Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
dobu gabu maru

The DWmegawad Club plays: Realm of Chaos

Recommended Posts

MAP06 - “Splatterhouse” by Steve Duff
Ah unmarked exit :/
This map was rather easy, though somehow I died loads of time, ok that was due to one early trapped leaving me on 3% health :P
Visually the best map so far with some interesting secrets to boot. Gameplay could do with some more bite though.

Share this post


Link to post
SteveD said:

the Floor Texture Rule


Not to hijack the thread, but I've no idea what this is.

Tomorrow I post my write-up for your map (not the 6th here yet!) -- don't worry, I liked it. ;)

Share this post


Link to post
Jayextee said:

Not to hijack the thread, but I've no idea what this is.


Don't change floor texture without also changing the floor height. Steve's mildly pathological about it :)





Map06
WORST MAP EVAR.




Oh, okay. I'll really review it.

This is a solid tech base, in the course of which we learn that Steve loves him some long corridors and some staircases. Oh yeah, that raise/lower 16 feeling, mmm baby. :)

A very different feel from the earlier maps. Those tended to have short sharp spikes of action, while Splatterhouse kinds of nibbles at you constantly. I forget how many times I walked into a room I thought I'd cleared to take a 5% hit from a wandering troop or hear the snarl/hiss of an imp. For me, that ever present feel of danger was a nice call back to the original E1. It seems Steve set up lots of ways for monsters to move around, and let some of them do it (plus opening a closet or two along the way). Nice.

Speaking of closets, Steve also loves him some "you found a secret? Have some extra monsters!", as several times, accessing a secret sector opens up new closets when you return to the previous area.

Visuals are good and I liked the architecture. Lots of views from one area into another, and connections between zones.

Monster density is not super high, and it tends to be mostly smaller types (I think a caco was the nastiest thing I saw), so in terms of difficulty curve it is easier than I'd expect for map06, but it felt more menacing than it really was, which is nice.

My favorite map of the set so far, despite the unmarked exit that prohibits you from grabbing those last two shotguns.

Share this post


Link to post

So I switched to fast monsters and tried to play the next two levels. 07 was only okay but 08 was just fantastic with -fast. :) Expect some hilarity when I post the demo! (and my very dumb tactic against the first RoC cyberdemon rofl)

Share this post


Link to post

Whee catchup time! ZDoom, mouselook aiming/crosshair, continuous play, frequent saves, etc.

MAP01: Dropoff

"Inoffensive" is the word that comes to mind. Lots of 1996isms - long, empty corridors without anything fun to spruce 'em up, and slightly strange texture choices (yes, I love using a 32-wide COMPSPAN to decorate my huge, vast walls!) Still, while bland, it's not bad. The red key ambush at the start was actually decent, especially for a MAP01, but the rest of the level is pretty ho-hum after that. The room with the giant arrow made out of boxes and a giant wall ambush revealing a whopping seven imps was underwhelming. 2/5

MAP02: Outpost 27

Surprisingly cramped level, with lots of re-looping, almost feels like a Congestion 1024 map. (In fact, with a bit of squeezing and eliminating the outside areas, it could fit in a 1024x1024 grid). The linear nature makes it somewhat pedestrian, but still decent. And yeah, that windowsill-hopping Hell Knight is hilariously derpy. 3/5

MAP03: Mars Base Alpha

Feel somewhat unique, not texture/design choices I've seen much of before (and the sky really stands out here with the darkened outside areas). There are some weird choices (why is the one outside part super-bright when the rest is dark?) and poor ones (columns near the end render the final battle with the knights/demons laughable). Meh. 2/5

