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Memfis

The Journey

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I agree.

That said, has anyone managed to get all the secrets on MAP 01? I got them all (the Rocket Launcher, the Berserk pack, the balcony with the Hell Knight) save for the last one.

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gameplay is a mixed bag for me, but hot damn this midi selection is carrying my interest through these maps thus far, it's nonstop hype.

some of the zany aesthetics are rather nice, too.

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I played through like half of it. This seems to be one of those mapsets where the SSG is usually either hidden or it arrives too late. Can be annoying on a first playthrough, especially for people like me who are not good at finding secrets.

Compared to the more colorful and somewhat unique first episode, the following base/city theme seems a lot more typical and perhaps a bit ugly at times. Similarly, after the catchy memorable melodies in the first maps it was disappointing to hear iwad midis and other standard stuff.

There is some clever monster placement with them roaming and attacking unexpectedly or controlling the territory from above. But I also see quite a lot of cannon fodder, except most of the time I don't have the cannon (SSG). Gets tiring at times.

Maps 04 and 09 are my favorites so far. 04 has very classic geometry but it just works so well due to how it's all connected. 09 definitely has more monsters than necessary but offers an actual adventure. Map13 seemed the most pointless: extremely typical with that sewers theme, short and just uninspiring.

Overall it makes me want to keep going due to the often witty layouts, some interesting design decisions utilizing original graphics and a certain cuteness in everything. The short map format is also rather attractive. But perhaps I will slow down now in an attempt to make playing more enjoyable.

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Finished second episode. Thankfully, after the disappointing almost iwad-ish maps 12-15, it changed to something much more interesting both visually and gameplay-wise. In particular, maps 18 and 20 are rather clever and entertaining I think. The music seems cool again too. I'm much more optimistic about this wad now and I'm looking forward to playing third episode. Btw isn't it refreshing to see such liberal use of powerup items? I encounter green spheres and amp visors rather often.

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I just finished MAP12 and I really liked it. There were parts that felt like the IWADs, but I like the Doom 2 city maps anyway. I think the textures were used in a clever way that made it feel like you were darting around a sleazy back alley filled with demons.

So far I can't think of a map that felt like a weak link to me, maybe MAP05. That was kind of a weird map...didn't really seem to make a whole lot of sense to me. Too many strange moving parts that didn't add up to anything really meaningful. Still, I like this wad's experimental bend -- the maps aren't afraid to progress in abstract and unexpected ways and it's quite refreshing.

Looking forward to more.

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Finished this... Dunno, I feel like I was tricked by the early levels into expecting something more unique. I guess they weren't THAT special, but the unusual sky, the new grass/tree graphics and the funky music choices made me think that this wad will have some cool surprises later on. So when I saw the beautiful third sky texture on Map32 I got very excited. But actually most of third episode turned out to have pitch black ceilings (meh decision, gets old quickly imo) and very iwad-ish hell designs.

I mainly liked maps 23 (cool swamp theme), 24 (the best one, good visuals and actually feels like a "properly sized" level) and 28 (mostly for the brutal start). Other stuff either seemed too boring structurally, had annoying ideas (26 - OMG MY EARS, 27 - don't like being forced to rush) or was overcrowded. I didn't finish 29 and 30 at all, seemed too tedious to fight these weak hordes. Some people just don't know how to make slaughter.

Perhaps it is sort of my fault that I approached this with certain expectations instead of a clear mind. Maybe in the future I will forget my disappointment and will be able to judge The Journey for what it is. But for now I'm done.

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Hi, thanks for all the comments.
I'll comment on some of them in turn... This is a huge post so I'll spoiler it.

Spoiler

Midis: fortunately the archive's rules on midis turned out to be pretty lax. Scrounged for all the midis I could get for the songs I wanted. I understand the frustration about Iwad midis though --it can create a "ghetto new" feeling like Plutonia with the doom1 midis, like there's new stuff but it's not quite there. I like the iwad songs, even a lot that weren't included here, but I understand!
It's cool if some people feel like there was some experimental ideas in here. I was always trying to avoid banal and pointless design. I couldn't really get any testers (except for my brother with whom I played through everything in coop, forgot to credit him in the readme), so tested everything myself. When you don't have a second opinion, there's a risk of going full George Lucas, you know, letting bad ideas slip through unchallenged. I'll try to get more testers for next time.

