The DWmegawad Club plays: 25 Years on Earth

[Biodegradable]

23 minutes ago, Phobus said:

Imagine my surprise to see that you're all backing off at the first mass of Zombiemen, and then picking off the imps from boring safety at the threshold to their area

 

I'll have you know I fought the zombiemen with gusto and tricked half the horde of shotgunners into all killing each other with infighting! But the imps... oh the imps... mate, I tried it your way but they just kept overwhelming me no matter how much I moved! The spikey cavalcade of blighters crowded and overpowered me every time. I think it's where I've died the absolute most throughout this entire WAD thus far. I tried it your way, I really did! I'm sorry I failed you...

[Phobus]

... You are forgiven. This time ;)

[gaspe]

MAP23: Short and compact level that plays with gimmicks. The darkness in the starting room, the crusher at the BK, a room with blinking lights (but at least Phobus spared us and didn't make a maze with it) and the intended idea to start again from the beginning.When you open the exit room if you are fast (and luring out the first av before closing the door helps) you can rush to the exit switch and avoid to redo the whole map.

[Andromeda]

MAP23: Corporate Hell (25 Years on Earth)

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

 

One of the simpler levels so far, but that's not a bad thing! It's good to have a bit of variety and having a level where you can just mindlessly plow your way through is refreshing. The slow crusher caught me off guard, I also appreciated the arch-vile midway through and the fact that you have to complete another lap before you're allowed to finish. The traps that opened on the second time around and the backpack secret made it less boring to traverse the layout again, although I was expecting a thrilling encounter before the end that never happened. Oh well, on to the next one!

 

Levels in order of preference:

Spoiler

MAP32: The Waiting Room

MAP09: Skulking Death

MAP17: Entrance Made

MAP06: Destination Defenestration

MAP14: Water Treatment

MAP19: Fester

MAP08: Constriction

MAP13: Caldera

MAP12: Emerald Fluid

MAP22: Power Trip

MAP11: Bloody Denial

MAP18: Meat Grinder

MAP04: Wasted Luxury

MAP20: Reclamation

MAP07: Rat Run

MAP05: Skyline

MAP31: Holiday

MAP02: Bunker Buster

MAP15: Spaceport

MAP01: Drop Pod Excursion

MAP23: Corporate Hell

MAP21: Security Station

MAP03: Urban Renewal

MAP10: Haste Keep

MAP16: Unruly Cargo

[Snikle]

MAP23: Corporate Hell

This one was a little 2x linear map. Go through it once to open a bunch of extra monster closets in order to go through it again to open the exit. If the level was any longer I probably would have disliked going through it again, but as it was I didn’t mind it. The thing I did mind, though, was the strobe light room. God damn, that hurt my eyes like hell. Luckily on go-round two, the open closet wasn’t being a blinky bastard, so I could save my retinas by running through it. Nothing here stood out too much other than that room. Luckily I can say that this map and the last one returned the visuals back to “weird,” following the pedestrian looking 19, 20, and to a lesser extent, 21.

[DuckReconMajor]

MAP23: Corporate Hell 

prBoom+ 2.5.1.7um, skill 4, continuous with saves

 

Yet another one I thought i wasn't going to like that I ended up liking quite a bit. The slow crusher got me too, but I had a lot of fun with it, eventually pushing the pain elemental into it.

The big battle after the first go-around seemed too big to come out of this small level, like MAP08 this one packs quite a bit of punch into its small frame.

The lighting effects are really good here too, as mentioned.

 

Spoiler

 

 

[loveless]

prboom+, no saves, uv pistol starts  
map 23 

 

lighting tomfoolery and satan, what a start.  two maps in a row now where movement comes at a premium but with the added challenge of light trickery.  the crowded pillar room was quite the surprise, becoming so dark that even muzzle flash didn't improve visibility.  wrapping back around and re-using areas is something i've come to expect and enjoy.  the concept is reminding me of particular Time of Death maps where no sector is wasted. 

