Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
Bloodshedder

The /newstuff Chronicles #404

Recommended Posts

  • DethAwsm: Maps of Fail - Cheetahmen
    Doom 2 - ZDoom Compatible - Solo Play - 511301 bytes - (img) (img) (img) (img) (img)
    Reviewed by: BloodyAcid
    Before I had downloaded this file, the first review had caught my attention. "...Terry". My immediate reaction was "Damn, what am I getting myself into?" Hesitant, I pulled opened the first map in DoomBuilder 2. Hey, it's not that bad looking, let's give this shit a whirl.

    Let's cut to the chase. No detail, no gameplay, no storyline. Period. I only commend the author's effort in making this wad. I mean, mirrored sprites, custom sounds, shitty music, shitty cutscenes, shitty maps, shitty names, etc.

    If you were to download this, you are a lost cause.

  • JENESIS - James "Jimmy" Paddock
    Doom 2 - Boom Compatible - Solo Play - 6665129 bytes - (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img)
    Reviewed by: mawcor624
    For starters, I certainly hope that JENESIS is featured at the very top of the next /newstuff, and I've been looking for some sort of Doomworld font that involves flashing lights and foghorns in an attempt to draw people's attention to this ridiculously fantastic megawad. In fact, I don't even feel worthy of being the one to review it, and neither did the previous claimants, having withdrawn from the immense responsibility. I should also note before diving in that this megawad contains all the maps from the author's previous mapsets of JENESIS 1, 2, and 3, which have been leading up to this final release.

    In short, this megawad represents perfection in all things that are Doom, and I can easily say that it is near the very top of my all-time favorite episodes. To begin with, every map is absolutely gorgeous with excellent design choices both in textures and the architectural design of the map, so much so that entering a previously explored area often gave the sensation that I had not been there before. In addition, monster placement and UV difficulty are spot on, with well-planned skirmishes that are both fun and challenging.

    Every new acquirement of a weapon is followed by perfectly tweaked combat thereafter to compensate. Further still, ammo distribution is almost perfect to the point that I received new rounds just as as was beginning to run out, yet not so low that I had to plan every shot. Even the titlescreen and music replacements are top notch. I could go on extolling the virtues of the map design, but suffice to say that every level is id quality and will keep you hooked from the very start.

    So exactly what are the qualities that make the maps so fantastic? It would be a supreme endeavor to list each moment of surprise and awe that explains just why this represents everything that is good about Doom, but a rundown of the first two maps should be sufficient to whet your collective appetites.

    Map 01 - A fantastic representation of a remote power plant, with echoes of E1M1 written all over it, but more epic. Like I stated before, the ammo distribution and monster placement were perfect, and someone had obviously playtested the very marrow out of it prior to release. It contained a mix of both close-quarters and open combat, with scattered treats involving revenant shotgun duels towards the end. Never once was a previous area spanned without another well-thought-out battle taking place, and I can honestly say it brought back the nostalgia of first playing E1M1, but with ramped-up difficulty to meet today's demand for carnage.

    Map 02 - Leaving the power plant and going more rurally into the mountains (or such was how it felt), it seemed like I was going downstream with the chemical drift and seeing for the first time just how bad the eldritch infestation was. Being introduced to the hell knight in this map felt very genuine as two of them guarded an archway and ate your shotgun ammo while trying to smash you with energy balls; suspending my disbelief at having slain so many thousands of them over my years of Dooming was not a difficult feat to accomplish with the presentation. Clever fights abounded, with one U-shaped area used to make revenant fireballs continuously home in on the player. One devious trapped key introduced the baron of hell as the room went dark and left you alone to battle him and his band of revenant cronies.

    What else can I say? Has this gotten anyone interested? It sure should have, and what it really boils down to is this: if you enjoy playing Doom and want to have just as much fun playing it as you did the first time, and without paying a cent, then you need to download this immediately.

  • Hell's Gate - JCA
    Doom 2 - Limit Removing - Deathmatch - 126061 bytes - (img) (img)
    Reviewed by: walter confalonieri
    Hello, this time we have a fancy medium-sized map for FFA, and it's a Quake 3 map remake on Doom's engine with the same name.

    The level is pretty brilliant in the texture choice and detail department, gameplay is fast and really fluid. If I had to point out a bug, it's that bots sometimes love to jump into the lava pits (actually noted by the author in the known bugs section), and for a very brief moment I found myself without any ammo.

    Recommended!

