The DWmegawad Club plays: SKULLTIVERSE

[Pseudonaut]

Map26:

This is a quasi-reality map that reduces you to 1% health at the start, only providing the occasional health bonus from there, and it is by far the hardest map up to this point. While I'm not opposed to the general concept, I felt that it demanded too much precision from the player, sometimes amidst awkward cramped geometry like that coffin room that triggers a revenant ambush while there are still lost souls flying around (thankfully this can be mitigated by a secret invuln). The map is short, but felt long, and the idea of doing a saveless max run of this is pretty unpleasant. I can appreciate a unique challenge, so I guess I've got mixed feelings about it.

[cannonball]

MAP26 - “Beyond Life” by DFF

 

A divisive map, the start renders yourself killable in one shot (It is possible to take one of two low damage rolls once you pick up enough bonuses). To be honest this wasn't too bad if it wasn't for two things. Firstly the outside area with the biggest trap of lost souls/imps and a revenant. This was quite horrid, I managed to tuck myself into the architecture to expose myself to just two lost soul spawn points, you still need some luck to get through here. The second follows this with the spiders and the plasma gun. The switches here are horrid to hit, so again you are at the mercy of good fortune that the spider will not fire at the moment you try and go for a switch.

The rest was generally fine, the rocket launcher room isn't too bad, the remaining maze section is pretty decent with a real sense of dread and horror. The concept is interesting but the execution is very difficult to achieve well, here there are mixed results.

[leejacksonaudio]

5 hours ago, LadyMistDragon said:

The fact that this little track of @leejacksonaudio originally appeared in one of the better maps in what is by far and away the very weakest of Duke Nukem 3D's episodes is frankly a little irrelevant at this point, because I can tell you one game has far eclipsed the other!

Which track did they use? Just curious.

[DFF]

47 minutes ago, leejacksonaudio said:

Which track did they use? Just curious.

Plasma, such a good ambient track.

[baja blast rd.]

26: "Beyond Life" by DFF

 

I found this one legitimately spectacular; I've played ahead and it's my favorite of the wad. The "1% health" gimmick is one I've seen before, so that isn't why -- but either way, the encounters this near-death state is used in service of, which commonly use lost souls a lot like slow and erratic revenant missiles, were immensely tense and enjoyable. I also love that bonuses were made to feel like powerful shards of restoration, which was an unusual but gratifying feeling. (And they actually can drag you out of "one hit from death" range.) 

 

Beyond the encounters, the sense of dread and mystery running through this setting is deep and palpable. Every event is some bizarre unsettling occurrence, like arachnotrons teleporting into the central chamber, or the dark comic end to all the revenants that might torment you there. Authors of maps are sometimes a lot like movie directors -- conveying a series of events (whether there is a literal narrative, or more just an abstract sequence of events) in an artful-looking way. Mastery of this can unite mappers who are very different in every other way, like skillsaw and Dobu Gabu Maru -- and "Beyond Life" gave me that feeling. 

 

   

 

The setting is very well crafted and elegant in its simplicity. The gothic look has been done often, but this was unlike most else in that style I've played; it's off-kilter and unusual in ways that feel fresh. Part of that is that DFF details here like a painter -- every scene is drawn with unique features both small-scale and large, unlike the very unified look that is more "draw a cool-looking fortress with one texture and then start adding more architecture and detailing it." Music is a critical part of an aesthetic experience too, and this track is a great fit. It bottles in a lot of emotions: for such a dour and hopeless track, it's also quite tender and comforting; a feeling it gives me is, "death is unavoidable, but at least it will be peaceful." 

 

At the end of it all, after you've been deprived of health for so long, hounded by lost souls and spectres all eager to take that one last bite of your fragile body, a soulsphere descends for the taking. It does have obvious value to a continuous player, but in the mode of thinking I was in, I saw it within the map's impressionistic tale as a relic you were here to find, one last artifact for the last leg of your journey.  

 

Since a lot of people are doing this, running log of favorite maps so far: 11, 13, 15, 19, 21, 23, 26.

[Book Lord]

MAP 27 – Last Ruin by Muumi

PrBoom+ 2.5.1.4, UV, Continuous, blind run w/saves

 

This map was chosen to represent the “void episode” of Skulltiverse and I fully second that decision. From the Skullgate I beheld the remnants of a human city, shattered and floating in the void, reduced to abstract but still familiar ruins. The carnage in front of the closest building testified that the poor inhabitants of this wretched town faced a terrible fate. @muumi’s introduction to the map was perfect: it allowed a lonely contemplation of the disaster, it created empathy towards the victims, and it instilled both fear of the demons and desire to punish them for their cruelty, which was an emotion I rarely felt in a Doom map. The solemn and moving music was another essential element of the thickest atmosphere achieved so far in the megaWAD.

Spoiler

 

 

 

The pistol start seemed of the hardest kind, considering that ammo was scarce and that the green armour had a nasty Arch-Vile trap, which I left untriggered until the end. My continuous run permitted a more relaxed approach, and I easily overcame the first ambush and the warm-up battle in the former town square. The outside courtyard acted as a hub and at each mandatory passage reinforcements were deployed there, both on the ground and on the watch tower, keeping me busy between the progress-related set pieces.

 

Two areas could be tackled in any order: I went to the western one first, which required to jump down on a lower ground. The twisted stone formations resembled nothing, but I still got the impression of being in a petrified garden or orchard, which used to be a delightful place for the citizens. Now it hosted commandos and Mancubi, the latter guarding the YSK. I sniped at them through the pillars in a cowardly way, but it was a good idea because their terrace was a perfect hideout from the following ambushes. I killed the Arch-Viles summoned by the first switch, but the second group was larger, scattered, and hard to target with rockets because of the obstacles. It was easier to retreat to the now accessible terrace and fire from there.

Spoiler

The northern structure had another plasma gun and a situation tailored to that weapon, even though the cells were numbered for pistol starters. RSK and an easy Soul Sphere secret were found here, so I could finally unlock the building to the east. Once inside, two rows of small closets started lowering and released various monsters. It was a supremely cramped space, about to host one wave of Revenants and another wave of Hell Knights. There was no other choice but to use the kindly offered BFG and blast them in close quarters. The Arch-Vile signalled when to switch to the big weapon. This was the only fight that I disliked on an otherwise well-balanced and very entertaining map.

 

The journey ended in an ordinary, inviolate bedroom overlooking the enormous non-playable area and the colossal eye-like formations encircling the ruins, resembling oversized predators about to devour the city before it gets lost forever, dematerialised by the void. The ammo and the secret Invulnerability suggested it was not over yet, so I ran back to the Skullgate and found that a Cyberdemon, some Imps and Arch-Viles just organised a leaving party. It could be skipped if desired, but I decided to waste some more cells to get 100% everything.

 

Last Ruin left a strong impression with its bare, abstract but very evocative visuals. Though not as gorgeous to look at as MAP19, this one created a landscape outside of the game area that not only improved the graphic appeal of the level but also gave purpose and context to the typical melange of sectors and things. Maybe I am overreacting, but I was emotionally affected by @muumi’s work and this does not happen with every Doom level I play.

[DisgruntledPorcupine]

MAP25: "Feeder's Digest" by Lunchlunch

UV, pistol start, no saves

100% kills, 1/2 secrets

 

Love the ridiculous title on this one. This map feels a lot more closed in than many of the maps seen lately, with small hallways and lower ceilings over a decent bit of the level. The midi is also a very good fit, I haven't played GoldenEye since I was a kid so I don't really remember this track but it's a very nice one. Really adds a mysterious air to the map I find.

