The DWmegawad Club plays: Plutonium Winds & Master Levels for Doom II

[gaspe]

MAP18: Visually very simple, all is done by the contrasts of the blue, red and black. It's an arena map with a rather slow start and to gather the basic weapons and ammo to deal with thebig fight where the transformation of the level will flood the place with monsters. It was challenging and fair, less dickish than other moments. The cover are only at the southern side but staying there means that can get trapped at some point, so you are pushed to move to the central part  with some unexpected chaingunners that come from the north and the central buildind that with all its opening isn't a safe space. At first I was a bit confused what to do with the BFG teleport as some corpses hid the key marks on the sides. The ending part was meh, the stuck cyberdemon made it worthy I guess.

 

It was a nice set overall. Nothing so striking visually, it has the right things in the right places to give it an appeal and not beign something dull and generic. Sometimes the monster usage (av spam heh) was a bit annoying but I liked the "old flavor" slaughter and hard gameplay.

[Roofi]

I play on DOSBOX without saves this time on UV.

 

Attack :

 

 

 

Difficulty : Easy

 

I've never really played the Master Levels. There are only Teeth and Black Tower I know well. I had already played Attack a long time ago. It's a nice and visually very correct level for the era.

 

The level reminds me a bit of Doom 2's map 14 and map 03 with the two bridges surrounded by water that are intersecting in the center of the map. A not difficult level with few traps. On the other hand, the placement of the green armor at the beginning of the level is not very intuitive. The level is slightly more dangerous without armor because of the few mid-third monsters used.

 

I like how rectangular the layout is. The progression is not extremely interesting because of the many long corridors. I preferred the outdoor passages.
Aesthetically, it's far from ugly. The alignment of the textures is really correct as well as the different light effects. On the other hand, the omnipresence of the brown colour makes the whole thing a little monotonous.

 

In short, a  pretty beautiful tech-base map for its time but rather standard in its gameplay.

 

[Capellan]

bloodtwr.wad

Certainly much more ambitious and elaborate than attack.wad.  Also a lot more challenging, though a clever strategy like "remembering I have the BFG" would have helped a lot.:)

 

Not a fan of the progression on this one, with rather too many moments that rely on wandering back and hoping to find whatever opened, and necessary switches that aren't actually switch textures.  Yes, it's very 1995, but there are good reasons the community has evolved away from such things.

 

A surprising number of misaligned textures, too.

[Horus]

1 hour ago, Capellan said:

bloodtwr.wad

Certainly much more ambitious and elaborate than attack.wad.  Also a lot more challenging, though a clever strategy like "remembering I have the BFG" would have helped a lot.:)

 

Not a fan of the progression on this one, with rather too many moments that rely on wandering back and hoping to find whatever opened, and necessary switches that aren't actually switch textures.  Yes, it's very 1995, but there are good reasons the community has evolved away from such things.

 

A surprising number of misaligned textures, too.

I was expecting a 'well that was marble and green' type comment :P

 

Master Levels

 

I did a ‘saveless / save-lite’ playthrough of Master Levels a few months back, but missed out six levels, which I’ll be playing this month and commenting on here:
Black Tower
Bloodsea Keep
Mephisto
Trapped on Titan
TEETH + its secret level Bad Dream

 

09/11/2019 - MAP25 - BLACKTWR.WAD (“Black Tower”) by Sverre André Kvernmo

 

When I played the Master Levels for the first time, this level wowed me. Does it stand the test of time?

 

No, not really. It shows its age from the off with the player starting in a vast expanse of nothingness. The eastern and southern areas are kinda pointless, and the northern is a clump of demons + a clump of hitscanners.

 

The northern area reveals the switch that turns down the brightness and creates the staircase up the tower itself. Then the teleporter at the top starts off the theme of the map, which is that the teleporters take you to an ever higher floor of the tower, peaking at its summit where the main battle awaits.

 

Each floor presents ever more challenging encounters, that are still trivial by today’s standards. Probably the meanest bit is on the fourth floor where two arch viles guarding the teleporter are released and proceed to teleport around the area, making them very difficult to actually finish off.

 

One of the issues with this map which is especially noticeable on its top floor is the repetition of the combat. Like the pain elementals with imps in matching intervals around the outside. It’s not a challenge, just a grind. The battles of the lower floors are more interesting, however.

 

Once you get all the keys you just have to retrace your steps, with mostly a large congregation of imps with a side of demons blocking your way. Which is no match for the now fully equipped player. Hopefully you have some health left at the end for the exit in the lava pit.

 

It’s still a decent map, but lost the shine it once had.

[Capellan]

2 hours ago, Horus said:

I was expecting a 'well that was marble and green' type comment :P

 

You can be all one colour and not be defined by it, if you bring something else to the table.  Attack didn't.

