Going Down

I'm only about halfway through the megawad but I just want to commend you on how excellent the "scripting" is. I was playing it in ZDoom and I was vaguely aware it was a Boom-compatible WAD but there were a few moments where I was genuinely wondering if I was wrong and it was actually a ZDoom WAD. I know it's possible to do a ton of stuff with voodoo dolls on conveyor belts but practically no one has the patience to really utilize it well. So many level designers spend 90% of their time on the actual architecture and then just strew monsters around haphazardly and leave it at that. Where as in Going Down, I feel like once you had finished the level architecture you were only 50% done, and spent a ton of time setting up all the weird special effects and interesting monster teleports. Great work!

Linguica said:

I'm only about halfway through the megawad but I just want to commend you on how excellent the "scripting" is.

Cheers man, I was learning a lot of stuff as I went along. I think my favourite boom trick was the random traps on map12.

I'm a bit later getting on this than I intended, but I've completed up to Map 14. I like leaving map by map feedback for authors, but in this case I'm not doing that because you'd only be reading "This is ****ing awesome" every time I posted. There are very minor things I could mention but those are only personal taste. The concept and execution (thus far) have been absolutely fantastic. I'm playing through continuously and some maps (9 and 13 notably) have been pretty challenging even coming in with extra rockets (and later cells) to spam around. The Arch Vile spawning locations have been deadly, but luckily you always seem to put a few rockets nearby to help out.

A truly superb effort here.

Wow, even Linguica said good things about your WAD. That means you won the Internet!

Anyway, I'm damn late, but I have additional vids about the maps.

Hey, did you give a title to the title screen track and the intermission's elevator music? Your previous post on song titles only covered the tracks used in levels. :)

@degree23 Cheers man, hope you enjoy the rest of the wad

@Katamori aha, the journey continues. So many megaspheres and invuls on that setting. I wonder if you will go back to this wad on UV one day, I think you would do ok.

Now that the megawad club is drawing to a close on this wad I will start preparing the final release for the idgames archive. Hopefully I'll sort that out this weekend.

Gez said:

Hey, did you give a title to the title screen track and the intermission's elevator music? Your previous post on song titles only covered the tracks used in levels. :)

I forgot to name those, they are only short though so I don't imagine anyone wanting to use them for anything. I think off the top of my head I would name the title screen track "Going Down", any suggestions for the lift music?

mouldy said:

I think off the top of my head I would name the title screen track "Going Down", any suggestions for the lift music?

Because of the pitch of the titlepic (low angle shot of the building), I could also see it called "Looking up". For the lift music, I don't know, "Getting there"? Or since it's elevator muzzak, "Claustrophonia".

"Bring Me the Head of the Demonic Liftboy". I don't know why I said that.

Maybe "Descent of Death"

Gez said:

"Looking up"

+1 (fitting and good name)

Gez said:

"Claustrophonia"

+1 (fitting and awesome name)

:)

Finished the remainder of the maps now. (I played on UV) This has probably been one of the most fun Doom experiences I have ever had. The concept, execution, style and just about everything else was incredible, especially for a one man effort. For me it's the concept that makes it stand out and at the same time the quality of the maps are great overall. Just a few comments on things I remember:

• The whole concept of the lift going down is used really well. In the latter stages I did feel it lost a little bit at the digestion levels; I did forget that the WAD was themed around a lift a little bit. But I think that was really only because it had been so excellently done early on that the couple where you wandered away from it felt "out of place" a little. Thematically the first half of the WAD is definitely stronger, but the foray into hellish levels is introduced pretty well and it doesn't just jump out at you out of nowhere.
  
• There was a level (I want to say 23 but I forget now) where the end lift just brought me out at the same floor and nothing seemed to be happening after that. Wasn't sure if it was a bug or not but I had to manually warp to the next level.
  
• The Revenant horde on Map 28 is absolutely insane! It took me a few goes to get through this level, and I didn't realise the platform was going to take me to the exit until it did! UVMaxing this for any experienced slaughtermap player shouldn't be too difficult but only because of the generous pickups. It's certainly doable without the invulnerabilities, but not for me! I like slaughtermaps though and this one was definitely great fun.
  
• Map 20 would also be a fun one to UVMax. (And I love the way the lift "breaks" to send you down there) I suspected that the exit would be behind the immense wave of Imps, so after I'd died a couple of times trying to kill everyone I decided to just BFG spam my way through.
  
• People have mentioned a Cacowave on Map 29 but I didn't even see a single one. I wouldn't say I took out the boss in lightning quick time either, but if you want them to play a part in the map I guess they should be released earlier like dew mentioned in the "DWMegawad Club Plays" thread. The boss itself was also awesome; I wasn't expecting him to get up after I "killed" him!
  
• The fruit garden level had me scratching my head a bit until I realised that the map was showing very little and that the black marks were the fruit. (And that I also remembered you have been sneaking tricks like that in here like the yellow keys in a previous level!)
  
• I was a bit lost in Map 30 for a bit haha. I missed the green switch for quite some time. Some people mentioned that they get let out of the building early and I think that happened to me as I only killed about 10 monsters before the main door leading to the exit got opened by a monster. I suppose it's only a matter of time before it happens. I enjoyed exploring the house overlooking where the building used to be until I found the right switch though.
  
• I love the narrative in the text intermission screens; they were a great laugh.
  
