The DWmegawad Club plays: Dimension of the Boomed & MAYhem 2016

[Urthar]

Mayhem 16 - MAP15 Klockwerk - Paul Corfiatis
HMP - Continuous - ZDoom

 

Health packs seem a bit thin on the ground, and the gun play feels like it might be quite unforgiving from a pistol start, so I'm glad I turned up with rockets to burn. I guess, like a lot of Mayhem16, it falls into the category of making a tough as map as possible with a limited monster count.

There's some great individual bits in this map, and I like the progression and the secrets, but this kind of sparse architectural style demands more attention to lighting and detail to really shine. Of course it might simply be a case of the author being pressed for time.

Mayhem 16 - MAP16 Galatic Decay - A.Gamma

 

Similar to Steel Coffin, in both lighting and monster placement, but altogether longer and deadlier with less opportunities for escape. The author is clearly a Plutonia fan, because they certainly don't hold back when it comes to Archviles, Revenants and Chaingunners. Progression is fairly poor, (but I've seen worse.) Automap use is pretty much a necessity to navigate, and a few important switches are quite easy to miss in the murky lighting.

In terms of encounters, the really deadly stuff is actually the most fun, whereas the incidental combat can be quite irritating, with some truly annoying placement of things like Archviles above the player's field of vision in awkward positions. Generally I didn't enjoy playing this map, but I did get a genuine sense of satifaction once I had finally put it to bed, so it definitely scratches some kind of itch, even if I'm probably not the intended audience.

Mayhem 16 - MAP17 Grievance - Dragonfly

 

Yeah, it's quite a fun map, with that sort of slaughter-lite gameplay that tends to appeal to me. The central tower interior probably would have worked better if it had been a bit wider and less cramped. There's a real mish-mash of texturing going on, and the lighting suffers from the same problems as Galactic Decay and Steel Coffin.

However, despite the rough edges, it's pretty creative and experimental, with an implied narrative flow as the map unfolds around you. Definitely makes me want to see what Dragonfly does with more polished content.

Edited June 27, 2018 by Urthar

[FrancisT218]

@UrtharI believe Skulldash (Expanded Edition) is Drangonfly's big solo piece of work.

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

16 minutes ago, Urthar said:

possbile

Poss-bile.

Possbile! Possbile is super hard!

Something to take out of context there.

I think a good example of Dragonfly's work might be the map he made with jmickle for MAYhem Purple. It's rather easy, even from pistol start, but it's a solid map.

 

Edit: here I am poking fun at Urthar's typo and I'm making my own typos.

Edited June 27, 2018 by Aquila Chrysaetos : Grammar

[Steve D]

Allow me to pile on. 

 

+++Struggle

 

I will somehow find the time to play at least 6 maps. I know they'll be remarkably attractive and have some tough action.

[Catpho]

MAP07 - “Darkvault” by Pinchy

From a normally great Pinchy comes the mapset's first... awkward moment.

What unfortunately stands out in this map is its rather hideous looks. I think the author was trying to achieve a unearthly feel, but the final product just showcase crude structures, unexciting architecture (maybe except the half circles bit, that was cool) and ugly texturing (mostly due to the colors). Layout doesn't fair much better, seemingly stitched out of random ideas and tied together by an unfocused progression, topped off with an ending that was unnecessarily cryptic.

Gameplay is still classic Pinchy, with his usual hot start. The map's combat scenarios felt a bit rude, but overall nothing out of hand, just a good test of your skills when faced with monsters in close quarters.

The few good ideas didn't save it for me. Not a complete waste of time, but its a level i wouldn't like to revisit.

Some screenies:

[tmorrow]

map19: Seasons in the Abyss, Remmirath & Marcaek [category: mapslot x10 = monstercount = 290, designed for map29]
zdoom2.8.1, uvmax, pistol start, no saves, first time played - {DNF}

A large fortress surrounded by fire and brimstone. In the first part you get to explore the fortress in a non linear fashion and clean out the riffraff and pick up the tools you need for the nasty arena areas you will face later. You can pick up super shotgun, rocket launcher and even the bfg in a sneaky non official secret location. You will find 3 gateways that will take you to the 3 key areas. You will even locate a room with a heavily locked down switch that requires all 3 keys to open the way to the final exit. The fortress exploration is where I had the most fun on this map.

