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dobu gabu maru

The DWmegawad Club plays: Stardate 20X6 & Monochrome Mapping Project

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Capellan said:

Realm is an opportunity to mock .... uh, I mean "critique" ... SteveD's maps, so it gets my vote :)


Thanks, Capellan! ;D Ya know, there's a famous error that I did twice on Map23 of RoC. I won't spoil your fun by telling you what it is, but I'll say I snorted laughter when I ran into it. ;)

Yes, I vote Realm of Chaos, too. There are some fun maps in that one that I haven't played in at least 10 years. I was quite pleased by the first 3 maps in a recent playthrough, and was completely destroyed on Map04, which is where I stopped. Yes, there is pain to be had in this oldie.

BTW, my deepest apologies to the group for my lack of participation this month. I do anticipate a certain amount of crazy busy time every month, but this June is freaking insane. I still intend to finish up Stardate -- I was loving Map06, but it seemed like I'd killed 3 million monsters and I think I had just obtained the red key! And this is a 3-key map! ;D Now that's what I call an adventure. Good thing I save often. ;)

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MAP19 - Up Town by Jaws In Space
No Billy Joel puns will be used in this review.
This is probably the best of Jawsinspace's maps, there is a definitely sense of threat though personally the map could have been spaced out a bit more to increase the number of angles you can get hit from. You have to fight for every weapon and the only objective is to grab the yellow key, all weapons and power ups are optional.
Finding the lifts actually wasn't too difficult and were marked well enough that I could spot them, same with the teleporter to the yellow key. On the other hand it took me a while to think that the platform with the yellow key was actually a lift.
There were numerous issues though. Yet again this doesn't feel very monochrome, especially with the sky and the bars in the final room. The placement of the cyberdemon is simply awful so I completely ignored grabbing the bfg. Also the map felt very buggy as many monsters had to be shot to wake up, there was a caco horde which could only be woken up by going to their hideout. Some monsters simply glitched and disappeared for no reason whatsoever.
It's an ok map but a lot of goofy moments in there.

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I noticed the weird monster behavior during St Alfonsos playthrough of my map. He said that I may have exceeded the blockmap limits. The thing is I didn't have any trouble with monsters when using PRBoom before the map was added into this wad.

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Jaws In Space said:

I noticed the weird monster behavior during St Alfonsos playthrough of my map. He said that I may have exceeded the blockmap limits. The thing is I didn't have any trouble with monsters when using PRBoom before the map was added into this wad.

hmm it could be zdoom/gzdoom related then.

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When I tested this map in PrBoom+ and Chocorenderlimits, some monsters weren't able to see and/or hear the player. So it's not a (G)ZDoom-specific issue.

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MMP MAP19 Up Town

This...made me very nauseous. Another Downtown-esque level, but not as good as the previous. I also had the issue of "blind" monsters, as I call it, that had already been mentioned, although not every monster was necessarily "blind". For completionists like me, this was an absolute nightmare. I had several monsters running around, meaning I had to waste time finding them. Imp closets in particular were targeted first so I didn't forget. The general layout was bonkers and very confusing to go through; for example I was humping walls looking for certain elevators which was definitely not fun. I actually ignored the teleporter to the yellow key for a long time, stupid move. Lucky enough there is enough ammo for dealing with most of the monsters. I had to speed through some of it ignoring a majority of the enemies, some of which haven't awakened. If there was one good thing I liked about this level, it was the more tougher monsters were more present, trying to liven my experience a little more on a dull level like this. The spiral at the end with the cacos was kinda cool, and having Hell Knights and Arachnotrons around kept me going. The cyberdemon placement was asinine though, would be better at ground level. So overall, a weak map with confusing layout. Final Time 8:10.

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Monochrome
MAP19: Jaws’ final map is a city-based one (always welcome additions to a megawad) made up of the dark boxy texture, which I can only presume is used to indicate that it is night as all the residents are sleeping and fail to notice you. I find this disappointing since the greatest strength of city maps is having a legion of monsters hunting you down as you traverse it (Xaser’s map in HYMN implemented this very well), but here they stay static up until you invade their personal space. Moreover Jaws’ love for tight areas return to make this city feel alarmingly claustrophobic, especially in the right hand section which just feels fruitless to wade through. If I was to pick one word to describe the city, it’d probably be that—fruitless, since there’s little to no rewards for exploring or fighting the bulkier monsters. Hell, there was a completely baffling moment where I took what I presumed was a secret elevator up into a CROWD of cacos I couldn’t possibly kill with my ammo composition. What exactly was I supposed to do there?

Obtaining the plasma gun was the saving grace and I was unable to activate the elevator near the start after falling down below, which meant I struggled through yet another map without the SSG (which made the final caco spiral a chore to push through). Despite my gripes I still am somewhat amused by Jaws’ 90s approach to designing as you never know just what you’re going to get as you travel down a hallway. It’s interesting from that standpoint, but certainly not as well designed as it initially appeared to be.

