Plerb

Equinox MAP05 (HMP, continuous, saves): It's the second hub map. I don't have anything new to add here.

Grezzo 2

I rarely make maps with the intention of them being standalone, but I usually favor making episode-length stuff. Out of my 3 main projects right now, two are episode-length and one is a megawad TC, of which I plan to let my brother make several maps to ease my workload a bit since I'm making all the textures and sprites. Because I'm fond of working on about 300 different projects at once rather than working on a single thing continuously, I'd rather work on 300 episodes than 300 megawads. also i just got out of bed and haven't finished my coffe uh

Equinox MAP04 (HMP, continuous, saves): I only just now downloaded Devalaous's quality of life patch for this WAD, which I set to autoload. I remembered being stuck on this map on my first playthrough a year ago, but luckily this isn't my first playthrough anymore! This map is perhaps the most cinematic-feeling one yet, filled to the brim with memorable scenes, enhanced by its intense music (which works better when it actually loops properly!). Despite being fairly mundane, the concrete hallway with revenants and chaingunners has always stuck out in my mind. If my mind was an aesthetic, it would be this area. Much better than the rather lame vent maze in the previous map. My very WIP 90's-themed TC has a tribute to this part in one of the very WIP maps. Unfortunately, just after this part you're ambushed by an difficult-to-impossible to avoid cyberdemon, a situation not helped by your mandatory blursphere. I doubt this part was properly tested. It's not worth the trial and error required for RNGesus to let you past him, so I just idclipped through it. Thank fuck I'm not a UV-maxer. After getting through a tiny hole, the map is back on track, where you're back into my beloved concrete vent maze. Unfortunately, by the end of it when the walls lower to a bunch of enemies, when I need it the most, I'm fresh out of ammo. Due to my familiarity with this map I was able to get through it ok, but still, it wouldn't've killed BPRD if he put more ammo here. The exit room is a fitting end to such a creative adventure of a map. Towers of Barons in vats, which seemingly stretch into infinity. You get to blow it all up with what's perhaps the most creative use of the boss brain in any WAD ever, especially considering the original WAD doesn't have any DeHackEd at all! Overall, with several memorable areas and only a couple parts which drag it down somewhat, this is one of my favorite maps in the WAD. I can understand why it would be a slog on a first playthrough, but I love Equinox's other strengths enough that once I got used to the quirks, I can't bring myself to do anything other than love it. Also, I started compiling a resource pack containing almost every BPRD-made graphical asset, assuming it's okay to disregard some old text files...

@Mystic 256 It looks like it!

Well we could make it together! :D (if you're ok just working through doomworld pm's that is, i don't use discord or anything like that)

Dammit, one more community project couldn't hurt... I'd like to take TNT MAP19 and Doom E2M2. Slot can be MAP19 for now

I can't imagine shooting a Romero Head would be that hard...

Equinox MAP03 (HMP, continuous, saves): Another nice display of the blue and green carpets and the custom SHAWN2 variants. I'm not a huge fan of claustrophobic dark vent mazes, but this isn't the first time I've played this map, so I got out of that part fine.

Equinox MAP02 (HMP, continuous, saves): The first of 4 "hub" maps. This is the only WAD I've played where multiple maps pretty clearly take place in the same area, that concept should be used more often. Interesting, I never thought to look for the exact song MAP02's track was based on. I did try to find the source of MAP01's music some time ago though, with my only clue being "Level 1 music is a back-choir of an Enya song that has a beat to it", but after searching through Enya's entire discography up to 2001 I still couldn't find it. The fact that the MIDI was heavily altered from the source makes sense as to why I couldn't find MAP01's music either. And don't even get me started on MAP13... :P

I'm Map10 Refueling Base because i have 261 Demon's

Oh yeah I definitely saw those in Valiant, forgot about that. I've seen Equinox resources used in a few WADs actually come to think of it, my conscience just can't help but feel a little guilty ignoring that notice in the text file. But eh, if BPRD didn't notice/care about Valiant using its resources, maybe it'll be fine if I use them too. :P

Due to how insane the past week has been for me, and that we're already starting on Equinox, I'm just gonna have to put away Biowar for some other time. I last played MAP12 I think. As a whole, at least from the two-thirds of it I played, Biowar was not a WAD that inspired words for me. It was a charming 90s experience, but it didn't thrill me either on a gameplay level, nor a deep emotional level. Equinox on the other hand I have a LOT of thoughts on, being the flawed masterpiece that it is, not to mention my obsession with BPRD's entire release history from the early Doom PWADs to Commander Keen 58/59 (the latter of which were my introduction to his work). My decision to participate in the Club for the first time was due to this WAD being selected this month. While I played on UV for Biowar due to its minimal difficulty, I'll be doing what I do for most WADs and playing on HMP for this. The strengths of this WAD are in the environments and atmosphere anyways. And of course this is NOT a wad for pistol starting, so continuous it is. Equinox MAP01 (HMP, continuous, saves): Fun fact: An early iteration of this map can be seen in MAP01 of "Bdw Hell". The opening shot sums up one of BPRD's greatest strengths across this WAD: Impressive large-scale sci-fi architecture. I struggle to make buildings look that intricate even armed with a 3D editing mode. The music in this map is almost perfect, but the drums only coming from the left is aggravating, even more so when I currently have a splitting headache. In a way, the music track symbolizes this whole WAD: it's almost perfect, but some (likely unintentional) errors hold it back somewhat. How much these hold it back varies from person to person, but BPRD's body of work has such sentimental value to me that I can look past the flaws and appreciate it for the sparks of deep inspiration that brought his stuff to life. Now for a bit of my personal history with BPRD's work. I didn't get into the Doom modding community until last year, but Commander Keen has been a constant in my life since I could use a computer, and I've been modding it on and off since 2014. Two mods in particular struck me: the duology of "Keen 58: The Ruin of Roib" and "Keen 59: Underworld Ultimate". At this point I wasn't too keen on one Bernie DeWint's take on the titular genius hero as a depressed 35 year old, but the graphics were unlike anything I had seen with the EGA palette. Even though I barely got a few levels into these mods without cheats, which is where I am in them to this day, I would often just gaze upon the amazing visuals from the level screenshots on KeenWiki, inspiring me to improve my EGA pixel art skills. Fast forward to 2023 and I'm starting to get into the Doom modding scene after a few years of burnout with Keen content. I was aware of NUTS.WAD for a while at this point, I hadn't played it but I saw a Karl Jobst video about it with over a million views, I generally knew how infamous it was. Then one day I look at BPRD's DoomWiki page and realize... the madman behind NUTS.WAD was in fact Bernie, the mastermind behind the far-flung Keen sequels. This provoked me to look deeper into his wadography. The first one I downloaded was Grove, which remains probably my favorite BPRD production to this day. It was July 4th, and at the same time I was playing it, I was walking around the quiet neighborhood at night trying to catch glimpses of fireworks. It's hard to describe, but the similarities between the experience of that night with Grove, running around a dimly lit forest from who knows what, while melancholy music plays, truly seared this WAD into my mind and cemented my love for BPRD's work. I didn't even play his most beloved map, the Mucus Flow, until December, but it impacted me all the same, all thanks to its truly incredible MIDI which is easily deserving of it's own wall of text, but I can't even give one if I wanted to. I'm just sent away into another world for the entire roughly 7 minutes it plays, and then some. (Side note: The restrictive license of Equinox's .txt annoys me to no end. I love the graphics in this WAD and I'd love to make a mapset with them. I tried emailing BPRD about this a couple months ago to no avail. sigh)