The DWmegawad Club plays: NOVA III (Download RC2b)

[Pechudin]

MAP11: Terraforming Mines (HMP, Deaths: 0, No Saves: Yes)

    So, after dying in the boat in the last map we are somehow teleported into an UAC base. The detailing here is absolutely gorgeous, I was especially stunned by the myriad broken lights dangling from the ceiling/bent in the wall, their wires exposed or running under the floor tiles. It seemed like it has a spirit of a TNT map, visuals/narrative given priority over gameplay. Later on the map turns into Epic, but in visuals only. This part of the map was less appealing to me, and the detailing here was either absent or I did not notice it.

    The gameplay was ... mostly shotgunning trash monsters, really easy, rather filler-feeling. Most of the time monsters are directly in front of you with only one path they can take to get you. The Cyberdemon fight was too easy as well and the final two Archviles were of no threat either.

 

19 hours ago, cannonball said:

This one suffers a lot from issues common with those early in their mapping career.

Heh, I started mapping a bit lately and this is literally the first thing I did. I did realize I'd never finish anything at that pace, though.

 

    Awards: All Show. With the easy opposition I felt under no pressure, so I mostly went around going 'Oooh' at all the little details mapper put into the map. I feel like this map would do well as a part of a larger set of maps, unfortunately I feel like the community nature of the mapset does not lend itself well to story-driven wads.

[Pechudin]

MAP12: Beautiful Agony (HMP, Deaths: 0, No Saves: Yes)

    The map's theme is a direct continuation of the previous map's. Reminds me of Epic, but somewhat easier. It does play a lot better than the previous map, but the visuals left a lot to be desired for me. They are adequate, but nothing too fancy. I did notice there was a lot of health everywhere, and the megasphere secret was a tad too easy to find. Fighting is not very difficult but it does have its moments, and I'd imagine the starting Revenants would be a lot harder on pistol start. I had ample plasma from this and the previous map, so the Cyberdemon was no problem. The ending Revenants however were almost fatal, thankfully I managed to grab the megasphere and dash outside.

 

    What are my overall feelings about this map? It was fun, but ultimately not too memorable. More fun than the previous one map for sure, but I will probably remember the previous map longer. Is that an useful metric, how memorable the map is? Depends, I suppose.

[Andromeda]

MAP12: Beautiful Agony (NOVA III)

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

 

In this level the egyptian theme continues. One of the things that captured my attention is the roughly 50:50 fodder vs. midtier ratio while using them in a fairly good way, keeping the threat level decently high while not being terribly challenging. There's a clear use of symmetry here which works both ways - some sections benefit from it (the staircases near the start), while others feel more convoluted (the area before the red key or the penultimate section). One of the secrets is really obvious, while another one is a rendition of the one found at the start of Doom II MAP22. Action flows quite fast here and before you know it you're facing the Cyberdemon, which is a trivial circlestrafing affair. While I definitely had more fun here than in the egyptian section of the previous level, I can't help but feel it lacks something, maybe it's the rather sparse detailing. Either way it's still a good level and worth the 10 or so minutes of runtime.

 

Levels in order of preference:

Spoiler

MAP05: Blood Eagle

MAP07: Cannibal

MAP10: A Partner of the 49th Day

MAP09: Scarlet Syzygy

MAP08: The Crow Comes Last

MAP06: Fury Begins

MAP03: Dante Allegory

MAP01: Port Murder

MAP04: Calm the Fire

MAP11: Terramin

MAP12: Beautiful Agony

MAP02: Death Crypt

[Demon of the Well]

Map 08 -- The Crow Comes Last - 100% Kills / No secrets

As Dobu might say, I reckon it's not too hard to tell that this is an early map from someone's career, in spite of the ambitious scale of the architecture and openness of the floorplan, which makes what is actually a rather small map seem quite a bit more grand and sweeping than one might expect from an automap shot or the like; the overall style actually reminds me of SteveD's in many ways, come to think of it, which is never a bad thing. Nevertheless, a lack of experience is evident to some degree even in the visual design (generally the map's strongest attribute), with a widely varying mix between stock and CC4 texture assets which never quite seems to gain full material/structural coherence, and a kind of 'slap-on' approach to detailing (i.e. batteries of square insets or reliefs, things of that nature) which doesn't look quite convincing on many of the larger surfaces, and a fairly pronounced case of the 'like X-mas' effect in general. As is the case with pretty much all of the maps in Nova III I've seen so far, however (including the ones I've been very critical of), it would be an understatement to say that the overall level of polish and of 'voice' is far above average as newbie maps generally go, and there are several notably stronger ideas found here and there as well, ala the novel use of the vine midtexture for a false seclusion of the RK's side-pavillion, or the snazzy two-layer combination colonnade + causeway leading back to the exit dais near the map's proper conclusion.