MAP04: Sewers

Everyone else has already ripped this shreds, and rightfully so, it's not good. (This is the worst part of falling behind in reviews: not being able to jump in on the groupbashing!) Feels like an example of "what not to do in WAD design, 1996": lots of pointlessly huge/tall rooms separated by tiny 64-wide corridors, overuse of lighting effects, and poor item/monster placement. The monster placement in the first room is horrendous, and the AV fight is impossible without cheesing the doors (I sense the silver walls were intended to be hidden behind, but they're too short). There's also the kindly provided radsuit to skip over a 2-foot-long section of brown sludge, while the green sludge in the rest of the map doesn't hurt you, except for the large area near the red door. Whee, consistency! Lots of HOMs on missing lower textures, too. 1/5

MAP05: Mission Control

For being mission control, there certainly are a lot of boxes. More like storage control AMIRITE...no? Okay, fine. I like the central elevator motif, I can't recall seeing that too often though others said it was common back in the day, go figure. It is a bit disappointing that it's simply "go to every floor to grab keys for the last door" instead of actually needing to loop back and forth between levels. Texture use is a bit over the place, and the Mastermind at the end is laughably easy to avoid. 2/5

MAP06: Splatterhouse

I admit I really was hoping this level would suck, just so I could stick it to SteveD (in a nice way - he's one of my favorite posters here so I just wanted to razz him a bit). But, it's actually the best level we've seen so far, by a large margin. Doesn't feel like something made in 1996. There's a lot of large open areas, height variation, some good lighting and even outdoor areas you can get to. The main complaint would be that it's far too easy, especially given its large nature (sometimes feels empty). That and the UNMARKED EXIT! Bad, SteveD, bad!

(And what's up with all those Romero Rules violations with the floor textures, huh? ;) 4/5

Share this post


Link to post
SteveD said:

I'm only re-releasing my 7 maps, since I have no right to the others, as Realm of Intensified Chaos. My maps as they stand in this megawad feature several gameplay and design errors, including frequent violations of the Floor Texture Rule, a mandatory secret door, unavoidable items in front of switches, switches actuating distant sectors, improper use of Zerks, and several other flaws, including bland lighting. I've already done significant revision to about 4 of the maps, adding hundreds of gradient lighting sectors, significant amounts of wall, floor and ceiling detail, and fairly large numbers of new monsters. It'll be a pretty significant tune-up. ;D


Another upcoming wad to look forward to :)

Are you revising with Hellmaker or the far more stable DB(2)?

Share this post


Link to post

Map05 - Splatterhouse 83% Kills|81% Items|16% Secret - 12:05
Health 84 - Armor 97 | 0 Deaths

Oh, hey, this is pretty epic from the get-go. I like the staircase and the use of varied ceiling heights to make the first courtyard-style room look interesting. The visual design and layout are pretty nice in this map, but I have to agree that it was far too easy. It was the scale, more than anything, that made this map feel less difficult. I feel like if it were scaled down a lot, it'd have benefited from it. The massive monster count even on HMP would have had a chance to shine if you didn't have five minutes to react to even fireball.

Overall, this definitely felt like the strongest entry in the set thus far. Though I do curse that unmarked exit which robbed me off secret finding and additional monster smashing.

Share this post


Link to post

MAP06 Splatterhouse

I didn't like Hitherto's demo of the level, it was quite flawed. Also, I wish Hitherto woulda used the berserk near the blue key but he didn't :p. To contradict my thoughts on the demo, I agree with what Hitherto had said about monster placement, it was retarded.

Also, several times in this map when chaingunning shotgun guys they still fire at me! They should be flinching when I'm riddling their guts with bullets! A fucking monster quirk!

