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dobu gabu maru

The DWmegawad Club plays: Kama Sutra

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Hey, I'm still alive! If any of you are curious about what happened to my playthrough, some real life stuff got in the way and I'm busy playing catch-up now. When I'm caught up, I'll just release the last bunch of maps I haven't played in a huge video or two.

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I think next month would be best spent on Concerned, or a word and a number that hasn't appeared here yet: Zone 300.

Concerned is a few levels too short, so limiting to 2012 or later, I'd recommend Can't Run From Evil, Skepland, or A Taste For Blood with it, all 3-6 level minisodes. Or 900 Deep playing 2 levels a day (given size would be appropriate).

But I'm also going to introduce a new idea. We have three main megawads full of small levels: 100 Lines, 3 Heures, and Zone 300. For 100 Lines, just like 900 Deep, two or even three levels a day would seem appropriate. For the others, two levels a day or at least three levels every two days. So maybe we could cover two contemporary wads full of small maps with this idea? That seems potentially more appropriate than playing just one very short map a day.

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Tallying is somewhat difficult since some answers are vague, but so far we have:

100 Lines - 2/3 votes
Hellbound - 2 votes
1994 Tune-Up - 2 votes
Concerned - 1 vote


And LodiB88, with 100 Lines we're already playing through 2 maps per day and while we could do something like Zone 300, my personal preference would be to keep it just as short since I've had less time to play recently. It depends what you guys think on the end in all, as I'd be fine with just not playing one of them. I'd like to play Hellbound, I'm just unsure if I'll be able to stick through to the end.

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Are you guys still taking suggestions? I'd like to add Scientist 2 to them if so, it's pretty cool from what I remember of it.

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Diablo's Heart - K:100% S:100%

Good god. This level is front end heavy but I struggled through all of it. A few dozen Arch-Viles teleporting around made me uneasy. If I were playing this with strict Doom rules, I'd go nuts. It is only because I was able to aim my rockets down at the group that I was able to successfully thin the AV herd. Although by the time I was done I had a handful of rockets, almost no shells, about a hundred bullets and cells were running low. Evidently, according to other clubbers you're just supposed to run through them. I beg the question: how?

The level itself is your standard hellish cavern. Plenty of red rock and torches and a sea of blood, you know the drill. Also, the map is relatively on the small side as well and definitely a bit more claustrophobic than previous maps. The lighting level is darker to boot.

The Arch-Viles are of course what made this level difficult. Even the horde of Revenants/Knights is gimped by some pretty wide walls and the Spider Mastermind is rendered harmless by the invulnerability sphere. The final corridor brings in a group of Revenants sandwiched by two Cyberdemons but the final room features stairs going up and a low wall between you and the ruckus making it easy for you to get the Cyberdemons to play target practice with their bony underlings. Then with more than enough cells to fully charge your BFG, you can take out the Cybers with little effort and watch the Romero head go boom.

All in all, the map is difficult but if you can manage to get past the ridiculously hazardous Arch-Vile fight, the rest of the level is comparatively easy.

EDIT: I was also going to mention how much the music kicked ass for this level.

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Map 21 -- Diablo's Heart - 100% Kills / 50% Secrets
Concept map ahoy! As aforesaid by other clubbers, this is essentially a gimmicky obstacle-course map where the basic idea is that it's a one-way track with all of the weapons at the end of it (well, in the middle of it, technically, but you can't reach them before reaching the end of the line)....so, you have to run like a scalded dog through the various crowds of hellspawn on the way there. Then, you can go back and take your revenge......although a lot of the vengeance is entirely optional, really, particularly where the arch-vile convention that kicks things off is concerned. This style of play is probably counterintuitive enough to some that it'll never even occur to them to play it the way Gusta/Method intended, but it's not really very hard once you sink your teeth in--the time you spend essentially unarmed is probably around a minute or less on an average run, and there's an invulnerability artifact on the imp bridge to see you through the most crowded section (apparently there's a second one as well, but I have no idea where it or the other secret are).