[DJVCardMaster]

MAP25 - BLACKTWR.WAD - "Black Tower" - Sverre André Kvernmo (93%K/85%I/75%S)

Uff, what a journey, this map has some memorable looks from the start, this level is quite an ambitious one for the era it was made. Not the best in terms of details, but it has a good main gimmick, which is getting to the top of the tower. The map is pretty clever and well crafted for 1995/96, but I see why people would not like this one now. This map presents a nerve wracking fight with a Cyberdemon, and tons of fights all over the place like if you were playing the Invasion game mode and enemies come in waves. Due to the map being pretty large, I save-stated two or three times, as I got nervous.
You have the exit room near the start, and you have an (Infinite?) supply of medikits all stacked together that may serve as a refiller if you got touched on the first fights. I could count them since I have to open Doom Builder and load the map with the "run" option in Chocolate Doom, for an oldschool experience (Please don't tell my friends how I play Doom) and there aren't that much, only 9 of them, still enough supplies. This is not the only place where you can find this particularity. You can see a stack of 40 or so health potions in place somewhere on the slime floor near the sewer.
Tons of ups and downs here, fun and stressing at some times but, like it or not, you can't deny this map was quite mindblowing back in the oldschool days.
Again, pretty ambitious, imagine if someone wanted to replicate this in UDMX with rooms over rooms, portals and things like that, that would inspire some avid mappers.

Deaths: 4

Maps in order of preference:

 

Spoiler

MAP01 - Attack
MAP25 - Black Tower

This map made me remember of the Earth.wad, it actually looks like it could have fit on that mapset. Let's hope for the rest not to be that lengthy...

[Roofi]

 

Difficulty : Medium

 

I have a very clear opinion on this level. It's one of my favorite vanilla maps from the doom community. An extremely unforgettable level in all aspects.

 

First, Black tower reuses one of my favorite gimmicks consisting to climb to the top of a location ("rise to the top" kind of progression). In Black tower, we explore the floors with the help of teleportation. On the other hand, we start outside and we can see the big black tower from the beginning. As mentioned above, the simplistic exterior is far from being the most interesting area because of the vanilla limitations.

 

There is an interesting variant of the"rise to the top" gimmick constiting to go down from the tower after defeating the cyberdemon. It is then necessary to survive new traps in the already explored floors.

Black Tower is especially ; according to me , one of the map with the most unusual traps I have ever seen. The level itself is not very difficult but is much harder than Attacks for example. There are many very deadly traps when you discover the level. The darkness and narrowness of the areas greatly oppresses the player. In addition, the potential of spectres is really well exploited , especially in blinking rooms.. Add to that, the numerous teleporting enemies . The fight with the barons and spectres is tougher than we think, for example.

Talking about darkness, the path is quite enigmatic. There are many switches that do not use a conventional texture. This is especially the case in the arena on the roof where corpse textures act as a switch. Once the yellow key collected, you have to use a "door" that looks like the entrance to a secret. Towards the end, obtaining the red key is not intuitive and forces the player to search the different floors again. In short, Black Tower is a kind of haunted house with rather twisted puzzles.

 

As Capellan says, there are many misaligned textures but that's not important for me. In my opinion, this level is a masterpiece in terms of atmosphere. I did idmus 30 to get the music . As I said just before, Black tower appears as a kind of haunted house to explore and therefore offers a rather creepy experience. The rather empty outside area adds a feeling of loneliness. You really feel like exploring a lost structure in the middle of nowhere. The strange progression, the generalized darkness as well as the strange blinking sectors give an evil character to the tower.

In short, a strange, obscure and creepy level that is not really within everyone's reach but on the other hand provides a very memorable vanilla adventure. One of my favorite levels made by the Doom community.

 

[Devalaous]

Ive been playing Master Levels again recently on the PS4, slowly chipping away at them. Only got three left.

______________

Attack is pretty much the opening level of the Master Levels, its relatively easy, and has been the first map in every form of Master Levels ever released, from the original alphabetical order, to the revised order on PS4, to the regular campaign used in PSX Final Doom, Xbox's Resurrection of Evil and PS3's merged mater levels campaign.

 

Tim Willits has the boring entry-level maps of the Master Levels, and Attack is only memorable for be for being the ideal Map 01 for them. Played on its own, as its own thing, it just leaves me wanting something better

______________

 

Black Tower is weird to me being played this early; its easily one of the ones you'd only play near the very end, and the PS3 and PS4 versions do exactly this. Black Tower is from Soundblock, my favourite doom mapper of all time, and the guy responsible for me getting into custom Doom levels; I found his Cabal maps on a shovelware disc, and they were leaps and bound above all of id's content to me. I love the Cabal map's visceral nature, and really wish he would reboot the Cabal megawad that never was someday.