On to the review:

God I remember this level like it was a nightmare. Why? I got so lost! I tried following Hitherto's route again but my memory has failed me on several occasions, sometimes I forget the yellow key, other times the blue. It drives me mad. Having four pathways was kinda neat but having both the red doors and one other pathway eventually leading into one another got me confused. Visuals were okay. The outside area was much larger than it should be (and for one somewhat-measly-but-somehow-somewhat-useful secret). The outside wall monsters were quite annoying, so I resorted to chaingun sniping them. The arachnotron and lost souls didn't really spice things up too much there either. Other than that, combat overall was okay and relatively mild. I used the chaingun for the first minute or so against nearly all the enemies up to the first spectre before switching to SSG, then alternating between the two with some sparse RL usage. Over in the blue key area, I of course got the berserk and used it to punch remaining demons to the yellow door (this was after chaingun sniping as many zombies as I can). Behind the yellow door, I punched lots of shit: zombies, imps, even barrels, trying to knock everything upside their respective heads. It resulted in some not-quite-as-healthy-as-I-thought-it-would-be outcomes. But eventually, perserverance got me through the end, now if only that exit could have a marker. Overall, biggest level so far, nonlinear, shotgun guys abound, easy to get lost in before the yellow door, a ginormous outside area with not much in store, and mostly mild combat throughout. Final Time 7:51.

Share this post


Link to post

Map06 – Splatterhouse by Steve Duff – Kills – 100, Items – 97, Secret – 100. Time 25:31. End Health 110, Armor 190. Death Count - Zero

At least I didn’t get killed in my own map, but that won’t last much longer. ;D

As everyone noted, this map is way, way too easy. Capellan is right, this is an E1 style map, in fact, my own E1 Trauma style, though there isn’t much trauma or splatter in this house. :D Magnus was right, too, this is not a 1996 map, it’s a 1997 map. The most up-to-date unreleased version I have is dated 5-27-1997, under the working title Bubba101, and in the Map06 slot. The previous version, dated 5-26-1997, is a Map01, which helps explain why the difficulty is so low. This in fact was intended to be Map01 of a 5 or 6-map minisode of long, adventure-oriented levels. Of these, Disraeli and Mordecai were both released on the PWAD graveyard known as the AOL MacDoom Forums in 1997. As to the AOL MacDoom Forums, everything there went to digital heaven years ago when the forum closed down. Of the maps mentioned, only Disraeli was ever released at idgames, in 1999, for those who might be interested; http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=10214

Oh yes, the shameless self-promotion never stops with me. ;D Disraeli and Mordecai have both been gathered into a 5-map minisode called Abcess, which will soon be ready for playtesting.

Anyway, it appears that Rob Berkowitz contacted me on May 26,1997, and told me that Ty Halderman said we had to replace Slava Pestov’s Map06 like, tomorrow, because it was too much like IWAD map E1M9. By this time, Rob was working on the never-ending Mordeth project, and he wasn’t interested in doing a new map for RoC – in a day. My E1 Trauma episode was well advanced, and I considered giving Disraeli to RoC, but that map was my baby at the time, so I punched up Splatterhouse a bit and the rest is history.

For a little map-geek info, I tend to map room-by-room and area-by-area, straight from the editor with nothing on paper beforehand. I start making a room, put monsters in it, fight the room until I have what I’m looking for on UV, and then go to the next room, rinse, repeat. If Map06 looks planned, that’s an illusion. It was simply built with the guiding principles of Knee Deep, Fava and Osiris. As a mapper, I look for ways to connect areas, create crossfires, lay traps, etc. This approach tends to produce large maps, because unless I put in a hard limit somewhere, the map can “go fractal,” spawning rooms off rooms with no logical end. With this basic approach, and an editor where I typically saved after every 10 sectors, it took a long time to make a map. ;D

The E1 Trauma maps were a departure from my original style, which will become obvious very soon.

Splatterhouse, like all my other RoC maps, is basically an advanced beta. The gameplay wasn’t playtested enough to amp the difficulty. In this regard it is, for me, the biggest disappointment of all my maps in RoC. It’s better-looking than the others, and arguably has a better layout, but it doesn’t snarl like the others do. It also signaled a switch to a kinder, gentler period of mapping for me, going more for mood and suspense than raw violence. Well, those days are over! When I started revising my RoC maps, the size and layout of Splatterhouse responded very well to lighting and violence upgrades. It’s already gone from 373 to 555 sectors, most of which are from gradient lighting. The monster count on UV has increased from 249 to 281, and climbing. It’s amazing what a few Insta-Lifts can do. ;D With all the liquid floors and spacious rooms, there is potential for fairly extreme violence upgrades to come from more Insta-Lifts and teleport traps. And rooms too big for effective Imp and noble action? Well, the obvious solution is more Chaingunners and Revvies. ;D

Heh.