25years-23-loveless.7z

Edited June 23, 2020 by loveless : typo

[Demon of the Well]

Map 21 -- Security Station - 114% Kills / No secrets - FDA

I get a very TNT (read: Evilution) vibe from this one, it kind of feels like that particular group's take on a 'sandbox' map -- i.e. fairly small (in comparison to other strains of the sub-genre anyway) but also fairly elaborate and involved, some might say to a minor fault. As others have remarked, the progression logic of the map is all about the switch-porn; you have the full run of the outer court from the get-go, but accomplishing literally any other progression step in the map requires interaction with a switch, even for actions as simple as opening (repeatable) doors, and I can see where it could be easy to lose track of just what the overall plot is, both as a result of this unusually high degree of articulation in general and because it is not always immediately clear what some of the switches (typically the more milestone ones, tellingly) actually do. Because the level is small (still one of the largest ones in this particularly mapset, though, tellingly), it is not too much of an ask to find the way forward by simply rechecking old ground, and depending on your level of experience it eventually becomes evident that the map is using kind of a Hexen-esque "hub" scheme in miniature: each of the four 'quadrants' has switchwork which gives you access to the same quad from a different angle or approach (and sometimes access to a bonus weapon in the public yard as well), and the keycards themselves gate final progression through the quads into a set order.

 

It's a lot to take in, perhaps, but there's a method to the madness. The benefit of such 'interactively busy' progression is that it creates the sense that you're doing something in-world, as opposed to just running through a dungeon and shooting stuff, though the risk is that it can bog down momentum if someone overlooks something. For my part, I found the red-locked quadrant went perhaps a bit overboard (I see no real justification for the existence of the red switch, as opposed to simply having the red card open red doors, like all of the other cards in the map do), and I overlooked the SSG (which presumably became available at more or less the same time and in the same way that the RL did), but did not find the overall scheme too hard to parse, though again, I'm something of a relic and familiar with old-fashioned progression schemes.

 

Fortunately, regardless of one's travails with the map mechanics, there's a hearty dose of shoot-'em-uppery to keep things moving along. The station is crawling with zombies and other low-level undead, and so all the while you're dialing dials and sliding sliders and toggling toggles and all that happy-crappy you're also spraying lead like a firehose and splattering quasi-decomposed meat all over the shiny patent-chrome. While not large, this is a level that feels very good to run around and kind of improv the battles in, not only because most enemies can be engaged with from more than one angle but precisely because its highly circuitous progression scheme means you get several opportunities for engaging with each group if you don't simply clear them all out methodically from the start. The final group of vulture-viles is a very nice touch and makes for a good climax in a set (and a mapping genre, I daresay) that doesn't have a lot of very pronounced climaxes. It's big enough to chase you around and covers ground convincingly (if you IDDT near the end of my FDA you'll see that there's at least one whole other squad I never meet, despite the 114% killscore), and while of course the terrain being littered with dead former humans takes the edge of pursuit off a bit, it does read as a natural extension of the Rambo-style action which characterizes the rest of the map, since now you get to enjoy mowing all those hapless security goons down a second time.

 

Map 22 -- Power Trip - 100% Kills / 33% Secrets - FDA

A short but relatively intense helping of plasma-spamming action, as the title may suggest. It's more or less made to be plowed through, using the plasma gun like a lawnmower, though you aren't really required to do so (there is never any pressure from the rear to force you forward), and indeed it's probably wise to hang back a bit and use some cover against the droves of zombies early on. The diabolical-looking 'imp sauna' area in the center of the map, by contrast, reads much more naturally as a place you can simply wade into, since you'll need to press forwards at some point for fresh cell charges anyway. The darkened stairway wave is more of the same delivered in even simpler fashion, though I do like the dramatic, backlit look of the action here. The final room is....something. It might seem like a bit of a pickle if you don't nab one or both of the (rather obnoxious) one-time secret powerups upon entering, but if you just use your head a bit it's really nothing more imposing than a slight breeze.

