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Dregmere Dam

   (4 reviews)
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Long forgotten barrow-dam now infested with swamp creatures. Still seems to have a glimmer of life, as the torches are still lit and the doors and switches still operate. Who knows what lurks within the old dam complex...

My first Hexen level: a large map with swamps, waterfalls, dam complexes, mountainous areas and a half sunken city. Some secret and non-essential areas also exist for exploration.


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ETTiNGRiNDER

  

This one is all over the place with several disparate "chapters" to how it progresses linked vaguely by themes of texture choice, and it's mostly not good; at times I felt like the author was trying to make the most infuriating level possible.  One of the biggest issues is the seeming obsession with timed door scenarios, where you trigger a switch, then have to run somewhere else to get through a door before it closes again.  These are placed over and over again across the map, and the first couple, before you work out that they're the main gimmick of the map, are pretty cryptic in trying to figure out what the switches do.  From then on it's kind of "oh, it's THIS again, couldn't it be something different?"  As the fighter, none of them were bad enough to force speedrun tactics, but they were tight enough to be annoying and would probably be even more so as one of the slower classes.

 

In the beginning, you're in sort of a dark labyrinth of waterways and caves, and it's a bit difficult to navigate where you're going in the darkness; there's a torch that you might want to burn early, but there are later parts of the map where it would also be useful so there's a tradeoff in saving it or not.  This part of the map is also pretty brutal when it comes to count and nastiness of monsters vs. the available resources, tending to result in the hard beginning, easier later type of issue though it never quite gets generous enough to be super easy.

 

Breaking past the start you come across the dam proper, which is huge, and has some fiddly jumping and ledge hugging (along with the timed door gimmick, which here can potentially kill you if you don't get through certain tunnels before the polyobject comes back and crushes you).  There's a section that's like Doom 2's Chasm, with the addition of having to jump between the platforms and dying to fall damage if you miss, but at least this part isn't on a timer.  A few switches are retriggerable and can block your progression if you hit them more times than needed.  At least one of the essential timed actions is rather hard to figure out, too.

 

In the second half of the map, after completing the dam, you get the Wings of Wrath and can fly around some big spaces battling a big mass of creatures, which might be the most fun part of the map, but it's not enough to really redeem it and soon enough you're on to some dark, confined catacombs where the timed door gimmick comes back in force.

 

Finally you break free into some larger and better lit arenas where you fight a couple of class bosses and their minions.  After that you get a message that you won the map, but that you can still explore if you want to; at this point you have wings and a loopback is open, so I did so, found and killed a couple of optional sort-of-hidden bosses (with not much reward for doing so beyond beating them for its own sake), but ultimately couldn't find the last four monsters.  So I issued the console "kill monsters" command to see if any final scripted thing would happen if you wiped everything, but nothing apparent did; the "you win" script line is all the ending you get, with no formal exit.

 

There are also some missing texture errors; they reference flats from the Hexen beta version so if you load a texture pack that includes them, it'll fix the issue, but it's puzzling why they weren't included with the WAD.  There's some other weird texturing that almost feels like some walls were missed in the process of changing texture choices, and the way the ZDoom skybox feature was used is a bit weird and ugly.

 

I've seen worse by a lot but I would not recommend this one.

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MirrorMage

  

I appreciate the effort to design a vast and epic map but the danger of doing such a map is that it is very easy to have a lot of empty, boring expanses which is unfortunately what this map suffers from. I spent so much time just strafing through nothing. It ends up suffering from the same problems like Badlands (1997) where there is an awesome amount of space but nothing is done with it.

 

There were far too many stalkers in the swamp waters. I spawn in and I am immediately greeted with a stalker in my face with 10+ more after that in such a narrow stream of water. Right off the bat, I was already discouraged to continue or explore. The map was way too dark. I found myself waiting for the lightning to strike a lot just so I could catch a glimpse of what was hiding behind all the black. The map should be a little brighter or at least offer more torches for the adventurer's disposal. 

 

Lastly, there were several missing textures especially near lifts and doors.

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  • File Reviews

    • By el macho gaming · Posted
      I like the the sprites and the mechanics of the gun is cool just as advertised Can I use some of the sprites for my wad?
    • By Dari · Posted
      An ancient wad, featured in the wad compilation NEWDOOM.WAD. Like most wads of the time, stepping into the wrong room will get your shit rocked (don't go in a straight line from the beginning!). Otherwise, it was a decently fun level, visuals are acceptable for the time, layout's alright.
    • By AdministrationCenter21 · Posted
      I love the lil' pills, but I'm just too used to the red crosses to utilize this, honestly.
    • By Majin · Posted
      very creative and concise. 
    • By ETTiNGRiNDER · Posted
      This one is all over the place with several disparate "chapters" to how it progresses linked vaguely by themes of texture choice, and it's mostly not good; at times I felt like the author was trying to make the most infuriating level possible.  One of the biggest issues is the seeming obsession with timed door scenarios, where you trigger a switch, then have to run somewhere else to get through a door before it closes again.  These are placed over and over again across the map, and the first couple, before you work out that they're the main gimmick of the map, are pretty cryptic in trying to figure out what the switches do.  From then on it's kind of "oh, it's THIS again, couldn't it be something different?"  As the fighter, none of them were bad enough to force speedrun tactics, but they were tight enough to be annoying and would probably be even more so as one of the slower classes.   In the beginning, you're in sort of a dark labyrinth of waterways and caves, and it's a bit difficult to navigate where you're going in the darkness; there's a torch that you might want to burn early, but there are later parts of the map where it would also be useful so there's a tradeoff in saving it or not.  This part of the map is also pretty brutal when it comes to count and nastiness of monsters vs. the available resources, tending to result in the hard beginning, easier later type of issue though it never quite gets generous enough to be super easy.   Breaking past the start you come across the dam proper, which is huge, and has some fiddly jumping and ledge hugging (along with the timed door gimmick, which here can potentially kill you if you don't get through certain tunnels before the polyobject comes back and crushes you).  There's a section that's like Doom 2's Chasm, with the addition of having to jump between the platforms and dying to fall damage if you miss, but at least this part isn't on a timer.  A few switches are retriggerable and can block your progression if you hit them more times than needed.  At least one of the essential timed actions is rather hard to figure out, too.   In the second half of the map, after completing the dam, you get the Wings of Wrath and can fly around some big spaces battling a big mass of creatures, which might be the most fun part of the map, but it's not enough to really redeem it and soon enough you're on to some dark, confined catacombs where the timed door gimmick comes back in force.   Finally you break free into some larger and better lit arenas where you fight a couple of class bosses and their minions.  After that you get a message that you won the map, but that you can still explore if you want to; at this point you have wings and a loopback is open, so I did so, found and killed a couple of optional sort-of-hidden bosses (with not much reward for doing so beyond beating them for its own sake), but ultimately couldn't find the last four monsters.  So I issued the console "kill monsters" command to see if any final scripted thing would happen if you wiped everything, but nothing apparent did; the "you win" script line is all the ending you get, with no formal exit.   There are also some missing texture errors; they reference flats from the Hexen beta version so if you load a texture pack that includes them, it'll fix the issue, but it's puzzling why they weren't included with the WAD.  There's some other weird texturing that almost feels like some walls were missed in the process of changing texture choices, and the way the ZDoom skybox feature was used is a bit weird and ugly.   I've seen worse by a lot but I would not recommend this one.
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