Enceladus: doom 1 episode ready for playtesting!!!

[nicolas monti]

This episode features some new textures based on already exisiting patches and also some monster behaviour changes via DEHACKED regarding to speed and hitpoints.

 

It runs on E4 and was tested in boom but it should run with any limit removing port.

 

The episode was only tested by @HAK3180 and partialy by @FrancisT18 so I expect criticism and bug reports to polish the episode!

 

The link:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/p8nl6f1tnfz57lq/ENCELAD0.wad/file

 

Changes so far:

 

* chaingun in secret reachable via strafe running in E4M1 fixed.

 

* E4M8: Boss HP decreased by 4% and more ammo available in the arena, a suit added and minor texture offset corrections at the crate room.

 

* a medkit and a stimpack added to E4M2.

Added a switch to exit the YK room of E4M9 instead of pressing the bars to avoid players getting confused about how getting out.

35+ health in the blue key path of E4M7.

 

* non damaging acid pool in E4M1 chaingun's secret fixed.

Bleeding texture on E4M3 fixed

Critical bug at the E4M8 boss fight for non zdoom players due to a 0 tagged linedef fixed.

 

* E4M5 is fully coop compatible now.

E4M6 exit door not opening on zdoom fixed.

 

 

Edited September 20, 2023 by nicolas monti

[Salt-Man Z]

Aaahhh, Merry Christmas to me!

[Philnemba]

Neat another Doom 1 episode from you :)

[Omniarch]

So I did a quick play through of E4M1, followed by a skim of the rest of the episode, and I must say this is a very interesting wad!

 

The first thing that stood out to me was the aesthetic, which is very trippy and distinct, reminiscent of @Xaser's Lost Episode. I always love to see the alpha patches put to good use. The second element that caught my eye were the layouts, which are strikingly interwoven and vertical, with intriguing non-orthogonal geometry.

 

For some reason, Enceladus gives off a surreal, vaguely retro sci-fi feel. Perhaps it has something to do with the alpha patches, or maybe the map names? I'm not sure, but, as a retro sci-fi fan, I appreciate it nevertheless. It's not every day that I find a piece of media that whisks me away to an alien world.

 

The thing which made the biggest impression on me, though, is E4M7. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it before. Definitely the most visually-interesting city level I've seen in a while, or ever really.

 

Anyway, I'll let you know if I find any bugs or other issues as I go. The only issue I've discovered so far is the chaingun secret in E4M1. It is easy to simply grab the weapon through the blocking linedef by strafe-running into said linedef, without having to actually figure out the secret.

[nicolas monti]

18 hours ago, Salt-Man Z said:

Aaahhh, Merry Christmas to me!

Thanks man!

 

6 hours ago, Philnemba said:

Neat another Doom 1 episode from you :)

A difficult year but I managed to

 

5 hours ago, Omniarch said:

So I did a quick play through of E4M1, followed by a skim of the rest of the episode, and I must say this is a very interesting wad!

 

The first thing that stood out to me was the aesthetic, which is very trippy and distinct, reminiscent of @Xaser's Lost Episode. I always love to see the alpha patches put to good use. The second element that caught my eye were the layouts, which are strikingly interwoven and vertical, with intriguing non-orthogonal geometry.

 

For some reason, Enceladus gives off a surreal, vaguely retro sci-fi feel. Perhaps it has something to do with the alpha patches, or maybe the map names? I'm not sure, but, as a retro sci-fi fan, I appreciate it nevertheless. It's not every day that I find a piece of media that whisks me away to an alien world.

 

The thing which made the biggest impression on me, though, is E4M7. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it before. Definitely the most visually-interesting city level I've seen in a while, or ever really.

 

Anyway, I'll let you know if I find any bugs or other issues as I go. The only issue I've discovered so far is the chaingun secret in E4M1. It is easy to simply grab the weapon through the blocking linedef by strafe-running into said linedef, without having to actually figure out the secret.

Thanks for your deep words, the geometry in this episode is my usual style, when you see strong orthogonality instead as in E4M4 is because I'm forcing myself to do it.

This episode actually doesn't make use of alpha patches, all doom1 stuff, some resized and some recoloured. Maybe the way I combined the patches is reminiscent to the alpha's.

