The DWmegawad Club plays: TNT: Evilution

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! 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 levels am I allowed to post about?
Whatever day of the month it is, is the upper limit for the map you can post on. So if it's the 6th, you may discuss up to MAP06.

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.

When do we vote on the next month’s megawad?
Voting begins on the 25th of the current month. Remember to add one “+++” before your vote to make it easier to count. For example:

+++ Ultimate Doom

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What better way to ring in the new year than to travel back to 1996? TNT: Evilution by TeamTNT is a free megawad is a commercial megawad that's part of the id-published Final Doom release (available at the local FuncoLand near you). It features all new graphics, music, and story, with the classic revolutionary DOOM ][™ gameplay you’ve been playing for twenty two years! Since this is surely going to be one of the last megawads made for DOOM before everyone moves on to mapping for QUAKE in a week, let’s get jiggy wit it*!

_{* “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” is actually from 1997, I apologize to Will Smith and the anachronistically sensitive}

Author and maplist:

Quote

MAP01 - “System Control” by Tom Mustaine
MAP02 - “Human BBQ” by John Wakelin
MAP03 - “Power Control” by Robin Patenall, John Minadeo
MAP04 - “Wormhole” by Ty Halderman
MAP05 - “Hanger” by Jim Dethlefsen
MAP06 - “Open Season” by Jimmy Sieben, Ty Halderman
MAP07 - “Prison” by Andrew Dowswell
MAP08 - “Metal” by John Minadeo
MAP09 - “Stronghold” by Jimmy Sieben
MAP10 - “Redemption” by Tom Mustaine
MAP11 - “Storage Facility” by Dean Johnson
MAP12 - “Crater” by Jim Lowell
MAP13 - “Nukage Facility” by Brian Kidby, Ty Halderman
MAP14 - “Steel Works” by Robin Patenall
MAP15 - “Dead Zone” by William D. Whitaker

MAP31 - “Pharaoh” by Dario Casali
MAP32 - “Caribbean” by Dario Casali

MAP16 - “Deepest Reaches” by Andre Arsenault
MAP17 - “Processing Station” by Tom Mustaine
MAP18 - “Mill” by Dario Casali, Ty Halderman
MAP19 - “Shipping/Respawning” by Ty Halderman
MAP20 - “Central Processing” by Drake O’Brien
MAP21 - “Administration Center” by Drake O’Brien
MAP22 - “Habitat” by Christopher Buteau
MAP23 - “Lunar Mining Project” by Paul Turnbull
MAP24 - “Quarry” by Dean Johnson
MAP25 - “Baron’s Den” by David “Mentzer” Hill
MAP26 - “Ballistyx” by Mark Snell, Jim Lowell
MAP27 - “Mount Pain” by Drake O’Brien
MAP28 - “Heck” by Milo Casali
MAP29 - “River Styx” by Jimmy Sieben
MAP30 - “Last Call” by Jimmy Sieben

BONUS CONTENT
MAP31 yellow key fix
Doomwiki
DSDA archives
Kmxexii’s review
Suitepee plays: 1 2 3
Lingyan203's playthrough
DaIcemann76's playthrought
----------
OLD THREADS
2012

• BF_THUD!
• Community Chest 4
• Jenesis
• MAYhem 2012

2013

• 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

2014

• Whitemare & Sacrament
• Scythe
• Epic 2
• Whitemare 2
• Sunder & Countdown to Extinction
• Doom 2 the Way id Did
• MAYhem2048
• Stomper
• Back to Saturn X E2
• Going Down
• Rylayeh & Crimson Canyon & Azagthoth
• Serenity & Eternity & Infinity

2015

• Resurgence
• Requiem
• ConC.E.R.N.ed & Draft Excluder
• Doom 2 Reloaded
• Valiant
• Scythe 2
• NOVA II
• STRAIN
• Icarus: Alien Vanguard
• Sunlust
• Plutonia 2
• Revolution!

2016

• 50 Shades of Graytall & Erkattäññe
• Hell Revealed
• Vanguard, Hell Ground, Bloody Steel
• Eternal Doom
• Japanese Community Project
• Ancient Aliens
• Bloodstain
• Estranged
• Alien Vendetta
• THT: Threnody & No Rest for the Living
• Hellbound
• Echelon & Mutiny

 

Edited May 9, 2023 by dobu gabu maru

01 - it's a classic, an iconic tyson starter that inspired tons of mapset authors. The berserk-based gameplay is just as dynamic as the kickass midi and the techbase design is delightfully oldschool, with some neat touches like that door that is activated by a walkover trigger. TNT officially begins when you press the exit switch only to be exposed to a new group of enemies. Welcome to Final Doom.