  • Brickwater - JCA
    Doom 2 - Limit Removing - Solo Play - 105753 bytes
    Reviewed by: udderdude
    A short map for Doom 2. It's entirely symmetrical, mostly consisting of enemies attacking from opened doors and teleports. Not very difficult until the final battle, where you're in an arena with two cyberdemons and a bunch of mancubuses and nowhere to hide behind. I died a bunch of times on this until I realized there was an invulnerability sphere on the other side of the room. My strategy was to kill the cyberdemons off first while invincible, and then hide in the entrance area to to kill the mancubuses with plasma/rockets while dodging their shots (and there were quite a few coming at me). Other than that, nothing really stood out. Try it out if you want a short, fast-paced map with a lot of traps.

  • DBM Random Map - Demmon Break Master
    Doom 2 - Vanilla - Solo Play - 170568 bytes
    Reviewed by: udderdude
    One map for Doom 2. A short base map. It's pretty average in terms of gameplay and level layout. The layout is cramped, but doesn't detract from it. Really not much else to say; play it if you're looking for a quick blast.

  • Doxylamine Moon: Overdose - Lainos [B0S]
    Doom 2 - Limit Removing - Solo Play - 5263773 bytes
    Reviewed by: udderdude
    One map for Doom 2. It's a large and sprawling city map, with some impressive architecture and detail, nice custom textures, etc. Unfortunately, everything past there is downhill. There are major framerate issues in parts of the map. It brought even my Core i7 920 to a crawl. I had to lead enemies into parts of the map that weren't killing my PC in order to fight them.

    There's a really weird bug where shooting monsters with hitscan weapons causes your shots to either go through them or disappear completely. I noticed this especially late in the map, and since all you really get is the shotgun and chaingun, it renders the map nearly unplayable. I don't know if this is a BSP issue, a weapon mod issue, a ZDoom issue, or what. All I know is it ruined my play when I couldn't actually kill anything anymore because half the time my shots went right through enemies, and ammo is already tight enough as it is.

    And as usual with maps like this, once you reach a certain point and you're stuck, finding what to do is a pain in the ass. If you're going to "play" this, don't bother. It's got too many issues. Just admire the pretty scenery in god mode.

  • Deimos: Slight Return - ReX Claussen
    Doom 2 - Vanilla - Solo Play - 1697288 bytes
    Reviewed by: udderdude
    One episode for Ultimate Doom. It's a remake of Episode 2, so close to the original layouts that they're basically identical. The only real additions are more monsters and more detail. If you wanted to play Episode 2 with more detail and monsters, this is your best bet. Everyone else will probably want to pass, as there's nothing new or original here.

  • Test zero - ArchFurry
    Doom 2 - Vanilla - Deathmatch - 3088 bytes - (img)
    Reviewed by: BloodyAcid
    A 2 minute map that has no detail, no layout, no gameplay. At least it was called a test. Avoid.

  • Sandy DooM I: Entryway to Homogeneity - Sandy Claws, aka You know who -_O
    Doom 2 - ZDoom 2.50 or Chocolate Doom 1.6.0 - Solo Play - 90844 bytes
    Reviewed by: udderdude
    One map for Doom 2. This map is an obvious tongue-in-cheek spoof of Sandy Peterson's mapping style. It ends up looking and playing like a lost map from Episode 2, with more monsters and Chaingunners thrown around. I could go into a long and tortured discussion over whether this map truly captures the essence of Sandy Peterson's mapping style, but whatever, fuck that. Play it if you want a quick blast through a classic Doom-ish looking map.

  • October - NoneeLlama, purist & valkiriforce
    Doom 2 - Vanilla - Solo Play - 296809 bytes - (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img)
    Reviewed by: mawcor624
    This WAD comprises six maps which were distributed as "presents" for various Doomworld forum members with birth-dates in October, and regardless of the premise, I found much to be enjoyed within the compilation.

    The talent of all three mappers shows throughout various parts of the WAD, but I also feel that the maps do not live up to the mappers' skill, or were even meant to represent them. Keeping in mind that they were made as gifts for forum members, and not as part of a personal/major project, it should be enough to enjoy the bits of genius that do shine through the many poor design choices.

    Map 01 - purist: This map had an interesting premise owing to the extreme absence of ammunition, and I was forced to use the chainsaw throughout most of it. The initial area contains a very necessary shotgun which felt like a secret that could easily be overlooked, and the author's use (in all of his maps) of a Romero head to end the level seemed to be a statement that he was not taking the map designs seriously. Overall, a fun map.

