Boaty McBoatwad - /idgames

I really really liked the layout of this map. Having to gain access by running along the sides of the port all while being harassed by a Cyberdemon. This map's difficulty seems really brutal at first due to the lack of ammo, especially when you get the rocket launcher and realize there are no ammo pickups for it besides the backpack and the secret that I kept forgetting about, making the weapon useless for me. Oddly once you get the plasma gun the difficulty comes back down since the big fight can kind of be cheesed by ducking back into the lost soul room.

The Cyberdemon crushers were fun even if they took a while to eventually do their job. I'm not sure there's a way to speed that up though. I would have preferred that the two Mancubus and Imps on the backside of the Cyberdemons wouldn't get crushed as well, since that would have been a very fun and uncomfortable set of fights in that cramped space. The fight with the Cyberdemon on the boat turned out to not be as dangerous as originally imagined but it was still tense. 

There weren't any real issues with the map, I appreciated the teleporters that put you back into the Rocket Launcher tower and the staircases that bring fallen players back up without losing much progress. All good touches that don't suck the fun out of the map. There was one Zombieman that was easy to overlook but aside from that getting the 100% was pretty smooth. Excellent map

Another suggestion I have would be to block the player from leaving the fighting arena with the barons, mancubus, revenants, and caged cyberdemons. I would even dare to say block off both sides, put walls up on the ledge, and release the cyberdemons on a timed delay. You could end up putting switches on the back sides of the cages where the mancubus and imps are and slapping a switch that will trap the cybers and start the crusher. It ends up killing them in the same manor but you have a little more of a fright trying to manipulate them into place.

Another small and cozy map. This map has a nice calming vibe, just a simple island with a fire pit and a couple of houses. Everything looks nice. It is simple without looking basic which leads me to believe that there is much potential that this map could still have. My immediate thoughts upon finishing the map were that I wished there were more buildings with more baddies. I would have loved to see an additional two buildings that trigger monsters of increasing difficulty in waves of increasing size while you obtain the stronger weapons.

Like the progression would be 1) obtain shotgun & shells -> 20 imp wave 2) obtain super shotgun & box of shells -> 10 pinky + 20 revenant wave, 3) obtain rocket launcher -> 50 cacodemon + 10 mancubus wave from outside the walls of the island, 4) obtain backpack and plasma gun 30 Hell Knights + 10 Barons + 4 Pain Elementals + 20 cacodemons flyers outside the walls again.

That would turn this quiet little map into a proper slaughterhouse. I just like the idea of this tiny little area being a place of death and savagery. Feel free to disregard my suggestions but I feel like this map has so much more potential than what it currently is. It's nice now, but it could be really memorable. Keep going, I have a feeling you can create something great out of this.

This map is seriously nice. I love the toxic aesthetic, it presents a pretty fresh look at how a boat themed map can be constructed. The trees in the swamp were absolutely gorgeous, I've never personally seen anything like it in doom before and I loved it. The entire map has this air of life clinging on despite suffering a slow death. You really made good use of the textures.

Difficulty-wise the map has a degree of challenge while not being unfair at all. There are some traps that can genuinely catch you if you don't react in time. At multiple instances I found myself in real danger, like with the popup imps at the Plasma secret, the pinky/revenant pincer attack, the pathway to the red skull key, and the final fight on the boat. It's not so much that the fights themselves are difficult, but the circumstances that you find yourself in at that point of the map.

Like any good pestilence resources are really hard to come by and you have to make use of every shot you get. The fact that rocket ammo is plentiful while bullets, shells, and cells are sparse is enough of an indication that this map's entire focus is to grind you down slowly. I think that kind of design philosophy was a really smart choice and isn't obvious until you're near death and wondering where all your ammo went. 

Truth be told I wouldn't change anything about the map. Everything worked fantastically. There was only a single issue that I ran into near the entrance to the plasma secret area. There is a pit where you can fall down and get stuck in as you run across. If you pause the video at 45 seconds you can see it on the right side of the screen. Normally you can run across and you won't run into an issue but if you take the leap too slowly you get trapped and there's no way to get out besides restarting. I would suggest making the floor toxic there or just blocking it off. Maybe you could use an elevator to hide the secret behind. Not totally sure. 

This was EXACTLY what I was looking for. This was a really fun map to play. There's so much to go into I don't even know where to start. The layout is exactly my kind of wheelhouse when it comes to a Doom map, a massive central room that branches into differing paths. You have no idea just how much I like free range maps. On top of that I love the usage of Pirate Doom portals (I don't know what else to call them since that's how I was first exposed to the mapping trick) and how you created the hellscape red key hallway and spiral tower. It genuinely brought me pause. Another mapping decision I thought was really interesting were the health and armor pickup pads. That was really interesting to figure out and I appreciate that you limited the gimmick to only three instances. Little things like that make this map really interesting and have me wanting to play it over and over again. One frustrating thing was that I couldn't figure out how to reach the invulnerability and megasphere. I actually ended up giving up on it since it didn't count as a secret for completion. Is it impossible or was there something I missed?

The fights were just as fun as the map layout. I loved the Chaingunner circus in the blue key corridor. The Revenant tower ambush was a nice little exercise in movement. The popup Revenants and Mancubus caught me off guard on my first attempt and they smashed me pretty good. The best past about the entire map was the secret star fight. Needless to say I loved it. It was challenging but fair and being in an oddly shaped arena gave me some Ribbiks vibes. 

