I cannot hide behind playing in VR any more =D Having a very brief look at how the wad looks earlier, I was looking forward to this, since it looks very Duke-ish and that appeals to me. I... don't think I like the wad based on the first two levels though, and I spent a lot of time pondering why is that, because on paper I should be loving this. But somehow I was just not having fun. Here's what I have so far: - The opening on the moving train with breakable windows is amazing and as I said reminded me of Duke 3D, but that caused me to expect more interactive elements and colourful, varied design, which the map kinda doesn't have. It looks gorgeous, especially the surrounding 3D city, overpasses and stuff, but despite some landmarks like the fire truck, garage or a gas station, the whole map feels very samey throughout. There's a lot of backtracking and revisiting the same areas which is something I'd normally praise, but with the more realistic approach compared to usual abstraction seen in Doom maps, it felt like going in circles, unable to progress away from the subway entrance. - I found the sudden introduction of some high-threat enemies including a couple of arch viles jarring when most of the map is filled with fodder. The map sets the tone of an opening level, but then breaks this all of a sudden repeatedly. The tone of the map also kinda made me want to run and gun willy-nilly, but this could at any time trigger a big ambush so it just didn't ever feel safe to do. - There are two new enemies here. The Catharsi are introduced in the sewer and it's awesome. The Suicide bombers on the other hand... I mean I knew things are getting serious when I heard the sound, but getting ambushed by these coming from both sides in a cramped space is not a great introduction. It doesn't help that they look very similar to shotgunners. I'm curious if they'll be used in interesting ways in the future, but here they felt just cheap. - The music is lovely, but didn't fit the map at all IMO. I would prefer something a lot more grimey, this track makes me think of frolicking in nature, or maybe even through some alien landscape, not this gray urban setting. I usually don't pay much attention to music, but it felt jarring throughout the map. - Speaking of sound, I don't like the usage of Quake sounds for pickups. I'm not completely against changing the sounds, even though the original Doom sfx is good enough for me, but these I don't like too much. So yeah, not a great first impression. I've decided to drop down to HMP going forward, hopefully giving me a more chill experience and also enable mouse look. Despite what the readme says, it feels like it's very much the better way with so many things above you to ogle at and some awkward level geometry, especially the subway stairs. Spoiler for tomorrow - it helps somewhat.

You can use it to make earthquakes. I was experimenting with it a bit at one point and it looked pretty good.

There's nothing shameful about using idclip.

MAP10 - "lunchlunchlunchlunch" QuestZDoom, UV, blind, pistol start, saves The beginning gave me flashbacks to Bitter Sanctuary from Claustrophobia 1024, though the map soon opens up to some very large fights. The bonus one with the pinkies and cybers is a fun one. The next one took me a few tries until I found out pinkies have trouble climbing the stairs there and will block anyone else from ascending too. Did I solve it or cheese it? It felt wrong, but I'll take it. Then the map branches out. I went to the room with a completely unreasonable number or hell knights, which was probably my favourite part of the map. Their attacks are easy to dodge and the die relatively easily but they. just. keep. coming. Love it. The second part with the revenants was tougher to crack. I'm somewhat aware that a ton of revs in a tight hallway is a classic which good players could navigate in their sleep, but I had to pull out the old reliable strategy of bashing my head against the wall and praying to RNGesus. Then came the arch-viles. This was definitely the second most arch-viles I've ever faced and it was not fun. I see what lunchlunch did here - first you have a rocket contest with revenants, then a staring contest with viles, but I had a lot of trouble here. The difficulty was compounded by the trouble I had to stay on the non-hurty walkways and the sky texture on the floor eating up my BFG shots unless I aimed them directly at the viles. After trying for about double the reasonable time, I came to the conclusion I don't have a shot at finishing this part. As a last ditch effort I tried using the rocket launcher instead and... it just worked? I was very surprised and kinda angry at myself for not trying it earlier. So yeah, I did get past this without cheats, somehow. Phew! The room with the pillars... let's not talk about it. But it still felt easy after the viles so there's that. The final fight, I was kinda tired of the wad at that point and wanted to get it over with. I did some unreasonably optimistic saves expecting I will be trapped in an unwinnable situation and have an excuse to cheat my way to the end of the level, but I survived somehow and after some more slightly painful platforming that was it. I made it! Well then. This was a wad that is definitely too tough for me to fully enjoy. I had fun playing some of it, but there was a bit too much frustration towards the end. Having accidentally played one level on HMP and feeling that it made the gameplay less enjoyable to me, I'd say the difficulty is quite uneven and spiking way too hard towards the end. Not my cup of tea, thought it looks like it is at the beginning. Well, at least I can brag I beat it in VR now. The visuals are stunning throughout and it's easy to forget there are any kinds of limits. Kinda makes me want to check out lunchlunch's other work to see what he can do with more than 10 textures. I guess I'm installing Eternity now...