Stardate
MAP05: Yup I’m still playing it; decided to put my big boy pants on and give this a go. And jeez, I don’t know why Ribbiks hates people that play Doom so much, but he seems overly amused with throwing the cruelest traps our way without remorse. Perhaps its a twisted love, but the blue key room seems to suggest nothing but malice :P

Anyway, the nuance of the gameplay shifts once again towards much smaller fights with a lot of freedom to move around and explore at your own pace. It isn’t a breezy walk through the complex however as numerous baddies trail your scent and won’t go down until you’ve expanded your arsenal and stuffed that backpack with ballistics. There’s definitely a step up in difficulty at this point as the style moves more towards immediately lethal encounters, like the AV-cyber pincer at the start or imp-HK flood in the red key room or Mastermind-HK flood down below. Most encounters not only killed me outright but demanded more corpses from my frail existence until I knew just where and how every enemy would arrive. I didn’t mind so much as it was exhilarating to conquer each challenge, but this difficulty is definitely a notch above my tolerance threshold on UV so far (not that I can back down with only two maps to go!)

Besides that, the only battle I can say I actually disliked was the blue key one, since I couldn’t spin around fast enough on my keyboard to properly keep the cacodemons at bay. This left me with a measly 25% health left after finally surviving that wave just to encounter 6 troublesome Pain Elementals, which was quite a tense scuffle (I mostly hid in the corner of the doorway of the arena, firing the PG right and left sporadically to keep the Lost Souls at bay and hoping they’d block the PEs from spawning more). To me this was the only fight that bordered on an unfair “how am I supposed to do this?” mentality, as each of the other encounters had a natural flow to them (although I wish the beams in the mastermind area were a bit wider since she can easily nick you if you aren’t positioned well behind them). The final fight was very lively and fun for me, possibly because I made it through on my second attempt thanks to the extra 10 seconds the invul granted me to get some great crowd control with the revenants (I reloaded the save to finish off everyone in the arena, but that oddly a much longer affair despite the 30 stragglers left). It’s probably my favorite finale so far, but that's because I do enjoy the bony bastards en masse.

Visually, I’m not sure how I feel about this one. It doesn’t use the somewhat lackluster gray texture seen in Tangara to a large extent but its a pretty wild mismatch of color schemes and lighting, featuring some really gritty dark areas along with the central lit hub. I think the Mastermind’s caged area looked the best, with a lot of cool detail like the little glowing triangles on the floor adorning her abode. The ending area was really impressive as well, with the purple squares appearing out of the void as you step further and further up. Other than those two instances the map felt very par for the course for Ribbiks, not really throwing some interesting highlights out there and the themes seemed to be too closely correlated that they clashed at times, while simultaneously keeping the map looking wild and elaborate. Maybe it's because I just like consistency so I wasn't so enthused.

Overall, an impressive, painful map that really puts the meaning back in DOOM.

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I think I'd like to do Hell Revealed next month as I've gone too long without getting properly aquainted with it. All of the picks look interesting so I'll give any of them a go.

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dobugabumaru said:

(not that I can back down with only two maps to go!)


I believe in you :)

that grayvrack texture I spam seems to not sit well with people, I kinda like how nastily it mixes with the other stuffs, but I guess I just have shit tastes in aesthetics. if you continue on, a slight word of warning that map06 is probably the ugliest in the set, being the oldest and least polished visually. gameplay is probably my favorite though, extremely harsh (assuming you're playing from pistol start).


also if you guys pick Hell Revealed or Kama Sutra for next month I'll likely join in, I don't think I've given either of these 'classics' the attention they might deserve.

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Stardate 20X6 MAP06 Vehelits

I too, have not quit Stardate. This particular map I found to be much more fun than MAP05 to be frank. There is a sort of "outer ring" to the main part of the level, I'd call it, with the typical Ribbiks set of fights, which are always moderately tough to tough. The toughest of those was the southwest part of the "ring". Two hellknights, then I press a switch to release three archies. Yeah, real fun that was. I kinda half expected something like that though, considering this is the semi-last level.

Anyways, to get the first key I had to go to the center of the "ring". Guess what? Toughest part right there. Pressing two switches makes the key accessible but lowers two cybers to help kill some monsters. Picking up the key released two archviles. After many failed attempts at running I decided to do the following...1. Enter room and quickly hit the switches. 2. Do the "circle the enemies as they kill each other" technique. 3. Kill the cyberdemons, now weakened. 4. Grab the key and quickly smash the archies with rockets to prevent them from resurrecting too many monsters.

*sigh* That was ridiculous. The battle after the red key door was much easier. I used the same technique as before, having revenants, cacos, and the HK's on towers attacking each other before cleaning up and pressing switches to go to said towers, to access the blue key.

Then through the blue door, oh great, platforming. Not my specialty. Luckily it wasn't too hard and I was able to get rid of opposition as I went along. And then the final battle. I again had a number of failed attempts that got me irked, so...1. Lure the spiderdemon away from the switch and press it revealing the cybers. 2. Get the cybers to kill the spider (by this time the other monsters would come in.) 3. Use the "circling" technique again until all smaller opposition has been rightfully eradicated by the cybers. 4. When that is done, finish up.

Whew, that was quite a ride. Very fun yet really difficult, and will take a ton of tries even on HMP. Unfortunately I still ask, where's my super gun? Final Time 31:32.

