Not Jabba's Not the Cacowards Review Corner (rd reviews The Iron Forge)

[VanaheimRanger]

On 7/12/2020 at 4:44 PM, Not Jabba said:

adventure movies like the Indiana Jones series and its B-grade imitators

I don't want to nit-pick much on this thread...but Indiana Jones, by it's very nature, is an imitation of 1930s-40s B adventure movies.  It's a big budget B movie series, lol.

[A.Gamma]

Unexpected to find me tagged here, but always good! I made Map 04 of Fall of Society after seeing the post on the ZDoom forums asking for a city-themed map, and since I had been practicing UDMF I took on the challenge.

 

For inspiration, I played all of the city wads I could get my hands on, no matter how old or new they were, plus a plethora of Duke 3D maps. The end result was a somewhat gimmicky and short-ish map but, after glenzinho extended the deadline for the project, I thought it was a good idea to expand the map. In the end, I ended up tripling its size, and it became the non-linear monstrosity that you played (Really glad that you liked it by the way!); also noteworthy is that it was my map that ended delaying the project for about an extra month since at first, I wanted to include a script that would increase the difficulty of the map as you played, allowing for a true non-linear experience. This script idea ended up scrapped after several failed attempts where it would just go bonkers and unleash hell upon you at seemingly random times.

 

Still, I think that it ended up being a good map to play, and something a bit different from the standard Doom experience.

[Not Jabba]

Ashes 2063: Dead Man Walking by ReformedJoe

 

   

   

 

Ashes 2063 was one of the great TCs of recent years—though it happened to come out at the same time as a buttload of other great TCs, and for many people it may have gotten lost in the shuffle. Built on fast-moving, powerful gunplay and a steadily intensifying story arc, it's saturated with the merciless, darkly satirical, synth-infused atmosphere of the post-apocalyptic '80s action movies it's inspired by. Dead Man Walking was created by a totally different mapper, but plays so closely to the main episode that it may as well be an official expansion, with more of the same bloody gameplay and gritty story. It's all a fan could ask for, short of a true sequel, and it seems to have Vostyok's full blessing; the Ashes 2063 author contributed a few additional graphics to the expansion, and Primeval even returned as a composer with a few new tracks in the same style as the OST for the original episode.

 

The story is a prequel to the main campaign, set in a time when you're still aimlessly drifting and trying to survive, before you get caught up in bigger events. One of the roving wasteland gangs, the Rippers, catches you by surprise, shoots you up, and leaves you bleeding out in a ditch—and worse still, they steal your motorcycle. True to the original game, the bike is practically a character, and what follows is the equivalent of Doomguy plunging facefirst into Hell and slaughtering hundreds of demons to rescue Daisy the rabbit, complete with a heartwarming ending where you ride off into the sunset and leave the mountains of corpses behind. The Rippers turn out to be weaving their own path of destruction, pillaging and murdering wherever they go, and it doesn't take long for you to catch up with them. As a mini-episode, it feels very satisfying; real life may not be so simple, but this being a game, there's great pleasure in rising out of the ashes and wiping an entire ruthlessly violent faction off the face of the Earth by giving them an overdose of their own medicine.

 

It's nice and quick, too, at just three maps (plus a little "town" map with a few NPCs). The small size serves the narrative well, as you can probably get the most out of it by blazing through it in one or two sittings. The three regular maps are all pretty expansive, but not dense, due to the story-driven nature of the set. Like the movies it takes after, DMW can have sections of nothing but mood-building, where you creep through the quiet rubble alone—a lonely stretch of highway, an eerily empty rotting trainyard, the dusty, windswept approach to an abandoned gas station in front of the crumbling motel where some of the Rippers are holed up—followed by a few solid minutes of vicious firefights. Similar to the main Ashes episode, all combat follows the story and fits into the cinematic arc. You spend most of your time up against the four basic enemy types, with the more exotic enemies appearing at certain thematically appropriate points (the floating gas bags and paranormal undead in the scarier corners of the first map, the uber-cannibal minibosses in the radiated sewers of the second, and the trash mutants as part of a cult initiation gantlet in the third). The bestiary is tailor-made for a combat dichotomy where you can spend part of your time creeping around with limited firepower and facing things that go bump in the night, and the other part in a storm of gunplay where every shotgun blast brings down an enemy and you're crashing through doorways and clearing rooms without a pause. The core gameplay is strong, and it certainly doesn't wear out its welcome in three maps. I've been really impressed with how much mileage both of the existing episodes have gotten out of a small set of enemies, particularly since many enemies are in separate factions and don't mingle with each other. 

 

After you clear out the ruined town, sewers, and motel, the final map really kicks into '80s gear, with a nuclear power plant on the verge of meltdown and a neopatriot death cult complete with its own cheesy mascot. The ending crawl is narratively/atmospherically climactic even if the gameplay doesn't really have a big ramp-up; it's really cathartic to sweep through that last base, complete your revenge, and get your bike back. Though I'm still looking forward to the official sequel, Dead Man Walking feels like a canon expansion, and it's the perfect thing to tide you over while you wait for E2.

Edited April 25, 2022 by Not Jabba

[elend]

Nice read! I still have to play this, god dammit. So little time. T_T Meanwhile I enjoyed the soundtrack already quite a bit and bought it on bandcamp.com. Highly recommended.

[Not Jabba]

Bloodspeed by various

 

     

     

     

     

 

I don't know how many of you kids are old enough to remember the heyday of Russian community projects. To my knowledge, the Russian community first came together for Heroes' Tales and Da Will (the latter technically being a team project, but...well, Clan B0S was a very big team), and then became a full-fledged genre with Whitemare and Sacrament and built on that foundation with A.L.T. and Whitemare 2. Their output came to be characterized by adventure-oriented map design and atmosphere, taking inspiration from early forerunner Eternal and story-driven classic megawads like Eternal Doom, and used realism and strong environmental design to create maps with an eerie sadness and sense of desolation. Many of these projects also had kind of an interesting hybrid development process, where the community would host speedmap sessions and then build a megawad by both polishing the speedmaps and adding in showpiece maps created over a longer development time. Although the style has lived on in the work of individual mappers like Lainos and Big Memka, Russian community projects petered out after 2012, and I sometimes wonder what might have been if we'd gotten a few more of them. The 2019 megawad Bloodspeed is probably the closest we're likely to get anytime soon, and it captures some of that classic magic; it was created by a few of the Russian CP veterans along with some newer names and contributions by @Pinchy, @Obsidian, and @StormCatcher.77.

 

I prefer to keep these reviews positive, but I'm going to start off with one thing I consider to be a bit of a flaw. The funny thing about Bloodspeed is that it feels less like a blended soup and more like a bunch of totally separate mapsets that play back to back. The first six maps mix a few gritty techbases by Shadowman and Chaingunner with some basic, perhaps somewhat generic maps from Memfis; following that, you have a set of four much more complex city/base maps with a lot of the same energy as Sacrament or A.L.T.; then a novice map set in a cave; then two excellent mid-length Memfis maps, some of his best work that I've ever played; then seven Plutonia-themed maps, almost all of them surprisingly compact and bite-sized compared to the rest of the megawad; then a final 10-map winter episode that feels like it could have come straight out of an unfinished Whitemare 3, except that it also contains Stormcatcher's epic megamap "Iced Sanctuary" in the map 29 slot before returning to the Whitemare-esque tone in map 30. It's not the usual "box of chocolates" feel that you get from a community megawad, because the maps are divided into a bunch of discrete "chunks" with their own internal design styles and themes, each of which feels like it has little or no connection to any of the other chunks.

 

Most of the individual groupings are pretty enjoyable, though. My favorite Chunk-o'-Megawad is the Sacrament-esque section that runs from m07 to m10, which contains its own microcosm of great lighting, great mood, great exploration, and interesting gameplay. Two of the maps are by @Dragon_Hunter, one of my favorite Russian mappers from the Whitemare days. The better of these, "Point of Accident," was one of two Bloodspeed maps that made my Top 20 Maps of 2019 list; you can read my description of it there, since I don't want to repeat myself. The other Dragon Hunter map, "Nanotechnology Experiments" (map 07), is almost as good—equally dark and sinister, with an unusual layout that nests one really big fight within a knot of creepy, mostly empty rooms with lurking incidental monsters. The other mapper in this section, who goes by the presumably-more-pronounceable-in-Cyrillic handle of @+Ku6EPyXOBEPTKA+, has a looser and less refined style of design, but still one that I found interesting. "Symphony of Darox" (map 08) is like Eternal Doom meets MyHouse.wad in a tangle of hallways, dying gardens, and puzzles that carries a lot of the same post-apocalyptic Sacrament flavor as Dragon Hunter's maps. "Last Hangover" (map 10) is even weirder; it's a sprawling exploration of a lost base using stock Doom textures, but with a grim sort of Doomcute realism and gameplay driven by storytelling and possible latent symbolism that reminds me more of A.L.T. than Sacrament. I'd have gladly taken a whole megawad with the tone of this little cluster, and was sad to see it end (especially when it segues into a My First Map, though the non-award-judging part of me will always applaud that sort of community inclusivity).

 

Still, there's plenty of other fun to be had with Bloodspeed. Memfis's "Village of the Black Sun" and "Moments in Doom" (maps 12 and 13) both have a really strong classic vibe to them, perhaps a little bit of Petersen and a little bit of Requiem at the same time. The mini Plutonia-Hell maps (mostly created by @Chaingunner) are fast and fun, with some pretty nice simple architecture. Shadowman's "Daemons of the Mind" (map 31) is another nice story-driven map with a neat "lost in time" feel, while "Fort Boyard" by @BigMemka (map 32) contrasts with it as a tough little arena map with a lighthearted, melodramatic mood.

 

The winter episode has the same mix of chilly atmosphere, occasional combat intensity, and a lot of just plain goofing around that defined its Whitemare predecessors. This leg of the megawad has the greatest diversity of mappers (including all the non-Russians, as far as I know), and feels the most like a classic community project with a broad mix of voices. Maybe that grab-bag feel combined with the texture set and the presence of a few Whitemare veterans is what makes it feel so much like Whitemare 3. The only thing I feel like it's missing is a Dragon Hunter map, since DH created so many of the standout maps in the Whitemare series, the megamaps with the deeply detailed settings and gorgeous views. In place of that hypothetical DH map, we instead have "Iced Sanctuary," which is also a richly detailed megamap and the best map in Bloodspeed. Again, you can read my description of it in my top 20 list, but...damn, it's good. The snowy town that you wind through at one point is one of the prettiest outdoor areas I've seen in a while. Finishing off the megawad is "A Harsh Message" (map 30), the (alas) lone @BeeWen map, which has a lot of pretty wintery realism and forlorn mood. It's a nice grand finale, albeit one that would make more narrative sense if it were in fact preceded by a more Whitemareish Dragon Hunter map, and "Iced Sanctuary" had been released separately.