 

I did not really understand the point or value of the secret teleport back to the start of the map, and indeed found it to also be vaguely obnoxious at the time, though in hindsight I would guess that it does have a purpose, perhaps to let you make a second pass at clearing out enemies you might have missed in earlier rooms while plowing through the first time, though if so this plays off rather oddly against the one-time secrets in the final watery chamber.

 

Map 23 -- Corporate Hell - 103% Kills / 50% Secrets - FDA

Somewhat discordant-looking compact techbase level, very Deimos-in-Doom II in aspect, which seems to lean into its somewhat chaotic/abstract appearance through the use of lots of stark lighting effects, with some areas constantly yo-yo-ing from pitch dark to fully lit. The geometry itself is quite simplistic in shape and scale but also manages to communicate a certain sense of manic energy, with doors flying open and slamming shut in front of you, a somewhat inscrutable crusher hallway on the upper level, and creatures regularly popping out of broom closet-sized cubbies jam-packed into the walls of most of the rooms.

 

This is one of the set's stronger examples of creating entertaining action using tiny spaces and (comparatively) small numbers of creatures, I thought. Enemies are densely-packed and most battles are at melee range; while most players of some experience should find it very manageable, it has a certain air of intensity and urgency in that it does actually make you keep on the trigger and stay mindful of your surroundings, as opposed to merely politely asking you to, as is often the case in the genre at large. The double loop through the layout to actually reach the exit could read as contrived to a certain mindset, but I think it plays well with the aforementioned sense that the building itself has a malign sentience, and having creatures spill out of the walls to repopulate the second loop creates a sense of violence and hard-fought progress which, again, tends to be rare in such short maps.

[Endless]

MAP 23: Corporate Hell. Played in UV with Brutal Doom and LZDoom.

 

That was pretty quick. The map has a techno theme, with a mix of more devilish textures. It follows the line of the megawad: short but packed with combat. Although I must say that this time I found it too short for my taste. Leaving the crushing trap at the beginning, the map was quite fast and not as challenging as others, although I think I somehow took a shortcut, as I finished it with 62% of kills. Decently enough for any map, but within the range of all the maps in the collection, this one falls a little behind for me.

[golbeeze]

Map 24

Nothing really stands out in my mind for this one. I think it ranks rather low in the wad for me. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't memorable either. There was one sticky situation that went well for me and the rest seemed easy.

[Capellan]

MAP24

I thought this was pretty fun run and gun action on the whole and I liked that it varied between orthogonal and curved/natural lines.  My only quibble would be the use of switches whose purpose is not immediately apparent.

[Biodegradable]

MAP24 - The Front Line

Wait... why did you put the exi-WOOSH Bwah?! Where am I? Oh shit! Oh they're everywhere! GAH! <pulls out chaingun> AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA <runs like a headless chicken for a good minute or two, killing about 30 demons before finding a place to catch breah> Good lord, Phobus. This how it's gonna be for the rest of the WAD, eh? Wise guy... Well, this was a wild and woolly one, but also rather tricky in a few spots. The overall layout of this map was interesting and I love how you've made a lot of these later maps wrap around themselves in a way that feels right, rather than contrived or silly. I wish I could articulate more on level design, but I don't have any experience or knowledge on these matters. Perhaps in time once I've been playing community WADs for a year or two... or five. :^P

 

Oh and that monster closet trap near the end? That was very mean, you dastardly red sausage roll-looking bugger! Hehehe yeah, good stuff fam, goooooood stuff.  

Edited June 24, 2020 by Biodegradable

[Mr. Meanor]

I'm actually going through this for the hell of it, because why not, and it's actually built well for it being vanilla-centric. I'm accidentally doing a blind ironman of it, because it just kinda happened. @Phobus did a good job with item to monster placement imo. The secrets in map 15 were also great, because I love finding them (secrets). I kinda have a mantra I live by: You may never know if and when a secret will save your run. Find em all.

 

[ironicmoustache]

Crispy, UV, continuous.

