The DWmegawad Club plays: JENESIS (open to suggestions for next WAD)

What is the DWmegawad Club?
This is a place where we settle down, have a cup of tea (or drink of your choice) and take a month to play through a megawad on our own, together! We schedule our time so that we beat a level per day, and any keen observations, criticisms, or frustrated ranting about it goes here in the discussion. As long as you want to say something about what you've played, feel free to speak your mind.

Can I join?
Sure. The only rule is that you have to play at least some of the levels in our monthly megawad to contribute, but you're generally encouraged to finish the whole thing, even if you've played it before.

What if I fall behind?
No worries! If you’re behind a bit you can still post about the levels you've played as long as you’re trying to catch up. But try not to fall too far behind… we don’t want posts about map 5 popping up when everyone else is on map 30.

Do I have to post an entry every day?
Nope, not at all. This is only for our more enthusiastic members. As long as you play through it with us you’re part of the club.

----------

The megawad we are playing through is JENESIS

>>>DOWNLOAD MAIN WAD HERE<<<
>>>DOWNLOAD PATCH WAD HERE<<<

(Both are necessary for the best experience! Just select both with whatever program you use to play Doom)

Jenesis is a 32-level megawad created by one man, James “Jimmy” Paddock, who you might recognize as one of our resident musicians. Used as a springboard to hone his mapping skills, Paddock began in October of 2010 by mapping and releasing an eleven map set subtitled “Descent”, and from there the project grew with the releases of Part 2 in December and eventually Part 3 in the April of 2011. The maps are a fusion of styles ranging from Plutonia to Scythe to Alien Vendetta, with an emphasis on short play despite monster counts in the 100s.

Also, kmxexii has some nice level-by-level review regarding Jenesis on his blog site. Strongly recommended as a contemporary reading!

----------
OLD THREADS
BF_THUD!
Community Chest 4
Jenesis
MAYhem 2012
Memento Mori
Interception
2002: A Doom Odyssey
Hadephobia
Coffee Break & Fava Beans & Double Impact
HYMN
Stardate 20X6 & Monochrome Mapping Project
Realm of Chaos
Back to Saturn X E1 & Favillesco E1
Kama Sutra
Unholy Realms & Zone 300
Vile Flesh
Ultimate Doom
Whitemare & Sacrament
Scythe
Epic 2
Whitemare 2

I'll play whenever I find the time.

Map01
Longer than I generally like for an opening level, with all three keys required to progress. Should be one or none, on map01, I think. But that's personal choice.

The design of the level does a good job of bringing you back to the starting area after each subsection, so you aren't trekking back over empty corridors.

E1M1 feel to the textures, mostly. No real sense of a 'real place'. This is clearly a doom level, with the game-y elements that suggests.

Map exerts pressure on you throughout, rarely giving you much space or time to plan. Lots of imp barrages (which I like), and good use of demons. I was less thrilled with the chaingunners. I gave an audible groan when I opened a door and saw two of them on a high level on the far side of a wide room. That didn't actually turn out to be as painful as it could have been, once you knew the layout of the room, but learning the layout pretty much required getting hitscan-flayed at least once, since there was no cover.

MAP01.

To be honest, I think it would've been a better idea if Jimmy put this map in the MAP02 spot - it certainly doesn't feel like a MAP01 to me(3 keys, long level, tough monsters). That being said, it's definitely tricky and enjoyable. The overall structure blends together well and ammo is balanced nicely. You don't get stuck with the pistol for too long either, which is groovy. The only gripe I have is that there isn't much of a learning curve, but then again it says in the readme that Jenesis was a learning curve for the author in terms of mapmaking. All in all, it's a good start to Jenesis.

Awesome, I shall play the first level when I get back home from work

MAP01 - The Treatment Plant

I was a little surprised at the length of this map given it's in the opening slot. Not a huge area is covered but the map has you retracing your steps in the hunt for the three keys needed complete it. Thankfully, this is accomodated well by an intuitive layout so that you're often led by the nose to the next area. My favourite example of this is the nukage-fall which effectively propells you out of the area when you're rad suit starts blinking.