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Looking back, I reckon it's not so much the texture itself that doesn't sit as well with folks, but rather that it sees its primary usage in Tanagra, which is the boxiest and least flashy of the Stardate layouts, and in Sector 8, which is thematically all over the place in a way that the other maps generally aren't. I thought it looked fine in Vehelits, though. In fact, I think Vehelits in general is pretty cool-looking, with a number of memorable scenes (the central red key pool, the hell knight/starting towers, the big blood fount comprising the final areas). Certainly wouldn't say it's the ugliest, at any rate.

Anyway....

Map 19 -- Up Town - 100% Kills / No Secrets
The most important/interesting things about this map have for the most part already been covered by others. The unusual monster behavior, which breaks the gameplay (though not fatally) in a few places, is, I would venture, in some way related to some kind of nodebuilding problem. Or at least that's what I seem to remember being said about some past instances of the phenomenon.

It's sad, really. If not for the bug, I think this would have easily been the best of Jaws' maps...it's certainly the most advanced/complete effort as far as its construction goes. While it's still heavily orthogonal, and still cramped in some places, it's the most compositionally coherent by a long shot (e.g. some sort of cityscape is being depicted), and also the most height-varied. Crucially, this height variation is not simply aesthetic or incidental, but it's actually genuinely relevant to how the player moves, traverses, and fights throughout the map--there are many Downtownesque jumps from building to building to be made, a plethora of ledge snipers to watch out for (the window imps tend to be a non-factor on account of the bug, though), and more. Personally, I didn't find telling lifts from non-lifts to be difficult, although I think it was more luck than skill or astuteness that saw me attempt to treat the yellow key platform as one--that one really isn't called out well, and it's no wonder Alfonzo walked right by it and ended up baffled. Item and ammo placement are more characteristically reasonable again in this map, recovering from the decidedly diarrheal approach that Town Hall took. The player is made to move all around the map, pick his/her battles, and always be on the lookout for ammo and other supplies, which I think works well in an open-plan city map like this. Sometimes it can be very tight, but there is in fact enough ammo to kill everything without having to resort to full-on austerity tactics. The key is to scrounge up enough plasma to eliminate the cyberdemon (he can actually be dueled fairly safely at close range where he is placed, as long as you maintain the high ground), and then to use the BFG he was guarding to eliminate the mastermind.

Yeah....a shame, like I said. While it'd be far from perfect even in the absence of the bug, even as-is there's a bit of enjoyment to be had here. The potential for this to play surprisingly well is there, but as it stands, the technical issues hamper it to the point where Support Storage is probably still better, despite having a much poorer layout.

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Monochrome Map 12: Abstraction Complex
Similar but inferior to map09 in every way: less interesting fights, less interesting architecture, less elegant use of the monochrome concept. Had it come earlier in the wad, I probably would have been more enthused about it. After map09, it rates a "meh".


Monochrome Map 13: Tan Temple
Apparently this is a level I was supposed to hate, but I didn't really. POssibly because I yoinked the blue key from next to the 3-key door, so didn't need to spend any time actually looking for it :)

Very much a Scypek2 map - experimental and quirky. That sometimes goes horribly wrong (his Mayhem12 maps), but here it's not too bad at all. I also liked his 100 lines map, despite it being gimmicky, so maybe I am mellowing :)

Combat is very easy in this, and seems mostly a secondary thought. Some odd visuals, like the (deliberate I think) HOM creating the "swathe" torches. I was amused by the river of stone.

Didn't really do much with the monochrome concept (or in this level's case, the "only two textures" concept, which was an allowed option for the project). But I'm coming to expect that.

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I'm trying to wean myself off doing overly long writeups describing every nook and cranny of the entire level, and just give a summarisation of the highlights/key points of the level.

Nap 15: Whiteroom (UV/Pistol start. 99% Kills, 97% Items, 50% Secrets. Death count = 3.)

http://youtu.be/8Uk1nLFkdm4 = my playthrough of Whiteroom.

Schwerpunk leads by example in a decently challenging monochromatic map!

The style of the map is again like that of Membrain's maps (or original project textures/colors), but schwerpunk does a lot more with it. I like the scrolling grey texture floor as a pain sector (granted it was also done in Tan Temple). Of particular highlight on this map is the corridor with the flashing wall reveals, which felt like a Doom museum of sorts; not seen that trick done before. I also liked the outside area with the "lightning" flashes. The room that says "this room currently has no purpose" also intrigued me, and I can't decide if this was a secret or just a bizarre note that this room was a WIP...

The main thing I found interesting about this level though was the challenge factor, which the return of my death count speaks volumes. It's possible I could have made this slightly easier on myself with some better exploration, but for a large part of the level I didn't have a comfortable amount of health/ammo to work with and had to be very careful! Needless to say having to chainsaw two pain elementals is a sign of some serious ammo shortage!
The challenge never felt unfair though, just about right with schwerpunk teasing JUST ENOUGH ammo and health to keep the player going until the big pickups later on. And having the chainsaw be a 'secret' early on (which means you'll skip an early room like I did if you fall down afterwards) was very useful for the player to have. There's also a complete lack of armor throughout the entire level (unless I missed it in that one room or there's a secret with it) with the exception of 6 armor shards, meaning you're gunning on health alone. A lone Archvile remains in hibernation right in front of the player until you pick up the yellow keycard in one room, a nice trick there. I also liked the Pinky teleport trap on the bridge near said yellow keycard. A nice mixture of monsters throughout the level also.

