The DWmegawad Club plays: Akeldama

6 hours ago, valkiriforce said:

 

Actually the map is by ZaBigBoss, I only made the map vanilla-safe and added the exit area as it's originally from his GZDoom mapset Back To Thunder Road.

Thanks! Totally overlooked, I apologize.

MAP04

The inter-connectedness and options for progression are quite nicely done here.  There's also a good mix of encounter types and tempos, though I do think there are a few too many monsters in cages, and not enough consideration has been given to the limits of auto-aim when you don't have up/down mouselook.  Which is vanilla behaviour, after all.

Also, my pet hate; monsters popping out of solid floors right in front of you; is in full effect here.  Don't do this, peeps. 

Still, overall I would say the good outweighs the bad. 

I only got 37% secrets, but one was the blue armour, so pretty happy about that.

MAP03: Renegades (4/5)

Skill: HMP | Time: 6:04 | Kills: 100% | Items: 98% | Secrets: 0%

This short but sweet map is set in some sort of gothic cistern flooded with nukage and water, but paths above the drink are provided so you never have to cross a damaging floor. While this map hands out your first SSG, there are no bigger demons to use it on, so with your new toy you get to plow through imps, zombies, pinkies, and the occasional caco with total impunity. It moves fast and is over fast, with the only fly in the ointment being another awkward MIDI built around an exceptionally weak guitar riff.

MAP03: Renegades (Akeldama)

PrBoom+ 2.5.1.4, HNTR-PS, no saves, 100% everything

A cute wood & metal level with plenty of switches and usage of some unorthodox line actions, reminding me of Jens Nielsen's work on MM/MM2. I found the opening vista to be quite striking, something about the combination of nukage, the damaged walkway and the scale of the room just ticks all the right boxes for me. The level does a good job at showing the optimal route to the exit, while having a few optional areas to satisfy more exploration-minded players (one of which I thought was harder to find than the level's only secret). Combat is still pretty easy, the hell knight gets introduced here on HNTR but it proves no match to the newly acquired super shotgun. It does have a few traps that can catch you off-guard, but they serve more as a mild inconvenience than actual pressure. Pretty good level!

MAP03: Renegades

UV - Brutal Doom - LZDoom

The design of this map reminds me of a pretzel, split in half, sweet and tasty, full of pinkies, pools with acid and many imps, just the way I like it.

It seems like the maps will start to be more complex now, leaving behind the previous simplicity, this one still keeps a simple path but a bit superior to the previous ones. I like the detail and the way the paths intertwine. The challenge is increasing in terms of the number of enemies and their locations, but I think this map was much easier than the previous ones because there are a huge amount of items (premonition of the future?) so it was quite simple in UV, but that does not stop making it fun. Good map, probably my favorite in terms of layout and looks.

And another post for today because I missed yesterday while preparing my Knee-Deep in ZDoom review for my thread.

MAP04: Chillwell (5/5)

Skill: HMP | Time: 14:40 | Kills: 94% | Items: 21% | Secrets: 12%

Man, I'm sucking at finding the secrets in this wad. "Chillwell" is where Akeldama stops fucking around and begins to offer an actual challenge. Resources are scarce, especially ammo, and I ended up using melee a few times to conserve what precious little ammo I did have (in one case, entirely running out). From the beginning, "Chillwell" offers three potential paths, each offering a weapon and a dangerous combat scenario in which the new weapon will not be able to deal with entirely on its own, so improvisation is critical to your survival. Chaingunners make a more prominent appearance here, and are always the most serious threat to your health, although the canny monster placement will give even the trash the chance to get some damage in. To top it all off is a reflective, stately midi by AD_79 that reminds me of the esselfortium's work in Back to Saturn X and makes up for the obnoxious rawk midis of the previous two maps. Great map.