Marcaek said:

inferno deja vu when

There isn't one yet?
It's been asked before, but I'm not really feeling it that much. Maybe a Hexen-like hub with the hell overworld you see on the intermission screen, and then you have to enter the "new" levels from there? As for KDITD, techbase has been done so many times, don't know if it would be interesting. Ep2's been always my favorite, even though it has some of Petersen's nonsense and Hall's Wolf3d mazes, the theme I thought is really cool and it has this really "new" feel after playing the shareware for so long. Maybe.

Memfis said:

I played through like half of it. This seems to be one of those mapsets where the SSG is usually either hidden or it arrives too late. Can be annoying on a first playthrough, especially for people like me who are not good at finding secrets.

Yeah, the SSG is rarely easily accessible. In keeping with the theme of short levels I thought that the SSG would overcentralize weapons use and force the level to employ more and stronger enemies. At its best it can create a real feel of horror and suspense when your damage-per-second isn't high enough that you can quickly kill all the enemies you face, and when there isn't enough space to keep running away forever. At its worst some enemies like knights/cacos can feel like pointless fodder fights where you just need to shoot at them for a while without them having any real chance of hurting you. So yeah this time I thought to reduce SSG reliance on purpose. If it's just really annoying to everyone, then for next doom2 levels maybe give it more early and do the unthinkable: don't give the player so many shells

Compared to the more colorful and somewhat unique first episode, the following base/city theme seems a lot more typical and perhaps a bit ugly at times. Similarly, after the catchy memorable melodies in the first maps it was disappointing to hear iwad midis and other standard stuff.

It's interesting because I was thinking that maybe people'll think that the first set is too colorful and "undoomy". The choice to make the (beginning) of the second set darker and more drab was a conscious one, but might have gone too far, thought that too. When you climb the stairs in level 10, it's meant to be like saying goodbye to the colorful (in visuals and music) first set. Of course, if the idea is to give variety in having the second set be dark, the problem is that the darkness never really lets up! There's a lot of water and bright hell textures in the third set, but it doesn't really get bright again until the very end. Remains to be seen how successful the variance is.

There is some clever monster placement with them roaming and attacking unexpectedly or controlling the territory from above. But I also see quite a lot of cannon fodder, except most of the time I don't have the cannon (SSG). Gets tiring at times.

Maps 04 and 09 are my favorites so far. 04 has very classic geometry but it just works so well due to how it's all connected. 09 definitely has more monsters than necessary but offers an actual adventure. Map13 seemed the most pointless: extremely typical with that sewers theme, short and just uninspiring.

Overall it makes me want to keep going due to the often witty layouts, some interesting design decisions utilizing original graphics and a certain cuteness in everything. The short map format is also rather attractive. But perhaps I will slow down now in an attempt to make playing more enjoyable.


Interesting about map 04, because it was one of the very earliest levels made for this, originally. (In the end the levels are from a really wide time period and can feel unfocused, like a real grab bag, like a journey perhaps?)
It had a large makeover recently, the only geometry that stayed was: the start area (the stuff above was added because it was too boring), the engine room with the lights-out key, and the teleport area to the gravel containers, but that had a lot of changes too. It was pretty cramped and boring originally, shaky theming too, but the original idea remained: need to go down to open the red door, but the way is separated by slime. Afterwards, return up and open the yellow door to open the big door in the beginning. (the choice to include NO rad suits is intended, you have to take the long way or run across the slime for a couple of seconds.) It's cool if the final version turned out alright after all.

Map 09: this was one of those cursed slots for a long time. All of my attempts were crap. The canyon waterfall thing was something I didn't try much before. The idea is simple: get the blue key from somewhere, and get back to the start since the exit door is behind where you begin. The key is actually in different areas in each difficulty, replaced by plasma guns in the others. On hard it's in the lava cave. On medium it's on the thing you can jump to before raising the "bridge". (You can actually jump from above to the lava cave entrance without raising the bridge, but you'll likely have trouble with the monsters blocking your way and shooting at you from behind.) On easy it's in the marble crusher, so the canyon is basically a bonus area. Moreover the idea was that you run all around the level, sometimes you get pushed off down but you'll probably find a new area while getting back up. Basically a large adventure area where you search for the key and the teleporter, without it feeling like a maze. In the vein of Mount Erebus, that's where the blue key idea was taken too. It's nice if it's good, I played through it many times myself, for testing and for fun.