Forget all about that first map, this is the good shit right here. It's genuinely my favorite map of the bunch mostly because it scratches a very particular itch for me in mood, style of fights, and interesting gimmicks. 

You have no idea how happy I am with this second version. This is a substantial improvement and it doesn't lose it's cramped feel at all. I gave it two playthroughs on different sourceports, once in GZDoom and a second in the Eternity engine. Gameplay is tight and everything moves very quickly. That little moment of anticipation after you hit the switch and are waiting for enemies to come is tense. The teleporting items was a good call, it foreshadows the coming storm very well. Another set of good calls were the additional health kits and the super shotgun inclusion. 

The enemy selection was well done, especially the decision to swap the Hell Knight for a Baron at the end of the map while putting the Knight as part of the boarding party. Once I saw the Cacodemons start to pour in I knew things were getting serious and I rushed to get off of the boat. While playing I was totally blown away by just how much of a difference all of these changes made. They were so minor but they changed the entire feeling of the map, even the midi started to sound more aggressive and frantic. That might be because I hadn't stuck around long enough to actually hear the song kick into gear. The thing that really caught me off guard and made me smile was the closet Archvile. I really was not expecting him at all and it was a shock. I can only imagine of ways to crank up the chaos by putting him outside during the major fight. Like forcing the player to double back to get a key or hit a switch that was unreachable before only to have the Archvile show up and start reviving all the baddies. 

Excellent improvements, I loved it.

This is probably my favorite part of the map :)

Holy crap dude, this map hits on a lot of levels and in a lot of different ways. Like, don't take this the wrong way, but it's a disgusting map... in a good way. It's abrasive at first glance but that's a part of the experience. For such a tiny little map it has quite a lot of density to it. I played it multiple times on Ultraviolence (didn't bother with lower difficulty) and had a really fun time punching everything in sight. It's an intimately intense map and you can't afford to make many mistakes. I think I chose a suitable MIDI to go with this one, I pulled it from James Paddock's collection. It's called The Thaumaturge. A quick google search reveals that the word essentially is a synonym of magician, which is oddly fitting since it would take one to build a vehicle capable of traversing this strange universe you created.

The fights are everything this map is about. Taking out the first set of imps is a struggle as you will go into the fight with 80 health. That Super Hellslime ocean is brutal. The Zombiemen for some god forsaken reason could not miss me and ate away at a lot of my health before I got the second set of imps. Getting back on board having to deal with the Cacodemon and his gang of Lost Souls was nerve-wracking and where I decided that the pistol would be required to finish some baddies off. Down below (also, nice Pirate Doom portals, the trick keeps popping up and I love it every time) the cramped nature of the lower deck makes fighting the gang of Imps, Pinkys, and the Hell Knights a tough, but managable, fight. Heading back up to the main deck with the UV goggles leads to a very entertaining fight with 4 Revenants that look like irradiated skeletons. I genuinely laughed when I saw them because of how absurd the idea of fist fighting glow in the dark spooky bois on the deck of a space-time traveling rocket propelled pirate ship in an ocean of swirling cosmic dust. Heading back down to get the blue key and getting ambushed by a closet Archvile is what brought it all together for me. The map, as quirky as it was, is god-damned fun. 

You did a great job pulling this thing together. It's gross and I love it for that. I'll happily play this over and over again.

===========================================================================
Advanced engine needed  : PrBoom+ or equivalent
Primary purpose         : Single play
===========================================================================
Title                   : Miss Susie's Steamboat
Filename                : js-susie.wad
Release date            : 11/28/2020
Author                  : jerrysheppy
Email Address           : jerrysheppy@gmail.com
Other Files By Author   : A couple of maps in pc-cp.wad.

Description             : Weary from your eternal expedition across the
                          wastes of Hell, you happen upon quite an
                          incongruous sight: an antique paddle-wheel
                          steamboat, floating serenely in a vast lake of
                          boiling lava.
                          
                          Where did it come from?  How did it end up here? 
                          And wherever could its owner have gotten to?
                          
                          Valid questions, but ones you're unlikely to be
                          able to answer.  All you know is that this
                          improbable vessel offers you the prospect of a
                          relaxing ride to your next destination.  And after
                          what seems like millennia on foot, that's worth its
                          weight in shotgun shells.
                          
                          Only one problem: The door to the bridge is locked.
                           Perhaps the demons have hidden the key somewhere
                          in the infernal dungeon nearby...

Additional Credits to   : Ola Björling (ukiro), for OTEX.
                          
                          Scotty, for running the Boat WAD CP.
===========================================================================
* What is included *

New levels              : 1
Sounds                  : No
Music                   : No
Graphics                : No
Dehacked/BEX Patch      : No
Demos                   : No
Other                   : No
Other files required    : OTEX


* Play Information *

Game                    : Doom 2
Map #                   : 01
Single Player           : Designed for
Cooperative 2-4 Player  : No
Deathmatch 2-4 Player   : No
Other game styles       : None
Difficulty Settings     : Not implemented


* Construction *

Base                    : New from scratch
Build Time              : ~1 month off and on
Editor(s) used          : Ultimate Doom Builder
May Not Run With        : Stuff that can't run Boom maps
Tested With             : GZDoom, PrBoom+


* Copyright / Permissions *

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a
copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

You are free to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format;
and remix, transform, and build upon the material. If you do so, you must
give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if
changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way
that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. You may not use the
material for commercial purposes. If you remix, transform, or build upon the
material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as
the original.

* Where to get the file that this text file describes *

The Usual: ftp://archives.gamers.org/pub/idgames/ and mirrors