 

My sentiments about the gameplay are very similar. Generally speaking, it's mostly 'inoffensive' but lacks much real sense of direction or purpose; the generally spacious play areas are staffed with enough enemies such that they generally avoid feeling palpably empty, but not so many as to risk developing any real sense of grind. However, when you get right down to it, the great majority of them are just kind of standing around aimlessly, and most of the action takes the form of simply shooting enemies at circumstantial bottlenecks. In a layout like this, there's perhaps theoretical potential to have more crossfire (and thus make the player move more and be more aware etc.) or things of that nature, though I suspect that in practice identikit advice about "good gameplay" may not actually suit the map much better than its identikit detail-panels do; places to actually stage effective crossfire are few, and where we do see this feature appear its effectiveness is limited and its 'cleanup' factor higher than its gameplay contribution may warrant, as in the case of the first pair of revenant batteries, or the arachnatron near the PE landing, which can't actually hit hardly anything with its attacks unless you stand still in exactly the wrong place. This is the kind of element that you can't necessarily slap in and magically improve a map with; to be effective, it needs to be planned for to some degree from the beginning, and that is something which comes with practice and experience.

 

Again, it's not all on the downside, and there are flashes of more inspiration to be found here and there -- the chaingun plinth in the vine 'maze' is an "obvious trap" if I've ever seen one, but is actually completely safe, and used as a cheeky way of lampshading a flashfire trap a few moments later. The author has also remembered to repopulate areas with new monsters as you loop back through them; this in itself is not something to be taken for granted in a 'newbie map', but in contrast to the matter of crossfires mentioned earlier, it also seems to be something the layout actively plans for and plays with, high ground and low ground swapping as they do during the backtrack. The final trap was also genuinely surprising to me in the sense that it theoretically musters a lot more killing power than anything which precedes it (I expected all the coffins to just have hell nobles or something tbh), though mechanically it's also simple to defang by literally just wedging your ass into a 'corner' between the fence railing and the lee side of one of the coffins and then hiding behind your gun; the heterogeneity of the monster mash + the small space means that infighting erupts almost instantaneously, which tends to see the arch-vile immediately body-blocked and/or preoccupied with raising dead fodder, sharply limiting him as an actual threat. Again, this is the kind of thing that comes more naturally with practice and experience. :) 

[Demon of the Well]

Map 09 -- Scarlet Syzygy - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets

What's a 'syzygy?'

 

Comparisons between this map and "Calm the Fire" from earlier seem all but unavoidable -- like that earlier map, this is very tiny, and uses very few monsters, aiming to create threat/pressure, and thus fun, out of these micro-encounters by tightly metering the player's power/momentum from the first second until the last. It's also rather handsome, as that map was -- particularly like the silhouetted cross/impalement details on surrounding mounds, and the simple-but-effective red/black scheme of ash, blood and shadows reads as a lot sharper and a lot more convincing than the somewhat indecisive Technicolor-Hell look of several of the previous maps.

 

To put it simply, I feel that, of the two, "Scarlet Syzygy" is vastly more successful in its handling of the no frills micro-encounter concept. "Calm the Fire" tested only basic motor skills, and only in the most elementary of ways; "Syzygy", by contrast, has a lot more conceptual depth, which both makes it more interesting to actually play (and possibly replay) and also more of a feat of engineering/craft for its own sake, given how tiny the map is and how relatively few things it uses. From the outset, the most obvious tack to take is indeed to use the chainsaw to have a sort of twitchy peek-a-boo duel with the arch-vile who first greets your arrival. This is a little more of a mechanical to-do than simply shotgunning a pain elemental (or, gods help you, *pistoling* it) in the first place, and is given an extra twist by the eventual arrival of the lost souls, which adds an element of risk vs. reward in that their interference tends to behoove you to kill the vile as fast as possible. This one fight alone thus offers more depth than the entirety of m04.

 

There are, however, also other tacks to take: you can choose to evade the vile, and run deeper into the map, which allows you to buy time and search out additional armaments, gathering enough momentum to fight the vile and other Tartarean townies who eventually start hanging out in the square more conventionally; this approach is probably a lot smoother for many playstyles than being a chainsaw-wielding maniac would be, but has its own risk/reward element in that you'd better be damned sure you move like greased lightning and don't get your back against a wall until you're ready. Likewise, those who see it/seek it will find the vile-jump RL secret (I didn't see another way to it either fwiw) allows for an extremely rapid dismantling of the map through advanced high-risk play, offering the player just enough power budget to move rapidly from slight windfall to slight windfall while remaining a glass cannon until very near the end.

 

As aforesaid, I'm very skeptical of/disinterested in micro-maps in general; but this is how I reckon I like to see (and so very, very rarely *actually* see) the format handled. Nice work @Xyzzy01, I would love to see what you might do with a longer map!

 

 

[Demon of the Well]

 

Map 10 -- A Partner of the 49th Day - 101% Kills / 100% Secrets

To those who remember the author's map called "Kakravartin's Miscalculation" from the Japanese Community Project (JPCP), this lovingly wrought and enticingly macabre hellhole should come as no real surprise. A delight, but not a surprise! She seems to have a particular penchant for setting, and for supernatural/infernal settings in particular; "Partner" reads as a very traditional/recognizable Doom theme in broad terms -- a glowering edifice of vaguely neo-gothic spiritual import (we might infer from the map's title that this is very specifically a funerary shrine, and builds on the implication that the protagonist is in Hell or wherever this is because someone killed him before the game began) squatting in a desolate, smouldering wasteland of bloodred mountains and canyons -- but has a unique 'verve' and is far more interesting/believable as a place than simply 'just another castle in Hell somewhere.' Doom is a game from the 90s, and suffice to say its depiction of gore, death and schlock-occultism is not nearly as striking to a modern audience as it was in its own day, but this map is a credit to how eerie that kind of imagery can still be (even in pixel-art medium) in the right hands. Speaking strictly in aesthetic terms, this is kind of a scary map, and shit, there's very little in Doom that scares me anymore.

