The DWmegawad Club plays: Whitemare & Sacrament

MAP13 The Abandoned Base

I guess the TNT sky is the sky for maps 12-16, huh. Kinda odd looking. OTOH, this has TNT music :).

Reasonably hard. One thing at the start that has me rather infuriated is that "Frustration" like door to the rest of the map, and by Frustration, I mean MM2. Clever use of it never seems to be fun in my view. At least I only had to deal with it only once. Even though I memorized the trap placement, I still get my ass kicked every time by those skeletons and chaingunners that are throughout the map. And berserking them doesn't seem to work proper either for once.

I would like to call epic bullshit on the bridge area, it looks pretty, but has one of the most annoying traps ever. While I memorize the where the monsters teleport, (they'll catch you off guardthe first time, believe me) I can't seem to fire rockets through the damn fence! Meaning they explode there for some reason. So it's the slow, chaingun method whilst hiding behind a crate. And this level also has its archvile ambushes, they're almost always in front of you though, so you know where they are. But without a BFG for thirteen consecutive maps can spell trouble if they're not fought properly. Look out for that ending with the archvile/revenant teleport ambush as the elevator comes down too. And two archies are in that elevator (I think with an elevator like that you'd expect a cyber though, eh CYBERmind?) which aren't really too much trouble unless they resurrect a baron.

Start to Crate: 0:00

Another elegant and ironic disappointment as I'm quite warm next to this burning barrel right beside me.

Whitemare Map 12 -- Kleptomania - 100% Kills / 0% Secrets
A somewhat 'hi-def' presentation from BeeWen, right down to the strident electronic (digital) music track. This sense of production value is pretty typical of most of his maps that I've seen, although I seem to recall that he had one in A. L. T. that was strangely '90s' in overall impression. Anyway, here BeeWen combines the running ice caverns/frozen streams theme of Whitemare as a whole with a dilapidated substation of some sort, complete with fuse boxes on the walls and a flooded basement. Without knowing how much polish the map received outside of the speedmapping event (perhaps Memfis will tell us), one can only observe that the overall level of detailing is fairly high relative to many of the other maps. Most of this is surface-level sector detailing ranging from ice stalactites to tiny light inlets and that sort of thing; basically, representationalist window-dressing that attempts to spice up what is a very simplistic layout at base. This is perhaps less of a point of criticism in this case than it might be in some others, given that this is a speedmap, although one does nevertheless get the impression in places that a lot of the things one sees are rather superficial, especially when presented with a few of the simpler areas (e.g. the side tunnels off of the start room). However, to its credit, the representationalist style is leveraged into filling a more direct gameplay role at a few points, ala the various crate-hopping segments or the bit where you climb over a part of the substation's exterior trim to continue on. I was also vaguely amused by the way the author took the trouble to see that you'd take some damage if you stand very close to the arch-vile's.....um, cooking fire.

From a play standpoint this is a fairly high-concept map; indeed, there are a few unusual concepts at work here. Apart from the aforementioned tendency towards an unusual degree of platforming in progression, the most obvious of these is the open field with the strange ice-pillars that turn out to be revenant popsicles--hit them (with a hitscan attack) and you get a new boney playmate to entertain. It's whimsical, to be sure, but one wonders why it was only implemented in this one place...the idea of having to avoid errant shots or else be overwhelmed by a crowd of skeletons has some potential, though perhaps this is somewhat beyond the scope of a simple speedmap. Ironically, the concept that lends the map its name is the least well-realized: the idea is that a mischievous, phasing Baron (actually a series of them, as Hurricyclone explains) grabs the blue key away from you fairly early in the proceedings (perhaps angry over that pistol round in his left asscheek I gave him in the opening seconds), and you spend the rest of the map chasing him around, seeing him a couple of times before finally trapping and crushing him in some piece of machinery (why the key ends up where it does at the end is a total mystery to me). The way these setups are handled is somewhat inoptimal in that it's very easy (even likely, in one instance) for the player not to be looking at the Baron at all when he makes his brief appearances, which sort of undermines the feeling of 'chase' that's supposed to be at work. The action itself is palatable but not much else, with most of the danger being heavily frontloaded into the first shotgunner ambush (when the player has no armor) and the free-for-all in the aformentioned skeletonsicle yard, where the best strategy is to run around like a headless (frosty) chicken and get everything to infight.

MAP12: Kleptomania
100% kills, 0/1 secret

I admit, the idea of chasing down a blue key-stealing Baron throughout the level is a pretty amusing one, and definitely makes the level stand out. Overall, the level looks pretty damn good, and provides a good combination between icy caverns and base. Unfortunately, there are a lot of minor issues that bog down the level down.

As Demon mentioned, the best idea (Baron stealing the blue key) may be hard to figure out at first because he often teleports away before the player can even see him or the key (the room with the manucbuses is the worst in this regard, I also missed him by the teleporter in the ice caverns) since there are often enemies nearby that need shooting. The level is also quite stringent on ammo, the outside area with the revenants is VERY under-resourced - only 4 shells are provided per revenant, so be careful with your shots.