• A couple of the music tracks were slightly grating to me. :P
  
• Map 26 was great. I was expecting a switch hunt through random rooms and what I got couldn't have been further away from that and therefore couldn't have been more welcome.
  
• Map 27 lives up to its name.
  
• 200 Mega Hurts had me going "wtf" at the time. Superb map.

I could go on and on but those were the main things that came to my head. Overall an absolutely first class WAD here. The time I've spent playing this has definitely been time very well spent. I really look forward to some people doing UVMax demos of some of the levels in here.

mouldy said:

@Katamori aha, the journey continues. So many megaspheres and invuls on that setting. I wonder if you will go back to this wad on UV one day, I think you would do ok.

You're surprised on the amounts of supply on your own map? :D anyways, I may revisit it in the future, just like I do with Revolution, which also have become a legend. :P

To sum up, here's the final maps' vid. My summary was kinda lame and sloppy since I played the first maps almost half a year ago, but the matter is the same: your WAD is definitely outstanding.

will this be uploaded to the IDGames archive?

Katamori said:

My summary was kinda lame and sloppy since I played the first maps almost half a year ago, but the matter is the same: your WAD is definitely outstanding.

Thanks a lot man, and cheers for all the vids.

Breezeep said:

will this be uploaded to the IDGames archive?

Yes, its just being processed as we speak. I'll update this thread with a link when its done

I don't know where you're looking, but it went up yesterday morning.

http://www.gamers.org/pub/idgames/newstuff/gd.zip

Started playing it. Enjoyable so far. Feels like a lot more monsters than there actually are. That music is giving me a headache, though.

Treasure Chest day. Z-Match, Alkylation and Rage CTF also went up.

Here is a link for the final version on idgames:
http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/?file=levels/doom2/Ports/megawads/gd.zip

Numerous minor cosmetic/bug fixes, and I adjusted the final boss fight to hopefully make it less of a pushover. I forgot to credit Obsidian in the txt file for helping with the boss, sorry about that. Also thanks everyone for playtesting.

Very well designed WAD. Not for the novice player. I like the progression of difficulty here; getting to higher maps really feels like an accomplishment.
The maps have good flow to them without being too linear. The architecture is very amazing. Such good design with this level of attention to detail is very rare (the monster placement really shines!). I especially like the use of the vents, a device that is underused in other megawads, imo. If you are a serious Doom player, you have to get this WAD.

honestly this has to be one of my favorite megawads ever

This is brilliant. The music is usually annoying but other than that it's 10/10.

Love the YouTube vids you make also.

Going Down music tracks from MAP02 and MAP04 became my favourite melodies that I hum to myself most often (along with Cave Story main there, which is still above these two). :)
I liked all the music, as I already said - it fits the mapset well, too.

Downloaded it from idgames and ran through the first couple of levels (as I do, just to make sure everything loads properly) and wow, what a fun concept. Start at the exit, run out, find the key, and get back. Such a basic premise, but enthralling in its simplicity. I've already got a backlog of megawads to catch up on, but darn if this one isn't going to push some of those off some more.

Man, what a surprise when I learned you were Cyriak, one of my favourite people on the Internet. Big fan of your work (as Cyriak).

Played around 16 levels already on UV. I love how each map forces you to re-evaluate your approach. It's damn hard, but it's a far cry from your run-of-the-mill slaughter WAD. And you get the feeling that there are very few safe spots, which the music reinforces by giving you that weird, uncomfortable feeling - don't worry, I think it's great. Really intelligent and creative design, with that pinch of humor which is never far away. :)

If I have to say something negative, no it's not the music, since I think that's kind of your brand and fits well with the map set. It's that quite a few maps feel pretty cramped. No surprise there that I didn't really like "Crawl Space" (I got stuck anyway). It's really just a personal thing and it doesn't bother me that much. And of course, you're in a freaking office building or whatever so it also makes sense. One might also complain that perhaps there are just a tad too many traps. But the pluses way more than makes up for this silly little complaint of mine. 9/10 (so far)

Kotzugi said:

Man, what a surprise when I learned you were Cyriak, one of my favourite people on the Internet. Big fan of your work (as Cyriak).

Cheers, I think if I'd found doom builder 10 years ago my life might have taken quite a different route.

Fair comment of the cramped nature of some of the maps, not a lot of space to play with given the setting, though I did my best to avoid any 64 wide corridors at least.

mouldy = Cyriak? That person who makes all those .gif madness?

My mind settles instant.

Kotzugi said:

Man, what a surprise when I learned you were Cyriak, one of my favourite people on the Internet. Big fan of your work (as Cyriak).

I actually thought this was a joke of some kind when I was told about this ages ago, but mouldy IS actually cyriak?

You should make a Doom video in the style of your crazy Youtube stuff mouldy/cyriak! I love that stuff.

Suitepee said:

You should make a Doom video in the style of your crazy Youtube stuff mouldy/cyriak! I love that stuff.

How about... imps & imps & imps ;)

Kotzugi said:

How about... imps & imps & imps ;)

thats map20

mouldy said:

thats map20

I'm confused, in-game it's called The Mouth of Madness. But I bet you have a map with lots of imps somewhere.

Suitepee said:

I actually thought this was a joke of some kind when I was told about this ages ago, but mouldy IS actually cyriak?

You should make a Doom video in the style of your crazy Youtube stuff mouldy/cyriak! I love that stuff.

Since the cat is out of the bag, here's MAP04's music video:

No fucking way, Mouldy is Cyriak?