 

As @TheOrganGrindermentions, the map effectively builds a sense of ominous import through decisive use of down/quiet periods; many of the areas allow you to amble stately about them at your leisure well in advance of anything actually happening in them, though through the presence of smaller skirmishes and traps and other side-diversions this aspect of the pacing never becomes entirely predictable, which is key to its success. It also skillfully blends a few different tones and moods coherently into the overarching sense of location, via departures from the initial strongly-established setting such as the roundabout descent to the cold, dark basement or the first bombastic glimpse of the towering, candlelit inner sanctum/chapel. Poking around the environment and engaging with it more as a space which exists for reasons other than to be a battleground for your specific visit can bear other fruit, as well -- the most notable of these side diversions involves 3 hidden special switches gating off a super-secret area of the map; visiting this place will not leave you significantly stronger in strictly material terms, and there's no real action there, but nevertheless I reckon just being there and seeing it as something that most who reach it will find to be reward enough. This overall immersiveness of setting is absolutely the map's best quality.

 

Its weakest quality, it has to be said, is probably the fighting, or more specifically the scaling of some of the fighting, though 'weakness' is relative, of course. Generally the map fronts consistently entertaining action, albeit if not terribly ominous/gripping in the way the setting is, which is driven both by the aforementioned skill in pacing -- there's a lot of interesting back-and-forth between the action you can predict and that you can't -- and by some straightforward conceptual commitments, most notably being the map's *very* heavy skew towards rockets as your primary means of offense, which plays almost entirely for pure catharsis/empowerment since you very seldom find yourself in geometry where the weapon's capacity for endangering yourself is a real factor. Further, there are a number of fights in the map that I'd deem more or less perfect for their geometry and place in progression, ala the RK cistern.

 

When I speak of 'scaling', it's mostly in reference to the map's sense of pacing as specifically regards its fights tailing off in terms of gravitas in its later stages. The chapel fight, for instance, is big, dramatic, not terribly threatening if you use any kind of deliberate strategy (and there are several you could use); I'd personally probably prefer this be more intense, but it still functions conceptually well and credibly uses its space as-is. The post-chapel fights, in contrast, manage to use even larger numbers of monsters (over a somewhat more protracted period of time granted), but are simplistic in execution and don't credibly fill the main foyer space, which works against the map's very deliberate pacing/staging in the sense that this space is very conspicuously advertised from almost the outset as a place where something 'big' is eventually to happen; when it never truly does there is a certain sense of letdown, though I'm not ignorant of the fact that to some palates the fight we get here is unbelievably massive/intense, and that is probably closer to the intended audience than I myself am.

 

If anything, though, we might view this as a testament to the map's strong art/immersion qualities; that is, with all said and done I would still say I quite enjoyed it, even if I do feel it's occasionally slightly too kid-glovesy as regards the climactic encounters. Still safely inside the 'Zen zone', though, I guess!

[Cynical]

3 hours ago, Demon of the Well said:

What's a 'syzygy?'

It's when two or more planets or moons in a single solar system are aligned.

[Magnusblitz]

Already falling behind...

 

MAP10: A Partner of the 49th Dayby Kurashiki

95% kills, 1/5 secrets

 

As others have said, the visual design/aesthetic is top notch, really cool stuff here. Didn't remember the name from JPCP but shouldn't be surprised as I really dug the aesthetic of this author's map there as well. I also agree that despite the monster count, the encounters aren't really that difficult, it's just a long map (which took me a couple sessions to finish, so my memory of the first half isn't as clear). Gameplay-wise it compares favorably to MAP08 because it gives you the rocket launcher, which makes blasting through the encounters much more fun than the slow SSG grind. I do think the end could've used some more health, I didn't see any after you grab the megasphere in the chapel. Only found one secret, but it was the red/blue acid doozy, which was definitely... something.

[tourniquet]

M12: I really liked the pretty hectic start, that forces you to skip the Revenants in order to obtain some decent weaponry, whilst getting flanked by all sorts of mobs.

Once you gained some foothold the map turns, just as the previous, into another rather linear affair however due to the more spacious environment and a more varied enemy usage it was quite a bit more enjoyable. The layout generally suffers a bit from being too symmetrical and in certain spots like near the RK door height variation was rather put as a disadvantage towards the player. The megasphere secret was perhaps a tad too generous i guess some armor would have been sufficient. The final Cybie fight felt a bit uninspired, just a plain a circle strafe affair. Overall an OK map but aside from the start which i enjoyed the most there wasn't anything that really stood out.

 

FDA

[tmorrow]

5 hours ago, Cynical said:

It's when two or more planets or moons in a single solar system are aligned.

 

I think you mean 3 or more celestial bodies. Any 2 bodies are automatically, always in alignment.

[Xyzzу]

Wow, thanks so much for the review and feedback, @Demon of the Well! Greatly appreciated :D It's funny you mentioned what I would make in a larger map as Scarlet Syzygy is roughly half of what I had initially planned for it. I didn't have the time to make it but the second half was to have the same idea of being a place where the chainsaw was your main weapon, but other weapons and (scarce) ammo became available to help fend off the larger threats that was to be placed. It was basically going to be what my map ended up being now, but harder; The map ends abruptly after the RSK door with the same texture scheme and sky that would've been for that other half!