I've already made 5 episodes with alpha texturing, 4 with exclusive use and one with alpha mixed with custom and regular ones (alpha centauri)

I fixed the chaingun secret in E4M1, I'll keep replacing the same file with the same link as I uptate the episode.

Thanks!

[Omniarch]

9 hours ago, nicolas monti said:

This episode actually doesn't make use of alpha patches, all doom1 stuff, some resized and some recoloured. Maybe the way I combined the patches is reminiscent to the alpha's.

Could have fooled me! I'll admit I wasn't paying the closest attention to the specifics, more just absorbing the general impression.

 

9 hours ago, nicolas monti said:

I've already made 5 episodes with alpha texturing, 4 with exclusive use and one with alpha mixed with custom and regular ones (alpha centauri)

Five!? How have I not heard of these before! As an Ultimate Doom connoisseur, I am always interested in such wads. Where can I find them? 

[nicolas monti]

4 hours ago, Omniarch said:

Could have fooled me! I'll admit I wasn't paying the closest attention to the specifics, more just absorbing the general impression.

 

Five!? How have I not heard of these before! As an Ultimate Doom connoisseur, I am always interested in such wads. Where can I find them? 

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames//index.php?search&page=1&field=author&word=Nicolas+monti&sort=time&order=asc

 

Favillesco amalthea and thebe are alphas for doom1, witness of time and alpha centauri are alphas for doom2 and the third "episode" of the mass extinction doom2 megawad (maps 15-23) is also exclusively alpha textured.

[Omniarch]

Okay, so I played E4M2 today, and I have a few points to make.

 

1. The exploration factor in this map is very strong. I had a great time finding all the secrets and figuring out how the map fits together. The lack of 'void' space makes hunting for secrets a lot more logical than it often is, since the player can see pretty much everything. For example, I really like the secret chain that leads to the secret exit, due to the way it leverages knowledge of the map and requires a keen eye for details. I hope this trend continues!

 

2. Once again, the interwoven, highly vertical layout makes progression very interesting. Doom's third dimension is rarely used to its full effect, especially in Ultimate Doom (actually, probably the only thing I prefer about Doom 2 over Ultimate is the former's extensive use of the third dimension, especially in the Romero maps).

 

3. This map's combat has a nice bite to it, combining player exposure with a few very tight encounters (especially the second baron ambush). One issue I did find is the lack of health in the early stages of the map. Even on HMP, the attrition factor is quite off-putting unless you savescum (which I did eventually when I UV-Maxed it).

 

Overall, I had a good time with this one. From what little I've seen, E4M9 looks pretty interesting, so expect more feedback from me in the near future!

[nicolas monti]

14 hours ago, Omniarch said:

Okay, so I played E4M2 today, and I have a few points to make.

 

1. The exploration factor in this map is very strong. I had a great time finding all the secrets and figuring out how the map fits together. The lack of 'void' space makes hunting for secrets a lot more logical than it often is, since the player can see pretty much everything. For example, I really like the secret chain that leads to the secret exit, due to the way it leverages knowledge of the map and requires a keen eye for details. I hope this trend continues!

 

2. Once again, the interwoven, highly vertical layout makes progression very interesting. Doom's third dimension is rarely used to its full effect, especially in Ultimate Doom (actually, probably the only thing I prefer about Doom 2 over Ultimate is the former's extensive use of the third dimension, especially in the Romero maps).

 

3. This map's combat has a nice bite to it, combining player exposure with a few very tight encounters (especially the second baron ambush). One issue I did find is the lack of health in the early stages of the map. Even on HMP, the attrition factor is quite off-putting unless you savescum (which I did eventually when I UV-Maxed it).

 

Overall, I had a good time with this one. From what little I've seen, E4M9 looks pretty interesting, so expect more feedback from me in the near future!

 

Thanks for the throughout comment, the vertical factor for progression is something I'm using since many years, not something I planned, it started to happen when figuring out how to reuse the areas and now it has become a common place in my maps.

I've noticed that health attrition in the big crate room from the other tester's videos so for the next upload I'm adding a medkit there and a stimpack in the smaller crate room on the other side of the acid rivers.

Very helpful for the last touches before uploading into idgames!

[Salt-Man Z]

I'm through M9 and loving it. In M9, after the yellow battle, I had thought myself locked in. I didn't realize I could just click the bars to raise them; actually thought I had tried that at some point, but my placement have been off. What about hiding a switch in the room to raise the bars instead?

 

For some reason, any map of yours featuring rails instantly becomes a favorite. :)

[nicolas monti]

9 hours ago, Salt-Man Z said:

I'm through M9 and loving it. In M9, after the yellow battle, I had thought myself locked in. I didn't realize I could just click the bars to raise them; actually thought I had tried that at some point, but my placement have been off. What about hiding a switch in the room to raise the bars instead?

 

For some reason, any map of yours featuring rails instantly becomes a favorite. :)

 

That E4M9 switch has been suggested to me already so now is there! Available only after the bars are raised and the trap released.

Track and tunnels are a theme I like a lot so yeah, I make one of those sometimes.

[gaspe]

This was a very nice Christmas present Monti :D though being familiar with your style some things weren't a real surprise. I liked the "revisited" stock Doom 1 theme with the textures that we know so well repurposed in different ways and giving its distinctive touch to the maps: shrinked textures, funky recolors (I loved the startans), the compohso pattern used more times, patches combined in new ways. The choice of putting a custom dehacked patch to spice up the gameplay was good and some changes are interesting for the new possibilities they create, especially the baron but I must say that I also had some troubles with the new changes. Many times more than the actual difficulty of the encounters my battle was against the rng of the hitscanners or stray fireballs, the layouts are very interconnected with windows and ledges that most of the times have a midtexture on them thus making it difficult to locate who's shooting you from where. Hitscanners are particularly nasty for that, it can happen that you get shoot from far away without seeing. Their higher health makes it hard to take down with the pistol, M1 start is very tough for that, and you can't reliably took them down with 1 sg shot and there are times where you have to face multiple sergeants in the open without a cover. I think that for sure some armor bonuses to find as you advance are needed, health around is already scarce on its own but I think the lack of armor caused more problems to me.

Cramped traps got more prominence as they work well with the gameplay changes. Chaingun and plasmagun are the best weapons, now the pinkies are even able to "dodge" your SG shots. Now to the maps:

M1: the start is rather hard how I said before. I think a bit is also because the changes surprised me and I had to get used to them. Oddly the nukage pond

 on the way to the secret CG isn't damaging. I'm not sure I would have survived the trap at the switch that unlock the exit area without the CG, I guess the SG will be too slow in that situation.

M2: Maybe to me it wasn't striking as the other levels but it's still a very good map overall. Nice setup at the numbered switches.

M9: Time to visit the rail. Snipers and turrets guarding the outdoors are probably the main players, not so much crossing over nukage to do which fooled me a bit on feeling a bit more secure. Encounters were all manageable per se, I got some momentary troubles when I went low on ammo few times.

M3: A little too tight on ammo initially. I died at the BK on my fda, I'm not sure how to survive that without finding the PR, using the RL is a bad idea given the tight space and the other 2 weapons aren't strong enough to take down the barons before they can get to you. Linedef 307 is bleeding into the floor.

M4: The diagonal STEPs were quite cool. A sort of more "laid back" level, you have less of a costant exposure and for a change you can spend less time in claustrophobic places, and the barrels helped too. I panicked a bit at the cyberdemon duo but imo it's all fair but you'd better to find the secret BFG to face them.

M5: Sort of a more city-esque layout and back to the nasty cramped encounters. Barons and pinkies are a duo you don't want to meet often in this wad. Maybe with the BFG I would had a better chance at the end, I was so close I thought that that little crate was odd.

M6: A creepy (and unpleasant) adventure in the underground and the gameplay doesn't mess around either, letting you know from the start that this will be hard. I would add some health at least where there are the first cacos, and before you decide to go north (RK) or south (BK). In the southern part I would move the armor way earlier, maybe even in the room (sector 8) to get there. There aren't so many enemies actually but if in game it's hard to tell behind those midtextures, and if you come there with low health already surviving is a matter of luck. I really messed up the fight against the first cybie and wasted ammo there. I wasn't expecting that cyberdemon at the exit.

M7: Fantastic adventure level and a it's a very nice Venice made in Doom. Boats (or gondolas?!) to make a path over the nukage canals, Piazza San Marco :D It can still be hard to get throught the first steps but compared to the other levels it's more fair. I guess that since the non-linearity is more prominent you find more supplies on your way and once you clear a path (and find some secrets too) you are more prepared to go forward. Sector 889 with 20% damage is excessive imo, and I noticed that on gzdoom after the sector lowers it won't be damaging anymore. Sector 1638 is too tiny and you can't step on it and register the secret.

M8: I really want to retry this once it's fixed: linedef 1408 is set to have tag 0 and so in non-zdoom ports all the sectors of the map will start to go up and down once you cross it. I tried anyway but the battle with the spiderdemon got completely fucked up due to that.

 

Last here's my fdas and demos, recorderded with prboom+: enceladus_gaspe_fdas.zip

For some levels before going to finish them with saves I gave another try.

[Omniarch]

I just beat E4M9 now. It is a very interesting level, I can't say I've ever played anything quite like it. A few notes:

 

1. The detailing here is very strong. The titular monorails in particular are quite striking visually, and highly original. The only issue I found was that Doom's collision physics made some areas a little annoying (mostly the central and eastern areas).

 

2. The layout looks very nice on the automap, reminiscent of real life trainyards. The progression is a tad irksome, however, with an unholy amount of backtracking and switch-hunting. The eastern room in particular is a real pain in this department, since it is not clear what any of the switches actually do, resulting in a lot of aimless wandering.

 

3. The combat encounters are also a little irksome, some more so than others. I find that there is an excessive emphasis on close-quaters combat, which I find to be exhilarating in small doses, but tiresome otherwise, especially for saveless runs (which I gave up on here). The jagged geometry doesn't help with this, since it is easy to get caught on. I think the encounter that best exemplifies my point is the trap in the plasma rifle room, which is so tight it devolves into an rng-fest.

 

4. I didn't find all the secrets this time around, since the visual language is too alien in this map. I simply don't know where to start. This is not a fault, if anything it demonstrates commitment to theme, which I consider more important than 'fair' secrets.

[Salt-Man Z]

I too had a lot of problems getting started on E4M9 E4M1. I assumed it was just a normal Monti opener, which often require you to use the pistol longer than I'm comfortable with (I play continuous.) I didn't realize it was because the zombies were dehacked!

Edited January 3, 2021 by Salt-Man Z

[boltface]

Ran through this in zandronum (200501-1847) with four players.

E4M5, if someone dies in the yellow key room then the map is stuck. Same with red key room, I imagine, but didn't happen to us.

E4M6, all monsters killed but exit door didn't open.

E4M7 doesn't flow very well in coop.

[gaspe]

Sorry if I forgot to mention this but my demos were recorded with the first version of the wad before you did any update.

[nicolas monti]

On 12/31/2020 at 3:36 PM, gaspe said:

This was a very nice Christmas present Monti :D though being familiar with your style some things weren't a real surprise. I liked the "revisited" stock Doom 1 theme with the textures that we know so well repurposed in different ways and giving its distinctive touch to the maps: shrinked textures, funky recolors (I loved the startans), the compohso pattern used more times, patches combined in new ways. The choice of putting a custom dehacked patch to spice up the gameplay was good and some changes are interesting for the new possibilities they create, especially the baron but I must say that I also had some troubles with the new changes. Many times more than the actual difficulty of the encounters my battle was against the rng of the hitscanners or stray fireballs, the layouts are very interconnected with windows and ledges that most of the times have a midtexture on them thus making it difficult to locate who's shooting you from where. Hitscanners are particularly nasty for that, it can happen that you get shoot from far away without seeing. Their higher health makes it hard to take down with the pistol, M1 start is very tough for that, and you can't reliably took them down with 1 sg shot and there are times where you have to face multiple sergeants in the open without a cover. I think that for sure some armor bonuses to find as you advance are needed, health around is already scarce on its own but I think the lack of armor caused more problems to me.

Cramped traps got more prominence as they work well with the gameplay changes. Chaingun and plasmagun are the best weapons, now the pinkies are even able to "dodge" your SG shots. Now to the maps:

M1: the start is rather hard how I said before. I think a bit is also because the changes surprised me and I had to get used to them. Oddly the nukage pond

 on the way to the secret CG isn't damaging. I'm not sure I would have survived the trap at the switch that unlock the exit area without the CG, I guess the SG will be too slow in that situation.

M2: Maybe to me it wasn't striking as the other levels but it's still a very good map overall. Nice setup at the numbered switches.

M9: Time to visit the rail. Snipers and turrets guarding the outdoors are probably the main players, not so much crossing over nukage to do which fooled me a bit on feeling a bit more secure. Encounters were all manageable per se, I got some momentary troubles when I went low on ammo few times.

M3: A little too tight on ammo initially. I died at the BK on my fda, I'm not sure how to survive that without finding the PR, using the RL is a bad idea given the tight space and the other 2 weapons aren't strong enough to take down the barons before they can get to you. Linedef 307 is bleeding into the floor.

M4: The diagonal STEPs were quite cool. A sort of more "laid back" level, you have less of a costant exposure and for a change you can spend less time in claustrophobic places, and the barrels helped too. I panicked a bit at the cyberdemon duo but imo it's all fair but you'd better to find the secret BFG to face them.

M5: Sort of a more city-esque layout and back to the nasty cramped encounters. Barons and pinkies are a duo you don't want to meet often in this wad. Maybe with the BFG I would had a better chance at the end, I was so close I thought that that little crate was odd.

M6: A creepy (and unpleasant) adventure in the underground and the gameplay doesn't mess around either, letting you know from the start that this will be hard. I would add some health at least where there are the first cacos, and before you decide to go north (RK) or south (BK). In the southern part I would move the armor way earlier, maybe even in the room (sector 8) to get there. There aren't so many enemies actually but if in game it's hard to tell behind those midtextures, and if you come there with low health already surviving is a matter of luck. I really messed up the fight against the first cybie and wasted ammo there. I wasn't expecting that cyberdemon at the exit.

M7: Fantastic adventure level and a it's a very nice Venice made in Doom. Boats (or gondolas?!) to make a path over the nukage canals, Piazza San Marco :D It can still be hard to get throught the first steps but compared to the other levels it's more fair. I guess that since the non-linearity is more prominent you find more supplies on your way and once you clear a path (and find some secrets too) you are more prepared to go forward. Sector 889 with 20% damage is excessive imo, and I noticed that on gzdoom after the sector lowers it won't be damaging anymore. Sector 1638 is too tiny and you can't step on it and register the secret.

M8: I really want to retry this once it's fixed: linedef 1408 is set to have tag 0 and so in non-zdoom ports all the sectors of the map will start to go up and down once you cross it. I tried anyway but the battle with the spiderdemon got completely fucked up due to that.

 

Last here's my fdas and demos, recorderded with prboom+: enceladus_gaspe_fdas.zip

For some levels before going to finish them with saves I gave another try.

 

Thanks a lot Gaspe, I was busy with the new year stuff, thanks for the throughout review of the episode, level per level is nice!

On the M7 damaging floor I've noticed that too but I don't know why it happens, maybe some zdoom bug, maybe the port needs the same damaging properties for the lower sector too.

M8 is fixed, my computer is having graphic card issues so I could test the last level in zdoom only and that always causes problems, I'll see if I can use another version of prboom because the one I currently have demands me high resolution (I can't change that configuration without loading the program)

I was able to play your demos because I store the previous versions so every suggestion is taken into account, due to "moving on" syndrome I've already uploaded the wad into idgames, but gratefully after your bug report. Anyway people gave me more reports after that so I'll update the file with those subtle changes in a couple of weeks.

 

18 hours ago, Salt-Man Z said:

I too had a lot of problems getting started on E4M9. I assumed it was just a normal Monti opener, which often require you to use the pistol longer than I'm comfortable with (I play continuous.) I didn't realize it was because the zombies were dehacked!

 

There is a shotgun at the beginning in the circulat "pit" that emulates those things used to fix trains in case you missed that one!

 

12 hours ago, boltface said:

Ran through this in zandronum (200501-1847) with four players.

E4M5, if someone dies in the yellow key room then the map is stuck. Same with red key room, I imagine, but didn't happen to us.

E4M6, all monsters killed but exit door didn't open.

E4M7 doesn't flow very well in coop.

 

Thanks! I'll make the changes, I'm sure the problem in M6 is due to the MAPINFO lump used for zdoom, I have to put the cyberdemon death special line into the code which I forgot!

 

19 hours ago, Omniarch said:

I just beat E4M9 now. It is a very interesting level, I can't say I've ever played anything quite like it. A few notes:

 

1. The detailing here is very strong. The titular monorails in particular are quite striking visually, and highly original. The only issue I found was that Doom's collision physics made some areas a little annoying (mostly the central and eastern areas).

 

2. The layout looks very nice on the automap, reminiscent of real life trainyards. The progression is a tad irksome, however, with an unholy amount of backtracking and switch-hunting. The eastern room in particular is a real pain in this department, since it is not clear what any of the switches actually do, resulting in a lot of aimless wandering.

 

3. The combat encounters are also a little irksome, some more so than others. I find that there is an excessive emphasis on close-quaters combat, which I find to be exhilarating in small doses, but tiresome otherwise, especially for saveless runs (which I gave up on here). The jagged geometry doesn't help with this, since it is easy to get caught on. I think the encounter that best exemplifies my point is the trap in the plasma rifle room, which is so tight it devolves into an rng-fest.

 

4. I didn't find all the secrets this time around, since the visual language is too alien in this map. I simply don't know where to start. This is not a fault, if anything it demonstrates commitment to theme, which I consider more important than 'fair' secrets.

 

Thanks man, I agree that the geometry can cause some problems to the combat, diagonal fences can get you stuck so you must be careful, this map has some closed-quarters combat as you said, it's meant to be a bit harder than the rest.

In the east room there is a switch that lowers a pillar with the BK (I think that's the color) the switch points visualy directly to that event but I other videos I've seen other people having the same problem because hitting and turning around (after that I made the event even more visible), not their fault because most of those switches also release some kind of trap.

My best advise is to wait a bit in the direction you press the switches to see what happens, that'll help specially in E4M7!

Edited January 2, 2021 by nicolas monti

[Salt-Man Z]

In E9M5  (old version), the eastern steps that lead out of the nukage moat are damaging. Not sure if that was intentional (perhaps to simulate proximity to radiation?)

 

They're all great, but E4M9 has definitely been my favorite so far.

[nicolas monti]

On 1/3/2021 at 4:12 PM, Salt-Man Z said:

In E9M5  (old version), the eastern steps that lead out of the nukage moat are damaging. Not sure if that was intentional (perhaps to simulate proximity to radiation?)

 

They're all great, but E4M9 has definitely been my favorite so far.

 

Not supposed to be damaging! It seems I get more vague as I get old lol!

I'm not receiving some notifications so I had to enter the thread to see the comment.

Onother fix for the final version. Thanks Salt-Man Z for your feedback!

[Firedust]

Hi, it's been a while! Took a break from dooming to focus on other things but knew what I was going to play first once I get back into it :D

 

Currently made it to the secret map, playing continuous UV. It appears I have locked myself in the red key area because the pillar with the key didn't lower when I interacted with it, so I'm not sure what the right way to do it was.

 

So far I've been enjoying the experience quite a bit but I have to say you went a tad overboard with those fake brown walls everywhere. I kept getting sniped all the time and sometimes it took me a while to figure out where the threat was coming from.

 

Also, nicely done on halving the baron's health. I was initially surprised when I killed one with only seven shotgun shells, but you've definitely made the right call there, considering the majority of gameplay thus far hinges on the shotty and chaingun shenanigans.

[Lorenz0]

Hey, I just got done playing the wad on co-op and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's nice to see a Doom 1 that doesn't try to reimagine the iwad at all.

 

I really liked the visuals of the project. It feels like you're intentionally ignoring all the common knowledge about mapping to create something far more chaotic and raw than what players are used too. I definitely wouldn't want every wad I play to look like this, but as you're almost the only mapper I've seen do something like this, it stands out as something positive.

 

As for the gameplay... it's a bit of a mixed bag. I mostly enjoyed the non-linear layouts, but sometimes you really fail to communicate progress well. The way forward is often hidden behind tiny doors you barely notice unless you're right by them, or tucked away in a corner of the map. The worst offender of this is in e4m5. I'm talking about the first elevator to get the red key. Hiding it in a river of acid behind all the buildings guaranteed I never figured out how to get there and just noclipped into the red key room out of frustration. Only later I saw what you're supposed to do, and I have to say, this is not intuitive at all. Players are usually not used to looking for progress behind damaging floors.

 

The combat is pretty uneven difficultywise. The maps are mostly comprised of low tier monsters scattered around small rooms that you enter and shoot through without much trouble, but when it comes to the traps, they get unbelievably brutal. Many, many times you trigger a trap and get ambushed by far more barons that a sane person would deem reasonable. Quite often you don't even have the sufficient weapons or ammo to deal with all that, especially considering how small the areas you fight them in are. I'm pretty sured I died to nearly all of these traps at least once. Aside from those moments, the combat is pretty enjoyable though.

 

Surprisingly, my favorite map of the project was e4m7, the longest one by far. Despite being huge, it wasn't very confusing thanks to the signs pointing in the direction of each key location. It felt the most rewarding to explore and was generally very fun. My only issues with it is that the boats placed on top of the acid don't reliably prevent you from taking damage, and that the issues I mentioned above were also present here to some extent.

 

Overall, I liked the wad a lot, despite my problems with it. It's incredibly creative and I appreciate that a lot. The only mapper I've seen do something similar was Benjogami in the wad The Egg of Human Endeavors. Is there anyone who inspired your style?

 

I'd honestly say this project deserves a cacoward runner up. I'd much rather see something like this take the spotlight, rather than another doom 1 wad that screams vanilla. Please give the player some more space next time though.

[Omniarch]

Right, I'm back now after a Doom sabbatical of sorts. Just finished E4M3, and 100%'ed it without encountering any bugs.

 

I'd say the thing that sets this one apart from the other three Enceladus maps I've played so far is the rather extreme degree of player exposure, which synergizes well with the layout, which is a bit more open than the last few. The damaging floor and the constant incoming fire creates a sense of claustrophobia despite the generally open layout, forcing the player to maintain a strong sense of spatial awareness.

 

Visually, the map is on point, as expected. The cavernous central structure in particular is quite striking, its ceiling forever out of sight, engulfed in fathomless shadow. Makes me feel like an insect trespassing in the home of a giant.

 

The resource balancing was generally pretty good this time around. I didn't really find myself doing much in the way of scavenging, if I needed something, it was generally near at hand.

 

Combat-wise, the high degree of exposure helped keep the grind at bay, since I was constantly having to prioritize targets and manage my position. Getting snagged on the geometry was still an issue though, and the blue key fight is a little excessive. Overall, though, I enjoyed the combat in this map. Felt a lot less like a war of attrition than E4M9, which is a plus.

 

The progression and secrets were also generally pretty fair and well communicated. I didn't really find myself getting lost or confused, and the map is easy enough to navigate once I familiarized myself with the major landmarks.

 

Overall, a solid entry, different enough from its set-mates to distinguish itself, but still unmistakably Enceladus.

[Salt-Man Z]

Finished this today. Amazing as always, but often very frustrating to play. E4M7 is a clear standout, but revisiting areas means figuring out how to retrace the entire path again, which always took me forever, even with the signs, and the constant danger of taking nuke damage even whilst jumping from boat to boat was an ever-present irritant.

 

The E4M8 boss I eventually gave up on after many long, protracted, save-assisted fights that invariably ended up with my health slowly getting whittled down to nothing while just pumping away on my rocket launcher to (seemingly) no effect. (And I started the whole fight by just running around in circles and letting her infight everyone first! She killed them all, of course.) I finally just IDFA'ed myself a fullly-replenished BFG and finished her off that way.

 

E4M7 has a platform with a damaging floor that shouldn't be:

[Firedust]

Started replaying this, and oh boy, does it deliver. I know I can always count on you to release outstanding classic Doom maps. Altho I still can't for the life of me figure out how to get that soulsphere down the blue key path. I tried looking for a shootable switch but got nothing. Any hints? Please?