Speaking of the revenants, I actually like the idea of "accidently hit them, reveal monsters." Took me awhile to figure out what was happening, but that's ok. Same thing with the switches at the start - I died a few times trying to pistol the sergeants before realizing I could hit a different switch and get an SSG first. Heh. My last complaint is that sometimes the detail gets in the way; some of the jumping parts are a bit too difficult because a stalagmite or ceiling will get in the way (took me far too many attempts to get into the mancubus room).

Still, overall it's a good map, and I really like the concept.

Whitemare Map 13 -- Abandoned Base - 102% Kills / 100% Secrets
I think the TNT E2 sky fits well with most of these later Whitemare maps, myself, but of course I'm a sucker for night/galaxy skies in general.

This is another map by Cybermind, author of map 05, and it's in much the same style as far as layout and flow are concerned--a linear trek through a good number of elongated corridors that periodically spill out into one-time setpieces. From an aesthetic standpoint, I don't think this is anywhere near as nice as map 05, and is much more obviously a speedmap. Many of the base's corridors are rather bland, dressed in a nondescript lined gray composite, and most rooms are boxes with bits of stuff cluttered around the edges. The core aesthetic isn't offensive on its own--just very drab--but the way the bare, featureless corridors periodically reach endpoints with very fiddly smallscale sector-detailing on display (e.g. the heavily damaged yellow door) comes off as being a mite garish. Even many of the larger setpieces seem to feature aspects that I feel like complaining about, ala the midtexture used in the bridge ambush area--the long expanses of horizontal wire or whatever it is looks just plain bad to me. The one feature I did like was the use of closely packed clusters of small impact-wall sectors to simulate blasting through walls, a crate at one point, etc.

In contrast with map 05, the action here is a bit more pressing, at least in the setpieces. Apart from the surprisingly inconvenient bridge ambush that Hurricyclone mentioned, the standout encounters generally involve arch-viles, who are often able to appear at points in the map where they can both hem the player in and resurrect some mid-tier corpses for maximum pressure. The most dangerous of these by far is the final ambush, which can see you sandwiched between two pairs of viles (and some flunkies that appear with the first group) in the last long tunnel--the pile of snow can shield you from one group, but there will be absolutely no avoiding the other group's attacks in this scenario; I remember this resulting in my death on first sight when I first played Whitemare, however long ago that was. In this case (and in most other fights in this map), the best defense is a strong offense, so going all out and relentlessly dumping rockets into the vile retinue as soon as it appears is the best course. This means that the secrets (some of which are difficult to find) can be pretty important in this map, as the majority of the rocket ammo it contains is found within them.

Some of the action here is decent, but I personally like Cybermind's other map quite a bit more.

MAP13: Abandoned Base
97% kills, 1/4 secrets

Probably rushed through this one a bit (didn't really hunt for secrets), but the overall boringness of the level design kinda pushed me to rush through it. The start is a bit bullshitty too - the bridge ambush is terribly unfair, spawning a bunch of chaingunners surrounding the player when he's halfway across the bridge with no cover to speak of and getting annihilated from all sides. The rest is an average corridor crawl with a bit less ammo than I'd like. As Demon points out, this is obviously a speed map, while there are a few nice details, the rest is pretty bland. Also didn't like how the "consoles" don't even have a switch to press, they just do their magic when you approach them. Somewhat nebulous.

MAP14: Hopeless Joy
41% kills, 1/1 secret

Ah, this fucking map. I remember playing this one before, and being so frustrated with the central puzzle that I either cheated or gave up. Thankfully this time I found the secret which makes the puzzle solveable, and beat the rest of the level with issue. It's not that hard of a secret to find, but one wonders why include a puzzle that is basically unsolveable without it.

The start is pretty difficult too from a pistol start, as weapons are difficult to find (there's a well-hidden chainsaw, other than that you're limited to pulling weapons off zombies) and ammo is almost non-existent. There's a soulsphere and a blue armor each guarded by a baron, so you get to decide if it's worth 15 shells in a trade for each one. I actually had to punch imps at one point before I found the chainsaw, not fun.

After solving the puzzle, the ending trails off strangely... there's a few rooms with some chaingunners, what looks like a tough puzzle but actually is just pushing some switches, followed by running outside to the christmas tree will tons of goodies from Santa underneath. I exited the level rather bemused at being given all the goodies but nothing to use them on (and at only around 40% kills) before stepping into a sector type 11 room. Apparently if you fire your gun to wake up the monsters near the tree, you'll get a huge horde to blast through, but what's the point? Strange.

I guess the level looks nice (some nice brickwork), but very strangely designed.

Whitemare Map 14 -- Hopeless Joy - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
As Magnusblitz says, this is a very quirky map, even more concept-heavy than BeeWen's earlier 'Kleptomania.' In some places, it's hard to tell if what you're encountering is the fullness of the intended design, or if some of it works the way it does due to some non-catastrophic technical oversights, ala the entirely optional final slaughter battle. Whatever else can be said about it, it is a very interesting map, though the question of whether it's actually enjoyable to play or not is one that there's liable to be a lot of disagreement on. I enjoyed it this time, more for the atmosphere than anything.