[gaspe]

MAP13: With this midi, and even using the same rock textures in the starting view my nostaglia for Beast Island fuels quickly and it's a bold decision deciding to make some references to a very memorable (at least for me) level from Alien Vendetta and taking the risk of being too much of a rip-off or not standing up against the original. But this map doesn't do that as it's a very different thing but the broad idea of making a slow adventure of exploring this ancient place is there. Just entering into the tomb warns about the little puzzles yu can find ahead, but don't worry it's all simple stuff very far from Eternal Doom. Combats were serviceable enough with nice little traps that keeps popping on the way. The highlight would be the big fight in the circular room, with 3 cyberdemons on UV and plenty of other folks that will join them. If you found the secret BSK you can get a BFG there which is very good to have but not necessary. Without it you can rely on the infighting and maybe lure the arch-viles to keep spawing enemies in the arena that will fight againt the cybers. I liked that the map doesn't end here, despite the arena is the climax of the level, and there's another short area to pass (and there you can find an easter egg of a fellow marine inside a computer room) before reaching the exit that was hidden behind the starting area. Excellent atmosphere and the gameplay was fitting and well done. I can already say this will be one of my favourites maps from the set.

[TheOrganGrinder]

MAP13: Tomb of Solitude

 

This one very much lives up to its name, a funereal MIDI track accompanying your initial exploration of a a gloomy, empty, and eerily quiet mausoleum.  If you know where you're going and are aware that the initial stretch of canyons and corridors is safe ground, you can rush through it quickly enough, but I feel as though the author's intended experience is for players to creep forward, wary of threats lurking in any and every shadow, painfully aware of their own pistol-start vulnerability and growing ever more jumpy and paranoid as they creep further and further into the tomb without a sign of either genuine danger or a decent weapon with which to face it.  Once combat begins, it's quite deliberately stop-start in its nature and low-key at first, with the trapped ossuary representing the first significant challenge; I'd like to comment there on how transparently trapped the rocket launcher is, but that's fine, sometimes it's nice for the level to be up-front about what's going to happen even if Doom's primary language cannot help but be one of cruel taunts and teasing mockery.

 

The marquee encounter of the whole thing is obviously the big brawl that takes place in the rotunda a few rooms beyond the ossuary, into which something like half the map's monster population gets steadily shovelled.  Quite how this plays out is going to depend on whether you found the blue key earlier in the map; I appreciate that for such a deliberately constructed encounter, sealing the player in the room with a whole pile of enemies, the map's author has obviously considered at least two significantly different ways by which the player might approach it, especially when the map's two secrets can both be found in the same room relatively early in the level.  If you find the blue key, your payoff is a delayed one, but also significant, and if not, you've still got plenty of firepower to throw around and ample opportunities to convince your enemies to start tearing chunks out of each other.  The level concludes by looping back to the beginning, throwing a cheeky couple of zombies at you just in case you thought your final stroll to the exit would be made in the same silence and solitude with which the map began.

[Andromeda]

MAP13: Tomb of Solitude (NOVA III)

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

 

The yellow rock used for the caverns as well as the MIDI remind me immediately of MAP08 from Alien Vendetta. After the caverns you spot the entrance of an egyptian temple. I like how the mechanism to enter the temple gives you a subtle hint to find one of the secrets. Inside this structure there's a low lightning level throughout, which gives it a gloomy atmosphere. Combat is pretty start and stop as you explore, but given you're reliant on the shotgun to kill stuff it's understandable.

 

The only trap that I found tricky was the one triggered before the berserk - only two hell knights, a mancubus and a cacodemon, but they're used in a way so as to put you under a lot of pressure! The main event of this level is of course the arena where you have to fight almost half of the monster population, including a Cyberdemon. If you found the secret blue key you get access to a BFG9000, but I used the Cyberdemon as a weapon and rushed to press all the switches to make more enemies spawn, then let the boss do the killing. It's moments like this where you see how much powerful the Cyberdemon really is when compared to the other monsters, as it killed every single enemy and still survived five super shotgun shots, before finally succumbing to the sixth one. I appreciate that the level doesn't end here and gives you a neat stroll to the exit. Really cool level, felt like a miniature Misri Halek! 

 

Levels in order of preference:

Spoiler

MAP05: Blood Eagle

MAP07: Cannibal

MAP10: A Partner of the 49th Day

MAP09: Scarlet Syzygy

MAP13: Tomb of Solitude

MAP08: The Crow Comes Last

MAP06: Fury Begins

MAP03: Dante Allegory

MAP01: Port Murder

MAP04: Calm the Fire

MAP11: Terramin

MAP12: Beautiful Agony

MAP02: Death Crypt

[NeedHealth]

Forget to mention a few thing about my map03. The rocket launcher is inspired by the teaser bfg in hell revealed, exept you can get it in this map, and being able to hop from the rev tower is an error on my part. Will probably be fixed.

 

The numbers are tongue in cheek, it is a chronology of all the updates, by me, the map has recieved over the years. It starts with needhealth (c) 2016, then that gets crossed out and replaced with -17. And so on, my humour.

 

The cat died.