This kind of thing is fine in small doses, but I'm glad that's all this is--a small dose. The map's essentially over a minute or two after it has begun, since using the scads of rockets and the BFG to go back and clean everything up is generally a fairly mindless affair, given that the monsters are generally just sitting ducks in confined areas. The last battle can be quite tricky if you try to face it in a straightforward fashion, but I reckon most folks will quickly realize that it's best to charge past the first cyber and fight from that side (assuming one chooses to fight at all), in which case it's a fairly simple affair.

On the plus-side, it's a cool-looking map. I like the juxtaposition of the redrock and the starry sky--the use of blood instead of lava in combination with sky sort of robs the red rocks of that feeling of 'heat' that they often have, which I think is a pleasing effect. The gigantic piles of gore and gibbets laden with bodies make for effective scenery as well, although a few hanging bodies appear to be suspended from nothing at all from some angles. And hey, Doom special FX at the ending, hurrah!

Onwards.

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Well it looks like it's once again time to expand the list for October. Two new megawads less than 24 hours apart, now that's a rare treat! So let me add Unholy Realms to the table. And with a bonus: the levels are neither giant nor small. A potential field day, this one!

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I'm going to have withdraw my vote from 100 lines, after how little I liked the Non-Traditional half of it. 1994 Tune-Up or Unholy Realms would get my vote.

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Map21: Diablo's Heart

Well this is certainly one of the most memorable maps in this megawad. The reason for this is obviously the imposing Archie committee greeting you and your pistol at the start. I remember having some difficulties running past it when I first played this but I had no problems whatsoever this time around. Memorability does not equal greatness though since the combat here is much less interesting than in the best maps this wad has to offer. I think DoTW put it well before me, the enemies are mostly just sitting ducks that you'll rather mindlessly rocket- or BFG-spam out of your way which doesn't really make for great enjoyment. But it's a short map so I can bear with this type of action once in a while I guess so it's not downright bad in my eyes.

The Cyber alley I did like though since it offers some challenge if you decide to go for maxkills. The second Cyber on your way back is rather tricky as the corridor is pretty narrow for missile dodging and it's easy to get smacked hard. The Archies at the start offer very little resistance when you're equipped with RL and BFG, if you even want to take them out at all. I found out that there's an invuln sphere in that area as well but only after the main AV-horde was already down which would make the battle even less painful. An alright map overall but gameplay-wise it was a bit lacking. Things will pick up quickly though and we'll be hitting full speed with this wad soon enough.

I guess I'll vote for Hellbound for next month. 100 Lines is an interesting project and all but I've done some demos for it so I'm pretty familiar with it already. And I don't know if it's really fitting for a thing like this either since it's a massive rollercoaster ride difficulty-wise if you include both wads. I mean there are some maps you could finish with both hands tied behind your back and then there are the ridiculous slaughterings of the non-trad wad that'll endlessly kill you five seconds in until you're lucky enough to push through a wall of monsters.

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I would vote for either Unholy Realms or Doom 2 The Way ID Did It, but if neither of them are out of beta by the end of the month, I'll vote for Hellbound.

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MAP22 Fire Play

*Regular Run*

Weird hellish level with two frozen monsters in one room (archviles on HNTR, cybers on HMP and higher). The start can be a bit nerve-wracking, but most of the rest of combat involved revenants and of course imps. I managed to get a three-rocket archvile kill here :). But a big gripe was the amount of backtracking, to get the blue and yellow keys, and it was boringly handled with. Not sure if Death's Bells was perfect for this map either. So it's a weak map. Final Time 4:22.

*Reality Run*

With the cacodemon in front of me and the crowd of imps at the start, I was in for a rough treat. There's also a painelemental to the right and lotsa zombiemen on the left. Behind me were more imps and mancubi. I found it best to attack one mancubus from the stairs, and lured some of the imps to me, then cleared the rest off. After the tough start, I didn't have too much trouble afterwards, although the hitscanners in the building were a bit intimidating, plus a chaingunner's behind bars and could hit me, so I shot his ass. I decided to kill the revenants behind the bars before opening them too. The monsters that teleport when the keys are reachable were handled with the BFG rather than the rocket launcher. Spiderdemon also was killed by BFG with ease. Final Time 6:41.

(My vote for 100th Wave didn't count?!)