Oh hell yeah I am up for this. It will be great to play through an IWad that gives me a lot of good memories.

I like tnt, it's the iwad I played most as a kid. I remember hating plutonia because I sucked, though upon returning to doom in 200X I swapped on that (perhaps an overly popular opinion at this point). not sure what kind of thoughts are interesting for others to read, as I imagine many players around here have exhausted every pixel of these maps already, but I'll throw some random opinions out there, if only for the joy of being heard:

m01: this one's up there on my list of least-favorite midi of all time. I have an irrational hatred for this cheesy disjointed guitar riff, though I acknowledge this might be overexposure at this point (D_RUNNIN syndrome?). Quirky progression, sets the tone for the rest of the set decently in that regard. Similarly the F-U exit lets you know the mapset isn't messing around, in general. As memfis said, this map (and perhaps tnt10) were obviously quite influential to the pwads that followed.

Background midi is my composition.

Might as well attend this time. Happy new year from Finland, by the way.
I have played TNT little before, I guess I got half-way before quitting.

Map01 (UV) - 100% kills, 100% secrets
A rather good opener map. Rather small spatially, but small amounts of backtracking adds to length nicely. Only complaint I have is that you have to step into blue door's frame to progress is kinda vague.
The difficulty progresses nicely, and I adore tyson-start maps.

Another point of noting is the soundtrack. Unlike Plutonia, TNT has an original soundtrack to accompany it, which is rather good - although it isn't enough to cover all maps with unique music. What's there however, is enough to carry the wad, hopefully.

Here's a sweet music pack created by Lorcan that really spices up the original TNT soundtrack. It's my personal favorite, and will surely make your play-through of TNT all the more enjoyable (especially if you've played TNT before and know the MIDIs).

http://www.mediafire.com/file/sd1z8930fmar2s0/tnt-lorcan-mus.pk3

Right, it's been a couple months since I participated in one of these things. I'd meant to join in with Hellbound but welp, shit happened. My general impression of Evilution is that it jumps off the cliff in quality after a mostly solid first half. (and thus I was always one of those people who greater preferred what Plutonia had to offer) But we'll see how it plays out.

GZDoom, casual & continuous is how i'll be playing it.

Map 01 - System Control

TNT does thankfully get off to a pretty strong start with this offering, a small & quick tech base that's mostly about getting the beserk pack and going to town on the small fry inhabiting the joint. Yes, there's a couple moments where gun play might be preferred, but for the most part you can just blitz it (or do so entirely) by slugging everybody into giblets. The layout is very compact & fluid, and thus lends itself to being able to play in such a fast manner. Really fun, high energy map.

Well, TNT it is then. On a positive note, it's certainly better than the disaster that was Icarus. While probably my least favourite of the IWADs, there is still some interesting/memorable stuff here. I'm not sure how I'll be playing this yet since the vanilla gameplay isn't terribly exciting here, to say the least. As it stands now, D4DHF > Nightmare > Continuous. Also, I'm gonna go ahead and plug the 100% Walkthrough by BigMacDavis. He covers all the maps thoroughly and makes for a relaxing watch.

MAP01 - “System Control” by Tom Mustaine

I've always enjoyed this opener more than Entryway and the midi is certainly better. The Berserk gives the option of punching your way through the map, or until you grab the Shotgun from some Imps outside. There's also that fake exit that people are sure to remember. Yeah, it's a pretty good start. I'd say the earlier maps in the wad have more polish to them.

Spectre01 said:

I'm not sure how I'll be playing this yet since the vanilla gameplay isn't terribly exciting here, to say the least.

Complex Doom with videos please. At least one video if you don't want to do a whole playthrough. That would be great. :)

https://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/v/47096104 = part 1.
https://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/v/47193395 = part 2.
https://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/v/47257457 = part 3.

Well this is an easy start for my DWMC contributions in 2017! Here's my playthrough of TNT: Evilution from 2014.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL846B359B24B054B4

My TNT: Evilution playthrough! Happy new year everyone! Welcome to 2017! :)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9iDQ6RwrRr6jQohg5uxOXFdl7ZGC9Tdc

Like Lingyan203, I did a playthrough of Evilution, although mine was on HMP difficulty. :p

Evilution? Sure, why not? Count me in. Every level will be played with ZDoom + UV-Pistol Start.