Share this post


Link to post

Map 06 -- Splatterhouse - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Ah, yes, I remember this one. Pretty cool map, probably the most mature work in the set thus far, and definitely the best--and I'm not just saying that because Steve is here to make The Melancholic Clown Face at me if I don't. Since I know he likes them, here's a (not very fast, and I think I had to go look for wandering monsters at a couple of points) UVmax demo. I bit the bullet and recorded this in PrBooM+ complevel 2, so it should be less of a hassle to play back than that one I did for map 11 of Coffee Break.

Depicted here is some kind of abandoned old workhouse or industrial building of some kind--a very haunted one. It has a subtly unusual look to it, that I couldn't quite put my finger on at first, but it occurs to me it probably has something to do with texture selection--it's about an even split between DooM II textures and (Ultimate) DooM textures, whereas most maps for DooM II tend to heavily favor one or the other. The aesthetic is simple but classy, with a number of open, airy spaces (both indoors and out) juxtaposed with more cluttered computer rooms, a good deal of height variation, and straightforward but sensible lighting effects. Alignment is pretty naff in some places (e.g. the bricks in the start room) and there are some outright screwups in others (e.g. the skylight over the green armor platform in the slime trench), but these were nowhere near glaring enough to negatively impact my enjoyment of the map; I simply mention them because Steve says he's retouching the map. Apart from that...I dunno, maybe slightly more darkness and some more gore props/decorations, in keeping with the name? Incidentally, this map looked great in PalPlus.

As others have said, the combat is generally nonthreatening, with what pressure there is being mainly a byproduct of the fact that all of the armor vests are quite a ways into the guts of the building (one of them in a secret). With the emphasis on troopers, sergeants, imps, and demons, it has a sort of Knee Deep feel to it (this one more well-rounded than the vague similarity that map 05 possessed). There are a few commandos and hell knights for color, at least, and a well-used revenant--the environment he appears in is well-suited to his tracking missiles. The arachnotron out in the yard probably would've been better deployed down at the far end rather than right by the entrance, but maybe I only say this because I insisted on using him as a Magic Infight-o-Rama Plasma Sprinkler again. The most pleasing aspect of the combat is probably the way secrets trigger additional monster closets, at least one of them fairly crowded--keeps one on one's toes.

That being said, it is quite easy, and so the most fun aspect of the map is exploring it, searching for secrets (which are all pretty much telegraphed in the same way) and, on a replay, trying a different route. Other than the slime trench being a momentum-killing dead end if you go there at the wrong time, things are fairly well interconnected, and there's a potential for monsters to wander rather far in search of you--or there would be if there were more of them. If you're looking to make this one tougher in your revision, Steve, my opinion is that, in this case, you don't really need bigger monsters, you just need more of the little dudes unleashed in distant areas of the map as you wander about--that one closet out near the main pool is nice, though depending on what you do after getting the red key they may tend to just clump up down near the map start.

One important point is that it is possible to break the map. In fact, I did this the first time I played it this go-round, acting like a clever dick: I used the waist-high gate into the yellow key kiosk to leap out the window into the slime trench near the blue key before I had pressed the switch in a different part of the complex that lowers the thick metal pillars initially sealing it off--unfortunately, if you do this, there's no way out (my demo shows this, although I don't get stuck in it because I've already pressed the requisite switch by the time I complete the maneuver). I think this would be kind of cool were it not for the whole being irretrievably trapped thing; in the revised map, I'd say just make it so the player can lower the pillars from the other side, somehow, rather than preventing him/her from being able to get here early. I saw one other bizarre bug (not shown in the demo), as well--just beyond the yellow door, the switch-faced platform that has the combat armor on it has some kind of linedef trigger just to right of and maybe a half step or so back from the switch graphic--hitting spacebar here causes this part of the map to go pear-shaped, with a whole bunch of different surfaces temporarily behaving as lowering lifts. Doesn't seem to actually break the map, though it does confuse the hell out of the poor monsters.

