Happy birthday Fonze

[Nine Inch Heels]

@rdwpa and yours truly made a map for you. Here's hoping you'll have as much fun kissing the floor as we had making the map.

 

fonzBDAY.zip [actually stands for "Fonze's bad day" ;-)]

 

Format: Boom

 

iWAD: Doom 2

 

Difficulty settings: UV only (warning: Map does not like you)

 

Genre: Simple Challenge-Slaughter hybrid

 

MIDI: Richter's Theme (Castlevania)

 

Sky: STARSKY4 (mek's box o skies v2)

 

Demo: Included in the WAD, recorded with PrBoom+2.5.1.4

 

Features: Mandatory Two-shots on cyberdemons, mandatory platforming, fighting PEs with rockets, and other weird stuff.

 

Screenshots:

Spoiler

 

Found any bugs? Either eat 'em or let us know. I'll get around to fixing stuff soon enough, I hope.

Edited August 2, 2018 by Nine Inch Heels

[antares031]

Happy birthday to you, Fonze!! :)

 

The screenshots already look fantastic and challenging.

[riderr3]

Happy birthday Fonze!
Party time!

 

[Bob9001]

Had a nice playthrough, well done!

 

Happy birthday!

 

Here is a bug I found: you can get stuck in here with no way out, happens on the other 3 aswell.

 

Spoiler

 

[rehelekretep]

holy mackerel!

[Marcaek]

 

 

[DMPhobos]

Happy birthday @Fonze!

[Suitepee]

Happy birthday to you, @Fonze!

[Catpho]

Cacodemon cake greets you @Fonze

 

[Pegleg]

I'm interested to know what Fonze actually thinks about this level.

 

By the way, Happy Birthday @Fonze! Enjoy your day.

[Nine Inch Heels]

6 hours ago, Bob9001 said:

 

Here is a bug I found: you can get stuck in here with no way out, happens on the other 3 aswell.

Watch the demo included in the WAD. I knew you could drop in there, therefore it's possible to activate the large platforms and lower them.

[Fonze]

Eyyy <3 the fonze is familiar with sign language and this map lovingly says:

t(^v^t)

 

I was gonna wait to respond in this thread til I finished the map, or was at least an hour's worth of deaths into my fda, but while attempting to be somewhat social my old boss asked me to help at her place since one of her people called out, so on account of the fact that it'll be another few hours before I can break into this, I just want to post a quick thanks to everybody for the well-wishes and a huge thanks with lots of less-than-threes to NiH and rdwpa! This makes me so happy that y'all went and made a map, and a bit unjustifiably special that y'all also took the time to make it look as amazing as it does. Thank you both so much; I never could ask for more and y'all went so above and beyond.

 

Demo mandatory, but I may record with commentary and post to the youtubes so folks like suite can watch me rage on a map for all the times I made maps that made others rage my past misdeeds. In all seriousness though, I really look forward to cracking this beast of a map open and decorating the grounds with my bodies when I get home later on; I'm aiming for a clean 1:1 ratio on deaths to monsters, but NiH says there are only 800 mobs in the map so I may have to step it up to stand a chance, which is prolly intended more seriously than it may come across ;p

[geo]

Happy birthday Fonzerelli.

[Gaia74]

Happy birth day <3 

[SOSU]

Happy Barfday Fonze!!! :D

[galileo31dos01]

HBday Fonze!

 

I gave the map a try, for the lols of course. After a million deaths I got to the, presumably, final arena, and stopped there because my TV program is on. Quick thoughts:

 

Spoiler

First of all, LOL

 

Second, XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

 

Third and less seriously, first part took me quite a lot of tries, it was good to see anything can happen there, most of my tries ended up being stuck in between revs and a lost soul on my head, but my strategy seemed to work fine. The platforming, well fight me but I idclipped it after a bunch of tries, because the floor is butter and I suck at it. I think you need sr50 at some point and I can't do work it out at the moment. Then the "mandatory" two-shots were a tad between too awkward and hilarious, thing is you can be pushed off the stairs by rocket radius and to repeat the platforming again nononononononono... Anyway I left the second alive and archvile too because it somehow ate a puff of splash. The lock-in with PEs/cacos looked more manageable.