MAP01 - System Control
ZDoom, UV-PS, KIS(%): 100/100/100

A nice opener to start the megawad. Just right amount of enemies to punch with your berserk fist. You can play the level in a traditional way by ignoring the berserk pack from the start, but I always find it more interesting to punch those low-tier monster with my bare hands for some reason. And yes, unlike its brother called Plutonia, Evilution offers some custom soundtracks that boost the gameplay even better. Simple, but jolly good stuff. By the way, this level offers a little surprise if you play it on co-op mode with other players. I bet everyone knows what I'm talking about. ;)

Well, my DoomFail year of 2016 is behind me, so here's hoping I actually finish a few things in 2017, starting with this megawad.

Even though I remember when this first came out, I don't know if I ever played the whole thing. I hardly ever played a full megawad back in the day, so the odds are good that this will be the first time I actually finish Evilution. Assuming I finish this time, that is. ;D

Playthrough will be casual; GZDoom, UV, continuous, keyboard-only.

Map01 -- System Control by Tom Mustaine, maxed with zero deaths.

This is a really sweet opener. I'm not much of a Doom pugilist, so I shot my way through most of it, though a few right hooks were dished out here and there. Very fun map with lots of tricky little traps. Sloppy texture work as typical of 1996 but overall decent looking and with a nice, driving midi. Color me pleased.

Hi, everybody! Well, today's the start of a new year, and it looks like we're beginning 2017 with playing an IWAD, which is none other than TNT Evilution. It is a pleasure to join in the club with this, as I will be doing a retrospective on the wad, having played Final Doom when I was just 11 years old back in 1998. Before I get started, I'm gonna talk about its story and its origins.

TNT Evilution makes one half of Final Doom, and it was created by Team TNT, consisting of some very well-known names. Ty Halderman was the leader and moderator of the project like with every other Team TNT project. Tom Mustaine designed a few levels and composed some of the soundtrack for Evilution (and Icarus: Alien Vanguard afterwards), and at the same time was involved in Memento Mori and The Master Levels, went on to work on the Wraith Doom megawad duology, notably Perdition's Gate before moving on to Quake in which he founded Hipnotic Interactive (now known as Ritual Entertainment) with Richard "Levelord" Gray of Duke Nukem 3D fame and created the expansion pack Scourge of Armagon and later on Sin. Dario and Milo Casali, like Tom Mustaine, were also involved in Memento Mori while TNT was in development and toward its completion, began making their own project which would become the second half of Final Doom, The Plutonia Experiment, which got Dario the job at Valve Corporation to design levels for Half-Life. Last but not least, we have Jimmy Sieben, while not a well-known Doom mapper, he went on to co-produce Hell to Pay with Mackey "Avatar" McCandlish (who made one map for Memento Mori, namely Map 12: Kinetics), and both collaborated with Mustaine to finish Perdition's Gate. Additionally, his brother L. A. made some music for Evilution, Hell to Pay, and Perdition's Gate. With that said, there were some talented mappers involved in Evilution, the development dates back in early 1995, and originally Team TNT intended it to be freeware, until they got contacted by id Software who offered them the opportunity to have their megawad as a commercial release, to which they accepted. Needless to say, Evilution didn't come out on its intended release date, and Team TNT had to make it up with Icarus: Alien Vanguard.

Now for the story. Evilution takes place after the events of Doom 2. Following the fiasco with Mars's moons, the UAC decided to continue gateway research, this time on Jupiter's moon Io. Despite being more prepared after eliminating an invasion from Hell, the UAC would meet its downfall when they detect an unusually large ship. It was assumed to be a supply vessel and arriving ahead of schedule, but it turned out to be a ship from Hell made of bone, flesh, corruption and death. The invading demons brought down the base and killed or converted everyone inside into zombies. You, the unnamed space marine, get wind of this, and swearing revenge for the death of your comrades and staff members, plan to eliminate as many Hellspawn that stand in your way.

Evilution faced mixed reception. Some thought the megawad was decent, while others scoffed at its lacklustre quality and blamed Team TNT for "selling out" to id Software. To see if the megawad really is that bad (even though I've played it tons of times and thought it was okay), its time to play this wad and find out. I'll be playing on Ultra-Violence in vanilla.