[cannonball]

MAP13 - “Tomb of Solitude” by dt_

Well this one decides to focus more on atmosphere rather than up-front combat. In this instance it pays off nicely. Lots of quieter moments between encounters with a steady build up of danger. The big fight is obviously for the yellow key which I suspect would be a lot trickier without finding that secret blue key, in fact compared to the rest of the map it is a huge spike for a relatively sedate map.

Personally whilst this isn't the best "Doom" map in the world, the map goes out of its way to present itself as much as a cinematic experience rather than your traditional "rip and tear" fare, and I have no problem with that. This one probably ranks as one of the best maps so far. 

[TheOrganGrinder]

We've ticked over past midnight so I'm going to try and knock this one out early because nothing useful is happening tomorrow.

 

MAP14: El Dorado

 

Okay.  Deep breath.  Let's get weird.

 

I'll happily cop to being something of a tourist in the myriad worlds of Doom's community-created content, easily pleased by some pretty scenery and lacking a finely-honed appreciation of the intricacies of combat encounters that have been so masterfully sculpted from the raw clay of the game after two and a half decades of iteration, experimentation, and refinement.  From that perspective, El Dorado here feels less like a map in the Sunlust mould and more like A.L.T.'s Mesoamerican brother from another mother; @Albertoni offers up a gonzo acid-trip of a level that's creative, disorienting, and in places just plain peculiar in a uniquely delightful way.

 

Doom level design owes no more to architecture, engineering, and conventional spatial relationships than a particular map's author choses to concede, and this level's approach to the topic varies between playful and dismissive, depending on the designer's moment-to-moment whims.  This quickly becomes apparent when, denied entrance to the temple portico to your right by your lack of a yellow skull, you go delving into the caverns to your left in search of the elusive key, working your way through the tunnels to emerge... onto the deck of a ship, in the middle of an ocean of magma?  It's the first weird moment that the map throws at you, but certainly not the last; just beyond the locked gate of the temple lies a secret door which opens onto a cage suspended amidst an infinite expanse of sky, and later on you're tasked with retrieving the red and blue skulls from what might be alternate realities or different timeframes of the same temple.  Individually, these elements might feel out of place; put together, they contribute to a consistent fever pitch of strangeness into which they each fit more or less seamlessly, a lucky dip bucket of psychedelic candy that keeps on delivering surprises right to the end of the map.

[tourniquet]

M13: So far the best effort of the temple theme. Very mysterious and packed with atmosphere, the slow buildup until the first encounter really works well and backs the impression of entering a long forgotten site. Encounters are distributed sparsely which favors the afore mentioned atmospheric aspects. Compared to the previous 2 final cybie encounters this one was designed way better and shows quite a bit more teeth. Good stuff and overall an excellent map.

 

FDA

[gaspe]

MAP14: The gameplay wasn't that special but it was a very interesting map, that trip into the alternate realities to get the red and blue key was pretty cool. And you can even start to doubt that the starting place is real since it have its share of weird abstract stuff like you enter this tunnel inside a cave to exit on a boat in the middle of the golden sea,or the little secret right after the yellow door. I got some very nice ALT vibes in this one.

[Octillion]

    Before I give my thoughts on the next maps, I would like to apologize for the authors of the last few maps for my lackluster writing. A case of flu can be quite effective and disorienting.

 

MAP12 - “Beautiful Agony” by sincity2100.

 

    I loved the beginning of this map, it's hectic, but not over the top. Yes, there are a lot of hitscanners to deal with; however, the player gets both the SSG and RL, as well as a lot of space to dodge projectile-based monsters. I'm not ashamed to say that I died twice in the opener, a highroll combo from a revenant and a shotgunner is nasty after all. The Egyptian aesthetic here is, unfortunately underwhelming. (Slight rant.) Allow me to elaborate further, the beige color here is too overused. Ancient Egyptians were actually quite colorful, yes beige was mostly used in their architecture, but that was the outside not the inner. The most notable colors of white and gold is completely overlooked. I will give props for the stock doom texture used as ceiling here, it fits for the most part. (Yes, blue was used by Egyptians, royalty in particular.) I didn't mention this in the opener map, simply because it was multi-themed and not primarily Egyptian. This is a critique on the textures more than the map, so I'll stop there.

 

    As mentioned above by many club members, the overall game play is very symmetrical after the opener, and it does bring the map down a level. Symmetry is fine, but if it's half the map, it's boring. The player knows what he will encounter because of it, making the game play unexciting. Regrettably, this is another map that's all meat in the beginning and bones in the end. I will say, that the double vile teleport near the YSK could be dangerous, if you get stuck. The same thing can be said with the final encounter with the multiple revs and vile.

 

MAP13 - “Tomb of Solitude” by dt_.

 

    Ah, an atmosphere map, my favorite type, brings forth the "horror" aspect in Doom. While it's cliche, the opener starts without any monsters and you are left alone with the suspense and admiring the scenery in front of you. You venture deeper into the ancient ruins, tension rising as you don't know when the demons will ambush you. The shotgun pickup killed the mood tho, I thought the author would've made it less predictable. The combat remains the same throughout the entire map, with hidden demons in corners or sneak attacking the player. Some of them worked well as horror elements, the berserk trap was the highlight of them. Nothing too lethal here, until you reach the final area. A demonic twisted ancient spherical room that screams "Boss encounter" vibes, and it was. Triple cyberdemon with a decent amount of hell-spawn warping in at random. I didn't find the BSK, so I caused a lot of infighting to chip away at the cyberdemons.

