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baja blast rd.

Play Time: /idgames Random

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Memfis introduced me to this idea some time ago in one of his old man spiels about the deficiencies of modern mapping. I have been playing some random wads from /idgames lately, and I encourage some of you to join in, by either taking a roll of the dice yourself or playing a wad that has been reviewed in this thread. I won't be playing deathmatch wads or anything that isn't an actual map.

Survival of the Fittest (Doom I, 1995)

73% kills, 33% secrets, exit in 9:07, FDA

I was expecting nothing good out of an e1m1 replacement from 1995, but this was surprisingly fun. Of course, killing all the non-threats didn't seem like it would be enjoyable, so I skipped monsters when I felt like it and found entertaining ways to dispose of the monsters where I could.

The highlights: 1) A nukage maze with timed radsuit use. I felt a bit of pressure, not knowing exactly where the next suit would be. One of the barons I was avoiding found his way into maze and scratched me in the ass. 2) A hilariously spacious outdoor area dotted with fodder to use as shotgun aim practice and populated by former human zombies to blast with rockets while running at full speed.

Unsurprisingly, it's an ugly map, and, unsurprisingly, despite the author's warning -- "If it's too hard for ya, try reducing the difficulty level... sissy." -- it offers nothing a modern player would consider challenging, but it's a surprisingly comfortable map to play, with nothing in the way of impediments to free movement, which has lately become very important to me.

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Sounds like a good idea!
It reminds me of the megawad club, only with a more randomly approach... Eventually i'll participate in this thing too (if its possible), I have tons of unplayed wads so far!

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Lakeside (Doom II, 2013)

100%+ kills, 50% secrets, exit in 11-ish, FDA

This is a 2013 release, and it's quite a fun level. I won't spoil too much, but it's a compact map with about 89 monsters. Of course I set out looking for ugly 199x maps instead of "professional" 201x releases, but there is enough occasional representationalism (i.e., sector detail) that you can detect a certain kinship with the oldschool style. Overall it's on the easier side, but there are a couple of difficulty spikes -- my playthrough was quite entertaining due to a couple of hairy moments after being taken by surprise by the nastier traps. I'm not sure of the compatibility level, but I'd go with limit-removing just to be safe.

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Here's my attempt for this:

Marine's Folly (Doom 2, 2011), 3 FDAs, first death before i reach the exit. This sucks. Hard.

About the map, expect the date of creation, is a pretty classic medium/large map by the prolific Mr. Chris / Glaice (at least at the times), strongly inspred from original Doom 2 MAP14, with some design choices from Plutonia, gameplay isn't really hard but you need to be careful to any enemy will want to reach you faster, also the final wave is pretty harsh... Funny map.

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Great thread idea! I'll bite, but no fdas from me :P

I got Genesis, by Tony Sideris. Two maps for Doom II, dated March 1996, and just one letter away from being a rather spiffing megawad.

Since I didn't expect a random wad from 1996 to be particularly challenging, I played on UV.

MAP01 - 13:37, 91% kills, 66% secrets
Dear god this was confusing as hell. I found I was running past places that I didn't need to go to at that specific time and then I forgot about them, so for most of that I was pretty lost.
Pretty barebones on the visual side, with just brown plastered everywhere, and if not brown, then grey, but I don't think anyone goes into maps from this era expecting the godly aesthetics we're treated to today. The combat was simple, but engaging enough. Only low point was that one baron where you only have a shotgun to kill it with. In fairness, if you aren't going for max, you have the option of just ignoring it.
Things were sounding like they got pretty hectic towards the end, but that's also an optional fight.
I wouldn't have minded a less confusing layout, but for a first roll of the idgames dice, things could have got off to a worse start

MAP02 - 8:37, 93% kills, 25% secrets
About 100 monsters like the first map, though it does seem to be slightly tougher this time. Easier to navigate as well.
It continues the dark and abandoned arbitrary human settlement theme from the first map, though there's some larger open spaces here, and some tighter ones. There's also a warehouse of sorts made out of metal, which was a nice modern contrast to the more primitive materials like wood and brick that was seen like everywhere else in the WAD.
I liked this one more than MAP01 Again it's nothing enthralling, nor is it much to look at, but it was simple fun, and like 01, better than I was expecting. Best part for me was the trap with like 20 barrels all bunched together, and the bit where the revenants can ride down the perpetually moving lift, that brought quite a wide grin to my face :P

3/5 from me.