 

My achievement so far is to not have raged, it's a type of gameplay I'd never choose in this difficulty, but because it's for a special cause, I said why not?. 

 

Anyway MY TV SHOW BYE

 

[Nine Inch Heels]

Just now, galileo31dos01 said:

I think you need sr50 at some point and I can't do work it out at the moment.

SR50 is not required at all.

[Bridgeburner56]

Happy birthday Fonze. 

 

This thread has given me warm fuzzies :)

[Obsidian]

bippy horfday

 

wait

 

shit i did it wrong

[42PercentHealth]

Happy b-day Fonze!

 

4 minutes ago, Obsidian said:

bippy horfday

 

wait

 

shit i did it wrong

*Shrugs*

[Bauul]

Happy birthday Fonze!  You share a birthday with my wife, congratulations!

[Grain of Salt]

Happy Fonzeday

[kb1]

17 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

@rdwpa and yours truly made a map for you. Here's hoping you'll have as much fun kissing the floor as we had making the map.

That's a very cool thing to do. Looks like a map Fonze would enjoy - rockets and Pain Elementals and all!

 

Happy birthday, Fonze!

[SleepyVelvet]

7 hours ago, Fonze said:

I was gonna wait to respond in this thread til I finished the map, or was at least an hour's worth of deaths into my fda,

...

Demo mandatory,

 

I just gave it a good 1.5 hrs.  I'd upload an fda myself but I think I'll be courteous and let the birthday boy to go first.

Regarding my opinion on the map and how far I even got, well umm.....

[Fonze]

<3 wow what a map; the beauty of the aesthetics matched the intricate fun of the gameplay. Here is my FDA; 131:57 with somewhere over 320 deaths. I'll try not to break my arm patting myself on the back here. The youtube video may have to wait a bit; I need a video-editing software to piece together 320 videos, most 3 seconds long, heh.

 

I loved slowly unraveling this monster of a map amidst the immense pressure that was constantly put on me. Everything was just so high pressure and execution was a large part of getting through this, but amidst that a huge role was placed on prioritization of every facet of the strategies of each encounter, which made for a very fun puzzle to solve. Where to go, what movements to make, what areas to control, along with what enemies to target and when are crucial for making it through this map at all, though I will note for anybody else who wants to play this in a more accessible way: ITYTD exists; play it if you absolutely cannot make any headway. If you can get past the first part on UV then enough time will net you the rest, but part of the point of playing is to have fun over the time you put in and there is no reason to rage when so much control of the difficulty of things is still within the player's control. That said, I'm glad I didn't have to resort to that as the finale was much more fun, and challenging, for it, but if I ran out of time or stopped having fun that would have been the right move for me to make and that's exactly what I would have done. 

 

That brings me to another kinda ramble-y point: know what you're getting into with this stuff; (at least a basic overview, such as NiH put in the OP) going into this with the right mindset makes all the difference in the world.

 

The map does a very good job of keeping the player going even if they finish the previous encounter on low health and a couple times also gave the player the chance to examine the area a battle was about to take place, which is nice, though also somewhat disjoints sections from one-another, except for the PE's in the beginning; I like that they presented a major wrench in the machine on the approach to the cybers at the end of the platforming section. Still, that feeling of having triumphed over an encounter, with some room to breathe before continuing on to the next, probably deadly encounter gave the map some great emotional ups-and-downs to complement the dynamics of the combat. It, combined with the hostile environment that made the map artificially difficult passively seeks to thwart the player's movement in various ways, or lead them to a dead end, also made the aesthetics stand out more, (since observation became so important) which all contributed to both the execution and strategic sides to solving this map as an extended, active puzzle.