 

    The design alone is top-notch., which speaks about the mapper's experience. The usage of the dark brick with a slight tint of green along the skulls and bones in the deeper sectors was my favorite part, looked like a genuine aged tomb for executed prisoners. Overall, a nice atmosphere map that ended with a bang.

 

Death Counter:-

Spoiler

 

                   12

               One on Maps (3, 9).

               Two on Maps (4, 6, 12).

               Four on Map (10).

 

 

Rankings:-

Spoiler

 

8/10 - Maps (3, 5, 10).

7/10 - Maps (1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 13).

6/10 - Map (2, 8, 11, 12).

 

 

[dt_]

Bit of fun* trivia for you guys: while placing things for map13, I inserted my first ever individual lost soul in any map I'd ever made, ever.  Also, it is possible to deny yourself the bfg you've earned if there's something on the central tele when you hit the blue switch

[Andromeda]

MAP14: El Dorado (NOVA III)

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

 

Our trip through various temples continues, but this level has a couple of different settings. Desert, jungle, even islands make an appearance here so you're never too sure where the hell you are :P. You can find a gorgeous golden liquid in some places (previously seen briefly in MAP04), most noticeably serving as the sea around the islands. The secrets are for the most part rather obvious although the last one, which you can see from the yellow key area is a bit trickier to find.

 

Combat is similar to the previous level with a little more oomph and more nasty traps, in particular the spectres released after pressing the switch that lowers the yellow key, as they surrounded me and made me waste the supercharge. Other interesting moments were the four revenants immediately after the first super shotgun in the blue key area and the red key trap. In the final arena, I thought about releasing the Cyberdemon to kill stuff but it wouldn't be worth it, so I disposed of the enemies before alerting the boss.

 

I like how the door doesn't open immediately, making the player think there's a switch to open it, then as you turn around to look for it you get a rocket on your backside :). The exit switch is another moment where the author plays with the player's expectations, despite it being clearly marked - since there's some bars to its right it makes you think that it will open the bars leading to the exit, but the level actually ends upon pressing it. I didn't mention it yet, but it's clear the author spent some time adding intricate detail which improves the look of the level. All in all cool stuff, quite enjoyed it!

 

Levels in order of preference:

Spoiler

MAP05: Blood Eagle

MAP07: Cannibal

MAP10: A Partner of the 49th Day

MAP09: Scarlet Syzygy

MAP13: Tomb of Solitude

MAP08: The Crow Comes Last

MAP14: El Dorado

MAP06: Fury Begins

MAP03: Dante Allegory

MAP01: Port Murder

MAP04: Calm the Fire

MAP11: Terramin

MAP12: Beautiful Agony

MAP02: Death Crypt

 

EDIT: Can't believe I failed to recognize the MIDI is a song from Moonspell, a band from my country. Good choice, I think it fits the level well!

Edited January 15, 2020 by Andromeda

[tourniquet]

M14: Quite a surreal trip, you start in the outskirts of a temple, proceed into some caverns and end up on a boat in the middle of a sea of magma. Later on you traverse different dimensions or timelines, that's a least what i assume. According to other reviews there's even more abstract stuff that i've missed on my playthrough. It's an interesting idea and hearty welcome diversion sadly the gameplay wasn't really favouring the whole concept, as i didn't enjoy it that much. Still i have to give props for trying something more unconventional. The final fight was certainly the highlight and even made me run for the exit like a coward. I also think that most of the secrets were way to rewarding for being so damn obvious and hard to miss but i guess that's just a minor nitpick.

 

FDA

[cannonball]

MAP14 - “El Dorado” by Albertoni

This feels rather unrefined and some of the ideas seem a little half-baked, but it has its exciting moments mixed in there. 

The map is competently texture, nothing stunning but nothing overly jarring or ugly either. This map is packed with secrets, most of which are very easy to find or at least guess. I guess in the end I suspect that with more experience some areas of the map would have been fleshed out more. There are some completely random turned like being in a cave and then rising to be on the deck of a boat??? Nothing wrong with an otherworldly feeling map but I guess I would want the map to push harder than it did on this factor. The second half with the teleporters to "different versions of the same area" I think could have been done in a more interesting fashion, in fact you could have built quite a puzzle out of it. 

The final area before the exit is fine, though the second wave is far more interesting to fight than the first. 

Still it is an okay map and it will be interesting to see where Albertoni progresses from here. 

[Demon of the Well]

Map 11 -- Terraforming Mines (a.k.a. Terramin) - 99% Kills / 100% Secrets

Ah, yes, very much a beginner map at its core, this. Not to understate the amount of sweat which has clearly gone into it, mind; of the level's two most defining characteristics, one is the amount of minute, realistic detail which has been lavished over almost every square inch of its terrain, which clearly aims not only to be visually pleasing in and of itself, but also to tell a definite story. One doesn't see this level of effort in a map whose author(s) did not genuinely care about it and wish for it to be great and enjoyed by other people. Many of the individual details are quite well-wrought and bespeak a natural hand for manipulating a nonstandard texture pack to create a highly representational visual stye, and there's a very smooth/believable transition from one broad theme to another, and then to a number of significant variations within that second theme. All well and good.