 

Black Tower itself, is just like other Cabal maps, bloody, filled with a feeling of purpose, and balls-hard for its time. This map is all about revenge; in the Cabal storyline, your here to violently murder an old friend that betrayed you, and your going to tear apart his entire keep to get to him, and thats exactly how it feels. Climbing floor by floor, destroying everything you come across to get to the roof where your treacherous cyberdemon friend hides, slaying him and his guard with extreme prejudice, then escaping the tower cleaning up his angry minions out for revenge. It just feels so 'right', ive always loved replaying this map. On PC I run the Cabal maps with Doom Expanded just to really feel the oomph of all the carnage as I imagine myself in the shoes of the Cabalguy.

 

Basically, this is a map that perfectly captures what I love about Doom; good fun combat, that keeps me on my toes, with a heavily told story through the map and action itself. Attack by comparison, is just an entryway to somewhere else, no real personality to it.

____________

 

Bloodsea Keep is a map much earlier in the Cabal campaign, and thus, leaps and bounds easier, but again, it has a very strong feel of place and purpose. This time your out to kill an important Archvile that rules over this keep, and have washed ashore after previous adventures from the Cabal mapset. A rather large keep in a sea of blood, fitting its name, I love the creativity of the map, with the 'shadow imps', the library with its amusing trapped weapon, and even the secret Map 7 flag that a lot of people miss. Special mention goes to the dungeon underground, and a certain trap.

The archvile at the end, while technically just a regular one, feels like an important one that your killing, all the work to get to him, and the manner in which he appears, made it feel rewarding to put the bastard down. Probably your first real blow to the evil organisation that betrayed you.

 

Edited November 9, 2019 by Devalaous

[Andromeda]

MAP25: Black Tower (Master Levels)

PrBoom+ 2.5.1.4, HNTR-PS, no saves, 100% everything

 

I really like this level! The action centers around the titular Black Tower, an imposing structure occupied by a large amount of monsters. The exit of this level is located just to the left of the start, however it's locked by all three keys, so whether you want it or not you'll have to explore the tower. The wall with the noble face serves as the entrance. From here, you can explore beyond the other three doors to gather some supplies and raise the stairway to the top.

 

Easy, right? No, this is just the beginning, as you get teleported to another floor of the tower. Here you can press on the corpses on the walls to gather more ammo, as well as an early grab of the plasma gun. Pay attention to the demonic faces, as they are actually switches that are required to progress. Eventually you'll find the teleporter to the next floor. Things are simpler here, just find a couple switches that will allow you to enter the fourth floor.

 

In this floor you'll find a pedestal in the middle of a suspicious looking arena. As you approach the pedestal however, the floor surrounding you will raise, trapping you in a cramped room with a couple of hell knights and zombiemen. To escape, press the demonic face on the edge of one of the walls. Afterwards, look for a greener wall in this room - it hides a small, dark room. Entering this dark room causes the wall at its end to open, revealing enemies and the switch that opens the next teleporter on the back side of the pedestal in the arena.

 

In this next section, you'll have to deal with a baron of hell and several constantly teleporting spectres. Press on one of the walls with a noble face to reveal a megasphere and the final teleporter into the actual top of the tower. Lower the wall in front of you revealing the final room, where you're immediately attacked by imps, cacodemons and a pain elemental. Since you automatically grab an invulnerability, this first wave should pose no problems.

 

To solve this section, look at the walls in the cubes placed in the room - two of the walls have different faces, one of them a noble and the other an arch-vile. Press on the noble face wall to lower it, revealing a wall with a corpse, that you can press to lower the arch-vile face wall. This in turn will reveal a spitting blood face, that you also have to press. As you do this, a wall will lower in another cube, with a megaarmor and revenants, while some arachnotrons also spawn elsewhere in the room.

 

Deal with the monsters and collect the megaarmor. A final wall will lower, revealing a cyberdemon that can be a nuisance to kill in this cramped space. Behind it is a switch that will raise the wall from where you emerged, allowing you to escape. By now, you should have the yellow and blue keys. If you're sharp, you probably noticed a wall in the dark room did not connect fully with the ground, leaving a small space below it.

 

After you clear the cyberdemon section, this wall will now be open, revealing a computer area map and the red key. This is probably the spot that will stump most players. Now, with all three keys in hand, it's a matter of backtracking, killing the enemies that have repopulated certain areas inside and outside the tower and exit. This is a really ambitious level by 1995 standards that I feel still holds up today. The abundance of supplies can rather defang some of the traps with foreknowledge, but it's still a tricky level.

