The New Doom Review: Episode #3 Out! Highlighting New Community Releases

Good stuff, nice to have a weekly roundup with quality check and commentary!

It's always nice to see these kind of proper wad review stuff. Gameplay videos are fine and stuff about the massive achievments in modding is cool. However having a look at just standard doom mapping is interesting to see.

8 hours ago, Mr Masker said:

It's always nice to see these kind of proper wad review stuff. Gameplay videos are fine and stuff about the massive achievments in modding is cool. However having a look at just standard doom mapping is interesting to see.

 

I was actually thinking of changing the name going forward to include other stuff since I do cover a mod and source port in this.  Something like the New Doom Weekly Review or something like that.  I want to cover lots of community wads for sure though, it'll probably be the emphasis.  Mostly considering way more of those come out weekly.

 

19 hours ago, sandwedge said:

 I started this because I saw that people enjoyed another video series with this format, but there were some changes that I personally wanted to make to have it be a little more curated, and also have voice commentary so that I could explain more about each wad.

I think I might have seen the same "roundup" series you did, and while it was nice, I was waiting for something with a bit of insight and opinion added to the gameplay footage, so I'm really enjoying what you've got here.

 

19 hours ago, sandwedge said:

 But please be gentle with any errors since I cover 13 different releases in this video and did the best I could with time constraints.

I can see the appeal of a weekly roundup series, but it's also a massive undertaking and the pressure to get it out the door seems really harsh for one dude who ain't getting paid for it. And like you said, it's a curated list. It's not a comprehensive list of everything that was made for the Doom community (or even just the Doomworld community) across seven days - it's a list of what sandwedge played in this time period and enjoyed enough to talk about in a youtube vid. I'd personally rather see you putting that out when you can, rather than rushing it just to be able to say "this is what I covered in this week".

 

Maybe other folks will dig the weekly aspect - monkey brains like easily-compartmentable, big, round numbers - but perhaps it's just something to consider before you start feeling obligated?

 

19 hours ago, sandwedge said:

 One thing I originally wanted to do was tell people which map was being shown in the subtitles, especially for specific maps from a community project in case people want to check out that specfic one and to give credit to each mapper.  But I just didn't have time this week, as when I cut up the footage to edit it's easy to lose track of which map is which.  But I may try to do this in the video description later, would love to hear if folks think this is necessary.  Thanks!

 

There's that worry about time again... I know that editing can be absolutely bewildering, and I can't imagine how much more so given that you're covering a huge amount of megawads with similar themes across or between them. But you're taking the time to put all this together, so take the time to take as many notes as possible; and give that credit to individual mappers so viewers can jump straight to whatever piques their interest. I will trawl through the PUSS release to find it, but I also really wanna know what that gorgeous marble cathedral/deathtrap is right now!

 

I hope this doesn't come off as overly critical, because I really enjoyed and appreciate what you put together, but some things in the OP made me worry that you're putting undue pressure on yourself before you round the first corner.

I just wanna say that I really liked the video and the variety but I want to echo the sentiment that you shouldn't  fixate on a weekly schedule. 

Maybe one comprehensive overview per month would be enough? Or maybe just everytime you feel like you have assembled enough for an interesting video?

But anyway, seems like a good project, thumbs up!

3 hours ago, Daytime Waitress said:

I hope this doesn't come off as overly critical, because I really enjoyed and appreciate what you put together, but some things in the OP made me worry that you're putting undue pressure on yourself before you round the first corner.

 

No worries, not overly critical at all and I really appreciate your positive feedback and your concern about doing too much!  Yeah this was sort of an experiment and I was wondering how much work it would take and whether it would be possible to do it weekly.  Like some of my other content, I'm planning to just experiment with what I enjoy doing, what others enjoy and what isn't too much work.  But I'd also like to grow the channel and this seemed like a great way to do it while getting even more engaged with the community and provide a useful service to them.  But you're right, this was a fair amount of work.  What I will see is how this week goes now that I have a template down for how to do it, since part of the work last week was even figuring out how to put it all together.  I am definitely open to something bi-weekly, or even like you said whenever I feel I have enough, which could reduce pressure I have to finish something every week.  Once again, really appreciate your support and comments!

 

1 hour ago, AdNauseam said:

I just wanna say that I really liked the video and the variety but I want to echo the sentiment that you shouldn't  fixate on a weekly schedule. 