Map 13: this might be the earliest level made for this set. Originally it was the second level, but was moved to the city. I suspect sewer levels in games are fun to make, but not too fun to actually play

Memfis said:

Finished second episode. Thankfully, after the disappointing almost iwad-ish maps 12-15, it changed to something much more interesting both visually and gameplay-wise. In particular, maps 18 and 20 are rather clever and entertaining I think. The music seems cool again too. I'm much more optimistic about this wad now and I'm looking forward to playing third episode. Btw isn't it refreshing to see such liberal use of powerup items? I encounter green spheres and amp visors rather often.


Not many light goggles actually, back to back in 17 and 18 in singleplayer I think? Invulnerability --quite a lot, hopefully not too many to trivialize the critical parts though! There's often an invulnerability in the lava, that's a good trick, almost as good as "secret behind waterfall". Lots of blur spheres too, but those are basically the go-to ghetto pickup. Few soulspheres though, I think, and VERY few megaspheres.

Pavera said:

I just finished MAP12 and I really liked it. There were parts that felt like the IWADs, but I like the Doom 2 city maps anyway. I think the textures were used in a clever way that made it feel like you were darting around a sleazy back alley filled with demons.

So far I can't think of a map that felt like a weak link to me, maybe MAP05. That was kind of a weird map...didn't really seem to make a whole lot of sense to me. Too many strange moving parts that didn't add up to anything really meaningful. Still, I like this wad's experimental bend -- the maps aren't afraid to progress in abstract and unexpected ways and it's quite refreshing.

Looking forward to more.


I like the doom2 city maps too, parts of them at least, knowing how unpopular they are with people I knew it was going to be risky to include city maps here, in the same "episode" slot too, but wanted to anyway. The city levels have a dark and dirty feeling, the atmosphere of map 12 especially is based on the Hells Kitchen levels in Deus Ex, my favorites for their atmosphere and gameplay.

Map 05 was redone fairly recently as well, the original was pointless and the only thing that survived was the exit room. Very apathetic towards Ep4, but had a faint memory of "Perfect Hatred", cool level by Romero, wanted to do something like that. Big slime room with platforms in the middle, and stuff and windows at the sides. It is pretty grabbag-y though. The slime fall room is a huge gimmick, got changed too,there was this series of instantly raising floors that you had to use to climb to the plasma. The damage is 20% because if you got stuck, the damage would kill you quicker when the suit ran out. I noticed that there are a lot of rising floors in general in the map, maybe too much of the "heh let's put this in there since it kinda fits" line of thinking. The escape teleporter sending you to a thing that has to rise to the main platform is probably too cruel.

Memfis said:

Finished this... Dunno, I feel like I was tricked by the early levels into expecting something more unique. I guess they weren't THAT special, but the unusual sky, the new grass/tree graphics and the funky music choices made me think that this wad will have some cool surprises later on. So when I saw the beautiful third sky texture on Map32 I got very excited. But actually most of third episode turned out to have pitch black ceilings (meh decision, gets old quickly imo) and very iwad-ish hell designs.

I mainly liked maps 23 (cool swamp theme), 24 (the best one, good visuals and actually feels like a "properly sized" level) and 28 (mostly for the brutal start). Other stuff either seemed too boring structurally, had annoying ideas (26 - OMG MY EARS, 27 - don't like being forced to rush) or was overcrowded. I didn't finish 29 and 30 at all, seemed too tedious to fight these weak hordes. Some people just don't know how to make slaughter.

Perhaps it is sort of my fault that I approached this with certain expectations instead of a clear mind. Maybe in the future I will forget my disappointment and will be able to judge The Journey for what it is. But for now I'm done.


Yeah, basically the "official" sky of the third set is pitch black, since you're underground. The actual sky is supposed to be kind of a surprise, at the end. The pillar effect on map 32 was too cool to pass up though, so it's kind of a preview there, if you can find the level. The theming of the third set is rather similar to doom2 and Quake 1. Lots of dark brown and abstract stuff. Also the hell levels in Diablo 1, which is where the name, the Sunless Sea also comes from. I don't think this theming is too popular either, but I really like it, could apparently be done a lot better though!