Enjoyable romp anyway, despite the weirdness and relative lack of danger. Is it named for this, I wonder?

Edit: Oh, yeah, one more thing. In keeping with the name, can I have a chainsaw earlier on in the revised map? Pretty please? Pretty please with a cacogizzard on top?

Share this post


Link to post

I think I'll do pistol starts from now on in case I run into any more stinkers: no offence Steve. :-)

MAP05: Mission Control

....Unusual start to the map, but I guess I can count myself lucky they're facing the other way. :-P The overall concept is a decent one in it's flexibility, although I wish there was more ammo to kill 'ol Spidey. Also, anyone notice the trend of big non-subtle arrows in maps? Heh. Not too much else to say about it, but it's a decent map.

MAP06: Splatterhouse

Now this I like. Good on ya Stevey! The decoration and overall theme is very nice, although difficulty is a bit low. It's nice and open and the layout is fun to explore, which is a nice plus. About the only thing I didn't like was the ending: there's pretty much no way you can tell it's an exit, which isn't helped by the Shotgunners. It's an excellent map though, I can't deny that.

Share this post


Link to post
LodiB88 said:

Another upcoming wad to look forward to :)

Are you revising with Hellmaker or the far more stable DB(2)?


Thanks! And it's DB2 all the way. I last used Hellmaker a couple years ago, and yes, it's a good editor, but once you've experienced DB2's Visual Mode and the ability to look at the textures you're aligning, there's no going back. I suck at math, so I was always hopeless at figuring out the offsets except for the typical 2 to 8-unit secret offset. What little texture alignment I did back in the day was, "make modification, build nodes, launch game, wander all over the map until you can see what you did, and if it wasn't good enough, do it all over again." Argh! Just imagine how many days at the beach you miss doing that. ;D

Share this post


Link to post
Capellan said:

Don't change floor texture without also changing the floor height. Steve's mildly pathological about it :)


"mildly"? ;D

Capellan said:

Map06
WORST MAP EVAR.


Don't rush to judgment, I have several more maps in this megawad. ;D

Capellan said:

Speaking of closets, Steve also loves him some "you found a secret? Have some extra monsters!", as several times, accessing a secret sector opens up new closets when you return to the previous area.


Wait, you found a secret? How the hell did that happen? ;D

But yes, I follow the Romero ethic on secrets. And in some cases, that includes monsters comin' at ya when you grab it. Some call that punishing the player, I call it extra gameplay. My E1M7 PG secret is (so far) the most extreme example of that.

You mentioned how I like stairs, and it's true. I long ago came to the same conclusion as Memfis, that stairs are more fun than lifts. It leads to very high sector counts, but it's worth it.

Share this post


Link to post

MAP06 - SPLATTERHOUSE
by Steve Duff

The first area to this one looked pretty good, and I liked the aesthetic in general - computer textures used in a seemingly-logical way, and changes in texture theming weren't TOO abrupt. The gameplay was inoffensive, which meant there weren't any frustrating encounters but also none that were really memorable; aside from maybe a minor hitscanner ambush in one of the computer areas, or the demons rising from the slime I had to trek through to get the blue key. Although it felt a bit of a trek at times, one thing I liked about this map was that it always felt like it offered more; I lowered a soulsphere plinth (after a secret area that looked to homage E1M1's zigzag walkway) that I never got to, and the shotgunners outside near the end felt like they were part of an area I didn't find. Because unfortunately, the exit is neither clearly marked, nor possible to backtrack from. I liked this map, but it had a few flaws.