Maybe one comprehensive overview per month would be enough? Or maybe just everytime you feel like you have assembled enough for an interesting video?

But anyway, seems like a good project, thumbs up!

 

Thanks glad you enjoyed it!  I had been considering bi-weekly but even once a month could work!  However I was also concerned about having to put so much into one video for a month, but I could always just have fewer releases covered.  It's definitely something I will experiment with to find a happy medium between what I like, what the audience likes and what I what I can accomplish.  Thanks again!

9 hours ago, Daytime Waitress said:

But you're taking the time to put all this together, so take the time to take as many notes as possible; and give that credit to individual mappers so viewers can jump straight to whatever piques their interest. I will trawl through the PUSS release to find it, but I also really wanna know what that gorgeous marble cathedral/deathtrap is right now!

 

Yeah I was concerned about that, I actually did take notes on what maps there were but I often had about 10 minutes or more of footage that I would go through and just edit in bits that looked interesting for a couple minutes, so at the end it was all cut up and harder to remember which maps were what.  And when I'm editing the gameplay footage I'm purely focusing on video and don't want to interrupt the flow of editing to remember what maps are what.  I could do it at the end of the process, I just didn't have the time if I wanted to post it by sunday.  But perhaps it's worth waiting to put that extra info in.  I was thinking about putting individual CP mapper info in the description as a compromise for that video though, hopefully you find all the cool maps you wanted!

 

edit: oh and if you meant the last map shown for PUSS Thirteen it's e5m5: The Chilling Winds of Dis by BluePineapple72

Edited July 4, 2022 by sandwedge

Ok sorry for another post but I want people to know I updated the youtube description with the individual CP maps in order of appearance.  While I could make chapters, I don't want to divide the video into way more chapters which could be confusing, so hopefully this is a a decent compromise.  If the map is in the middle somewhere you might need to keep track or jump around a bit to find it, but at least it's easier now and I'm glad I have credits for everyone too.

 

I was also worried about putting this in the actual video text on screen because it would be easy to mess up, and once it's up on the video I probably won't be able to fix it, so I need to be absolutely sure that the info is correct.  Especially since incorrect info was one of the issues with the other wad weekly series which I wanted to correct.  I will see if I can get this right for the next video, I'm glad people let me know about this detail specifically.  Cheers!

 

Baron Door CP maps in order of appearance:

Map 2: Barons O Fun by Knifeworld

Map 4: Paradigm Shift by Clippy

Map 12: Jersey Shore by Pistoolkip

Map 5: Blue Plinko by Clippy

Map 11: Humiliated by Dubium

Map 14: Prisoners of Woe by Man With Gun

Map 16: Maraudoor by Chookum

Map 26: The Pizza Guys Are Here! by Chookum

Map 32: Is the Sky A Door? by Zulk RS

 

PUSS Thirteen maps in order of appearance:

E1M1 - Entry Wound – Death Bear

E1M3 - Ravine of Cacophony – Death Bear

E1M8 - Symphony of Screams – Man_with_Gun

E2M8 - Impaled by Anti-Christ’s Boner – Danlex

E3M5 - Forest of Hidden Screams – Peccatum Mihzamiz

E5M5 - The Chilling Winds of Dis – BluePineapple72

 

DBP49 maps in order of appearance:

Map 1: Chateau Nefarious by 40oz

Map 8: Temeratum Palatium by Gibbon

Map 11: Mausoleum Nefarium by 40oz

 

Capybara maps in order of appearance:

Map01 - Sweet Little Dead Hamster by Dubium

Map02 - Guinea Pig by Cannonball

Map09 - Kawaii 808 by Danlex

Map11 - Where the Rodents Thrive by Fryuko

Map20 - Deeznuts by Nefelibeta

 

512 Linedefs maps in order of appearance:

Map 1: Underblown Budget by Redead-ITA

Map 16: Helter Smelter by ViolentBeetle

MAP21: I Actually Like Nirvana by lunchlunch

MAP22: Shadow Puppets by Wingless Wolpertinger

MAP25: Cubic Conundrum by ASO3000

 

Note, as you can see for some projects I definitely jumped around to mappers I knew because I was unable to play all these wads obviously, so I figured it would be more likely to provide great footage.  However it was helpful for my Capybara gameplay to get a list of the most representative maps to show off the CP.  In the future it will make my job easier, and hopefully show off projects better, to get recommendations like this.  Heck, I've even considered using other people's video footage or demos, especially for really hard stuff outside my wheelhouse, but that's not necessary.

