The DWmegawad Club plays: Back to Saturn X E1 & Favillesco E1

Map 3 - The Room Taking Shape - Skillsaw. HMP skill

This is a really fun level, and probably the shortest non-hub level in the game. Some people said they could've seen this as map 1 but I disagree as there are some potential tough fights. This layout is very abstract, but this is what i feel makes the map. You loop around revisiting and unlocking your way through the relative tiny space, and I thought the ending area with the barred windows reminds me of Doom 64's early techbase levels. Nice gold/black/green color scheme, it looks really good especially in the areas where there are red lights. The crusher section was the highlight for me, and I liked how you could sometimes let the monsters crush themselves if you were ammo-conserving. I found the BFG secret a little big too easy though, although for once I didn't mind that I received it so early on in the game. Good stuff!

Hi, one of BTSX's playtesters here. I just wanted to point out that if one is finding fights lacking in venom, or not hard enough, one is recommended to play at a higher difficulty or solonet. It is true that perhaps the lower difficulties could have been more challenging, but at some point it serves no purpose to continue playing on said difficulties while continuing to bemoan lack of difficulty or venom. Plans are in place, however, to tweak up the difficulty in a variety of encounters.

Also BTSX was balanced for pistol starting moreso than continuous play; that said, it's a valid concern that some maps leave the player with too much health or ammo at the very end, and plans are already in place to cut some of that end-of-map glut. But in general it is a mistake to state that BTSX was primarily balanced for continuous play. The way I see it, one can gear towards one end of the spectrum or the other, and pistol starting was the chosen focus.

There have been plenty of other helpful criticisms as well, don't get me wrong. The chainsaw in map02 is probably useless, the plasmarifle in map03 probably shouldn't be marked secret, and the BFG should probably just be on UV (though I did argue it probably shouldn't be there at all a couple times). Additionally in map02, at the end of the map an archvile will get teleported to where the mancubus were, adding a bit of spice to the encounter. Additional dynamic lighting is also being planned for a variety of areas throughout the episode.

Thanks for playing, hope folks continue to find various things of enjoyment in the maps! Lots of comments and recommendations are welcome and will be used to help improve BTSX e1 prior to its 1.0 release and going onto idgames.

I'm already fairly active in this thread, so I guess I can share some insider funfacts while I do (yet) a(nother) playthrough. I'll try to lag behind the crowd in order to not spoil traps, secrets and natural first opinions. Since I know the maps inside out, I'll be maxing the maps on UV -solo-net in prboom+. That means I'll be playing alone with coop things and monsters present.

This has been deliberately balanced out as "the 4.5th difficulty setting" and should be fully playable, just quite a lot harder. Any of you thinking BtSX is not challenging enough for you, we thought about you as well! Essel always targeted BtSX to be roughly "as hard as the first two episodes of AV" and one of my tasks was to rein in whichever mapper strayed from the pack. The usual suspects were Mechadon and Tarnsman on the hardcore side and essel's early maps on the pushover side, heh.

Coop itself can take almost anything you throw into it if items are respawned, so we didn't bust our asses over balancing it for traditional vanilla coop. The vast majority of modern cooping actually happens on multiplayer ports and they tend to go wild with the player limit, which gets impossible to balance for without item respawn anyways. No one likes huge stashes of health/ammo for X players shat all over the maps, only to have one guy picking most of it and dying immediatelly. Anyways,



Playtester's War Journal, day01: Back to Saturn X Radio Report (esselfortium, Tarnsman)

YouTube: UV SoloNet Max in 6:10

I think the map is beautiful. That doesn't say much, because my artistic integrity goes roughly from "dew like pretty wall" to "dew not fooled by photoshop pic, silly xaser". I'm satisfied easily in this regard, but essel's and tarns' thingy made me pause and watch how nice everything is. I'm also in love with the melancholic song, it's one of my favourites and it makes strolling around seem like an experience. That's what mostly goes on on all the regular difficulties - an introductory stroll. The "core" of the map is much smaller than you'd think and very easy on the main route. For the curiouser Tarnsman added the SSG secret area and suddenly you get a ridiculous difficulty spike. We thought that was funny and cool! The secret is also hidden quite well, which was our way to rationalize putting the SSG into map01 when thinking about continuous play.