Map01: System Control (Tom Mustaine)
100% kills, 100% items, 100% secrets
Time: 01:50

A short and quick techbase introductory map that feels more like a variation of Doom 2's Entryway. You get a berserk pack so you can Tyson your way through the map. Rightfully so, enemies consist of just zombiemen, imps, a demon, and later a couple of shotgunners and chaingunners. The only secret is very easy to find. Pretty good and lots of fun, and there's the fake exit trick. Interestingly, in multiplayer, there's a cyberdemon out in the yard where you hit the switch for the blue key. Seems that Mustaine didn't intend it to be killable, but to have one player distract it while another goes for the switch. Here's some trivia as well: this was one of Tom Mustaine's three rejected maps for Master Levels, with the second one coming in later on in this mapset, and the third being his Inmost Dens ripoff.

Alright, time to save and wait until we take on the next map. See you then! Happy New Year to you all!

T-Rex said:

blamed Team TNT for "selling out" to id Software

This story seems to be so overblown it's not even funny anymore. Seriously, who were these people and where are their comments? I found maybe two semi-negative messages in the Usenet archive.

MAP01: An iconic opener for sure, short and plenty of nice things. The map feels like it's heavily inspired by Entryway, with the armor that seems like a reference to E1M1. Tom Mustaine must have really loved this style since his other 2 maps are also tech-bases that use mainly this combo of green wall textures + metal.

MAP02 - Human BBQ
ZDoom, UV-PS, KIS(%): 100/100/100

What a cool name for a commercial IWAD, and even perfect to describe the starting area with an actual human barbecue. Do demons eat humans for dinner? I dunno. Anyway, compare to the original MAP02 from Doom 2, the level doesn't play around with the player by throwing mid-high tier monsters, such as hell knights, revenants, and even barons of hell in the underground dungeon with a SSG. Still, from that dungeon, you can easily telefrag some of those tough monsters if you know how to solve the teleport puzzle, so it's not a big deal actually. The layout is simple, which is a good thing for a level with MAP02 slot. It's not a level with incredible quality, but it was not bad to play for me. Hey, at least this wad hasn't thrown a single arch-vile yet, right?

i last played through Final Doom 3 or 4 years ago on HMP so im interested to see how i'll find TNT after this month :p its always been my favourite of the two, simply because i think its more interesting than its partner, and that it has original music (Wormhole's MIDI is one of my favourites, even if it is overused by PWADs). PLUTMID by Jimmy et al. alleviates that second concern, and i might even play through PT for Feb if it isnt voted in for the club, just so i can make a fair-ish comparison. anyway, onto map01!
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demo here

not much more to say! this map begs you to tyson it, with absolute stacks of health and armour (GA and a BA on map01? seriously?) and i love the fake exit. i also think this is the best first midi of all the IWADs, so there's that!

^ Just a note, you can't call it "FDA" if you have played the map before.

02 - good second map. The quirkiness continues: you get a weird door-lift at the start, an openable grate you can't shoot through, and a secret room with a bunch of telefrags conveniently set up for you. The beginning can be surprisingly tricky if you aren't careful enough, as you get to fight numerous hitscanners with no armor. There is a very interesting and original use of SUPPORT3 on the street: does anyone align it like that nowadays?

first demo attempt? ive never made a demo on this map before, ∴

It's not meant to be taken literally. The term was coined by a Russian with somewhat poor understanding of English and he regrets it now. FDA is supposed to mean seeing and playing a map for the first time and recording that playthrough.

interesting. ok ill change the title.

I guess FAD (First Attempt Demo) would have been better since it's a demo of your first attempt at playing rather than your first demo of playing. Oh well, there are a few weird terms in the world of Doom that were kinda erroneous but now we're stuck with 'em!

I don't usually join in the club, mainly due to not having enough time for some of these grand scale WADs, but it's been eons since I've played TNT. I'll be recording some "first time in a few years" demos for my channel

Map01: Iconic opener, short sweet and simple techbase. We've all been here, not much more to add.

Map02: Cool name and memorable start scene. The stairs that you have to jump to from the ledge are annoying as fuck since you have to stand on the ledge of the window. If not, you get snagged and fall short. What a pain in the ass. Good map otherwise though!