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Sounds cool! I've done this a few times here and there, but it's probably more fun to try this out with others. I played the first Doom 2, non-deathmatch level I got from pressing random.

THE ULTIMATE MAP07 REMAKE!. I guess it was supposed to be a satirical jab at the name "Dead Simple", since it's a 64x64 room with one switch right in front of the player that is conveniently the exit switch. Since it took me all of 3 seconds to beat it, I did another one.

Blind Alley S., "Spirit World - Headquarters". (17:37, 93% kills, 100% secrets). It's a mostly straightforward map with big boxy rooms that are a bit plain. I think somewhere halfway through the map, the author learned how to do monster teleports, and then proceeds to do like 4 of them in a row. There was also a secret room that was literally nothing but a monster closet. The map itself was plain, and a bit lacking in health pickups, especially with all the teleporting revenants and chaingunners in the map. Funny story though, I had 1% health for about a minute, and dashed head first to grab a soulsphere. Closest moment for me by a long shot.

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SCARVES.WAD (Doom, 1994) - 3 FDAs

A spacious map with a boxy design, and some interesting stuff and gameplay choices, but there's some troubles like a non-functioning opening "secret" section after you get in when you get in the red door... i had to commit suicide and repeat the map!

Also the style is simple but the layout is good for it's age, texturing looks more e2 than e1, but for some reason looks good to me...

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How fun!

I got: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/0-9/0lev1

FDA, skill 4, 100/97/100 in 4:11.

I died right at the start, being really dumb. Being really dumb was the only way to die, because this map was a really short and easy mess of stuff thrown pointlessly together.

My favorite parts:

- Yellow key door opens without the yellow key.
- The blue key "secret" where the blue door and blue key are both as un-hidden as can be.
- The chaingun secret.

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A wad i played last night before bedtime, finished properly today:

right.wad (Doom 2, 1995) - Bunch of crappy FDAs, make it until near half of the map

Ok, so this random file is a first map (good sign) from 1995 with lots of problems and broken bsp nodes (even better sign), even the author doesn't know with what kind of editor he made his, just one "with a shit of documentation" (and there, we reach the level of cacoward winner map sign), but from a fast sight i assume this person used DCK for making his map, the "medieval theme" standard textures are here (yeah, DCK used a bunch of pre-setted themes to work, like "medieval", "metal" and so on. Technically something similar to the texture divisions sets of Doom Builder, with the exception that you can only use that one for all your map as far as i remember).

At first, i think to be approaching a short map due to archive filesize (25k zipped), and then i found myself in this large map with 200+ monsters make me surprised!

This map at a really first impression reminded me of a map from Heroes 2,(MAP16 maybe?), but this one don't have any signs of that map from it, maybe it's a older version of the map i thinking about?

Anyway this wad starts with you, a bunch of zombies and a revenant right beyond you. The map then turns into a hellish place with some tech base sections, make me think that or the demons already abducted this place or they just mocks you with some earthlings sections, something like in pandemonium to amke a comparition...

The level itself contains the most disparate and inventive use of the stock textures (sometimes even too much inventive!), there's two useless switches that turns pitch black or full bright some level sections. The level gameplay is hard, a sort of half slaughtermap with some tricks here and there...

Overall a plain map, nothing really special.