 

If anyone wishes to give me pointers on covering their larger wad or CP in the future, or just any wad or CP they want done justice to lol, just contact me in some way: Doomworld DM or thru my actual discord https://discord.gg/asS7XHRw4r which has a specific wad of the week thread.  Of course these would just be recommendations as I will determine the footage in editing and which wads to include, but it will still be a great help.  Thanks!

34 minutes ago, sandwedge said:

Ok sorry for another post but I want people to know I updated the youtube description with the individual CP maps in order of appearance.  While I could make chapters, I don't want to divide the video into way more chapters which could be confusing, so hopefully this is a a decent compromise.  If the map is in the middle somewhere you might need to keep track or jump around a bit to find it, but at least it's easier now and I'm glad I have credits for everyone too.

 

I don't know how much of an arse ache it is to create chapters in YT, but one chapter per wad review, with text overlay or even just description memos to denote individual authors seems perfect. Chapters for each author in a megawad or CP would kinda be overkill.

 

And thanks for pointing out @BluePineapple72's map!

3 minutes ago, Daytime Waitress said:

 

I don't know how much of an arse ache it is to create chapters in YT, but one chapter per wad review, with text overlay or even just description memos to denote individual authors seems perfect. Chapters for each author in a megawad or CP would kinda be overkill.

 

And thanks for pointing out @BluePineapple72's map!

 

Yep I already have chapters for each wad, ideally I would simply add the current CP map & mapper in the text description in the bottom right.  Just more work to iron out that can't be fixed after upload so would need to give myself enough time to double check.

Sweet.

 

And as much as I've been picking you up on the technicalities of the format, I do want to declare that this video has absolutely done what it set out to do - there is a tonne of stuff in this first video alone that, for whatever reason, I just plain overlooked. I'd dismissed @Clippy's Baron Door for being a way-too-huge meme project, despite the folks involved, but there looks to be a bunch of fun maps in it; and @Kan3's thread I never even clicked on, but video was definitely the only way to do it justice because it's a stone-cold stunner.

4 minutes ago, Daytime Waitress said:

Sweet.

 

And as much as I've been picking you up on the technicalities of the format, I do want to declare that this video has absolutely done what it set out to do - there is a tonne of stuff in this first video alone that, for whatever reason, I just plain overlooked. I'd dismissed @Clippy's Baron Door for being a way-too-huge meme project, despite the folks involved, but there looks to be a bunch of fun maps in it; and @Kan3's thread I never even clicked on, but video was definitely the only way to do it justice because it's a stone-cold stunner.

 

Wow that's actually amazing to hear, you're right it's exactly what I set out to do!  I'm the same way, sometimes it's hard to get a sense of what a project is and there's so much out there it can end up passing you by.  Definitely encourages me to keep going with this if it provides this much utility! :)

Appreciate the shoutout to PUSS XIII! Really happy to see that wad get some recognition as I think it’s some of our best work insofar. 

Hey thanks for putting my set in there! I like the video format, I feel like a brief overview of "what's new" every week or two is a good move. For example, this video alerted me to Serenade which I had missed on the forum for some reason. Not sure how, but now I'm aware of it and had a blast playing through the 7 maps last night, so there's definitely a value to this. 

20 hours ago, sandwedge said:

Thanks glad you enjoyed it!  I had been considering bi-weekly but even once a month could work!  However I was also concerned about having to put so much into one video for a month, but I could always just have fewer releases covered.  It's definitely something I will experiment with to find a happy medium between what I like, what the audience likes and what I what I can accomplish.  Thanks again!

 

Ah, well, it's just for my own selfish reasons, because I'm quite an omnivore when it comes to Doom, and seeing all these cool wads weekly would pretty fast clog my backlog up, haha. 

But your video is a really good supplement to the normal DoomTube(tm) stuff, because something like these kind of overviews was sorely missing, I think.

Pretty good video, Sandwedge! I too think the every week schedule might be a bit too much to chew, so bi-weekly or once a month might be more realistic for you. Alternatively, you could always hire me to help you edit the series. ;^)

Finished the next video for this last week's releases!  Hope you enjoy - as you can see I'm covering stuff in various stages of release, including idgames because sometimes it slips by people, and it's the most polished release to check out.  I've also tried a different title, the New Doom Review, to make it clearer that it is all types of new doom releases, not just wads.  Though this week there are no mods or sourceports, I will cover those too.  Enjoy!