    Map 02 - purist: While the first map's gimmick was the lack of ammunition, this one is a slaughterfest which forces you to use a rocket launcher throughout. It begins with a poor design choice of putting the launcher many paces away between multiple hell barons and mancubuses. There is no way of automatically knowing that you need to run forward and grab it as soon as the map begins, or be clawed to death in your attempt.

    However, after restarting the map and grabbing the launcher, I can't say I didn't like it. The fighting was intense throughout, and I had to be continuously on alert to ensure there was enough space with which to fire rockets. I then killed my second Romero head and moved on to the next map.

    Map 03 - purist: This map is completely unplayable, as it begins with a hallway of lava which cannot be spanned without dying. Even with 100% health and 100% armor, the hallway is simply too long, and the only way to get across is by continuously jumping, or possibly by having grabbed the megasphere in the previous level and having held on to most of it. The secret invisibility sphere in the initial room doesn't help anyone in that regard.

    Pretending for a moment that the lava hallway didn't exist, this was most likely my favorite map of the bunch, with several moments reminding me of the wave combat in Scythe 2, but in more contained quantities (being a good thing in this case).

    As with the other maps, this wasn't the most attractive environment to look at, with one of the areas being a morbidly boring, brown rat maze populated by random hellspawn, but after snagging a key, I dropped down to a cave system below. If more time was spent on the map, and if I didn't have to activate a crusher to smash another Romero head, I feel it could've been a real gem.

    Map 04 - valkiriforce: Knowing valkiriforce from his dual-megawads, Doom Core and Reverie, I can easily say that neither of his contributions here are his best work, though his natural talent still shines through. His maps also mark the end of the Romero heads.

    Sitting here now, I'm having a tough time remembering any sticking details of the map, though I can say it had some good fighting, was fairly attractive, and if you're familiar with valkiriforce's other maps, had plenty of secrets and switches. Overall a good map, but not reflective of his full potential. It also contains a game-breaking bug (screenshot 4) which forced me to use no-clipping mode to continue.

    Map 05 - valkiriforce: This map's gimmick seemed to be the endless availability of invisibility spheres, and it began with a fun battle which forced me to dance about with an arch-vile and his imp brigade before I was able to lower a super shotgun and dispatch him. This was my second favorite map of the compilation.

    Map 06 - NoneeLlama: Though this wasn't my favorite contribution, I felt that it was the most well-designed as a comprehensive map, and probably the most attractive. Personally, I just really liked the skull throne (screenshot 6) and the giant lava crater with the mancubuses dwelling within, which later played host to an aggravating battle with several pain elementals.

    The October birthday compilation is by no means a masterpiece and contains a couple of game-breaking errors, but it did certainly leave me satisfied. I'd venture to say that it'd even be worth holding onto for future playthroughs if it was cleaned up and re-released.

  • Doom: Repercussions of Evil - Meatbag
    Doom 2 - ZDoom Compatible - Solo Play - 59001 bytes
    Reviewed by: udderdude
    One map for Doom 2 using ZDoom. So, apparently someone had too much time on their hands and made a ZDoom map based on everyone's favorite Doom fanfiction. No, not the one with the imp, the other one. It's short and has some interactive parts, but seems like a lot was cut out in order to make it seem somewhat more serious in tone, even though it's obviously still a joke. Try it if you're bored and/or easily amused.

  • Smooth Weapon Animations - Per Kristian Risvik
    N/A - Boom Compatible - N/A - 145863 bytes - (img) (img) (img)
    Reviewed by: rsl
    Many Doom players surely know (and love) the set of enhanced/smoother weapon animations made by Per Kristian Risvik. This weapon set had so far been made available only to "advanced ports" players like ZDoom or Eternity, namely because the need to manage a large number of additional sprites/frames was more easily supported with a custom scripting language such as DECORATE or EDF - and consequently, vanilla purists were left out in the cold.

    Now - despite those who deemed it impossible - this mod by Jon Vail finally re-implements the set using pure DeHackEd, thus making it virtually compatible with *any* port.

    Sure, some frames had to be sacrificed with respect to the original Doomsday/DDF version (this is mostly evident on weapons like the plasma rifle or pump-action shotgun), yet the result still looks largely better than the default vanilla set. Also, since some custom levels tend to provide their own DeHackEd patches, this one might interfere a bit.

    To sum it up, if you favor one of the more "classic" ports such as prBoom(+) or Chocolate Doom, or simply like a more purist approach in general, this is definitely recommended (even as an auto-loaded WAD!). On the other hand, if you usually play using a port which runs one of the previously available versions (find them here) you won't probably be interested in this version.