The 3 keys have been tucked away in 3 octagonal star shaped arenas that you must teleport into from the 3 gateways you find around the fortress and then need to fight your way out of the earn the key. You can tackle the key areas in any order you like. Looking on the automap, the arenas appear to be in areas that are identically laid out, but in a clever twist, each area has been made quite different from the others.

The yellow key arena is accessible from the east gateway. The battle setup here has a puzzle element. I regard this area as the easiest of the 3 key battles. There are hellknights all around and a teleporting cybie. You start in the middle and if you remain up there and don't head down beyond the base of any of the 4 staircases, you can take care of business without too much trouble. You know which of the 3 teleport destinations cybie will arrive at if you watch the teleport line he crosses over. Once you go beyond the base of the stairs you will enter into one of the triangular sectors and then be subjected to the same teleport rules cybie was. The east, west and south sectors contain a lowerable switch you can action. After lowering all 3 switches the north sector plate will lower to reveal a small triangular teleporter you can take to get to the now lowered bars allowing you to get out of the area.

The blue key arena is accessible from the northeast gateway. The battle takes place on honeycombed walkways over green slime. There are switches in the middle and around the edges that evolve the pathway and bring on the pain. The last wave with several archviles is particularly nasty.

The red key arena is accessible from the west gateway. This battle takes place in an area with a lot of lava pain sectors. As soon as you move you are attacked by archviles, revenants, demons, cacodemons and pain elementals. There are only 2 switches to action to lower the bars (and bring more archviles) to exit the area prematurely but that doesn't seem to be a good strategy if you are uvmaxing the map. This area is difficult and can be particularly frustrating with the floaters free to move back over the sea of lava outside the arena and taking ages to come back into play.

After collecting all 3 keys you can hit the final switch to open the way to the final fight for the exit. The fight takes place in a rocky area. There are 4 switches in a rough square around the area, each with monster teleporters close by. The monster teleporters produce plenty of tier 1 and 2 enemies that can be taken down with relative ease. After actioning all 4 switches the archviles are released as the exit becomes available. It's a fairly nasty fight.

The 2 secrets on the map are not extremely hard to find or helpful. They contain a partial invisibility sphere and a computer map. There are actually 2 computer maps to find on the map.

Note the following non official secrets:

 

Spoiler

1. On the walkway on the south side of the facility. If you look at the building to the north you can see that there is a ridge around it that you can walk along and there is an emblem low down on the wall that you can reach. Action the emblem to open a room with a bfg and return teleporter.
2. In the blue key area, the east side pillar in the green slime can be lowered from the south side and the west side pillar can be lowered from the north east side. Both pillars contain a medipack.

The blue and red key areas and the finale area put my uvmax attempts out of reach. I had quite a bit of fun with the fortress and yellow key areas though.

[rehelekretep]

10 hours ago, tmorrow said:

 

Excellent trick at the yellow switch to delay the raising of the bars and biffing the 2 archviles behind them. I never thought of that.

best to be biffing viles between bars to prevent burning

[tmorrow]

4 minutes ago, rehelekretep said:

best to be biffing viles between bars to prevent burning

 

Yeah. The way I was doing it resulted in triggering all 3 archviles (the original and the 2 behind bars) and they kept blowing me to kingdom come. I never thought you could avoid raising the bars and keeping both sets of enemies apart like that. Much easier! :-)

[Magnusblitz]

MAP14: Ancient Den by an_mutt

99% kills, 3/4 secrets

 

Most of this is a fairly benign modern-style map set among ruins, using the rather pleasing earthy browns and dark slate blues of the Quake 1 palette with some slipgate techy bits here and there. It's got that off-kilter, diagonal design that's all the rage these days, but the combat is rather tepid for the most part, with monsters coming at the player in ones and twos and threes. Even the AVs and cyber are pretty easily dispatched, I think I spent most of the time above 100/100 playing on UV. I reached the finish line at ~50% kills, before backtracking to open up the yellow door. The real meat is hidden in the secret fight there, a nice combination of a visual treat (getting to see everything rise up out of the sand) and actual battle (pretty much all the main baddies are thrown at the player, with the BFG guarded in the center). Definitely a solid and well-crafted map, though it might've played it a little too safe in the non-secret part.