Indeed, I reckon it's pretty crucial for a map that takes this kind of design tack to be heavily atmospheric, and this does deliver in that regard. Up until the point where the map spills out into the zany X-mas slaughter finale, what's depicted here is some kind of deeply buried crypt of legendary heroes or magi (or at least I assumed they were legendary on account of the strange sigils adorning their sarcophagi) that has been profaned by demonic presence--there is an apparent attempt to open some kind of Hellgate in the largest chamber of the crypt through a strange ritual, a scenario which provides the pretense for the strange puzzle that Magnus mentioned. So, in other words, what we get is a lot of dusty masonry with occult-gothic iconography, some dark flooded caverns, and more of those characteristic Whitemare ice tunnels, all arranged in a deceptively well-interconnected way that leaves the player few choices of path at first, but ultimately opens up much more. As with BeeWen's previous map, a digital electro track of some kind is used as BGM, again completing that fleeting sense of 'production value' that characterizes his maps.

While monster count in the main part of the map is quite low, and that part features little in the way of dangerous traps, combat is still a legitimate factor in the adventure in the sense that player is very underequipped early on and doesn't really gain a strong foothold supply-wise until the baffling stockpile of bullets that accompanies the final switch puzzle. This means that the chainsaw sitting amongst the detritus of one of the ruined walls is pretty important, and much of the early terrain does favor its usage, with lots of narrow tunnels staffed by mostly smaller enemies. I exclusively used it to fight off the massed attack of imps and pinkies that accompanies the decrease in the caverns' water level, and thus built up an ammo buffer sufficient to carry me through the rest of the map that way (note that there are some meatwalls you have to grind through at points), but players not comfortable doing this will probably be scraping the bottom of the barrel for most of the proceedings. Of course, this all flies out the window with the Tree setpiece, which features enough ammo and artifacts to easily fight an encounter twice the size of the one that occurs there.

Nope, it's the puzzles (or just the one, really) that are the main obstacles. The strange puzzle around the brick kiosk with the baffling gutwall interior is the main stumbling block, especially considering that it's quite possible for the player to come to this area before they've even entered the part of the map that ultimately culminates in the puzzle's hint being unlocked. I recall this what happened to me on my first play of Whitemare, and as a result, I ended up brute-forcing the puzzle (by process of elimination), which is not terribly hard to do, just takes a methodical approach and maybe a little bit of intuition about how the network of triggers is working. The aforementioned hint is quite useful if you activate it (apparently some part of the hint path counts as the official secret?), literally shining some light on your situation, although interestingly the light seems to fail in the last third of the puzzle, meaning at least a little bit of trial-and-error is probably in order. I personally don't object to these kinds of puzzles, but I reckon they're definitely not for everybody. The later switch puzzle is pretty weak-kneed, by comparison, in that it's VASTLY faster to just throw switches at random until progress is made than it is to engage in the ratiocination that reveals the puzzle's logic.

Right, and then the tree thing. In order to get the monsters to appear you do indeed have to fire a shot outside....I still can't tell whether this is intended or is some kind of design oversight, as aforesaid. Assuming you decide to fight the battle just for fun, it's not at all difficult--the heterogeneous monster mash will largely eliminate itself, and they appear to be limited in movement to within a certain radius of the tree itself.

And then the Baphomet Quadruplets shove some proverbial coal into your metaphorical stocking. Weird ending to a weird map.

Demon of the Well said:

I recall this what happened to me on my first play of Whitemare, and as a result, I ended up brute-forcing the puzzle (by process of elimination), which is not terribly hard to do, just takes a methodical approach and maybe a little bit of intuition about how the network of triggers is working. The aforementioned hint is quite useful if you activate it (apparently some part of the hint path counts as the official secret?), literally shining some light on your situation, although interestingly the light seems to fail in the last third of the puzzle, meaning at least a little bit of trial-and-error is probably in order. I personally don't object to these kinds of puzzles, but I reckon they're definitely not for everybody.

I wouldn't mind a puzzle that needed a bit of trial and error, but I feel like the design actually goes out of it's way to be non-intuitive. The candles feel as though they should be meaningful, but they're not. I suppose you could figure out which blocks move when you step on the wrong one, but they're split up into two different groups so it becomes difficult to identify the ones that aren't trapped (without a pen/paper at least to keep track).

There is also the fact that I think the puzzle is broken on at least one side--that is, broken in the sense that you can cheat it by failing a different side of the puzzle to get to the inner ring without having the gate in front of the switch slam shut on you like it does for the other two sides (or maybe this is a case of easy linedef skipping, I dunno). While in one sense this makes brute-forcing the puzzle even easier, it's also just another red herring to throw you off if you actually sit back and try to reason the puzzle out on its own terms.

I dunno, I guess BeeWen assumed that most people would give up on the puzzle until they found the light clue (which essentially provides the solution), sort of a Hexenesque design principle. Back near the start of the thread Marcaek made an observation about the RDC's apparent fondness for Eternal Doom/TNT design, and I guess that's true of this particular map, in more ways than one.