 

MAP23

A huge inverted cross cut into a wall is the perfect way to start a map. This is a pretty tight and challenging level, with the challenge coming from monster placement, tricks/traps, and space constraints. The polar opposite of the previous map in a sense, and a bit more in my wheelhouse.

 

Conceptually, I’m not necessarily a fan of having to go through a level twice, but the way that the second loop was refreshed with monsters via opened-up walls/cubbies was a good way to go about it. Especially so given that the new enemies did pose a threat and weren’t just fodder to mow down. (The two revenants after the lift were, while not life-threatening, a bit of a rough surprise.) On a conceptual level, I prefer this “opening up” approach to repopulating a level than simply teleporting enemies in. Functionally I guess they’re the same, but it’s interesting to see how the architecture of the map is built around accommodating for that. And hey, it’s nice to have the chance to restock and heal up with items revealed in the new rooms/cubbies/etc.

 

It’s a fun map. Good use of intentionally limited space, a solid sense of threat and urgency, and a good introduction to the more tricks-and-traps-focused philosophy of the next few maps.

 

MAP24

Nice hectic start after the surprise teleporter. I thought it was a good example of architecture/layout, set-up, and enemy placement (and numbers) used to make lower-tier enemies feel more threatening than they perhaps really are. For a while, it felt like there was always a threat around me (often an enemy that had ambled into the room I was in behind my back) and it kept me on my toes even if I was never in real danger of dying.

 

I wasn’t sure what that switch in the hell knight room even did, which, again, is a thing I quite dislike. At least it's a small map, so backtracking once I figured out what it was for wasn't a pain, but still...

 

The blue key courtyard felt ominous and my hunch was proven right. I enjoyed the fight; having the BFG made it easier but in no way trivialised it. Would be interesting to pistol start this map too.

 

Another drumless MIDI track here, unfortunately. At least it didn't draw my attention/distract me as much as the last drumless MIDI.

Edited June 24, 2020 by ironicmoustache

[Phobus]

@Demon of the Well I was surprised to see your play through of MAP21 didn't involve grabbing or even investigating the SSG, despite it having been lowered by one of your switch finds. Did you not see it? Not that it seemed to have any negative impact on your progress!

 

MAP23: Corporate Hell

There comes a point in every map set where the author wants to make significant use of lighting effects. With my challenge kind of enforcing that point happening, this is the map where that happens! Both secrets are up in the room with the worst of it, but you can't get the backpack until the second time around. Funnily enough, the other, much harder to find, secret contains an automap (so all of those ambushes on the second lap are visible in advance) and also gives you an extra green armour and a path back up after you hop down. This does mean that you don't need to rush under the door into the Arch-Vile to cut the second lap from your agenda, but you'll also need to check the light columns closely for the bulb that doesn't match!

 

I included this map in the 6-map demo as the final playable one because it doesn't really give too much away, but does embody the "short and sharp" nature of the final cluster of 10 maps. This map in particular is the start of a run of four close-quarters, tricky maps built around traps and treachery, each very loosely embodying the nature of a big company - in this case, the emphasis on "presence" and "branding", with a good dose of how it takes twice as long to get anything done as you'd hope, in a big company :P

My playing experience was a pretty easy one, as seeing the videos and demos was a refresher before I came in, and I left the last level highly-stocked and with a fresh blue armour. That's not to say I didn't take plenty of damage from all of the up-close-and-personal action, but it was all easily recoverable with what's there. My continuous play through is well into new territory at this point, as I've never done a full-32-map run of this megaWAD before (last continuous run I did had to terminate at MAP16, as MAP17 and 18 hadn't been made). I think, if I hadn't have gotten all of the secrets, ammo would've been a lot lower as there's no non-secret backpack to this point (or until MAP30, IIRC) and I suspect the lack of a BFG and reduction in quality of armour would've left me in a reasonably precarious state at various points. As it is, the ammo balancing means that I'm near enough topped out now, but any weapon I favour over the course of a map does get depleted (aside from on MAP22, where there's a lot of bullets, shells and cells). I think, really, ever since MAP18 (with it's big secret cell stashes to augment the plasma gun) I've had plenty of cells, and MAP32 meant I was topped out for bullets, with shells and rockets being a bit more variable based on usage, but shells generally being plentiful. A pretty typical continuous megaWAD experience for me, all told, but the ramp-up to this situation was drawn out pretty well even with the accuracy/efficiency benefits afforded by GZDoom!