Monster usuage is reasonable with the exception of an overabundance of ledge monsters. I found the revenant area particulary tiresome to advance through. Demons and spectres though are effectively placed and the lost souls were introduced well. I was a little suprised that there was no real traps apart from some tame demon and chaingunner closets opening upon revisting areas.

Aesthetically, it feels as though Jimmy plays it a little too safe and most areas feel tidy but boxy as a result. A small personal issue I have is against the floor textures changing without a change in height. The natural looking area the level ends in has left me intrigued about the next level.

Overall, this is a good start to a promising looking megawad.

Would it be untoward of me if I were to leave my own thoughts on the maps in this thread? :) (More from a historical and critical point-of-view than from that of a playthrough experience.)

MAP01: Treatment Plant

Completion stats:
Kills: 95%
Items: 82%
Secrets: 50%
Time: 6:40
Best Time: 2:00

History:
This map is actually more than a few years old (I think it dates back to 2006-7). Back when I first discovered how beautiful the Plutonia textures were (when I still mapped for Skulltag), I began work on a small mapset called "RPSE" (Random Plutonia Skulltag Episode) which never really took off, although I did finish a couple of the (terrible) maps for it. This was to be MAP01 in that, as well, although due to lack of creativity, I didn't actually manage to expand the map past the initial starting area and the forked slime room past the first door, so the rest of this map was done in October 2010.

Gameplay/Layout:
Playing on UV already reveals my unfortunate tendency to accidentally make extremely challenging maps. One of the reasons for this is that I normally play on HMP, and regard UV as the skill level I pick if I feel like a real challenge. However, seeing how most Doomers seem to play on UV for a more "casual" experience, I can see that my quickfire, "casual" mapset actually turned into a borderline slaughterfest, due to my downright evil placement of UV-only monsters (which I'll admit I didn't test a great deal compared to HMP). Another reason for the strangely difficult nature of my maps is simply because I think "Hey wouldn't having a revenant here be a challenge?" and before I know it I've placed similar challenges all over the map that could seriously overwhelm a first-timer. And that's before I lay down the UV-only monsters.

All that said, this map is indeed unusually brutal in places. I still hate the quartet of revenants in the final room because it often takes a great deal of time to kill them all with the weapons you have at that point (and getting the chaingunners to take them down is pretty much impossible). There also might be a tiny bit too much nukage overall.

I like the way I made the player revisit areas (although maybe having to revisit the main courtyard twice was a little excessive), and there's a little homage to the original speedmap in the demon compartment that opens up opposite the yellow door - it's almost identical in design to the original map's starting area. :P

It definitely has its faults, as a few have pointed out so far. Towards the end of the development of Jenesis Pt. 1, there were several moments when I looked at this map and felt a strong urge to redo the whole thing. Thing is, it's already a redo of an old Skulltag speedmap of mine. Overall, though I don't see it as that bad a map, there are still parts that make me cringe - certainly the overly orthogonal room-by-room layout is an absolute eyesore. It's almost like something out of OBLIGE. Obviously back in 2010 I was even more conservative with angular walls than I am now.

All in all I don't think this is a great map, but it fits the MAP01 slot. Needing all three keys is a little odd, I'll admit, but I did envisage this to be quite a substantial map even back when I was first making it in about 2007. I might just redo it one day for the hell of it. I think it's the only map in Jenesis that I would definitely redo from the ground up given the chance - its age and my lack of inspiration while I was making it kinda show.

Music:
It took me a long time of trawling through my MIDI collection and the various posts on DMG to finally decide on the track that would accompany Jenesis MAP01. The choice of track for this map could potentially make or break the entire megawad - certainly, immensely popular WADs like Memento Mori 1 & 2, Requiem, HR2, Vile Flesh and many others, have amazing MAP01 tracks that reflect the quality of the rest of the WAD.