 

The limitations of the Doom engine restricted creating multiple floors inside the tower itself, so Soundblock used a rather unorthodox approach of creating each floor individually, then linking them all with teleporters, while still making the player feel inside the tower at all times, by clever texture usage and placement of windows. The cacodemons that surround the windows in the second floor will sometimes get stuck, so it's a coinflip whether you get 100% kills or not, which is a shame. There's some misaligned textures, perhaps most notably in one of the first switches in the level. The outside area looks bland for the most part, although the pier looks kinda cute and the backpacks inside the mud blend in well. The only rocket launcher in the level is hidden in plain sight, like in Attack.

 

Levels in order of preference:

Spoiler

MAP25: Black Tower

MAP01: Attack

Edited December 24, 2019 by Andromeda

[riderr3]

Black tower

Previously, when there were no source ports with multi-storey capabilities, creating a semblance of a tower was not possible, and such levels were created. Black Tower is one of the highest quality of its kind, by mid-90s standards.

There is a basement near the start on the left - it is recommended to clean it with all possible efforts because there is an SSG and a bunch of medikits, which you can return to until the circular staircase rises.

Each floor is a series of challenges - puzzles, crushers, teleporter traps, turning off lights, and so on, which the Vanilla Doom engine can provide.
In this playthrough I missed the only Rocket Launcher, respectively, I had a lack of ammunition. Therefore, berserk and a chainsaw were useful, because you can save a bunch of ammo on pinkies and spectres.

A really interesting and challenging level, probably one of my favorites in Master Levels.

[Capellan]

blacksea.wad

It's not hard to tell that this and Black Tower were made by the same person.  The visual and gameplay style is quite consistent.  This one is easier in terms of monsters (though it certainly has a hot start where it is quite possible to get infinitely talled to death), but the actual progression is perhaps even more obtuse and arbitrary.  I found it to basically be a case of opening up the map and humping anything that wasn't a solid wall.

 

The end game crusher sequence is dull as dishwater (and putting a surprise crusher in a secret is 1995 bullshit).

 

Some interesting use of light and shadow from a visual perspective, but I found this a chore to actually play.

[Horus]

10/11/2019 - MAP07 - BLOODSEA.WAD (“Bloodsea Keep”) by Sverre André Kvernmo

 

Well in this level, despite the name, we are treated to a wider variety of textures than before, with each part of the keep itself having a different theme (without going overboard, the different areas gel together quite well). This is welcome, and helps to keep the level fresh.

 

As you enter the first door, the first thing that pops up is the clever sector brightness trick that causes ‘black imps’. But it’s best not to dwell on them too long as hitscanners pose a threat from the keep windows. Instead it’s best to head straight on for yet more ‘black imps’. From there it’s pretty much in any order you want to get the three keys.

 

Some things to note:

-        There is an invulnerability sphere but not enough of a monster threat for it to actually be beneficial

-        The secret through the BK door is more trouble than its worth. It contains a soulsphere in a softlocked room, and a chaingun at the end of a crusher corridor that will kill you if you don’t get it perfect. Aside from this bit, the level is notably easier than Black Tower

-        As @Capellan points out, the switches by the 4 crushers are a monotonous slog. Would have been better if more than the last crusher spawned monsters, or better still if there were less crushers

-        The single arch vile ending is an anticlimax. But, to be fair, that’s probably a byproduct of the era

 

That will be that for me for a while now.

[Magicana]

I gave Plutonium Winds a red hot go on UV, but I just couldn't hack it.

 

 

I made it to Map03. I plan to do better with the Master levels.

[Roofi]

Bloodsea keep (Sverre Kvermo)

 

 

Difficulty : Medium

 

Another level from Sverre Kvermo, a major mapmaker of the 1990s. Bloodsea Keep takes place in a lost fort in the middle of an ocean of blood. For various reasons, I have the impression that this map was a great source of inspiration for Alien Vendetta's map 05 made by Anders Johnsen. Here is the layout of AV's map 05

 

 

The level is memorable especially for its very sophisticated aesthetics for its time. I consider it as a kind of precursor of Alien Vendetta.  Indeed, we find some detailling elements such as arches made with sectors, enemies located behind metal bars that can be opened (not very intuitive), or even curved stairs with gradients of light to highlight them. The choice and alignment of textures are also excellent.

Cranium (Sverre Kvernmo's username) had fun lowering the brightness of some sectors to create "silhouette" monsters. I had seen this effect again in Alien Vendetta's map 29 where the imps were also "hanged".

 

The black throne at the very end also reminds me very strongly of AV.

 

 

 

 

However, the gameplay is much more traditional than what we saw in Black Tower. Bloodsea is in my opinion a little more forgettable than Black Tower for that reason. I think this level is more enjoyable when you play it again. In my case, I couldn't find the RL nor the SSG, which forced me to kill the monsters with the shotgun. Nevertheless, this level offers a lot of exploration. On the other hand, Capellan did mention the dangerousness of the slow crusher in one of the secret areas.