There's a chance I might not be able to participate in next months MW. With my own life catching up to me as well as other new games I'm playing, I'm probably taking a break from Dooming this next month to figure out where I'm at. I'm actually still polishing up Aquafresh Crescents (my map in SF2013) to be much better, as well as working on another large slaughtermap I'm working on, so I'd still be around mapping thankfully. See ya guys in November after this month is done!

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To echo the thoughts already presented here, I'm definitely throwing down a vote for Unholy Realms. I've beta'd it on skill 3 for Snakes and it's possibly my favorite megawad, and I think our various play styles should be very helpful for him for beta testing. It pushes his release back to November but we'd provide some invaluable feedback.

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Map 21 - Diablo's Heart - 100% Kills, 50% Secrets - HMP Skill.

Diving right into hell themes, we have one of the most devious level traps in the beginning with around a dozen archviles. While it didn't slow my computer down, I certainly had trouble with it, and I can't imagine how someone doing a pistol start would be able to survive.

The other primary battles in this level are a lot of fun, the battle on what appears to be a barge or dock with the spidermastermind against a volley of revenants was a blast as was the final cyberdemon fight. Overall the level was a bit too dark in the cavern segments but I still consider the rest of this level to be a nice way to open act 3.

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October is going to be murder, work-wise, so how much time I will have to play, I don't know.

As interesting as it would be to see the DWMC play "100 Lines" (especially since the non-trad wad would probably be very polarising), I at least attempted every level in it as part of compiling it, so I'd prefer something I haven't played so recently, in case I do get time to participate :)

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MAP22 - scratch start - UV - 78% kills 100% secrets - savestate use ~

The start is a big ambush just like in the previous map and the rest is pretty easy if you don't fight the 2 cybers.
I could beat this map without savestates but the pro-plum is the ambush start.
This map reminds me of MAP15 : Miss Sporty , with that difficulty.


Replace my vote to "100 lines"
I want it as the next mounth wad play.

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Map22 - “Fire Play” by Jakub Razak / Adolf Vojta
This map is terrible, no seriously it is.
Linear, ful of backtracking, chewing through endless meat with the ssg and and layout which means either you get overwhelmed or apply so many blocklines that the encounters are made completely redundant. The start to the red key was the only good thing in this map. There is rockets and a rocket launcher which helps a little where you can get enough space to use it.
The cybers were tedious and the mastermind at the end was punched to death by me and a baron. Nuff said.
Lets move on from this.

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Map 22 - "Fire Play" - 98% Kills, 50% Secrets - HMP Skill.

This level is similar in difficulty to the previous level in a sense that there are certain sections which are increadibly easy to survive such as the teleporting revenants and hellknights (I just rocketed them from far away), to very close quarter fights (the beginning fight and the archvile ambush later on). I left the two cyberdemons alive just out of sheer lack of ammo.

Design-wise the level mixes up a lot of the non-fire/brimstone doom hell themes such as wooden rooms and marble. With a few exceptions like the huge drawbridge-like door at the end, there aren't any moments that WOW'd me in terms of detail. Overall, this level and the previous one still give me the impression that they are mere warmups for something far more sinister.

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Unholy Realms would be fine with me, as well, as I've looked forward to it as much as I have to Hellbound (which I can continue to vote for in December, if need be). I figure it's more or less inevitable that D2TWiD will end up the featured WAD when it's actually finished (as will the next installation of BTSX, whenever it descends to this plane of existence), and it has received quite a lot of alpha/beta feedback already, so there's no need to rush with that one. I'm sure that when Steve comes back he'll be full-bore for Concerned, and a lot of the shots from that look nice and spacious, suggestive of big battles. The whole 100 Lines deal, by contrast, doesn't really seem like it'd be my thing, but if I played a Heretic WAD for the club I could make my way through that as well, I suppose. Might even be good for me. I saw Deathevokation drop a hint in the UR thread that I'm going to cheerfully choose to interpret as being about his project with Darkreaver, and both NOVA and Devilution seem like they should be ready sometime within the next few months, so suffice to say we've at least got quite a hearty selection pool of WADs for 'new months' going.

