Russian speedmapping contest #15

Here are the maps from today's Russian speedmapping contest. The mappers were given 4 hours to make a level on the theme "underground". Now the voting process begins and you can be the judge. Just rate every map from 1 to 10 and provide at least short commentary explaining your ratings. The maps are supposed to work in prboom-plus with -complevel 9. Have fun!

note: the suffix in the map name tells you which of the 3 texture packs you should load with the wad (or none if it says "iwad").

Was there an intended compatibility (-complevel 2, -complevel 9 max, other) that I could use to play them with, and rightfully claim that they're broken if I find them broken in that compatibility?

9. Added it to the post.

Apparently map08 is ZDoom only. It has a zero-tagged lift.

Who are the authors? I'm playing the maps now, going to post my ratings soon.

The authors will remain anonymous for now. It's good for voting.

cool. I dig the maps put out by the russian community. a refreshing contrast to the dogmatic bitches over here :D


01: 1/10. rather dire for 4 hours. puzzle was eh. guessing you need to hit switches 4910 going in clockwise order around the room, or something? Also that bridge does -20 damage.

02: 8/10. fun. chaotic. moderate-scale slaughter romp. waaay spammy with the AVs is my only complaint.

03: 3/10. map broken due to s1 switch. aside from that this felt amateurish. weird use of block-sound and block-monster. nothing really else of note to say.

04: 8/10. starting fight was 10*, a shame the rest of the map felt sort of uninspired/sloppy by comparison. still fun though. guessing this was a demonologist map?

05: 3/10. ugh. got stuck somewhere.

06: 6/10. charmingly oldschool. ultra cramped, ultra-straightforward. I like stuff like this honestly.

07: 10/10. super tight. super brutal. 100% my favorite type of doom to play. the map sort of feels like memfis-esque minimalist shapes collided with death-destiny on a mean streak.

08: 1/10. couldn't get out of first room. guessing it was only tested in zdoom.. or something.

09: 5/10. competent visually, door-campy and rather boring gameplay-wise.

10: 3/10. grindy. 64-wide mazes, 'nuff said.

11: 6/10. funny.

12: 7/10. well that was cool. ultra-flat hallway-esque gameplay felt like I was playing a grb map or something, but the overhead global map thing was pretty awesome. fuck that bgm though...

here's my fdas in case anyone is interested: https://www.mediafire.com/?1c5ycz8967xkxcp

Allright here we go.

MAP01: A really short map that doesn't offer so much action. But we have a really cool puzzle.I found the room with the solution immediatly, lol. The bridge is damaging. Rating: 6.

MAP02: Very basic slaughter-map in the visuals. Too many AV I think. Rating: 7.

MAP03: This has some interesting parts, but overall kinda passable. Rating 5.

MAP04: A really deadly start, but after this the fights are just normal. Rating 6.

MAP05: This has a cool mood, I love the music. Health and ammo were low, I didn't bother to kill the flying monsters. You can get stuck in the bridge if you fall before pressing the switch. Rating: 9.

MAP06: Cramped and with an oldschool feel. Rating: 7.

MAP07: Pretty tough. Rating: 6.

MAP08: Plasma Gun extravaganza. It could use way more interesting fights. Rating: 7.

MAP09: Visually nice. It turns to be an SG-SSG sluggish experience. Rating: 5.

MAP10: Not very fond of 64 wide corridors. Rating: 2.

MAP11: Monster count raised to 3947 at the end. Is it that korean??. Rating: 4.

MAP12: I loved the world-map. Gameplay was meh, at least it ends soon. KEK. Rating: 7.

Btw the joke in the last map is that in Russian you can understand "underground" as "under Earth" too, heh. Just wanted to explain it.

FDAs for all maps. I didn't finish the following ones:
02 - gave up (but late)
04 - got stuck
07 - PrBoom-plus glitch, I stopped hearing game sounds, only heard a sound mess cycling over and over
08 - couldn't get past the first room, probably a bug
09 - gave up (ragequit after dying twice in the same area)
11 - gave up (didn't like it)

I must also say, I've discovered surprisingly many unclosed sectors in the maps, they should be visible in my demos.


Ratings:

01 - 4/10 - cool password gimmick, but weak visuals, progression mechanics and gameplay
02 - 9/10 - extremely hard, but I'd say fair, excitingly fast-paced, kinda bland looking though
03 - 4/10 - average at best, often skippable or tedious fights
04 - 4/10 - spammed hordes, campable from distance, annoying because of infinitely tall actors
05 - 3/10 - too much darkness, uncomfortable combat, long time spent running (away from something)
06 - 6/10 - flat layout and mostly unexciting gameplay, but not exactly bad, there was variation and balance and reasonable progression
07 - 5/10 - decent challenge, some parts entirely skippable, straightforward and not fun to retry
08 - 3/10 - monster spam, non-functional trigger in -complevel 9, visually relatively OK
09 - 7/10 - nicely made, still average-ish
10 - 4/10 - linear, symmetrical, maze-y, spammy, rather bland, common speedmap - but playable
11 - 2/10 - extreme monster spam, long waiting, symmetry, not my taste at all
12 - 6/10 - fun, but a bit too simple, ugly and unbalanced

Who won?

