The DWmegawad Club plays: Heroes' Tales

MAP05: Canyon

12:26 | 100% Everything

Loved this one. The opening in the canyon is a little cheesy playing continuous, as all the baddies just swarm into the bottleneck and its just a matter of SSGing the crap outta everything until you can get out. On pistol-start, I'd imagine it would be much more frantic. That's fine, though. I was hoping climbing the canony walls would lead to a secret area, but no, no secrets here. (Boo!) Anyway, it's a very simple and straightforward map, but something about the grand visuals really resonated with me. Very cool.

MAP05: This isn't so endearing, but there's a nice attention to the detail at least. I agree with Memfis that it seems like the author didn't know what to do for the gameplay, the arch-vile is oddly placed and the cyberdemon has a rock in front of it that blocks its rockets. Perhaps the author started to make something too ambitious for a 4-hours span and he realized it late.

MAP05 - Another adequate map. The Cyberdemon is toothless, the Arch-Vile is decided optional, but a threat nonetheless, and the majority of the enemies are fought as an initial swarm that is easiest to deal with by using the beginning a bottleneck. I think with less effort on visuals and a smaller scale, the same time could be used to make a much more interesting map. I all comes together reasonably well to make a short series of battles that probably would be a reasonable challenge from a pistol start!

I'll be away for a couple of days now, so I'll try to catch up over the weekend and early next week. With the length of these maps, that shouldn't be a big ask.

MAP05

Doom Legacy 1.47.2, pistol start, UV (I knew I forgot something last time)

This one's more frantic, but still not too difficult.

There was the possibility of using the bottleneck near the start, but I found it more fun to run about the exterior of the castle and kill everything that way.

Pistol start is really quite easy, with the SSG given right away and the launcher and plasma available very soon, with ample ammo given for them both.

It's a back-and-forth key grab, with the majority of the threat lying in the chaingunners on the plasma side, but the available soulsphere and semi-hidden megasphere provide all the health you'll need to get through this after surviving the initial swarm.

06 - here we can see an early level by Archi. Archi did a lot for the community: he organized numerous speedmapping and speedrunning contests, did mapping streams, and at some point even moderated our forums. Of course nowadays he is better known as a slaughtermapper, and since slaughter is not a very popular genre among Russians, he prefers to hang out with Doomworld folks.

I like this map: the action is dynamic enough and the use of differently colored torches makes areas stand out. But I think there are some bugs (one switch becomes "almost" inaccessible sometimes and the spider mastermind seems to be partially stuck) and the boss fights are way too basic to be fun (boo block monster lines).

MAP03: Aquapark

100% kills, 2/2 secrets

I admittedly always feel a bit of dread seeing maps like this, because I know they'll be filled with tons of snipers and me frantically running around trying to find supplies and a foothold. Done as a speedmap though in a bite-sized amount, it works well though. Definitely feels like this could be an IWAD or at least old school map, I'd compare it to Mt. Erebus in my mind in terms of running around a bunch of small buildings figuring out what opens what where. The vine maze can be a bit of a death trap if you haven't cleared out all the snipers but that's about it. Fun map to explore and play through.

MAP04: Survival

100% kills, 2/2 secrets

Overly brown and overly square, two strikes against it. The first half of the map is pretty boring single-shotgun fish-in-barrel clearing, though the second half has some more zing to it by putting more threatening enemies in close-quarters. The drop into the 20% lava is annoying especially since it's quite easy to get stuck on the architecture if you happen to go right.

MAP05: Canyon

92% kills, no map secrets

Architecture of this size isn't usually my thing, but again, done on a smaller speedmap like this I can take it in short bits. Lots of monsters (and they do certainly seem to be thrown around without much care, apart from the key guardians who don't have too much bite given where they're stuck) but lots of weapons to blast them with too. Definitely glad I found the unofficial megasphere secret since armor is really required on a map like this I think.