 

Even so, the nonsensical mapset progression has a certain charm. Just be prepared to experience the megawad in several distinct stages; it's up to you which ones you like best. Though it's not quite the same thing as a classic Russian community project, it comes pretty close and scratches a lot of those same itches. I think it will particularly appeal to fans of Heroes' Tales and the Whitemares, even if it doesn't have the narrative power and surrealist beauty of A.L.T. and Sacrament.

Edited April 26, 2022 by Not Jabba

[Chainie]

Nice read! Thank you for the review! 

[elend]

Yes, always a joy to read. Can't wait to have normal internet soon and be able to see the screenshots as well. xD

[Not Jabba]

Hydrologica by @Shawny

 

   

   

 

2019 was a year of giant nonlinear megamaps. In fact, the average individual runtime for maps made last year was somewhere around 6.7 hours of subjective time, with a skill/mental energy investment of approximately 800 kilofucks—a fact which has led to no small amount of renewed and continued discussion on the awards team re: concerns about selections and biases, trends among mappers, zeitgeist vs. diversity, the range of player bases who play Doom, the role of arbiters of taste, whether large projects have inherent advantages, what "good" means, and whether we, the Doom community collectively, are all going slowly insane in a pressure cooker of our own divising. Don't get me wrong. A of all, you should make whatever the hell you want. B of all, I love giant nonlinear megamaps, and ambitious magnum opus projects that feel like whole worlds unto themselves. That's just some food for thought as we all reflect on what we play, create, and collaborate on. Besides, there were yet more behemoth maps that were not recognized in the last Cacoward season, among them Hurt, Boom-Stick in the Mud, and today's reviewee, Hydrologica.

 

As far as these huge maps go, Hydrologica is pretty light and easy to digest. The layout is complex with a lot of branches and winding paths that lead to each other, but the core principle is exploration, which means the map is mostly filled with moderately simple incidental combat punctuated by moderately challenging setpieces. The author states that they took inspiration from classic map design where the map isn't just nonlinear but is in fact mostly optional, and it's up to the player how much they want to really explore—a fair point perhaps, since many (though certainly not all) modern nonlinear maps tend to invest their real estate in paths that lead to keys and major weapons and are therefore more or less essential, even if they can be completed via many different route choices. Hydrologica does have three keys scattered around its layout that are required to access the final area; the tougher combat is centered around these main progression points and occasionally in other areas with useful gear, meaning that (up to a certain point) exploration in the lighter areas is useful for stocking up on equipment that will be helpful for clearing the more critical sections. Even so, there are so many side branches to explore that you'll be fully stocked well before you get to them all, and I'd estimate that roughly a third to a half of the map really is optional, provided you are able to locate the keys efficiently to begin with. A lot of it just exists for the pleasure of hunting through it all, of wandering around and finding things. Importantly for a map of this size and complexity, the layout flows very well, so it's generally easy to see where you can go at any given time (both in-game and in the automap) and very common to find yourself funneled into some nexus that's already familiar, allowing you to choose a new path.

 

The map is fully or mostly stock textured, but covers so much ground that it's able to run through quite a few themes. The starting, central, and ending sections of the map are dominated by techy labs, but are surrounded by outdoor canyon areas and residential city or factory-like sections. The seams of the tech and city areas house many rooms that appear to have been recreational, suggesting a whole ecosystem of human life that had sprung up around the main reactor complex. In the eastern portion of the map, you encounter what were clearly mining operations, and there are a couple of more hellish areas as well, perhaps points where the invasion began; the abandoned equipment next to flowing lava or flesh and marble seems to indicate the classic story of delving too deep. 

 

This sort of complexity shows some of the reasons why people like megamaps—the more details you can scatter across a single location, or the wider a net you can cast by creating more areas that are explicitly connected to each other, the more of a story you can tell. On the flip side, a map this big requires a lot of investment from the player; the ideal experience is continuous immersion, which means playing the whole thing in one sitting. This is where mappers' decisions become their own sort of branching paths. Breaks between maps are inherent stopping points, and varied pacing, lengths, or gameplay styles across a multi-map set create their own forms of narrative, giving you lots of options for telling a story. Do you make a bunch of chapters, or one long haul? Which one gets your ideas across best? If you decide to create a megamap, you can go really heavy like "Mechanical Embrace" from FCFF, making it so imposing and rigorous a journey that no one will have illusions about chugging straight through; because most of the map is hidden and murderous, you can keep picking away at it over a few sittings, each new piece giving you the thrill of something you fought hard for and earned. The other likely solution is the one Hydrologica chooses; make the single-sitting playthrough as viable as possible by keeping the pace moving quickly and avoiding anything that will grind the player to a halt. 

 

Hydrologica does a good job with this. I like that it offers some nice challenges but overall allows you to keep flowing from one place to the next. One thing that really helps is the addition of three or four custom popcorn enemies, none of them more threatening than a zombieman or shotgunner. These various undead enemies add flavor by showing who lived in the complex before it was overrun (the scientists making the labs feel more like labs, for instance), but also make it easier to populate incidental rooms so that they're quick and fun to clear out. The map does feel dense and long, but it doesn't feel like too long before you're at the big showdown in the reactor room, and then making your way up out of the complex for a light denouement and your inevitable departure on a sector boat. This ending allows you to go back to revisit any areas you might have missed, and the nearly empty expanse of base offers one final thing that I liked about this map: the peaceful atmosphere under the densely starry sky, the feeling of a warm, brightly lit night, made all the more serene by the grateful solitude of the lone survivor, and that particular sense of finality and catharsis that you can only really get from beating something this huge.

Edited April 25, 2022 by Not Jabba

[Shawny]

Thank you very much for the review, I appreciate that.

 

This was my first mapping project after close to a decade of innactivity and it shows.

Back then I did´t know how to align 2 sided lindef textures properly,

that you can change floor/ceiling and textures lighting individualy (in ZDoom format that is).

Lack of monster closets and clever traps made combat quite uninspiring and basic, etc.

 

In the end of the day I had focused most on the architecture and layout itself and people seem to like it (which I am quite satisfied with).

I did some overhauling in version 1.1 in the combat and aesthetic (which I assume you played) thanks to @HAK3180 playthrough.

The scripting is still jank, even in my recent maps. It just works though, thanks Todd.

 

Side notes:

Keys are indicated on the map from the beginning by creating a keycard shaped sectors with "Initially shown on the map" tag.

UV has "secret" micro slaugher encounters in Silent Hill-esk rooms after picking up the keys (HMP has keycards, UV has skullkeys).

There are 2 ways to get the BFG - collecting all 3 cards OR much earlier by finding 3 super hidden secrets.

If I ever update the map, I would fix the alignment, the weird lighting and would destroy all unpicked health and armor pick ups in the end of the map

to make item count more accurate.

[Not Jabba]

UnBeliever by @Ryath

 

    

    

    

    

 

Heretic's weird collection of features has tons of barely-tapped potential. You could create an entire puzzle megawad just using chicken physics and the many properties of exploding plant pods—and that's not even getting into most of the inventory, or ghost mechanics, or wind and water currents, or the different strategies of the Tomed weapon set vs. the standard one. Doom mappers who love playing with the intricacies of the engine could have a field day with Heretic. So far, very few people have begun to explore these possibilities, probably because of vanilla Heretic's gameplay balance issues, but you can find some very intriguing forays into the feature set in Curse of D'Sparil, Elf Gets Pissed, and some of @Fonze's experimental maps. Though I'm possibly the first exclusively Heretic-oriented mapper in the Doom community, I've barely scratched the surface myself, since The Wayfarer was more about learning fundamentals and developing the gameplay mod to use for future projects. But holy crap, I'm excited about what Heretic can do.

 

UnBeliever is probably the most dedicated and thorough examination of all these features that's ever been collected in one place so far, though by nature it's more of a party platter than an encyclopedia. A spiritual successor to Ryath's UnAligned series, it was created in a month for NaNoWadMo in November 2018 and polished up for release over the next six months or so. Like UnAligned, it was created as a series of very quick speed-explorations of particular gimmicks, but like I said, Heretic has even more gimmicks than Doom. Because the maps were made so quickly, a lot of the ideas are executed in a fairly cursory way, but I think that was probably the intended purpose—it was a way to try out as many things in a short period of time as possible, and to exist as a sampler of the neat things a mapper can do with Heretic.

 

The first episode, "Gimmicky Gauntlets," is all about inventory and weapon gimmicks, as well as some interesting environmental challenges. You have your pitch-dark map where you have to keep finding the next Torch before your current one runs out, your flight-based map where you have to keep using Wings of Wrath to stay out of lava (and have aerial dogfights with Disciples), and a map that runs you through the uses of Time Bombs, Morph Ovums, and the vampiric healing power of the Tomed Gauntlets. There's a map called "Ice, Wind, and Fire" (E1M4), which...well, I'll give you three guesses what that one is about. The most interesting concept here is probably "Optional Escort Mission" (E1M6), which explains itself in context, but my favorite map in the episode is "Choose Thy Destiny" (E1M7), which gives you previews of a series of encounters and then allows you to choose your equipment loadout for each one via branching paths. It's like one of those Doom maps where you can pick one of the SSG or rocket launcher, except Heretic's inventory makes it a bit more complex, and your decisions become cumulative as you select more loadouts over the course of the map. Kudos to you if you can beat E1M9; there are only three enemies, but I don't think I've ever been able to do it, as the setup is very tight and a lot is left to chance. The boss map is a relatively simple D'Sparil fight, except you have to beat him quickly enough to wipe out all other enemies in the map before a set of bars opens and floods you with Sabreclaws, which adds some nice suspense and a bit of strategic thinking.

 

E2, "Limited Linedefs," is basically a limitation challenge for the mapper; each map has a max of 100 linedefs. Though it's not as conceptually interesting as the other two episodes, it's a good action-oriented break to sandwich in between the more clever, thought-provoking ideas found elsewhere, and has some pretty odd and fun fights. Due to the size limit, each map is little more than a single room or tangle of hallways, but Ryath finds ways to make them interesting, and they are super quick to play through. These maps also have more playing around with environmental hazards like ice, lava, volcano shooters, and exploding pods to keep things tense. My favorite maps in this episode are "Upstream Battle" (E2M7), where you keep raising a central water shaft to access more levels of a tower, and "The Font" (E2M8), a compact arena fight where walls keep lowering and releasing new enemies, climaxing with a set of boss monsters.