MAP02: This one was quite tricky for having to face so many hitscanners with no health and armor , but it's still manageable. The best moment was the appereance of the pain elemental. We start to see some tricks used: the pool with the deep water effect and the balcony with the grate door. I really like how the secret automap is revealed, inviting the player to go for the secret SSG area and to make some telefrags there.

Map02 -- Human Barbecue by John Wakelin 94% Kills, full Secrets and Items. zero deaths

This map had a huge impact on my own mapping. In that very year of 1996, I copied that human barbecue idea and I've been roasting twitchers ever since. ;)

This is a super-fun map for us oldtimers because it's Hitscanner Heaven. Came reasonably close to dying since I forgot just how many crossfires and distant, elevated Chaingunners there are. Ah, I really wanted me a rocket launcher in some of these areas. Still totally fun to Rambo and try setting up infights. Action was fast and furious until the very end. I appreciated some of the overlooks and sniping spots for the monsters, really nice layout for that kinda stuff, plus those flying leaps to the stairway that led to the keys. Flying leaps are just intrinsically fun. My primary fail was not telefragging the Barons

Thumbs-up for a nice, vicious Map02. Wish we had more maps by this guy.

Map02 "Human Barbeque" (UV) - 100% kills, 75% secrets

A memorable level in one way - the opening screen is very striking, with the view and music.
This map starts to show TNT's affection for hit-scanners, particularly chain-gunners, quite a bit. Tons of hit-scanners, open spaces. You have to tread really carefully. Ammo isn't scarce - at least for shotgun, but for some reason, I found 10mm ammo lacking, which is kinda shame since Chaingun is great for dealing hit-scanners.

Visually, outside of rather good opener, it is kinda. While outdoors-area and etc. look great, the area with pain-elemental and SSG-secret area look rather weak. Some interesting tricks were employed ( deep water, the balcony grate ).
Music gets grating after a while, although I hold fondness for this particular track.

MAP02 - “Human BBQ” by John Wakelin

One of the more memorable TNT maps with it's iconic opening shot of said BBQ and the "twice as loud as every other midi" midi that you need to lower the volume for every time it shows up. Gameplay steps up a notch here, compared to say Underhalls in Doom 2, with the noteworthy encounters being the Cacodemon + Pain Elemental reveal and the secret SSG room with the Nobles. That one can be tricky if you don't know what you're doing going in. Plus it's got all those exploding barrels to make matters worse. Playing this part with gameplay mods, D4D in my current case, ends up breaking the telefrag sequence and making everything a whole lot worse as the Nobles walk off their teleport pads and go after you in a rather cramped and "full of things to bump into" arena. I do like the visuals in this map, especially the outdoor area with the guard towers and whatnot. An annoying aspect is that you have to circle around the map and do that window jump several times if you want to grab the blue key and hit up the secret area it opens. Or you can just use jump to save time. ;) So yeah, I like this map.

Alright! TNT! I played Final Doom back in the late 90s… IIRC my brother bought it at a GameStop in the local mall and I was so stoked to play some more (and new!) Doom, as I even remember asking him "do you think they'll have you fight two cyberdemons at once?!". I played TNT first and then Plutonia second, vastly preferring the brutal difficulty curve of the Casali’s megawad and never returning to Revilution unless I needed to poke around in some levels for some reason. I don’t know the maps enough to be confident in a no-save run like I did with Ultimate Doom, but I’m at least playing it from pistol start this time.

MAP01: An innocent opener with a couple of surprises awaiting the player. It’s kinda funny to think about how trite MAP01’s are nowadays but back then this was probably a really great sign of quality for the megawad—I mean, there’s a few of decent traps in it after all! It’s not as visually distinct as Entryway is, but the berserk-oriented gameplay and presence of chaingunners at least leave it feeling a little memorable, which is better than most megawads in the 90s (though nothing quite beats the impact of seeing Memento Mori’s opening pentagram).

MAP02: I remember this map pretty well mainly because the first time I played it, I think I remember getting lost and being blown away that I was playing a Doom map that I didn’t know like the back of my hand. Replaying it, it’s kindaaaaa interesting… there’s some good parts in it, like telefragging the nobles or the deep water in that one room, but this map also served to remind me that I'm probably going to end up killing a lot of high tier monsters with just the shotgun :P It’s definitely better than MAP02, having a bit more personality (the eponymous “Human BBQ” at the start) and a bit more bite (the PE, the exit rev).