MAP04: Survival

Sure, this one has some fun parts. Elevator starts are usually neat imo as it gives the impression I'm getting deeper into hell territory, although is not the case here. Excluding the drop into pain sector type worst, no real inconveniences with the map, it's a little silly in the pinkies' placement at the cliff section, but the intimate quarters with the baron and beyond spiced up the things. I got my first death in the wad here, after the hell knights sandwich, my fault for being a little gutsy with the sneaky vile+boner. Felt like a better entry from Lainos, his two maps evoked the quirky late 90's/early 00's era, from both a gameplay and visual perspective (lots of trees in the way, the drop on hot rocky floor, majority shotgun/chaingun, slow elevators), perhaps not very memorable, since I had to revisit it to recall every part besides the damage sector, but a fine map nevertheless. 

MAP05: Canyon

Heh, where have I seen this mapper before? PRCP?... Anyways, another quick map with a nice change from subterranean constrict quarters to mostly outdoors at the daylight. Aquila is right in that it's not frantic on a pistol start, nor the combat in general due to ample resource management where the chainsaw/zerk are practically needless. The open spaces also make monsters look like they're just hanging there, other than the few revs and commandos, maybe the gasbags too, there's not much in the way of threat and that's fine imo. I'm not quite a fan of some placements, specially in the RSK wing, the pinkies/spectres can't climb the stairs thus are harmless, the PE in the tunnel seems to suffer the same problem but to my surprise it could screw the block lines via lost souls, and the vile+caco felt weird, I didn't trust the fence to use rockets. The BK wing seemed just ok if "flawed" like others mentioned, based on the in-game demo you can pacifist this part, and I guess that suits for speedrunning, but the other wing has lots of meat walls so, maybe not. But I occasionally like a thematically short canyon map when stuff is in the playground area and allows for zigzagging shit, not afar as snipers, so this map gets a +1 for me.

okay, here we go

MAP01 - “Ancient Valley” by Lainos

this is a very humble map in some ways (very brown, simple architecture), but it definitely signals later and much more ambitious stuff to come from Lainos. it has that dreamy quality his maps have. i actually like the crusher trap at the beginning because it's so unexpected - it sets your expectations for something a little more environment-based, rather than the combat. the red portals were really cool. i also like the fakeout ending where you think you're done but it's just a cage, and you have to double back to do these weird little series of platforms. a lot of cool ideas in one little map here - not a bad start at all!

MAP02 - “Ruins” by Shadowman

the intro cavern area was pretty small, but i like the idea of crawling around in tunnels in the darkness. the highlight of the map was definitely the castle ruin area. i love maps that make you crawl on the top of ruins and be adventurous in order to progress to areas that are otherwise locked off. the ending was okay - i feel like so many maps (including other maps in this set) end with a Cyberdemon or a bunch of archviles and it often feels like kind of a cop-out. at least it gives you an invulnerability here if you look for it, though. still pretty humble setting (very brown, sparsely detailed), but not a bad map!

MAP03 - “Aquapark” by Wraith

this is definitely the most fully-realized setting of the set so far. the texturing and theming is a bit more unique and less standard Doom 2. i love any time people attempt to do trees/hedges in Doom. there's some really weird invisible walls and gating of progression in one or two places, but i would expect no less mystery and hostility from Russian map (edit: i was stupid and using Doom2.wad, so they're actually vines. it's actually a pretty cool use of the vines, so good work there!). i actually think that i like this more than the couple Wraith maps i played in Sacrament? or at least this is fairly equal in terms of quality to them. i don't like the obligatory Cyberdemon encounter at the end though - didn't feel that necessary.

MAP04 - “Survival” by Lainos

pretty unremarkable little map outside of that small spine/guts pit with the blue key, which was neat. also what's with it being fullbright when you're outside and the sky is black (edit: again, was accidentally using Doom2.wad so nevermind on that point)? this definitely feels like a speedmap that didn't really have time to develop into anything, which is funny because the previous few didn't feel nearly as much like speedmaps.

MAP05 - “Canyon” by 3EPHOEd

nice setting! it's hard to go wrong with castle ruins as a place. it's a bit big and empty, and like several maps here pretty much the same level of brightness. but there are some bits that have their own identity and feel more substantial than like the previous map, for example. the hangman noose area with one of the keys and a bunch of Hell knights/a baron/an archvile was cool. it also makes me feel like some maps i'd play in the future by other Russian mappers, even though i've never played anything else from 3EPHOEd. again, don't like the obligatory Cyberdemon where one of the keys are - it's another situation where you just run around him. also don't like that monsters are just kinda thrown in a big space randomly, because once you kill them there isn't much else to this map. but i do like the chunkiness of the castle ruins.