  • Sandy DooM II: Fractulous Fate Entwined With Imaginary Vocabulary - Sandy Claws, aka You know who -_O
    Doom 2 - ZDoom 2.50 or Chocolate Doom 1.6.0 - Solo Play - 290460 bytes - (img) (img) (img)
    Reviewed by: udderdude
    One map for Doom 2. It's a very open ended map, but at the same time, a very closed off one. The passages you choose to go down close off and re-open after you enter and leave them, although you still have to visit most of them to complete the map. Ammo is tight early on, but thankfully you have the chainsaw from the beginning. You need to get at least two keys to open the exit up, and it's up to you which ones to get. Pretty good map that reminds me of Doom 2's open ended maps, give it a try.

  • TOT COMICS DOOM REMASTERED - Joe Anderson
    Doom 2 - Limit Removing - Solo Play - 402464 bytes - (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img) (img)
    Reviewed by: kmxexii
    This is a "remastered" release of TOT Comics Doom. I'm not sure what's been changed; I'll take the author's word that it's been improved. It's a rough around the edges set of six short single player maps and one deathmatch map. Quality is as mentioned a little shady but very playable; it's for all the world like one of the more charming works from '94. The primary locales are city blocks (with some jokes) and infested office buildings, with a few underground areas and jaunts through Hell. He's also replaced a few of the sounds. I dislike the fireball impact noise but the plasma rifle is a bit less annoying.

    Gameplay is pretty easy; you have plenty of guns and ammo to confront Anderson's challenges. The most novel maps are MAP04, which is a street war with several Cyberdemons and tons of riffraff, and MAP06, which is perhaps the best put-together level of the bunch. It's got a few interesting fights, the major one being an elevator battle at the finale. Though it lacks substance, TOT Comics Doom is an amusing, light-hearted diversion, and leaves one nagging question: who the Hell is General Kass?

  • Miniture Meyhem - fiend-o-hell
    Doom 2 - Boom Compatible - Solo Play - 243510 bytes - (img) (img) (img)
    Reviewed by: udderdude
    One map for Doom 2 using Boom. It's a survival style map, where enemies constantly spawn in the same room/area that you're in the entire time. There's a conveyor belt that constantly spawns possessed humans. Unfortunately there is a major bug with this conveyor - if you go to the end of it and run in, you'll appear on the other side, except you'll be stuck in a wall. You'll have to noclip to get out of it. Maybe this bug only happens in ZDoom, but somehow I doubt it. Anyway, avoid the end of the conveyor belt.

    Other various enemies will also appear over the course of the fight. The best place to camp out and avoid getting destroyed by the constant swarm of enemies is in one of the additional areas that open up. Going out in the open is quite dangerous due to constant chaingunners surprise attacking you.

    There are some nice custom textures, but unfortunately there are some really ugly texture misalignments lurking around. Considering how small the map is (one big room), this is pretty inexcusable.

    This map isn't particularly interesting unless you like survival style maps, so if you aren't into that sort of thing, I'd say pass.

Does this /newstuff Chronicles suck? Does your wise ass think you can write better reviews than these jerkoffs? Then get over to the /newstuff Review Center and help out. I know you must have a Doomworld Forums account because you like griping about every edition in the comment thread, but if you don't, you need to get one to submit reviews.

Share this post


Link to post
Bloodshedder said:

Most of udderdude's screenshots wouldn't download; oh the joys of MediaFire.

Their image servers are a little unpredictable. I was wondering if we should take up a collection to buy udderduke a new Print Screen key.

Share this post


Link to post

Overdose plays a lot better in PrBoom+. There's still some slowdown, but it's much more playable that way. I don't recall having any hitscan issues when I played; YMMV.

And yes, Jenesis has been a treat so far.

Share this post


Link to post

Thanks for the review udderdude. I'd say it was a fair assessment of my work. If anybodies interested, you can get a revised copy of Miniture Mayhem here. I fixed the conveyor belt and teleporting system somewhat in that one.

People are just so uppity about their texture alignment though. Unfortunately, aligning is not something I do while I map and I usually overlook it in the end. It should be about the gameplay man! The gameplay!

But in all seriousness, I consider most of my work that's up in the archives now in beta stage, so texture alignment will get worked on at some point.

Oh, and all hail Jimmi's Jenesis.

Share this post


Link to post

Yee, thanks for the reviews Walter and Udderdude!