Ultimately, I settled on a custom track by Nick "Theshooter7" George (used with permission) called "Into the Fire", who posted it on the DMG under his résumé. It seemed like an ideal MAP01 track, with the heavy, guitar-driven intro and the fast-paced Metallica-inspired riffs, so into Jenesis it went. :P Progressive, too - I haven't often encountered Doom music that changes tempo halfway through.

Pointless trivia:
My dad couldn't finish this map. He was unable to find the yellow key for about 5 minutes. :P It was at this point that he pretty much gave up on trying to play through the whole megawad.

EDIT: Screw it, I played the map and reported my critical thoughts. :P

I wasn't going to bother with this (because, two WADs -- sorry if it seems a bit too picky) until Plutonia was mentioned (even if it's just textures). Going to give this a go when I've got a spare moment.

Map01 - Treatment plant
100% kills, 50% secrets, time 11:46, no deaths
This map can be a little tricky, the long range enemies are a pain, luckily I have little trouble with revenants these days. Also lucky I found the rocket launcher secret. This map would be very difficult if you could find any of the secrets.
It is a little long for a first map but design wise it's fine.

cannonball said:
This map would be very difficult if you could find any of the secrets.

I got 0%, which I predict I will get on over half the levels in the megawad :)

Cool, i played this before but cant remember it, although it hasn't been dumped into my folder-of-wads-I-probably-wont-play-again so must have been good.

I'm gonna play through on ultra violence with pistol start on each map as usual. First map is nice and standard doom stuff, a bit tough in places with just the shotgun/chaingun but nothing managed to killed me - I did wish i'd ffound that chainsaw earlier though, i was starting to count my bullets and there were a lot of pinkies running around. I never did find out how to get that berserk...

Good stuff.

Never played Jenesis, but the MIDI rendition of Undisclosed Desires by Muse was/is fantastic. Haven't really played any Megawads...should really get started at some point...

ComicMischief said:

I wasn't going to bother with this (because, two WADs -- sorry if it seems a bit too picky)

Can I ask people - i put both the wads into a zip file and just opened that in zdoom, it seemed to work fine but will that also apply the fix wad?

mouldy said:

Can I ask people - i put both the wads into a zip file and just opened that in zdoom, it seemed to work fine but will that also apply the fix wad?

I personally opened up SLADE3, and replaced the assets with the ones in JENEFIX.WAD -- that's a handful of maps plus ZMAPINFO and EMAPINFO. Played a bit, but my laptop overheated (been doing that a lot these days). Will try two maps tomorrow.

Map 01
HMP

The lost souls rising out of the nukage are a neat aesthetic feature.
Ammo felt tight up until entering the helipad, best not to squander it on demons on the other side of obstructions.
The ledge chaingunners in the large room with the armor in the sludge at the center initially felt like a dick move with no cover.
Two revenants at once feels a bit intense for a Map 01. It's an optional battle here so little more than a minor nitpick.
I easily found the chainsaw, maybe it's Doom senses at work.

I actually like the early ammo drought, progressing actually takes some decision making in choosing what to take out when. Exited with triple 100% with 200 bullets, 50 shells, 116% health, and 112% armor without saves so there's definitely enough resources in the map to fully complete it.

MAP01: God damn Paddock throws no fake punches. He opens his level up with a relatively long and difficult opening map, forcing you to stay in cover and play extremely patiently. But it is a solid level, without being cheap or boring. Nice architecture, layout, ammo placement... it'd make you think Paddock was a vet at crafting levels. Just wish there was more health for when I ate chaingunner lead.

Jimmy91 said:

Would it be untoward of me if I were to leave my own thoughts on the maps in this thread?

Of course not, I encourage map authors to leave their ideas/thoughts/reviews here since it's fascinating from a player's standpoint how differently we look at the same level. Plus maybe your explanations can alleviate any frustrations the player had while playing your level.

mouldy said:

Can I ask people - i put both the wads into a zip file and just opened that in zdoom, it seemed to work fine but will that also apply the fix wad?

I believe it'll be fine, since that's how it works with texture packs in Zdoom.