The voting will end at the 19th I think.

Some nice maps in this set. Here are some quick thoughts:

map01 - I think this was supposed to be a a puzzle map, though I'm still not exactly sure what the puzzle was and how I managed to bungle my way to the exit. Not my style at all. Traditional gameplay was almost non-existent with the highlight being grabbing the chaingun from under the nose of a pain elemental and chaingunner. It looked quite good for that it was. 3/10

map02 - A challenging and hectic map. I found the easiest way to kick-start the proceedings was to dive head first into the archvile behind the switch with the ssg and let chaos consume the rest. Died quite a few times here after pressing a switch for the first time and then having to figure out where vile blasts were coming from. Going to have to agree with others here that I got somewhat fed up of the over-reliance on viles for challenge after a while. Once you get the BFG they become much less of a threat so long as you hang around the corners boxes and let everything else get distracted by infighting. By the final release of pain elementals and viles I was quite bored and glad to find the exit switch. 8/10

map03 - Bizarre progression, the bfg before the plasma rifle? I didn't really understand why there are harmless zombiemen dotted around on ledges. The map looked okay except for the final room that stuck out like a sore thumb. Why do you start facing the wrong way? 4/10

map04 - A pretty map. The first fight was excellent with good use of ammo placement to pressure player and keep them moving. The pain elemental and vile trap was very easily campable and not as threatening as it should have been. The same goes for the final cyberdemon and revenant trap as it was telegraphed long in advance and the bfg cuts through them like butter. 7/10

map05 - Opening room and techbase areas looked nice, but I wasn't a fan of the extremely dark, green cave areas which dominated. The geometry was too basic and it felt way too big for the action it contained. Lots of low level monsters and hitscan enemies to mow down. Couldn't find a weapon other than the chaingun and shotgun so it got tedious chipping down cacodemons and pain elementals in the huge room with the bridge. Eventually got trapped in a canyon with seemingly no way to get out and no damaging floor. Did the author make it with jumping in mind? Didn't feel like restarting after that. 3/10

map06 - This map was pretty and had a simple charm to it. I liked the little sofa and the red key area with the stalagmites. Gameplay nothing much to write home about. Not too challenging as the resistance was light and head on. 6/10

map07 - Tricky map with some tightly focused fights and not much margin for error. Died once to the two sneaky chaingunners in the room with the damaging floor. The final big room with the soulsphere was quite good but left me desiring something a little more challenging. Aesthetically, the grungy textures conjured an appropriately oppressive atmosphere, that complimented trap heavy gameplay. 8/10

map08 - Skipped because it doesn't work in prboom, sorry!

map09 - I thought this was bar far the prettiest map of the set. A real sense of place and each area had its own unique landmarks. Somewhat let down by gameplay, which was flat experience. Resources are quite sparse for the first half of the map. I played rather poorly and still managed to survive despite making silly mistakes simply by retreating to the safety of a doorway. Still enjoyed it. 7/10

map10 - Wasn't a fan of this map. The opening was a very easy grind through a wall of pinkies to grab rockets for the barons. The big lava area with the ysk looked quite promising but was very dissapointed to find out there's no fight there at all! Instead the remainder of the action is relegated to 64 unit wide mazes and the main enemy you fight is the humble zombieman? Also I disliked the replacement sounds, the rocket launcher sounding particularly strange. I found a hom effect if you turn around after escaping the pointless teleporter maze. 2/10

map11 - A brutal grind of a map. The first room was a really great idea but was let down by the very inefficient crushers. This is then followed by another long wait for the lift to slowly descend. The central arena was a straightforward circle the monsters and hold mouse1 affair. The two wings to access the keys were stressful and very tedious to safely clear. It's too easy to get caught and rubberband off the walls while trying to wear down the outer cyberdemons. The cybies on the inside were then trivial to dispatch. Unfortunately, the same fight is repeated four times in a row with no variation. The final cyberdemon was really unfairly placed but luckily I managed to survive a direct rocket to the face and hit the exit switch. I certainly wasn't going to grind through the map to get to that point again.. The cave aesthetic was acceptable and functional in design. The automap was quite amusing. 5/10

map12 - While the play area was very barebones with 90s brick textures and boxy rooms, the little world above looked very nice. I also liked the tendrils extending out of the exit switch. Gameplay was okay but basic. I thought the opening pin was quite effective and it caught me out once. After that the map is a straightforward exercise in methodically clearing our rooms. 6/10

The voting is over, here are the final results and now you can see who made which map: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TAB7Xjuzenr1Lp7csizjk6AUGqdbi2dMMaXkVpxeg2c/view?pli=1#gid=1175781032

Thank you for sharing your opinions!