MAP06 - “Nemesis” by Archi

beginning reminds me a lot of a particular American McGee map from Quake 1 - it's somewhere in Episode 3, but i can't remember the name. in fact this whole map feels pretty McGee. maybe that's intentional, since this is in The Crusher's map slot from Doom 2. in any case, this is a nice, tight little map. beginning area is pretty basic but geometry and lighting, as well as the encounters, are more fine-tuned than in other maps. the area with the pit where you hit the switches is nice - that also reminds me of McGee actually. while i'm not a huge fan of obligatory boss encounters at the end, at least there's also a Spider Mastermind and an invulnerability for the Cyberdemon if you run around him. all in all, pretty good.

7 minutes ago, ella guro said:

also what's with it being fullbright when you're outside and the sky is black? that felt very strange, but not the good kind of strange.

Hmm, are you using tnt.wad?

34 minutes ago, galileo31dos01 said:

 

Hmm, are you using tnt.wad?

ahh crap, i totally missed that! as weird as it sounds, i thought the black sky was intentional. i'm surprised there didn't seem to be any other texture errors or weird things so far, given that i was using Doom2.wad.

MAP06: I really liked this one, it's playful with switches and stuff happening and the yellow key trick was nice. Shame for the final boss battles which were lame to be honest (and yes the spiderdemon seems to be stuck inside its cage).

Here I start with Heroes Tales, better late than never right? Playing with Prboom+ on Ultra-Violence and pistol starts.

MAP01: Ancient Valley

This is a simple map with pretty simple gameplay and design. You could say this was made in 1995 and I'd believe you, And it's a very brown map to go with that. Looks like some people had a problem with the crusher trap but i felt it was obvious consider the small hole in the ground. There were a few minor problems with the map like a spectre that seemed to be stuck in the architecture of the map but that's to be expected from a speed map. That certainly was an interesting exit too.

MAP02: Ruins

We start off in a brown cave, shoot our way through a brown valley to a brown castle and finish off in a brown building of some sorts. There's plenty of health and ammo for the enemies you have to face and most of the tougher monsters are saved for the end except for a few Hell Knights and Cacos, and Hell Knights are basically just bigger imps that take longer to kill. Cyberdemon at the end may get you but using some strategy you can save the invul and lure him out to the courtyard area for an easy fight.

Here's the first version of MAP06, it has one additional area which was cut later. I'm not very proud of that map, just bringing it up if anyone wants to see what was it initially. This version is buggy, it doesn't work well with cl4. MAP30. The theme for that speedmap session was "Boss map". It was held in July of 2009.

old_nem.zip

12 hours ago, ella guro said:

 

ahh crap, i totally missed that! as weird as it sounds, i thought the black sky was intentional. i'm surprised there didn't seem to be any other texture errors or weird things so far, given that i was using Doom2.wad.

In that case the wad uses tnt resources not very frequently, but you may have noticed the maze in map 03 with invisible walls, those are solid wired fences if you load the correct iwad :P

MAP06: Nemesis

You know, it was kinda strange to had played Rush first and then meet Archi's older non-slaughter stuff after. At the same time, it was a cool feeling. The map, however, isn't really that exciting, it features a few ambushes to keep it dynamic which is good, and other "stuck" stuff from roaming for free, which is not good. The courtyard section appears to work in odd ways, depending on the source port maybe? In my case (Crispy Doom) the floor that lowers remains being grass, but watching DyingCamel's stream the other week, he had to stay out from the pit since it turned into damaging lava. He uses GZDoom... Anyway, perhaps my least favourite of the set so far. 

5 hours ago, DavitW said:

Here I start with Heroes Tales, better late than never right?

Thankfully, the maps are short enough that it's pretty easy to catch up! (And why I didn't feel bad about skipping out last night.)

MAP07: Ouch, having to start on a damaging sector. It's a Dead Simple level with the usual different things done to vary a little, the cacodemons released with the archnotrons was a good idea. The layout is symmetrical with copy-pasted areas probably but the visuals are pleasant to look at with the classic (and safe) theme of bricks+metal, plus some buildings for the outer scenery.