 

This experience, along with the feedback and surprising range of comparisons and "This reminds me of..." moments has led me to believe this megaWAD is a bit of a magnum opus, for me. Perhaps more than the sum of it's parts. It does need a bit of fixing, though :P

[Summer Deep]

MAP23

 

Yes, the lighting special effects tend to dominate this map, right from the off. No need for any monsters at all here if Doomguy is prone to epilepsy!

This was good fun actually, nice fairly compact map with some intense close-range combat and plenty of variety. Plays a bit differently if the AV near the start gets trapped in the exit room, and it was satisfying to watch a Pain Elemental drift away from me, only to find itself under the crusher.

 

MAP24

 

A bit like the previous level, this isn't technically an 'action start', but it might as well be. Hectic or what? No 'safe spaces' for you here, snowflakes, LOL. From a UV pistol start. the encounter with the Mancubuses and Archvile is notably tough as well. It pays not to be too hasty after entering the barred area - wait a minute or two for the barriers to rise and at least you'll have a bit more room for manoeuvre.

[TheOrganGrinder]

MAP24: Front Line

 

This is a really cool setting for a map, a tangle of flooded Zimmerit caverns bisected by an L-shaped facility of slimy brick and polished metal, with clever progression that whisks you away from the safe and elevated start of the map (which functions also as its exit) and dumps you unceremoniously into the dank depths of the caves, surrounded and at constant risk of being outflanked and overwhelmed.  Where certain other maps in the WAD have oustayed their welcome or have felt as though they're stretching limited ideas too far and too thin, this one is just the size and length for the content it delivers, providing a nicely varied set of encounters from the initial throng of low-tier fodder, to the revenant ambush once the player escapes the southern caves, and finally to the big pitched battle in the north of the map, where the plasma gun and rocket launcher can get a real workout.  Great stuff.

[kalaeth]

MAP18 : ok, I remembered from my previous playthrough where the MegaSphere was, so I start the level at full live and armour.
Since this is a meat grinder, my poor doomguy is down to 60% health and I don't even one key to show. But I already opened up two parts of the level.
Back to 100% life and already have 3 secrets out of 5, still no keys... Yey, a blue key! And now a red key. With a bluesphere and a blue armor... save, run, grab, shoot! And lost more life to the crusher than to the monsters :D SMM : dead!
Yellow key obtained, and a sprint to the exit. I missed one secret, but oh well.

 

MAP19: no notes 'cause I forgot. Short nice map, I like the interconnection of everything in it.

 

MAP20 : got all the way to the cyber and then died. restart because I forgot to save... Really like the crusher's elevator reproduction. And then eventually reached the cyber again, died, died, died, finally ran fast enough :D

 

MAP21: early death to hitscanner paradise, retry! 96 deaths and I haven't even opened a door yet.. and then I opened doors, killed more monsters and got me a pair of keys. no, all of the keys. And now done, all enemies dead, the exit stands before me.

 

MAP22: Oh wow, this early level packs a punch.. But it also offers you a megasphere, so I'll forgive it. *hundreds of dead imps later* oh, another megasphere! And a SMM. Two SMMs. And more imps. Welp. Done. One more monster to go. Expected. And of course I forgot to save the entire level so... Let's kill more low level enemies, again.
Way better this time around, and I found the secret that leads back to the start. That meat inverted crusher is awesome, by the way.
And why, why don't I sabe before the cyberdemon?! Oh well, at least now I found the other secret stairway down (that doesn't count as a secret)
I'm getting better at this first part of the level. And of course, as soona s I save before the last fight, I get through it :D 

 

MAP23 : shooting my coworkers from the back? It does sound like corporate hell! Fun short shoot at everything that moves map!