Whitemare huh? HMP pistol start, sometimes I'll cheat and sometimes not.

map 2: The water damages... Also couldn't find yellow key and resorted to cheating to locate it. From a gameplay perspective, the archvile is well placed for a tense encounter.

map 4: Another liking of the Christmas tree. Cyber was no problem, found a safe spot to plink away at it. Was lazy and used -resurrect rather than restart at every death.

map 7: Had an attempt where two Mancubi didn't teleport in. Wonder if it's just my ancient version of PrBoom at fault here.

map 8: Liked the feel of discovery with locating secrets. Finding a hidden SSG available after obtaining the red key helped with the combat aspect. Disliked the amount of running around required to progress. It's probably less of an issue with savegames. One jump to reach a secret means a lot of backtracking to try again if missed.

map 9: Actually beat it first try without cheats. Short and inoffensive, it's OK but have no interest in replaying.

map 10: gimmicky No health though so short so it matters little.

Sorry, I just kind of got bored of commenting here but apparently there is some demand for these "insights" so I'll try to squeeze at least a few sentences out of myself.


09 - Ameba is kind of like me: he doesn't really have the will to make anything big and epic so he just posts some short maps from time to time and that's enough for him. The only exception to that is the amazing Phoebe, which he recently uploaded to the /idgames archive.

The modesty of Ameba's works is compensated by his great sense of design. His levels look visually perfect for me: every little detail is exactly where it should be, all texture choices are ideal, etc. They are just so stylish, somewhat like Agent Spork's or Richard Wiles' wads. I have no idea how some people manage to make their maps look so "clean", mine are always so "dirty" and rough in comparison.

Uh, I kind of just described almost every Ameba map out there so I don't have much else to say... It's short, cute, blablabla.


10 - Slavius is one of the youngest members of the Russian community, he was like 13-14 when this map was made I think? IIRC he didn't send it in time because the internet stopped working at his home so he had to go to his friend and send it from there or something.

It's very simple even for a speedmap. The used midi was suggested by Archi (originally this map didn't have any music).

Oh no I lagged behind a bit. (Not really)

MAP14 Hopeless Joy

Probably one of the most ridiculous levels I've ever played, ever. Not to mention a very ridiculous ogg vorbis too even though it's nice. It's got it's fair share of oddball places and puzzles, and another DOOM tree as well. The stepping stone puzzle in the right could take forever, unless you find the secret first, then it's made much easier, thankfully with lighted paths. Then, another puzzle, it's actually done pretty quickly if you know how. And yes, you HAVE to access it, otherwise the end teleporter where the tree is isn't accessible. Speaking of tree, Beewen is generous enough to give just about everything away here, including the BFG finally! There's supposed to be a major slaughterfest right here, but it was ENTIRELY optional. I did it anyways, and there it can mean let the enemies infight, whilst running around with invulnerability. Then exit. Oh wait. You motherfucker, a TYPE 11!

MAP15 Arctic Heart

And here's the other really large map. It's never difficult actually, until the parts where you fight a cyberdemon, which is twice. Both times can be hard, the first has mancubi on blocks which thankfully can be used to hide from projectiles, to little effect. An interesting PG trap serves only a mere distraction TBH, it wasn't hard either. Plenty of regular demons around this place, harmless with this much space. The bridge area on the right isn't difficult unless you suck at projectile dodging. There's the three key area, which will eventually allow access to the cargo ship, the hardest area here, especially since the hardcoded infinity-tall cacos get in the way! Be on the lookout for an archvile and a baron as you hunt yet another cyber down. When finished, it can be a bit of a puzzler, but I had to step on those teleport pads (which don't teleport) to lower the bars. The secret level is pretty easy to reach, just find a switch and rise up, but then again, I really don't like Whitemare's secret levels much, so I probably won't comment on them.

MAP12: Looks pretty, but it's apparently broken. I hit this switch which seems to do nothing. There's a blue key in an invisible sector right next to it.

MAP15: Arctic Heart
70% kills, 2/5 secrets

Another super-large, exploratory map. I think I liked this more than MAP08, mainly because the amount of weapons-to-monsters ratio is a lot more thought out. I did a lot of running in this map, but that was usually of my own choice, I didn't feel forced to run as I did in MAP08 when I was frequently assaulted by hell knights while all I had was a pistol. The only spot that was a bit of trouble was the yellow key ambush, didn't have anything larger than the SSG and didn't have enough ammo at that point. But it was quite easy to hide and use the mancubi was distractions so I could run and grab some bigger weapons.

Pretty nice looking, on the whole, and I especially like the ice cracks near the plasma gun area. My main complaint is that this map really shows why hardcoding infinitely tall monsters was a really dumb decision. Tons of high height differences and a large open-sky cacodemon battle at the end. Nothing like running off a giant ice floe only to get caught mid-air by a baron of hell 50 feet below me, or be unable to run around the boat because of Cacodemons high up in the air.

BlackFish said:

MAP12: Looks pretty, but it's apparently broken. I hit this switch which seems to do nothing. There's a blue key in an invisible sector right next to it.

The switch opens up a new part of the map near the beginning. The blue key is supposed to be hidden (as the baron keeps "running away with it")

Nah, it's not broken. To get out of that room you have to shoot the glowing computer panel on the right, which opens the hatch on the little dumbwaiter sort of deal in the corner of the room. The blue key's not supposed to be acquired until later on.

Alright, I'll try again tonight.