I managed to complete the level (two Barons and some Pinkies at the end of a rainbow portal for a climax, not all that great) without exploring two major areas, so I went back and cleared them in a Doom wad first of going back on myself post-finale! Turns out the level kind of has a circular feel to it somewhat, only needing the red key to finally exit the level (and the yellow key for a secret switch).

Overall this level was a good example of how to use the monochromatic textures for the intended project style to good use, with decent visual appeal and most importantly for me, a good challenge and gameplay feel to the level! There's also a sense of minor exploration to the level in its circular feel, with a variety of things to see and kill. Schwerpunk asked me via PM to not go lightly in my critique of his map, but I see very little to critique here in all honesty.

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Monochrome Map 14: Shortwave
Membrain's final map (and it's obvious from the first 5 seconds that it's a Membrain map) is the best of the three. Architecture is about on a par with the first, but the action is a couple of steps better, with some fun melees and plenty of neat sniping opportunities. Good to see him end his contributions on a high note.


Monochrome Map 15: White Room
Visually reminiscent of Membrain's maps, this is a pretty good level on the whole. I suspect it would be a bear to have played from pistol start though, as the health and ammo seemed quite scant.

I liked the bright white panels as switches - effective use of the monochrome theme there. Also liked the doors flashing before they opened; another thing that worked well with the black and white palette.

Nice to get two strong levels back to back like this. I've caught glimpses of bad things about map16 in the thread, so I might save that for tomorrow and end tonight with a good experience :)

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MAP20 - Monochromatic Affinity by Cacowad
I believe the monster teleport traps have random monsters popping out, this leads to the situation I had grabbing the ssg when an archvile appeared, now there is absolutely no cover meaning instant death sentence, not a good first impression.
I guess there are some good looking spots but the scripted battles were rather unfair with the one in the central room leaving me with 3 health and no ammo at the end. Very painful.
There was a lot of stuff I didn't manage to get and have no idea how to get the stuff and kill the enemies where it is located, add to that the 0 secrets is a blatant lie as there are passages hidden with fake walls etc.
The final room is simply dreadful and put me on the verge of ragequitting, add to that I had plenty of rockets but not a single rocket launcher was located.
Fair to say this map left a very sour taste

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Map 16: Town Hall (UV/Pistol start. 100% Kills, 92% Items, 100% Secrets. Death count = 1.)

http://youtu.be/HcOHk0w_SEk = my playthrough of Town Hall.

Jaws In Space for his 5th map of the project delivers some carnage!

Have you been influenced by yet ANOTHER Doom map Jaws? Because this map strongly reeks of 'Refuelling Base' from Doom 2, even starting out with a similar "secret" (it doesn't count as one on this map) to the player's right in an identical room to the original. This is also the third JIS map to have a very similar grey colour visual feel to it, meaning that either Jaws ran out of dynamic colours to use or he REALLY likes grey. Grey grey grey grey grey grey grey.....

The map itself is quite a frantic one despite the 'meh' colour texture, with the opening alone throwing 100+ monsters at you in a layout similar to that of Refuelling Base. This includes a wide mixture of monsters that are symmetrical on both sides (as far as I could tell anyway), including some painful Pain Elementals, Revenants, Cacodemons and lots of Pinkies. Luckily there's plenty of items around, including 2 Godspheres just lying there on either side! Needless to say they should be used (I played too conservatively as I was expecting more, but I still used one of them). Berseker pack comes in handy for dealing with the numerous Pinkies around the level, as despite having a decent stockpile of ammo you may find yourself struggling at times with a lack of it due to the sheer amount of monsters thrown your way. I suffer my lone death whilst running into a few Hell Knights in said opening room.
There's a small radioactive 'crate maze' to the right, and a nice wall lowering ambush similar to Refuelling Base's BFG room on the left, albeit with extra teleporting baddies in the opening room behind you. Also on the right is a claustrophobic area of sorts, where you'll do battle with a few pesky Revenants and Hell Knights in some CQC. The lighting in this section is quite nice. Also on the left is a room with candles and hitscanners, and lowering two of the 'secret' walls reveals a Plasma gun (+ hitscanner ambush all around the player which was nicely done) in one of them. This area is eeriely similar to Refuelling Base's area full of hitscanners, albeit on a smaller scale.

Through the door marked 'blue' on the floor is a nice 'block tower' of various Imps (and Pinkies below), with the BFG at the foot of the room. I made good use of the rocket launcher here to pick off the various Imps. Nice use of Imps here, although this room can be completely ignored to complete the level (you'll want the BFG though!).
The final room is located past another claustrophobic 'maze' area that has a Megasphere in it. Said maze area is accessible either via a secret wall in the blue keycard ambush room (the automap helped me spot it) or via running over the central route in the box room after climbing the stairs via the dark area on the right.
Cyberdemon and Mancubi await. BFG them away, don't be as daft as me in the video. Level end! At least this level had a good ending, although it felt about as menacing as the one in Outpost Gamma.