The final area is lovely and empty... it foreshadows the dreaded empty hub maps. More on that later. You just gotta deal with a bit of fluff if you're a hardcore gameplay guy. :P

We ditched the idea of an easy opener for coop, no more Mr. Nice Guy. The spider doesn't really count towards that. Tarnsman was playing through Plutonia around the time he mapped this and he was amazed by the coop spider in map01, so this is his homage. I tried to use him towards something productive in my speedrun and I somewhat succeeded - at least I didn't have to dodge his shots. Most of the map just goes for "thicker crowds" and I just run through to deal with them later. The SSG fight gets a difficulty boost and revs punished me for lulling for a second, but I survived and cleared the outdoor area, so nothing was in my back and I was free to corner-cheese the crowd blocking the way back into the map. Then I managed to run out of SSG ammo and get owned by a HK when I got uppity in a fist fight... gahh. That meant I couldn't afford a mistake in the final vile battle.

Essel originally didn't want to have any monsters inside the train station, because then their corpses would be missing in the hub maps, but I talked him into the idea of coop people having to conquer the station first. Tarns was obviously thrilled by the chance to spam some viles into a map. I have to say I didn't have the fight under control in my demo. Could have been that missed cell pack pickup on the BK ledge, heh.

Fun fact: The SSG ambush was broken for vanilla through many revisions, because Tarns couldn't get it quite right for the monsters to teleport in at that time. What a newb, ha ha! Then he became a go-to guy for closet teleport lore. Although he still forgets to tag the activation sectors in closets from time to time.

04 - demo - another short and compact map, but this time more balanced, with a bit more substance. Outdoor area battles are exciting if you don't just snipe everything from the entrance and get right into the action instead. (zzzzzz at the cyberdemon trap though, easy and tedious) The blue key room is nice too, finally a fight in a cramped room with many monsters, love stuff like this.
One thing I didn't like was how the revenants above the yellow door were blocked by some linedefs, so when I reached them through the red door they became very easy targets. How I deal with similar situations in my maps: instead of resorting to "block monster" linedefs, I make tiny illusio-pits to block monsters. When I don't want the monsters to stay in some part of the map anymore, I eliminate these pits by raising them.

Memfis said:

One thing I didn't like was how the revenants above the yellow door were blocked by some linedefs, so when I reached them through the red door they became very easy targets. How I deal with similar situations in my maps: instead of resorting to "block monster" linedefs, I make tiny illusio-pits to block monsters. When I don't want the monsters to stay in some part of the map anymore, I eliminate these pits by raising them.

that's a good point, there's no point in keeping the revs in sniper positions once the RK door is open.

One thing I forgot to mention in my previous post is that my FDAs are all played on Ultra-Violence, too. Now you know. Anyhow...

MAP03: The Room Taking Shape by Paul DeBruyne -

Our next techbase is non-orthogonal, more like the first map, and gets a lot of mileage out of green and orange STAR*. It is also a short, fun mission with an interesting segment where we run through crushers that each move opposite of each other, and in which we learn that in the Back to Saturn X palette, plasma blasts are a healthy shade of cyan. The three secrets are very easy to find (the only reason I missed one in my FDA was that I simply didn't turn around after entering the alcove it's in), but have rather excessive rewards for how simple it is to find them. (A BFG on MAP03? Already?) There are also two small visuals-related problems: the first is the nodebuilding error previously mentioned, and the second is that I think the yellow key and SSG platforms look incredibly silly fully-sunk with grass all around them but no height differences. That said, it is a quick, decent affair, albeit one that could've used a little more testing before release.