 

It is tough for me to pick out the toughest, easiest, or even my favorite part of this map as all of the parts were well-balanced on all fronts, at least for me, which makes me consider how much time and work must have been put into just the testing and balancing end of making this map; it plays so well. 

 

Specific map stuff:

Spoiler

The first encounter had a fun rhythm of dodging the rev missiles while maintaining that kinda sixth sense of knowing where projectiles and enemies are around you, even those never seen, from the sounds of the enemies and bumps while moving. Rocketing my way through that mob to the first safe area was a super fun way to start the map. The platforming destroyed my soul and taught me to kill monsters before moving on, heh, causing me to repeat the beginning and platforming again, but I was happy and ready to do so, if that says anything about how much fun even just the beginning is. Kind of a feel-good fight when you get the rhythm of it, but that said it is a tricky fight that requires thinking on one's feet and I died many times here (as well as literally everywhere else, haha).

 

While I like platforming, I will note that this platforming section was very difficult. Using map-view helps, as would freeaim, but even with that the required execution is quite precise and unforgiving; falling results in death. While I prefer giving second chances, it wasn't impossible and, using saves, was still fun to navigate. While I did go without freeaim for funsies at banging my head into the wall, heh, I noted that automap use was kinda gimped by the view being too zoomed out on every startup of the program (death). It did help a bit on those last few jumps, but with the added time going into the precise setup of the jumps, it seemed to save no time over just positioning myself according to what I saw on approach and going for it, dying, and repeating more times. 

 

Omg the cybie part was so tough; I'm fairly terrible at 2-shotting in the first place, but this was just so tough with the extra layer of the map geometry. Luckily only one needed to be 2-shot, which was a good thing because I have no idea at the time of this post, before watching the attached demo, how to 2-shot the second one with that geometry, heh.

 

The caco-cave was another fun, tight encounter; I died many times here as well. I think this part had a fairly easy strategy to figure out: rocketing around the room for a quick moment before BFG'ing as many PE's as possible, but execution proved quite difficult as more teleported in, the room crowded up, and the geometry worked to funnel the player into corners. Was tough, but a good beginning and BFG'ing made for an easier clean-up; just getting to that point was tough; lotta bad targets to aim at to start things off, but I guess that goes back into the strategy side of things so again well-balanced fights relative to one-another.

 

The finale was probably the toughest on the surface; starting with the issue of 4 cybers along the corner ramparts, with walls of zombiemen blocking long paths out of the center of the large area. This fight was very dynamic and fun, mostly from its size and high monster count, but the layout helped a great deal with the flow of the area for the player to move and monsters to develop. Also the AV's had great visibility and more than adequate cover behind layers of meat; I noticed that the ones along the sides (as opposed to the turreted ones in the corners) would often start their attacks before I would get to the side they were on from their placement, which was another cool touch on the pressuring side of things. I will also note that I liked how each path leading up to the ammo and MS's were lined with health bonuses, calling attention to them as the initial places to head to, though after a good amount of deaths I figured out that running directly forward and backward dodged the most rockets in the beginning, which let me save the first MS that is reached, which was where the main difficulty of the finale presented itself: not using the 4 side-MS's too quickly. There are 4 more with the cyber's and I would wager that one probably dies on its own often, or is left at a low-enough health to rush and BFG down by the time the 4 side-MS's are used, but it seemed to be optimal to dispatch the overwhelming majority, if not all, of the AV's before using that final side-MS, so saving them up proved to be the biggest challenge beyond avoiding AV blasts, being boxed in, and missing the steps to the MS's, heh. I'll also note that the encounter played easier when I didn't have to grab that first MS, since the enemies had less time to deploy before I could start working on the AV's and crowds as I worked my way around the outside perimeter. It was also, in retrospect, mostly an endurance challenge that was easier execution-wise than the previous encounters, if a bit tougher on the strategy side.