 

 

[tmorrow]

map20: The Performance, Alfonzo [category: 160 things]
zdoom2.8.1, uvmax, pistol start, no saves, first time played - {DNF}

An extremely challenging map based on a gimmick, but a gimmick that places you in an uncomfortable position. As Alfonzo said: This map will accrue hate points. Alfonzo is overly harsh on himself when he says that it's "an arena concept map that's full-on criminal". We don't want to put you in jail Alfonzo, we just want to hang you up by your goolies for a while. :-)

The map revolves around an encounter taking place in a small circular area near the start. The circular floor is divided into different colored sectors and after you shoot the red switch to start the sequence, every 20 seconds one of the sectors lowers into the slime. They drop in the order: east moss covered, west moss covered, dark gray, blood and finally the central, circular gray sector. When the final gray sector comes down the way forward out of the slime opens up. During this 1 minutes, 40 seconds of hell (1m40s_hell), your task is to avoid being dropped into the slime, and avoid the steady spawning of 2 areas of imps that are incessantly firing at you outside the northeast and northwest windows. The final element is that there are 2 other switches that can be shot, each opening a shutter with a cyberdemon behind it and the shutter then closing 8 seconds later.

The bad news is that ammo is so tight on UV anyway, that you have to rely on good returns from exploding the barrels and from some cyber rockets to kill enough imps so you have enough ammo to finish them off when you meet them later under slightly better circumstances. It also helps with cutting down the wall of imp fireballs so you have a chance to survive the 1m40s_hell sequence.

The strategy that sometimes worked for me during the 1m40s_hell was to wait until the imps built up before exploding the barrels and only opening one shutter at a time after that. I would leave the soulsphere for last and pick up the medipacks only if I took too many fireballs near the beginning.

After the 1m40s_hell section some options open up. The way that never worked for me was the "run in and trigger everything and hope for the best" approach. This approach gives you the most infighting and makes your ammo go further if you can survive it. I never could.

The approach I take is to first get to the doorway out of the slime and from that position kill the imps up the stairs to the northeast and then to the north west until I run out of ammo. Then run into the northeast area for the chaingun and then into the northwest for the shotgun, wiping out any remaining imps. Next kill the revenant in the northern room where the berserk pack is located. You will need to have at least 4-6 shotgun shells left to save for the exit.

The next step is to collect the berserk pack. This triggers 2 archviles back in the imp sections. The first archvile will spot you when you collect the bfg that comes available. If he's well behaved, the archvile will chase after you without resurrecting too many imps and you can berserk him without triggering the other archvile. Ditto the second archvile but you have more room to move. Hugely rng how this fight goes, the wheels can fall off quite easily as one of the archi's decides to resurrect the entire room or you watch in horror as he makes straight for the revenant corpse or in the usual scenario, your marine simply gets blown to smithereens in what is the worst blow job he's ever had.

If you are uber enough to survive to this point you have the pleasure of hitting the switch that unleashes the section involving 2 cyberdemons, barons and spectres for the final wave guarding the exit. You need to cause infighting and hope that the cybies don't chase after you too quickly, before they've killed their scumbag baron buddies. Then, you better hope your 2 shot cybie mechanics are in tiptop shape. You can kill the first cybie, but you will have to take one of the rad suits and run into the slime to collect the final 2 cells so you have enough ammo to 2 shot the second cybie. Setting up for each of the 2 shots is quite hard though because you take splash almost everywhere you stand in the confined spaces of this map. If by a miracle you survive this then it is a trivial matter to smack any left over spectres right in the mush and finish off the two chaingunners above the exit with your remaining ammo.

In my best effort at a uvmax my marine got as far as killing one of the two archviles before being immolated and splat against the wall as the world came crashing down. His last thought was "did anyone get the number of that truck!" before the lights finally went out.