 

I was really close to making it through the whole level in one go, but the final fight got me. While it's not a horribly difficult level, there are definitely some danger moments here, especially whenever the archviles show up. I think this map has some of my favourite archvile usages in the wad up to this point, they are very well utilized in this level. The first one you see when you get closed in with the hell knights is a scary moment and adds a lot of urgency to the fight. The two that get let out after the big pinky and hell knight encounter are also quite a startle, but aren't too bad if you duck into the yellow key hall. The revenant and archvile battle in the final fight is very nasty and demands very quick action from the player to avoid getting roasted by the archies or closed in by the revenants. For non-archvile encounters, the battle with the army of imps that takes up a large chunk of the enemy count in the map is nice and flashy, but not too dangerous. You get a megasphere before and after the fight, and really as long you take out the mancubi at the corners of the arena quickly you probably won't take a lot of damage.

 

I had a lot of fun in this one. Great level.

 

MAP26: "Beyond Life" by DFF

UV, pistol start, no saves

100% kills, 2/4 secrets

 

This one makes it very clear that it isn't going to be any ordinary map right at the start. It begins with you out of the hallways of flesh that have dominated the past maps, with remnants of it left behind the blue skull portal, and a simulacrum of yourself staring back at you from a black void. When you step forward you are teleported into another black area and reduced to 1% health, and teleported back to find a zombieman standing where your voodoo doll once stood. The setting for this map is some sort of castle, and the iconic track Plasma from Duke Nukem 3D is playing. The only other map I've heard it in myself is Toxic Touch, but its usage is as moody and effective as it is in that one. The level reducing you to 1% health at the start is not just for show, as the entire level is based on you being one or two hits from death for essentially the entirety. Unsurprisingly, this results in a map that is extremely unforgiving towards your errors. In my initial runs in the level, I was left doubting whether I'd be able to complete it on UV without saving a few times, but it does turn out to be doable once you get a handle on some strategies and tricks.

 

Once you reach the central area of the map, there are two paths to take, and I personally always took the right one first as it is the much harder of the two. The first thing I'd do is dart to the lift to get to the plasma gun room, praying I don't get scammed by the pain elemental or a surprise imp fireball. The fight for the plasma is very clever, featuring a small pedestal with an arachnotron on it. The arachnotron will be replaced by another when you kill it, and the replacement will in turn be replaced, and so on. There are too many to kill with your guns, so what you have to do is hit the switches on the sides which slowly lower walls to reveal another switch, until eventually you reach the one behind the arachnotrons which results in them all being crushed. Your shots can be used to stun the arachnotrons whenever they begin shooting at you so you can hit the switches without being cooked. This area also serves as a safe spot to pick off the pain elemental and some stray lost souls, as well as lure some of the pinkies or imps below into the lift. After this area is done, you eventually get to a tough fight on a balcony with a bunch of lost souls, and eventually some imps and a revenant. I used all my cells whenever all the imps started teleporting in, as they get very overwhelming otherwise. After this encounter, you can hit the revealed switch and take the other path.

 

The other map is much more forgiving, or at least as forgiving as it can get when you're teetering on the edge of death. This path also had the only two secrets I found, one of which is a really neat one that nets you a backpack, a stimpack, and some ammo atop the structure before the center area. The other was a helpful invulnerability sphere. The monsters in this path are mostly spectres and lost souls, with some imps and cacos as well. It does get a little hairy wen you grab the chaingun and are surrounded by lost souls, but if you clear out the other enemies in the area before doing this and circlestrafe around the lost souls it's not so bad. The area closes off once you approach the ending switch and, once you hit it, lost souls start pouring in from grates that open on the walls. I carefully pick them off with the chaingun and then grab the invulnerability and trigger the revenants to teleport in, which I then can safely take care of.

 

After both paths are complete, the final fight of the level actually isn't so bad. You get a rocket launcher, some ammo, and some bonuses to pick up before hitting the switch, which causes two pain elementals and a caco to appear. Right away I just kill the pain elementals as quickly as possible with the plasma, and the remaining souls and caco are pretty simple to take care of after that. After grabbing the soulsphere that lowers, the revenants in the central room are crushed and the blue skull key appears, and you can then leave.

 

Very frustrating level for sure, especially when you don't know what to do and are just getting your bearings. I think I'd call it the hardest one so far even though MAP21 did get a save out of me, I think this one just had me more stubborn to complete and was more unforgiving for obvious reasons. As for the quality of the level, I thought it was pretty incredible and was a rewarding level to puzzle out a way of surviving. One of the high points of the wad for me.

[DFF]

Figured this is a good time to give some map insight rather than review my own map.

Map 26 - Beyond Life

This map concept really stemmed from a video Decino did on some doom's damaging floors. Specifically the 20% and end level damaging floor being used to create the 1% health effect was fascinating and something I wanted to implement in a map, but had not found a good use of it until this map idea.

Spoiler

 

 

The map I wanted to be a bit more of a story/enviromental map than a slaughter map, the idea being that by crossing into the void the player lost their "soul" or "humanity", having the black mirror turn into a zombie after being damaged to illustrate the player becoming a husk of their former self. The objective being to regain their soul as represented in the on-the-nose Soulsphere. Combat for the last chapter was supposed to be rather difficult, and I wanted a low but impactful monster count. Hitscanners were obviously a nono for this kind of map and I did not have a lot of space to work with without making the whole map an arena. This of course lent to a lot of usage of lost souls, being something that fit with the theme of the map, being a tomb lost in time and space, and the fact they they are just flying pinkies that used melee attacks. I rarely used lost souls in my earlier maps and I liked having them be a bit separated from just pain elementals. It was unfortunately far after I had finished the map that I learned generally people rather dislike lost souls, but oh well.

 

The Aracnotron arena probably had the most changes made to it to try and perfect it as well as I could. Originally it was designed with an Arch-vile resurrecting the Aracnotron infinitely, with the last switch crushing the Arch-vile. This was more preferable as the "undying" aracnotron visual was slightly more appealing, and the resurrection animation gave players a brief moment to prepare for the next switch/hit the exposed switch. This however was unreliable as there was a small, but still significant, chance that when resurrected the Aracnotron was stuck and rendered a non-threat, or sometimes the Arch vile could just not reach. I modified the pedestal several times to try and make it more consistent but never really could. I decided loading a bunch on a silent teleporter was, while not as preferable, 100% consistent in its function. The switches also had to be inset in the walls so that they only can be accessed once the pillars are lowered. This makes them tricky to hit, but before they could be triggered by the player before they fully lowered, making it easily cheezable. I also had to remove any cubbies or objects that would block the Aracnotron shots. All these modifications created a the interaction I wanted, but it also requires the player play by its rules to a T. And if anything the player is better off not shooting the Aracnotron at all until it tries  to fire, and using the SSG to force a pain state. I also neglected continuous play and didn't think anyone would just blow through 10 Aracnotrons but that I suppose was also a solution.

[dei_eldren]

MAP27 - Last Ruin (HNTR, blind, continuous w/ saves)

 

Muumi is entirely unknown to me as a mapper, but somehow his/her selfknowingly cutesie name had me expecting something extremely cruel, but a look at the enemy count surprised me - it was not after all going to be a slaughter map!  On the other hand, the map began with a long trek through lonely and desolate ruins to build up tension and atmosphere.  When the combat began, it came in small deadly waves, with generally a few Revenants, Hell Knights, and others thrown into the mix, with the Arch-Vile also being present at times.  Some of the waves were harder than the others, but mostly because of paranoia created by the environment, because there was no safe place and some could always sneak up from some unexpected angle when i was dealing with someone else.