Map 1:

I hope the difficulty here is a good taste of what's to come, pretty solid map. A few sort of tedious moments though:

- demons that aren't very threatening, just ammo sinks
- plenty of enemies on ledges that are tempting to just skip
- chaingunners borderline out of auto-aim range


I had jenesis2.wad from awhile back, didn't realize it was incomplete. So I'll be looking forward to apparently some new maps in the set. What does jenefix.wad do? (I'm too lazy to open XWE and find out for myself)

MAP01 kicked some ass. Didn't much rate the music, but it was a nicely-paced map; and works if you don't find how to get the berserk/shotgun in the first area -- which I tried because I enjoy a bit of first-map pistol play. I was swearing at the chaingunners a couple of rooms past the red door, but it was all good.

Auspicious ending, I like it.

MAP02: Providence favored me much more kindly on this map, gracing me without a death. It was most likely because after the first level, I decided to step my game up and treat these levels more seriously as opposed to the traditionally easy and simple intros many megawads have. And boy did it help... revenants were abound on UV.

SSG I felt was given a tad late, since you pretty much have to gun down a couple revs and mancs beforehand, but it's not that erroneous since each fight was handled quite fairly... I suppose I was just feeling grumpy because I missed it. Fun battles all around with pretty clever layouts... like this more than the first map because there were only a couple sniping chaingunners.

Another thing I wanted to note that I prefer about more modern wads are the sense of consistency. The first level was "Treatment Plant" and this one is "The Canal", and they portray exactly what the name implies, with no out of place rooms or conflicting colors (as opposed to Ultimate Doom). I personally like that sense of continuity from room to room, and Paddock has done an excellent job so far in keeping me impressed in that regard.

I reviewed Jenesis part 1 for /Newstuff ages ago. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Can't wait to get a chance to play through the whole thing.

I hope this club plays through Panophobia when it's released. They only ever seem to review map 1 of a megawad, and I'm hoping one of my Panophobia contributions will be map 1 :)

Map 2 - jesus this one gave me a hard time, not just cos I was struggling for ammo at the start, there were some pretty tough monsters for so early in the wad. I found myself dying a lot, I don't know if I was just having an off day but it seemed like every revenant i met managed to slap a fireball full in my face, and the open plan layout made sure there was always someone ready to shoot me in the back.

If I hadn't found that secret berserk I'd have been royally fucked in the next room, which makes me wonder what other secrets I didnt find which would have eased the pain. Still I like a challenge, and with map 2 being this hard it looks like I'm going to get one!

Map 02 - The Canal
100% Kills 60% secrets Time - 11:32, 2 deaths
Tough map, died a lot at the start, strangely had little issue after I got ssg, the level seemed to ease up at the end. This is little different playing consecutively as you are on small arms fire until the ssg anyway.
It was still fun. This is another lots of revenants type of wad by the looks of things. Shame the last wad I played was coffee break which has exactly the same formula for many maps haha. Music was lovely, my favourite part was the blue key trap.

Map02 presented a unique balance for me; there was a lot of chance to snipe at enemies early on and clear future areas, but doing so jeopardised my ammo count for closer upcoming sections. Nicely done. Loved the room with the barons with the revenant-corners, it was a nice double-trap kinda deal. Health balance on this map seemed pretty damn on-the-edge, never gave me enough but never felt unfair.

First impressions: I'm going to love this sucka. Music was pleasant too, but still pretty driving.

I forgot to mention that I am playing these levels in HMP and carrying over weapons but, unless the maps get too long or hard, I will refrain from saving except at the start of each level to continue my progress. If I die I will forfeight the arsenal I've attained so far.

MAP02 - The Canal

The theme of this map is more to my taste. This natural plutonia-like style contrasts the more rigid, angular style of the Treatment Plant although some of these traits still remain.

The layout is again well thought out but the battles are better co-ordinated. However, some of the previous transgressions reappear in the form of revenants placed in such a way that it is most profitable to slowly chip at them from range than engage them in a more risky but entertaining manner. Chaingunners will also pick you off at range once more but less frequently so in this outing. I hope these habits cease as the levels go on but in any case they will become easier to stomach when heavier weaponry is sourced. If I had found the RL before now the revenants would be less of a timesink, for example.