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Demons of Problematique
- (Doom 2, 2007) Zdoom, so no FDAs. UV. Continious playthrough (because it's impossible otherwise)

This wad was made 9 years ago and it's tough to win. Very detailed and atmospheric maps too.

MAP01 : A tiny techbase in space mainly populated by zombies and lost souls, open a door, kill zombies in front, go into another room, push two switches and go into exit device. Simple stuff, nothing too offensive. 5/5

MAP02 : Now you're in a hellish dungeon maze of switch hunting, you punch a bunch of demons, shoot some zombies, rocketeer barons from a wonderful view, find several secrets, and get the white soulsphere to proceed to the next map. This map is pretty harsh for the chaingunner ambushes and the AV encounters. 2/5

MAP03 : Map of (literally too) the same name, looks like you're continuing to go through hell, this time it's more focused on hell's red canyon and some of it's surreality.

There's a section where you have to jump across several lost souls to reach a tall fleshy island in the black void, there's a pit that spits marine gibs, spikes and a switch.
The lost soul hopping is super risky, but you have to do it anyways (no jumping allowed, only hopping), when you reach the island, push the switch and try to jump into the gib pit, the lost souls will be alive, and will try to kill, when you kill them all, you're stuck, and at this point I just restarted the map and went a different path, this time I go into another dungeon and get the red skull to go further into the map, there's a trap of course with an AV, you get past that and into a big open arena filled with cacos that respawn, and some enhanced hell knights, you have to push two switches to reveal the portal, you get to both by telefraging the two sniping knights via two somewhat hidden teleporters, when you push the two buttons; the portal starts spitting marine gibs and eventually a cyber, you have to kill the cyber to get into the portal which will turn green on impact. 3/5

Spoiler

There's a hidden switch that reveals a dozen of tiny-tiny cybers

MAP04 : Just a symmetric circular arena where you push a switch while cacos respawn high into the air,
the progression is boring: Push a switch; go inner, push 4 more switches; go inner; push 4 more switches, wait for some AVs to spawn; killed them and win.
You have most of the arsenal (except for the BFG of course), super easy map.

I initially had no idea where to go after the second round, but now replaying the map, I see you have to ride some obscure lifts. 1/5

MAP05 : Same as MAP01, only everything is done, ruined and darker than before, you get to see some new areas, but that's about it, the combat pretty bare too.

Then you get out of the base into a hellish castle, a cutscene appears and fades away for far too long, then you get back to the TITLEPIC. The atmosphere in the map is 5/5, the combat is 1/5.

Overall : While this may be a decent wad, it's not my type, I hoped for maps like MAP01 where it's a quick experience, but instead was left playing maps that mostly resemble rooms and hallways that go for a time too long. 2/5

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Figured I'd give this a shot since I have a lot of free time.

I played REC003 https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/p-r/rec003

A very easy map, even on UV. Took about 4 minutes and I only dropped down to 42% health once (and that was due to me getting distracted briefly by a cat). The texturing was consistent, but bland. So was the lighting, which didn't vary enough. Not very memorable, but it was at least moderately fun.

No FDA since I didn't know what an FDA was until after I played through it.

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Time for my second go at this!
The Devil Incarnate, by Mr. Dave Peacock. February 1996.

So, looks like the time machine landed in 1996 again. Kind of disappointing to be honest, but if it's a playable SP-map, no skipping! Playing on UV in ZDoom, like last time.

The Devil Incarnate is an E1M1 replacement. Thing is, after my run through Genesiss.wad last time I posted here, my expectations of 1996 WADs were raised a bit, and this brought them back down again.

The opening shot is a big, bland grey room with some doors and a platform with a shotgun and red key on it. You can go down an elevator into this long winding narrow hallway textured entirely in one of those snake textures, which contains a secret door that you have to find to actually finish the map, because the yellow key is in it.

...