Uh oh.

I always thought the main vertical area in The Pit looked like a missile silo, which might be somewhat reasonable to expect at a starport. Maybe. But your interpretation actually made me think of a collapsed freight elevator, though I do like the idea of the floors around it being on the same level originally. I see what you did there.

MAP09 - "Abuse Me, Darling" QuestZDoom, UV, blind, pistol start, saves Oh dear lord this was long. I'll keep this brief and just go through some of the highlights. - The very first room was absolutely stunning and I stayed there for a while admiring it since I knew things are gonna go crazy soon. - The platforming was utterly miserable for me. - I got completely stuck after the second big fight. I think I managed to get through it on my first attempt which was kinda surprising, but I missed the door hiding the vile staircase and instead saw a way open allowing you to backtrack past the two cybies I ran past, so I spent a ton of time looking for progression in every wrong place, but more importantly I wasted way too many cells to get rid of the cyberdemons. So far lunchlunch has been pretty good in resupplying you with health and ammo before every major encounter so I wasn't too worried, but I only had two BFG shots left for the vile staircase and I just couldn't make it work. During my attempts I had a feeling the BFG might be a bit inconsistent - something that's always in my mind when using it in VR, since it used to actually work wrong in QuestZDoom in the past due to the devloper's misunderstanding of how illogical the weapon is. That has been fixed thanks to my prompt, but I'm still paranoid about it. Anyway, I eventually reached the conclusion that there's no way I can pull this off with the ammo I'm carrying and decided to IDFA rather than starting the level over. I did find the secret megasphere, so the cheat basically didn't do much beyond topping off my cells. After that I spent some time trying to figure out the BFG, something I should return to in a custom-made map. Being blasted by a dozen viles is not the perfect testing environment. I actually killed all the viles during this experimentation and just went ahead with the map. - Managed to get past the ear rape in a few tries, only to find out there's the biggest platforming section yet and all the revs have a clear shot at me while I'm attempting this. Damn. Time for some very awkward cleanup. No idea what's going on with the teleporter back to the arena, as it sometimes shot me high in the air instead. - The final fight looked tough, so I soon realised the best way to go was to run away and wait for things to cool off a bit. But... there was that platforming section in the way and there was no way in hell I was gonna repeat that. But I found the ledge leading to the last secret and that does teleport you back to the finale, so that was obviously the way to go. I spent so much time trying to pull this off. Turns out dropping down to the ledge is no easy task with an analog stick, but it's way harder while there's enemies pounding on you from most sides. I tried and fell and tried and fell and at that point I got interrupted, so I took a brief pause and then went back at it. I removed about 5 minutes of failed attempts while splicing the two videos because it's really just be falling in lava and blowing myself up over and over again. - When I finally got it right, turns out, remaining on the ledge is still very challenging. See, I have no legs in VR. My position is the point exactly under my head. Which means when I physically leaned to the side to get a better angle at the enemies above me, I tended to fall down into the lava. Argh! Well then. This isn't brief. This isn't brief at all. Whatever.