 

So it went until the appearance of the (first) Cyberdemon, by which time i had both keys, and got into that building.  And here Muumi delivered the expectation the name had created - attack waves of Stygian water, that i was unable to withstand or subdue, even with the BFG.  i'm really curious to see/read how people handled it.

 

i very much had enjoyed the map until that point - an outstandingly beautifully desolate ruined city, and even in a WAD with quite a few oustandingly beautiful maps, it is in the top five for me in that category.  The combat, until that room, was hard but fair, and even enjoyable, also.  But as it is, obviously i did not finish the map, and having checked the next level's enemy count, i'm afraid this is the last map i play in this WAD.

 

Ranked:

Spoiler

MAP15

MAP18

MAP12

MAP06

MAP01

MAP10

MAP14

MAP23

MAP03

MAP08

MAP04

MAP19

MAP31

MAP25

MAP16

MAP26

MAP11

MAP02

MAP21

MAP22

MAP09

MAP05

MAP07

MAP27

MAP17

MAP20

MAP13

MAP24

 

Edited September 28, 2021 by dei_eldren

[Book Lord]

6 hours ago, DFF said:

This map concept really stemmed from a video Decino did on some doom's damaging floors. Specifically the 20% and end level damaging floor being used to create the 1% health effect was fascinating and something I wanted to implement in a map, but had not found a good use of it until this map idea.

Cool, I did not know that you can use sector type 11 and trick it into not ending the level if health drops below 11%. The secret is being suspended over the sector without touching it. Thanks for explaining the trick you used, very interesting.

[ViolentBeetle]

4 hours ago, dei_eldren said:

and having checked the next level's enemy count, i'm afraid this is the last map i play in this WAD.

The monster count on the next map is heavily inflated by imps, but it is, indeed very hard. 27 and 28 are the hardest maps in the wad. The last two are more forgiving, so you might want to come back.

[dei_eldren]

2 hours ago, ViolentBeetle said:

The monster count on the next map is heavily inflated by imps, but it is, indeed very hard. 27 and 28 are the hardest maps in the wad. The last two are more forgiving, so you might want to come back.

 

Appreciate the tip!  Great WAD so far, so i'll have a look :)

[DJVCardMaster]

MAP27 - "Last Ruin"- Mummi (100%K/93%I/66%S):

Void theme presents us with the ruins of a seemingly big city, falling to pieces, the map may be cramped at areas, but it's great overall, my only dislike, is again, how cramped can it be, at the point it got to be a problem to me, at the narrow area after the two skull keys, specially. The rest, is a great map, aesthetically, and gameplay-wise, pretty atmospheric. At the end only one enemy left, guess what it could be, a Cyberdemon? in a space so narrow? It can be...
... and it was. 
Not as atmospheric as MAP10, or as beautiful as MAP19, or both as MAP15, but a close contender, great map.


Deaths: 250 (HMP - PrBoom+)

Order of preference:
 

Spoiler

 

MAP15
MAP19

MAP10
MAP27
MAP31
MAP09
MAP13
MAP23
MAP21
MAP11

MAP05
MAP26
MAP25
MAP12
MAP22
MAP16
MAP24

MAP03

MAP01
MAP20
MAP14
MAP04
MAP07
MAP32
MAP08
MAP02
MAP06
MAP18
MAP17

 

 

[FistMarine]

MAP21: Fallen Dimension
That was definitely a brutal map! Reading some comments earlier helped me to choose SSG first, then after clearing the path, get the RL. I made use of all health and pickups in this map and even then I still died 9 times in total (I think there were around 8 or 9 deaths), starting with some mistakes I did in the RL room, though most of my deaths came from the elevator room since I only had 32% health at that point (that was after I had found one leftover medkit) and it was difficult to handle the ambushes with plasma/elevator, even if it seemed doable and saving game on two slots just in case, even during fights. I had to grab medkits constantly (while getting blocked and killed by monsters) and then realized there was a much needed blue armor! Even with the medkits and blue armor and soulsphere that were collected along the way, one time I fell down below 10% health and grabbed the megasphere which was much appreciated. Too bad it still got depleted fast thanks to archviles and getting tense at times, even though there was enough space to run around the enemies. And if that wasn't enough, once it was over, there was yet another cyberdemon (the cyber earlier I killed with my rockets, because I couldn't access the teleporter to telefrag until after the second wave, so I killed him shortly before I unlocked the teleporter and realized I could have saved 40+ rockets) and well I didn't die at the cyber but a rocket's splash damage was enough to hurt me and left me with 43% health (also 7 armor bonuses found shortly after) but at least author was generous enough to give you a berserk at end, so you have at the very least 100% health for the next level. I also made use of saving even during battles and I know it was risky but I had 8 save slots at my disposal, so I didn't mind savescumming a bit.
I only found the soulsphere secret on my own (with a hidden switch in one of corners in SSG room) and at end of level I found out how to get the chainsaw and BFG secrets. Both answers are in the room after getting RL. Press on the red panel to access the chainsaw secret and then look for those 4 bodies, there is a hidden Duke3D access switch, shoot at it with pistol and the BFG room seen earlier is now unlocked. No idea what did that eye switch that I shot earlier in the SSG room, maybe it's connected to one of secrets.
Oh and unfortunately there was a missing enemy once again (another imp? I think I heard one imp in the background after I was done with the map), though this time I scored 111% kills, which masks any missing enemies and is quite annoying in vanilla Doom (at least original executable and chocolate doom) where it is impossible to tell if you got all kills thanks to an archvile resurrecting corpses.
Overall, it was ok and I didn't get angry as much as in past week (tried to stay calm as much as I can) but the cramped slaughter style combat isn't my style when you are sometimes forced to deal with encounters at low health and almost an unwinnable situation until you reach the much needed health/armor and I'm sure I would have suffered a lot more deaths if I didn't get lucky sometimes but at same time I wish I wasn't put in very deadly situations with limited health. Where is that invulnerability when you need it? :P

 

MAP22: Yuggoth
Not bad! I enjoyed this one, it wasn't very difficult aside from some parts near end. The only difficulty early came from the rather lack of health/armor (also thanks to starting this level with almost no armor and getting blasted by an archvile that suddenly spawned at beginning, even if I used BFG against it), though I did find two green armors towards end (one was a secret in starting room) and it was pretty sweet how I handled some encounters without taking any damage, to make up for being low on health, such as the yellow skull key trap. Died once at the penultimate ambush (with the many revenants) because of 3 homing rockets I couldn't dodge and that ultimately killed me. I didn't have much of the problem with the last ambush (though the monsters spawned earlier than I expected) but I had to make use of the soulsphere and the plasma rifle. It was hard to use rockets (which were plentiful) and wish I relied on my BFG, as I'm not too happy I managed to deplete all my cells and I rarely got the chance to use rockets, despite being given many.
I also wish those rooms near end weren't so dark (had to lure a few monsters outside that corridor) and wish I had a bit more health/armor at times, had to grab the berserk earlier for a quick refill when the chaingunner in the darkness left me with around 40% health, so I couldn't save the berserk for the end. Another thing is I could have easily beat this one without dying if I didn't take so much damage in previous level that required me to consume every single armor pickup, so that my only armor came in form of bonuses for a while until halfway in level. At least I ended with 72% health and a fresh green armor.
Two secrets to find: look for a switch near green torch in the room with SSG and RL (reward is a cell pack), then when you return to beginning, look for a switch near door and another small switch in the starting room (the second switch has to be punched), then the green armor gets revealed (grab this armor now and save the other one for the end).