 

It is, however, a case of drastically one-sided investment of effort, or priority, in a design sense, and essentially none of the prowess shown in the aesthetic design carries over to the map's 'skeleton' or to its flow or encounters. As far as layout goes, it opens with a number of linguine-style corridors (that is, long, straight, and narrow) and finishes in about a half-dozen squares (and one circle and one vaguely phallic blobby sort of thingie), each neatly and hermetically sealed off from the next by a standard door, or occasionally a lift + door combo, none of which can be handled by monsters. Functionally, height variation is rare (there is some, mostly found in the west half of the YK leg), and monsters primarily just stand around and then converge on you when you enter their space, though again, there are a couple of simple warp-in traps. On the whole, the gameplay presentation is extremely narrow and extremely flat, almost arranged like a lightgun shooter in some places. The problem is, Doom's not a lightgun shooter.

 

Players who prefer a very casual/leisurely kind of pace in their Dooming will probably get the most enjoyment out of this, but I'd warrant that very few will find the action to be more than 'adequate' at best, regardless of taste; there's really just not a lot to bite into here. On some level the action is a victim of a very conventional attempt at balance -- the encounters are very simple and always fought with a door or threshold with clear territory at the player's back, so to not make them utterly laughable non-threats we must carefully pace out ammo and weapons, which in turn means you get hardly any rockets and only get cells for the last couple of fights (one of which is an antediluvian 'fight a lone cyberdemon in an open arena' historical piece), which in turn means you end up shotgunning and eventually super-shotgunning 90% of everything, which in turn means the only functional difference between the 2nd room you clear and the 12th room you clear is that the latter takes slightly longer because you're shooting monsters with more HP by that point.

 

And so on and so forth. Not that there is really a whole lot more that could've been done here, mind; the layout is too rudimentary to allow for much else (other than having more or less grind, and more or less resource austerity), and no amount of detailing on walls/floors is capable of changing this fundamental character. This is the beginner's lesson: aesthetic/diegetic detail are excellent storytelling tools and can provide an extra something-something that can elevate a good map to a great one, but they are a very, very poor substitute for robust 'core' design at making a map seem truly alive.

 

Others have already mentioned this, but just for posterity: there are a pair of cacos/imps stuck together, positioned on windowsills on the second 'floor' of the eastern half of the YK area. In the western half of this same area, most of the hanging corpse decorations high over the rooms are flagged as solid/blocking, which is mostly inconsequential in practical terms but nevertheless probably worth addressing on a bugfix pass. Finally, during my playthrough, the hellknight in the uppermost conveyor-closet in the battery south of the soulsphere secret failed to teleport out (he was still asleep/inactive when I went to look for him).

Edited January 15, 2020 by Demon of the Well

[Demon of the Well]

Map 12 -- Beautiful Agony - 102% Kills / 100% Secrets

I've previously encountered the author here from "Good Morning Phobos" (their personal megaWAD); those familiar with that WAD will be in very familiar territory here. In comparison to the previous map, "Beautiful Agony" is a much more visually understated affair, usually on the pleasant side of 'clean', perhaps occasionally a mite conspicuously unadorned, but offers much greater geometric depth and complexity, and as an inevitable result is much more engaging to play, from start to end. A fast kickstart proffered by some tomb-raiding revenants sends the player scooting out into hostile territory to grab a weapon to fight back with, and from that point it's easy to sustain the constant killing and some measure of crossfire chaos for quite a time, breaks in the action only necessarily occurring at each new locked door. The level uses most of the bestiary (only the mastermind, the free-placed lost soul, and the SS guard are absent) in mostly logical, tried/true ways, and with some willingness to play along on the player's part (i.e. keep attacking aggressively even after the map stops forcing you to do so) it offers a solid 10-15 minutes of more or less modern 'agility as defense' action with some simpler, classic-style secrets for accent. Again, all well and good.

 

While generally quite functional in what it sets out to do, many have commented that the map somehow seems to fail to really excel, and on that point I would tend to agree. The map's bread and butter is fast, to-the-point action, and while some of its areas read very naturally in this regard (I think the starting pool area and the mapstart in general is its strongest point), it occasionally trips over itself as regards monster placement, particularly where meatier mid-tier monsters are entrenched in smaller spaces that you have to break into, which throttles the sense of pace, not unlike driving a car with a big angry engine but also bad fuel injectors. One of the most pronounced cases of this is the entrenchment outside the red-lock door; the room is entered by a pair of steep staircases, and floor level puts the revenants out of the player's sight, which means they must be picked away at, or else risk getting crotch-punched by forcing the issue. That taken care of, a trio of spiderlings promptly splash out of the pool, which given lack of maneuvering room has you scarpering right back up the stairs to repeat the process.

 

Similar foibles persist later in the map -- the area leading up to the RSK landing (I do quite like the little hop to it and then the finish back on the pool-strand from earlier, FWIW) has one side stuffed with utterly useless demons and specters, all of the enemies that appear when you nab the RSK do so on ground level instead of on your level, the cyberdemon and revenants guarding the exit don't make much sense as separate waves, etc. All things considered these are all small issues, and there is nothing necessarily wrong with a certain simplicity in action, especially if it's still decently intense -- I never found the symmetry in the map very problematic because it never really constrains 'playmaking' for either the player or the monsters, for instance -- but taken in sum they do dull the edge on the overall impression a bit, and represent good points for future sharpening.