So let's summarise the situation. In order to uvmax this map you have to:

1. Successfully execute the 1m40s_hell sequence, getting good imp kills from the barrels and cybie rockets. [Hard]
2. Finish the imp mop up and revenant kill with enough ammo for the ending 2 chaingunners. [Easy]
3. Dispense with the 2 archviles and any enemies they resurrect with well placed biff shot berserk fist, avoiding immolation. [Hard]
4. Perfectly 2 shotting both cybies in confined spaces after they have behaved (cybies almost never behave) and killed the barons for you, and of course avoiding any substantial splash damage. [Very Hard]
5. Mop up the remaining spectres and kill the 2 chaingunners guarding the exit. [Easy]

Childsplay! what could be easier? The only good news about this map is that it is over one way or the other in 5 minutes. Oh the brutality! On HMP difficulty the map is much more forgiving on ammo and health although the archvile and cybie sections are essentially the same. I'd love to see a uvmax of this map!

Overall Impressions

Mayhem 2016 brings us a challenging mapset. The mapslot x10 = monstercount and 160 things gimmicks help keep each map to a reasonable size and complexity but also make for some tough monster encounters. The use of Quake 1, Darkening E2 and Malice textures have resulted in some very pretty maps, if not ominous and threatening as well! The sweet spot in the wad is map06-09 and I enjoyed both map14 and map17 quite a bit too. There is hours of fun to be had, especially if you are up for the high challenges present on UV for map18-20,31.

[baja blast rd.]

I'll contribute my max for 20, which luckily I already had. 

 

 

38 minutes ago, tmorrow said:

• Dispense with the 2 archviles and any enemies they resurrect with well placed biff shot berserk fist, avoiding immolation. [Hard]

 

Another archvile 'cheese' helps here -- if you run into the hiding room quickly, the viles won't wake up, so you can deal with them one by one. 

Edited June 28, 2018 by rdwpa

[Roofi]

+++ESP2

[tmorrow]

1 hour ago, rdwpa said:

I'll contribute my max for 20, which luckily I already had.

 

Great execution and with nerves of steel. Thanks for the demo.

[Urthar]

Mayhem 16 - MAP18 Maria - Ribbiks
HMP - Continuous - ZDoom

 

Yeah, Maria is a pretty nasty piece of work, and she can burn through even 200 health & armour remarkably quickly. She's not here for a good time, she's not here to gently guide your away. She's here to trip you up in the dark and murder you without remorse. Still I have to admire her sense of timing, the pacing in this map is quite excellent. Armed with a plasma gun and 600 cells, I was never going to have too much of problem with difficulty, and in fact the Tarnsman maps were probably nastier.

 

Visually, Maria lacks the trademark neon vibrancy you would often expect in a Ribbiks map, and the lighting isn't strong enough to compensate, so the map is generally quite dour and gloomy. It's hard to tell if that was a deliberate choice or just another case of different mappers using different setups.

Mayhem 16 - MAP19 Seasons in the Abyss - Remmirath & Marcaek

 

A surprisingly forgiving map for this slot, though perhaps that's for the best considering it's sandwiched between Maria and The Performance. There's plenty of opportunities for run and gun, and rushing ahead to grab the ammo to turn the tables on the opposition. It's a 3-key setup with the freedom to choose how and when you want to approach it. So generally, the typical kind of stuff I enjoy, and I don't have any complaints.

 

Visually, it's not as polished as some of the other maps, but it's certainly no worse either, and I generally like the bold strokes of the design.

Mayhem 16 - MAP20 The Performance - Alfonzo

 

Haha! We meet again, my old nemesis, but this time the advantage is... wait a minute. Was that a death-exit on the last map? Oh, you bastards, you absolute bastards. I had 400 cells saved just for this map... fuck.

 

Thankfully, I'm using ZDoom this time around, so my movement is considerably more precise than PrBoom+, and in the end it only took a dozen attempts to pass the test. (Poor Dying Camel got stuck here for an hour in his stream, and to be honest I was expecting to have similar difficulties.) It definitely felt as if there were less imps pouring in on HMP than when I previously tested the map, and I only needed a couple of cyber barrages to thin out the crowd, before legging it for the exit.

It's a cool map, cleverly constructed, and it appears to have been toned down enough so that it's no longer a rage inducing nightmare. Personnally I think I would have gone full techbase with something like this, and tried to make everything look as clean as possible, but it works, and certainly makes a fitting end to Mayhem 16.

 

[Catpho]

MAP08 - “Lodi Eno Rebmun Si Ocin” by Tarnsman

"Looks at peculiar title"

"reads it backwards"

Oh...