Also, I am three maps in, and so far, contrary to opinions in the WAD's release thread, none of them have looked or felt similar to each other. Each one has its own distinct appearance and gameplay, but the fact that I've found different things to write about each one should make that obvious.

FDA (doom2.exe v1.9, Ultra-Violence, 5:56 level/total time, 100% Kills/74% Items/66% Secrets, no deaths): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6650582/BTSX-E1M3-FDA-byTGH.zip

(Video to be recorded and posted.)

The Green Herring said:
I am three maps in, and so far, contrary to opinions in the WAD's release thread, none of them have looked or felt similar to each other.

Yeah, while it's still early days, the levels thus far have all felt pretty different to me. They're all bases, sure, but so is every map in E1, except E1M8. The layouts and design have been pretty distinct, so far.


map04
Another nicely designed map, with good use of height differences and overlooks, as well as a very attractive out door area. I liked the way that you got several different views of some areas of the map, as you entered it at the lower level or ventured onto the ledge that overlooked it.

I also like the textures, surprise surprise. Maybe I'm getting used to them, or maybe I just like the BRON series of textures better than the others.

Gameplay-wise, the highlights for me are the blue key room and the exit room. Both of those were good fun with the SSG. Conversely, the red key trap was very anemic. It needs more cacos, or some extra stuff teleporting in at ground level. That goes for all difficulty levels. 6 cacos on UV, when you have all that space? Pfft.

I'll echo Seele's and dew's appreciation for all the critique and ideas being brought forth. This is shaping up to be a great learning experience, and some changes relating to balance, secrets, item placements, and so on are being worked on based on the comments in this thread.

I've been thinking on the difficulty curve in these early levels of BTSX, at length. I'm about to retire for the night, but will post a bit of a thing tomorrow, with my writeup for MAP04.

Map 02 -- Postal Blowfish - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Wow, kind of hard to believe this was authored by Torn. Or is it? Taking his CC4 map as an example, I think his output is generally a good example of 'aesthetically a bit dull/basic layout yet somehow manages to be solidly entertaining anyway.' I guess it's because he's pretty good at core monster usage? Anyway, this map doesn't have any aesthetic problem--whether this is due to Esselfortium doing spit-and-polish on the visuals or due to Torn himself coming up with a new personal best, there's always something interesting to catch the eye (start room excepted).

In basic shape it does still look like a Torn map, being essentially a series of straight corridors that could be neatly divided into smaller, mostly identical segments. There's no keyhub here, although it is completely linear (not really a big deal given its brevity), barring the brief detour at the outset that can net one the rocket launcher. What carries this map visually (where 'Nightmare Complex' fell flat) is the non-playable space; nearly all points of the main corridor look out on a rocky/grassy gulch that has been flooded with toxic waste (presumably as a result of the unmonitored drilling operation visible from a deck near the map's entrance), the topography of which is admirably varied/convincing to the limit that vanilla constraints allow. Within the corridors, more of the tasteful basic-gradient lighting seen in map 01 dominates (this being another area of consideration that Nightmare Complex was lacking in), and small details like mutilated corpses visible through vent gratings or the little 'Start to Crate' easter egg add a sense of depth and interest to what is, at root, still an extremely simple layout.

Gameplay is broadly similar to that of map 01, in that you're generally drawn steadily forward along the path like some sort of sentient lawnmower by the steady trickle of monster meat that persistently presents itself. Unlike in the previous map there are no real points of divergence along the route here, so it's all very straightforward, although you do get a reasonable facsimile of height-varied combat from the various monsters populating the rocky ledges outside of the complex. While you generally tend to be confronted with larger clots of HP/damage-dealing potential here than in map 01, actual difficulty is no higher (maybe even slightly easier, depending on one's playstyle), chiefly because the pistol-start weapon balance is skewed noticeably towards the rocket launcher (although the many dead zombies ensure there are many bullets and shells available as well, for those that really insist on using them instead). This is fine and dandy in and of itself, as using rockets to mass-murder platoons of low/mid-tier enemies is one of those simple things that makes Doom fundamentally satisfying to play, but I can't help but wish that some kind of curveball had been thrown my way at least once--maybe port a squad of hellspawn back behind me in the corridor a little ways at some point (that little jab with the cacos at the end is a mite too gentle to really count), or try to construct a scenario with closests/fast-raise lifts or the like intended to tempt twitchy players into blowing themselves up with the launcher the map so persistently invites one to wave around everywhere. I also wish that the cacos that float around outside the facility could come through the windows/over railings into it, but as with map 01's monster-blocking lines, I sort of suspect the only reason they can't already do this is due to technical constraints rather than conscious gameplay design.