 

[tourniquet]

M15: First of all i must say that i was quite happy after looking at the enemy count, Megiddo II was quite a quite a slog with 1000+ monsters (many of them go to my account). Of course there were optional parts but in case you wanted to beat the whole map it sure was a long and hard task, thus 500+ feels a lot more manageable. Solely looking at the lineup already states that your in for some treats. Scotty and Paul and A2Rob already have proven their capabilities before, however it was a bit surprising as this is Pegleg's only contribution to the set, so let's see what he has in store for us.   

 

The hub itself looks awesome and imposing in it's grandeur, Scotty did a great job that's for sure. A2Rob delivers another quite Scythe viby setting, very large and open with resistance coming from all directions and some nice slaughter-esque fights towards the ending, very enjoyable. Next up i tackled Pegleg's part which was more compact yet offered a fair amount of enjoyable encounters and a nice look as well. Paul's section was the one i enjoyed the most, luckily i played it lastly and had a lot of cell ammo at hand, might have been a lot trickier if i had picked it first. Sadly i missed the secret exit but the final fight was a blast and my personal highlight of the whole map, good job Paul.

 

FDA

[Pechudin]

MAP13: Tomb of Solitude (HMP, Deaths: 0, Saveless: Yes)

    I really liked the slow cook that is this map's initial start and the MIDI choice really helped to set the atmosphere. I liked how you need to solve a (albeit easy) puzzle to even get into the crypt. After you get inside, the map does not barrage you with constant enemies, as if inching slowly foward you only wake the local denizens from their sleep, and not the entire crypt. This all culminates in an arena battle against two Cyberdemons and an assortment of other monsters.

    You know that feeling when you are fighting a battle you feel is right at the limit of your comfort zone? That is how it felt for me, ducking and weaving around the monsters in the outer circle, just waiting for all of them to be killed by the Cyberdemons. After that the battle became quite easy, circlestrafing in the outer edge, stopping only to use the Plasma Gun on one of the Cyberdemons. The map ends quietly, just as it started, a couple of zombiemen guarding the exit teleport. Guess they never thought Doomguy would manage to get trough?

 

    After the Cyberdemon battle I went around pressing switches, and got a BFG and some cell ammo. I did not know what that was about, but now I know it was what the Blue Key unlocked.

 

    Awards: Slow cook. As I said, I really liked the initial part of the map. It's a DooM map, so you know monsters will come out, yet they don't seem to. Thus you have more time to drink in the level design, the music and maybe even think of the possible reasons for you being here, or the structure being here. What is its story? Yours?

[gaspe]

MAP15: Another Nova, another Megiddo. The start gave me flashbacks to that Valiant map with the arch-viles that has the same music and you enter ina similar temple building, but thankfully this map was of a totally different kind. I think that your experience on a pistol start can vary depending on where you choose to go first. I started at the red keys area, which I think is by A2Rob from the Scythe-esque hellish landscape. This section has some of the biggest battles in terms of numbers, in the kind of that light-slaughter that is fun. In this area I could stack a lot of ammo to prepare for the other areas. The yellow keys part is, unmistakable, by Paul977 and given it's more tight balance of resources and also the spaces I think this part would be rather hard to tackle as first. At the blue keys section I liked the puzzles that give it a different character from the other parts and also delivering some fun encounters. I missed one secret but I was able to find the secret exit and I enjoyed a lot all the quests to access it, good job on that. The normal exit has the true big final battle, again coordinated by Paul977, where the usage of infighting is encouraged and rushing ahead to release more cyberdemons looks like a funny idea. I agree with tourniquet that I like this more than Megiddo II, and I would say that in retrospect I think this was is better than Nova II, but for once I would have liked to see some bigger and truly epic battles. Especially for the finale.
Very little nitpick: in the normal exit room the walls near the windows could aligned vertically.

[Pechudin]

MAP14: El Dorado (HMP, Deaths: 0, Saveless: Yes)

    I took a quick peek at the comments (I really ought not to) about this map and was excited by mentions of the map evoking memories of A.L.T. in certain players. After playing it, I have to say that while it was definitely a fun map that decided to stick to a core 'time/alternate reality hopping' theme a la TNT's Wormhole it definitely ain't no A.L.T. Ultimately A.L.T. has a story that runs trough the entire mapset, while here the map has only itself to tell the entire story (again, the restriction of the community mapset).

    That being said, I loved all the little absurdisms like the aforementioned secret behind the yellow door that exits into the golden void, or the holes in the door watched by dozens of evil eyes, or the '94-looking wooden boat that reminded me of E2M1 of Blood, or the ridiculous '1-pixel wide staircase' sector bloodfall. The absurdisms and quirky details however do not go overboard into the 'lolrandom' territory. Another detail that reminded me of Blood was the circular scarab pillar with the Blue armor that looks almost like the one in the starting room of E1M1 of Blood where you get the crate of TNT.

    The final battle felt a bit anticlimactic, as you got only Hell Nobles and imps to contend with (unless you decide to open the Cyberdemon door prematurely), and you are well stocked with health if you found the secret island Megasphere. Other than that, the only criticism I could level at it would be that map felt a bit flat.