Anyway, more Kama Sutra:

Map 22 -- Fire Play - 103% Kills / 50% Secrets
I pretty much agree with Cannonball about this. There's potential in it, no doubt, and I personally don't really mind the backtracking (the symmetry, though, is perhaps a bit overstated) since a lot of it involves more combat instead of just dead air.....but the whole thing is shot to hell (and not the good kind of hell) by completely excessive use of monster-blocking lines and some really thoughtless monster placement.

When the club played BTSX E1, one of the complaints leveled by some players at some of its maps was that several of the encounters therein were too easily blunted by use of camping or other safety-first tactics. In some cases this was/is true, but in those maps the safety-first approach was, most of the time, just one approach out of many that a player could choose--if you wanted to camp, fine, but if you preferred not to, you could take many other paths, instead. The problem with 'Fire Play' here is that there essentially is NO other choice but to camp/peekaboo your way through it. It's not even a question of practicality or survivability or probability, but simply one of physics--there are too many monsters crammed like soul-starved sardines into tiny little boxy spaces, such that there is literally no physical way to move past them without killing them, ever. This approach could probably work if it were executed differently, but there are so many monster-blocking lines scattered throughout the various passageways that monsters are almost never able to pressure the player, despite their potentially oppressive numbers--seriously, the imps in the first 30 seconds are probably the most dangerous enemies in the map, and that only because they can attack from two sides at once.

Because monster movement is so stunted, the level rapidly devolves into a series of honorless turkey-shoots, where you pound away with rockets or buckshot at perched, blocked, or otherwise immobilized groups of demons, until the way is clear for you to walk a few feet and then repeat the same process. Yawn. Like pizzaBob, I just ignored the cybers (still got 100%+ kills thanks to some vile action), and I usually kill as much as I can....tells you how entertained I was, that. Totally forgot about the counter-intuitive backpack secret until I was mostly done with the level, and didn't feel like walking back to get it. Again, telling, that.

It's a decent-looking map, again with the Hell-red masonry going rather well with the starry black sky, and a number of semi-ornate to fairly-ornate 3D bridges and other sector tricks to help build a sense of place, but this is really the only compliment I can pay it, and it's far from KS's most visually striking map. What it probably needed was far less ammo and either fewer monsters or a lot of weaker monsters (like the early imps) that could ACTUALLY CHASE YOU AROUND. Given the tight quarters, I could see that kind of scenario being potentially interesting, but as it stands, it's really not a very good map.

Fortunately, pizzaBob is right in that this piece is really just a warmup. Kama Sutra's best stuff is still to come, in my opinion, with my favorite part of the WAD being the stretch of maps from 24 to 27, with a monstrous 28 and an epic 29 before the wacky finale.

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Fire Play - K:100% S:100%

I didn't mind this level, at least not as much as the rest of us apparently. In this level we have a hellish complex carved out of red rock that makes use of teleporters, 3D bridges, some back-tracking and of course, tons of Revenants.

I didn't think this level was as difficult as Diablo's Heart. Only the Arch-Viles make this map truly difficult but at least there wasn't more than 40 or however damn many there were in the last one.

The Cyberdemons were pretty much rendered weak by the adjacent room that has a high enough wall for you to cherry pick them (I reckon you can't do that with strict Doom rules) and not worry about getting hit by their rockets. Even if you don't use that, the pillars in the room allow to beat them without too much trouble. Monster blocking lines in the Blue and Yellow Key wings make the group of Barons/Knights a joke (they are pretty easy to make in-fight with the Revenants). The Mastermind was a joke, and I'm not sure what it being there tried to accomplish that one more Arch-Vile and a slough of imps, or worse, couldn't be better at.

Secrets were kind of obvious, although I'm not sure what caused the secret by the start to finally open. I tried it at first and it didn't work, played through most of the level, then came back and it suddenly opened. Weird.

DotW's assessment about 'peeakabooing' through the level is pretty much correct, though that is how I usually play, so no complaints. This level is middle of the pack for me.

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More wackiness with Kama Sutra

Map 13:
Stupid inescapable death pit

Map 14:
Enjoyed the visuals, especially the part which resembles an underpass. Have yet to make it that far on higher difficulties without saves or cheats.