 

In short, a good traditionnal level  with a very strong emphasis on aesthetics to such an extent that I would easily see this map in a project like Alien Vendetta.

 

[Andromeda]

MAP07: Bloodsea Keep (Master Levels)

PrBoom+ 2.5.1.4, HNTR-PS, no saves, 100% everything

 

This is a solid level, again by Soundblock. You start at the entrance of a keep, surrounded by a sea of blood, containing lost souls and a cacodemon. Entering the keep places you in its courtyard, facing a dark imp on a pillar with the red key, while zombiemen take potshots at you from the side windows. Progress through the next door to find a corridor leading to diverse areas. On your left, up the stairs you reach the switch that lowers the red key pillar.

 

However, the windows are set as impassable, so you have to open the door next to the switch and drop down to grab the key. Back at the start of the corridor, take a left then right, there are some areas of interest here. One is the megaarmor secret, the door right next to it leads to a radiation shielding suit that will enable to explore the blood sea. The blood sea is potent, so quickly explore it. It contains a secret (inacessible on HNTR since the mancubus that opens it upon death is not present) with a chaingun, a rocket launcher nearby and on the other side a box of rockets guarded by a lost soul.

 

Enter the keep again afterwards, this time going right on the corridor and up the stairs. There's a red door (using a switch texture) at the end of this passageway, opening it will reveal the blue key. Only the yellow key remains to be obtained, so follow the same path to the first secret, this time exploring the side room, containing a pit of lava and a fireplace a bit after. The pit is currently inescapable, so don't drop down yet, instead go near the fireplace and listen.

 

Monster sounds are coming from the fireplace, which is your cue to figure out it is openable. A spectre will teleport behind you, so dispatch it and flip the switch inside the fireplace to reveal a small opening in the pit, containing a teleporter. This will place you on an elevated ledge in the library, move forwards until you reach the corner, then look to the other corner to find the yellow key. All that remains is to open the three locked doors to find the last puzzle, a crusher sequence that once completed will reveal the final showdown - you vs. an arch-vile.

 

It must be an important monster since it has a snazzy throne, but it's no more difficult to kill than a regular arch-vile. Stepping on the throne will reveal a switch on its backside, which in turn reveals the exit overlooking the blood sea. This is a more modest offering compared to Black Tower, but retains a strong sense of place. One of the secrets is inacessible in HNTR since a mancubus is not present, which is a shame since it's quite a clever secret.

 

Another clever secret is the super shotgun secret, where once you're at the upper level of the library, you'll notice the black flags in some bookshelves are passable - one of them hides a switch that opens the secret. A big letdown is sneaky crusher usage in secrets that actively discourages hunting for them. Should you get locked inside the supercharge room, shoot the burning corpse to unlock the door. The resemblance to MAP05 of Alien Vendetta is uncanny - both are strong levels, well detailed, provide a decent challenge for the player and obviously the playing area is surrounded by a blood sea, crimson tide in Alien Vendetta's case. A difference lies in the texturing, with Bloodsea Keep being marble throughout whereas Crimson Tide primarily uses chiseled stone textures.

 

Levels in order of preference:

Spoiler

MAP25: Black Tower

MAP07: Bloodsea Keep

MAP01: Attack

Edited December 24, 2019 by Andromeda

[TheNoob_Gamer]

Bloodsea.wad (Bloodsea Keep)

Spoiler

Please note that I read the .txt file after I've completed each wad.

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

 

Okay, this map, Black Tower, Mephisto's Maosoleum, Express Elevator to Hell were initially made for a megawad, but the author soon decided to drop the idea and let id publish it - because it's 666 times cooler. And our protagonist in this map and others (created by the same author in this pack) isn't Doomguy, but rather a Cyberdemon turning into a Doom-likeguy in the process :P

 

You start in the entrance to an isolated castle in a bloody sea, and entering the courtyard, you face 2 imps standing on the dark platform (seriously I think the author overuse this mapping trick), a baron of hell, a cacodemons and some lost souls.

 

Then, you enter the main castle, which consists of

Spoiler

The "hub" - containing 2 hallways, stairs, ammo, health, 2 pinkies, 2 imps standing on dark platforms, and the Baron of Hell (teleported from right hallway)

 

2 main hallways - both are the exact same thing with 5 shotgunners and 2 imps each. The left one is more interesting - it has a room with 30 health bonuses and a chainsaw at the end of it, the right one leads to armor, a library containing some imps + yellow key on a shelf, a teleporter to the top of the main hub, and a red key room, consisting of 2 imps + invulnerability sphere.

 

A library, consisting of some lost souls, a yellow key on top of a bookshelf, some imps.

 

An abandoned, vine-filled area that contains some powerups, more demons to shoot at, and an entrance teleporter to the top of the bookshelves.