Entertaining, unpretentious little map. Despite some of my complaints about the ultimately simple combat, the overall pace is fast enough that it doesn't suffer too much for it. The rocket launcher-centric weapon balance was certainly the right choice here--without it, this would probably drag a bit more.

The Green Herring said:

Also, I am three maps in, and so far, contrary to opinions in the WAD's release thread, none of them have looked or felt similar to each other. Each one has its own distinct appearance and gameplay, but the fact that I've found different things to write about each one should make that obvious.

Let's hope we can conclude that after another 20 maps. :p

Map 4 - played twice, once UV once solo-net, pistol start, glb+

Start is just casual sg+cg bit vs zombies, imps and 2 mancs, without any surprise and just stuff thrown straight in face, so meh. I think 1 manc would have been sufficient. The outside part, however, is downright bugging me - The monster placement would be perfect but why is everything already in place? Firstly, the arach on YK platform could totally come up from below ground after picking RK, instead it's already there riping to be picked off from far by weak weapons otherwise it would be risky getting pointlessly damaged. Secondly, rev closets would only really cause serious trouble if player was on lower part around RK so why are they revealed already? They are almost harmless when you stand below them and can all be easily picked slowly off, or dispatched if you just leave them for moment and get back with rl which is just a little ahead. What for? Why not locking player outside after picking RK and forcing him to get in through some other means, like pressing some switch, instead of allowing immediate free pass away? It's IMO section that could have offered interesting strategical encounter, but currently absolutely doesn't unless you rush through. None of these changes would make drastic increase in difficulty, but definitely would add more to gameplay of this encounter. Solo-net doesn't really add too much, unless you favor taking out lone cybers in relatively open space. Archvile revealing on higher floor is the thing this section got undoubtedly right though. Rest of map didn't offer anything of too much interest with stuff thrown straigh into face for the most part easily solved by simple hide-shoot-repeat strategy, except that BK bit when lowered by elevator into cramped fight which offered no safe spot immediately, but I found that bit really interesting only in solo-net. Absolute zero secrets %.

I'll echo TGH's sentiments on MAP03's secrets. After leaving MAP01 and 02 without finding them all, I was amazed both by the early BFG and seeing that I maxed the map on my first attempt.

Since it seems relevant to some recent discussions in other threads, I think the BTSX textures do a great job of making detailed maps look good as opposed to cluttered. If these maps were using stock Doom 2 textures, I think I'd have a different opinion. I still felt a few areas had silly-looking detailing (those subway cars in MAP01...), but for the most part I really like this wad's visuals.

I'd like to echo DoTW's comment about the Cacos in the outside area of Map02 being unable to get in and attack you. Maybe the point of them is to serve mainly as distraction while something sneaks up from the side and rakes you, but I did feel a bit disappointed that I was able to kill them so easily. They were virtually helpless unless you fucked up somehow. The most obvious solution, should anyone decide to go that route, would be to replace the fences and their impassable lines with walls about the same height, or maybe just 26 units high. That would somewhat ruin the view, but might pay dividends in gameplay fun.

Not much can be done about the cacos and fences in MAP02. No segs or visplanes to spare on raised sectors to replace the fences with.

The exit fight has been enhanced significantly, though :)

esselfortium said:

Not much can be done about the cacos and fences in MAP02. No segs or visplanes to spare on raised sectors to replace the fences with.