Fortunately, it's easy enough to find by simply looking on the automap. The red key seems to be optional, though it allows for a brief meander outside the building.
With just 21 monsters, and all of 4 individual main areas the map is only intended to be a quick and easy romp, but that doesn't change the fact that it's just outright boring to play. To my surprise, the map actually has some custom music, in the form of a shoddy MIDI rendition of Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust," which isn't too bad until the guitar comes in, at which point I imagine it's pretty much rip headphone users from there on.

Time - 2:03 | Kills: 100% | Secrets: 100%
2/5

edit: Went back and played again on NM. Managed 41 seconds, probably easily improvable.

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Double posting for readability :p
That last one was pretty lacklustre, so I'm doing another one.

A jump to more recent years now, with dejavu by Wraith. A single map for Heretic made in 2011, that plays on E3M6.

I probably didn't do myself any favours by doing so but I didn't change the setup in ZDL, hence I played this on TAASM (UV).

The map immediately begins with a fast-paced start, you pretty much have to run around the buildings as dozens of monsters up in said buildings and on the ground attack you from all directions. You end up with quite a sizeable mob after you, and at first you're only given a crossbow, and furthermore, only crossbow ammo is available in large supplies for the majority of this map.

It took a few attempts, because there seemed to be little way to get past this. Eventually you'll stumble upon a huge empty wooden area in some corner of the map, with a switch in one corner and a Phoenix Rod in the other. The Phoenix Rod made this map so much more manageable, and I didn't actually bother hitting the switch in that room, and instead used the rod to clear out the angry mob that was after me.
As it turns out, this was a wise decision, as the switch unleashes a large fight all of its own, maulotaur included. I'm glad I didn't have that coming after me at the same time :P
The maulotaur is one of two in the map, both of which guard the green and blue keys. The yellow is unguarded, but taking it will reveal an iron lich each side of you.

Ammo for the crossbow and phoenix rod is sufficient enough to get through the map without any major ammo hassles. The dragon claw can be found in the map, but I think there is actually no placed ammo for it, the only orbs to be found are dropped by the disciples, and the weapon is kind of redundant as a result, only being useful for getting the occasional bunch of shots in if you run out of ammo for the crossbow or rod, and even then, Heretic's monster roster are a tough enough bunch that you may be unfortunate enough to end up using the wand on more than one occasion.
While the dragon claw is of limited use here, we're also given the Hellstaff later on in the map, which I found very useful to get out of a lot of tight spots.

And I really mean tight. I feel the biggest drawback of the map is the sheer lack of health. You get the full heals from the urns dropped by the maulotaurs, and then beyond that, there's maybe...seven or eight quartz flasks for the entire map :/
In the initial fight where you've got the mob after you, there is absolutely nothing to get your health back, since the only flasks that early on are up in the buildings, and the damage you're likely to take from the golems/warriors in those buildings is going to outweigh the flask anyway, so you really have to make an effort not to be hit by anything early on, which, when I put it like that, doesn't actually sound that bad, but I dunno, I feel it's a bit much when paired with the number of monsters attacking you. A couple of more quartz flasks here and there would've done wonders from this map.

Other than that, it's a pretty decent piece of work. Visually, it's not huge on the detail side, but nor does it look under-detailed. It all looks clean and fairly cohesive. There's a lot of these switches for elevators that are on their own moderately sized box, detached from walls. Some of these are maybe a bit clumsily placed, leading to some smaller areas of the map looking a bit cluttered, but that's about it for negatives on the visual front.

So in summary, a pretty hectic and fairly challenging map, though it could really have done with some more helps. Good otherwise.

Time - 19:16 | Kills: 183/206 | Map has no secrets

4/5

EDIT: I just looked on doomwiki, and it turns out mystic urns aren't actually a common drop from maulotaurs (I'm not too familiar with Heretic), so I guess I was pretty lucky to get one from both of those guys on this map. This should emphasise the complaints about lack of health, since those urns were invaluable to me.

