Shovelware Society #13 - WAD.WAD Week

[Thelokk]

By the way, have to note that after a few weeks of so-so maps, it seems like we lucked out a bit this time around; RICKS was pretty good stuff imo.  Hopefully the trend will continue into next week!

[adamastor]

Solid playthrough and review, @Gibbon. Not much else to say about SPUNK2.WAD, but it was fun to blast through.

 

 

And I agree with @Thelokk here. I'm sure that other fine adventures await us in this cursed treasure trove.

[LadyMistDragon]

Ricks12

 

Hmm, a slime ceiling. Seems a little incongrous but no matter. Push 80,000 switches and eventually open up some monster closets containing some shotgunners that hurt me quite badly. I don't think I missed much in the right closet. Hmm, Deimos sewer section. That sure seems like a quick exit. No? A darkened tech room with more idiot switches and a Supercharge you'll need a possibly unneeded Arch-vile jump for? Sign me up! Is there a Megasphere shortly after this room? Absolutely! It was the chaingunner who hurt me the worst in the AV room, though. Shooting more trash enemies, pressing switches, and finding yourself slightly closer to the exit. Is this the end? No!! Teleport to a blood-filled industrial room, duke it out with some strong enemies, fail to grab the rocket launcher, teleport out of here, go 'meh' and exit. A cool map that tries several things despite some clear mapper inexperience.

 

 

lmd_pandoraricks12.zip

[adamastor]

We had another tie this week, Doomheads. Both HELLSLEY.WAD, for the original DOOM, as well as FRED2.WAD, for DOOM II, got three votes each, so we'll play them both, as per usual.

Edited March 21, 2022 by Mr. Kong

[Gibbon]

And I read it as “ripped from a Cybie’s huge nuts” lol

[adamastor]

14 minutes ago, Gibbon said:

And I read it as “ripped from a Cybie’s huge nuts” lol

"...RIP AND TEAR YOUR NUTS!
YOU ARE HUGE! THAT MEANS YOU HAVE HUGE NUTS!"

[Thelokk]

Hmm, FRED2 sounds vaguely familiar...

[adamastor]

It's the long awaited sequel to this blockbuster.

[CoolerDoomeR]

I vote for Doomcomv.WAD, it's great!

[Dusty_Rhodes]

The long awaited sequel to Fred.wad? Can't wait.

[adamastor]

We'll play both HELLSLEY.WAD, for the original DOOM (slotted in E1M2), as well as FRED2.WAD, for DOOM II (slotted in the usual MAP01).

You can get them here: FRED2.7z, The Hellsley Suites.7z.

 

We now hav until Saturday to play through them and leave our rants, demos and videos of them here on the thread.

 

And that's all. Happy hunting.

 

 

Also, and for the first time, we'll try out a DM only map, or in this case a small mapset, from D!Zone Gold, in Zandronum 3.1.

The WAD is FREAK.WAD, and you can get it here: FREAK.7z.

We're using Zandro 3.1, as already mentioned, and the server's name is "Shovelware Society Deathmatch #1 - FREAK.WAD" (without the quotes, obviously).
Feel free to join us there. Just bear in mind that this won't be a competitive thing or anything, just casual gibbing and fragging with the Society, and the chance to get to know some of the shovelware DM maps we'd normally discard.

It's scheduled to start tomorrow at 10:00 am GMT.

Edited March 21, 2022 by Mr. Kong

[Helm]

Hello! I ran through this week's shit. Videos and reviews below!

Take a relaxing vacation (in hell) in our deluxe Hellsley Suites
 

Spoiler

 

 

I only read the Zork-ian blurb in the textfile after I played this map, I think that's a fair thing to do with shovelware, to recreate the original experience where we didn't even care who made what and for what reason. 
 

The video is completely blind. I enjoy the shape and size contrasts in the rooms of this map a lot. There's liminal spaces, suspended cages, cutdoom living quarters, a weird pool... lots of personality there. After playing I referenced the readme and evidently this location is a spa and resort in hell.

 

Quote

 

================================================================
Title                   : The Hellsley Suites
Filename                : HELLSLEY.WAD
Author                  : Chris Somers
Email Address           : somers@ibm.net
Misc. Author Info       : Avoiding premature death. BTW, what _is_ mature
                          death, anyway?