 

On a random note: I liked the fun boom-door in the beginning hehe.

 

As I said the aesthetics of this map are just great; I love how each area looks, culminating in the grand, otherworldly final area. Like the map starts off looking sweet and only gets better as it goes along; it really made the exploration factor of exploring this unforgiving, hostile environment that much more interesting. I really liked the depth, layout, and minimalism of the first area, as well as the starkly contrasted, more flashy final area; both had great flows as well.

 

On a final note, since this is a collab between two mappers I'm a big fan of, I have to guess who did what and speculate like the nerd I am.

 

On that note, it's tough to say who did what: on the surface I would guess rdwpa did the first part and NiH the second, since the first part does fit the aesthetic style of rd in a few ways, ( I also thought at first that maybe they emulated each other's styles to throw off any guesses, thus making NiH part 1 and rd part 2) however in retrospect I actually see a bit of a previous map I played from NiH in the architectural setup of the area around the cybers. It is of course possible that the map was passed back and forth some times and both had their hands in the entire thing, which is probably more likely in the gameplay department, but looking only at the line-work, I think I'm gonna say NiH did the first half of the map, possibly just up to the caco-cave. I think rd did the caco-cave and the finale, though I've never seen him make something so automap-art-y so that's a tough one, granted I also have missed prolly most of his maps in the last year, same with NiH. But the shaping reminds me a bit of Eden so I'm going with rd for the finale. The caco-cave is up in the air, but I'm going with rd because I think each made a rocket+PE part. NiH did the bloodfall, star-teleporter room.

 

Thanks again to all for the well wishes and a huge thanks once again to NiH and rdwpa for this amazing birthday map; it really means a lot to me and makes me very happy. Much <3 I hope your skullthrone reaches glorious heights :D

[GarrettChan]

Happy badthday, Fonze ;P

 

If someone is going to make me a map on my birthday, I'll be over the top.

[Liberation]

Happy birthday good sir!

[Ed]

Happy Birthday!

[SleepyVelvet]

20 hours ago, NoisyVelvet said:

I just gave it a good 1.5 hrs.  I'd upload an fda myself but I think I'll be courteous and let the birthday boy to go first.

Regarding my opinion on the map and how far I even got, well umm.....

alright, here's 1 hr of me dieing on UV, and 30 mins of me dieing on itytd.

noisy_fonzBDAY_fda.zip

I made it to the BFG once on each, and that's the furthest I got.  I'm not sure how long the map is actually because the monster count was 800, but one of the screenshots has like all zombiemen in it, so for all I know the map wasn't that long, and I did an iddt to check out the automap at the end of my playthrough and i only saw like 2-3 areas total.

 

I read some of fonze's post, skipping the parts in the spoiler I didn't get to:

ITYTD doesn't save you from the platforming, I am afraid.  it just makes it burn longer when you fall :(...

also the author guessing game is always fun, so here's my guess:

i got to see a glimpse of the symmetric arena thing on the automap, and imagine that's where the zombiemen from the screenshot are.  It looks like the two authors made a rough layout, then swapped and completed the rest of eachother's maplets; then they glued them together with a teleporter or something i dunno.:

 

heels made the layout for the north arena which was finished off by arr-dwah-paw (he's at least responsible for the zombiemen because if it were heels they would be like archviles or soemthing i dunno)

rdwpa made the layout at the start, and heels shoved a billion shits in there.  And she might have done some further edits, though i'm not sure who's responsible for that atrociously painful pillar platformeme section. 

there was also some stuff on the left of the automap, dunno even what that was, it was circles so probably a cake or something.

 

I bet you one noisybuck that i'm right.

[Nine Inch Heels]

9 minutes ago, NoisyVelvet said:

i'm not sure who's responsible for that atrociously painful pillar platformeme section.

that would be me :P