Map03: No deaths, UV-Max FDA in 6:35

It's probably the easiest map so far, as once I found the secret soul sphere, I don't think my health dipped below 170% for the rest of the map. I can see the value of having so much health on the map, though. Probably allows for more reckless and interesting play by speedrunners.

It's also the most action-packed map so far, and perhaps the most fun. Even so, I'm not sure if it's my favorite, since I'm a sucker for snowy aethstics in general like in map01, but it's definitely cool.

MAP04 - "Chillwell" - Daniel "dt_" Trim (97%K/54%I/37%S):

Here is where difficulty goes up to "expected" levels, and where the challenge really starts. As said by some people before, this map is really scarce on ammo, so you'll have to manage your weapons pretty well, but no worries, you'll find a berserk pretty early depending of which path you take. Talking about paths, there are several ways to tackle this map, and that's what I really love about it. The map is actually a keyhunt for the exit with so many connections in between paths that you will always find a different way to play this map. I thought I would not like this, but luckily this was a joy to play, maybe I felt this way because I remember this map having many changes early on.
The icy canyons are great, and I'm pretty sure they were inspired by that episode in Eviternity, fights happening on this place are probably the best moments of this level. What I did not like that much, was the end of the stage, where, at least on HMP, the fight was not that big, and it felt kinda lacking and cramped, it's nothing too bad but I spected a bigger arena, maybe. Anyway I think it gets an apology, since this is still early on the megaWAD, it's just the fourth map, so there isn't any problems with big arenas lacking here.
Also the cages at the east side of the map looked like a The Crusher tribute or something from TNT Evilution, loved the secrets here.

Deaths: 1 (HMP Playthrough - Chocolate Doom)

Order of preference:

Map04: 148/153 kills, 3/8 secrets, no deaths, FDA in 26:54

This one is probably painful to watch after a certain point because of the amount of time I spent wandering around looking for the missing secrets and monsters. The map itself is the longest so far, and maybe the hardest, but I think the first map is harder to survive on a first try in a 'blind' run because of the chaingunner trap near the beginning. In this run, the ambush at the exit is what had me feeling the most alarmed, partly because of some unexpected chaingunners again, but the rest of the run was fun too. As others have stated, it's great that there are so many viable options for a route through this map.

I did an unrecorded second playthrough with help from the wiki to find all the secrets, and a few of them are particularly clever, like those colored buttons that blend in with their surroundings. There are a couple of weak enemies hidden in corners that made for a nice little surprise on the 'blind' run, but on the second playthrough, I think it made the map a little annoying to max. Forgetting about them (as I did) can lead to a lengthy search. After I found the last secret, there was one enemy left, and I spent like 15 minutes trying to find it before I eventually gave up and typed IDDT twice (I won't do this in any of the FDAs) to see it on the automap. Turned out to be a zombieman in a cave with health bonuses which I'm pretty sure I found on the first playthrough, but forgot about.

MAP04: Chillwell

Excellent map, in my book! Really nice atmosphere brought on by the music and green "thawed out" areas complementing the otherwise frozen exterior. Very nice use of non-linearity, interconnected layout and directional shadows to make a map that both looks great and flows well. I agree with @Capellan that the insta-popping enemies are a blight on any map, but was so enamoured by the map itself that I didn't let it drag my opinion down too much.

In a way, this reminds me of Cold Reception (MAP08 from Community Chest 4), as a nice, snow/ice themed level with an open layout and plenty of secrets. Much like with that map, I went digging for secrets after getting only 2/8 on a normal run through. I ended up spending about 20 minutes on that map and doing a little light IDDT work to home in on where I was after. I see the author went to the same school of secret switch hiding as @dmdr! The trick of blending little coloured switch blocks into computer displays or other textures where they match the predominant colour is one I've employed myself once or twice, and at least the author had the decency to keep them visible on the automap, which I'm not sure I necessarily always did. The misaligned textures were much easier giveaways, but I think I simply didn't go near them until very late, as I didn't need to.