Map 15: HMP, can reach secret exit without cheats
First time I ever played this years ago, the cyber by the red key scared me enough to physically react.
My playthrough this time, even with foreknowledge, had a close call with a rocket that I thought was fatal but actually wasn't. So many entertaining visuals here draw attention away from sometimes sloggy gameplay. I recalled the secret switch to reach the secret exit without an AV jump.
After attaining the keys, decided I didn't want to use savegames or replay the map in that sitting so turned on god mode to check out the West Game ending. Really neat implementation and another highlight of the map. Interesting setting and monster placement make this a top pick of the set for me.

Map 16:
Likes: Interesting secret placement. One rewards curiosity while another takes careful observation.
Dislikes: Plasma gun being so far away and I'm bored of the music track.

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MAP23 A Little Big Massacre

*Regular Run*

Heretic remake! Comes with shitloads of Doom monsters! It's fun, and like MAP18, quite nonlinear, so there'll be much wandering around for the first playthrough. Firing a gun will awaken about three-fourths of the enemies, some of which will wander around (cacodemons especially). I memorized where the blue and red keys were, so it didn't take me too long to sort out things. The YK was guarded by a lone cyberdemon (theres more cybers on HMP and UV), and then lotsa revenants pop up to attack once I get it. I used the big guns, the rockets, BFG, SSG, and plasma on just about everyone here. Oh, and on HNTR there's two archviles behind the yellow door instead of a cyber. Final Time 4:59.

*Reality Run*

There's zombiemen wandering, shotgun guys on a staircase in the north and guarding the blue key, and chaingunners near the red key. But they really aren't too much of a problem as they're not so widespread. I had to be good on my feet to avoid some fireballs and other projectiles, and it turned out much like MAP18's reality run in that I double backed to places I've already been to take care of the rest of the enemies on a different front. The arachnotrons in the blood pits were actually the most annoying monster in this go, I had to take them out before other enemies. The cyber and revenants all bit cell energy and I came out unscathed from that due to wide open spaces. Final Time 7:52.

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Map22 - “Fire Play” by Jakub Razak / Adolf Vojta

I remember this map being a bit of a chore the first time i played it, mainly because it provides you with safe but tedious options to deal with stuff so you end up killing yourself from boredom. The cybers for example are probably meant to stay there hassling you throughout the backtracking, although you can kill them with laborious shotgunning and pillar ducking - I found after killing the first one it life was just too short for this so left his mate and just ran past him. Similarly there are areas choked with monsters that can be picked off through windows if you have the ammo and patience. The 2 identical key fights are defeated by their own monster blocking. On the positive side its an interesting looking map, I like the hellish theme and weird architecture. Ploughing through bunches of immobile monsters doesn't really get the most out of the game though, and this is one of those maps where the monster blocking seems to work against it - other than bridges that monsters can't cross anyway it seems to be about compromising for the sake of dodgy design.

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Map 23 - A Little Big Massacre - 100% Kills - HMP Skill.

One of the most fun maps in the set - It's an old Heretic map given a Doom makeover and packed to the brim with monsters and tough battles. While the level is packed with ammo and health powerups, most of them are placed in strategic locations which in some cases you could miss if you don't check every nook and cranny.

In terms of battles, by far the most difficult is the large south-east pool. The three cyberdemons aren't what makes this so challenging though, it's the avalanche of revenants. Even trying to make it past the horde of them guarantees that it is impossible to not get hit. Also, that final cyberdemon trap was a nasty surprise. Good stuff overall, and a great fun challenge.

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Map23 - “A Little Big Massacre” by Adolf Vojta
Fun little romp this one is, sandbox map where two keys are placed almost at random in a large area filled with blood and some stone buildings. Plenty of action here too. Blue and red key collected you exit the map right???
Nope it's a trap, 5 cybers you rush for the key and two walls of revenants lower behind you. Good stuff, I didn't have much trouble at all and only got tagged by a cyber rocket due to my own stupidity, no revenant touched me. The exit, lol the cyber I really made a hash of and got hit two times, but somehow I didn't die, leaving the map with 2% health (I pistol start so meh)
This was really fun with some brutal encounters in places.
Just one death which was at the start of the map.