Better examples of revenant placement are when coupled with the hitscanners before the mancubi are released and when confined to platforms cornering the roaming baron. I found both of these fights to be a riot, although afterwards I did wonder what sort of challenge I will be getting another 10 or 20 maps down the line.

Map01: A fairly nice starting level for one that needed three keys. Revvies showing up in the first level was a warning sign that this megawad was gonna be pretty tough throughout.

Map02: Another tough level, the tight spaces really made those revs nightmares to deal with compared to the rest of the monsters in the level. No archies, yet, at least.

MAP02: The Canal

Completion stats:
Kills: 100%
Items: 100%
Secrets: 40%
Time: 7:43
Best Time: 2:30

History:
Several moons ago (back in 2004, or thereabouts), this was the first serious single-player map I ever made. It was going to be MAP03 in a stupid ZDoom mapset called "G-Force" (I think I missed a trick by not calling it "J-Force") which would feature 32 maps and all sorts of stolen new weapons and monsters. It was terrible in every possible respect and I'm glad I never released it.

However, something about the original map still speaks to me to this day. (I dunno, maybe it's just that it was the first single-player map I ever finished... that wasn't a single room done in DeePsea.) I decided to remake it for Jenesis Pt. 2, because I really loved the combination of textures I chose for it - brown stone/bricks just works so well with floors full of green nukage. Not to mention the mossy textures from Doom 2 and Plutonia used here and there in the new version of it.

Gameplay/Layout:
I love how this map turned out - one of my very favorites from the final megawad. Everything in the layout seems to fit together like a jigsaw, with the possible exception of the southernmost room, and the corridor preceding it, which both seem unusually distant from the rest of the map - although I was staying as faithful as possible to the original map's layout. The bricks, the wood, the nukage and the abundance of A-RAIL1 all seem to work in perfect harmony here.

This map is perhaps the first (of many) moment(s) in Jenesis where my overly fiendish placement of revenants becomes undeniably apparent. Two perched on the yellow skull platform while there's hitscanners and lost souls assaulting you from all sides. Right behind the yellow door - a real dick move, I'll admit. And on UV there's one in the exit corridor. Not to mention mixing them in with hell knights and barons aplenty, especially in close quarters, making dodging attacks even more difficult.

Music:
I didn't have a MIDI track for this map handy (or anything made beforehand that would fit), so I looked on stewboy's music list for anything I could use. Appropriately, there was a track called "River", which hadn't been written specifically for any project he was involved with, so I snatched it up. It works quite brilliantly, I think - gotta love that little guitar solo near the beginning. :D

Pointless trivia:
One of the testers credited on the CREDIT screen - Paul F., my cousin - sent me a bug report on this map through Skype. He reported the secret hatch in the first nukage pit as a mistexture, but soon found the lion switch to open it. :P

Jimmy, I'm loving your posts here. Absolutely amazing to me, to hear the designer's thoughts and experiences whilst making the levels. Kinda puts a background and insight into them that otherwise wouldn't have been there. Thanks. :)

You're welcome. :) It's good to go over these maps again. Feels like an eternity ago that I made them, honestly, even though it was only round about this time last year that I was wrapping up the finished thing. :P

Jimmy91 said:

You're welcome. :) It's good to go over these maps again. Feels like an eternity ago that I made them, honestly, even though it was only round about this time last year that I was wrapping up the finished thing. :P

Keep it up! They're very interesting to read.

kmxexii said:

Keep it up! They're very interesting to read.

I'll second this

Also I just played map 3 so here are some thoughts on that...

I did a lot better on this map than the last one, there seemed to be a bit more ammo and a few more walls to lurk behind I guess. Also I wasn't tearing around like rambo, taking opportunities to pick things off at a distance instead. I really like the layout of this map, a good mix of inside and outdoors and a fairly nonlinear start and uncomplicated fights. The only swearing I did was at myself for shooting a rocket in my own face.

good stuff