MAP31 Ice Riff

I, uh, don't know this level much. It's basically a harmless platformer and puzzler, which really isn't any difficult to overcome. What else? Hmm, the fact that action 124 is used here at the exit yet I still go to MAP16 anyways. As for MAP32, I've played it, and am really not sure what to do there either, so I guess I'll skip it.

MIDI is atrocious BTW.

MAP31: Ice Riff
0/1 secret

Making maps without enemies is risky, and this one definitely feels empty without something to shoot. Basically a platformer, no real puzzles here (aside from the "blocks come out of the lava" portion). I too wonder why the line 124 doesn't go to the secret level. Also, the blaringly loud music doesn't help, had to turn it down a few notches.

MAP32: Mogor's House
100% kills, no secrets

Well, this is... different. Opening the outhouse reveals who I assume is Mogor, who appears to be a trollface on top of Beavis' body. He runs around and shoots cacodemon fireballs AND nazi pistol shots, which makes him pretty hard to fight - I just kept getting chipped down, and chipped down, being unable to do much about his giant HP. Eventually had to cheat to beat him, and even then I ran out of ammo and had to berserk punch him in the face. Aside from that, it's a decently cute looking level, and I actually like the music choice here.

MAP16 Depraved Feast

kmxexii said it before I did, but how do people beat shit like this? Even if I can get to the fucking three switches which of course are too heavily guarded I can't really get to the platform and fire rockets. Making things more unfair is the fact that all the monster targets are either right next to the "mutated plant" or off to the fucking sides as a distraction. The ones guarding it will be the roadblocks. It looks neat and all but fuck this gameplay shit. DNF.

Look on the bright side though, there's no crates or barrels anywhere.

Final Thoughts: Whitemare

It's obviously a community project, so there's the good and there's the bad. And with Russians, there's the crazy. I always liked playing WADs by Russian authors, no matter what the size, as they always either go crazy with visuals, gameplay or both. Always a lot of fun. Nice winter theme throughout, and it's just pretty that some levels had trees (though MAP16 was too much for me) Combat was okay, some maps like MAP01, MAP11, and MAP13 show their teeth but others such as maps 6 thru 10 really just drag. The music choices were quite questionable, the MAP31 "Ice Cap Zone" MIDI is obnoxious, there's obviously better MIDI's than that. The MIDI's with metal music can be nice to listen to but they don't fit the theme. So it's okay to play through every now and then I guess. Whitemare 2 should probably be more exciting than this. But first, Sacrament!

Best maps: MAP11 and MAP15
Worst: MAP10

Decided to do a stream of me playing Maps 12, 13, 14, 15, and 31.

MAP12: Thought this map was broken. As you may have noticed in the video I bypassed the revanant traps eventually. That area was too hard to begin with.
MAP13: Reminded me of a Duke3d map with all the non-functioning doors. Too bad I never figured out the vent secret.
MAP14: This map was really odd. If you watch the video you'll see me go into the puzzle room without any good weapons. I figured this was wrong so I redid the run and went into the puzzle room the correct way. This was frustrating to say the least.
MAP15: Holy map is big. I almost gave up figuring out the secret exit but I found it legit anyway.
MAP31: Puzzle map, yay!

Watch the vid to see my blindly trying to play through levels as Duke and Ranger from Samsara!

Whitemare Map 15 -- Arctic Heart - 101% Kills / 100% Secrets
This is Whitemare's crown jewel, as far as I'm concerned. It's expansive, highly scenic, relatively non-linear, and offers some engaging (though usually not particularly challenging) fights, to boot. The setting is an icebound inlet on some nameless, remote arctic island, overlooked by a shelf of beetling crags; within the natural harbor rests a lost coal-steamer (complete with exaggerated smokestacks), and within the nearby mountains rests remnants of some ancient metropolis, perhaps fallen to demons long ago, or perhaps a demonic bastion from the outset...?

Anyway, when I start thinking about backstory like that, I know a map's aesthetic is working for me. In many ways this is a lot like Dragon Hunter's first map, in that it's full of towering simulated landscape and takes place mostly outdoors, but I think the overall effect is vastly more well-realized here. Whereas 'Ice Canyon' mostly sees the player limited to the lower altitudes in what is superficially a very vertically-inclined setting, 'Arctic Heart' starts in the mountains and spills down in a freewheeling sort of way into the harbor far below; the vistas are many and vast, and there's all sorts of scope for the player to take dramatic flying leaps between the many different discrete battle areas (indeed, several of the secrets require leaps of this sort), which means that Magnusblitz is absolutely right when he says that this map plays a lot better without infinitely-tall actors. Apart from how enjoyable it is to simply traverse the map, it's also visually attractive throughout; apart from some a handful of surface-transition misalignments on some of the natural textures used for the landscape, the combination of ice, rock, snow, that inimitable deep-azure DooMwater, and the worked stone of the ruins is a very natural combination, as is the white-granite-blue color scheme it entails. To top it off, we have that ancient titanic lighthouse which exists for no other reason than to dominate most of the vistas (sort of a shame we never get to move around on/in, though), solidifying the sense of location. The TNT E2 sky also looks great in this setting, I think, and the digital music track fits the surroundings better than either of BeeWen's selections did.