 

If you grab the sphere/suit, you can also face a mancubus and grab a chaingun - rocket launcher outside of the castle.

 

An entrance to throne room behind the hub door (requires a red key) and requires a blue key to access deeper to the area.

 

A bloody arena, consists of 2 pain elementals, requires a yellow key to progress.

 

The throne room, guarded by 4 hell knights and is blocked off by a wall, which is opened by turning on 4 switches behind the crushers, and with the Veavitdpoh (Very Evil Arch-Vile In The Deepest Parts Of Hell) being the boss of the map.

Overall, I find this map to be more memorable than Black Tower for some reasons. It is good, aesthetically. The pacing is also quite good. On UV, only 82 enemies but it's challenging enough (more than attack, I'll say)

 

 A (ironically?) fun thing to note here, despite taking the MAP07 slot, you are required to use the shotgun most of the time/ no SSG is found (if you play the map conventionally at least).

 

8/10.

Edited November 10, 2019 by TheNoob_Gamer : add some stuff

[riderr3]

Bloodsea Keep

Two black imps on the red key pedestal have already become iconic. This level at that time was one of the inspirations for other mapmakers.

There are several unpleasant crushers, including slow ones.

In the "prison" zone there are many cells in which various hitscanners are serving their sentences.

To ease the fate of the player at the end of the level, you need to take a chance and get RL and chaingun, which are located directly outside the castle - you need to take a radsuit or invul sphere to advance painlessly through the bloodsea.

The final throne and arch-vile rather represent a small arena of boss battle.

[Devalaous]

Canyon is the better of Willit's levels. Feels like a Map 02, and is rather easy. Not too much stands out, but I do like the nukage waterfall and the titular canyon, at least I assume its the canyon the level is named for.

[Capellan]

8 hours ago, Andromeda said:

A big letdown is sneaky crusher usage in secrets that actively discourages hunting for them.

 

I found three secrets, all of which arguably punished the player for finding them (crushers in two, many hit scanners behind protective bars in the other).

[Capellan]

canyon.wad

The bad news is that this is still architecturally and visually bland.  It's still mostly square (though there are a few exceptions) and tends to be swathed in broad sweeps of consistent textures and light levels.  It would be unfair to call it monotextured or to say there is no lighting variation, though.  Any given area tends to be mostly of one look and light level, but these vary between major areas (and even occasionally within them).

 

On the plus side, Willits uses height a lot more here, and the fact that different areas have distinctive themes makes the level feel more varied.  The gameplay is still very straightforward and low key by modern standards, with way more health than you are ever likely to need, but it's not a bad little romp overall.

[Roofi]

Canyon

 

 

 

Difficulty : Easy

 

Canyon is a fairly classic level made by Tom Willits and his sister (Theresa Chasar).  Less extravagant and ambitious than the two levels made by Sverre André Kvermo, Canyon provides an experience similar to a Doom 2 map.

 

Looking at the name of the level, I expected to play a level occurring mainly in rocky landscapes but in reality this is not the case. In reality, there are a few natural environments, but the settings are very varied,  too varied in my opinion. The heterogeneity of the different zones makes the level less memorable than the Cranium's maps where there was a more or less coherent whole. We cross totally grey areas such as the beginning area or the basement located to the south-east of the map and on the opposite side a kind of marbled castle at the north-west.

 

Apart from that, the map focuses on height differences.  The metal area at the very beginning has the appearance of a canyon, with crevasses separating the high parts. I think the outdoor space with the large slime waterfall is the most enjoyable part.

 

I think the greatest advantage of the map is the possibility to explore  as you wish. Despite the mandatory keys, there are many alternative and optional passages.

A level that is not very memorable, but which remains fun and offers a lot of possibilities in the progression.

 

[Magicana]

 

Played through Attack and Black Tower.

 

Attack was a pretty cruisy level with relatively straight forward progression. The one secret was extremely bizarre - I only found it because I watched the Bigmacdavis video on it awhile back. Very strange.

 

Black Tower was not enjoyable at all. The progression was bizarre, the progression points (Switches and the like) were absolutely obscure. I backtracked right the way through a few times because I was completely lost. Not a good thing. It feels like a proto-slaughter map at times - Just without the benefit of 20 years of Doom to steer it in a better direction. I imagine at the time this was the bees knees though.