Overall this is the best map Jaws In Space has brought to the project so far! (with only one to go) While the visual design was nothing to speak of aside from that "Imp box" room, the intense slaughter-esque gameplay of dealing with multiple monsters for long periods of time in the frantic opening, and just about keeping up the pressure after that made for a good level gameplay flow-wise, with some nice ambushes to test the player along the way. The 300+ monster count never felt like a drag on this occasion, and Refuelling Base isn't a bad map to base your own off in my opinion. Will Jaws be able to top this for his final contribution I wonder?

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Suitepee said:

I'm trying to wean myself off doing overly long writeups describing every nook and cranny of the entire level, and just give a summarisation of the highlights/key points of the level.


I'm actually surprised you do such extensive write ups since I feel like your let's plays already encapsulate the whole experience. I'm sure the authors appreciate the extra commentary though.

Monochrome
MAP20: I wanted to love this map. I really did. From the cool bordering along the ground and ceiling, to the very scenic pillars dotting the horizon, to the neat silent warp of the ascending stairs, to the switch that inverts colors… a lot of good ideas were implemented here. Enemies pace about the map from all corners, providing the crowd convergence that I wanted from MAP19. It was one of the few maps that wowed me, and I think it performed excellently as a monochrome map. The ammo and health felt very imbalanced though as some areas were covered in it but others were dry… yet it was still fun to play and explore.

And then the arenas. My god. How much were these playtested?

I ran out of ammo in the PG arena by the fourth wave which broke my spirit, as I had no way in hell to beat the map since killing each enemy is required to move on. That and putting chaingunners on the alcoves and archviles in an open arena with thin pillars only on one side for cover is extremely sadistic. Perhaps if I did better crowd control with the PEs it would’ve gone smoother, but alas, it was not meant to be. Upset by this sudden downturn, I noclipped out and proceeded to move on, where I ran into the SSG arena and was permanently stuck after the first wave, as the next one failed to warp in or the exit failed to lower. I noclipped out once again and went to the final arena, which I found hilariously sadistic again, only giving two stimpacks to heal your wounds in a chamber full of elevated chaingunners and an archvile charging you. Why?

He’s been complemented plenty by me so far, but really, Ribbiks’ maps rarely border on unfair, challenging the player to understand layout and utilize all their weapons within a single arena. It’s extremely startling to go from those well crafted challenges in Stardate to something like this, where I am stuck in a single place with no ammo left and an archvile pops in opposite of a pain elemental as a chaingunner fires from behind me. There feels like no method, no progress I can make, no reason behind it. I don’t feel like there’s concern designed behind whether I’m ready or whether I have enough health/ammo to undertake something of that magnitude. I’m just thrown into a challenge of “oh man this is a tough composition!” without regard about whether or not the battle is flowing well. Really, the second wave in the PG arena should’ve been the last. The final battle would’ve been fine with a supercharge handed over and making sure I had the goddamn rocket launcher before assailing me with perched assholes. If there were any waves past the first in the SSG arena, I would’ve been screwed since I only had 7 shells. I mean, goddamn.

I dislike this level so much because I really, really wanted to like it ;_;

(Upon doing some research, apparently the enemy waves are random? While this sounds interesting in theory, it really, really needs to be playtested up the wazoo to make sure its beatable no matter what combination you get, as multiple archviles pretty much ensure a dead run. That and cb ran into archies in the open SSG arena which is the definition of bullshit.)

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dobugabumaru said:

- Hell Revealed
- Realm of Chaos
- Vile Flesh
- Kama Sutra

I'd like to nominate Memento Mori 2, but out of those four, Hell Revealed is my clear favorite.

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MMP MAP20 Monochromatic Affinity

Oh dear, I'm losing hope in this project! This direly should have been playtested! I mean, the design isn't too bad (reminiscent of Membrain's maps as well as schwerpunk's), but the gameplay, as had been said, was dreadful. So I'm guessing, that when I pick up a weapon, enemies are picked at random for about three rounds? Yikes, not cool. Luckily in my run I only had to face one archvile, for both SSG and plasma gun, it could have been way worse. Outside of the arenas there were only the small fries to take down. But, the layout got on my nerves, cause apparently there were silent teleporters leading me to some places and in my opinion that makes the level flow rather badly. It got to the point where I went "fuck it" and ran to the exit...only to get caught up in another asinine trap! An archvile lowers then closets open revealing chaingunners and revenants! The perfect combination for pissing anyone off. I ended up very much bruised by the end of this. So to sum it up: okay visuals, awful gameplay, very, very difficult and grinding from a pistol start unless luck is on your side (didn't even bother to get 100% kills this time, and there were no secrets either). Final Time 6:25.

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Monochrome Map16: Town Hall
1994 has got it goin' on.
Others have pointed out the hilarity of the imp pyramid, but it's really only the most memorable example of this level's many weirdnesses. Definitely got the feel of an early level, with the "try any old thing to see if it works" mentality of the time.



Monochrome Map17: ZdLightCrap
No.