Spoiler

*Nico intesifies*

Anyway, nice map.

Tarnsman continues to display top level cruelty in his mapping. 44 monsters, but you will be feeling all 44 of them. Right at the start is a wandering Cyberdemon assisting monsters who have great long-ranged capabilities (i.e mancs, arachnotrons and the plutonia regular aka heavy weapon dude aka chaingunner) , putting your footwork to the test. Most of the opening area being filed with scorching lava and limited ammo ain't helping. It makes the area after the blue key grab, a more confined and ammo plentiful revenants + archvile congestion duel, look like a breather in comparison to the outside chaos. The final fights are just diabolical, especially the cyberdemons in a tight hallway! All in all, really harsh, but never unfair.

Visually, quite Speedmap-y, in that it looks like it was all thought out in a short time. A small abstract arena, resembling a fort (or something) in a lava valley (Burnt trees heh). Quite nice and polished, with great texture choices and great looping layout. It's size and looks are perfect for it's gameplay to not overstay it's welcome.

Some screenies:

[Magnusblitz]

MAP15: Klockwerk

100% kills, 3/3 secrets

 

As @Urthar surmised, the start of this one is a bit of a pain from pistol start, given the stinginess of health and ammo provided. Died a few times on the second 'room' (with the PE and rev near the secret armor/chaingun), more than anywhere else. After that it's decently smooth sailing; ammo is still limited but careful conservation, (along with using the chainsaw and infighting as possible) will see you through. Very square, but it works with the Quake detailing and the layout is actually pretty creative in the way it flows around the central chamber.

[TheOrganGrinder]

I've got some catching up to do, don't I?

 

MAP14: Ancient Den

 

Hey, I know that song!  To me it's first and foremost an Ancient Aliens track although I understand it originates with Interception; it's a creepy, atmospheric track that invokes a sense of corrupted grandeur, of places tumbled to ruin, of a corrosive presence eating away behind the walls and beneath one's skin.  It certainly fits this lavish setting of shattered walls and cracked towers, its gloomy hallways looping around sunken courtyards with a distinctive curved architectural style that's genuinely alien, even Lovecraftian in its presentation.  As soft as the dominant shades of tan and terracotta might be, as lacking as the architecture is in sharp corners and cutting edges, it's not a comfortable setting, every bit of it feeling every so slightly off and threatening.

 

The most noteworthy aspect of the gameplay is the inclusion of an optional secret route that requires the yellow key and yields a megasphere, but pits the player against something like half of the map's monster population in a frantic arena battle.  As an optional encounter it's something that I really like, something as subtantial as this and as different to the rest of the level's gameplay included purely for the entertainment of players who like to spend some time digging into the map's convolutions and puzzling out the necessary alternate route.  It did leave me wondering if the level might have been conceived originally as occupying the MAP15 slot (its monster count suggests MAP17, though?) with the arena intended as an antechamber to a secret exit.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP16: Galactic Decay

98% kills, 4/8 secrets

 

This one was a doozy, 200 monsters might not seem like a lot for some but there's a lot of high-tier monster meat here. Much of the playtime is simply clearing out the large base, with plenty of places to go and not a clear sense of a goal at first. I had cleared out almost all the level before finally finding the right switches that led me to the blue key and kicked off the rest of the progression, gotta make sure to check every little cranny. I think unfortunately the map gets bogged down here as the combat isn't tough but it can take awhile, mainly due to placing so many monsters up high as snipers where they don't really stop the player from going anywhere but they do need to be cleared out for safety reasons. The AVs on top of the generators in the central area were particularly a slog to slowly clear out.

 

The showcase fights are the real meat here. The blue key one was probably my least favorite as it basically just dumps a bunch of snipers above you, hope you had the proper weapon out. The yellow key switch fight, I admittedly panicked and just ended up running back to the central room (beating the SMM teleport) which is probably the coward's way out, and defuses the room too well (I didn't even bother with the cyberdemon at the end of the room, he just walked back and forth). The final fight at the end behind the red door is interesting, with the cybers teleporting in one after the other and the delayed AV rush, quite tricky. FWIW I also had some bugs with the red key, the first time I did it the switch stopped the reactor halfway closed, the key appeared, but the door slammed shut and wouldn't re-open.