 

MAP23: Scream Bloody Gore
Other than a really dumb death at very beginning (without even being able to kill any enemy, I guess panicking and getting blocked by the hell knight meant a very short painful death) and another death at the blue skull key ambush (got killed by those revenants even with 200% health/armor, also thanks to my own rockets hitting close), this level went pretty smooth overall and I enjoyed it. I handled most encounters surprisingly well, even the archviles and that cyber part (felt satisfying to get him infight with a few knights, even if I mostly had to take care of cyber myself and most of the knights), went better than I expected. After the chaotic beginning (though only the hell knights in starting room were a nuisance) and clearing many enemies, the level gets significantly easier, since you are given so much health/armor, like that megasphere when getting red key but also FOUR soulspheres (I think) and TWO blue armors. Of course I got to pick most of soulspheres at 200% health (and one blue armor to replace my half used one) before leaving the map, which felt like a waste but I will take any day multiple soulspheres and blue armors over a level that had me starved from getting extra health/armor. Plus it's best to grab everything before leaving the map anyway. :P
There are 5 secrets to find (which I only found after I was done with the map, found no secrets initially), unfortunately I don't know how to explain how to get most of them, as towards end you should be able to find a switch that lowers elevator and you will find about 3 secrets that way with pressing switches, including the BFG (the second chance to get it so far) and more soulspheres. There is a hidden soulsphere secret in starting room in one of those pillars and to get the blue armor secret on the pillar, shoot the eye (just like SIGIL) and rush to the pillar that temporary lowers (this last secret I had to watch a video earlier to get it, as I couldn't figure out myself). Very enjoyable level!

 

MAP24: Pustule
Wow, another map completed without dying after a long time! Though it was quite tricky at times, especially at beginning with those archviles (I hate when sometimes the fire shows up when you are about to get blasted due to a vanilla glitch where fire doesn't always show up immediately) as otherwise it wasn't too difficult at times. The cyberdemons at end weren't too bad either, though to me the trickiest part was finding the single secret which contained a soulsphere and few other goodies!
Also some other tricky parts involve making sure to not die from the damaging floors, as the darker ones are the hurting ones, which is a bit difficult to tell in the darkness. You are given two radiation suits for those areas, so use them wisely! Also it seems you can actually backtrack when you kill the cyberdemons at end, I initially thought it was impossible to backtrack so I loaded my earlier save before entering the main room, just to look for that secret, which took a while to find (shoot the hidden eye behind zombieman corpse on stick, in the room that holds BFG) since no one else found the secret.
And the chaingunner that keeps getting resurrected in the starting room, can be finally killed at end, the hidden archvile must have died when you grabbed the blue skull key.
Overall, a short and interesting map. A much needed break from the previous couple of maps.

 

Deaths (so far): 44 (MAP09-MAP15, MAP31-MAP32, MAP17-MAP23)

 

Might as well vote for next month:

+++ Community Chest
+++ Hexen: Beyond Heretic
+++ Wonderful Doom

 

Spoiler

 

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 27: LAST ROOOOIN

 

Muumi is a mapper I've been following to some degree ever since first playing The Twelve Days of Doomas in February. He's not as prolific as his comrade Death Bear, but there's a certain nastiness and trap-like nature that's always made me pay attention. Thankfully, upon using this sense-of-loss Jimmytrack, he has surely matured to the point where he would never do anything like that stupid fight in Map 05 of twelve days where you were given only one Supercharge and Invulnerability to survive the vise-like trap of a Cyberdemon (or two) along with a ridiculous amount of Pain Elementals/Cacodemons that makes it well-nigh impossible to get around them. Right? Right?

 

Well, actually not. This is easily the hardest map in Skulltiverse up to this point, and that's even factoring in the secrets for reasons that I'll go into. @dei_eldren is playing on HNTR, so he has no idea that Muumi can really brutalize an unaware player.

 

But anyways, cool portrayal of a ruined city in the void. Almost the opposite of the last map, which was sort of a medieval castle/mausoleum thing. Representative of your chances I'm sure.

 

The first fights aren't anything too difficult. Despite enemies teleporting into the first courtyard, along with an Arch-vile overseeing everything, this isn't too bad.

The first signs of trouble are probably when you hit the switch in the first room in the building with the red key, where a room opens up with an Arachnotron, two Revenants, and two chaingunners. You'll definitely want to kill the two chaingunners first, but things get trickier from here. While you've probably picked up the nearby plasma rifle, focusing on one target can be rather hard. I only died a few times here, but the extra wrinkle is that several other enemies teleport in when you reach the other end of the room. If you're pistol-starting, you'll really want to keep the Arachnotron alive if you can so that you won't have to use up what are initially scant cells. If you're not....meh, though you might die.

 

Anyways, pick up the red key, shoot the Arch-vile in the tower in the nearby window then pick up the nearby rocket launcher and drop down. More enemies teleport in from the far ends of this place, but you'll also get another Arch-vile and some Revenants teleporting into the tower where the first Arch-vile was. Deal with this forthwith and then handle the rest.

 

Now the yellow key....You access the rocky area it's located in by dropping through the floor of a shed near the edge (like the opening village of Paper Mario? why the hell did I reference that game). At first, you just see some chaingunners, along with a plasma rifle, in case you didn't get the red key first. At this moment, you just know Muumi is rubbing his hands together with glee, just waiting for you to hit...that....switch. This is a feint though, as another nearby platform with rockets will start to lower at this point. Then 4 DAMN ARCH-VILES make their appearance. Without a BFG. Weaving through the rocks. With hardly any fucking room!!! And did I mention that hell knights and Imps teleport at the end where the Supercharge was?

 

I died exactly 32 times (my own rockets, close range hell knights, Revenants missiles, all that good stuff) before I eventually got lucky and the Arch-viles bunched themeselves up in such a way that I was able to eliminate them all at the same time, and I took out the remaining Revenants with a Plasma rifle and shotgun. This is without a doubt, comparable to something like mid-to-late Sunlust in difficulty, providing further confirmation that the only way i'll play that is on HMP.

 

But did you think Muumi was done with you? Oh no. Head to the building where you need the yellow and red keys, past the Cyberdemon which you could shotgun to death but you won't and open a small hallway with several cell boxes and a BFG at the opposite end of the room. Pick up the BFG and you'll want to fire at everything instantly. However, you may run out if you do that, so just stick with the chaingun until the Revenants appears, then the BFG immediately because an Arch-vile teleports into here. Then successive waves of Revenants, Hell Knights, and amusingly, zombiemen attack. I died around 4 times here, but I will say the placement of the medkits in spots where foes teleport in is about as evil as they come. And you still might want to pick up the health in the middle of the fight. But don't hang out in those spots, lest you be surrounded an annhilated.

 

At some point, you pick up the blue skull key, head up some pillars to get back to the skull portal, fight off Arch-viles and Imps with a BFG this time, thank god, and Muumi finally relieves the pressure with you having the cells for most or all of them. If you head to the portal without killing the Cyberdemon, he will teleport in front, necessitating what may or may not be a fairly tedious fight (I didn't discover every secret after all, but I will say their usefulness was situational in a way that didn't benefit my gameplay).

 

As much as I bitch about entirely or largely slaughter-based maps, they also tend to be better, as long as they have strong structure, unlike, say, No Chance or something of that style. Bottom line, this in the top 5 of the best maps here, easily.

Edited September 27, 2021 by LadyMistDragon

[DuckReconMajor]

MAP27 - Last Ruin - dsda-doom - skill 4 pistol start - rewinds used 

 

Very interesting cityscape, with memorable indoor and outdoor spaces.

The building with the revenant and hell knight ambush was both punishing and intriguing.

Then that last bit with the gray stone walls enhanced the "something's not right" feeling.