 

The final episode, "Tricky Trials," is more about puzzles than combat gimmicks, though it has some of those too. Some of the puzzles are of the more traditional Doom-like variety, where you have to hunt around for observational cues and things you can interact with. Others are uniquely Heretic. This was my favorite episode overall, as I found both styles of puzzles really interesting. One of the more complex maps, "Timing Is Everything" (E3M4), puts you through a whole series of hazard/timing puzzles, all leading up to a very tough challenge where you have to juggle a bunch of Wings along with figuring out a timed switch/door/maze navigation puzzle (freelook recommended for those struggling here, as it makes flight navigation a lot easier). One of the coolest maps in this episode is "Stair Architect" (E3M5), where you have to build multiple sets of stairs to reach the three keys using switches that control different colors of platforms—it's the sort of puzzle that reminds me of Chip's Challenge. My other favorite was "Voodoo Cube" (E3M6), which combines voodoo dolls and Rings of Invincibility to create some very neat block movement puzzles. Special mention should also go to Sabresweeper (E3M3), which is, as you might suspect, a game of Minesweeper within the Doom engine—simple, but fun and cute. This episode's secret map was another case where I called it quits, since the level of voodoo doll manipulation here is a bit too tricky a trial for me. E1M7, "Leap of the Faithless," is also a case where your mileage may vary on whether the conceptual gimmick and good taste go hand in hand; it revolves around tornado jumping, which is extremely difficult to control, but thankfully it gives you plenty of resources to survive a large number of attempts. If you can get through all of that and then survive "Light the Fuse" (E3M8) with its combination of D'Sparil fight and mine fields of exploding pods, then victory is yours.

 

The thing that makes UnBeliever fun is that you can try out all of these cool map concepts in a very short time. A playthrough of the whole megawad should only take a couple of hours, and each individual map is very fast. It'll be over before you know it, and you'll probably find yourself wanting more—to which I say, get yourself into Heretic mapping, and see what other kinds of cool stuff you can make with all the engine quirks at your disposal. I've played UnBeliever both with and without The Wayfarer's Tome, and if you haven't played the megawad yet, or want to replay it, I recommend using the mod for a smoother, more consistent challenge (it comes with a special patch for compatibility with UnBeliever, so make sure to load that too). But if you'd rather have the vanilla experience, it is still very enjoyable.

Edited April 26, 2022 by Not Jabba

[scwiba]

Thanks again @Not Jabba! I'd never done anything for Heretic before and probably only played through the IWAD once, but somehow I feel like I managed to do some of my best ever speedmapping for UnBeliever. And it's always encouraging to hear good feedback, especially on my weird puzzley stuff. I really appreciate the write-up! And you've now officially covered the three WADs I'm most proud of in this thread!

[Not Jabba]

Cyrgoth's Manor by @Seidolon

 

  

  

 

Cyrgoth's Revenge by Seidolon

 

   

  

 

Hexen mapping is kind of a rough deal. As I've often said in Hexen-related discussions, I think it's a great game, but it's very self-contained; the monsters and weapons only really work in the original context, all the puzzle items and keys are meant to be unique pieces of the environment, and so it's very hard to create anything with the resources that doesn't feel like it's simply rehashing Hexen's main campaign. Features like ACS, polyobjects, and fog make it more flexible than Doom, but if you want that, why not make a TC with Doom UDMF as a starting point and get even more flexibility? The dark fantasy world is really cool, but expanding on Hexen would require a pretty serious overhaul and a lot of custom content, which is a ton of work. The only thing left for most Hexen mappers is to make something that feels just like Hexen.

 

But that doesn't mean a restyling of Hexen's core mechanics can't be fun. Shadows of Cronos, the best fan-made Hexen episode so far, is exactly that: it distills the basic essence of Hexen down into a single streamlined hub that's intuitive and engaging to play. Cyrgoth's Manor and Cyrgoth's Revenge aim for something very similar. Each of the two hubs gives you the full experience of the game—all of the monsters, a good selection of item puzzles, varied locations using stock textures—in the format of one start map, one hub map, three to four spokes, a small item-stuffed secret map, and a final boss map. Aside from the starting and ending maps, both hubs are primarily exploration-driven; they allow you to wander around and do most things in any order, aside from a handful of key- and item-locked areas that you have to gain access to before you can finish. The driving force is the player's urge to go everywhere, see everything, and find every item that's tucked away in the maps—sort of like Pokemon's "gotta catch 'em all" thing, but with nooks and crannies instead of enslaved lifeforms.

 

For all its desolate beauty, Hexen only really has one setting—brooding stone fortresses lording over gloomy, dead wilderness—but the Cyrgoth hubs capture the same subtle variety that keeps the original game interesting without adding any custom assets. Each map setting is a distinct location, which helps you stay oriented and gives you the sense that each one offers a new piece of the world to uncover. In Cyrgoth's Manor, the hub is the grounds of the mansion, and side portals take you to a foggy swamp, a rocky frozen wilderness, and a river basin with castles and huge open areas. In Revenge, a really nice-looking city hub leads off into a Mage's guild, a mine, a fiery wasteland, and a mistier, more watery ice realm. Nothing really feels like a repetition, and the more specialized monsters appear in thematically appropriate spoke locations to create a bit of a more realistic sense of ecosystem, as in the original game. In both hubs, the three human bosses appear at major progression points, which is a nice touch; the first time it happens, you know to expect the other two bosses to appear later, but there are enough major progression points that you never really know where to anticipate them, and it adds an element of suspense. In both cases, the final map consists of Death Wyverns and then a Heresiarch (Cyrgoth) with extra support minions—I like the way this creates a two-stage final encounter, though I wouldn't have minded seeing some Wyverns earlier in the hubs too; they're a weird monster, but I like them.

 

Cyrgoth's Manor, which was the first installment in the series, is the less polished of the two. In particular, the monster populations are denser and more grindy, and it can be frustrating to wade through them in every map—though it's perhaps worth it to mow through the grand Bishop horde finale with the Bloodscourge or whatever your ultimate weapon is. The hub progression can also be a little clunkier—it took me a while to find the last spoke map, and there's one switch puzzle that's tougher than anything else to figure out. It seems like that puzzle has stumped a lot of people; my one hint to you is that, if you've figured out the environmental clue and still can't get the order right, you might want to reconsider your orientation. Cyrgoth's Revenge improves on the formula in every way, and shows quite a bit of growth on the part of the mapper. The maps look better, the exploration and progression are more intuitive, there aren't any game-stopping puzzles, and the combat feels a lot smoother and more enjoyable. I've still seen mixed opinions on whether the progression is intuitive enough, but I had no trouble with it personally. I think if you want to enjoy these hubs, you need to go into them with a Hexen mindset, keeping track of where you've found locked doors and such so that you know where to return to, and making sure to observe your surroundings carefully in important areas (to the mapper's credit, you will definitely know where those important areas are). Personally, I found it really enjoyable to hunt around the hub in Cyrgoth's Revenge, and appreciated the environmental design of the individual maps.

 

Overall, the Cyrgoth series is a solid addition to Hexen's limited pantheon of fan-made content. If you aren't sure whether you'll enjoy them, you might want to start with Revenge, but if you're more of a diehard Hexen fan, you might as well play them both in order. Cyrgoth's Revenge doesn't quite hit the bar set by Shadows of Cronos, and isn't as adventurous and experimental as Curse of the Lost Gods, but it's definitely one of the best classic Hexen hubs you can find. It also sounds like Seidolon is planning a third hub to complete the trilogy. Just one more thing to look forward to!

 

 

Hexmas Community Project by various

 

    

   

 

The 2019 Cacoward year was a pretty active one for Hexen; not only did we get the two Cyrgoth hubs released in the same year, but also the Hexmas community project, which was hosted on the ZDoom forums. As the name suggests, the mapset was Christmas-themed, which basically means every map uses variants on Hexen's ice theme and textures (with a lot of custom stuff added to flesh out the setting, in this case). There aren't any other holiday-related elements besides the winter theme, and I personally think that's a good thing—but either way, having a whole hub full of icy maps is definitely my cup of tea, and the combination of GZDoom features and the effort put into the resources helps the whole thing to feel appropriately cold and forbidding.

 

Like many GZDoom-based community or group projects, there's a bit of a wider variance in styles of design than you might expect from a project where the format is less flexible. In other words, every map feels totally different from every other, and it does lose a fair bit of cohesiveness as a whole project. That said, I think the maps are all interesting in their own ways. 

 

The first map before the hub is @whirledtsar's "Frostbitten Peak," a bit of a mini-epic with a nice sense of setting even though the gameplay can be a bit lopsided at times. It starts out in a big icy cavern and continues into a fortress where your time is split between combat and some elaborate, unusual trap puzzles. There's a lot to see and do in this one map, so much that you might forget you're playing a whole hub of which it is only a single piece—but beating the whole thing grants you access to the monsterless central hub map, where you learn about the story that loosely ties the project together—something about elemental gems, if I remember right, but it's not very important. The unusable portals here suggest that the project was originally intended to have more submissions, but you have two maps available to visit in either order to collect the gems. "Hruntheim" by @Crazy Toni seems like it was created by a newish mapper and is a bit austere, but it does a pretty decent job at creating a rudimentary city layout with many buildings to poke through (and also some funky white and gold super-Ettins with a ranged ice shard attack). "Fortress of Solitude" by @Paar is the much stronger companion spoke map, and my second favorite map in the project. Set in and around a big, sandboxy mountain stronghold, it has a great sense of adventure that plays out in a few different stages; you start out on the snowy cliffside and work your way across hostile terrain over bottomless drops until you reach the main fortress, where you can engage in dungeon crawling through two or three levels of architecture or use bridges to cross the chasm and reach smaller side-areas. Being able to take in the whole setting from the start but then exploring one piece at a time is a cool feeling.

 

Once you beat everything else, you're given access to the final map, @Marisa Kirisame's "Viridescent," which is the biggest and most complex, beautiful, and distinctive map in the set. It's kind of a whole little game unto itself. Though it has some wilderness areas, the majority of it is set is an underground cult temple characterized equally by darkness and bright green light. This map has a potent horror vibe, and although the visual style makes it a bit difficult to navigate at times, it also gives it a huge amount of character that I unironically think would be lost if you could see where you were going all the time. The whole place is really creepy, and there are lots of custom cultists and other enemies waiting to spring ambushes on you in the dark corners. There's a huge boss fight at the heart of it, but surprisingly that isn't the end, as you end up having to go back aboveground, assault another fortress, and do another boss fight. This last section's a bit underwhelming compared to the cult temple, but the final fight I had with the Maulotaur smiths isn't the "true" ending; I gather there's some way to unlock a True Final Boss and a better ending, but I never figured out how to get to it. I suppose both endings are good, really—in one of them, you unleash a terrible ancient evil and kill it, and in the other, you simply don't unleash the terrible ancient evil.

 

Ultimately, the project ended up being pretty small, but the maps that made it in present interesting takes on the theme. It's especially worth playing for Marisa's map, but it's not a one-person show; I thought most of them were pretty good, and it's a worthwhile set for anyone who's interested in Hexen and UTnT/ZDCMP/ZPack-style GZDoom projects.

Edited April 26, 2022 by Not Jabba

[whirledtsar]

Nice reviews. As far as I remember, the frozen portals in the hub aren't based on any planned/scrapped maps, theyre just there for decoration.

[Marisa the Magician]

Oh geez, my map isn't that big of a deal, please.