'Arctic Heart' also departs from 'Ice Canyon' in that it's mostly non-linear: the mountainside and the eastern, ice-choked part of the harbor essentially form a big sandbox (icebox?) for the player to romp around in search of the three skeleton keys, which ultimately open the way to the abandoned steamer and the final setpiece of the map. These keys can be gotten in any order, and it's viable enough to just wander around goggling at the scenery (and killing demons) until you have them all, but planning an actual itinerary may be worthwhile in that the teleporters or other avenues of exit from each key setpiece seem to stream together most smoothly when you start with red and end with blue, although interestingly the most efficient path for becoming fully armed in the shortest span of time is quite different. On the subject of armament, while there's plenty of stuff to kill, this is generally not a terribly stressful combat campaign, given the vast amounts of space and, after a couple initial minutes of austerity, the generous amount of ammo and health aids sitting around. The most dangerous battles typically cluster around the keys themselves, featuring variously a cyberdemon deathmatch, a potential gangbang by some lascivious infernal noblemen, and....a large (though generally unthreatening) herd of pinkies. The final battle on the steamer features a moderate-size cacoswarm and then some heavies in a relatively constricted environment, but there's enough room to work if you stay cool (and the cyb can probably be cheesed pretty easily from the upper deck, but that's not the way I like to play). I actually took the most damage getting bitch-slapped by the ninja revenants in the secret exit smokestack, heh.

A thoroughly satisfying outing, all in all.

Whitemare Map 31 -- Ice Riff - No Kills / 100% Secrets
An unusual concept map from Archi, titled after what I assume is a play on the term 'ice rift.' Depicted is a glacier with some ruins encased in it; some sort of lava flow (presumably from a volcano) is gradually melting the glacier, setting the stage for the player's trip through parts of the defrosting ruins. There are no enemies and very little danger here (though it's still possible to die if you take a few too many dips in lava); the challenge lies in traversing the environment and solving some puzzles. When I say 'puzzles', I mean it more in the 'test of skill' sense; most of the obstacles are based on being able to move quickly/smoothly, rather than being actual riddles or mysteries or the like. None of these are terribly demanding or require outright metagaming (although I suppose the timing on the switch/pillar dash is pretty tight), so most players should be able to breeze through.

In the end, it feels like this map is supposed to be enjoyable more in the way that an afternoon walk might be enjoyable, rather than in the way we generally think of DooM maps as being enjoyable. Does it work? Well.....maybe the first time, but there's very little replayability. I amused myself on this outing by looking for the 1 secret, which has nothing to do with an exit to map 32, incidentally--the only exit there is is supposed to whisk you away to Mogor's House, though apparently it doesn't work correctly in some ports (works fine in Eternity)? Oh, yeah, unusual MIDI, something from Sonic the Hedgehog, my gut tells me?

Whitemare Map 32 -- Mogor's House - 100% Kills / No secrets
Haha, the theme from "Killing Time." Really put a smile on my face the first time I heard that, just not something I'd ever have expected in Doom. I think this was my first encounter with Shadowman's habit for including some really bizarre/tongue-in-cheek music selections in his WADs, a trait that his mapping continues to carry into the present, if his most recent major release 'Khorus' is anything to go by (or maybe the most recent was that other Hellfire WAD, can't remember).

Anyway, Mogor's House. This is actually a pretty solid boss map, I think--it's a central house (essentially a device to break line of sight between any two points on the outer perimeter of the map) with three strange elevated smokeshacks containing strong weapons and a berserk pack (and some honeyglazed soylent green) positioned along the periphery, with a decent amount of open ground between these and the house. Once things get started, there are a bunch of imps and demons let loose, but the only real threats are the chaingunners initially positioned outside each smokeshack, and of course, the lord of the manor. Mogor himself, who begins in his outhouse and is understandably peeved that you've interrupted his 'private time' (one really has to wonder about the nature, purpose, and origin of that megasphere in there with him....), is an entity who, to put it succinctly, appears to be comprised of Beavis from the neck down and a badly hand-drawn caricature of the unholy lovechild of Peter Boyle and Mick Jagger to serve as a face. While his attack is pretty weak (the SS Nazi hitscan behavior plus a steady stream of standard-strength cacodemon lightning balls), Mogor shouldn't be underestimated; his movements are both fast and jerky, making it surprisingly difficult to score a clean hit on him when he's not attacking, and he boasts a metric crapton of HP, meaning that he can eventually wear you down and win through attrition if you're not careful. That said, he's easily beatable with a decent strategy--mine was to play ringaround-the-rosey with him using one of the four bulky torchbases near the house, walloping him with quality SSG shots in the instants when he stopped to begin firing.

Heh, really, this is a pretty stupid map, but I like it. Some part of me wishes Mogor looked like something that could be taken a tad more seriously, but of course that probably would've ruined the point.