 

Spoiler

 

 

[cannonball]

MAP27 - “Last Ruin” by Muumi

 

Wowzers, consider my ass well and truly kicked here. That said, this is one of the highlights of the set. At the end of the day I don't mind being completely murdered on UV as long as I can see a legitimate way of beating a trap.

Now honestly, the hardest part of this was the start, after several deaths, I figured that taking the armour was the best move as whilst there is an archvile, it is a small number of monsers to deal with and plenty of available cover. The next is the one that killed me the most, weak and poorly equipped the mass of monsters here is very difficult to negotiate, the best way for me was to clear one of the closets and hold my nerve in there.

Once I was past this, it does let up a little, the red key I handled without a single death, the yellow was trickier but still not too bad. However things pick up again once you have both these keys, you get the first non-secret cyber and frankly at this point you are forced to hit both key switches and enter what appears to be a simple little corridor. This was unexpected and whilst it takes a couple of attempts, you can really wield the BFG like nothing you have experienced so far. After this pick up the blue key from the bedroom (I would advise that you take in the view from the window), and head for the exit, whilst blowing away the remaining monsters and any that repopulate the starting area.

This is a rare occasion where I found every secret, hilariously the one in the start room I found last, it contained the last monster for me. He killed me twice.....

 

I am undecided as to where this would sit, but I would rate it as one of the best so far. Oh and it looks fantastic.

[TJG1289]

GZDoom/Blind/UV/Continuous/Saves

Map 27 - Last Ruin - Muumi

100% kills and secrets

Time: 16:18

Deaths: 1

 

If you've read the previous posts about this level and how hard it is, you're probably surprised by my low death count. This is 100% because I'm playing continuous, since I pulled out the BFG several times before actually encountering it in the level. If I was pistol-starting this, this one would be causing me grief to no end. Thankfully, I don't think I would mind, cause this level is awesome. Idk if I've played a bunch of Muumi's stuff before, but this map is incredibly good. The void hell theme is on full display here, with crumpled buildings hovering over blood in a dark environment, as blood waterfalls mark the outer edges. The creepy MIDI makes everything more tense, especially with the weird sounds toward the end of the loop. It's definitely a looker. But why is it difficult? Well, when the 3rd enemy you encounter is an archie, you kinda get the sense you could be boned. There's multiple encounters here that are prime boning material, with the first major one being when you grab the SSG. Not only do 2 walls lower in this room, filled with baddies, but monsters appear outside again, with some of those being chaingunners. Ouch. Thankfully, you can find a secret soul sphere here, by checking the outskirts of this beginning outdoor area (you can see it from one of the monster closets as well). When you get to the next outdoor area, you'll have an archie on a platform in the middle, with some other riff raff about. You then have 2 paths to take, each to a skull key. The path to the right is the one I took first. You have an area housing a plasma and with a lot of cover and some chaingunners. Hit a switch to lower another SSG, and unleash like 3 archies (cue the continuous play BFG). Hit another switch to lower a rocket launcher, and unleash a ton of revs, hell knights, imps, and I think pinkies? This also opens the path to the yellow skull, with 3 mancubi guarding it. This fight is pretty fun, with the rocky terrain providing a lot of cover, but also a lot of chances to accidentally rocket yourself in the face.

 

Getting back to the central part, another archie appears on the platform, with some revs to boot, as imps, shotgunners, and cacos teleport in. After mopping them up, it's time to go into the building here. Grab this plasma, hit the switch, and panic as you have no room to maneuver and somehow have to deal with 2 revs, 2 chaingunners, and an arachnotron. Once you get to the other side of the room, rocket the revs and knights teleporting in back where you entered, where another switch appears. Hit it to lower a wall with an archie. This archie was my only death, as I tried to SSG it, and was not able to stun it while I only had ~40% health. So I BFGd it next time. Up here is some stimpacks, and access to not only the red key and a rocket launcher, but another secret soul sphere behind a lighter colored wall. Go back out to deal with ANOTHER archie on the platform, plus some pinkies and a cybie. Nothing too tough honestly, just take out the archie quickly so you can SSG the pinkies, then plasma (or BFG) the cyb.

 

Now for the final stretch. Hit the 2 colored skull switches to open a room with a BFG. Grabbing it will cause the walls in this room to lower one by one, each with a different enemy. Starts weak, ends with revs, knights, and an archie. Just when I thought it was done, we get some cleverness. The lights flicker, then revs teleport into each closet. Another flicker, then knights. A third flicker, then zombiemen. Keep the BFG out for each, making sure to duck into closets for health and armor. Very cool idea here. After the 3rd wave, a lift appears, taking you up to an apartment with the blue skull. You can also see the final secret behind the bed, an invul. Look out the window, and shoot the eye switch on the blood fall to the left. Grab the invul, and haul your booty back to the beginning of the map, with your BFG ready. At least 5 archies teleport back in, with some imps to boot. My invul ran out just as the last imp teleported in and got BFGd. One baddie left, and it's a cyb that teleports directly in front of the portal. 2 shot it, and you're done!

 

Been a while since my recap was just a strategy guide to the level, but I really liked this one and wanted to talk about it all. Maybe my fav in the WAD so far? I'm not sure, as there's a lot of good ones here, but this one was fun!

[Book Lord]

MAP 28 – Void Hydroproccessing II by Rivi the Warlock

PrBoom+ 2.5.1.4, UV, Continuous, blind run w/saves

 

The Skullgate was surrounded by a cage unlocked by shooting, the soundtrack played an ominous fantasy chorus, people were acclaiming @RiviTheWarlock since the beginning of this DWMC month… this ought to be the hardest level of Skulltiverse, hands down. I have no prior knowledge of the author to share the anticipation and I could neither understand any reference to a previous work, bearing a similar name, nor could I establish if the typo was intended or not.

 

This flooded fortress was where demons proccessed water before discharging it into the void. In case this sounded too absurd, I confirm this place was more about processing Doomguy into bloody chunks instead. Void Hydroproccessing II was structured into four slaughter arenas with a short intermission halfway through. Ammo and health pickups were plentiful, so this was not a matter of resource administration. It was mostly space & horde management, a Doom art I do not excel at and that I do not find particularly entertaining.

 

How pistol starters manage the first area is beyond my comprehension and of course not for my skills, so I will not discuss it further. As soon as the water lowered into a pit full of rabble, I ran for the right platform with the SSG and killed the Revenants on the same level. After that, I was trapped by infinitely tall actors and only my carryover ammo allowed me to thin out the crowd and escape. I still took punches and scratches from invisible attackers at the bottom.

Spoiler

The second area saw me almost lose hope to ever beat the map, since fending off 40 Revenants and 40 Hell Knights without the BFG and without reliable cover required more than my ability, and some luck too. A small flock of Cacodemons slowly landed in the only breathing room, which was the portion hosting the RK and the Soul Spheres, so falling back there was ill-advised. After many failed attempts I decided to stop mimicking a pistol start and pulled out the BFG, but I carried cells only for three shots. It was enough to disrupt the enemy onslaught though, and after some more tries I emerged alive from that mayhem.

Spoiler

The library allowed to catch my breath, if being sandwiched between Arch-Viles and hitscanners could be considered a relaxing activity. The next arena was a watery pit surrounded by Arch-Viles, with metal curtains periodically rising and lowering in front of them. Meanwhile, the water was swarmed by 128 Imps. I was supposed to use the plasma gun, but I politely declined the challenge and used the cell packs to fuel my BFG instead. One Arch-Vile was thrown off his pillar by a rocket blast and I IDCLIP’ed to the void to finish him off. This would drive a demo recorder crazy.