[Not Jabba]

Putrid Industry by @cannonball

 

   

 

This one wasn't even announced last year; it just quietly slid onto /idgames without a forum post, and I doubt that many people noticed at the time or have heard of it since. Putrid Industry is an homage to one of the most recognizable maps in Vile Flesh, "Flesh Mill" (map 21), an imposing metal construct designed to churn flesh, blood, and bone into...well, it's not clear what, but it can't be any good. Hell's "human resources" department, if you will. Putrid Industry borrows several memorable scenes from the Vile Flesh map, including the harbor-like opening area, the wooden walkways, and the cavernous factory floor with its chugging pistons—but rather than expanding them into a monstrosity of scale and detail, it simply gives them its own spin, reimagining the layout and gameplay to be a bit more fun while keeping the same tone and aesthetic as the original.

 

Like "Flesh Mill," Putrid Industry starts out with a semi-hot start (enemies coming toward you, but they're melee enemies) and a Berserk grab for a nice little tangle of Tyson gameplay, but Putrid Industry gives the encounter more teeth: doors opening by surprise, Revenants with the pack of melee enemies guarding the Berserk, an Arachnotron blocking the escape path and laying down cover fire as you try to punch everything else to death, and a shotgun and some hitscanners thrown into the mix. It has pressure from a lot of angles and sources, but it's not actually that monster-dense or viciously tough—which describes the whole map in a nutshell. Some mild resource scarcity early on and a lot of wall-drop ambushes are calculated to keep you on your toes while the fighting is lighter. Together, they push you forward through a progression that consists of lots of small circular loops, popping you back through previously visited areas and letting you explore new ones in turn, and allowing the big central factory area to repeatedly serve as the main stage. The last third of the map ramps up the intensity a bit: a footwork-centric fight across the wooden catwalks with mobile revenants and perched enemies, a fun crusher battle, a truly scary fight against little more than a couple of Arch-Viles and Pain Elementals, and a big finale on the factory floor where the few Arch-Viles are the only real threat and the rest is just fun with rockets.

 

Like the combat, everything else about the map feels clean and deliberate—nice material texturing, strong architecture, good secrets. As a fan of cannonball and Vile Flesh, I'm glad I didn't miss out.

 

 

Driven by @Fonze

 

   

 

Like all of Fonze's work, Driven is a very conceptual map. It's a stock-textured UDoom map, but with brutal combat puzzles and intricate modern detailing. It's super sandboxy, but mid-sized and compact. You can skip half the map if you want, but the best stuff is in the optional portions. Pretty much anything can happen at any time. Sound good yet?

 

Right at the start, you're faced with four possible directions and the butt-ends of various monsters to give you hints about what kinds of threats you might expect once you start waking things up. Essentially, you are deciding the angle at which you want the shit to hit the fan. But if you end up sticking around the start area winnowing down the opposition one at a time with the shotgun, you're probably doing it wrong. The real choice is between two main paths, one of which is basically Kill Everything With Cells and the other of which is basically Kill Everything With Rockets. Ammo is bountiful once you get going, and many of those nearly 700 enemies are torn to smithereens in enormous killing sprees with heavy weapons (you'd better be pretty damn careful with rockets in the map's various close quarters, though).

 

It would be just slightly inaccurate to say the map is one giant puzzle; really, it's a bunch of smaller puzzles that together create something that feels like a cohesive riddle or puzzle box. The progression itself is a puzzle, but it includes many optional mini-puzzle sidepaths and a few platforming/spatial conundrums. Each of the secrets is its own little puzzle, but most especially the switch/stair builder puzzle that's required to get the BFG. And, of course, all of the major fights are their own combat puzzles, from the initial challenge of gaining a foothold to the completely optional final boss fight against a Mastermind, its Cyberdemon bodyguards, and a rather enormous posse of minions. Both times I played the map, I missed several secrets (though I definitely did better the second time), but other than that, an observant player should have the pleasure of figuring out how to get to all the optional stuff with a pleasant amount of "aha!" and little frustration—though actually beating all the fights is perhaps another matter. Even on the recommended HMP setting, it's still one of the tougher maps I've played in the past few years.

 

Combat aside, Driven is a nice-looking map with lots of great techbase details and some interesting use of texture, scene-setting, and color (especially red). The linedef work was apparently so intricate in some places that Fonze kept having trouble with node-building, but I think it paid off in the end—this is a fancy-ass map, and fancy-ass maps make me happy. I don't think I can recommend this one for tourists, though, unless you play with no monsters; the gameplay requires some serious commitment, and the map is best appreciated by people who really want to make that commitment.

 

 

The Darkened Outpost by @Kristian Nebula

 

   

 

The Darkened Outpost was one of the two at-launch showcases for OTEX, released on the 25th anniversary of Doom alongside the texture pack itself and Eviternity. And whereas Eviternity is about showing off the imaginative heights of OTEX, the new settings and potential for advanced aesthetics and detailing, Darkened Outpost is about what OTEX can do in the context of simpler, more Darkening-esque mapping—which seems very fitting, given ukiro's roots. The level of detail is pretty light, but as with Putrid Industry, the architecture is very clean, with a focus on realistic material texturing (something OTEX has a huge amount of potential for) and a pretty strong sense of setting.

 

True to its name, Darkened Outpost explores the mostly dark innards of a derelict base and contrasts them with large, more brightly lit exterior sections that wrap around the two halves of the base. That contrast gives the map a fair amount of character, but for me, those dark inner areas are where the setting feels the most real and engaging. It's very gloomy, with a lot of surprises and some nice individualized details in the form of machinery, computer panels, conveyors, and the like—although that darkness does seem to have the side effect of hiding a lot of raised hitscanners that are very difficult to see. The progression as a whole doesn't have a pronounced sense of climax or rising action—challenge spikes come somewhat randomly, and there's no particularly dramatic sendoff—but personally I rarely have a problem with that, and I don't think it hurts this map. The base is a realist construction, with realistic nooks and crannies, realistic movement to its layout, and challenges that fit whatever area you happen to wander into. People seem to attach a lot of negative meaning to terms like "base crawl" or "dungeon crawl," but I like the feeling of inhabiting the setting along with the enemies, taking my time to absorb what I'm seeing and measuring my progress little by little by where I've been and what threats I've eliminated rather than being reduced to reactions and mechanical analysis via constant pressure (which even the easier mapsets seem to want me to do these days). I like that parts of this map are just chill, but are then followed by sudden unexpected danger. The dark, realistically immersive atmosphere is a pretty powerful tool for enhancing those threat shifts as well.

 

Like the other maps I'm including in this small set of reviews, The Darkened Outpost is comfortably mid-sized and makes good use of its size. All of them serve as a nice counterpoint to the hour-long (or more) megamaps that comprise a lot of single-map releases. I think any one facet or style of design would be less meaningful without contrast, and thankfully the Doom community gives us plenty of everything. That variety and breadth of choices is always a useful thing to think about when deciding what to play and what to create.

 

Note: because of its early release, The Darkened Outpost doesn't contain any OTEX textures and requires the texture pack to run properly. It doesn't appear to be compatible with otex.pk3, which didn't exist at the time, but the current WAD version runs just fine.

Edited April 26, 2022 by Not Jabba

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

Love your reviews @Not Jabba, there aren't enough Heretic fans out there. I remember reading your opinion on the Hexen-themed maps in Whispers of Satan, you perfectly described how those maps made me feel. I thought I was the only one since most people seem to see WoS as a more whimsical wad. One of my favorites.

[Fonze]

Thank you so much for the review NJ! <3

 

It's always a pleasure to read your insightful thoughts on doom and heretic stuffs; was a very special treat to read your review on driven.

 

Thanks for your dedication to this hobby; you're a legend :D

[cannonball]

Cheers for the review, embarrassingly I forgot I even released this and I just put it on IDgames as it was a single old map from an idea that never materialised. I was personally a fan of Vile Flesh's rather expansive later levels so it was nice to make something of a tribute to that.

[RonnieJamesDiner]

The Mapwich by @Bridgeburner56 et al

 

 

 

    

 

Springing from the mad mapper’s sanitarium – otherwise known as the Hellforge Discord server – this wily, rag-tag team of connoisseurs emerged with one of 2019’s more charismatic offerings. Navigating between vanilla resources, the pitfalls of randomly selected mapping pairs, and the unusual subject of it’s presentation, it still managed to make it’s way to the dining room table – so, how does it taste?

 

Outside of the rather serious, and often darker tones found throughout the levels, we’re immediately greeted with a farcical sense of self-awareness when we boot up – the hilariously impatient GIF of a hungry Doom Slayer, a tasty MIDI riff to get the saliva flowing, (some sort of floppy disk sandwich), and each of the Skill Levels delightfully renamed to match the mood. I think “Feed Me Plenty” is my favorite, but they’re all gold.

 

Bridgeburner takes full advantage of first impressions to make the message loud and clear. This is not just another Doom WAD – this is a culinary mission; a piquant dish for the truly discerning Doom palate, and an artistic expression of, well... sheer insanity, I suppose. Grab a shotgun, and dig in.

 

    

 

Right off the bat, one of the best decisions made is to feature a HUB map that cleans the slate, and allows each level to command it’s own pace from a pistol-start. The hub is a gorgeous amphitheater of gateways, demonstrating the impressive creativity waiting to be discovered by Mapwich’s mastery of the stock resources, and reinforcing the project’s leitmotif. A booming, devilish voice welcomes us to the great feast in a priceless parody of DOOM 2016’s Slayer Testaments, and as we step into each portal, we get a glimpse of the map names, creators, and difficulty ratings: Lightly Toasted, Thick and Creamy, Refreshingly Sharp, Extravagantly Savory, Flavor Explosion... While these aren’t always the most helpful descriptions, they’re fun as hell. And, let us not forget the stunning sector-art sandwich at our feet as we load into the room – the titular Mapwich, as it were.

 

Particularly praiseworthy is the fact that, without any control over who they would ultimately be tasked to build a map with – names were quite literally pulled from a hat – each pair of mappers managed to deliver something cohesive through a variety of creative approaches. There’s little sign of disharmony across the set, and what ended up on the plate is nothing short of a polished experience. Like any community effort, it’s impossible to characterize the project as any single genre, but it’s fair to say that the majority of these teams set out to draw blood. Having played through this set twice now, once on Ultra-Violence and again on Hurt Me Plenty, I’ll admit that I found the latter experience more rewarding. On HMP, there’s an overall greater sense of consistency, likely owing to some of the project’s sharpest edges being ground down just enough to keep them from feeling like thorns. (I’m also not that good at Doom).

 

So without further ado, let’s dig into the meat.

 

    

 

Taking a page straight from D2TWiD’s philosophical rubric is @Jimmy’s and The Individualist’s “Terminus Point”, a non-linear circuit with all the familiarity of a classic map, and one of the more conservative approaches found in Mapwich – it’s these discreet ventures that remind us why we keep coming back after 25 years. In similar vein is “They Heard You Growling”, a violent, and intimately familiar outing by @galileo31dos01 and @Pegleg with a tense, unraveling introduction making great use of the Chainsaw.