 

All in all an impressive map, especially the size for a month-long creation, but one that could've used some pruning in the monster department.

 

[TheOrganGrinder]

MAP15: Klockwerk

 

This one offers up an odd juxtaposition of very rectilinear architecture with a layout that loops, spirals, changes elevation constantly in a fashion that feels authentic to Quake but not by any means imitative; rather, there is a sense here that if the inspiration and thematic intent behind Quake had struck without the more advanced 3D engine to support it, this is what a Doom-technology iteration of Quake might have looked and played like.  Encounters are fairly modest in scale, with the toughest of them probably being the one that follows the teleporter after the blue key, and that's mostly to do with the relatively tight confines of the room and the way you're plunked down right in a revenant's sights.  This is a satisfying level to play through, not fantastically ornate, not grandiose in scale, but self-assured in doing what it sets out to do, in its pacing and its construction.  I appreciate not having to hunt high and low for the route to the secret level, too, even if the preceding level's elaborate optional route/backstage arena continues to feel like it has its genesis in a secret level hunt.

[Rayziik]

Here's a UV-Max attempt for MAP31; an "attempt" due to missing 7 monsters and 7 stuck monsters that happened because I made a mapping error.

 

Attempt in 33:55 (GLBoom+ 2.5.1.4)

 

At least it demonstrates the map is indeed able to be completed on UV. :D

[TheOrganGrinder]

Having taken a stab at MAP31 myself I think I'm going to throw in the towel here and focus on July's playthrough of Struggle; I've seen what I hope is a representative enough sample of MAYhem 2016 by this point.

[tmorrow]

Thanks for posting the excellent map31 demo @Rayziik, too bad about those stuck monsters but you got 100% kills on the tally screen at the end.

[Catpho]

Better late than never. Summaries:

Urthar's ingenuity and great new resources makes Dimension of the Boomed one of 2018's most haunting and atmospheric offerings. The texturing, immersive lighting, architecture and layouts creates a sense of mystery and dread in every new turn, combined with some great boom effects inclusion: a perfect marriage between two of id Software's most iconic titles. Truly Quake in Doom, quality to a fault. I eagerly await the next episodes to warp my mind with more lovecraftian horror and good maps.

I typically pick out only 1 or 2 favorite levels in non-megwads. In here its MAP03 - “Gibbous Grotto” and MAP04 - “Necropolis”. Honorable mention to the cool looking MAP05 - “The Witch House”.

 

MAYhem 2016 is a decent community project. In the MAYhem series, probably rivals the 2014 installment and to me only stands below the great Super MAYhem 17. Some excellent maps made by a pool of experienced and talented authors like Alfonzo, Tarnsman, Breezeep, An_mutt, Jimmy and a few others makes the mapset a worthwhile journey. I have qualms with the inconsistent visual identity (pretty much unavoidable in every cp really, but very apparent here) and a couple of misfires, but overall a solid outing with great creativity with the limitation, especially from the aforementioned authors.

5 favorites, in no particular order:

MAP01 - “Xsshsss Zone” by Tarnsman: A rude surprise, but a well-made one. Tarnsman shows that not even a 10 monsters limitation could stop him from making a memorable challenge.

MAP02 - “Will o’ the Wastes” by Alfonzo, Tarnsman: A modern map that hits all the sweet spots: great visuals (vibrant even, despite the brown colors), great layout and challenge that's perfect for a MAP02.

MAP04 - “Affinity” by Jimmy: lol i'll eat my words now, but not many mappers can make a short map as fun, as looping and as beautiful as Jimmy.

MAP11 - “Quake Plumbing Inc.” by Breezeep: Just Breezeep perfecting his looping layout, clean smooth visuals and fast fun gameplay mastery. Lame level name tho

MAP14 - “Ancient Den” by an_mutt: A masterpiece of a adventure map. Evocative visuals, great music and a very good grasp of adventure gameplay makes this map a force to be reckoned with.

 

Shoutouts to the creative MAP20 - "The Performance”, the comically cruel dual MAP18 - “Maria” and MAP08 - “Lodi Eno Rebmun Si Ocin” and finally Benjogami beautiful nighmare aka MAP09 - “Blood from a Stone”.

[Lingyan203]

Tough wad, but has good vibes to it. The last level was a bit unfair though...