In Brickwater the invulnerability location is different with different skill levels.. on easy it's right at your nose when you get to the arena.. on medium, it's at the middle.. and on hard where you found it.

I think my tactic was to kill the mancubuses first while invulnerable, then the cybers. More or less I gave the powerup because of the mancubuses.

Though I think it might be an interesting level if there were a whole lot of mancubuses and maybe some other monsters.. but player is not given any ammo, so he simply needs to get to the other side of the level and dodge all the projectiles. Maybe add extra difficulty with making all the monsters noclip, so all projectiles go through them and they don't kill each other, but maybe then the level need to be surrounded by monster blocking lines so they don't wander off the area.

Share this post


Link to post

I was all set to lament the absence of screenshots with udderdude's reviews, but having read that they didn't download from mediafire, that makes sense. Some interesting .WADs for this /newstuff. I quite fancied reviewing some of them myself (the Sandy Claws ones and TOT Comics Doom in particular), but got bogged down in megaWADs and RL.

I think the Jenesis review may actually be a bit too positive - to me it reads like a fanboy's gushing. Saying that, I was too slow to get round to reviewing it myself and I'm glad that somebody else is taking megaWADs too.

Share this post


Link to post

Thanks to mawcor624 for the in-depth review. In response to some of his issues with MAP01-03:

MAP01 - it's definitely possibly to beat this map chainsaw only. I regulary did so in playtesting. In fact the secret shotgun was added almost as an afterthought.

MAP03 - it's definitely possibly to survive the damaging floor at the start. It's been playtested to ensure it can be reliably done with around 20% health remaining, but you need to strafe-run.

Romero heads - these were originally a placeholder for a birthday cake graphic but my attempts at sprite art turned out to be too poor!

Share this post


Link to post

My experience with Jenesis has mostly been one of befuddlement: why do I suck at it so bad? However, I do have a tentative answer.

With some mapping styles, the player is always drawn forward by the pace of the action. You can keep running forward and shooting almost non-stop, even on your first play-through, and the player is rewarded for this with more smooth, flowing gameplay, without too many difficulty spikes. UAC Ultra is mostly like this. This mapping style favours projectile enemies as you can dance around them close-up without much risk.

With other mapping styles, the player is rewarded for playing more cautiously. Double Impact often falls into this category. You work your way around corners, eliminating all hitscan enemies in the distance before moving into the area proper. This style favours hitscan enemies of course, as they're threatening at long ranges but easily killed at long range as well.

Jimmy's mapping style is apparently one that I'm not used to. He mixes revenants with hitscanners almost constantly. When I see revenants in an arena, I feel drawn out into the open, because they're tedious to fight at a distance when their movement isn't constrained. But then, once I'm in the open, hitscanners tear me apart. Or, if I'm playing cautiously, picking apart the hitscan enemies from behind a corner, it's more likely than not that I'll get hit by a homing revenant missile that escaped my attention.

I'm not blaming Jimmy for anything - it's just that his levels are something I'm not psychologically equipped for.

Share this post


Link to post

That's a very interesting post Creaphis because I haven't really been able to explain why Jenesis (while appearing rather easy) keeps killing me unexpectedly as well.

Share this post


Link to post

In my experience Jenesis just requires a lot of attention. The difficulty is higher than it looks, but if you're expecting to be attacked from multiple angles and prepared to target specific threats immediately in most situations then you're likely to survive. I find defaulting to the chaingun in order to pick off hitscanners is a pretty good tactic a lot of the time, but also being very quick to change to something like the SSG or Rocket Launcher to deal with the bigger dangers is a must.

It's definitely worthy of praise when a map makes the player be tactically flexible and get full use out of his arsenal. A lot of the megaWADs I've been playing recently have had this effect on me, including "Hell Awakened..." and Reverie (the latter of which I'm currently reviewing)

Share this post


Link to post

I didn't feel anything that special about jenesis tbh. Just rechecked that fda bunch I posted and I died once, twice at most (few dnfs) mainly due to annoying beginnings of maps if you're playing pistol starts - map 6 comes to mind, but there were more, I just don't recall.

Share this post


Link to post

Jenesis is certainly worth the Caco it was given, but that review is a bit... over-the-top, I guess. At least, from my perspective. Perhaps I would have liked it more if it hadn't come out during the megawad surge that occurred last year (and will most likely continue into this year as well), but as-is, I found the gameplay to occasionally get a bit frustrating. The ammo placement was a little less than I prefer (or I played it wrong, who knows).

This /newstuff also seems to be made up of a lot of quirky wads.