I opted to go for the rocket launcher first, and then barely used it, as continuous play has furnished me with plenty of shells and bullets already. I'll be going into the map very well-equipped, as there's some serious goodies tucked away here if you spend enough time digging! Difficulty being reasonably low meant that I could keep hold of most of my plunder, too, which will probably do me good in the near future.

MAP04 - Chillwell

HMP | Continuous Play with Saves | Running on GZDoom + Hellrider

Aha, now this one had a bit more MEAT to it, more challenging and it's the first one to almost kill me thanks to the fake-wall trick at one point where I clumsily ran into a densely populated area (nothin' a few fireworks can't solve!) and that other packed close-quarters area filled with spectres and imps. This is the first map to offer a less linear experience than the previous maps and following the lead of MAP03's inter-connective nature with the multiple paths you can take to complete it. I quite liked the use of switches that lowered/lifted multiple things at once and utilising monster closets within it was a nice touch, along with having the rug pulled out from under me at the exit too was a nice cherry on top of this enjoyable map.

Gameplay footage:

MAP04: Chillwell

Substantial and challenging, though I don't care for monsters that pop instantly or floors that drop instantly at the best of times, so for the latter to be repeated three times as a necessary part of progression rather rubbed me the wrong way.  Outside of that, there's lots of fun to be had exploring this one and puzzling out its secrets, which are nicely varied in how you're expected to find them as well as in the value of the supplies that they deliver - I imagine the megasphere can be a game-changer if grabbed early vs. only found during the end-of-map backtrack and clean-up, for example, whereas the secret shotgun close to the start doesn't seem too critical since you're pretty much bound to have killed a couple of shotgun sergeants on your way to getting it anyway.  The setting is a lavish one, some austere industrial facility in a frigid and barren wilderness area, with just enough detail to feel lively and unique while maintaining a sense of cold impersonality.

MAP05- MAP06

Where did the snow go?

In MAP05 you start to see a patron, no, 2 patrons that repeat in the wad:

1) The beggining of the slauthy

2) Secrets with a lot of monsters

If in map04 you recive, 1 soulsphere, 1 blue armor and 1 megasphere to defeat weak monsters. Now forget it. If you want a computer map, fight for it! Revenants are happy to recive you.

I enjoy the fights in both maps, but im playing with Brutal Doom fast monster UV, so the difficulty rise very fast and now im thinking to keep that mode, maybe change the fast monster thing

MAP04: Chillwell

prBoom+ 2.5.1.7um, skill 4, continuous with saves, no complevel specified

Much of this level just clicks together like parts of a watch, like a breathing entity.

I found half the secrets on my own just noticing things, clever hidden alcoves that you feel good for finding, something this has in common with last month's wad.

However the party was soured a bit when I hit what I thought was a fake exit, which instead just dropped me into a pit of monsters and took away the soulsphere/blue armor I'd acquired.
I ran around the map some more, which did let me do a bit more exploring, however in the end I just came to find that fake exit wasn't fake? Idk if that lift didn't raise before or if I missed it. Watching Biodegradable's video it appears i just missed it.

This map does offer multiple instances of caco-chaingunner infighting, one of the best pairs imo.

Overall this map was a treat and I'm glad I live in the same year as this map.

Map 4, Chillwell

Ominously starting very snowy, and very quiet. I soon realize I'm in way over my head, play-wise, and I spend a lot of retries before I beat this map. My final time is a bit over 44 minutes, and. The numerous hidden switches eludes me, and even though I like most parts of this map, this is too long and too hard for me. There also seems to be some new-ish map conventions that I'm not familiar with, and that I guess have developed over the years. I'll play a few other, "classic" wads first, and then return to Akeldama at a later date, I think...