Map 23 swamp: This is cool. Thought it was cool at first too, then added trees, grass and rain eventually. This level also has some dark secrets.
Map 24: The monsters appear Monster Condo-style here, because when I was first testing this, I thought the atmosphere of the empty city was excellent, so retained it somehow. I do think that Monster Condo had better traps and closets though. Also: this is based on the image of an old, dusty motherboard that looks like an ancient city. If you compare, the geometry is directly based on that pic. Hence the name "Rigopolis", rig as in computer and polis as in city.
Map 28: This is one of my favorites too. There is a secret trick for the archvile at the start. Hint: use the chaingunner. Also a pacifist route is rather feasible here.
Map 26: This is a risky experimental map! Admittedly simple gameplay, big on gimmicks. At first didn't feel like an actual running machine, so added those dummy crushers and platforms, the chainsaw pickup at the start hides the start trigger for those. Wouldn't want to play this on a port without 3D sound (flashbacks of Korax mod v2)
Map 27: Another very experimental level, only here the gimmick is very central to the gameplay. I know that levels like this are usually among the most reviled, but really wanted to make one anyway. Sadism? Since the weakest damage floor is still pretty damaging, the outdoor areas have to be pretty short. The "fridges", the silver safe zones with health, are straight out of Bomberman Hero, as is the concept in general: there was a level where you are on a volcano planet, and you get damaged if you stay out too long. There were these fridges, we always called them fridges, that you could step into to cool down.
Gimmicky map indeed, maybe too reliant on knowledge on the level in advance. Sometimes it feels pretty easy once you get past the intimidation factor of the "time limit", and sometimes it feels unbelievably hard. But good or not? hmmmmm...?? Dunno.

Map 29 and 30: These have massive hordes. I don't like levels like those, but tried anyway for a couple of reasons: for the semifinal level, since you're climbing up from the depths, it has to feel like a long way, even though the actual vertical distance isn't so great. Like originally in Deimos Deja Vu "Spawning Vats", the difficulty in general is not that high. The monsters should keep you on your toes, but mainly they are there to block your way, instead of the level architecture with keys and stuff. If the monsters weren't there, the way up would be rather fast. Nevertheless the encounters are hardly cerebral. The only really inspired one would be the teleporting imps in my opinion. As you said I don't really know or care about doing levels with huge hordes of enemies, but for the purposes of the "narrative" tried one or two anyway. Map 29, and by extension all the previous levels, serve as the prelude to map 30, the final battle.

Map 30 is a huge melee because I always hated the icon of sin stuff, and just wanted to have this huge nonlinear area with tons of enemies. Like a thousand troops on every side, literally like "War and Peace". Like, literally "War and Peace". How well it turned out? Well, I dunno, my least played map probably, but likely because I don't like slaughter map gameplay like stated, and because I have a rule where I can't save during a level. This level is so huge and hard that I just didn't want to play it. So my house rule for this level is that you get one save after every key you collect. The fights are just so many, they aren't pointless though, since the boss spawned enemies are contained in the field of strife, except for flying monsters which may fly over the surrounding rocks. You know, if there are so many monsters, like they just keep coming, it still feels pointless to kill them because there's just always more. So it is very uncharacteristic to do these kinds of levels at the very end, but you need a spectacular ending. I always had this idea of a huge multi-tiered battle in the snow at the end, so that's what I did, made sure an idea gets done even though it might be out of place. It is worth noting that the VERY end is small-scale though. The last fight is in very close quarters, and has an archvile. That's the real final battle. The part afterwards is really just for show, kind of how you walk in space at the end of Xenoblade. So, the war was large scale and the battle was small scale. Perhaps should've been the other way around? Dunno. Last bosses/levels in FPS games have always been problematic. I'll think of something else for next time. Thanks for the feed back.

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Very nice response, you show that you have a clear understanding of what you're doing, which makes me excited about possible future projects. By the way, I forgot to post this... I recorded my whole playthrough on demos, you can watch them if you're interested in that sort of stuff: https://www.mediafire.com/?qjhfc7b1sdbbo8c

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Personally, I loved MAP30. 29 was a mixed bag, the idea was awesome but I thought it felt too slow and grindy.

30 though, rushing madly trying to find those keys while watching the monster counter ticking up... Took me two keys to realize they couldn't get around the level (which was the sole best decision you made in that level if you ask me). And that ending, hmmmm <3

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