Share this post


Link to post

Jenesis just really rewards good situational awareness. The most difficult moments put pressure on the player, demanding him or her to react to immediate threats and drawing attention from other enemies. I find this most apparent in many of the pistol starts, which remind me of Obituary in terms of drawing blood. He also likes putting the player in inescapable scenarios, either from switch-activated doors or drop offs, another way of applying pressure.

Share this post


Link to post
40oz said:

That's a very interesting post Creaphis because I haven't really been able to explain why Jenesis (while appearing rather easy) keeps killing me unexpectedly as well.

It's a mapper's goal to make player's life miserable.

Share this post


Link to post

^ One of the worst misconceptions you can have in game design.

Edit: point taken. I did take it at face value.

Share this post


Link to post
Phml said:

^ One of the worst misconceptions you can have in game design.

Come on, I wasn't entirely straight faced. But I like having a tough time solving a megawad/episode. It makes it more memorable in the long run.

Share this post


Link to post
udderdude said:

There are major framerate issues in parts of the map. It brought even my Core i7 920 to a crawl. I had to lead enemies into parts of the map that weren't killing my PC in order to fight them.

Please don't review the wads that you can't play normally.

Share this post


Link to post

It's not like he's played it with a crap rig or anything. If there are slowdown issues, then that is something that should be mentioned.

Share this post


Link to post

Doom2.wad sucks because it slowdowns to single digit FPS on my 2.4ghz dualcore with a 8800GTX when I crank up every graphical setting to eleven on GZDoom.

It's reasonable to mention performance issues with specific ports. It's retarded to assume those problems are inevitable if you haven't even tried any other port.

Share this post


Link to post

zDoom was the only port I could get it to work in. Also, the framerate issues were negligable compared to the 'Shots go right through enemies' problem.

Doom2.wad sucks because it slowdowns to single digit FPS on my 2.4ghz dualcore with a 8800GTX when I crank up every graphical setting to eleven on GZDoom.


It actually ran better in gzDoom than it did in zDoom.

"wahhhhhh that mean ol' Udderdude didn't like my map/my favorite map!" whining is really starting to get old.

Share this post


Link to post

Hey, guys.

First of all, thanks mawcor624 for the review of Jenesis. :) Very grateful for the in-depth review of the first two maps - MAP02 happens to be possibly my favorite of the entire bunch.

And thanks to the rest of you who've been leaving Jenesis a bunch more /idgames reviews. All the feedback is appreciated. :D

As to the difficulty of Jenesis itself... yes, it is probably more than you can be expected to deal with first time. Clearly the number of revenants per map was far in excess of what it should be - and I bet a large percentage of the frustration around the megawad's difficulty is based on my overusage of them. To me, however, they make an ideal middle-difficult enemy - not as devastating as mancubi, or archviles, but easier to deal with (and place in the map) than cacodemons and Pain Elementals.

Adding further to the megawad's overall difficulty is the fact that unfortunately I have made it a habit to always play on HMP (unless I'm testing, or I feel the need for a bit of a challenge). I don't know what it is, but I'm a very, very bad Doom player... somehow UV always has me tearing my eyes out in frustration at how bad I suck.

It's possibly for this reason that the mod is a bit unbalanced on UV - not as much testing was done by me on that difficulty, but I knew to make it harder by including more monsters and making it more challenging. Certainly my testers helped where they could to reduce the sheer overkill factor on the higher difficulties, so many kudos to them.

I suppose you should view Jenesis as being a typical UV megawad experience on HMP, and something quite a bit more challenging than normal on UV itself. This was actually quite far from my original intentions, which was to make a really quick and dirty "easy" megawad - certainly not something as merciless as it actually turned out.

I'd also like to address the mention of "inescapable situations". These were one thing I took care to never include in my maps since I know how they're typically considered terrible mapping practice, but also they weren't mentioned at all during the long testing process for the project - apart from the pits in MAP01, which since had ladders added to them to allow for a means of escape. From that point on, I made an effort to keep the number of such scenarios down at zero. However, it is fairly possible that I missed a couple others, and now I'm curious - are there any standout inescapable scenarios that I missed out?

Share this post


Link to post

By inescapable situation, I mean a map section that the player can't easily retreat from. A good example would be the Revenant / archvile murder pit in MAP26, which can only be accessed by blind drops into the cave itself. The idea is that you can't just poke your head inside and then proceed at your leisure; once you enter an "inescapable situation", you are committed to finishing it.

Share this post


Link to post
×