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Something Awful, part 3 - 7+6
By "Bzzrak Ktazzz", April 2016
https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom/s-u/sthawfu2

It was something, and it was kinda awful.

It starts out as a halfway decent looking techbase of sorts, then just sort of gets worse looking as you progress. There's classical music in the background. There's a long, 0 brightness hall covered in red texture that has exactly one spectre just to sort of annoy you. Then there's a couple of rooms that just have textures at random sort of everywhere, one of which is a big teleport trap where you hold down the trigger on a plasma gun until bad stuff goes away.

But here's the thing. After that, if you go through the obvious door, you just end up back at the beginning in a loop. Some of the walls in that area were supposed to be doors, but are textured like the rest of the wall. Those teleport you to a final area, where you get to BFG a group of baddies, and then reach the end. It took me a bunch of aimless wandering and a IDDT to figure this out.

There's also almost no resources on the map, which makes killing some of those baron. A lot of needed stuff is hidden in secret areas.

Apparently, whomever made this was new to doom mapping. So far they have all the mechanics and essentials down, just need to work on gameplay and aesthetics. I cannot blame them for inexperience. Also, collecting the BFG, soulsphere, and plasma ammo only to meet a single lost soul in the next room was kinda funny.

I also played Something Awful (Feb, 2016), as some sort of closure. It was, slightly less bad? Its also a techbase, but all the rooms have basically the exact same decoration, almost like wolfenstein. More classical music in the background. Once again, progression is hidden behind secrets, and there are no resources anywhere. At least this time the absence of health is explained in the text file, which probably also explains the sequel. It also has a fake, trapped exit room, which was cute. I guess there was some improvement between both maps, certainly more experimentation.

I'd rate this 4/10. Its pretty awful, but the title tells you that, and the author is new at the trade. Also, despite its badness, the madness of the level design as well as the classical music droning in the background made it still entertaining in an odd way. I still wouldn't play it again, though.

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Yeamhman (Doom II, 1998)

Yeah, man, this level is actually broken. My playthrough was about fifteen seconds long and consists of me taking a lift into a dead end with a non-functional door. On to something else.

kohe6 (Doom II, 2007)

Exit in 3:xx, FDA

This was actually mildly entertaining. Seems like a map made by a primitive sort of automatic level generator. A simply textured series of blocky rooms and hallways connected in rudimentary ways, with health and ammo practically shitted everywhere, stocked with all sorts of baddies who are inefficiently positioned to levy much of a threat but infight among themselves readily and are easy fodder for nonstop SSG blasts. Mindless bloody fun.

Teleport Me Where? (Doom I, 1994)

Exit in 6:24, FDA

Like kohe6, this map is covered in health and ammo, such that it's sometimes hard to see the floor. None of the doors use conventional door textures -- they either use big slabs of one of the three key colors, despite not requiring keys, or are random sections of walls. These hidden doors aren't unmarked, however -- I think I could have bypassed the puzzle stage by simply looking at the automap and finding the exit hallway when I got to the particular room it was in. The puzzle aspect was quite dull: lots of teleporters in every room, and they send you to other areas in the map with no sort of underlying logic. I finally found a computer map and decided to go poking around for the areas that I didn't find, and I ended up exiting. Sort of a big "huh?" from me. One amusing thing is that there was a dark hallway that was hard to navigate, so I ended up holding down fire with my shotgun to use it as a torch!

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I'll bite!

Hell's Crosshairs
Made by Kris Daley
Same as most levels, kill all the monsters and find the secrets to win.

Fun lil' romp about in some big open rooms, interesting to say the least in terms of texturing but nothing ground breaking...kept me amused for a little bit. Very generous in terms of powerups but starved for ammo which made many of the big room encounters a little bit frustrating at times not being able to progress..also unmarked doors.

Interesting door features

Outside we find...oh hi there!