 

MAP24 : again, a short fast romp of killing everything while running from one switch to a door/lift. fun little level.

 

(there, caught it all back up :D)

[Andromeda]

MAP24: The Front Line (25 Years on Earth)

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

 

Like in the previous level, we start very close to the exit. Trying to approach it teleports us to a watery cave where you'll have to contend with plenty of imps, hitscanners approaching from all sides and even a few midtiers strategically placed as snipers. Perhaps the previous sentence does not do this area justice, it really is quite dangerous! The rest of the level consists of a few well designed trap-based encounters, where the newly acquired rocket launcher proves its worth at defusing the ambushes with relative ease. Pretty fun!

 

Levels in order of preference:

Spoiler

MAP32: The Waiting Room

MAP09: Skulking Death

MAP17: Entrance Made

MAP06: Destination Defenestration

MAP14: Water Treatment

MAP19: Fester

MAP08: Constriction

MAP13: Caldera

MAP12: Emerald Fluid

MAP22: Power Trip

MAP11: Bloody Denial

MAP24: The Front Line

MAP18: Meat Grinder

MAP04: Wasted Luxury

MAP20: Reclamation

MAP07: Rat Run

MAP05: Skyline

MAP31: Holiday

MAP02: Bunker Buster

MAP15: Spaceport

MAP01: Drop Pod Excursion

MAP23: Corporate Hell

MAP21: Security Station

MAP03: Urban Renewal

MAP10: Haste Keep

MAP16: Unruly Cargo

[gaspe]

MAP24: I liked the classic combo in the visuals, green zimmer, water and brown. I also liked the starting area that shows you a part of the map but a little surprise sends you to a different place where you really begin to tackle the level. The first fight is fun, the cave s seemingly maze-y at first sight and then even in the more open area has monsters at every corner so you are pretty busy. Then the highlight of the level for sure is the RL fight where you are trapped in a nasty situation.

[DuckReconMajor]

MAP24: The Front Line

prBoom+ 2.5.1.7um, skill 4, continuous with saves

 

I tore myself away from the Spongebob remake to give today's map a go.

Right away I hear the MIDI hell yeah!

I THINK THAT SOMEONE IS TRYING TO KILLLLL MEEEEEE

I didn't even notice the missing drums as the riff is so iconic. Plus there is plenty of gunfire going off to serve as percussion. 

 

What is this, Hell Revealed 2? Duped by a fake exit again!

we're hit with another 'big action in small package' level, and if this is a sign of things to come i am very much down for it.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

[Endless]

MAP 24: The Front Line. Played in UV with Brutul Dewn and LZDoom.

 

I died a lot. I and loved that. The first ''arena'' of the maps presents an exquisite challenge thats done well enough to be hard without being annoying. The map starts with the lovely trap of putting the exit door right in front of you, but oh how naive I was. Despite having less monsters than usual, they are placed in such a small and tight area that you are forced to face them with everything you got, and that's just fantastic. One of my favorites so far, and one of the few were I got 100% lol.

 

[Snikle]

MAP24: The Front Line

Was this map built the way it was to use up a “teleport once” line? Whether that’s true or not doesn’t matter, I enjoyed it. The texturing reminded me of some other levels I’ve played before, specifically some stuff from Struggle and Sunlust. Caves and ZIMMER just bring up memories of certain maps, and now this’ll probably get added to that. Coming straight off the teleport at the start landed me in a hot zone, with lots of monsters and tense moments. Highlight of the level for me there. Took me a second to figure out the puzzle to get outside the caves, but I was glad to see a nice puzzle again. Going around the starting building led to some more manc-packed skirmishing. Got the blue key, went back in, and exited the level, no doubt confusing the hell out of doomguy when he didn’t warp again. Another fun level on the books.