The exit fight has been enhanced significantly, though :)

I can understand about the lack of visplanes, given that I faced the same problem in Map19 of Realm of Chaos. And yes, I did notice that Tarnsman had to go there and defame the almighty Realm of Chaos, the only Mac-made standard megawad in world history, and with a 3.5 lifetime rating on idgames, in his TwitchTV commentary for BTSX E1! But the influence of RoC lives on in its immortal Pestov Platform! ;D

Speaking of that TwitchTV commentary, of which I've watched a significant amount, the maps upcoming -- OMG, I am so Doom-stoked to get to those maps. I love tech bases, and it looks like tech-base heaven to me.

On the issue of "bitty" lighting vs the "bulk" lighting Tarnsman enjoys, this could be just an individual taste issue. The problem both approaches suffer is that light does not propogate in a square. What I see in some of the BTSX maps is a bright center square, a somewhat less-bright but in-close and fairly narrow ringing square, and then a wider square at a lower brightness. It works okay, but it's still all a bunch of squares/rectangles and light-striping. I personally like to try for the halo effect of bitty lighting with a lot of narrow squares. I guess the big question I want to figure out the answer for is how small a step in brightness will the Doom engine display? If you go in steps of 16, the striping effect is very noticeable, but I wonder if you can do 4 or even 2? I do know that Risen3D doesn't seem to see as many stripes as GZDoom does.

There's probably no perfect answer with sector-based lighting, but it seems to me that if you have the center light at 255, you could surround that with a fairly good-sized circular or elliptical sector at 248 -- the old Hellmaker maximum -- in order to soften the effect of the center being square, and then do more circles at lower brightness as needed or as space dictates. Just a thought, but something I'll try.

Anyway, I took a look at your Vaporware demo again. I played it when it came out. It was the primary reason I downloaded Eternity. I'll say that nearly 6,800 sectors for one map is fairly extreme. ;D But it's a good-looking map with some cool effects and the "bulk" lighting. A lot to study there. I do seem to remember beating it easily on UV in my walking-pace days, even with the new enemies. And there was something funny going on with that lift to the blue key . . .

And I'm happy to hear Map02 now has a sterner exit. I look forward to checking that out.

Vanilla Doom will only handle lighting in factors of 16, if you do anything else it will just round down to the nearest light level.

Tarnsman said:

Vanilla Doom will only handle lighting in factors of 16, if you do anything else it will just round down to the nearest light level.

That's a bummer, but given that I never play Vanilla Doom, I'll experiment in the ports, and probably be disappointed. ;D

Edit: I guess that means the real max brightness is 256, not 255, as it shows in DB2, or 248, as it shows in Hellmaker. To think I've been deceived for all these years! ;D

The maximum is indeed 256, not 255. DB2 gets it wrong. :P

As a fun fact, you can actually set the maximum higher than 256 (light is stored as a 16-bit value so it can go as high as 65535), which is visibly no different than 256-brightness but will change how the Light Glow special behaves (higher brightness == greater length of time between pulses). It's a neat little trick. ;)

And now back to our regularly scheduled thingamajig.

Wow, DB2 did get it wrong. I was looking at Doom II's levels and with the brightest sections, they acutally show as 255. Anyways...

MAP04 A Good Flying Bird

I ragequitted this at the outdoor area from getting hit too much. Played it again later and payed closer attention to trigger-happy revenants in the windows. Guess it wasn't too bad, but then there's these imps and zombiemen out on where the first key was, can't hit them with the rocket launcher cuz the railing is too high. I let an arachnotron attack some of these guys to save ammo before getting the key. This prompted cacos to come out, which I ignored in order to slaughter an archie with the BFG I got from the previous map. Came back and then practiced two-shot SSG on the cacodemons which was fun. Getting the yellow key was interesting but not hard to figure out, but the berserk pack secret was even more interesting. I think it's a bit too much work for getting a berserk though (won't spoil how to get it), and there really wasn't anything I could use it on effectively. Blue key area had more revenants in places and was somewhat enjoyable with a somewhat interesting secret area. Exit area was pretty easy. I'm not really too much a fan of this one overall. Inner portions are kinda boring me. Outdoor area looks neat but with weird gameplay that somehow pissed me off on a first attempt. Two really interesting secrets though. And I guess combat was a little more balanced (but archviles are no trouble on continuous with a BFG). Final Time 5:31.