Then this happened

Got a little unmotivated at this point with no ammo and was quickly shredded by the surprise Mastermind hiding in the closet. :V

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Hah, that's a nice approach. I'm probably going to start taking screenshots because half of the maps I get aren't ones that I'd endorse anyone dl'ing.

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REoL TOUGH: TOTAL WAR III: Land of Weirdness (Doom, 1994) - 4 long fdas, i've got stuck and exited on 4th.

Another little map in file size, another medium sized slaughtermap.

I've already heard of this author, especially for his weird charatcher (it shows up in the strange text file) and for the fact he made a map called Euthanasia that i already played long ago, i remember it was a good map...

This is a... map, for starters, sets in E3M7 and following a certain criteria of iwad hell maps (this one is highly inspired from style and mechanics by the original e3m7), but with a really surrealistic design choices, like a door in the middle of a open area with two ways to take, one is a lift that take you down a surreal tech(?) site, the other is locked door. Obviously you need to take the lift and your descent into madness, madness applied into the form of void room filled with sporadic crates, a larger (and the main area of the map) brown open courtyard connected by a bunch of teleports, and door opens and closes revealing only the red ominous sky making you more confused about every conviction in life you have... like who i am? We are alone in the universe? Why i'm wasting my time playing this instead of something more lucrative, like learning a new programming language or something but who cares after all...

Ah, there's also a room decorated with HOM walls as windows or something like that. Wow.

Gameplay of this map is pretty frantic, when you get how the things you want to rush this map, but you can't do that before founding yourself in a certain death, and this takes to the main section of the map, the famous brown arena in the sky: there's this point where a huge horde of monsters that comes out from a little door point and the monsters spawns around the room, getting divided by the crates and making harder to understand where the enemy can go, killing you in fast time! But if you can get the switch that opens a door to the higher (and little safer) section of the courtyard and doing this fast since you have only the limited time of invulnerability sphere at the first part of this area and also dealing with the half the monsters of the map trying to kill you in the said spot! But, if you get it, you're the king the world. Also there's a little, forgettable problem: broken door tags and... missing keys! Yeah, i can't found the blue and yellow key over the red key, making impossible to finish the map for me.

But, you know what? Expecting this major bugs, i really liked this strange map overall! The architecture and some detailing choices is very cool and even well builded for it's age, and the style is interesting to watch! If the map was fixed of these errors it could be pretty good!

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Of Demons And Men (Doom, 2004) - No FDAs because it's broken in -complevel 2 and the author stated that map is limit-removing.

Super detailed claustrophobic map mainly consisting of marble rooms and metal hallways, it's pretty boring and predictable, but at least the details are interesting.
There's even a room with a "3D" bridge and the theme sometimes mixes a bit with silver textures, there are also some noticeable misalignments. 2/5


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Diet Vrack (Doom 2, 2013) - FDA



A very short map made for the Chris Pavera birthday in the style of Vrack series map, for a speed map this wad is really well done, as you expect from the author of this map!

And since this map was pretty short, i'll take another shot at randomizing, and i got this:

of Game canyon (Doom 2, 1996) - FDA and SDA that i quitted when i get blocked in the same spot



Again, a pretty large map with a large number of enemies (103) despite the little file size, but actually the level is an medium difficulty size and is more based upon some simple puzzles that uses some nice vanilla tricks.

Level itself is also pretty basic but functional (have also a nice combination of RROCK02 and STARBR2 in one of the map sections), and the theme is made good...

But, again, we found again in some map breaking bugs (if you don't use some cheats to get where you had to go), like missing keys and a not signed door that leads to the outdoor section...

Also, this map have the most minimalistic and cryptic text file i've ever seen: just the title of the map, the mail of the author, the game that was made for and for some reason the OS where Doom works (DOS)... ok, good, but more information like the map slot will be better 8anyway is for MAP01).

Overall, good map with a nice concept, but half executed.