MAP16: Depraved Feast

Ah, the required Icon of Sin end level, on MAP16 no less. I tend to not like these maps because I dislike approaching a level with the "trial and error" approach that leads to deaths and reloads; and Icon of Sin maps usually qualify as you need to run around and figure out what the objectives are before the level fills up with hellspawn and kills you. This level fills up quickly with the amount of monster spitters there are, but thankfully it's pretty simple - go up to the three towers and hit switches, the two with Cyberdemons lower the Icon's walls, and the one with the Spider raises the platform from which to shoot rockets at the Romero head from. Also nice is the invuln sphere, making the map much less frustrating, since by the time you hit all three the map is completely inundated with monsters. Even then, it can be difficult to get a shot with all the cacos and lost souls who will probably be floating in the way. (I admit that I play with mouselook, and I'm not sure if the top of the platform aligns with the Romero head on default view... if not, that makes it a lot tougher).

As Icon maps go, though, it's a fitting end for the WAD. The start is pretty annoying (no clue which wall to shoot, and boo forced damage sector starts) but a megasphere fixes all that. And the giant fleshy hell Christmas tree isn't bad looking.

Overall Thoughts

I didn't know much about the WAD beyond "Russian community project about snow/holiday season" at the outset, but I'm a sucker for the snow theme so I was interested to play this (even though I apparently played it when it came out and promptly forgot almost all the maps except 14 and 15). I was a little disappointed upon discovering that it was mostly a speedmapping session, since it shows. Quite a few of the maps are tiny in stature and eminently forgettable. There's also a bit of repetition, lots of dark ice caverns, especially at the start, make the maps kinda run together. There are a few standouts though, and some maps like 8 and 15 are huge, sprawling maps that are fun to explore and traverse. I also liked MAP12 as a concept map; could definitely use some fixing up but it was a cool idea. Least favorite would probably be 7, barely a map.

Whitemare Map 16 -- Depraved Feast - 319% Kills / No secrets
An IoS map (although in this case it's just Romero's head at the top of some nightmarish Carcosian Yule-tree) to close out the set. As I've said many times before at this point, I myself tend to be interested in this type of map, so I wasn't displeased by its presence on first contact. It's not a great map, and I myself feel it's a bit bland-looking, but it plays well enough.

To the question of "how do people beat shit like this?", in this case the answer is with some efficient BFG janitoring and well-timed use of the very handy invulnerability artifact that Magnus mentioned. The most important point is to be aware of the firing lane you need to use to hit Johnny's smug mug, and prepare the way for the final rocket salvo accordingly. While it may be tempting to skip the cybers by hitting the switches behind their backs while they're engaged in an inevitable infight, they should be BFG-bumped into oblivion so they don't rocket you off of the firing platform later. The other main thing is to be efficient when it's time to attack Romero--gather up a full load of cells as soon as you hit the last of the three switches, go clear out the nobles grouped around the firing platform, trigger the platform, BFG-sweep the airspace in front of the platform while it's coming down, grab the IV sphere, hop on, and just ignore everything else while holding down the trigger on the rocket launcher. Sometimes a stray soul or caco might get in the way, but if you cleaned up before taking the ride, autoaim should plow through them soon enough. Actually hitting Romero is easy (without mouselook, or with it, of course), it's just a question of not dying while you're standing there up on the platform, which is what the sphere is for.

So yeah, not too hard, with a little practice. On the other hand, if you try to muscle your way through or fight conventionally, the high rate of monster spawn means it's very difficult to gain headway and attack the target, so it can be pretty tough in that respect. Oh yeah, that start room is pretty lame, I agree. Hard to be too resentful of it since the megasphere right afterwards immediately makes it like it didn't happen, though.

I suggest the club plays Bloodshead for it's next wad after the current two.

^Already played most of it, a lot of it is rather underwhelming, although it tends to get a bit better later on. Don't take it from me, though, we'll see what everyone else feels like doing.

Moving on to Sacrament, by Clan [B0S]. Again, I've played this WAD (in full) once before, but that was on version 1.0. Apparently some gameplay and other changes were made to some maps in 1.1, but I don't know any details, so perhaps some of this will end up being nearly as new to me as it will to most of you.

Sacrament Map 01 -- Reposa in Pace - 100% Kills / No secrets
I wonder, is that 'Pace' a piece of wordplay, or just a typo?

While there are some monsters to fight and some straightforward gameplay scenarios here (that it's possible to fail/die, though for most players this will probably be unlikely), this is really just a brief narrative stage-setter. Like many of the other Sacrament maps, it places mood and atmosphere foremost, in this case striving to create a sense of surreal chiaroscuro and late-entry disorientation. The player character wakes up in his room, gun in hand; it's quite evident from the flood of gore emanating from the faucet in the kitchen that the milk of the cosmos has suddenly soured hereabouts. Trundling through the rest of the apartment building, we're treated to the sight of various intrusions by some other reality upon on our own (I particularly like the febrile moss and vinery that seems to follow the evil eye symbol around); this part of the experience is chiefly visual, and sets the tone for a lot of what's to come in Sacrament--dark, colliding the representational with the abstract, and with many 'cool' colors--blues greens, etc.--typified by the saturated blue-black sky. I get the distinct impression that some of this map is not quite as I remember it, so perhaps it was changed in places in this version, but it's so eclectic in form to begin with that the difference may just be in my head.