 

There was one last encounter before I could take the BSK and leave this slaughterhouse, and what a pitched battle it was. The BFG was deemed necessary by the author himself, as well as a full player replenishment and an exaggerate cell supply. @RiviTheWarlock was not kidding, since the entire level was about to be swarmed by a cloud of 168 Cacodemons and Pain Elementals, preceded by 4 Cyberdemon terminators. It was essential to quickly dispatch the two of them appearing in the bright blue colonnade, since that area contained all the resources. The combat was long, but not as difficult as I envisioned. I just spammed BFG and collected goodies regularly. The Megasphere granted another restoration if needed, and I later discovered it was a secret I unlocked at an earlier stage.

Spoiler

The level looked good, even though there was something wrong with those blue torches floating in the air. In Doom Builder they seem to stand on stone pillars, but PrBoom+ does not display them that way. The Arch-Viles in the third arena were levitating too. Conceived for battle-hardened Doomers, Void Hydroproccessing II was a hefty challenge for my skills. I am proud to have beaten it without cheating. Pistol starting it is not for me though, and I do not look forward to playing it again anytime soon.  

[ViolentBeetle]

Fun fact, Void Hydroprocessing II and Last Ruin switched places because the former was the only map that I couldn't beat without saving mid-fight. But it's definitely doable, I saw people do it. From pistol start even. I am more comfortable in cramped spaces of the Last Ruin, personally.

[DisgruntledPorcupine]

MAP27: "Last Ruin" by muumi

UV, pistol start, no saves

100% kills, 3/3 secrets

 

Absolutely love the visuals in this one. The outer landscape with the floating building fragments in the sea of red is very surreal and picturesque, and the explorable area itself is a very nicely done ruined city look. I actually kind of wish this one didn't have to deal with the limitations of the wad, because it's a setting I'd love to be able to explore to a greater degree, but what we are given is done superbly as it is. Also shoutout to the midi, I think it's my first time hearing this track but it's a great one and it feels like it was tailormade for this map.

 

My first couple kicks at the can on this one I actually didn't think this one was going to be too challenging to complete, but it proved otherwise. The first pain point for me was the building that holds the red skull key. This one gives you a plasma at the start and gives you an arachnotron with some chaingunners and revenants on pillars to start, and once you reach the other side you have a very claustrophobic brush with some hell knights and revenants to deal with. I tried to save cells coming out of this one for the fights ahead, and I had some runs where these encounters would go completely smoothly and some where they would completely wreck me. The fight for the yellow skull key presents you with some similarly claustrophobic situations, even moreso overwhelming, but the level does give you a fair few rockets to help. 

 

The biggest challenge was definitely the fights immediately before the blue skull key though. This was often because I was already relatively battered by the time I ever reached them, and it's very tough to avoid taking some damage here even with the BFG. The initial hordes that it lowers in would go by fine, but the revenants and hell knights would often do me in. Hell, even the zombiemen at the end almost finished me off in my successful attempt. After I finally got past this one, there was luckily an invulnerability secret that made the archviles and imps near the end a fair bit easier to deal with. I got a kick out of that ending cyberdemon, definitely did not expect it to pop in at all.

 

Beautiful looking level that plays very well. Another one of the highest points in the wad for me.

[Pseudonaut]

Map27 blind run:

 

I decided to record a demo afterwards, this is attempt #3:

stv27-1252.zip

 

A visually impressive map with challenging combat throughout. A few of these fights stand out to me: the area with the archvile tower is reused a few times, but the first encounter with it is the hardest because of the available equipment - you can't snipe the vile with a rocket launcher you don't have. Sniping it with other weaponry isn't a very attractive option while so many revs and spiders are chasing you, so you'll have to dodge the archvile while fighting those. Skipping them entirely and running straight for the area with the rocket launcher might be an option, but I'd expect it to be harder that way, as many enemies you should've killed will surround the teleport destination for later (I didn't test this though). The next area (with the route I used) features a fight with three archviles at once, and it's possibly the most dangerous fight for me. The fight before the blue key is neat since it gives you enough BFG ammo to hold the trigger down for brief periods, but still requires that ammo to be used well by targeting important threats like the archvile, or eliminating enough beefy enemies to make space to move. Good stuff. Oh, and it's much easier than map26 if you ask me.

[ViolentBeetle]

It's been discovered that there's an error on MAP29 that renders it uncompleteable on difficulty other than UV. If you plan tomorrow to play it on HMP or below, please load the main wad alongside this fix. If you play on UV, everything's fine. Sorry for inconvenience. Nobody noticed it until now.

SkullMAP29_fixed.zip

[dei_eldren]

22 minutes ago, ViolentBeetle said:

It's been discovered that there's an error on MAP29 that renders it uncompleteable on difficulty other than UV. If you plan tomorrow to play it on HMP or below, please load the main wad alongside this fix. If you play on UV, everything's fine. Sorry for inconvenience. Nobody noticed it until now.

SkullMAP29_fixed.zip

 

i played through it on HNTR yesterday and had to perform a small magic trick to get through, guessed what the problem was based on MAP08 (i think it was).  No worries.

[FistMarine]

MAP25: Feeder's Digest
Nice map! I enjoyed it. There were some tricky encounters (it also didn't help getting blasted by the first archvile just as I was trying to take those knights with BFG, I guess I didn't hide behind pillar correctly) which meant most of the extra health was gone. So I had to play carefully for a while. There's a few ambushes while you get the yellow skull key, such as those chaingunners, though the pain elemental was a bit more annoying with its lost souls. The same room also contains the two secrets, so you might want to revisit the room later (see below).
The next part with demons and knights wasn't too bad, though I used BFG twice since I realized the SSG is too slow to handle this room. Then two archviles show up. I used BFG, got blasted once and got down to 39% health and no armor, survived the second blast by luck because I was hiding behind pillar in that exact moment I killed the first archvile, then finished off the second archie with the plasma since my cells were running low. All my cells were gone at that point, so I knew I had left two options (SSG and RL) for the next rooms. Saved and then grabbed two medkits, the green armor, then I realized there is a megasphere down there and maybe it's better if I save the green armor for later, so I reload save and avoid that green armor for now. It didn't matter because when you finish the fight, you teleport on top of it and you are forced to grab the green armor anyway, though thankfully you are given another megasphere after that.
Well this fight is probably the highlight of the map. You have to fight the horde of imps with your RL (as evidenced by the rocket boxes around) and it's not too difficult, I grabbed the megasphere as soon as I dropped down and got down to 76% health or so when I finished everyone in the room. I highly recommend taking care of those mancubus turrets in corners fast enough and then the barons while you pay attention to the imps. I feel like the mancubus is the main priority when you get the chance to hit them, I was lucky enough to not shoot too close to an imp or something but sometimes I had to eat a mancubus fireball when at least two of them required 4 rockets to die instead of 3, meaning I had to turn around/aim and shoot one more.
Now comes the interesting part. Once you make your way back with the red skull key, you will see a room with the megasphere in it. I saved and went to look for comments just to see what awaits me in the next room. But the part that caught my attention immediately was the fact an invulnerability was mentioned.
So I went to search for that invulnerability and indeed was in the room with the yellow skull earlier (that had an arachnotron, the only one present in the map) along with a blue armor secret which I "saved" for the end, though it didn't matter at all since I still ended with 200% both at end.
Once I found the invulnerability (where the arachnotron was standing earlier), I went as fast as I could to the red skull door, grabbed the plasma and cells, activated the switch and chose the RL. The RL seemed the best choice due to the amount of rockets in the map and at same time I'm glad I found the invulnerability and used it before I began this fight, it helped massively and was probably the best usage of invulnerability so far in the megawad, no longer having it missed earlier and only picked up before exit, I actually made good use of it this time and it lasted until end when I finished the last revenant with the rocket. I can't say for sure if I would have done the battle just fine without invulnerability but I can say that I would have probably used BFG at least once or twice. But since I was invulnerable, spamming rockets fast while getting close to monsters seemed the best solution.
And the best part was all those unused cells were saved for the next level. Once I was done with that room, grabbed megasphere, press the switches to get out of the room, register the blue armor secret (it didn't matter whether I picked up earlier or not, as I still ended with 200%) to score 100% everything and prepare for the next level.
Overall, this has been my favorite level of the episode (probably one of my favorites of the whole wad) because the fights (especially the part with imp horde) were more to my liking and having more room to dodge attacks. Though the cramped areas were a bit tricky to deal with but still not too bad.

 

MAP26: Beyond Life
I should have known that finishing a level with 200% means that the next level has a chance to take all that away, though in this case it was simply reducing my health to 1% (or 2% health and 6% blue armor in my case). Although I got spoiled a bit by reading some comments earlier, so I knew what to expect.
Because of that, the map wasn't too bad or at least that was what I thought at first. The first couple of rooms weren't bad at all, you just have to take it slowly to survive. I died first time when those revenants showed up as at one time one of them sneaked behind me and punched me.
The second death came from the graveyard (which I managed to overcome with the secret invulnerability saved earlier on my second attempt) and the part with imps and lost souls must have killed me two times until I decided to screw it and use my BFG which took everyone instantly and only had to finish two lost souls. Then at part with the arachnotrons I suffered about 3 more deaths, because sometimes the next arachnotron decided to fire at me immediately. I knew they weren't resurrected because they simply spawned as soon as the previous one died, they were probably 10-15 or so and I made use of my rockets and plasma to quickly kill them, with saving in between (don't worry, I used 3 separate saves) at every 2 or so kills, so this room wasn't bad and I didn't try to press those switches fast enough, to kill the rest, according to some comments earlier.
And finally, another death came from that secret coffin that had a revenant inside, which scared me and of course I died at same time. Then I was pissed at what happened but thankfully that was my last death and I'm certainly glad I made some really good invulnerability usage earlier because the last part wasn't bad at all. I was lucky enough to kill those elementals with plasma as soon as they spawned, then kill the lost souls and cacodemon with SSG, all that with just 25% health (after I made an effort to look for any stimpacks in the map, they were in secret places), without taking a single hit. The reward was a much needed soulsphere for all my efforts, so I got to start next map with 125% health instead of nearly dead. Even better, I saved the blue armor for the end, so I have max armor for the next level as well.
For the secrets, there's 4 to find: invulnerability in the first dark area (look for a different colored cross, I advice to save that invulnerability for the graveyard entrance since I can't imagine surviving that room without invulnerability unless I saved/loaded my way through, it was a bit too random for me), the coffin that leads to backpack, stimpack and other goodies on top of castle, a hidden stimpack (look for a small green button to shoot in graveyard area) and a blue armor accessed from when you finished with that room with imps and lost souls with lava in middle, go through that window and look for small steps, you will then face a small switch that will teleport you to the blue armor!

Additionally, as it has been pointed out, the map uses the track Plasma from Duke Nukem 3D, which (as I mentioned before in a previous post) is one of my favorite games of all time and I think Lee Jackson and Bobby Prince did a fantastic job on the soundtrack of the game. That level and song is also nostalgic to me because when you started the original full version of the game (the version I grew up with), you were shown the first demo of E2L8: Dark Side (though on the title screen, during the demo playback, it only plays Grabbag instead of the level's song) which is one of the longest and most interesting levels in the game.
Despite the unpopular opinion, I liked the second episode (Lunar Apocalypse) of Duke3D as kid, I thought it was great and being able to admire the space/moon environments, it was certainly something. I personally liked all 3 episodes (I didn't have 4th episode until late 2000s) since I played and finished them equally and the nostalgia is too strong that I can't hate the levels, even if some E2 levels can be a bit difficult at times and because of annoying Sentry Drones which indeed show up a bit too often on the higher difficulties in some of the space levels. Even with those minor flaws, I still find the original Duke3D (both the original 3-episode version and the Atomic Edition) a masterpiece, though people may agree or disagree with me, of course.

Oh, sorry for being off-topic, I forgot I was just finishing off writing about the map. Well, I think it was great, despite some annoying parts. I like the low health concept where you have to move slowly to advance (except when forced to act fast) or else a single attack may or may not kill you.
I also liked the detail when the DoomGuy picture at beginning of level, changed to the Zombieman after you got weakened, as someone mentioned earlier, the zombie comparison isn't too far off. And once you did the map, the DoomGuy showed up again. I guess that single zombieman got crushed or something, since I noticed when I finished the last room, I had one enemy missing (thinking there may be something big waiting me on the exit room), only to take a look at the automap again and see all monsters killed. Fun map and was definitely unique, though I admit it can get annoying when things don't go as planned, since it is a bit luck based with damage and if the monster decides to attack or not.

 

MAP27: Last Ruin
And now comes the painful map! Wait a second, I beat this map without dying once? Huh? I don't know how I managed to do that, although I admit it was a continuous run, I can't imagine what's like from a pistol start but yeah I admit I used the BFG a couple of times in some situations and the map didn't seem that bad, as I got really lucky with the RNG today. There's some really cool ambushes and the map is difficult, yet fair. The combat was again, more to my liking since it wasn't as unforgiving as some of the earlier maps (such as MAP21, which I still consider one of the hardest in the whole wad).
As such, the map wasn't as painful as I expected to be. I expected to die at least 5 or so times. But seeing as I never died, I feel very satisfied with how the map went. The archviles were BFG'ed for the most part (before they were able to cause chaos) and the cyberdemons (two were present in map) were killed carefully, the first one by hiding into a safe spot, while slowly SSG him to death. While the second cyber, I BFG'ed him quickly with the invulnerability sphere, which allowed me to 2 shot him (a very rare thing that I do, considering the difficulty to pull this off) and then quickly finish the rest archviles off before the invulnerability runs out. I found two secrets myself (the soulspheres) and with a bit of help from reading TJG1289's comment, I was able to get that invulnerability secret in the apartment with the blue skull key, since I knew there would be something bad waiting for me at the exit and really wanted to grab that invulnerability. I find it interesting how the last 3 maps all contained an invulnerability, it really makes a lot of difference when you save it for some tougher fights.

I don't have much time to write a lot of details about every fight since most people described the map much better than me.

The only bad thing is I had to sacrifice the soulspheres earlier and this meant no extra health/armor for me for the next level, just 100% both. Still better than having no armor at all or little health. Unless I missed a blue armor somewhere (if there was any blue armor present in the map), considering I picked up all items in the level.

Overall, I liked the map, definitely a great map.

 

I'm curious how the rest maps turn out tomorrow, when I will hopefully finish the megawad. Seeing the monster count in MAP28 does worry me a bit and although I disagree with MAP27 being the hardest in the megawad (at least on a continuous run, it felt relatively straightforward), I can expect MAP28 to be the hardest or one of the hardest. Looking forward to the remaining maps!

 

Deaths (so far): 51 (MAP09-MAP15, MAP31-MAP32, MAP17-MAP23, MAP26)

 

Spoiler

 

Edited September 28, 2021 by FistMarine

[Lorenz0]

MAP27 - Last Ruin

hmp/continuous

 

I don't know what it its about those ruined buildings on the void horizon, as well as the strange red pillars, but when I first started playing this map, they struck out to me as one of the most spectacular sights of this entire megawad. Maybe it's the void theme that's giving you the advantage, but I think this whole level overall is one of the best looking in the wad. It feels so alien in a good way.