[DJVCardMaster]

MAP07 - BLOODSEA.WAD - "Bloodsea Keep" - Sverre André Kvernmo (72%K/90%I/50%S)

A map that started pretty well, and turned out to be gradually more disappointing as time went on. A better map aesthetically in comparison to the other Soundblock map we played. Kvernmo es really good at making non-abstract places with abstract layouts, and, not gonna lie, this is again, a map that for 1995, was really mindblowing.
The combat wasn't that fun, specially because you only had a boomstick to deal with tanky monsters all over the place. The part with the crushers and the almost hidden switch to progress, the one behind the throne with the AV, was kind of unnecesary, and I had enough by pressing the second switch. All my deaths were here trying to learn how to escape them, and try to see if I could just rush to the switch and getaway quickly. This final room was a letdown for the map in my opinion.
I personally like maps involving around a fortress surrounded by a sea of something, I made a map for a proyect that is still going on, and it actually resembles this map A LOT, so I got a bit familiarized by the Keep itself because of that. Nevertheless, this map was not to par with the last two.

MAP01 - CANYON.WAD - "Canyon" - Tim Willits (92%K/72%I/25%S) 

This is something I am probably going to say a low. These maps are WEIRD. Here we are again with another map by Tim Willits, with a pretty weird layout (This time not as much as with Attack), and a funny comment to make is that, you excpect a more "natural" landscape on this because the map is called Canyon, but you won't actually see a rocky landscape anywhere around it. Some could argue that the big courtyard at the western part of the map is the actual Canyon, but you need to have WAY too much imagination for that.
This map looks a lot like a Doom II map, and Tim is really good in that regard, making maps that feel that they were D2 outtakes. Another thing that Tim likes is making layouts with many different ways to tackle, forking paths, and things like that. 
One other comment to say about the map looks, is that every single room looks from another map itself, seriously, this map looks like a Frankenstein Monster with a luxury Suit and good haircut.
In terms of how it plays, this is good, but you can notice how innocent were the mappers back in the day, making easy maps that, in 1995, were a big challenge, but in today standards, they are a walk in the park. there were some chaingunners here and there trying to actually kill you, but nothing more that resembled an actual threat. I just had a good time playing through this.

Deaths: 9

 

Maps in order of preference:

 

Spoiler

 

MAP01 - Canyon

MAP01 - Attack
MAP25 - Black Tower
MAP07 - Bloodsea Keep

 

Weirdness factor could be contributed by the fact this has authors with pretty different styles and no central proyect-managing just like TNT Evilution had.

[riderr3]

Canyon

 

And where is the canyon actually located here? This is more like another UAC checkpoint. Probably the visplane limits in the vanilla doom engine do not allowing to create a full-fledged detailed canyon.

This level was breeze compared to the previous ones, given that SSG is available from the beginning, and blue armor can be obtained without too much difficulty.
When you receive the blue key, it is better to return to the first blue door and clean the location from the other side, because it seems more convenient to me.

After passing through the marble location, you can go back to take the megasphere, but there is not even such a special need, because I went through the level without loading any saves.

 

Fun and easy level, but still, it seems to me that some kind of "highlight" was not enough.

[Andromeda]

MAP01: Canyon (Master Levels)

PrBoom+ 2.5.1.4, HNTR-PS, no saves, 100% everything

 

Here Tim Willits created a level which starts with what made Attack good, its interconnectivity, while improving some of its weaknesses like the lack of height variation, lightning work and texture variety. I like the way the switch in front of you at the start slowly raises the floor, revealing the first arena. I also tend to press the other switches inside the pillars even though it's not required to do so :P The megaarmor is readily accessible at the start even though it may not look like it, rendering the armor found right after useless.

 

The cages with hitscanners featured in Attack make a return here as well. As previously mentioned, there's tons of height variation due to extensive use of lifts, which can make some sections annoying to traverse. In the blue key area for example, I got reduced from 100% health to 48% due to some trigger happy shotgun guys while I struggled to escape the lift, without the megaarmor I would've embarrassingly died there.

 

The nukage fountain area looks nice and is certainly the highlight of the level, in fact the whole second half of the level is much more interesting than the first. 3 out of 4 secrets require backtracking, which is a questionable design decision since the previous areas are barely repopulated. The other secret isn't much better, being inside the exit and providing a useless super shotgun and a medikit. Supplies are again in large quantities, making a possibly challenging level into a snoozefest. There's also some inescapable pits, which is a trademark of the era. Despite the negative points, I enjoyed this one. There's a switch next to the exit that allows returning to the first arena, which is probably more useful in deathmatch (speaking of, this level probably plays better in deathmatch).