[FrancisT218]

23/24/25 - All fun short maps with each slightly harder (but not that hard) than the one before. Lighting and the double-use of the map was the highlight in 23; in 24 the switch use along with the first + blue key fights; and in 25 the dropdown and final fights (secret supercharge is NOT useless!) were highlights. I'm guessing 24 is where @Phobusused SAFELY a W1 teleport, since he mentioned he had it used again on another map after 13 was found not to be a 'safe' use.

Edited June 25, 2020 by FrancisT18 : Removed vote from this post (changed in later post)

[Horus]

+++ Three Is A Crowd

 

EDIT: I edited out DBP16 as for some reason I misread ScypeK's post thinking it only had 19 levels. It's a full 31 levels, so I've changed my vote for that wad on a standalone basis

Edited June 25, 2020 by Horus

[Pirx]

MAP22 - “Power Trip”

 

shall we call this map cathartic? that is, cleansing negative feelings by slaughtering through large numbers of weaklings, mostly imps. just see that your several hundreds of plasma cells are enough for their numbers. in the end, see how easy you can turn 2 spiders against each other and then against a cow. one spider won it all. good spider.

 

 

 

MAP23 - “Corporate Hell”

 

interesting little map for how it reuses the available space. after taking the elevator and crossing the corridor with the crusher, you have to return to that room, only to be greeted by revenants where there had been imps before, and the surprise chaingunners in the window and the revs in the dark room with the columns are nasty. returned with only 13 hp to face the final archvile.

 

 

 

MAP24 - “The Front Line”

 

you get teleported surprisingly into a cave system where baddies can roam and come at you from several directions. from here you continue into a concrete & inner garden complex. there are bars that raise and trap you with the first group of larger monsters - i defused that by stepping back quickly because it smells like a trap, and right i was. the second group is released by the switch inside - a vile and several mancs - but you can run around and shoot him from behind his fat meat shield this time. i guess that if one gets caught by the rising bars, then pressing the skull switch seems the logical solution to get out, and puts the player in a bad position. well, there's the option of running back all the way to the door and camp there with rockets. the exit is near then.

 

 

 

MAP25 - “Middle Management”

 

lots of surprises is tight quarters in this iwad-like abstract map. the most evil thing were the skeletons perched high above who bombarded me every time i was busy with the rabble on the ground. the first room with enemies coming from all directions has one, the brown brick room has one, and then there's the chaotic final room with revenants coming from all sides while i was busy with the vile who would have ruined all my work when, guess what, another revenant high up where the exit stairs rise later brought me down to 2 hp and i didn't even know what hit me so bad. collected those health and armor bonuses, for lack of anything else, and went back to the first room, where i found 2 archviles and luckily just some knights and not revenants. amusing map, can go wrong quickly if you suddenly eat an 80 hp hit from nowhere.
 

Edited June 25, 2020 by Pirx

[ironicmoustache]

Crispy, UV, continuous.

 

MAP25

My initial reaction was “oh, another exit’s right in front of you, but here’s a surprise!” map, but while I was correct, those thoughts were quickly swept from my mind by the nature of said surprise. Another fun, hectic start, with the placement of the imps and revenants raining death from above adding some welcome spice to the mix. I liked the architecture in the lava rooms, although I did feel somewhat unsure about how the lava and rock fit in with the rest of the architecture. It makes sense looking back and in the context of the following levels though. And, hell, I guess it can be read as a metaphor for the gradual hellification of one’s experience climbing the corporate ladder...

 

But, really, this map is all about that fight after the dropdown. It might be my favourite fight in the whole WAD so far, or at least definitely in the top 5. Great room layout, with the curving corridors giving you some room to dodge the revenant rockets, while pinkies close the distance, pain elementals spawn lost souls, and imps chuck fireballs from the raised walkways. And, of course, there’s a pesky archvile hanging out in the open area, too.

 

After that, the final double AV threat felt a bit tame in comparison. Was there a monster blocking line stopping the hell knights and non-teleporting AV from leaving the exit ‘room’? Might've been more of a challenge had both AVs been able to roam around and resurrect monsters. Good map though, also a highlight of the WAD for me.