20 minutes ago, Ola J said:

Map 4, Chillwell

 

Ominously starting very snowy, and very quiet. I soon realize I'm in way over my head, play-wise, and I spend a lot of retries before I beat this map. My final time is a bit over 44 minutes, and. The numerous hidden switches eludes me, and even though I like most parts of this map, this is too long and too hard for me. There also seems to be some new-ish map conventions that I'm not familiar with, and that I guess have developed over the years. I'll play a few other, "classic" wads first, and then return to Akeldama at a later date, I think...

Akeldama is quite a daring choice for your first PWAD, yes! The levels are pretty long. Last month's pick (25 Years on Earth) might have been better in that regard. 

This thread might also help

MAP04: Chillwell

Made up for the sad lack of snowy textures since I left the first map, that’s for sure. Loved this map, it was great. Like MAP02, this one had you go for the red and blue keys, but only one of them was needed for the exit here, it seemed. I got both anyway, I wanted to see this whole level. And see it I did. Not a dull moment here, although there were a few tense ones where I ran afoul of some ammo woes, particularly when I ran out of everything when that HK appeared in the narrow pathway up to the red key. Luckily there was a little alcove nearby with health and supplies. This level introduces you to the rocket launcher, but only if you go on the blue key path. Also there were lots of barrels. I fucking love barrels. Best level so far, although I’m sure it will be overshadowed pretty soon.

(Although I said the same thing about the difficulty of MAP04 in HR2, which was never overshadowed by anything. Probably speaks more about the badness of HR2 than anything else though)

Now that I finally got myself through 25 Years On Earth, it's time to catch up again.

Playing on UV.

MAP01 - The Generator

I didn't find it too big / long for a first map, but that's probably because I don't always adhere to that rule myself. I like the snowy exterior and tech base theme. I think the switch conglomeration in the circular room at the start was a bit too switch-involved for a small room... BUT the dropping sector and steps revealing the blue key was neat. I made it through to the exit without dying and found both secrets, tho I didn't really need the berserk. I took forever to see that tiny door for the 2nd secret. Overall, fun map. Moving on...

Oh well, once again the wad I wanted lost... At the very least I enjoyed the winner very, very much. I remember checking the development thread waiting for its complete release... I even created its page on the wiki shortly after that too!

MAP05: Bunker Hill (5/5)

(Forgot to take a picture of my stats this time, especially annoying since I got 100% secrets)

Derfurer'sface's first contribution to Akeldama is set among a series of bunkers nestled in the icy cliffs. You'll be under fire from many directions as you frantically clear the outside area, touring more or less the entire map until you're able to penetrate the bunkers themselves, all the while keeping an eye out for hitscanners trying to line up shots on you through the innumerable gun slits and murder holes strewn across the bunker complex. Unlike in "Chillwell", supplies are plentiful here, but the opposition has taken a considerable step up, with mancubi and revenants appearing in force throughout the level. The pacing and progression of this level are excellent and the Plutonia-esque architecture spare but well-crafted. It's quite bloody too, repopulating itself with enemies multiple times as you worm your way into the heart of the complex. The midi threw me for a loop with its inversion of the bass riff from "Going Down the Fast Way" from Rise of the Triad, but the rest of the track is all-new, building up from that riff.

MAP04: Chillwell

UV - LZDoom - Brutal Doom

This gives me The Thing vibes, and thats good. Anyway, I'm quite fond of the winter theme, it's something I haven't seen much of in Doom (I mean I haven't played too many winter maps) but it seems to fit very well thanks to the possibilities of texture work and design.

The map idea is pretty cool, a kind of structure in the middle of nowhere (well-dam?) full of demons and snow, a dichotomy that I never thought would combine so well. I must say that I like to admire the landscapes from time to time, and this megawad has offered a good amount of admiration for me. There is something very appealing about watching a blue waterfall on a white background.

The music was quite chill, relaxing as I ventured inside. The difficulty seems to be increasing progressively, although this map is equal to the previous one, it offers a huge amount of secrets that I barely managed to find one (I suck at secrets) but even so, the patients will probably be very well rewarded.

Very good map, cute.