 

Fleshing out some of the more recognizable themes, we find maps like “Subtle Calameaty”, a three-man effort built by @Terminus, @MegaBlast, and @TollyCastle, that finds us traversing a crumbling fortress replete with lethal ambushes, blood-soaked intestinal tunnels and an exciting throne room siege. “Backdraft”, where @AD_79 and @leekster take it upon themselves to put John Romero and Sandy Peterson to shame by showing them what a Doom II city map should be, from the carefully plotted incidental combat, to the absolutely flawless looping progression. In “Foundered”, @Major Arlene and @Sparks take us through the sweltering heart of a massive, industrial forge overrun by hellspawn; an expansive factory setting, clad in obsidian steel that culminates in a thunderous end run.

 

And then, there’s the delightful charm of “A Nation Tainted”, by @Breezeep and @Yonttebloke, a map that opens with an elegantly crafted temple excursion, before shifting into a Viggle’s-esque labyrinthine library. Despite the unabashedly brown exterior, the core of this map is a fun, and lighthearted retreat into more comfortable territory, perfectly underscored by an irresistibly feelgood MIDI.

 

In the techbase department, we’re in great company with efforts like “Back Again”, @Liberation’s and @xvertigox’s incredibly eerie ode to Doom 64 that sets the player through a sprawling facility, where flickering lights and flooded corridors lead you from one deadly trap to the next, and keen observers may spy clever nods to a number of classic maps along the way. There’s also @CyanoBlugron’s and @Alfredo’s ambitious techbase adventure, “Concrete Vivarium”, an escalating journey that slowly builds intensity across a slew of exciting encounters beneath a striking green skyline, before finally steering headfirst into two massive, wave-based arena fights – like twin juggernauts guarding the exit.

 

Or, take @SiMpLeToNiUm’s and @Lorenz0’s immersive “Technical Difficulties”, an unsung gem for fans of this time-honored theme. Despite relying on convention to guide the fundamental design, this team manages to transform what could have been a rather banal entry, into an inspired re-imagining of the classic techbase crawl. With dynamic lighting and surface reflections hemmed into the environment seamlessly, layered on top of the absolute attention to detail, this is the kind of “modern classic” style that UDMF was built for. Thankfully, there is a nearly perfect "run-and-gun" pace that never seeks to slow you down before the epic conclusion, leaving the player with plenty of energy to explore the finer elements of this extraordinary tour de force.

 

As the set begins to slowly wade into unorthodox territory, we find levels like “Erosion”, by @Clay and @MarketAnarchy, that despite falling into the trap of Doom II’s chromatic monotony, manages to take it’s simple hub design and produce some of the more inventive setpieces that Mapwich has to offer. @Remmirath’s and @Nirvana’s “Seasoning the Obese” takes us through a tight, thrilling gauntlet, where health and ammunition are scrupulously rationed like clockwork, and a UV Max feels almost necessary. Then, there’s @JustCallMeKaito’s and Plecthron’s “Bastardized Ossuary of Misery” – perhaps the most fascinating, and appropriately named map on the menu – an intricate Gothic madhouse, rife with claustrophobic combat, distressing ambushes, and even fiercer arenas.

 

Of course, the meal would be incomplete without a few entries high enough on the Scoville scale to send you sprinting for the water. For anyone who prefers their food spicy, and heavy, Mapwich has you covered.

 

Among the project’s more overtly slaughter-oriented servings, @Insane_Gazebo’s and @Danlex’s “Baphomet’s Bagel” stands very tall, indeed – figuratively, and literally. The colossal structure immediately dominates the space, inviting you into it’s madness with all of the requisite indications. Even maneuvering between the central ring and it’s outlying towers, this team demands your attention as they have you skipping across fractured pillars high above a molten bed. While the combat never seems eager to break new ground, the arenas are engaging in that meticulous and visceral sort of way – they’re very deliberate in their aim, but the aim is high and the result is extremely rewarding.

 

There’s Bridgeburner’s and @General Roasterock’s “Collateral Damage”, where the Grand Poobah of the Linedef Cult leaves his unmistakable mark on the table, in a Stygian hellscape brimming with trademark detail and tyrannical architecture. Together, this mapping duo generated some of the meatier, and nastier fights found in Mapwich. Boasting the highest monster count, this is likely the longest outing you’ll face – but for that reason among many, it’s also one of the most memorable. 

 

Finally... how @Scotty and @NoReason managed to get paired up will forever remain a mystery, but these masochistic fiends didn’t stray far from their affinity for pain. This set has something for everyone, and “Eat This!” is certainly built for a particular crowd – but, that doesn’t mean you should shy away from it. Beneath an intimidating start lies a carefully curated experience that relies heavily on knowing which weapon to use, and which target to prioritize, rather than any kind of unreasonable degree of skill. However, there is a caveat. The closing arena is a steep jump in difficulty, and is likely the most challenging fight that Mapwich has to offer – certainly, on Ultra-Violence.

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I’m a big fan of “restrictions breed creativity”, and limiting themselves to the IWAD textures meant that these mappers had to find creative solutions to the problem at hand – namely, Doom II doesn’t offer a lot in the way of variety, or theme. And, while the themes across Mapwich are generally predictable, this project proved to be an outstanding demonstration of what these assets are still capable of. There is palpable anticipation every time you leave the hub map, and no matter where you’re headed, you’re never headed for disappointment.

 

I’m really not sure what the ingredients are in Mapwich’s secret sauce, that seem to have brought out the best from everyone who participated, but I can only hope that this marks the beginning to a long-running series of sequel projects.

[Not Jabba]

Fantastic review, @RonnieJamesDiner! I never got around to playing Mapwich 1, but now I'm salivating.

 

 

(Just so everyone knows, I invited RJD to guest post here whenever they like, so hopefully this isn't the last we've heard from them.)

[Bridgeburner56]

Fantastic write up @RonnieJamesDiner and you've managed to bring back many good memories of that project. It was smorgasbord of fun. 

[Liberation]

Great job RJD, awesome review!

[Steve88]

Ohh @RonnieJamesDiner
you have such a way with words (swoon)

[SiMpLeToNiUm]

Wow RJD, that was quite the passionate write up! Giving me all the warm fuzzies back from Mapwich 1. Well done!

[Not Jabba]

It's the right time of year for my "You Have to See This One Really Cool Thing" Edition, a roundup of smaller releases that have one particularly neat design feature or fill an unusual niche. For those keeping track, it also marks the end of my 2019 coverage, at least for the forseeable future. I haven't even come close to covering everything—I never got around to Adonis, Sinergy, Ultimate Doom the Way id Did, Czechbox, Mayhem 19, franckFRAG's release dump, or a number of other projects I played last year that are good enough to write about. Unfortunately, I don't have the time or energy to cover everything, and I'll just have to leave them for other people as I focus on the things that excited me the most personally and that I have the most to say about. Fortunately, there's quite a bit of review coverage these days! I may try to sweep through a couple more 2017-2018 reviews before the next season starts, and for next year I'm planning to go back further and start writing about unawarded projects from the full history of Doom, which means I probably won't be covering as many new releases. Whatever the year brings, I hope you enjoy the reviews!

 

 

 

Moonlight by @dobu gabu maru

 

   

 

Moonlight is a pure puzzle map with no monsters, so it's not surprising that it comes from the creator of The Given, the greatest Doom puzzle map of all. Moonlight goes a bit more alien than that, though, in that it basically has no Doom mechanics at all except for occasional switch pressing to select answers to the questions the environment leaves for you to solve. Whereas most puzzles in The Given are heavily designed around Doom's interactive actions—raising and lowering floors, height variations, teleportation, etc.—the ones in Moonlight are based around cryptology, interpreting images and learning coded languages that are scattered around the space. In other words, you can't really use Doom-related skills to solve anything, and instead you'll need a pen and paper handy and skills that you probably need to have learned from outside the game. You might say that Moonlight is a game designed and theoretically played on paper and merely transplanted into the Doom engine (and I have heard this argument made), but I don't think that's quite right. There's a beauty and a feeling of simulation to it that you couldn't have outside of a video game, even though it does feel far more abstract than The Given. The sense of perspective that you gain by traversing a large playable space, of having the clues presented to you at life size and having to look around corners to find them in the first place, the sense that the environment and its images are lore that forms part of a world you're exploring, the gentle but faintly intrepid lull of the music—these are unique to the medium, unless of course you have the means to create a giant sculpture garden in your real-life five-hundred-acre yard. At the same time, the deceptive flatness of the black-and-white environment does recall the abstraction of paper, as though you've been sucked into a world that exists in two dimensions but takes on the appearance of three every time you move. It's a beautiful and ethereal map, and it makes me wish I had better puzzle chops; to this day, I haven't completed it.

 

Most people don't know the full extent and the intrigue of dobu's collection of unfinished projects, but if you did, you'd probably be camped outside his house, holding up signs of encouragement and desperate for news. I've been there—I mean, not to his actual house, but still. It's wonderful that Moonlight was released, and we can only hope the rest will follow.

 

 

 

Drought by @Tango

 

   

 

Playing maps with gameplay mods that they weren't designed for is often a bit of a gamble, no matter how good the mod is, though of course not knowing exactly what to expect is part of the fun with mods. Mapsets designed specifically for existing mods are still a rare and pretty exciting thing, though they are becoming more popular; they showcase the best of what the mod has to offer and provide a sure bet for players who want to try out the mod in a balanced context. 

 

Drought was designed for last year's incredibly popular Doom 4 Vanilla, which it includes built-in. The whole point of this mod is the speed and ferocity of its gameplay, which combines the deadly abilities and individual power of New Doom's monsters with the highway-legal player speed and higher monster counts of classic Doom. The result is almost overwhelming but wildly fun, especially in Tango's hands. Drought feels similar to the way Tango handles his own Supercharge mod in Paradise—intensely lethal, capable of going from zero to sixty in an instant, and so fast-flowing that the onslaughts often hit you before you really know to expect them—but with the distinct flavor of the D4V mod, where monsters can suddenly leap across the room and rip off your face or OH MY GOD JETPACK REVENANTS. Map 03 is also particularly gorgeous, thanks to all the bright autumnal vines densely draped around its pale architecture.

 

 

 

Toxin Refinery Remake by @Guardsoul

 

   

 

The fact that this map doesn't really even have a name may say a lot about what players will like or dislike about it. Its identity is strongly and fully grounded in the map it's based on, and it plays a little more as a straight remake rather than a reimagining that echoes the original, like Z1M3 was. Though the latter approach will ultimately be seen as more memorable and unique, that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the former, and this particular remake is impressively good at what it sets out to do. Every location from the original map has been scaled up and given a makeover so that it looks much more attractive and modern, but the gameplay is still pretty streamlined (and you might say form still follows function, if you're into that sort of thing). The map makes good use of special effects as well, particularly the subtle steam clouds drifting in certain areas along with good old-fashioned sparks from broken machinery, translucent forcefields, and some very nice advanced lighting. Everything is done really tastefully, and the design feels clean almost to a fault—which is the exact right choice if you're going to adhere to the source material fairly closely, at least when the source material is Romero. There are some layout and progression changes to keep it fresh as well; interestingly, I think at least some of the new additions may be based on areas from Z1M3, giving them the same style of remake as the areas from the IWAD. The monster count is high and the hitscanners can sting a bit, but they are all stock E1 monsters, so it's not much harder than the original map and is pretty fun to blast through. As a single map in isolation, it's head-turning enough, but it feels like it's only a smaller piece of a project; it would be pretty neat to see an entire episode of this sort of treatment—or, better still, a completely original mapset in a similar style.

 

 

 

Saltwater by @meapineapple

 

   

 

Saltwater is mostly about ambiance, but it's about other things too. The setting alone is pretty interesting: you start out at your little cabin by a lighthouse, there's some heavy dusky repaletting in the sky and water to make it look like sunset, and the light levels are dim to match. Flocks of gulls hang in suspended animation overhead, and the "music" is purely ambient, just the calls of the gulls and the gentle sound of waves crashing on the shore. Across the water from where you start is a mysterious brick mansion; a convenient teleporter by the lighthouse takes you over there after you deal with a lone Pinky, and you spend either most or all of the remainder of the map parsing out the secrets of the mansion and clearing out its inhabitants, depending which exit you take. It seems simple enough at first, though the heavy teleport ambushes give you a fair amount to deal with, with combat that mostly revolves around Imps and Hell Nobles flooding your space, punctuated with a handful of pretty tricky Arch-Viles. But after you're seemingly done, you realize you've got about 80 more monsters and six secrets to go, and you can spend the rest of your time (or not, if you take the easy exit) hunting for the hidden passages and layered secrets that make up the rest of the map and ultimately return you home—and the twilit ambiance that was such a natural choice for the map's quiet start helps to carry you through to the ending and the odd feeling of peace that it brings. An unusual and interesting map all around.

 

 

 

Concrete Rage by @Dutch Doomer

 

   

 

"Casual" is a bit of a lost art. Sure, you have people who like their gameplay really hard and people who like it less hard, but modern mapping is almost universally characterized by constant pressure through moderate/heavy incidental combat that never lets up, regardless of how difficult a map ultimately is. People don't seem to want a break to stop and smell the roses. True casual was more of a 2000s thing, and though I've heard some challenge-lovers declare otherwise, it's not the same as being mindlessly easy. It's more like mindfully easy—very deliberate and even sort of zen-like in nature.

 

Dutch Devil was one of the master mappers of that era, and although he's a versatile mapper who's produced tougher maps as well, Concrete Rage captures a lot of that zen. This map has a decent number of monsters, but you're not constantly engaged and are rarely in serious danger. Like many maps of the 2000s, though, it's pleasant and satisfying to play. You start with the weakest monsters and slowly climb the bestiary as you work your way through the 240-ish enemies on the map until you end up with a few Barons, a few Revenants, an Arachnotron laying down cover fire, and the obligatory Lone Ending Arch-Vile. Being able to gun down everything quickly with your shotguns and chaingun makes it easy to appreciate the small things, like how carefully each monster is placed in the environment or how the rarer mid-tiers feel like they have more weight—or, most of all, the very fine craft of the architecture, which is probably the nicest thing about the map. It's actually very difficult to pull this sort of design off convincingly—to make every decision feel intentional when the player is moving slowly enough to notice everything, and to maintain the zen of the player experience without becoming dull—in some ways, more difficult than making a map that feels intense or challenging, because of the amount of discipline required. In any case, Concrete Rage is a very nice way to spend fifteen minutes. Give yourself a break and try it out.

 

 

 

Pumpkin Hell by @Jimmy

 

   

 

Speaking of old-school casual, of all the mappers active now, Jimmy is probably the one who understands it the best, though his implementation is a fair bit more Scythey compared to Dutch Devil's. Pumpkin Hell is a Boom-compat map, but it's spiritually pretty similar to the GZ-based Mercury Rain, in that it exists to explore a distinct visual theme and offers up mostly chill gameplay to accompany it. This particular theme is quite cute—basically just a faux-spooky pumpkin-orange version of classic Hell, complete with bright orangeade liquids and a cool jack-o-lantern landscape sky. Gravestones and glowing jack-o-lantern decorations add the finishing touch to most of the map's more interesting vistas, and the theme is driven home with a few little extra touches like pumpkin keys and, unsurprisingly for a Jimmy map, a custom MIDI that fits the mood perfectly. This sort of world-building and detail is exactly what's needed to bring out the best in casual maps, in my opinion; having an interesting world to engage your attention and gameplay that gives you room to fully appreciate the nuances of it is like peanut butter and jelly. Or pumpkin and spice, maybe? If you missed Pumpkin Hell when it came out, the timing is perfect, since Halloween is right around the corner.

Edited April 27, 2022 by Not Jabba

[NuMetalManiak]

20 minutes ago, Not Jabba said:

Sinergy, Ultimate Doom the Way id Did, Czechbox, Mayhem 19

I've covered these ones.
SINERGY
Mayhem 19
CZECHBOX
Also isn't Czechbox a 2020 wad?

[Not Jabba]

49 minutes ago, NuMetalManiak said:

Also isn't Czechbox a 2020 wad?

The final /idgames release was, but the RCs were in 2019.

[Tango]

you are a true gem @Not Jabba, I immensely appreciate the write-up 🙏 it's always a pleasure to read your thoughtful reviews!!

[meapineapple]

Thank you for playing Saltwater! Your thoughts are very much appreciated.

 

I might clarify that the brick mansion area took inspiration from real-world sea fortresses, such as Suomenlinna. (In fact, the WAD's TITLEPIC is a photo of Suomenlinna.)

[Not Jabba]

My Top 20 Maps of the 2020 Cacoward Season

 

Hey all, here I am with my top maps of the year countdown again. Sorry about the timing with the site being so slow. This was a neat year, and there are a lot of maps I wanted to recognize from a ton of projects across the board—there were quite a few excellent maps in larger projects that didn't get award recognition themselves, some of which are very high on this list. In addition to the main 20 and a zillion runners-up, I've added a few special extra "bests" at the end, just for fun. Enjoy!

 

 

Runners-up (alphabetically by wad/pk3):

 

*Seething Shadows by Scotty (Abandon map 07)
*Solaris by Scotty (Abandon map 09)
*Thrice-Razed Capitol by Benjogami and Bemused (Abandon map 16)
*Hellstation by @Cheesewheel (CPD map 19)
*Vulture's Point by @Jimmy (Faithless Trilogy E2M6)
*Cloister of Ichor by Jimmy (Faithless Trilogy E3M7)
*Lift Service by @Wraith777 (Gods & Guardians map 03)
*Floodworld by Wraith777 (Gods & Guardians map 05)
*What Could Go Wrong? by Big Ol Billy (Interception 2 map 06)
*Habitat Ring by @Moustachio, @stewboy, @Pegleg, and DFF (Interception 2 map 13)
*20,000 Monsters Under the Sea by @Insane_Gazebo and @dac (Mapwich 2 map 20)
*Knowledge Is Power by Bridgeburner and @Dragonfly (Mapwich 2 map 22)
*Urban War by RonnieJamesDiner (Mayhem 2020 map 15)
*Blood Eagle by Scotty (Nova 3 map 05)
*Tomb of Solitude by @dt_ (Nova 3 map 13)
*Alpha Scorpii Supercluster by antares031 (Nova 3 map 25/Antaresian Reliquary map 05)
*Solar Powered by Big Ol Billy (Nova 3 map 31)
*Aeternus by @killerkouhai and @Decay (Refracted Reality map 04)
*Void Bastion by @cannonball (Return to Hadron E3M7)
*Ambush! by @TravyB (Rowdy Rudy 2 map 11)
*Jungle Hijinx by Aurelius (Rowdy Rudy 2 map 15)
*Rooftop Rampage by A2Rob (Running Late 2 map 05)
*Terminal by @Marn
*Nowhere Fast by Scypek2 (Three Is a Crowd map 18)
*Extinction Burst by Scypek2 (Three Is a Crowd map 30)

 

 

20. Cargo Cult by @DFF (Interception 2 map 27)
Played on UV

 

 

Last year, even before boats were cool, the sector-art-heavy Interception 2 hosted one of the great boat maps of all time. After joining the team, DFF became one of the driving forces behind the project, the voice behind many of the maps that unify the whole megawad through an overarching narrative. "Cargo Cult" is the best of these, a loving tribute to all things Doomcute set in a sprawling, detailed city that would have been perfectly at home in Hellbound. Trashing a whole harborside block is just the lead-in to a riotous and bloody main course on and below the decks of the ship, complete with a kitchen, dormitory, engine room, towering crane, and more crates than you can shake a dead Imp at. 

 

Obviously I was just kidding about that first sentence. Boats were always cool.

 

19. Purgatorial Technologies by @antares031 (Dyingcamel’s Demons 3 map 09/Antaresian Reliquary map 04)
Played on HMP

 

 

This richly detailed and exquisitely beautiful map is worth playing no matter which of the two versions you try or which difficulty setting you play it on, though the stronger guns in Antaresian Reliquary certainly make your job a bit easier. One of the two crown jewels in the Reliquary (the other being "The Kerberos Complex," which I'm counting as a 2018 map), it mostly plays as a deeply atmospheric lull between more fast-paced maps, a dark and creepy stage that gives you enough breathing room to be almost contemplative...at least until it kicks into a higher gear at the end. Thanks to antares's knack for scene-setting, it's one of the better takes on the Hell-corrupted base that I've encountered, a locale where the tech is intricate enough to provide a strong sense of place even as the fleshy Hell elements have totally and horrifically consumed it.

 

18. Rigel Kentaurus by @nicolas monti (Alpha Centauri map 09)
Played on UV

 

 

Monti at his best is like Sandy Petersen on steroids...or hallucinogens, maybe. The demons haven't just brought their own reality with them; the world of Alpha Centauri is one where reality itself is rotting like a six-month-old pumpkin, where the surrealism of broken planes and melted texturing is still punctuated occasionally by concrete, utilitarian signs of the civilization that once inhabited the planet. Nowhere is this more clear than in "Rigel Kentaurus," with its outer ring of trolley tracks and galleries of passenger benches waiting for something long gone. Within the ring lies deathtrap after deathtrap, a set of challenges with little regard for the feelings of any player, skilled or unskilled, where sheer treachery becomes the great equalizer. The final fight is a perfect finishing blow for this style of gameplay; I hope you're good with a BFG.

 

17. The Cauldron by Scotty (Abandon map 02)
Played on UV

 

 

This appropriately named stress-test is the second (and last) Abandon map I've attempted to beat fairly, and it's extremely well positioned and planned as the true gateway to the rest of the mapset. It's not "baby slaughter" or whatever you might call a teach-as-you-go hardcore primer; Abandon skips that entirely. It is, however, an excellent introduction to the types of skills needed throughout the set and the high-level gameplay concepts you'll face, basically showing you what you need to progress and letting you learn one piece at a time whether you've got what it takes. Even aesthetically, it's a nicely self-contained (and very beautiful) look at the sort of universe that Abandon exists in. But gameplay-wise, each combat or platforming segment is its own particular lesson or "checkbox" that you need to tick off to pass onward: the opener a lesson in maneuvering through a crowded space, the red key fight a lesson in routing and projectile-handling, the northern fight a lesson in staying within a tight space while using rockets, the final hub visit a lesson in letting the enemy do the work for you, and so on—and yet each is also a well-designed and enjoyable warm-up piece for the set's real audience, or for someone like me who's just good enough to attempt the map. As for the end fight...well, as far as I can tell, that's a lesson in knowing when you're beat.

 

16. The Crate Escape by @Big Ol Billy (Umbral Platinum map 07)
Played on UV

 

 

BOB is a versatile mapper, and though he's probably best known for shorter concept maps, "The Crate Escape" feels more like one of the centerpieces of an action-driven 2010s megawad, a longer monster-packed epic with a layout built around a memorable central scene. In my opinion, it's the sleekest and best-looking map he's made, as well as the one with the strongest sense of adventure—and besides, you will never convince me that crates aren't a universally positive mapping trope. They just make everything better. The main shipping yard divides the map like a canyon, but your choice of paths will loop you all around the huge storage facility before taking you down to the water for a couple of energetic climactic fights.

 

15. Freaky Panties 2: Boxers or Briefs by @Remilia Scarlet
Played on UV

 

 

I've already written about FP2, and a few other individual maps on this list, but I'll do my best to blurb about them again without falling into a rut. One of the coolest things about FP2 that I haven't already mentioned is the penultimate setpiece, which revolves around a "cursed Berserk"—once you pick it up, you're stuck with the zerked fist until a certain amount of time has passed. A couple of flying Manc-type minibosses keep you on your toes while you plow through an army of popcorn Imps Tyson-style, all while managing radsuits and an Invuln in an arena that's mostly nukage. This paves the way for the true boss fight that's soon to follow, and it exemplifies what I like about FP2 in a nutshell: the deep sense of choreography, the way it flows from one moment to the next, but without imposing the high level of difficulty or combat-puzzliness that gameplay choreography is typically associated with—which is perhaps what makes the map feel so much like dancing.

 

14. Feeling Run Down by @an_mutt (Isolation map 23)
Played on UV

 

 

A creepy soundtrack adds to the gloomy, dungeon-like feel of this map—and I say "dungeon" knowing full well that it's a techbase, strictly speaking. It's not just the Ocarina of Time track that makes this map feel like a Legend of Zelda dungeon. The first portion of the map revolves around an elevator that goes a lot farther than you think, moving you between floors as you work out the proper sequence of events, until you gain access to the supply of radsuits that serve as your puzzle item to help get you through the rest of the map. Each little piece of the progression is a small combat puzzle or spatial puzzle or a puzzle to figure out how to always be wearing a radsuit in the slime that coats the entire second half—even when you're in the middle of a tough fight—and it's all that puzzling that really makes it feel like TLoZ. Add to that the dreary mood of the Isolation palette and all-enclosed restriction of the project, and you've got yourself the perfect claustrophobic dungeon. I have a lot to say about how great Isolation is as a concept, and "Feeling Run Down" plays to that concept better than any other map in the set.

 

13. Lost in Translation by @DMPhobos and @Misty (Mapwich 2 map 10)
Played on HMP

 

 

Here's a map that's really easy to chill with, and just a pure pleasure to play. Rocky gardens full of autumnal foliage and gently blowing leaves stretch across floating islands in a classic black void, surrounding bastions of slipgate tech and rusty metal. Bright duck-ponds of purple oozejuice add to the ambience, and the music is seriously groovy, settling you right into the map's gameplay loop with its space-agey feel. Even the bounce pads are just the right sort of kinetic. The pacing feels very finely tuned, and the map a perfectly trimmed medium length, despite being a collaboration between two mappers, the sum of its parts achieving a synergy that would be impressive even in a map created by one person, let alone two. Not too easy and not to hard, with nice small challenge spikes for its setpieces, it's a great study in how to make a level that's both comfortable and consistently engaging at the same time.

 

12. Technicolor Antichrist Box by @Major Arlene
Played on HMP

 

 

What's the word I'm looking for? Colorful? Fancy? Vivid, maybe (it's colorful and fancy too, though). It's the vividness that intrigues me—the willingness to take what could potentially have been a fairly conventional indoor-outdoor fortress map and make it feel so cosmically elevated while still keeping the strange groundedness of rocky gardens and gothic architecture; or the wherewithal to build it as such a striking visual setting and then mold combat around features that feel at home there, the swoop of staircases and the confusion of foliage and the vertigo of scrambling upward to reach enemies raining hurt down on you from overhead all making fights more memorable than the clinical fairness of level, flat ground. Though it's constructed mostly as setpieces, there's a certain fluidity to it, often allowing you to slip from one room to the next and loop back through later without disrupting the works. Good thing any given area is worth looking at twice!

 

11. Mutabor by @tourniquet
Played on UV (UV is medium; skill 2 ("Onslaught") is the hard setting)

 

 

Like its predecessors, Mutabor is a labyrinth in the best sense. It's a huge puzzle with multiple ways in, multiple ways out, multiple ways to overcome each challenge or approach the level as a whole; there's always another path drawing you in with the possibilities of what could lie beyond, always another secret to unravel or another door to unlock. With its surprising complexity and overwhelming optionality, it improves on what tourniquet already did well with Miasma and Altitude. The main difference is that it's more and better. The labyrinth is built around hard-edged skyscrapers and smoothly operating tech, but it doesn't feel like a place made by human hands, and its mysteries are inviting. Just watch out for minotaurs.

 

10. Ar Luminae by @Aurelius and @JustCallMeKaito
Played on HNTR

 

 

My advice for how to make a 3+-hour map is still "don't make a 3+-hour map," but Ar Luminae is some extremely cool Dooming nonetheless. One of my favorite things about it is the way it sets the stage; starting out in the safety of the space station, you're given the chance to look around, take in the enormity of your task in the Room of Many Portals, and wonder at the mysteries of the artifact pedestal, the monster miniature collection, the missing floppy disk, and the vending machine, all of which provide goals for you to pursue later. Ar Luminae sprawls out over a huge array of scenarios and settings, including some very creative setpiece battles, but it maintains the sensation of traveling through a single connected megacomplex; as extensive as it is, it really does feel like you've beamed down to an entire planet, trekking over a significant portion of its surface and facing a significant portion of its total opposition—and although I think this scale and depth of setting would have lent itself well to a more adventurey and less aggressive tone, that's a very rare and memorable feeling nonetheless.

 

9. Sheer Poison by @Scypek2 (Three Is a Crowd map 29)
Played on UV

 

 

It won't take anyone long to figure out the gimmick of this map; every single floor surface is set as damaging, so you unavoidably take constant damage and have to rely on health and armor pickups to survive. Rather than being lenient, it plays like an old "Nintendo Hard" platformer or shmup; you have to learn the map little by little before you can survive a whole run of it, but once you learn it, it becomes a blood-pumping, white-knuckle joyride, an Olympic triathlon with death at your heels. Like Erik Alm's "Run From It," many people will despise this map, but for me, the constant feedback and smoother learning curve makes "Sheer Poison" a much better realization of the same concept. What really does it for me is the narrative, though—the way the map fits into the dramatic arc of the whole megawad, and its message of selflessness and self-sacrifice. If you can take off your Gamer goggles long enough to beat it, it tells a story that matches its gameplay perfectly: a story of human strength in the face of suffering, of picking yourself back up to try again, and having the courage to do what you have to do for the greater good.

 

8. Overtime by @A2Rob (Running Late 2 map 10)
Played on UV

 

 

"Overtime" is so on point; there's no excess or fluff, and the timing and angling and setup of every event feels just right. Like a sharp and ambitious assistant office manager, it's driven and it's punctual and it knows exactly what you need even before you do. From the incidental enemies popping from around corners, the eminently rocketable Imp trains, and the Cyberdemon turret foreman that commands the first third of the map, to the bigger, deeper fights along the dam walls, down in desert basins and reservoirs, to the happy little ferocity of the final pincer maneuver and boss fight...it's not just that the fighting is pleasantly bite-sized, dramatic enough to make you jump and run but then wrapped up before you have a split second to get tired of it. What makes it even better is that every piece of its gameplay is brilliantly connected to the setting, the terrain and architecture defining the flow and the sense of place all at once.

 

7. Tartarus by @RonnieJamesDiner
Played on UV

 

 

A single-map runner-up ranked above two single-map Cacoward winners? Salty! Not really though—it was an extremely close race, and the Cacowards aren't a one-person show, so individual variance is to be expected. 

 

Tartarus itself is full of surprises, though. With its blood-hazy abyssal setting, towering central summit, and enormous hanging chains, it's certainly one of the coolest-looking settings presented last year. Like many great Quake community maps, it gives the impression that the grandeur and awe of the setting and architectural construction will carry the experience of the map—and indeed, these elements are too awesome to ignore, forming a conspicuous and looming parallax backdrop that makes every fight feel theatrically staged. Also like a great Quake map, it knows how to use its height as a factor that drives exploration and secret-hunting, and how to work the danger of falling miles to your death into a natural part of the pathfinding and combat. But as aesthetic-driven and new-wavey as it looks, the handful of setpieces that make up the bulk of its combat are both adventurous and very Doomy. Though it has some similarities to Bastion of Chaos, it makes a great counterpoint to it as well—proof that this sort of epic power-map will work perfectly well in a compact format with a shorter duration.

 

6. A Partner of the 49th Day by @Kurashiki (Nova 3 map 10)
Played on UV

 

 

One of my favorite JPCP authors returns with "A Partner of the 49th Day," the final map of Nova 3's Hell episode and the best map in the megawad. The rocket launcher is the first weapon you get, and rockets and plasma are the most common ammo, so the map is non-stop fun as you blast your way from the first handfuls of Imps to the big horde fights near the end. With its fiery red wastelands and giant temple, it reminds me very strongly of the last episode of Scythe 2—and the battles remind me of Erik Alm's too, but there is always plenty of variety. After you enter the temple, the action builds up through its twisted dungeons and sewers until you reach the large cathedral chamber where the biggest fight happens—but even after that, there is still more to do. The ending scene is beautiful and leaves me wanting even more. Nanka Kurashiki, please come back and make more Doom maps! We love you!