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Map 20 -- Monochromatic Affinity - 100% Kills / No secrets
Again, the most interesting points about this map have already been covered by other posters, and I agree with the general consensus that this was a map with a good amount of potential that was spoiled by some very questionable choices in gameplay design.

My single favorite thing about the map is the optional floorplate switch that simply inverts the color scheme from black-on-white to white-on-black (and back again at any time, if you so desire). For such a simple effect, this has a surprisingly large impact on the feel and mood of the level. Having seen it here, I now wish that the many other newsprint maps had done a similar thing (although I suppose map 18 sort of did, in a way) to mix things up visually. Indeed, I think I'd say that visuals ended up being the map's strongest point. While there are a few bland corridors and lighting dynamics are mostly absent, there are also several scenic views of large, airy spaces finished with some tasteful structural design, as epitomized by the northern terrace with its grand staircase and stately columns. I think the overall feel is kind of similar to that of Whiteroom, but I'd say that Monochromatic Affinity develops the idea quite a bit more, and seems less directionless.

Gameplay is where the map falls on its ass. Its face, even. From a pistol-start, the opening impression is deceptively positive; within a few moments there are a ton of guys after you, and you have several different paths to try (and down which you will inevitably be forced if you try to hold your ground with your peashooter) as you scramble for arms and ammo, which is pretty fun in my book. The map also interconnects fairly well, both through general layout and through the implementation of a few magic warp-pipes, ala Super Mario Bros. So, bearing all of this in mind, it's fast-paced and nonlinear, right? Wrong. While you can do things in any number of different orders, the hemorrhaging wounds which are the arena fights demand that actually succeeding entails collecting most of the ammo from the rest of the map before entering them, which is something that it is very unlikely most players will do before having made many different attempts.

Still, I think that sort of route-development could be excused as a puzzle aspect if the arenas themselves weren't such an insult. While I won't go as far as to agree that they seem categorically unfair and luck-based, I will agree that they are pretty much anti-fun. There is a heavy feel of metagaming to these setups--for example, the key to the wall-less dais arena is, very clearly, to A) stand so that all the monsters have their backs to you when they appear, giving you a cheap first shot, and B) exploit the shit out of the infighting behavior, especially if your group contains an arch-vile. If you're good at this technique this one isn't so bad, but the other arena is an agonizing, endless resource-vampire that more or less requires you to save the majority of the map's supplies just for it (or to get lucky and receive some very berserk-viable waves)--really, did there have to be that many waves? Who on earth thought that was a good idea? I could maybe buy into it a little more if the enemy combinations were consistent and custom-crafted, but instead they are directionless and quasi-random (they certainly aren't truly random--for example, there are no pinkies and no zombiemen, never more than one arch-vile, etc.). For every combination that could theoretically make a good fight in this room, there are a dozen more that simply invite camping out by the stairs and picking things off as they clumsily approach. Really turgid.

The final ambush is much less irritating in comparison--the trick is to lure the arch-vile to come up the stairs onto the landing with you, and then jump down off the back side. Given the nature of monster pathing in Doom, he is unlikely to make his way back down, more or less neutralizing him while you deal with the alcove-snipers by using the landing as cover....still kind of metagamey, I guess. Oh, and ditto those powerups Cannonball mentioned--you get them just by jumping over the 'railing' in a spot where it's slightly lower (or the floor is slightly higher, whatever) than at other points.

Yeah, the forced, metagamey arena combat really stifles this one. Hell, it feels like waiting in line at the fucking DMV. Your map in HYMN was a lot better, Cacowad, largely because it doesn't really force the player to slog through it like this one does.

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MAP21 - PaintTheTownRed by Death Egg
Lots of lag which was probably the only spoiler of this map and that is not the authors fault :P
This is a full blown neighbourhood style map in full monochrome and frankly it looks awesome, with garden gnomes too. This map isn't too hard to navigate with some quite brutal gameplay, I found it interesting that the primary weapon here is the rocket launcher, it's nice to see a mapper put further risks into their mapping whilst still going for the monochrome goal. This map does turn into a bit of a slaughterfest towards the end, but it's fun and not too difficult as long as you don't get crowded in. The hardest part I thought was the initial escape from the house.
One minor complaint would be the lack of height variation in the battle set up as balconies and windows could have been added for monsters to snipe the player, but that is the only thing I could come up with.
Great map, really stands out.

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thank you all for playing this, is really appreciated.
i had to playtest it by myself, but is now clear to me that i can't do this really well, since i know everything about my map(s) and this fake my feelings about it... anyway, changelog:

from the wiki:

"Vanilla Doom secrets are always sectors with the sector special 9. Boom added a "secret flag" in the sector special allowing to combine it with other effects by adding the value 128 to said other effect. In UDMF and Hexen format, the secret flag for sectors is instead 1024, this change was required to support more sector special types."

i was using the vanilla special while mapping in udmf. secrets should display as intended now.

arch-viles removed from the random spawner.
drastically reduced the chance for a pain elemental to appear.
added low tier monsters into said spawner even i higther difficulties.
removed any kind of scripted barriers.
made the rocket launcher non-secret.
made avabile more health\ammo where needed.
removed 3 spawnspot from the plasma gun chamber to avoid too many monsters in a damanging area.
added a blue armor.
bonus nigtmare mode changed accordingly, but not well tested.

http://www.mediafire.com/?5x119k31sp0r88d

hope this will make it sligthly better...

