FLASHY TITLE!

I had some other demos for this wad during playtesting however they all desync now =/. Wanted to make a demo to contribute!

Here is a quick UV-Max of map 15: https://www.doomworld.com/vb/post/1663372

The demo in this link was made 8/28/2016. Will need to use a version of the wad from that date.

Map 08: The basic idea for the map is cool, a cave leading into an underground black marble stronghold, but the execution leaves something to be desired. For starters, the railing in the very beginning is not impassable and the player can get trapped in the river if they try exploring. The cave starts out pretty good, but the encounters get banal very quickly. The marble areas on the other hand look really uninspired but the fights aside from the final one are actually fun. The final fight with the Revenant horde and Cyberdemons is just annoying more than anything.

Favourite part: visually, the entrance to the marble parts with the invisible bridge in a giant cavern, gameplay-wise the cross-shaped marble corridor with imps teleporting in.

Least favourite part: the final fight.

Map 09: This map returns to the mixed themes, but as it's a Tricks and Traps pastiche, it feels more acceptable. The circular starting room open into, in order, a skin-covered corridor with crushers (including one right above you as you flip the switch that sets them off), a marble room with close-quarters Mancubi and Pain Elementals, a wood-and-brick room whose walls open to surround you with enemies, a marble maze whose walls eventually become a second floor filled with monsters, a dark metal room with hexagonal lifts and finally an underground cemetery leading into a truly enormous temple where the final battle takes place.

I have a few criticisms of the map, mainly that many of the traps can be backed out of fairly trivially and the final temple area contains a lot of copy+paste, but they aren't huge issues and there are also a lot of good things about the map. The rooms escalate nicely in terms of enemies, except for the metal one which is a definite step back from the maze. The marble textures continue to be underwhelming, but the rest of the themes look really good. The final battle is absolutely epic in scale. And the cemetery bit just before it looks suitably atmospheric.

Favourite part: the cemetery. I mean, just look at it.

Least favourite part: that the second and third traps are too similar, with the room opening up behind you releasing enemies.

thanks to all for the playtesting/streaming/feedback.. and apologies to killer, whos demo is about to desync again as i needed to fix a HOM that id forgotten about and add a few cybs to map 15... This will "hopefully" be the final edit to this little collection of maps before i can move on and do something else :D https://www.dropbox.com/s/fwb0h4fgl12sy7j/dankmidisandlinedefsv1.8.wad?dl=0

I haven't forgotten about this, I was just doing other stuff. Time for the next two maps.

Map 10: And we're truly back to the mixed themes now, in a relatively small map with only five distinct locations with three themes. Starting out in a circular marble oubliette that opens up into a square room, continuing into a green brick and marble corridor and a spiral staircase with a whole bunch of traps, then a large rectangular tech room with computer panels, and finally a rocky outside area reminiscent of Death-Destiny's outdoor maps where the enemies are already all present and pop up as you approach them.

Both the visuals and the gameplay are all over the place, though always solid. The beginning room and the corridor after it open with a sequence of hellish fights where it's easy to get blocked into a corner and murdered, then the staircase continues with smaller-scale battles in close quarters, the tech room is a simple Revenant shooting gallery at first, then it opens up into a massive slaughterfest with tons of enemies, and I already mentioned how the outdoor part plays out.

All in all, a definite step back design-wise while a huge step forward in gameplay (at least compared to the previous map, which as I mentioned was really easy to cheese apart from the final fight).

Favourite part: the green brick areas, just because I really like it when someone makes good use of that texture.

Least favourite part: the tech room. It's just such a thematic clash with the rest of the map that it really bothers me.

Map 11: A castle map using lots of different brick textures, it still looks mostly coherent because every texture follows a single aesthetic theme that reminds me a bit of Plutonia. The gameplay builds up nicely over the course of the map, starting out with simple, low-population rooms with tough enemies and elevated hitscanners, then progressing through trapped corridors and larger battles where the player is under fire from all sides, to a massive slaughter at the end.

Honestly, the ending battle was a bit of a letdown. The encounters preceding it were really devious and interesting, so just having a huge courtyard swarming with monsters felt boring. It didn't help that there weren't enough enemies to really make me feel pressured and I could just run around them forever, even with the Spider Masterminds.

Favourite part: the right side of the second castle, with the switches opening up more and more rooms when you think it's over already.

Least favourite part: the final fight for the reasons I mentioned above.

ok.. suppose i may as well swoop in with a random stealth edit after seeing a few people cheese some traps in a really depressing way..

Changelog:
m02 : some cacos swapped for PEs and viles added to 4 cyb switch, changed some switch ordering
m05 : removed random backtrack switch from start, removed impassable midtexture from lowest area so final viles have better movement
m07 : put blocking sectors in front of popup switches
m10 : exit pillar moved so player cant hide behind it, black ledge now impassable
m11 : removed some cacos from outdoor area to speed up flow
m13 : fence around final area is now impassable
m14 : exit room now has 2 switches required for exit and red key area PEs are now viles/cybs
m15 : desperately needed node rebuild, whole map co-ordinates shift, added extra timed switches required to escape certain traps, removal of an invisi sphere in a chaingunner trap, about 200 cacos changed to PEs, ridiculous amount of cells added to the PE area, all HKs on long grindy bridge bit are now revs, with 25 viles at back. Not been playtested at all but the map was ludicrous enough as it was so a little more madness cant be a bad thing :P

OP updated with new (and now hopefully final) link! As always, many thanks to everyone who has given this a run thru :)

Saw some people were making zdoom demos for this wad on YouTube so I decided to join in on the fun. Map 05 max.

https://www.doomworld.com/vb/post/1673309

Is there WAD to download? Llink dont work...

sorry, thought i still had it on dropbox.. OP updated with new link, now includes textures so doesnt require CC4tex.wad to play :P