Share this post


Link to post

Rather than having a long line of posts, I'll respond to most of the comments in this one.

cannonball said:

MAP06 - “Splatterhouse” by Steve Duff
Gameplay could do with some more bite though.


Yes, indeed. But Map09 is just a couple days away. It will be interesting to see how that goes, especially with the UV pistol-starters. And I pray that Memfis does a -fast UV demo.

As to the unmarked exit, my bad. It won't be the only one, I'm afraid. Map18, 22 and 23 also have unmarked exits, but in 18 and 22 the exit is indicated by a sky texture on the floor. In Map23 the exit comes at the end of the giant pit room. Thanks to everyone who pointed this out.

Magnusblitz said:

I admit I really was hoping this level would suck, just so I could stick it to SteveD


This megawad ain't over yet. Keep hope alive! ;D

Magnusblitz said:

(And what's up with all those Romero Rules violations with the floor textures, huh? ;)


Someone had to say it! ;D And oh, this is just the beginning . . .

Membrain said:

I feel like if it were scaled down a lot, it'd have benefited from it. The massive monster count even on HMP would have had a chance to shine if you didn't have five minutes to react to even fireball.


It might be possible to scale some rooms down, but I plan to rely on an even more massive monster count in the revision. ;)

Hurricyclone said:

MAP06 Splatterhouse
I agree with what Hitherto had said about monster placement, it was retarded.


I know Hitherto mentioned that specifically in regards to the monsters on the outside wall, an idea I got from Fava Beans. Indeed, that whole area was an homage to E1M2 of Fava. For areas other than that one, could you provide more detail on any problems in monster placement? One thing's for sure, the revision has a lot more monsters, which in itself could solve some problems.

I agree that the outside area is too large. I plan to shrink it mostly by encroachment rather than drawing the walls in. So in some areas the walls will be terraced, and in others I may place structures to take up space. There won't be any shotgunners on top of the wall, and it will be possible to reach them to get their ammo after they're killed, thus solving the current Romero's Rule violation.

Obsidian said:

I think I'll do pistol starts from now on in case I run into any more stinkers: no offence Steve. :-)


None taken. ;) It's music to my ears to hear you're going to pistol-start. The more pistol-starters, the better, I say. And thanks for your comments.

One thing that surprised me is that no one pointed out the 2 untagged secret sectors after you get the bacpack and kill the Chaingunners. It's been corrected, though. ;)

Thanks again, everyone!

Share this post


Link to post
Jayextee said:

I lowered a soulsphere plinth (after a secret area that looked to homage E1M1's zigzag walkway)


You're right, that was an E1M1 homage leading to the E1M2 Fava Beans homage. ;D

I'll mark the exit in the revision, but may have trouble making it possible to backtrack. The teleporter room is an homage to Map01 of Osiris, where you teleport from the Stargate to the Alien Egyptian world, from whence there is no return. I'll put Exit warnings in the teleporter room itself, so players can decide whether to jump or go back for more secrets.

Share this post


Link to post
Demon of the Well said:

Since I know he likes them, here's a (not very fast, and I think I had to go look for wandering monsters at a couple of points) UVmax demo. I bit the bullet and recorded this in PrBooM+ complevel 2, so it should be less of a hassle to play back than that one I did for map 11 of Coffee Break.


Thanks a ton, DoTW. Ya know, I never could figure out that Coffee Break demo on Eternity. :( It's great to see this one, because everyone plays a map differently, so each demo teaches me something about a person's play style and also things I never knew about my own map. I've now seen you, alfonzo, Memfis and Hitherto play this map, and each playthrough is grist for the mill when it comes to revising this thing. And on top of that, it's entertaining. :)

You are quite a slick player, very precise, not a stumblebum like I am. :D Challenging you is gonna take some work . . .

