SLOTH 2009

This is a slightly "weird" package from ToD, but I find it interesting nonetheless.

Map 01, as the text file suggests, isn't meant to be taken particularly seriously. So, unless you wanna see everything in this WAD, you might just wanna skip to another map.

Map 02 is where it gets interesting. This one is a very simple practice map, where you can spawn different sets of monsters at your own pace, and deal with everything how you like, or you just unleash as much as possible, and watch a small scale bloodbath unfold. Personally, I think map 02 is a pretty neat map for those who want to practise their fundamentals against certain enemies. Think of it as a "workout-map" that you can fire up, play for a couple minutes to get warmed up proper, and then move on to something bigger on your "bucket-list".

Map 03 is a somewhat familiar affair for those who have played several of ToD's maps. It's a "BFG spam - rocket jump crossover" with fairly straight forward BFG-centric combat. A pretty simple gear-check for slaughter enthusiasts, and perhaps a decent entry level difficulty for those who are still wet behind the ears, assuming you don't mind a bit of rocket jumping mixed in. This map does require rocket jumping, so if you're not familiar with that particular genre, drop a save after you get the RL, because you will need to do a couple jumps to finish the map. The vast majority of said jumps are easy and forgiving enough, so that even pretty inexperienced jumpers have a decent chance of braving those heights. Despite the monster count, this map can be finished in a pretty quick manner, if you know where to go at which point in time, so this isn't a very grindy affair by any means. Short and sweet. My only gripe with this map would be that the keys can be hard to locate under all the corpses, but other than that I found it thoroughly enjoyable.

Map 04 is a bit harder to get into. Progression in the magnum opus of this set can come across slightly "cryptic", and, unlike map 03, this one is more focused on platforming/jumping in places. Unlike the previous map, this one also comes across a little bit more evil and seems to be more eager to kill the player at times, but it's far from brutal or unfair. It took me a while to figure this one out, and I left the map after about 32 minutes IGT (with an hour spent on the map in total, including checking a few things in the builder). So if you're in a hurry, keep this one for when you have the time to spare, so you can figure everything out at your leisure.

ToD's trademark tropes are something you can expect from these maps as well. None of these maps are situated high on the difficulty scale by today's "standards", but they do require some manner of consistency and decent slaughter-fundamentals. If you don't have any familiarity with the genre at all, you might want to look at something else that doesn't also throw rocket jumping into the mix. If you are familiar with slaughter, if only a bit, then this might be worth a look for the "novelty" aspect of rocket jumping mixed in, which makes for a nice change of pace.

As an additional note, ToD did deliver demos with these maps (from map 02 onward), but they don't play back properly with ZDoom 2.8.1. If you happen to have ZDoom 2.2.0 (which I do not), then you might be able to enjoy the author himself in action on these maps, which I'm sure would be a treat as well.

TL;DR:If you like Time of Death's maps in general, add this small bundle to your collection of curiosities. If you are not familiar with slaughter, check out map 02 and map 03 while taking it slow, you might just be able to establish a foothold and enjoy yourself. Rocket jumping is a fun "novelty" thrown into the mix from my POV, but your mileage may vary.