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And just when I thought hope was gone...

MMP MAP21 PaintTheTownRed

Wahoo! Great gameplay! epic visuals! I loved it! Death Egg is an awesome author!

Ahem, anyways, a highly detailed B/W city level with lots of monsters coming after you in this one. The rocket launcher was the primary weapon, and there's a hidden SSG, but in continuous play things are easier of course. The initial escape from the house was indeed the one part that was difficult (hard to avoid blasting myself), but with the open spaces the other battles weren't hard to deal with. Sure it comes close to being slaughter at times, with the amount of hellknights and revenants in it, but it's very much manageable without trouble. The indoor areas were quite cool too, like the chaingunners behind bulletproof glass in the gas station store, and the supermarket in the northwest with the blue key. After getting the blue key two stealth archies show up, which can be troublesome. Then outside is a vast assortment of monsters waiting to attack. That I managed through some good infighting, by getting cybie to attack his own minions. Probably my one complaint though is how, if I'm on the white ground, projectiles, like hellknight and revenant fireballs, are much harder to see coming.

So overall this map was definitely the best map of the set so far. Lots of novelty that always makes me happy. I've played many of Death Egg's other maps in other releases, and I have to say, he's definitely becoming my favorite author lately. And this map further proves that. Final Time 12:56.

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Monochrome
MAP21: Death Egg delivers probably the most striking map of the set, even ousting Phendrena in the looks department. Here we have a nice suburban town that leads into a large realistic city scape, and honestly, it all looks great. The huge amount of custom textures really do a lot to make this 50s town pop with gas stations, parks, diners, police offices and gay bars all represented here. If he put these together himself, my hat is off to him since it must’ve taken quite a while.

This map, however, is the epitome of looks over gameplay. While the large streets and spacious houses are fun to explore, the gameplay is extremely straightforward and easily taken care of. Unexpectedly, what made this map more difficult than it should’ve been was the translucent fireballs against a white background, making them nearly invisible unless you notice the subtle red blob just inches from your face. This is like the inverse scenario of spectres in a dark room as you struggle to see the incoming missiles in your direction, often leading to many sudden deaths by a revenant's sneaky rocket nearby. Besides that it's a large map with slaughter-like elements without the actual number to make the map a challenge. Sure, there’s a big finale, but I’d call it more of a circle-strafing endurance run than a challenge.

The archvile fight in the archives was the highlight for me personally, as I really enjoyed their disappearing act. I thought it was going to be vicious as I had no idea where they were coming from but it was tastefully done with only 3 of them, allowing the player to dart around the archives if they needed cover. Besides that however, all the map has going for it is the setting. It’s undoubtedly worth a look in my opinion, but feels somewhat alien to me on the whole.

Stadrate
MAP06: Aw I see Demon took took care of the Streets of Rage trivia :/ Only thing I’ll add is that I think Alien Power is an unexpected choice… personally I would’ve chosen Expander, but I love Expander with everything (sans the imagery of four Jets divekicking you into oblivion).

Vehelits is somewhat bizarre compared to its kin; it’s still a very good map, mind you, but it has an off-kilter pace. The map is a lumbering goliath in size that has multiple paths through it which all must be encountered at some point or another, often from different angles. The start is noticeably frantic since you’re swamped with enemies and their yellow guardian holding only a shotgun to defend yourself, and attempting to nab the other weapons only releases more hellspawn upon your unsuspecting ass. Some of the funnest moments are here as you attempt to get a good grounding and figure out where to go, deliberating between which wave of baddies would kill you the least. I became mostly numb to my deaths now that we’ve entered full-force ball-buster territory, only ever getting agitated when I retry a fight multiple times and make no headway. There’s a couple moments of that in this map, giving me reminiscent feelings of frustration from the blue key in MAP05, where I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do to make any headway.

The plasma gun room was one of those instances initially, as the wave of revenants, pain elementals, and mancubi put me between a cyberdemon and a hard place, almost immediately zapping my health each attempt. Luckily I realized that the pain elementals can be fought beforehand and that took a chunk of the danger out as the cyb happily released a flurry of rockets towards his overweight neighbors. The sudden death room with the archviles was an instance that did not resolve itself however. Out of the whole map, I owe most of my deaths here, around 20-30 as I had no clue how to fight them. I was locked in and hadn’t obtained the rocket launcher yet so there was no way I could suppress or do splash damage, instead having to rely on the slow burn of the plasma gun. I liked this room in theory but five AVs from all angles of the room was just too much to deal with time and time again. I finally handled it only after having all of them fortunately bunch up and follow me around the room, picking them off as I held my back to the entrance. I’m interested in knowing the “proper way” to handle that room as it seems more luck driven than winning 10 games of roulette in a row. Perhaps not being able to spin around swiftly due to the lack of a mouse was a big factor here, I'm not sure.