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Dark City Oblivion by Kim Vidal - "Any port" so I used PrBoom-plus.
The immediate impression of this map is that it looks like someplace I'd expect to find Duke Nukem running around in, albeit with some jankiness to the texturing. It's some sort of semi-ruined cityscape that's apparently underground for some reason. There's also a picture of a woman with lines of BASIC code barely-legibly written over her, judging by the text file it's probably the "Bea" mentioned there. Pressing on the pic doesn't do anything; in fact, there seem to be no secrets. The exit is an odd spiral down at the bottom level, which is a damaging floor, while teleports, indicated by arrows on the floor, lead to the different "islands" and buildings. Some custom sounds (from Quake II, I think?) and "music" are included but the latter is just an occasional drumbeat in the midst of silence.

The difficulty level on UV is laughably easy. There are a couple of cyberdemons, and a few mancubi shooting from the rooftops, but they pose barely any threat. Dispatching the cyberdemons is no challenge, since the layout makes telefragging them simple to accomplish, while the mancubi can easily be taken down with a barrage of plasma or rockets--both in ample supply--once you've teleported to a rooftop. There's a total of 8 monsters. I've found plenty more entertaining WADs on those old D!ZONE discs.

If we learn anything from this, it's that 10 years after the infamous '94 days, there were still people making and releasing similar sorts of half-baked experimental maps as back then, they were just doing it without visplane overflows. There was an interesting idea in here somewhere, but it didn't congeal into anything terribly fun--maybe if there were more and more interestingly placed monsters; the addition of some revenants and maybe an archvile or two on the heights, and a decent supply of wimps wandering the lower floors would already go a long way to spice things up I think.

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ZCyberSweeper 2: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/v-z/zsweep2

Wow, I wasn't expecting this. As the title suggests, it's a Zdoom-ified version of that extra map from Eternal Doom (the one where you could randomize it with some EXE file that came with it or something). It's really well done for a Doom mod, but suffers from the same problem that plagues the real Minesweeper: it can generate pure guesswork situations (well, either that or I am really, really bad at Minesweeper). It even has a little automap thing that displays the game board and different difficulty settings!

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MPBASE by Maarten Pinxten - Played in vanilla.

Despite being misfiled in the Doom 2 directory, it's for the original Doom.

This one is sort of a military base that later melds into the more medieval/hell marble and wood themes in some areas. Visuals, save for a few texture alignment errors, are pretty nice and have an "authentic" feel to them without being slavish to the originals like some of those Knee-Deep tributes get.

Gameplay is okay, for the most part, but easy even on UV, with the biggest monsters being a few cacodemons, while health, ammo and armor supplies are generous in comparison to the opposition. It'd be all right for an early map in a set but as a stand-alone I'm left feeling a bit unsatisfied. That one area with lots of lifts in cramped blocky sections makes me feel like I'm playing Wolf3D what with peeking around the corners to pick off hitscanners before they can get a shot off; this is easily my least favorite area of the map.

Speaking of cramped, nearly every room and corridor of the map is small, with only a few medium-sized rooms to break things up. I could have wished for some larger, more densely populated areas, not necessarily instead of the areas that are there, but in addition to them. The map definitely does not feel "big" the way the author claims it is.

There is one door that could be considered a mandatory secret depending on how uptight you are about such things; I didn't have a problem with it since the texture is different and a nearby similar panel (a locked door) has the keycard stripes on the trim to clue you in to its function.

This would go in my "worth it" pile, but wouldn't make my list of favorite WADs. If anything, it plays things a little too safe, and fails to distinguish itself to me compared to adventurous offerings that show more challenge or creativity.

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Big_D (one Hell Of A Wad) (Doom 2, 1995) - FDA, get 100% of kills and secrets this time

Well crafted map from 1995 era of mapping, the author says is a short map but looks medium sized to me, maybe in 1995 people will even never think of 2048x2048 or 1024x1024 maps... or do they?