 

 

This week I also took the trouble of labeling each map from a CP with the map slot and who it's by, it is a bit of work to verify each one so thankfully on 2 CPs this week!  I think it is nice to give credit to each CP mapper, and also it's easier to jump around to maps you want to try out!

 

Let me know what y'all think!

26 minutes ago, sandwedge said:

Finished the next video for this last week's releases!  Hope you enjoy - as you can see I'm covering stuff in various stages of release, including idgames because sometimes it slips by people, and it's the most polished release to check out.  I've also tried a different title, the New Doom Review, to make it clearer that it is all types of new doom releases, not just wads.  Though this week there are no mods or sourceports, I will cover those too.  Enjoy!

 

 

This week I also took the trouble of labeling each map from a CP with the map slot and who it's by, it is a bit of work to verify each one so thankfully on 2 CPs this week!  I think it is nice to give credit to each CP mapper, and also it's easier to jump around to maps you want to try out!

 

Let me know what y'all think!

I think this is a great resource for people to find some more wads to give a try. Great job man!

I like the name change, more general and nice sounding.

 

Only feedback I have in mind is that the commentary-less gameplay after the review last a bit too long sometimes. I don't mind them being there, but maybe having shorter clips (of multiple maps for a mapset or just the individual map) would do well.

 

Overall, I'm enjoying this series.

I'd opine that you talk about these levels long enough that it's not really necessary to put in raw gameplay footage without any commentary for a few minutes afterwards

also you spelled shovelware wrong in the chapter ting (ting is a real word don't @ me)

9 minutes ago, Mr Masker said:

Only feedback I have in mind is that the commentary-less gameplay after the review last a bit too long sometimes. I don't mind them being there, but maybe having shorter clips (of multiple maps for a mapset or just the individual map) would do well.

 

6 minutes ago, Sena said:

I'd opine that you talk about these levels long enough that it's not really necessary to put in raw gameplay footage without any commentary for a few minutes afterwards

 

Interesting to hear you both say that, as I was sort of taking queues from the other wad of the week series which usually has 2 or 3 minutes of gameplay, and usually it isn't as varied as mine.  While I do talk about the wads, I felt like some people would enjoy just taking in some gameplay, and I do have chapters if you wanna skip ahead.  But I did have the gameplay go on a bit longer this time because I covered less things, and sometimes I really like getting a bunch of cool footage in there, especially from a CP like solar struggle that has so many cool levels.  But what I'll probably consider is just showing shorter clips if I put a bunch of levels in.

 

Would love to hear from more people to see if they agree with this.  Appreciate the feedback, and I'll make some adjustments for the next episode!

Personally I liked the commentary bits more.

 

I like the video and the way you have produced it. Cutting some of the non-commented bits would lead to a faster pace review  where you hop quickly across some spotlighted parts of a WAD. This might be nice. Be brave about your key spotlights and let the viewer join the dots. I could probably tell quite quickly if I am likely to enjoy the WAD or not. Having said this it was not a particular concern for me. Just that the commented insights and initial gameplay painted a vivid picture, it was less engaging when you stopped talking (this is a good sign).

 

I like the way you introduce the WADs straight up, not about reviewing them, just describing what they are. Keep it up.

One thing you could do is increase the volume of the music during the parts where there's no talking, which would mean that there's a more consistent level of volume throughout.

1 hour ago, Sena said:

One thing you could do is increase the volume of the music during the parts where there's no talking, which would mean that there's a more consistent level of volume throughout.

 

Yeah that's true, that's one of the things with recording and editing, especially with trying a new sourceport DSDA and not having my audio levels figured out.  Eventually I will figure out a standard audio level for everything so it should work out.

 

2 hours ago, ImproversGaming said:

Personally I liked the commentary bits more.

 

And yeah I'm definitely getting a lot of feedback about gameplay length.  It's interesting because the Doom Wads channel uploads only gameplay (which often isn't very interesting) and has several thousand subscribers just based off that, so I just wanted to add and refine the formula without entirely changing it.  But I wonder if people here watch that other series at all, and whether these are different audiences?  I think there are youtube audiences who definitely want to see uncut gameplay to see if something is for them, but a more savvy audience probably knows quite quickly whether they want to play stuff.  It's an interesting balance because I would like to appeal to both, which is probably impossible.  But at least having shorter and punchier gameplay clips should help with that.