MAP08 - "Cocoa Puffs Breath" QuestZDoom, UV, blind, pistol start, saves After some fairly brutal maps and... whatever the bonus map was... it's nice to get back to something simpler, somewhat reminiscent of the early maps in the wad. I did struggle a bit in the early phases, though I don't think it's because it was very difficult. I just wasn't quite awake when I played, I think. The visuals are lovely, as always, this time themed around dirt and brown. All in all this was a nice break, offering just enough challenge while not being too hard. Wait. Why is the next room so gigantic I can't see the other end and my FPS noticeably dropped? Why is there BFG ammo and medikits everywhere? Oh... Oh no. Well, I was once again this close to giving up. The poor framerate didn't help (I should have lowered my draw distance which would have fixed it - I have it set very far because this is the first map since I upgraded to Quest 3 that gave the headset trouble, but since I was expecting to give up any moment, I thought it wasn't worth it), but the main issue is that I'm not a slaughter guy. Saving frequently can get you through a lot of stuff, but not when you can't find any semblance of safety anywhere. I tried various things, but to be honest my strategy never evolved beyond "run in various directions and pray to various gods". Eventually I risked a save hiding behind a giant panted cyberdemon ass, and slowly clawed my way into some semblance of maybe living through it. But it was really tough. I see now I spent half the playtime in the final arena (though to be fair a good chunk of that was searching for the switch to start the mayhem in the first place). Well, two maps to go. I've come too far to give up now, I guess. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

I'm gonna go ahead and just do the bonus level today. MAP31 - "The Anna Dream" QuestZDoom, UV, blind, pistol start, saves What the fuck. The level starts out pretty cryptic, but the progression actually makes perfect sense if you have brain damage. And I do have that now. Loved the jump at the end. 10/10

I submitted one map to a speedmapping event. It took me a month to make it.

When are we playing the secret level, tomorow, or is map08 tomorrow and the secret whenever? I haven't played a multi-wad month in the club yet...

MAP07 - "The Zzul Method" QuestZDoom, UV, blind, pistol start, saves, liberal use of cheese I've been kinda dreading this one and it turned out not to be that bad? It was an hour well spent, that's for sure. I beat it including finding the secret exit and I've got 10GBs of footage to prove it. Though I'll post that tomorrow, since audio got badly desynced again and fixing it will take another hour or so. And then I'll have to upload it. And then nobody will watch it, because it's an hour of mostly me falling off platforms to my death. But anyway... I will admit that I seriously considered giving up right as I saw the initial platforming. It is not easy for me with analog controls at all. I made some use of the revolver provided by the weapon pack I'm using. Normally I try to avoid it, since it's got more bang for the buck than normal pistol, but I needed all the help I could get, I thought. Then I got hopelessly stuck and considered giving up again. This lead to me finding the first piece of puzzle to opening the secret exit though. If I missed that, I don't think I'd go back looking for it. Anyway, I eventually stumbled my way to the second part of the map and wow, am I glad I kept going! One advantage of VR is the sense of scale you simply cannot get on a flat screen. Sure, most of the level is covered in darkness so there isn't that much to be seen, but what you can see is awesome. I especially enjoyed the showers of projectiles sent to the darkness by the hell knights I left alive after the blue skull key fight. The main building is... weird. It's such an uncanny feeling to be fighting zombiemen after all that the map has put me through, and with glimpses of BIG trouble still ahead of me. After clearing everything out, I earned the right to exit the map and decided not to take it. But where is the damn yellow skull? After a lot of searching I finally found a not-so-hidden switch and... my hopes were dashed as it just revealed a standard secret with a berserk and some customary SS. Damn. Unless... Yes! Another big slaughter. Wait. I'm no good at those. But even though it took me a bunch of tries to find some stability, pretty soon there was just a bunch of angry skeletons left and enough space to find the switches opening the way back. And of course they followed me into the main level, but who cares. I knew where to go. Would it be too much to ask to only have to face the two revenants and have the teleporter be the secret exit? Apparently yes. The last part was tough. I managed to find the hidden teleporter which made the start a bit less bumpy, but not by a lot, and I've been struggling to stay alive in the mayhem, which made me realise that the hurtfloor all around the fight might actually be safer for me while the monsters fight it out among themselves. And as I was looking for the teleporter back up, I instead found the one that leads back to the beginning. Don't mind if I do! I returned to the second stage of the map, sat down and watched the fireworks from a distance. And also thought hard about which complevel I'm playing on and whether there's a lost soul limit or not... When I had the feeling I waited long enough and that everything that's going to die must surely be dead already, I heard a cybie death. Wow. That fight sure had a lot of fuel. Returning to the main stage, I found plenty to clean up but not enough to give me any kind of trouble. Phew! Edit - here's the footage: