The DWmegawad Club plays: Demonfear & 1000 Lines 2

[Salt-Man Z]

49 minutes ago, Pseudonaut said:

Sounds like you're talking about a hall of mirrors effect. This happens for me if I play the level in GLBoom+, but not in PRBoom+. It probably has to do with the differences between a software renderer (as in vanilla Doom) and a hardware renderer.

GZDoom 4.0.0 had no problem with it, though I remember other WADs on older versions getting HOMs on invisible sectors.

[tmorrow]

map05

 

The surprising yellow key pickup results in a trickle of enemies onto the map from a monster closet behind the start. The monsters in this closet don't easily find their monster teleporter. It took 5 minutes to get the last imp to come out and play. Bashful imp!

 

map06

 

Some silly marine neglected to look for the Ammo Dump in the red key room and ended up trying to tyson the map for a while with non berserk fist. The enemy was not impressed.

[Salt-Man Z]

MAP05: Communication Base (HMP/continuous)

4:02 | 100% Everything

This is a communications base? It's like another little house. Very cramped, lots of doors, as seems typical. Having a key in the pond is an interesting touch that feels like players might pick it up without realizing. One of the rooms has short walls that you can vault over from the outside, I guess maybe it's more of a porch? I was kitted out with the HMP megasphere from last map, so I basically invincible, and there was ammo to spare lying around, so most of the combat consisted of blasting everyone through windows, until mobs start teleporting outside, whereupon I basically camped with my SSG and took them out like fish in the proverbial barrel. Then it was inside to mop up and collect all the goodies. Oddly, the teleports slowed to a trickle, to the point where two imps warped in after I had found the exit and cleaned out everything else.

 

MAP06: The Ammo Dump (HMP/continuous)

5:33 | 100% Everything

This level felt like it was going to be larger than it actually is at first, thanks to the abundance of stairs, I think. The game here is to find the yellow key, and then the room with all the yellow key doors. The yellow key gets you the exit, but also the red key, which unlocks the red door behind another yellow door, which gets you a bunch of rockets. I was a little embarrassed it took me as long as it did to find the secret, but in my defense there are a lot of walls to inspect.

[DuckReconMajor]

First 4 levels were great. Vid with commentary below

 

Spoiler

 

 

[jmac]

4 hours ago, Pseudonaut said:

Sounds like you're talking about a hall of mirrors effect. This happens for me if I play the level in GLBoom+, but not in PRBoom+. It probably has to do with the differences between a software renderer (as in vanilla Doom) and a hardware renderer.

 I'm using PRBoom+. I was screwing around with some of the settings earlier though without really knowing what I was doing. If I run into more issues I'll have to try to figure out what I did wrong.

[VanaheimRanger]

MAP05: Communication Base

How do I stop all this teleporting?  How many Baron's you got in there?  Who lost their keys in the pool?  These are all valid questions regarding this map.

 

 

MAP06: The Ammo Dump

I dumped all my ammo into the enemies...see what I did there?

 

 

 

Also, 2 MIDIs in a row by @dial-up Very good taste, @P41R47

Edited October 3, 2020 by guitardz

[Pseudonaut]

Map05: UV-Max in 4:07
Most of the gameplay here is really fast and fun, but for maxing, it's dragged down by the fact that the last few enemies take forever to teleport in. While not recording, I actually used idclip to find the monsters' teleporters so I could properly manipulate them into moving in that general direction when I did record. At least, I think that's how it works.

 

Map06: UV-Max in 1:34
Much better. I recorded several attempts for this one to get a better time, and died a couple of times in the process. Ammo can seem scarce if you don't know where to look, but there's actually plenty. I'm not sure why I bothered to grab the chainsaw.

 

Demos:

DF05-06.zip

[Capellan]

Here's my commentary for maps 06-10.  (without preview image to avoid any possible spoilers)

 

https://youtu.be/VH4TdxEeh6k

 

[Biodegradable]

Demonfear: MAP05 - Communication Base

UV | Continuous with Saves | GZDoom + Final Doomer

 

Yet another scenario where I found myself facing a tiny house that immediately has demons pour out of every orifice from the moment I kill one (or in this case a double-kill) of them. It's both an interesting challenge and an annoyance, which leaves me with mixed emotions unable to decide if Capellan is a genius or a bastard, which is a mood that may find itself constantly at play throughout this WAD, who knows! lmao

 

Demonfear: MAP06 - The Ammo Dump

UV | Continuous with Saves | GZDoom + Final Doomer

 

Flagrant false advertising! I expected far more ammunition! The walls are paper-thin as everyone knows where you are by the very first kill so I'm definitely seeing a pattern here. Demonfear? More like DemonALERT! I ended up having to replay this one because I accidentally skipped out on the optional red key door.

 

I'm going to be rendering my gameplay of each two maps per day into one video from this point forward for the rest of the month as it's less time-consuming:

 

 

[DSC]

14 hours ago, Capellan said:

All maps except 26-30 were made and released in 1995.

Oh, sorry! For some reason I thought they were released in the very late 90's...

[Phobus]

MAP05: A pretty similar idea to MAP02, but it's broad daylight and there's a couple of Barons. I've not read the accompanying text files here, so whether it's a house or not I'm not certain. I got a vague hint of a shop, for some reason. Probably the little car park to your right at the start. The main thing I noticed here was the enemies clearly having a good time with the doors whilst I was shooting from near the starting position to kill everything that entered my line of sight. I took little damage and had plenty of supplies to top myself back up again. The secret was interesting, as it raised back up when stepped onto, giving me the distinct impression I was at risk of getting crushed. I suspect I wasn't, but that was the feel of it. Four enemies didn't warp in for me. Sounded like zombies. Also, the yellow key being hidden in a pool of deep water was pretty novel! That, along with a lot of the windows being open enough to walk in and out of, were probably the key points of interest that made this little map a touch more interesting than it could've been.

 

MAP06: A nice enough map, that demonstrates amply something I rather like about this set so far: the remixes of the stock textures (presumably through TEXTURES1 editing and patch placement) to produce new and varied feels. The first map had the BROWN96/METAL stuff, which were a bit inconsistent, whilst the fifth map was boasting bricks mixed with green vines, and a SHAWN/BRICK mashup as well. Here we've got some alterations to TEKWALL (I think) and a really nice GRAY/LIGHT combo in the secret. Game play wise this map runs out of steam very quickly, and doesn't have as much free roaming enemies as a lot of the previous ones, forcing you to open every door to make sure everything is dead. You also run out of stuff to kill as soon as you go through the yellow key doors around the exit, and those four Imps are just mopping up. The challenge, really, is in the room with the Cacos, Chaingunners and Barons, as there's a lot of angles of exposure. Still, on continuous you'll have armour and weaponry to get through there alright, as I did.

 

 

I believe these maps came in five-map chunks, so at the end of the first, suburban-feeling chunk (with a little hint of base on MAP04) we've had a relatively easy ride, but seen some creative stuff, some nice custom textures and generally had a nice time blasting through open layouts with the monsters free to wander and mix up the challenge and experience a bit. MAP03 was the strongest, IMO. MAP06 hints at a different direction of play, with more deaf enemies (or, more likely, a lack of sound propagation due to the discrete corridors), but we'll see. Map size is very nice for me, and two a day is a good little rush, IMO.

[Cheesewheel]

MAP05 - Similar to other maps. You fire and everything wakes up, cue endless door noises. Yellow key in deep water was cool. I like how there are multiple ways in and out of the building.

 

MAP06 - Little bit more sophistication from this one with some deaf monsters and shotgunners hiding round corners. Had just enough ammo on pistol start to clean up the two barons at the end.

[jmac]

Since this wad feels like it's intended to be played continuously, I decided to change from HMP pistol start to UV continuous. I was only 4 levels in, so I also decided to just start over from the beginning as well.

 

Map 5

I'm not really a fan of hot starts, but I liked how hectic this level felt. Every time I thought the teleporters were done, they spat out another enemy right in my face. I didn't even have a chance to check the monster count until most of them were dead.

 

Map 6

The chaingunners had me dangerously low on health for most of this level. I've heard barons called "doors with health" before, but I think the two that were jammed in front of the exit finally made me fully understand the nickname. The titular ammo dump being at the end of the level made me glad I decided to switch to continuous playing.

 

 

[DJVCardMaster]

MAP03 - "Gettin' Gas"  (100%K/0%I/100%S):

Quite an ambitious little map for 1995, where there is a fake 2-story house simulated via teleports, something odd, that back in the day was quite surprising to see.
Again with the Doomcute, a ton of little details, like the gas station and the house.
The map is challenging at start, with so many monsters outside. Once you get to kill every monster outside, you can get inside.
It gives a little bit of a Resident Evil 3 mood for some reason.

MAP04 - "Transport Nexus"  (100%K/I/S):

Here we lose some Doomcute aspects in exchange for a E1 styled map, the start looks like that Stronghold map in TNT, same area, tons of hitscanners from far away. Another sweet and short map, but with weird design choices, like the floating soulsphere. Also, we can finally see some secrets, although basic ones.
Pretty squarey.

MAP05 - "Communication Base"  (94%K/0%I/100%S):

Back again with doomcute, this one having better detail aspects than past maps. This one feels a little bit better than the rest, in terms of looks. Still, rooms are simple squares.
As with past maps, you can scam some of the combat from the outside, as there are many windows to the inside, leaving you space to kill monsters that are in the building.

MAP06 - "The Ammo Dump"  (100%K/0%I/0%S):

A Doom II styled map, with some corridors and interconnected layout, nothing much to say about this, I personally enjoyed the noticeable change of gameplay in comparison to the previous 5 maps, as there isn't too much of a "shoot from the outside" scamming here.

Deaths: 5 (UV Playthrough - Chocolate Doom)

Order of preference:

 

Spoiler

MAP03
MAP06
MAP05
MAP04
MAP02
MAP01

 

[Snikle]

MAP05 - Communication Base

Guess which key took me way too long to find. Other than that, I enjoyed this level. Monsters kept warping in intermittently the whole time I was here, it’s probably just how the closets were built back then. The last thing that came for me was a baron, which didn’t warp in until I was already stumbling around looking for the yellow key (but he came before I found it, so I know it’s not linked to that). The visuals were alright, I liked the doomcute again, and the parking lot out front was a nice touch. The barons in this map weren’t even too bothersome to me.

 

MAP06 - The Ammo Dump

Pretty standard 90s-style startan base. It wasn’t bad, it even had some nicely challenging parts to it. For 1995, this is actually a very good map. Those yellow-locked columns in the final room eluded me longer than they should have, and I actually died to the barons once (stupid!), but I enjoyed this map nonetheless. The area with all the hitscanners was my favorite part.

[Capellan]

In doom2.exe the YK on map05 is clearly visible in the pool. Some modern ports behave differently, based on a couple of videos I watched.

 

[DuckReconMajor]

MAP05

Cool brick house. I do see the yellow key clearly (prboom-plus2517 complevel 2).

I enjoyed the small-roomed house motif from earlier and I enjoy it here as well.

The tall windows look anachronistically modern, while allowing me to easily step over the sill.

 

MAP06

Crusher time!

I like the green tekwall theme. I managed to linedef skip the exit lol

 

Spoiler

 

 

[tmorrow]

map07

A lovely little fortress without the "Dead Simple" special tags being used.

map08

A mean little hitscanner, pain elemental, archvile triple punch. The second of what I found to be the five harder maps.

[Endless]

MAP01: Wolves in the Kitchen

LZDoom

UV

 

 

A complex of different rooms and bathrooms that visually expands thanks to a good classic use of Cute-Doom architecture. For some reason it gave me a certain feeling of nostalgia; leaving that, this is a map that despite having a large number of rooms, follows a practically straight path that allows us to finish the map in less than a minute. However, I recommend exploring a little earlier, since some rooms and secrets give good rewards. As a final note, I have to say that I am playing this megawad together with the recompilation of MIDIs in the WAD file created by P41R47. It certainly improves the overall quality of the game.

 

MAP02: The Colonel's Car

 

 

Creating realistic houses during the 90s was cool, wasn't it? This is a somewhat unrealistic house but with enough flavor to entertain us even a little. The high level of darkness and the mechanics of lighting gives it a certain halloween feel.

 

MAP03: Gettin' Gas

 

 

Damn, this was a hot start and only on map 03! Considering that this was during the 90s, I am surprised by the early challenge. A little annoying in certain parts, but we have to take into account when it came out. Interesting structure that despite being a kind of gas station, has no sky and we are practically closed in a box. Hehe.

 

MAP04: Transport Nexus

 

 

Somewhat similar to the previous one in terms of challenge. The initial area is practically door combat but without the door, even so, the killing of low-tier enemies is always welcome. After that the map follows a strange decision of textures and mechanics. Oh yes, this is vanilla.

 

MAP05: Communication Base

 

 

You could say that this map has some certain airs of plutonia thanks to its option of textures and tight enemies. A little lost thanks to the yellow key is hidden in a small pool, but after that, just as short as the previous ones.

 

MAP06: The Ammo Dump

 

 

Hell, there are plenty of doors. This is a somewhat mediocre map compared to the previous ones, which at least are enjoyable. It's not that fun and the key hunt is really not that understandable. I had to use keys cheat on LZDoom to get ahead. On defense of the map, I'm kinda dumb when it comes to switch/key hunting.

 

PS: Using the Demonfear MIDI compilation by P41R47 really makes this much fun and appealing.

 

[Capellan]

On his stream, @Suitepee was wondering how old I was when I made this.  The answer is 21 for all the maps except 26-30; I was 25 when I made those.

 

[Capellan]

Another gameplay note: Demonfear was designed for vanilla behaviour for objects.  If you have your port set so that objects that block movement (such as tall techno pillars) also block projectiles, then some maps won't play as intended.

 

[VanaheimRanger]

MAP07: The Wall

Dead Simple with Barons and HKs

 

 

MAP08: The Hatred

An Arena

 

 

[Endless]

1 minute ago, guitardz said:

MAP07: The Wall

Dead Simple with Barons and HKs

 

 

MAP08: The Hatred

An Arena

 

 

You've been following the 1 map per day format ? Or in this case, 2 maps per day :P How's it going with it ?

[VanaheimRanger]

3 hours ago, Capellan said:

Another gameplay note: Demonfear was designed for vanilla behaviour for objects.  If you have your port set so that objects that block movement (such as tall techno pillars) also block projectiles, then some maps won't play as intended.

 

I'm not a compatibilty snob so idk much about the things, but if I am using Doom (Strict) on GZDoom will that be all good?

[VanaheimRanger]

1 minute ago, Endless said:

You've been following the 1 map per day format ? Or in this case, 2 maps per day :P How's it going with it ?

Eh, I am finding myself wanting to just play the whole thing already, lol.  I feel anxious when trying to stretch something out like this.  Also, turns out me and wifey are going on a trip at the end of the month for our anniversary so it would really be in my best intrest to get a jump ahead on them this month...we'll see how I feel tomorrow, lol.

[Biodegradable]

Demonfear: MAP07 - The Wall

UV | Continuous with Saves | GZDoom + Final Doomer

 

I rather liked this one in terms of its layout and challenge. I found myself needing to replay it because I felt I could do better and leave with more health. The challenge of trying to herd a handful of Barons and Hell Knights where you've got just enough room to maneuver while also keeping an eye on the other Hell Knights on those two ledges above you is quite the test. 

 

 

Demonfear: MAP08 - The Hatred

UV | Continuous with Saves | GZDoom + Final Doomer

 

Wasn't too fussed with this one. There's the challenge of having a ton of enemies spotting you right away with little to no cover, which makes it feel a little bullshit. Got some Plutonia vibes at the end with the Chaingunners and the pesky Archvile.

 

 

[Endless]

2 minutes ago, guitardz said:

Eh, I am finding myself wanting to just play the whole thing already, lol.  I feel anxious when trying to stretch something out like this.  Also, turns out me and wifey are going on a trip at the end of the month for our anniversary so it would really be in my best intrest to get a jump ahead on them this month...we'll see how I feel tomorrow, lol.

Well, since the megawad is made of super-short maps, this was quite the bad moment for changing format heh. Should try it with the next one.

PS: Have a nice trip!

[Capellan]

13 minutes ago, guitardz said:

I'm not a compatibilty snob so idk much about the things, but if I am using Doom (Strict) on GZDoom will that be all good?

 

I don't use GZDoom myself, but I believe there should be a setting like "Use Doom heights for missile clipping".  Make sure this is set to Yes.

 

[Pseudonaut]

Map07: UV-Max in 1:54
It's easy to see some RNG dependency for max speedrunning here, since the barons and hell knights at the start can be taken down much more quickly if they're grouped up nicely for rocket splash damage. I didn't wait for good RNG though, I'm just doing low-effort speedruns here, so there were about 4 attempts.

 

Map08: UV-Max in 1:10
I actually got 1:14 on like the fourth or fifth attempt. 106 attempts later, I got this, plus an additional two demos that exited with 1:14. I guess that's a 3.8% survival rate. So much for low-effort, even if 90%+ of those attempts ended within the first ten seconds. This map is definitely bullshit, but I'm not too upset about it since it's so short. When playing this quickly, survival is highly dependent on RNG, as you're surrounded by chaingunners and shotgunners who could end you in a couple of seconds with the wrong dice rolls, not to mention the scarcity of cover from the arch-vile, or the inescapable obstacle presented by numerous lost souls spawned by the pain elemental. I wonder if UV-Fast or Nightmare are even possible. Probably not.

 

Demos:

DF07-08.zip

 

[ElPadrecitoCholo]

On 10/2/2020 at 7:50 AM, <<Rewind said:

 

I will speedrun 1000 Lines 2 Map09 Stone Steel on video if someone is willing to do that also.

 

Speedrun rules: UV-Speed

 

I'll get a better time than above. Do you accept the challenge?

 

@<<Rewind  Challenge accepted, and level completed, colleague :-]