 

Anyway, welcome to the hardest map so far. I guess it should be expected of map27, but the difficulty here ramps up drastically in comparison to what came before.  There's usually not much space to move around and monsters are trying to overwhelm you at every opportunity. Pistol starting the previous map didn't leave me with much arsenal to deal with some of these encounters easier, so I had to restart a lot of them quite a few times. The fights are really well crafted though, so I'm not complaining. Maybe except the double key fight at the end. With barely any space to move around and walls lowering/monsters teleporting at random it's very unlikely for the player to get through those waves without knowing where and when are the enemies approaching. So a few restarts seem basically mandatory here.

 

Excellent map overall though, definitely one of the highlights of Skulltiverse.

 

MAP28 - Void Hydroprocessing II

 

Anyway, welcome to the hardest map so far. ...wait a minute -

 

This one goes full on slaughter, even harder than the previous map. I don't know how I would've survived some of these early fights without the bfg from Last Ruin.  The rockets really don't seem to be enough for the hellknight/revenant swarm. After a brief period of reprieve, we go to the next and last big fight of the level. It's just cacos and a few cyberdemons, but I really like how this fight is designed. You're not locked in the blue key arena, so I initially tried escaping down below but that didn't turn out to be the right strategy. The number of cacos is simply too overwhelming. Staying where the fight started actually seems to be the most viable option. You have to make the cybs infight or you're gonna have a bad time.

 

Visually speaking, the map is pretty good. The layout reminds me a bit of some of Ribbiks' work.

 

Order of preference:

Spoiler

MAP19

MAP09

MAP15

MAP21

MAP27

MAP11

MAP07

MAP10

MAP23

MAP25
MAP04

MAP28
MAP05

MAP13

MAP22

MAP17

MAP12

MAP26
MAP01

MAP24

MAP14
MAP03

MAP20

MAP16
MAP02

MAP18
MAP08
MAP06

 

[DuckReconMajor]

MAP28 - Void Hydroproccessing II - dsda-doom - skill 4 pistol start - rewinds and godmode used

 

Dr. Violentbeetle came in and pre-empted commentary on this map's brutality as I'd expect. There is much pain here.

I got as far as "that part", then i don't remember if i messed something up or what but I started over into the run you see below.

And yes, as you can see from the title at that point i said nope and hit the IDDQD

Said part takes sadistic queues from stuff like sunlust, but not even that wad's infamous GFY fight looked like such a hopeless scenario in the moment

I am interested in seeing demos/footage of people conquering that part, VB says it's been done but where can I see it? I'm sure i was doing something wrong.

The rest of the map is quite fun, and was doable with extreme savescum aka rewind feature

 

Spoiler

 

 

[DJVCardMaster]

University got me stressed enough for me to play this map, I'm thinking about skipping to MAP29 without rating this. (And stressing myself with MAP29 having to play it in UV, just because I don't want to add extra files to my playthrough)

[LadyMistDragon]

Map 28: Void Processing...2!(UV, Pistol-start)

 

I really don't want to do this. Honestly, I'll probably be doing Map29 later today without writing anything on it, because I'm really going to be pressed for time the past few days.

 

So RiviTheWarlock is largely an unknown mapper. In addition to maybe 1 more community project, they also released a 5-map set called Fragor Portum earlier this year. Quite underrated in how it blends realistic and abstract environments into quite an attractive style.The difficulty raises slowly, but is actually incredibly relaxed until Map 05, where the difficulty increases at something approaching a 20-percent grade and becomes quite a difficult slaughter map. I'll give you three guesses as to what difficulty this map's place in the mapping order is determined. Go on. I'll wait.

 

This map does seem rather intimidating from pistol start, but Rivi packs you with so much ammo later on to the extent that becomes a non-issue. One of the most beautiful maps thus far, though, at least regarding the area with the tek pillars where the blue skull key, but the whole map jams with the void in a nearly-perfect symmetrical way. The Raven pack track is also really cool, though I haven't played the last couple of fucking trash episodes where I assume it appears. It sounds like something out of Mission: Impossible.

 

Anyway, shoot the switch, and a courtyard opens in front of you, as well as Hell Knights on the sides. They're kind of purposeless, beyond getting you to move. Head out, and all of the floor, other than bits revealed as raised pillars, leading to the Super Shotgun and Chaingun at either end. I grabbed the Shotgun first because precise aiming is kind of important here. Circle around and kill everything, then hit the switch. I think it activates a lift at the southeast end of the courtyard, but it also causes chaingunners to teleport onto the pillars. Unfortunately, if you're just a little bit too close, you won't be able to strike them. It was quite annoying, though not as annoying as playing for too long before finding the way out.

 

There was a somewhat difficult fight here, but not as hard as dealing with the two Arch-viles in the library. They killed me a few times. I learned quickly that heading into the other room that was opened made things overwhelming quite quickly, so taking a death or two by not leaving just makes more sense.

 

At one point, you'll leave the library and drop into another pool with TWO megaspheres and lots of cells. I knew I was going to dread this fight and I was right. Tons of Imps start to teleport in, as Arch-viles that can't be killed teleport from one side to the other, doing their best to get you. BookLord called this unimaginable or something without a BFG, but this is merely a matter of running very quickly from one sides to the other while blasting Imps in front of, and making sure to stay behind the pillars whenever Arch-viles expose themselves (...). The difficult part is surviving, but eventually, the pressure slackens off, and you're free to use the lift to leave. I still died several times here, though maybe 5 after working out the correct strategy.

 

The true hardest fight is, you guessed it, the one for the BSK. See, two Cyberdemons teleport in. Explaining the complexity of this fight is something I'd rather not do, but safe to say Pain Elementals and Cacodemons slowly filter their way in and cause things to become overwhelming really quickly, as well as 2 Cyberdemons teleporting into a lower area. Someone mentioned infighting earlier, but let's just say the BSK area is more likely to kill you than cause it. And things are so overwhelming, you might be killed here anyway. Honestly, I stopped here because this level was dragging on too long as it was, but it seemed like I might've been starting to make some headway, like, oh 25 minutes of trying(I don't know hoe to two-shot Cyberdemons, incidentally).

 

I'll probably write my final thoughts on Skulltiverse later today.

 

P.S. Oddly enough, despite being more difficult, there were no 'fuck you' fights, a la the yk nonsense from the last map. The RK fight did not give me the trouble it did other folks, and hats off to Rivi for taking the time to balance it!

 

 

Edited October 1, 2021 by LadyMistDragon

[Omniarch]

Heh, I've fallen comically fall behind now. I'm just going to admit defeat at this point. Sorry all for my laxity: various things have left me quite drained the last couple of weeks. That, coupled with my general laziness, caused me to fall prey to the inexorable march of time. For clarity's sake, I assure you that my lapse has nothing to do with Skulltiverse. If anything, the set's final third is its best, containing two of my five favourite maps (27, 29), as well as simply being the most well-refined in general.

 

Overall, I've had a really good time with this set. A combination of strong themeing, prudent restriction and a great deal of creativity on the part of the mappers made Skulltiverse a very worthwhile experience in my book. I have no regrets regarding my adventure across the Skull Lord's myriad conquests, and offer my congratulations to those who laboured to bring those scattered worlds into being! In particular: 7Soul, El Inferno, LordEntropy, Muumi, Myolden, Shawny and of course ViolentBeetle have impressed me greatly with their work. I shall be seeking out / looking forward to more content from you all!