 

I will say I did want to show off more of CPs especially since each map and mapper has a unique quality, and some people want to jump to specific maps that look cool.  But might have to limit that anyway.

 

If anything having less gameplay would make the videos easier to make lol, so since it seems to be a common refrain I guess I'll get to make my life easier! 😄

 

3 minutes ago, sandwedge said:

It's interesting because the Doom Wads channel uploads only gameplay (which often isn't very interesting) and has several thousand subscribers just based off that, so I just wanted to add and refine the formula without entirely changing it.  But I wonder if people here watch that other series at all, and whether these are different audiences?

 

Just as an example: I do not watch that other channel because it uploads only gameplay without commenting on it - so, yeah, it might be two different kinds of audiences.

 

3 hours ago, ImproversGaming said:

I like the way you introduce the WADs straight up, not about reviewing them, just describing what they are. Keep it up.

 

That's also something I really like about your videos, that you are just describing them in how and what they are, without reviewing them with any kind of ranking system. Because, well, I don't think that ranking things is very informative (or even fun :P).

10 minutes ago, AdNauseam said:

That's also something I really like about your videos, that you are just describing them in how and what they are, without reviewing them with any kind of ranking system. Because, well, I don't think that ranking things is very informative (or even fun :P).

 

Yeah I'm definitely not looking to rank stuff, however including it at all in the video is sort of a ranking system as I'm only including what I see are highlights.  Of course I might miss some good stuff, so hope nobody gets upset about that lol.  Personally I'm not interesting in giving stuff a ranking or grade, especially with new community releases.  For one I think it's dry, subjective and as you said, not that useful for actually knowing if you want to play it; for another, it's going to hurt some feelings giving an arbitrary number to somebody who has poured effort into something.  What if it's lower than they wanted or expected?  Plus it's people active in the community, not a wad from 20 years ago.  Seems like a bad idea.  Personally, I think including it in the video is enough to say that it's a thumbs up from me.  However, I know reviews with grading does get a lot of traffic because it can be fun to see stuff reviewed and ranked, even if it's largely meaningless.  Hot takes are also fun even when they're dumb.  But I don't simply want to chase audiences, I need to do me and what I enjoy while also having an ear to what people like, so hopefully this is a compromise.  I also can't play through everything in a week anyway, especially for a good review.  So not for this series.

 

This is no offense to anyone who grades and ranks stuff, I see the appeal, even if I don't find it all that useful.  It's fun.  Hell I might do it myself sometime for classic stuff, NOT recent community releases.

 

edit: the only ranking stuff i might find useful is something like difficulty, which is subjective but could be useful and would not be likely to hurt someone's feelings very much lol.

Are you choosing maps that aren't in the archives or on Doomworld? Because I would love to get a proper review of Sawshank Lament - https://www.doomwadstation.net/Sawshank/Sawshank.html

If you aren't doing stuff from other places then, well, you know, that's cool. Just figured I'd ask. Not sure what ports you use (if you choose to play) but it played fine in Zdoom and Risen3d (looked especially good in that port). I also playtested in Chocolate Doom but I hear in Boom it's just HOM's everywhere.

11 hours ago, Brad_tilf said:

Are you choosing maps that aren't in the archives or on Doomworld? Because I would love to get a proper review of Sawshank Lament - https://www.doomwadstation.net/Sawshank/Sawshank.html

If you aren't doing stuff from other places then, well, you know, that's cool. Just figured I'd ask. Not sure what ports you use (if you choose to play) but it played fine in Zdoom and Risen3d (looked especially good in that port). I also playtested in Chocolate Doom but I hear in Boom it's just HOM's everywhere.

 

I've been mainly looking at Doomworld and idgames, yes.  Sometimes I see stuff from ModDB or Doomerboards, though often they get posted to Doomworld too.  Hadn't seen that site before, however this series is for new stuff that comes out in the last week or at least since the last video, so that one you linked is too far back.  But might be worth looking into for a different video!

6 hours ago, sandwedge said:

 

I've been mainly looking at Doomworld and idgames, yes.  Sometimes I see stuff from ModDB or Doomerboards, though often they get posted to Doomworld too.  Hadn't seen that site before, however this series is for new stuff that comes out in the last week or at least since the last video, so that one you linked is too far back.  But might be worth looking into for a different video!

It's a shame I didn't see this earlier I guess.