The meat of the level begins when you descend into the flesh-basement (<--see what I did there?), and sees you phasing erratically through both indoor and outdoor settings from tiny setpiece to tiny setpiece, from parks to lakes to lava pits to....well, more meat-caves, at one point complete with a bizarre 'railroad track' that looks to be made out of tripe and spareribs. The actual opposition is paltry--mostly former humans with the odd imp or sergeant here and there--the gameplay gets most of its flavor from the environment itself, e.g. one second you're surrounded in the middle of a forest, the next you're platforming on elevated stones over lava, etc. Come to think of it, the map's near total lack of attention-span in terms of gameplay flow kind of reminds me of maps by joe-ilya that I've played recently (in the NOVA beta), although Slavius' work here is considerably more aesthetically polished than those were, and the map as a concept makes a little more sense in the context of the next map, at least.

Really, this is not at all unlike Slavius' "Sweet House" in Whitemare, but 'Reposa' is much more effective (if equally trivial in a gameplay sense) part of the WAD it's in as a whole, almost entirely due to narrative reasons. Tiny maps can be quite effective, they just need to placed properly in the context of a longer mapset!

It's time for Sacrament! Though, to be honest, this whole thread seems just like a wad review by three individuals: me, DoTW, and Magnus :3.

First time playing, don't know what to expect other than Doxylamine Moon, so I'll be a coward and play on HNTR for this one.

MAP01 Reposa In Pace

Well this is interesting so far, with new weapon sprite and M_DOOM graphics (that I saw in Overdose and 5till L1 Complex, though). Only pistol combat here, there are sargeants, but no shotguns can be grabbed, and mostly imps and zombiemen abound. Pretty typical. The rise up to the checkerboard area, as well as teleporting to see several monsters, were otherwise standouts to this starter map.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the replaced weapon sprites. From what I gather, they were something of a point of contention at the WAD's release (same for the Lainos WADs that some of them also appear in).

Their level of quality varies quite a lot, but more on that later, perhaps. For now, I'll say that I personally like the new pistol sprite--even though the weapon's actual functionality is entirely unchanged, its appearance somehow makes it feel a little meatier and more powerful. Some folks are bound to take issue with the Duke3D-style off-center angle to this sprite (and some of the others), but this doesn't usually seem to hamper my accuracy much (even with mouselook/no crosshair), so it doesn't bother me.

Yeah, I feel like the last few months have really seen the reviewers fall off. I know sometimes I was one of those people who would start then stop, mainly due to getting busy. But the Club didn't seem to have that problem before... I dunno.

Anyways, Sacrament. New to me. Gonna start out doing UV/continuous, since it seems designed to be played that way.

MAP01: Reposa in Pace
100% kills, no secrets

I suppose this is supposed to be the "nightmare" referred to in the readme file. Start off in a nice-looking apartment, but with an oddly large amount of blood and skulls. I admit I'm already put off a bit by the sprite/sound replacements - the pistol actually looks cooler, but the ones later one look pretty lame. Ah well.

Definitely just a mood-setter, as the combat here is easy-peasy and only the pistol gets any use. The detail swings are a bit jarring at points (from outside park to rockred lava section, to flesh train tracks) but I suppose that's what a dream is like. Not much else to say.

Demon, not sure what you mean with the "Pace" being wordplay - isn't it just bastardized Latin for "rest in peace"?

MAP02: Doxylamine Moon
16% kills, no secrets

I'll do this one too, since according to OP we were supposed to start playing Sacrament on the 17th.

So uh. Yeah. Huh. This map.

Starts off in your apartment again, except this time normal, with no overflowing blood or skull walls. Go outside, and find yourself in a vast cityscape nearly devoid of any life except the occasional zombieman, imp or spectre. A few yellow skull keys dot the area, and apparently are used in some sort of puzzle, though I only found three of them and wasn't sure where I should be putting them or how many there were. (Kind of annoying, to be honest). The lack of a minimap is extremely annoying as well, since I can't see which areas I've covered and which I haven't. Follow the arrows to the clock tower, and just narrowly see the blue switch. Find the blue key, hit the switch... no idea what it does, but I try the clock again, and voila. A few more rooms later and... the exit. Okay...

Fun to explore, and the detail is pretty damn impressive (so impressive it slow my machine to a crawl if I looked towards the park from far away on software ZDoom), but the lack of the minimap really makes it a pain. I'll probably take a look later to find more of the skull keys, but moving on for now.

MAP01: Interesting map that takes away all my pistol ammo.
MAP02: Big ass city map with barely any monsters. I find 3 yellow skull keys with nowhere to put them. The only useful keycard in the map is the blue one, which allows you to enter a building to the north once you find the hidden switch. Fancy stuff.
MAP03: Lots of small hallways and corridors, half of them filled with slime! Also you can get most of the weapons in this map if you explore all the areas.

MAP02 Doxylmanine Moon

I remember this...

Yeah, I played the Overdose version first, heh. Lotta monsters and a lotta space, it was quite fun. This, not so much. The exact same start as the previous map. Only 27 monsters in HNTR and I only killed about five. Two former humans at the end, and three spectres, which I punched to death because I got bored. Design is much the same as the Overdose version, except a lot of the western parts were cut off. The blue key that people may have missed in Overdose does make an appearance there though. Oh, and why are there FOUR yellow keys? And was there a yellow door that I needed to open?

Clearly gameplay-wise the level falls flat, but what can be expected since this isn't the Overdose version.