However, map is pretty boxy in architecture, but there's a cohesive style on texturing and themes, maybe the computer sections there's too blinking for some people like i'm going into hellish rave or something, but aside some errors tipical from that maps is pretty pleasing to the eyes...

Gameplay is pretty easy, expect from a cacodemon horde and some things that requires some jump tricks to be taken (but nothing really difficult, actually), and layout is pretty corridor-ish for most times, but overall is a pretty nice easy map! Good finding, randomizer!

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I drew Space Communications (Doom II, 2012).

It's a map that reminds me a lot of what you might see in a map01 of a community megawad: a small boxy layout with combat predominantly centered around zombies and imps. Nothing particularly good, but not offensive at all. It did have a decent imp key trap and single-chaingunner closet, but one teleporter took way too long to operate, and the layout is quite flat and basic.

Screenshots (borrowing ChekaAgent's spoilering idea to save thread space):

Spoiler

A view of the start area.



Corridor zombies, leading to a lock-in key trap.



These imps teleported in one by one for what seems like ages.



I decided to amuse myself by using these barrels to blow up the two exit chaingunners.

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So, i gots Adage. It's a single map for Vanilla Doom II, made in 2014 by Obsidian for WildWeasel (i saw both of these guys on Doomworld, so, yeah, they're not just random people..).

I played it on ChocoDoom on HMP difficulty (not on UV, because i didn't know what to expect). No demos, because i don't know how to record them and too lazy to look it up..

So, overall, it's an extremely short map designed in gothic style (a lots of custom textures). It isn't very difficult, but i managed to die in the final room 2 times because of those damned revenants. Strangely, when i replayed it for the 3rd time, revs in the final room didn't appear at all! (looks like trigger has failed), which was a good thing, because i hate revenants.

What i liked:
1) The only weapon that map gives you is a shotgun and i like that aspect. (well, the map is very short anyway, so it doesn't matter)
2) Design is awesome.
3) It's short, very close range map, and i like this kind of maps.

What i disliked: revenants.

Screens:

Spoiler

This cacodemon just sits there, watches you and waits 'til you press an important switch (which opens that door).

Crucified Jesus:

I like those candles:

Final room (nice carpet):

My stats:

Overall, i enjoyed this map. I give it 4/5 (revs ruined it :)).

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Another 2000's wad.

JADEDOOM: Return to Hell
- (Doom 2, 2005) - FDA

Newbie wad.
Many beds in some buildings, some textures aren't properly used and the map's bland throughout the whole time and there's a big bleeding sector.

Within the FDA I managed to break several flaws, such as opening a high up door from below, waking up the monsters to open the locked entrance door for you, pressing switches from where you shouldn't, escaping a lift that won't lower from below when it's fully risen.
There's an annoying section where monsters slowly teleport in 1 by 1; and it's not a fair encounter because there's no cover there and many chaingunners spawn in and by the time you cock your SSG they manage to take a few hits on you.

Spoiler


This is the most exciting screenshot I can take in the wad, this says a lot.

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I got RING OF HAVOC - ENHANCED

This zip has 2 WADs in it: the original level, and an enhanced version by a different author. I played the enhanced version first, and then played through the original because I was curious to see what was enhanced. It was pretty interesting how some of the gameplay changed, and it was certainly better. The visuals too.

Thoughts on the enhanced level: a '96 level that was mostly not very special or challenging, but it was decent and fun. The one part that I did find pretty impressive was the blue key fight, which was interesting and dangerous (especially compared to the original blue key fight, which was a pile of monsters that could be easily dealt with using the 2 invulnerability powerups provided... unless you get stuck in the corner while invulnerability is fading which almost got me :P). The ending was strange and anticlimactic, with an unmarked-surprise-that-was-the-exit sort of switch.

Skill 4 ROHENH.wad FDA

Skill 4 ROH.wad FDA

Screens of enhanced version:

Spoiler

The spider mastermind won

Blue key trap part 1

Blue key trap part 2

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