Hurricyclone said:

Wow, DB2 did get it wrong. I was looking at Doom II's levels and with the brightest sections, they acutally show as 255.

Yeah, for some reason id Software's maps used 255 as if it were fullbright, even though it's actually identical to 240, with 256 being the real fullbright value. And since then seemingly every map editing tool has erroneously assumed 255 was the brightest light level.

esselfortium said:

Yeah, for some reason id Software's maps used 255 as if it were fullbright, even though it's actually identical to 240, with 256 being the real fullbright value. And since then seemingly every map editing tool has erroneously assumed 255 was the brightest light level.

It all comes down to a lot of irksome revision work. ;D

Thanks also to Xaser for explaining the light trick. I'm gonna try it.

MAP03

Somehow I managed to see the difference in style when progressing from the last map to this one, but as you can imagine it's brilliant fun. Quite a few yellow doors, I noticed. :P The crushers were a nice touch, considering you can use them to your advantage in the continuous brawl that follows. The BFG secret seems slightly ominous though...

esselfortium said:

Yeah, for some reason id Software's maps used 255 as if it were fullbright, even though it's actually identical to 240, with 256 being the real fullbright value. And since then seemingly every map editing tool has erroneously assumed 255 was the brightest light level.

So 256 would appear brighter again than what is considered the existing full bright level of 255?

Will have to check that out.

I'm trying out the let's play approach again. Oh boy...

Map03 (Continuous) – The Room Taking Shape by Skillsaw - Kills – 100, Items – 100, Secret – 100. Time 16:10. End Health 64, Armor 0. Death Count – Zero

Map02 (Pistol Start) – The Room Taking Shape by Skillsaw - Kills – 100, Items – 100, Secret – 100. Time 18:16. End Health 100, Armor 36. Death Count – 1

This was the first map that made me tense. I played very recklessly on continuous and paid the price with lousy end-level stats, going into Map04 at low health. To which I say, “Cool!”

This map starts you out under fire, which is something I like. Imp fireballs and zombieboy bullets encourage you to shoot back, which wakes up a Caco to your right. I handled this fine on continuous, but on pistol I got owned by the imps because I kept backing into their fire with retarded movement. Good thing you get the PG right away. Even with the cell weapon, the fairly tight health/ammo balance never allowed me to feel overpowered, and my shitty skills worked in the mapper’s favor as various traps were unleashed on me. The traps were uncomfortable, especially the one where you’re encouraged to be a dumbass and press the switch that unleashes a big one, complete with Chaingunners and a Revvie. This is where I died on pistol start, because although I remembered a Revvie from continuous play, I didn’t know where it came from, so I raced upstairs, loaded with blind confidence and a ready PG, and hunted up some Revvie meat, only to find a Chaingunner in the closet. By the time I recovered from this mistake, I’d emptied too many cells and got a rocket in the back. A little panic and a few bad moves later, and another rocket in the face took me out. The next try I jumped over the ledge and successfully took out the Revvie from below.

The main sequence of the map is the yellow key area, and though I can understand j4rio’s objection to the initial Manc and Arachnotron placement, I appreciated the leisurely kills. There was plenty of action to come.