07 - BEST MUSIC EVER. Really gets the blood pumping. And this is actually a pretty good slaughter-ish map, even total symmetry on both axes doesn't hurt it. A little surprising for Shadowman, usually his gameplay is more boring. ;) My only complaint is that the switches can be confusing.

By the way, I triggered the spider special twice and didn't get stuck since the author provided another teleporter just in case - nice!

Map 4

Another very brown map with varying levels of detail from place to place. Combat is a more involved, noteworthy being the 2 hell knights in that small room and the cramped baron encounter. The red key room was a bit of a pain in the ass to find out where to go. No, I am not a fan of fake walls. I managed to goad the spider into killing the two cacodemons, and later on a revenant courteously robbed the archvile of 80hp for me. The pinkies on the ledge were completely worthless, firstly they can't put the pressure on while you're clearing out that room, then when you get to the entrance to the ledge they'll just bottleneck themselves. I reckon more imps or a few shotgunners would've been better. Found one secret with a soulsphere. Pretty decent gameplay IMO, there's definitely more pressure than in the previous maps.

Map 5

Liked the look of this one. Big marble ruins built into a canyon. Instigated some infighting on the main rim of the canyon at the start resulting in a mini battle royale among the cacos, imps and revenants. That Pain Elemental surprisingly didn't cause too much bother, probably coz it was busy vomiting skulls at other monsters rather than into thin air. Upon clearing out the rim, we find ourselves some more worthless pinkies, helplessly blocked by the stairs. While rocketing those barons and knights at the red key I noticed a cacodemon in the background getting immolated, before exploding in mid-air (I'm using the ketchup v5 gore mod) which was pretty hilarious! I probably would not have noticed that archvile had that caco not pissed it off first. The cyber is rather harmless, I don't think he can even get you when you are on the main rim of the canyon. He can't even leave his little dugout. Fairly pointless. Might be one of those situations when the spider mastermind would've worked better.  

MAP06: Nemesis

8:07 | 100% Everything

A very short map, pretty punchy and fun, but essentially forgettable. I liked the cheek of having the yellow key withheld, and then it's the red key that releases the yellow key, but that also opens the yellow bars. :) If the floor-drop penultimate arena is supposed to catch you by surprise, it failed here, since the second I heard the floor start to go, I immediately backpedaled. The final arena was pretty underwhelming, with a laughably-stuck mastermind just sitting there on the upper level (one point-blank BFG blast did it) and the obvious cyberdemon below (who I let tag me once, but I still had most of my megasphere from the previous map.

MAP07: Colliseum

8:00 | 100% Everything

Dead Simple again, but with a bit more meat on the bones. The switch-hunt in the corner alcoves was pretty obnoxious; I had already maxxed everything and then had to spend a couple minutes figuring out how to open the exit door...

Map 6

Brown is the name of the game again, this time in brick form. Not much to say about combat here, monster placement mostly being infront of you as you go along. The pinky teleport was non-threatening, just stand in the corner with the SSG and hold down MOUSE1. The yellow key part gave me a jump!  The whole yellow-red key sequence was clever! The floor in the courtyard lowered into lava for me, and required hitting a few switches to raise the pillars up. The standout encounter was probably the archvile, basically you have two choices, either go swimming or hope he flinches, which in my case he did not...but there are stacks of health in that area.

The spider mastermind encounter was lame, I mean there are 4 big fat pillars to hide behind and she can't move out of her little fenced off area. The cyberdemon was neutered aswell, but there is the risk of splash damage. I discovered the invuln after I had killed him, but even if I had known about it I probably wouldn't have risked running past him. I left having a suffered a little bit of splash damage, but didn't bother to go back and get the health. 

Map 7

Wish I had bothered to get that health in the last map. That damaging sector at the start can fuck right off. After the ergh ergh ergh's have come to a stop, what's this? A metric shit ton of pissed off fat bastards surrounding you from a dozen different directions. What's more, each of the 4 vaguely "safe spaces" have a blur sphere, specially placed to make the schizo rape attack that much more fun, fucken, coz being bummed up the ass with fire from all the corners of a fuckton-sided fucken yet to be discovered shape was not fun enough. What was it, about attempt no. 10 before I managed to gain a foothold over their galaxy of instagib shit and figure out what fucking procedure to take. Thank god for that megasphere, although it would not last long. The masses of spiders and cacos sorted me out again, then again while trying to escape to the outer ledge only to be met with a step slightly too high for doomguy. You're shitting my balls right?! So it had to be a swim in the damage to the teleporter, to be swiftly deposited into the spider nest with a swift plasma enema on the spot. It was only after all this I remembered I had a BFG from a previous map. Fucken herp de derrrrrrrrrrrppp. 