Thanks for pointing out the skylight problem over the green armor. Fixed. And I can't believe I never jumped out that window in the yellow key room. I can add a second trigger for the lift demons, so you can't slide by or run into them. I can see how leaving in this flaw might be fun. I eliminated the blue key in an earlier revision since it made no sense in terms of progression -- if a player encountered the blue door first, they'd have to go wandering all over the map to find the key. The area remains, but now it's optional. The bars are also gone, and the switch with a Medikit in front of it now opens the path the the Fava homage.

The monster-clumping problem might be soluble with a Block Monster line at the stairs, though that could create it's own problems, i.e., the "shooting gallery" effect. Hmmmmm . . .

Demon of the Well said:

I saw one other bizarre bug (not shown in the demo), as well--just beyond the yellow door, the switch-faced platform that has the combat armor on it has some kind of linedef trigger just to right of and maybe a half step or so back from the switch graphic--hitting spacebar here causes this part of the map to go pear-shaped, with a whole bunch of different surfaces temporarily behaving as lowering lifts.


Thanks for this catch! Turns out there's a couple problems. The linedef to the immediate right of the switch is an untagged lift trigger. Three other lines are tagged same as the switch but given no function. Hilarity ensues. ;D Fixed.

I'll keep that chainsaw request in mind. ;)

One more thing, that music track was really nice. What was it?

And no, I never knew about the Splatterhouse beat 'em up game. That type of game is very popular in the Amiga world, but in spite of being an Amiga guy, I never got into the type of game or their beloved damn platformers. :D

Share this post


Link to post
SteveD said:

Wait, you found a secret? How the hell did that happen? ;D


Don't worry, I only got 33%. That's higher than alfonzo, though :)

Share this post


Link to post
Capellan said:

Don't worry, I only got 33%. That's higher than alfonzo, though :)

Hey, you're right! It just occurred to me that I never make any effort whatsoever to find, acknowledge, or otherwise mention secrets in any way unless they're plainly noteworthy. I could work my way through an entire 32 maps and not notice that I wound up with 0%.

Share this post


Link to post

So, I had written reviews for both maps 05 and 06 when my laptop decides to go into a full fuck you -mode and everything's gone. So a long story short:

Map 05: Mission Control

Pluses: Memorable start, good layout with the elevator and all, enjoyable and continuous gameplay, inoffensive looks. Minuses: The last two grey yards look very bland and underdetailed, the fights in those two areas pose very little threat. Pretty good map overall. Survive the start and it's not very tough after that. FDA with two deaths near the start.

Map 06: Splatterhouse

Pluses: Really like the E1-esque visuals here, logical and sensible texture choices, some good enemy placement. Minuses: Gameplay is very easy, pretty unmemorable fights, unmarked exit is a huge no-no, finding the blue key was hard but that might just be me not paying attention. Despite the easy gameplay I think this is a good map. Very relaxed atmosphere and if not for exiting accidentally I probably would have gone back to look for the missing secrets and monsters. Here's a 22min FDA but it contains a solid 8 mins of wandering around and trying to find the blue key so I'm not sure if there's much interest in watching this but I'm putting it here anyway. Also note that if I'm just standing around or bumping the walls for no apparent reason I'm looking at the automap.

Share this post


Link to post
Veinen said:

So, I had written reviews for both maps 05 and 06 when my laptop decides to go into a full fuck you -mode and everything's gone.

Happened to me too with map05 (except there were no crashes, I just deleted the review myself), at first I got angry but then I thought "hey, this is a good opportunity to test my memory!" and tried to recreate my comment as close as possible. Just trying to stay optimistic lol. Then again, my comments are very short so...

Share this post


Link to post

Map 06: Splatterhouse

Really well detailed considering the era, the 'observation' ledges and computer panels near the teleporter that lead to the exit really gave that Phobos feel... apparently this was the golden age of making cubey computers.

The difficulty could have done with a slight re-jig, there were some good traps here and there (Mega-armour sitting next to a drop floor that dumps you in-between a few sarges.) but overall it was your typical hitscan and imp shooting gallery.