 

Levels in order of preference:

Spoiler

MAP25: Black Tower

MAP07: Bloodsea Keep

MAP01: Canyon

MAP01: Attack

Edited December 24, 2019 by Andromeda

[Devalaous]

Ah, Catwalk. Chris Klie, aka Mapslinger, made a ton of maps for the Master Levels, 6 of which were rejected and can be found on idgames. I'd recommend playing them as 'bonus content'

 

Catwalk is a bit of an odd level, the titular catwalk visible at the beginning, and the rest of the level folded around it. Not as much dickishness as his later maps, but generally its small and somewhat easy. Still died a few times though! Theres a bizarre secret at the end that seems geared towards continuous play; Klie did once state that he hoped the master levels would be a megawad while he was making levels for them. This secret is only really useful for UV-maxing on PC and PS4, but its actually useful on the PS1 and PS3 versions, and probably Xbox (Never played that port much, despite owning it)

 

I hope Klie tries his hand at mapping for modern Doom again some day, if Romero and Sverre can come back and make great content after all this time, im sure he can too ;p

 

[DJVCardMaster]

MAP01 - CATWALK.WAD - "The Catwalk" - Christen Klie (91%K/65%I/0%S)

I just thought this was going to be extremely gimmicky and boring, like a Maximum Doom-tier map, specially because of the map focusing around a big endless catwalk with an unescapable pit and many of those pesky automatic lifts which nobody likes. Turns out this map was actually weird, again, like the others, some questionable design choices here and there, like the yellow skull door that leads to the same room, but taking the left door takes you to an unnecessary narrow corridor with a switch on, again, the same room. It has pretty weird features, but turns out, it was fun to play, and it didn't look like crap, it was bearable. The layout was in Tom Hall's style, all compressed out.
Weirdness comes until the end, where there are some shoot-to-trigger only switches at the sides of the exit room leading to some empty rooms which I suppose they are made specially for DM, since they have some ammo and health, and those are pointless for singleplayer, since it's the freaking end of the level, there is no continuous gameplay on the Master Levels! 
Overall, it's a sweet short map, but I did like it surprisingly, again, not that difficult, and too much boomstick action. It reflects the little idea people had back in the day at how to make a senseful map. It just feels, again, like a DooM II outtake.

 

Deaths: 10

 

Maps in order of preference:

 

Spoiler

 

MAP01 - Canyon

MAP01 - Attack
MAP01 - The Catwalk
MAP25 - Black Tower
MAP07 - Bloodsea Keep

 

I honestly want to play more.

[Capellan]

catwalk.wad

Those raise / lower "stairs" make a bad first impression.  But an accurate one.  This is not good.  Extra raspberries for the "one time only" run to the exit.

[Magicana]

All caught up with where we are meant to be this month (I haven't been this on top of it since the Avactor playthrough).

 

 

Lets start with Bloodsea. It's definitely the same mapper as Black Tower. Lots of weird progression, with seemingly secrets being default progression, and some weird traps, but this time with a far lower monster count so it didn't feel as bad. I think the relative shortness does wonders for it as a map. It doesn't outstay its welcome too much. Also, it would have been nice to get a chaingun WAY earlier than I did.

 

 

Moving on to Canyon and Catwalk. I watched Bigmacdavis' playthroughs, so this wasn't completely blind... But it was long enough that I'd forgotten most of it. Relatively benign levels, there are a lot of things that scream "This is the 90s", especially those rising/descending sectors at the beginning of Catwalk. I enjoyed these levels more than the previous two.

[Andromeda]

MAP01: The Catwalk (Master Levels)

PrBoom+ 2.5.1.4, HNTR-PS, no saves, 100% everything

 

The first Christen Klie level, and it's quite a fun one! At the start, you can see the titular catwalk through the windows, though it's not accessible yet. The perpetual moving lifts to the sides are annoying, I suppose it's gimmicky and since the level is short I don't mind it too much. There are two paths to follow from here, the left one is recommended for blind play since it gives access to an armor, while the right one is for more aggressive players.

 

After flipping the switch beyond the yellow bars you unlock the path to the red key, where you have to lower a computer terminal to access the teleporter leading to it. However, you need to go through the yellow door first - note that there is an inescapable pit to the immediate left of the stairs, so beware. In this area there's also a super shotgun above the teleporter in the nukage, as well as a tiny bridge leading to a megasphere, again above a teleporter.

 

Grabbing the 200/200 isn't free however, as you are teleported to the switch that lowers the red key pedestal and the plasma gun, guarded by some hell knights close to you. Evade them, flip the switch and pulverize them with plasma. With the red key in hand, you can cross the catwalk now accessible, but do not backpedal before you reach the other side as the catwalk collapses behind you, trapping you in another inescapable pit. It's easier said than done, since there's imps in cages on both sides, as well as in front of you that will try to make you fall. Once you make it across safely, open the red door and flip the switch to exit. There's two secrets in the exit room that are kinda pointless, but are fun to explore. Supplies are again found in large amounts, so you'd be hard pressed to die here.

 

Levels in order of preference:

Spoiler

MAP25: Black Tower

MAP07: Bloodsea Keep

MAP01: Canyon

MAP01: Attack

MAP01: The Catwalk

Edited December 24, 2019 by Andromeda