With the BFG things were easier, but still managed to go down to 26% health from 200 within seconds once the archvile, hitscanner (feat. chaingunners) and revenant homing buggery instagib happy fun times popped up. Ridiculous difficulty standard deviation from all the maps so far, the pistol starters I'm sure are gonna have a delightful old time. The damaging start, again, especially in the context it is in, can fuck right off. Oh yeah, forgot to mention the MAD FUN switch hunt.

14 hours ago, Salt-Man Z said:

Thankfully, the maps are short enough that it's pretty easy to catch up! (And why I didn't feel bad about skipping out last night.)

Same here... had plenty of free time during vacation,  but no pc, now I'm back @ pc, but no time  :p

08 - umm, there is a toilet on top of a building right next to some boxes. I've never seen a toilet on top of a building before. I want to learn more about it. Imagine pooping on the roof!

39 minutes ago, Memfis said:

08 - umm, there is a toilet on top of a building right next to some boxes. I've never seen a toilet on top of a building before. I want to learn more about it. Imagine pooping on the roof!

1 hour ago, Memfis said:

there is a toilet on top of a building right next to some boxes

Didn't noticed that lol

MAP08: If you already played ALT you may have recognized the author and this map reminds of the first city maps of ALT, though with way less substance but some traits are the same like the messy look and some interesting ideas. The light turning off in the hell knights rooms is nice but you can just run forward and skip it, you don't have anything to do there.

Map 8

Very short with only 42 monster count, set in a city block. The first pinky trap was the most dangerous part, but I was equipped with the SSG so left unharmed. Have no idea how I triggered the secret. The lighting in the crate room near the blue key is strange, flashing black on the tops of the crates, the ceiling, and the imp corpses, not sure what's going on there. That random shitter on the roof was funny. Hopefully you don't get a diarrhea attack when it's raining :D 

Liked the lights going out in the hell knight room, but only 2 of the 4 knights actually came out of their cubby before they lowered, rendering the other two stuck on the side of the building for good. Plus the whole thing is optional anyway as you can simply run for the exit. That unfortunately took away from what would've been a decent encounter. 

MAP07 - “Colliseum” by Shadowman

i admit i'm not really a fan of Dead Simple remakes in general, though this was a perfectly serviceable one. the city setting was very nice in particular. one problem though - i'm not sure if i hit the switches out of order, or perhaps it's related to my loading the wrong IWAD mishap (though i don't see why that'd be the case). but at the end when all the archviles spawned in the center i got trapped in the center of the map, where the revenants and hitscanners very happily took potshots at me from the perimeter as i had an extremely difficult time hitting them from far away. the map basically went from fun to frustrating for me very quickly, and i ended up having to attempt this part way more times than you'd expect until i figured out you can very slowly snipe some of the hitscanners from the raised mancubi platforms. i guess i almost would've been better off just starting from the beginning of a map rather than save partway through. but then after i cleared out the level, the platforms to the perimeter still didn't go down and i had hit all of the switches, so i couldn't clear the level without cheating. so i'm wondering if either i hit switches out of order, or perhaps there was some bug or something. but in either case, that ending up souring the experience of the map for me.