As far as voting for next month's megawad, mine has to go to:

+++ Three Is a Crowd

Edited June 25, 2020 by ironicmoustache

[Demon of the Well]

@Phobus I'm sure I "saw" the SSG in m21 in the sense that it was visible through the marine's visor at some point, but either my little lizard brain never really registered its presence, apparently, that or something must've distracted me right after picking up the RL. My ignoring it wasn't deliberate, in any case. But it hardly mattered -- the pump-action shotgun and chaingun are fine for shooting it out with the level's population of fodder, and rockets and plasma are a better option for the incursion of arch-viles at the end anyway.

 

Map 24 -- The Front Line - 103% Kills / 100% Secrets - FDA

This map strikes me as something that would have been at home in the pre-Hell part of the original Scythe. While these later maps in general appear to be dialing in and focusing more on combat in general than the earlier levels did, the overall pattern of small maps comprised of small discrete parts and thus, small discrete encounters has for the most part continued to hold steady. The miniature sandbox arrangement of m21 works in a bit of a different direction in the sense that you could choose to play it as more of an ongoing/unstructured engagement, yes, but "The Front Line" marks the first time where the author seems to be aiming for something a little more freeform as central to the map's character.

 

Basically, here we see a slightly delayed (and thus, surprising) kickstart in the form of being suddenly dropped into the middle of a hostile area, with enemies approaching from all sides. It's not all one open space or arena per se -- there's still a sense of individual rooms or burrows, separated by short but sinuous tunnels -- but there is no solid segmentation between them in the forms of doors or lifts or whatnot, which essentially means that every monster the area contains is roaming and in play for the course of the entire battle (naturally excepting a handful of creatures perched on ledges, who are active but of course can't roam), which is far more pronounced than even in something like m16 earlier, where even though monsters could move through the layout, in practice the action would still tend to parcel out into discrete rooms or 'pods' of creatures. In this map, by contrast, 90% of the action in the level takes place as one variable and ongoing battle, whether you choose to try to hole up somewhere and play defense, or do what I did and go careening about like a headless chicken. Again, in the scheme of things this is a small battle, but the change in tenor is helpful for the sense of variety, both because it's a different kind of fight we've not seen much of in the set, and because it's a 'gimmick' that's about a fight rather than a piece of sector machinery.

 

The last bit of action in the map is again trap-based, and while it's a familiar setup by this point the traps themselves seem to be getting a little more insistent, if nothing else. I'm not sure what the hell I thought I was trying to do in the FDA, I made that whole bit a lot more complicated than it needed to be. The combat armor secret will really take the edge off if you reach it timely, but I was in a hurry and didn't clue in to it until after all was silent.

 

Map 25 -- Middle Management - 104% Kills / 100% Secrets - FDA

A somewhat ugly but nevertheless entertaining map with an amusing and thematically fitting midi, presenting a short series of breach + clear fights, i.e. fights where there's a large concentration of enemies entrenched in a room, and you have to bust in and clean house, since they aren't going to come to you. Heavy weapons are available freely by this point in the WAD's progression, so you're more than adequately armed, and a pair of soulspheres (one of them secret, granted) plus a number of other bodily aids afford you high survivability. So don't be a chickenshit! Get in there and take care of business, shake up the establishment a bit. This being a floor dedicated to middle management, it has probably very rarely seen much in the way of actual work being done.

 

There's not much else to say. The trap at the exit is a sassy gesture, but would probably be more effective if the two viles were to split up more, rather than both landing at more or less the same place.

[golbeeze]

Map 25

Somehow I didn't notice one of my favorite songs of all time was the soundtrack until I basically beat the level. This level was definitely fun, but also felt like an aimlessly meandering layout. Nothing felt like it was deliberately placed for progression. I'm not sure what I would suggest to change that, so I suppose it is just my perception.

+++ Demonfear

 

 

+++ Demonfear

[AD_79]

+++ Akeldama