Swim With The Whales

Sluggish gameplay with little new to offer. Traps aren't creative nor is combat fun. Also, the first map has annoying pole running section and is very dark. At least geometry showed some effort.

Such a wonderful creation! I really wish there were some more maps so this could make it into ZDaemon Thursday Night Survival (TNS) someday...

I...did not review this, okay. well, it's blue and it's pretty decent and setpiece-y. get used to ribbiks' style and this one is just like all his other maps, very well-designed and fun to play. just watch out for MAP03's final area.

I made the mistake of putting this on UV for my first playthrough. Oops. It was insanely brutal and I didn't have a lot of fun with it. However, after checking out the readme, as suggested I went back for another run on HMP. It's impressive to see the huge difference in difficulty and I appreciate the effort in differentiating the various skill level choices. I definitely recommend new players play it on HMP or lower, that way you can really appreciate the excellent architecture and interesting color scheme, as well as that soothing DKC music that makes for a unique vibe. 4/5 for a HMP playthrough. The only thing lacking here is the amount of maps, and that's OK. I'd just love to see more in this style.

 

Rating when played on UV: 2/5. For extreme masochists only.

Sick wad.

Great looking and challenging WAD. Focus on quality over quantity with well thought out encounters featuring low to medium numbers of monsters. Also the secret map's music is GOAT. 5 dolphin riding Archviles out of 5 whale riding Cyberdemons.

Great plunge into wad stardom for Mr. Ribbit. good slaughter for many kill (and without needing a boatload of monsters). UV is the only difficulty in doom! (20+ years to prepare for this wad; get better noobs?) Half the detail is the daring lighting, and the single color stuff works. Donkey Kong midis match the maps. The jumpmaze sections are weird, but the author loves that stuff, so whatever! This map was hard enough to put grown men to bed early, 5 whales out of 5

The architecture and details of this piece leaves me speechless, but I didn't like the gameplay. I am not fan of slaughter maps, I can get bored by these maps soon and most of fights were too difficult for me. 4/5 - Damned

As with Stardate, the visuals and level design are the real strong point here. The gameplay is atmospheric and fun enough with plenty challenge. As others have stated, HMP difficulty is recommended as it is fair enough while still being challenging. My only grievance with this wad is the inevitable repetition; both from gameplay, and visuals. It would be nice to see more than blue and black! Good wad though. 4stars from me. -TRRobin.

Impressive architecture and detailing, but monotonous slaughterfest gameplay that involves a lot of quicksaving/quickloa ding, at least for me. Despite the beautiful layouts I honestly got bored with the gameplay. Same with Stardate 20x6.

i'm probably speaking for myself only, but i really dislike maps like these. this would be great, imo, if the gameplay was paced a lot slower. it's not that it's difficult, it's just boring. seeing tougher monsters right off the bat just kills it for me entirely. there's no time to admire the authors hard work because you're blasting away the entire time. beautiful work, but not for me, gameplay wise.

I recommend playing this on Hurt Me Plenty. UV is just idiotically unfair. All in all, it's good.

Very stunning visuals.

Has there been Weimar-style hyperinflation in Doom map design during the last 20 years? Instead of wheelbarrows of Reichsmarks, we are given legions of arch-viles. No monsters on map 1; instant death on map 2. Chastened, I began again on HMP (henceforth 'Don't Kill Me Instantly'). Blinded by pain, I fell into a pit (painful, of course) then stumbled through a secret door only to be confronted by a cyberdemon. I don't want to spend a decade in whatever monastery the author honed his skills in.

I wasn't really that impressed with this one. Just like Stardate 20X6, just because you add a different color, doesn't make it an outstanding wad. 3/5

Another masterpiece of architecture and design. Extremely hard on UV and more casually fun (still challenging) on lower difficulties. Bravo once more!

Fun and well-designed, though sometimes you need to search a little. The difficulty is of the "sadistic" variety though, so unless you're some kind of a Doom genius you might want to play on HNTR. Great visuals at times. Add in atmospheric music, and you get a good mapset which has deservedly won a Cacoward. Pity map31 is so short, though :>

Very,VERY good!I feel right at home with this wad because I am big as a whale.(not really,just a big ass)

Pretty good.

Hard as balls. Love the level design. Brilliant just like Stardate.

Map layout: 3.5/5. Very nice textures / ambiance: 4/5. Gameplay: slaughterfest is definitely not my cup of thee, but as others like it, I won't rate it. So overall: 4/5.

A vast improvement over Stardate, Swim With the Whales sees Ribbiks improving both his sense of aesthetics (this one isn't entirely brown, and features much more contrast than Stardate), and his sense of layout and flow (SWTW doesn't feel like "Painkiller in Doom"), while maintaining his trademark Death-Destiny inspired encounter design. Just do yourself a favor and play it on HMP (again, just like a D-D map).

too hard for me, but for the visuals 5*

A pretty blue fulled wad with great architecture & the kind of crazy difficulty I like. 5/5

very hard levels , love them