MAP08 - “Upper Town” by Azamael

i have to preface this by saying that Azamael is literally my favorite Doom mapper, so you're only going to see a lot of nauseating praise from me here. his maps have a creative language all their own, and there is literally nothing else out there quite like them. and i don't mean just in the context of Doom mapping, but like, in general. i still think many people don't appreciate just how unique and different from anything else than anyone's ever made his stuff often is. i certainly hope he's having a good time with whatever he's trying to pursue now outside of Doom mapping. anyway, while this map is very short, it's no exception to the rule of me loving his maps. i love the way the spaces intersect into each other and all the little details in architecture. it always puts you on your feet and forces you to reorient yourself to the spaces, except it's also fun and not too difficult so the disorientation is more easy to deal with. some of the bits remind me of later parts of a map of his called "Wood Prison" from Sacrament (which is honestly a masterpiece IMO). the random toilet outside is classic Azamael, half-surreal out of context weirdness and half tongue-in-cheek. he even sticks a helipad there for all the helipad haters out there. truly galaxy brained mapping innovations here (okay, i'm slightly joking here but i still thought it was funny). i also actually really liked the dark trap with the hell knights. it's a bit like Tom Hall's Doom 1 Episode 2 maps - it's more about the texture that the place creates, and making you encounter something unexpected rather than just another tricky combat scenario or whatever (not that those don't sometimes exist in his maps). you gotta get your head out of everything being about combat, maaaan. basically, Azamael is a mapping genius and you all will pretend you thought so too 10 years from now, so it's time to get on the bandwagon now. that said, this isn't exactly his opus or anything like that but it's still representative of a lot of the great + unique things about his maps.

MAP07: Colliseum

Fun map. We're still visiting the forgiving side of Shadowman, with a notable romp in difficulty at least. Tight quarters dead simple, and the ambush setup post baby spiders which killed me a couple times, the viles in the middle coupled with zombies and revs outside made for a tricky run-and-gun, better have those viles busy or dead!. There's a subtle switch hunt to raise the platforms connecting the surrounding area and I think to open the exit house too, that I somehow broke the first time. Anyway, the only thing I didn't catch was the pain sector at the start, what was the point? 

MAP08: Upper Town

Lol the toilet, I don't remember if I noticed it the first time. Ok so, it's a little quicker regarding gameplay, majority are pinkies in incidental situations minus the first surprise trap which I liked. The secret BFG+bullets took me a while to figure, the method isn't quite intuitive when there're many identical boxes and no hints, that I haven't spot. The blackout setup is an interesting idea save for the fact it can be broken by simply standing still when the lights cut, the later HKs cubicles won't raise for some reason. Azamael appears to be an artist of a mapper, this and some of his other maps are pretty neat to sightsee, and if possible, to play at leisure, whether this is engaging to players depends on each case. In the context of a lengthy/sprawling map, it can get boring after a while when the pace is generally slow imo, specially on a first playthrough because you're not familiar with the layout, but in a short speedmap, it's fun enough to blast through it at any pace. 

09 - this one is always either too brown or too gray. And the music is ANNOYING. I liked some details though, for example the unusually shaped lifts were interesting and it was neat to discover barely visible green torches in the imp corridor. The layout is very oldschool, 1995 all the way.

Btw the previous map was very nicely designed (probably best in the wad so far). It's just that the roof toilet idea was too amazing to even comment on anything else.

MAP08 - “Upper Town” by Azamael

I liked this one a lot, definitely feels like a bite-sized version of ALT. The architecture is cool, there's some nice verticality, the traps don't feel unfair, and the fake doors make you think about the space more. The Baron that pops out of the wall and then teleports away was really funny, as was the secret BFG and the roof toilet. It was probably a little too easy for Hurt Me Plenty, but mostly I just wanted the map to keep going. New favorite map of this wad.

I'm generally not a fan of speedmaps, but gonna try this out and see how far I can go. PRBoom+, etc.

MAP01 - “Ancient Valley” by Lainos 

A somewhat disappointing map, considering the author's reputation. I didn't mind the initial crusher due to the automap showing the door to exit the room. The 2nd crusher room with the blue(?) key was more annoying, and I ended up getting clipped. After killing all the enemies and finding the secret, the actual exit still managed to elude me. DNF

MAP02 - “Ruins” by Shadowman

Kind of liked the ashwall cave at the start, which is something you'll never hear me say again, but the map got progressively more dull as fatter monsters started appearing and your arsenal was limited to E1 crap. The exit Cyber was surprising, but not at all interesting to kill. Walking over the brick maze was cool though.

MAP03 - “Aquapark” by Wraith

Hey, this was actually fun. I enjoy non-linear, sandboxy, abstract city maps, and being able to grab some real weapons early on made this enjoyable. The sniping Revenants are well-placed, and nearly got me when I entered the tangled fence maze before clearing them out. Those two Pain Elementals had some fun at the start, since I don't normally see a useless PE when the Lost Soul limited gets flooded.