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MAP23 - scratch start - UV - max - savestate use ~

This map is not just crazy it's frenzy.
Has lots of safe spots if you kill a group of monsters in a wall sorrounded sector like that stone hallway or elsewhere.
But whatever , this map is nothing but killing and collecting two keys which give you another quest for the last key , and you're set to the exit blocked by a cyberdeimos.

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A Little Big Massacre - K:100% S:100%

I really enjoyed this level, partially due to the fact that other than a few really noticeable parts (the demons in the stone hallways) there aren't many monster blocking lines and so as you go through the level, enemies continuously filter out of the woodwork, making you constantly second-guess if there is anything behind you.

The level gives off an 'ancient city lost in Hell' vibe which carries over well from its Heretic counterpart. One of the better looking levels, I think. With all the downed brown slabs and pillars it is not difficult to get lost especially in context of the frenetic fights that take place here. It is easy to lose your bearings.

Being there were plenty of places to go back to for cover, This map wasn't too overly difficult, at least not until the Yellow Key fight. I died several times, simply because no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get the homing Revenant missiles to hit the Cybers, they weaved around the behemoths as easily as I did and it was frustrating to go in an out of the Cyber group, turn around and you still have the same damn missile that's been following you hit you in the face. As a result I IDDQD'd just until the Revenants were eliminated.

Ammo and health are plentiful, but are scattered expertly across the level, easy to find when you don't need it, an endless search when you do.

The Spider Mastermind was used here a little bit more diligently than in the last map but it is still a lot of wasted potential from a very dangerous enemy. The final Cyberdemon fight was a lot of fun and as I fought it, I ended up kiting it throughout the level and made for a fun fight. This map is among my favorites, but not quite good enough to take the top spot.

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Map 23 -- A Little Big Massacre - 100% Kills / No actual secrets
The second and final of the Heretic E1 remixes in KS, map 23 lives up to its name rather well. Like map 31 before it, it's couched as a small/midscale sandbox slaughter, again looking and feeling a lot like something from Hell Revealed, despite the layout coming from a different game entirely.

I'm not intimately familiar with Heretic (despite having played through it at least once), and so I can't recall offhand which E1 map is being referenced here, but it did seem familiar enough that I had a general idea of where major buildings were. Hard to say how closely it resembles the original in appearance, as well...like many of the other KS entries, texture selection here is pretty capricious and varied--there's wood, plaster, brown composite, green composite, vines, marble, and masonry of many different types, all floating in a bay of (harmless) blood. While it may sound garish 'on paper', in effect I think it's pretty reasonable, largely a result of a decisive brown/red/grey color scheme that shines through despite the polyglot pile of textures used. I will say, though, that I think water would have looked better than blood, in all honesty. I don't generally care for Heretic's soundtrack, but I rather like the music here, as well (also the track from Heretic's 'cathedral' level, I suppose).

If there's one 'bullet point' concerning this map's gameplay to fixate on above all others, it is certainly its relative lack of monster-blocking lines in comparison to many of the other KS maps as mentioned by others. As Hurricyclone observed, the majority of the monsters will be alerted within moments of the action's onset, and they will tend to gravitate towards the marine in irregular trickles and pulses, as dictated by the random factor involved in monster pathing on and around the various posts, pillars, and piers characterizing the terrain. Note that the blocking-lines still have SOME presence, but they tend to be used either in generally sensible ways (e.g. to keep the cluster of viles and knights on the BFG platform) or to section off the general play space into large-scale quadrants, presumably to keep the entire population from swarming the player at the outset. The sandboxy layout in combination with generous item placement and augmented monster freedom makes for a variable but usually not particularly stringent experience with ideal route highly open to individual interpretation.

Another thing I like here is that the map doesn't necessarily peak early or end on a de facto anticlimax, a pitfall part and parcel for the sandbox format. It does this by use of a single setpiece battle involving five cybers and dozens of revenants. Even here there is some freedom, as I imagine a player who wanted to could probably just BFG a hole through the revenant wall and run away from the battle after snatching the yellow skull out from under the cybers' bovine snouts.

Fun map, highly replayable. It strikes me that pretty much all of the Heretic references I see in Doom are from E1, which at first seems weird, but then it occurs to me that I can't really remember anything from later episodes of Heretic, either....