This area is quite cleverly designed, with nice odd angles. The upper part is a bit slow-paced as you go through crusher, open closet behind you, then kill what comes out, but that’s okay. Once you get the BFG and activate the yellow switch, then jump for the yellow key, all hell breaks loose for a couple minutes. This was a really nice fight against mixed hitscanners and meat. My rule in such situations is, “First, kill the hitscanners,” especially that Chaingunner at the far end. I took a fair amount of damage doing this, and backed into a Manc fireball on one of the runs, so I can’t say I fought the area that successfully except to observe that at least I survived. On continuous I did even worse at the exit area where a combo of the PE and another damned Chaingunner took me down to 14%. Ugh! Good thing the exit contained 2 Medikits!

This was the first map to throw some traps at you – if like me you missed the SSG trap in Map01 – and a couple of the traps were pretty diabolical, especially the red key trap which had wings and depth. Of course, I love a good trap, I love to be placed under stress, and so I was wildly enthusiastic about all this. So I have to say this was the most fun map yet, even though Map02 is very close. This map also looked cool albeit not as awesome as Map01 or Map02, but the architecture was even more geared to player discomfort than Map02, so cheers for that. All in all, another nice piece of work.

BTW, the early acquisition of the BFG has been mentioned a few times. I'm personally annoyed with BFGs, because watching Suitepee play my RoC maps, it's clear that a BFG plus too much ammo = ruined map. But he was playing continuously in a megawad with notoriously poor health/ammo management. The way it's done here, the cell ammo is kept to a minimum, and though I used the BFG on continuous, I kept it holstered on pistol, so for me, the tight cell ammo made the BFG okay, and it didn't ruin the map for me.

I also enjoyed Stewboy's Drilling By Night track more than I expected from watching alfonzo's playthrough. Good stuff all around!

MAP04 - “A Good Flying Bird” by Esselfortium
Rather brisk map at times which made it pretty fun, but rather easy, only my own stupidity got me briefly below 50% health and that was on the final AV where I rocketed myself against a wall.
Yet again it's all about monster positioning rather than any particular traps, in this map though you can easily pull off any strategy to allow safe passage through the map. This is very true for the outdoor area where everything except the 4 cacos are revealed (a couple of light teleport traps as well later on. The spider could have been revealed when getting the key etc. The revenants just didn't feel threatening at all, the chances of getting many projectiles following you is very slim as the angle the revenants fire at you is so steep the missiles just hit the floor. The revenants in the balcony overall could have been used better.
The blue key trap was nice but again lacked any real punch, considering I took no damage and used ssg in there.
Overall it's fun to play, just lacked the threat, and that's coming from me :P

Onwards to

Map 2: 100% kills, 100% secrets, 1 death

I didn't even notice the Mancubus that caused the only death until the deathcam revealed it. Anyways, the resource distribution on this map proved quite interesting: scarce to start (health most noticeably) and plentiful at the end. I ran out of shells in the middle even with using infights while having over 60 at the end. The monster ambush beyond the red door is easy thanks to monster blocking lines though the waiting monsters after going up that lift afterwards proves to be more threatening. There's usually something lurking around a corner ready to catch those running around recklessly.

I do appreciate being able to return to the rest of the map for items I intentionally hold off on picking up.

traversd said:

So 256 would appear brighter again than what is considered the existing full bright level of 255?

Will have to check that out.

It depends on the port.

In PrBoom and ZDoom 255 or higher will give you the brightest light level. 240-254 will give you the second brightest.

In Vanilla Doom, Chocolate Doom, and Eternity 256 or higher will give you the brightest light level. 240-255 will give you the second brightest.

traversd said:

So 256 would appear brighter again than what is considered the existing full bright level of 255?

Will have to check that out.

Well there you go. slight difference, and only really visible at a distance --> https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/56320770/LightVals_240_255_256.png

I don't really recall any editor having light values of 256. I figure it was thought of as a 0-255 value.

traversd said:

Well there you go. slight difference, and only really visible at a distance --> https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/56320770/LightVals_240_255_256.png

I don't really recall any editor having light values of 256. I figure it was thought of as a 0-255 value.

The only difference between the second brightest light level and the brightest is that north-south walls are drawn slightly darker when using the second brightest light level.