An outpost? a dam? A scientific base? Idk, I just like it.

MAP05

Decent map with perhaps a few too many narrow sections.  The type of enemies has certainly taken a step up here,. with revs and mancs showing their faces, though it is all generally pretty manageable.  There are again a few too many turreted enemies for my tastes, but at least several of those turrets have barrels in them for some satisfyingly chunky salsa.

MAP05 - "Bunker Hill" - DerFurersFace (100%K/I/S):

This time we have a military outpost, a bunker with trenches and control towers that give a really nice "warzone" feeling to it, again with the snowy façade we are used to see in this wad. For this map, we jump from the pretty open rooms from MAP04 to narrow corridors with little space to move. Gameplay and aesthetic wise, it looks like a Plutonia map, capturing the IWAD feels very well. For starters, it has tons of rocket ammo and RLs to spam missiles  to several packs of enemies. The imps sniping you from the control towers (As usual on Doom maps) have some conveniently placed barrels around them, making it pretty satisfactory to blow them up. Killing enemies from sniping points like that had always been a pain for 100% completionists, so it's really nice to have things like that making killing monsters even more dynamic.
I really like the action of this map and I like how the author used things from Plutonia as inspiration. Action packed map that moves the difficulty bar even higher than the past map. This has been my favourite so far.

Deaths: 4 (HMP Playthrough - Chocolate Doom)

Order of preference:

 

Caution!: For Vanilla players, from this point most maps will present Savegame Buffer Overflow, making the game crash on some maps by generating "big" (+180kb) savefiles.
I screwed my continuous playthrough by leaving the savegame limit on with Chocolate Doom.

MAP05 - Bunker Hill

HMP | Continuous Play with Saves | Running on GZDoom + Hellrider

I'm hunkerin' for a bunkerin'. This one was fun and felt like I had to keep moving and clearing out row after row of demons in a frantic way that felt fast-paced but not boring as I didn't feel like I had to bottleneck the horde at any given point which is awesome. Speaking of awesome, I loved the midi track for this one. It kind of felt like a mix of Rise of the Triad meets Crash Bandicoot, which is fun. I even managed to find 2 out of the 3 secrets, so I hope you're proud of me @DuckReconMajor! Alas, I wasn't able to kill everyone. There appears to be a last secret event that reveals the last of them that I wasn't able to find and unlike my favourite fish who thinks he's a duck, I just don't have the patience and need to consume more demon blood! Yeah, good fun map. I think this would be my second top favourite after Chillwell.

Gameplay footage (mic volume was borked for some reason :^/)

MAP05: Bunker Hill

I'm getting the bunkers, not so much the hill; this is a more flat level than its name might suggest, a dense tangle of trenches and fortifications all turned inward to fire upon each other as though the only thing each of them is defending is itself.  I suspect that coming into this on continuous play has produced a somewhat warped experience, since I had weapons and ammunition enough to hunker down and dismantle the fortress methodically rather than being compelled to dash foward under fire or risk my guns running dry, though even from that perspective the nested and layered defences here are impressive and dangerous without being utterly intractable.  The mid-level repopulation of the initial bunkers once you have the red key and swing back toward the start helps to keep the pressure high, though I wonder how that might have played out if I hadn't cleared out said bunkers first.  Overall I found myself waiting and wishing for the level to open up, with the constant samey scale of its spaces getting a bit wearying by the end.

MAP05: Bunker Hill

Well the fun of MAP04 was quickly overshadowed, I say. This map was even better. Still in the winter wonderland, but now it’s also a warzone. Not just a typical “demon warzone bloodbath blah blah blah” type hyperbole, but the level is actually designed like you’d expect a warzone to be. Strongholds, barricades, windows only big enough to fire through, ammo stores, firing towers, all sorts of fun shit. The level introduces the Revenants, and goes all out with them. Also there were more barrels. Fun fun fun. Blasting a single rocket into each of those imp towers and watching every barrel ignite and blow ‘em all to bits was so damn enjoyable. Blue key fight was a highlight, as was everything after opening the blue doors. That whole area was so chaotically laid out but it just worked so well, even including a secret chain. Hell, maybe there was more than one secret chain, I only know for sure what I found myself.