 

5. Acheron’s Needle by @Xaser and @Marcaek (Syringe map 06)
Played on UV

 

 

It's hard to talk about this map without spoilers, but hard to tell you how awesome it is without talking about it. Suffice to say that it's a very story-driven experience, which is why I like it so much. Nor will screenshots do it much justice; like BTSX or Suspended in Dusk, it's fairly sparse on sectors but accomplishes its feats through impressively polished presentation and smart texturing that conveys all the narrative details needed to describe the setting. The opposition isn't too scary in real terms, but it's dramatic; the map's story is about plunging into the heart of evil to restore a broken reality, navigating a world whose apocalyptic disintegration is represented by skewed height variations and islands crumbling into void, defying time itself and facing the worst your enemies can throw at you to activate the final cinematic solution, and then defending your goal one last time. It's a master class in environmental storytelling—magnificent stuff.

 

4. Per Nox ad Astra by @CyanoBlugron (Refracted Reality map 09)
Played on UV

 

 

"Per Nox" feels so peaceful. Partly it's the hymn-like music (probably the best "compiled" soundtrack choice of 2020) that settles around you and feels like it becomes part of the very air you breathe, but it's not just that. The map divides its time between an inky netherworld that houses some sort of divine astrolabe and a starry abyss where curving bridges connect the crypt-like silhouettes of a deep blue temple complex, weaving between the two worlds through seamless and flawlessly framed portal usage. Throughout the temple, you encounter the ghostly, motionless apparitions of monsters, and although it's immediately clear that they will wake up and come for you, you never really know when it will happen: some get the drop on you right away, others wake up in waves, and some remain dormant for multiple pass-throughs of the main complex, waiting for just the right moment. In any case, the thrumming, sustained tranquility of the map is precisely what allows its bursts of violence to feel so intense—and the final fight, though it equips you well enough to avoid feeling overbearing, is certainly one to remember.

 

3. Bastion of Chaos by @Bridgeburner56
Played on HNTR

 

 

One of the great things about this map is how open the view is in contrast to the harrowing closeness of the playable space; no matter where you are, you can look out a window or out over a ledge and see other parts of the citadel around you. It's no small feat to design a map this way and still cram gorgeous detailing and stacked 3D designs everywhere, and although it doesn't play smoothly for everyone, the optimization is itself impressive. The sum total of all of that architectural grandeur and planning is that you feel overwhelmingly dwarfed and surrounded, as though the Bastion is not only alive and godlike, but holds you in the palm of its hand and peers down at you from every angle, inescapable and threatening. In this regard, Bastion of Chaos is unmatched, even by comparable releases like Ar Luminae and Abandon. So it's fitting that the gameplay arc of the map has such a Mt. Everest feel to it, too energizing to be exhausting and spiraling steadily upward until its climax crashes over you like a storm—and when you're finally the last one standing, you feel like you're straddling the top of the mountain, waving your BFG at the sky and laughing at the gods.

 

2. Felstoy Abbey by @Razumen (Realms of Cronos map 11)
Played as Mage on skill 4

 

 

I know I just said "don't make a 3+-hour map," but I'll make an exception for "Felstoy Abbey" with no regrets. Part of the reason is that the action isn't extremely challenging or draining; it's mostly a comfortable, lightly threatening classic Hexen pace throughout aside from a few of the biggest fights. But as with Ar Luminae, a lot of the reason it works is because it has an identity that's all its own. "Felstoy Abbey" is a world unto itself, a seemingly endless network of citadel-like monastery with swampy canyons draped all around it. Your path wends its way through these interiors and exteriors, culminating with three fantastic "trials" designed to bring out the best of each player class and push the limitations of each one as a concept. The amazing thing about this map is that it is so purely Hexen—each test and each unique idea fits the game like a glove and harmonizes with its distinctive tone, exploring the far reaches of its mechanics and concepts in a way that no one has before. This behemoth came out of nowhere, a contribution to a community project by a mapper I've never heard of that takes up half the runtime of the entire mapset, but it should be seen as essential canon for Hexen fans, as it's almost certainly the best map ever made for that game.

 

1. Gehenna by @bemused (Abandon map 13)
   Switchblade by @Scotty (Abandon map 15)
   New Life From Old by @Benjogami (Abandon map 17)
Played on UV with godmode
   

 

 

2020 was an incredible year for slaughter. Hell, I ran most of Abandon with godmode, and it was still probably the coolest thing I played all year. I found it impossible to rank these three exceptional maps, let alone pick just one of them, so rather than allow them to take the three top spots and push other deserving things off the list, I've chosen a compromise that will hopefully make everyone happy.

 

One of the things I like about Abandon is that instead of being coldly abstract all the time, it often gives glimpses of what could be an underlying Lovecraftian narrative. "Gehenna"—which is vaguely reminiscent of "Hag's Finger" (Sunder map 10), but spread across an entire city-like structure rather than a single tower—is probably the most narrative of all. The map features a huge, nearly monsterless opening sequence that sends you most of the way around the outer edges of the city, giving you plenty of time and angles to dwell in the atmosphere and gaze at the dread wonders of it, crawling like an ant in the tunnels beneath the walls of a place that bears the symbology of a Christian cathedral but is clearly something far more warped. It doesn't have the highest monster count in the set, but fittingly for all that real estate, it does have many of the grandest fights...not to mention the most dizzying detailing and overwhelming scale.

 

Though "Switchblade" has the lowest monster count of the big late-game maps, it hosts some of the coolest battles in Abandon and maintains a steady, pervasive sense of danger, its sparser population going hand in hand with the player's feeling that the shoe is ready to drop at any moment. Sure enough, it drops quite a few times, thanks to deadly placement and arenas shaped just right to build each fight around movement demands and enemies as a spatial threat. It's not just about bite, though; like all of Scotty's Abandon maps, it's bewilderingly beautiful, with the absolute best architectural craft and some of the best scene-setting of any map in the set.

 

It's a little bit harder to put a finger on what I love about "New Life From Old"; it's a little bit storytelling, a little bit aesthetics, a little bit gameplay, a little bit of never knowing what comes next, all working together to make the map feel like the deepest depths of the truly terrifying experience that is the whole mapset. The battles aren't necessarily harder than everything else you've faced thus far, but there's something about it that feels like a conclusion to the journey (or alternatively, the end of the road)—as brutal as a forgotten god's vengeance and as sinister as skeletons in the closet of an unknown cosmic entity. After the vivid, crushing trials of the rest of Abandon, this map feels like a closely guarded secret at the heart of the universe, where something terrible is slowly growing that can't be unseen, let alone stopped. Or maybe it's the final trial you overcome in order to heal the darkness, a la "Acheron's Needle," and that's what they mean by "New Life From Old." Who can say?

 

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Best Boss Fight
Arachnorb Queens from Freaky Panties 2: Boxers or Briefs, by Remilia Scarlet

 

 

This version of the Arachnorb Queen is itself a pretty good boss, and it's the kind that I think works best in the Doom engine: a moderately powered monster that relies on multiple randomized attacks that the player can react to individually, and that can be used in conjunction with other monsters, rather than a total area spammer designed to be fought alone in an open circular arena. In this case, the minion monsters command a bit more attention, and the Queen's various attacks—a deadly explosive projectile, a couple variants on a rapid-fire energy wave, and a circular burst attack that's sometimes activated by the pain stage—don't necessarily require a ton of strategic variation, which makes sense given how you have to continually divide your focus. What I like best here is the stages, though; you fight four separate Arachnorb Queens back to back, all in the same arena but each accompanied by different helpers, beginning with some hitscanners and minibosses that force you to get moving right away, and ending with a dual Arachnorb Queen/Cyberdemon battle. The multiple stages make it feel like a marathon, but the plentiful high-powered ammo ensures that it doesn't overstay its welcome.

 

(Runner-up: D'Sparil/D'Sparil/Korax from Faithless Trilogy, by Jimmy)

 

Weird But Cool Award
Path of Hei'an by MTY (Realms of Cronos map 06)

 

 

I brainstormed a few different names for this mini-award, and for a while, I half-jokingly considered declaring "Path of Hei'an" to be the "Most Path of Hei'an" map of the year. There really isn't much else like it—at least in the Doom modding scene. It's a bit Quake, a bit Unreal, a bit Hexen 2, and more than a little bit weird (but cool!). The surface level of the map is a tour through a Chinese-inspired village with a tall pagoda to climb and plenty of moving 3D props (including, yes, a panda), but it turns out to be a lot bigger than it looks, as there's a whole network of caves to explore underneath it all. The terrain and gameplay alike reflect some of the limitations of the Doom engine and Hexen's weapon mechanics (especially the Arc of Death), but it's also really neat and beautiful...and it has a few great surprises toward the end that I won't spoil.

 

Magnificent Bastard Award
The Gripping Hand by Benjogami (Abandon map 10)

 

 

I named the 2020 Cacowards Google Doc "Six Thousand Lost Souls" in honor of this map, but that turned out to be an underestimate; the actual count is 7,300, out of a little over 9,000 total monsters on the map. And I promise you've never seen anything like it before; there are reasons you've never seen anything like it, of course, but some things are worth trying once, and with all sincerity, I can tell you that there's a great beauty, perhaps even a sublime awe, to how horrifying and dickish the full experience of "The Gripping Hand" really is. At first it seems like it's just a "traditional" Sunderesque slaughtermap. Then the first waves of Lost Souls start trickling in at the edge of your awareness as you deal with armies of deadlier monsters, until it gradually dawns on you what is really happening...and by then, it's already washing over you like a tidal wave. Much later, when most of them are finally cleared out, the stragglers and their Cyberdemon ally harass you as you traverse one of the lengthiest and most understatedly evil platforming sequences I've ever seen. "Welp, now you're doing this thing," the mapper's voice seems to say with a shrug from the dark edges of eternity. And then—because Abandon is the mapset that it is—then comes the final exam as the last few thousand Lost Souls, previously kept in reserve, spill at you through the windows at the start of a second difficult platforming sequence. Benjo, you magnificent bastard...and good luck to anyone who tries to max this.

 

Best End Map
Druidia Borealis by antares031 (Antaresian Reliquary map 07)

 

 

"Druidia Borealis" is the perfect coda after the high-intensity battles of Antaresian Reliquary. It's a tranquil, beautifully crafted scene with a tranquil, beautifully crafted Eris MIDI, and the feeling of peace it brings helps your brain wind down as it reaches the conclusion of a strenuous, adrenaline-spiked mapset. The scene is more expansive than you'd expect, a complete portrait of a worldscape rather than just a simple room to keep you out of "Dead Simple," and its attention to detail is remarkable—I'm sure you noticed that those tree sprites all grow lighter or darker as they face toward or away from the sun, right? The beauty of the islands and the glimpses of distant Soulspheres give you the hint you need to explore further, and a winding, subtly broadcast hiking route eventually brings you to the true prize, the player's final reward for learning to stop worrying and love the Revenant. 

 

Edited April 24, 2022 by Not Jabba