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marc you were following this what happened dude

Map07: Enjoyable map that doesn't just ape Dead Simple. Found the mega secret, and the hilarious pegging. Would probably be harder if the cacos could fly under the door but blasting them is still quite fun. Like how you have to go back and forth under it yourself. 2-shotted the cybers and blasted off to the next map via fantastic sector rocket. :P

Map08: Really like this one. Generally well placed monsters. First key trap is dickery. The dimming effect past the marble area is very cool. Didn't mind the identical key areas, repetition is fine in small doses if the setup is fun and the fact that you can see one from the other provides a sense of relevance to both.

gotta get back into this now, shouldn't take long to catch up

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Map 24 -- The Gift from GOTT - 100% Kills / 83% Secrets
As I mentioned before, I quite like this map, although I somehow suspect that many others won't find it to be very impressive. The KS textfile says that this is Method Man's first map, and it shows in many ways: it's a hubspoke, it's even more orthogonal in general shape than Method's other KS maps, it's somewhat sparsely/irregularly detailed, it ends a bit suddenly (although with a lot of spectacle), and so on and so forth. Beneath its unassuming exterior is a surprisingly enjoyable gameplay experience, however.

But first, a little about that exterior. As aforesaid, the layout is quite orthogonal and frankly a bit ugly on the automap, but oddly compelling in-game. The setting is a spartan old fortress of basalt bricks, complete with two-stage "drawbridge" mechanism, floating in a huge artificial bay along with a couple of oddly-scaled sector-freighters. It's a fairly standard theme wrought in basic architecture that is simply functional, but it's pretty clean-looking (I guess I just like those dark/mossy bricks), and there are some unexpected features beneath the surface to add interest (or perhaps just confusion, depending on the charity of one's disposition) , including a baffling stucco hallway and some kind of underground rail tunnel apparently submerged below the surface of the bay's waters, adjacent to some kind of strange demonic shrine. Like many of the other E3 maps, the whole ensemble is complemented nicely by the simple starry sky (ever notice that there's a ton of sky in Kama Sutra?), and even the Metallica BGM (a now-antiquated 'my first map' trope if ever there was one) works fairly well here. The layout also distinguishes itself in that it contains more real secrets than any other map in KS, a couple of them fairly clever. I couldn't remember how to actually open the sixth secret for the unlife of me, but in a typical show of KS weirdness, you can actually grab the soulsphere it contains through a solid wall if you know where it is.

Like I said, I think the play is interesting, too, although I wonder how much of this is down to willful design and how much might be down to happy accident. As in Method's other maps, there are some noticeable instances of sudden monster-blockage, but there is far less of it here than in offerings like map 22, and that which is present tends to work in establishing chokepoints that actually favor the monsters rather than player for a change. What makes things so interesting is that, for all of the apparent simplicity, there are actually a ton of different ways to handle several of the situations (although the aforementioned shrine is pretty one-note). Take, for example, the problem of getting past the first cyberdemon and into the monster-laden main cloister for the first time: you can trap him in the 'moat' by lowering the bridge with him on it and fleeing for the teleporter; with some fancy footwork, you can trick him into being a sentient siege-engine for your cause (as entering the cloister without softening it up first is tantamount to suicide); you can use every other monster against him to the point where you can finally finish him yourself (easier if you find secrets); or if you're feeling extra-slick, you can even manufacture a telefrag fairly reliably with a little planning. While most of the later challenges don't have quite this degree of depth, some of them are nevertheless rather interesting, e.g. the most inconveniently-placed cyberdemon opposite the western landing.

This all somehow feels strangely old-school in a way that many maps of similar publishing date that actively try to feel old-school fail to accomplish, perhaps a side-effect of being the product of an untrained mapper's imagination. Like I said, I don't expect many of you to enjoy it as much as I do, since there are quite a lot of things to be legitimately criticized about it, but I guarantee you'll remember it after it's over, for better or worse, if for no other reason than for its strange voodoo-ritual ending sequence. If you do happen to like it as much as me, try getting through it without taking any secrets--it's doable (I've done it before), but it's a whole different kind of experience this way, more like a strategy/puzzle game, where monsters constitute the main playing pieces.

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