MAP05: Bunker Hill

A good-looking map that leans heavily into the theme, with plenty of little holes for hitscanners to be shooting out of and lots of firing slit windows looking into the main structures. The network of caves and trenches that you have to clear first made for a nice, non-linear area to explore, whilst coming in continuous meant I had plenty of supplies to really pick things apart.

The downside to this tight environment and detailing is that I was very frequently getting hung up on 16-unit pillars when fighting Revenants, leading to me taking tons of damage that I felt like I shouldn't have. Even with all three secrets, I didn't leave his level with much over 100/100, and there's a "free" soulsphere in the map by the red keycard, too. You're well-supplied, but there's a lot to chip away at you at all times. Less of an issue with mouselook, obviously, as I could pick at the hitscanners in the windows carefully, but the overall environment is generally conducive to unnecessary pain.

I guess the issue here is congestion. The whole map, from monster density down to detail, is crowded into a small space, making the playing experience just a bit too uncomfortable for my tastes at such an early level.

MAP05: Bunker Hill

«UV» «BD» «LZDoom»

Goddamn it, I hate Revenants. You can guess my favorite iwad this way. Anyway. We started the map straight to the action, unlike the others we now have more intense confrontations and in more closed areas, while facing our first Revenants ambushes; as happy as ever. I should make a rant about the revenants... ahem, moving on.

The map manages to represent their title in an excellent way. The theme of the bunker is quite well designed and we can feel it from the first moment, you could even say it gave me some airs of WW2. Always set in a winter theme, but with a twist of metal and dirt. It's an entertaining map from start to finish that places us in tighter battles, making use of corridors and sniper nest where there are... You guessed it, Revenants.

I'm quite enjoying the project so far, it really manages to deliver its vanilla quality in terms of design and architecture, being detailed without being too complex. I'm sure that maps 10 and upwards will double the quality and possibly increase the difficulty. We have a busy month ahead of us.

So, I'm new to Doomworld, and have never done one of these. Read quite a few of them though, and they always looked interesting and I swore after I was going to join the next one. Played the first few levels of Akeldama when it was in Beta still and really enjoyed it but decided to wait until full release where I promptly forgot about it haha. This will hopefully give me a reason to finish the whole megawad. Also, sorry if I'm too late, I didn't notice this thread until a while after it went up. 

 It should also be mentioned I haven't played a lot of the Megawads this takes inspiration. Never done Memento Mori or Alien Vendetta which means if there are overt nods to those I will almost definitely miss them. Seeing as how I suck at Doom, I'll be playing Hurt Me Plenty on GLBoom-plus. Also spoilering my descriptions so this 4 map dump doesn't take up too much space.

Map 01:  The Generator
 

Map 02: Knights of Ilasac

Map 03: Renegades
 

Map 04: Chillwell
 

---

There we go. Almost caught up! So far I am really enjoying this megawad. It has a nice difficulty ramp which is nice. I always enjoy a sense of progression, and Akeldama definitely has that. It's nice and atmospheric but still action packed.

Map rankings so far: 
1: Chillwell
2: Renegades
3: The Generator
4: Knights of Ilisac.

MAP05: Bunker Hill

prBoom+ 2.5.1.7um, skill 4, continuous with saves, no complevel specified

Got the backpack! Now I'm set.

This level is really cool, and despite reading the bunker name beforehand and seeing bunkers everywhere I didn't put the two together until the end screen.

The close quarters fighting added a lot of intensity, though as others mentioned it did add some frustration too, but in my case personally not too much.

Despite the constrictive nature of much of the level, I enjoyed using the rocket launcher through a lot of it. Especially the part after picking it up on that podium.