The red key fight was relentless but I never felt like I wasn’t making progress—after many failed attempts I started to deduce that the best method was to actually circle strafe around the arena, since staying in one corner led to a swift death. It may seem obvious but for many of the fights in this episode, as long as infighting is started, you can remain relatively still and only need to strafe out of the way of incoming bullets, so it was kind of fresh to see this tactic that previously had sparse utilization by Stardate to be so effective. Afterwards I had an “oops” moment as I realized hitting the switches would warp in some tanky cybers, so I just picked up the red key and ran out of there (well, after camping by the doorway for those damn AVs).

Both the blue key and finale were a lot of fun too albeit a lot less stressful than the red key battle. I liked the dynamic of having revs on one side and cacos on the other for the blue key arena, stopping the revs from trailing you due to the bottomless purple highlights in the floor but allowing cacos to be the inconvenient roadblocks this time around. The final arena makes use of a damaging floor (one of the best things to throw in an arena) with a surplus of health to ensure survival which was tastefully balanced—I only ran out of every pickup after the last revenant had fallen. Both of these were tough but not overtly so, really striking the right amount of difficulty for me.

Besides those major scuffles, the rest of the encounters (and there are a lot of them) play out well barring a handful of awkward missteps—from the RL room there’s a stairway that leads into a revenant ambush, where the only smart thing to do is beckpedal and just shoot them from the stairs which isn’t really threatening in any way. Additionally there’s a dual AV trap when heading to pick up the red key where the player (if approaching from the quintuple AV fight direction) has to back up into the previous room, where they engage the AVs on some stairs, clumsily sliding up and down them to avoid line of sight. Hell, even the stairs in the red key arena don’t feel the best to fight on since they tend to preserve your forward moment at detrimental moments. The other maps didn’t quite have these particular struggles from my recollection, and the removal of a couple of these minor fights would help induce a better flow IMO. I didn’t mind the platforming unlike Veinen, although I can imagine it being a nightmare during a UV max.

Visually, it’s more of a hodgepodge than MAP05 was, which I’m thankful that it had prepared me for. I’d argue that Vehelits is an amalgam of various small battles patchworked together but the way it intertwines and wraps around in a “circuit” as Demon puts it seems to suggest that the designation of each area was intentional. There are some spots that look mighty impressive, like the gorgeous flowing red key arena or unnervingly cold look of the deathly AV nest. I think the other maps do a better job with the overall theme personally, although this does have its moments. Funny enough, my highlight is the start actually being a continuation of the tower from MAP05’s ending, which is a little touch I greatly enjoy.

Overall a really fun, massive gauntlet of smaller scuffles with eccentric pacing. I’m interested in seeing how the final challenge will top this.

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Map 19: Up Town

I have to agree with Demon of the Well here, this is definitely a map that could have been but due to sleepy monsters it falls very flat. The style is still very much Jaws In Space with cramped corridors and such, but there's marginally more open spaces and good height variation to separate this map from the rest of his work. Also I kind of like the darkness and the brooding atmosphere that this map creates. If only there was a fitting music track to enhance the experience... Didn't really have much problems locating the elevators either. Buuuut then there's the gameplay that is completely broken by that bug which everyone else has already mentioned it so I'm not going into that in detail. Cyber was a bit awkwardly placed but it's still very killable. Just hop down when things are spiraling out of control and repeat until he's dead. Could have been a good map but like this it's just not very enjoyable or interesting to play.

Map 20: Monochromatic Affinity

Mixed bag this one. Looks pretty good and those warp-pipes were cool, if not a bit confusing at first. The start of the level is very solid, I died there a couple of times when I didn't run for a shotgun quick enough but after that it's pretty meh. I didn't hate the arenas like some of you seemed to but they weren't exactly pinnacles of greatness either. Plasma gun arena was boring but luckily I had gathered just enough ammo to deal with everything handily so it wasn't that bad overall. Got two archies in the ssg arena so I guess that was the worst case scenario in a way. However I got the other one to infight with chaingunners right off the bat so I hardly took a hit and while the other one managed to burn me once, I survived and escaped the arena without suffering needlessly too much. I liked the last fight, nothing unfair about it in my opinion. It just requires a little strategizing and some quick thinking. If you got it, the fight's not that hard. This map has it's good and bad spots but I guess the rather poor gameplay is what stands out the most. I gotta admit that I was very lost at certain points in this map, spent over 20 mins in total getting through it.

I played through PaintTheTownRed too but I'll write about it more tomorrow when I've got the time. As for next month, I'd prefer Kama Sutra but since it looks like I'm the only one I'll settle for Hell Revealed.

Edit: Well, looks like I'm not the only one wanting Kama Sutra after all so I'll take back my HR vote and go with KSutra.

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I would like to play KSutra next as it's been on the books here for a while, so Veinen you can have your vote for this wad too and hope someone else votes for Kama sutra as well :)
Btw If realm of chaos isn't selected I might play it anyway and encourage Steve D to play through my wad in some sort of banter fuelled face off.

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Da Werecat said:

When I tested this map in PrBoom+ and Chocorenderlimits, some monsters weren't able to see and/or hear the player. So it's not a (G)ZDoom-specific issue.


I don't think it has anything to do with the what port you use, I think something happened when it was added to the wad, because the single map version does not have these issues. I will admit that some monsters don't wake up due to the direction they are facing, which I am fixing for the bug fix version.

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