Share this post


Link to post
Veinen said:

Here's a 22min FDA but it contains a solid 8 mins of wandering around and trying to find the blue key


This is exactly why I eliminated the blue key in the revised version.

Share this post


Link to post
st.alfonzo said:

Hey, you're right! It just occurred to me that I never make any effort whatsoever to find, acknowledge, or otherwise mention secrets in any way unless they're plainly noteworthy. I could work my way through an entire 32 maps and not notice that I wound up with 0%.


I do the same thing. I find it's more fun to go back and just wander into secrets. (Not that I'd ever replay RoC)

Share this post


Link to post

07 - -fast demo - this map is kind of all over the place: it's a bunch of very differently textured rooms connected by simple doors or narrow hallways. It is way too inconsistent: I can't even think of it as a single level, it's just a few totally unrelated encounters for me. Not a good map but at least somewhat entertaining with fastmonsters.

Share this post


Link to post

MAP06: Steve’s turn. Since I’ve been choosing to refer to authors by their last name, I’ll make no exception here.

After a lot of varied skirmishes we finally come to a meaty map that has a pretty large layout and plenty of enemies from afar. Duff proves himself here as the expert trapper of the group, sprinkling the map with an assortment of devious monster closets that bear the fangs we should’ve seen back in MAP05. To complement those malicious surprises nicely he balances the map with the perfect amount of health, giving you just enough to survive until the next feisty encounter. Splatterhouse may not be as hard as something like MAP04, but it’s much smarter in how it uses its enemies to roam, supress from afar, and push the player into a few dangerous spots. Likewise the large, flowing layout lends well to progression, and I would say this is the closest to a classic Doom map so far, especially with some of the bigger secrets. Favorite part for me was the close encounters in the computer equipment room past the yellow door, as there’s plenty of cover but also plenty of ways for enemies to move around. Whole map looks good too.

No gripes here from me this time—wish I found the SSG but alas, I’m not good at catching texture misalignments sometimes. Overall, best map so far.

EDIT: haha I think I'm the only one that thought the difficulty was spot on for this map

Share this post


Link to post

gave up on 09 on fast, can't go back to normal settings and can't skip it (pride), so bye i guess =)

Share this post


Link to post
Memfis said:

gave up on 09 on fast, can't go back to normal settings and can't skip it (pride), so bye i guess =)


Aw, dude, gonna miss you, man. 09 is definitely not the map I'd try on -fast, but I thought if anyone had a chance to do it, you could. The main area with the big guardshack, and what I call "The Flower Trap," are gonna be super-hard on -fast. But you're pistol-starting, right? Regular UV should be fine. I was really looking forward to more Memfis demos.

Share this post


Link to post

Map07
By the same guy who did map01 (and part of map03). I'd consider this the least of those three levels. Bland architecture, bland texturing, bland monster use.

Edit: just watched alfonzo's playthrough. Am vastly amused that it's possible to skip the entire arachnotron sequence. Not optimal for continuous play, but possible.

Share this post


Link to post

MAP05 - “Mission Control” by Slava Pestov

This was a nice fun little map, back to more conventional gameplay after the disaster of map 04. Start was a bit weird, not sure how well I would have survived that small army of shotgunners if I hadn't found the secret crate-lift.. Some goofy floor arrows pointing to walls that may as well have just been switches, but otherwise nothing offensive to be found in this map. Mastermind was a surprise this early, but then that thing was never really much of a threat with a wall to hide behind.

MAP06 - “Splatterhouse” by Steve Duff

This one seemed to be a lot more ambitious in terms of size and detail, really made good use of space, with distant sniping, liberal windows and hight variation. Some nice little traps as well. The only downside was the unmarked exit, looked like there was other stuff left to explore.. Nicely crafted map though.

After reading the other reviews I just twigged that the author is in the room, so here's a demo for what its worth:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/us11y142vm5v7v0/rlmchaos06-mouldy.lmp
I ran through it a second time to find more stuff but didn't find any secrets, and got caught out by the exit again...

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×