Description             : It's a bright, sunny day and you feel like a
                          million bucks. You're strolling down the street
                          whistling some John Denver tune when a travel
                          brochure materializes in you hand(!). It says:

                          "...you've got eternity on your hands so what
                          are you going to do after a season of sitting
                          on hot coals, firebombing your buddies, and
                          chewing your friends? Where can you go when it's
                          time to relax - to get away from it all - in
                          short, what's Leona gonna do when she gets here?
                          Come to the Hellsley suites: Hell's finest hotel
                          and resort with tropical beach, swimming pool,
                          TV in your room (permanently set to the
                          Discovery channel) - even a recreation area
                          with lava floors and floating caged barons to
                          play with. Come join the fun..."

                          The brochure suddenly bursts into flames and
                          you're blinded by a green flash and burning
                          fingers. You find yourself in a stone walled
                          room, a shotgun at your feet. Hey - and
                          there's a rocket launcher! Thinking that
                          maybe it was a Barry Manilow number and this
                          is what you're gonna get for airing it, you
                          cautiously open a nearby door. Hmmm..., this
                          seems to be an hotel lobby.

                            "Excuse me, sir... yes, you with the shotgun.
                          Can you tell me where I am?"...

Additional Credits to   : If you don't already know,
                          there's no helping you now.
================================================================

 

 

 

 

It speaks to the strengths of the abstractive powers of Doom that I can confidently respond to you after reading that with "It's nothing like a hotel!", but also "...sure." and both of these statements are true.
 

The early Doom maps are kinda Zork maps sans puzzles subtext has more meat to it: you play so many 90s wads that do the funhouse dungeon premise of every room has a different theme, and there's a concept or gimmick to the room even if mechanically it doesn't surface in a meaningful way. I think it took the community a while to start intentionally either going full abstract, or if they're going to represent a semi-real location, to spread the semiotic values that convey the environmental storytelling out across the whole map instead of putting the ideas-of-location in some sort of discrete room. This map is definitely one where I can imagine myself going > w and getting a room name and description like 'Hellsley Pools - There is a dirty pool here, infested with frolicking former humans. Exits lie to the south, east and north.' and that's kind of it for that space. I find this sort of thing adorable and kind of inspirational but of course it's very dated. Doesn't hurt that the author evidently witty. Who ends their text file with "If you don't already know, there's no helping you now." I like Chris Somers.
 

In the video my progress gets stopped because from an automap perspective there's not much to go on and I have to find a switch in the middle of the map that triggers a lift for vertical progress. This is the worst kind of progression showstopper for me and a thing I wish mappers would internalize to not put vital progression on one small switch in the middle of a sprawling map. The automap has magical diagetic powers: if there's incomplete topography the player is intrinsically motivated to fill in the cartography, you don't have to motivate them. Therefore, put vital progression in confusing maps on the ground, not on an obscure switch.
 

There's a very weird visual bug I have never in my life seen before happen in this playthrough. If you have any idea what that is, let me know.
 

Lots of shape variety, scenario variety, cool encounters, traps, a bit of everything. On the minus side, overbright, weird lifts and obscure progression, the deep water pool makes me queasy, some monsters are stuck though that may be my fault in my choice of sourceport/complevel nonsense. On the whole all these minor issues do not matter to me when the map has personality, and this one definitely does. Shovelware with personality is how the working class will win, so thumbs up from me.

 

 

Edited March 21, 2022 by Helm : spelling is hard

[Helm]

And here's Fred2. We don't talk about Fred1
 

Spoiler

This one is less charming, on the whole, than the hell spa but it has its own weirdness working in its favor. First of all, the big fight is completely optional, here, and the big fight room is visually interesting enough to reward the exploration. I obsess over nonstandard texture usage in the big arena as well, it just looks like Sunder! The big arena room is not even square, it's kind of roundified and it has a very interesting FOV-for-the-poor end result, which I'm going to straight-up steal for my own mapping!

 

I discuss in the video how you can kind of trace where the mapper started mapping just by how from room to room the mapper sheds some preconceptions and starts mapping in a more free-form way and this is definitely one of these maps. I like this sort of thing, I like to be able to almost hear the mapper growing as we go through a set, or even a single map like this. I wouldn't have found all these unmarked wall secrets in this unaligned texture hell so zero regrets for that iddt, though.

No txtfile to orient me here, all I know is that Fred made a map, and then Fred made another map.

 

 

[Thelokk]

Heh, gonna be a short one this week because, honestly, I'm kinda disappointed with the stuff we ended up with. No biggie, sometimes you strike rich, sometimes you just strike and that's it.

Spoiler

 

FRED2.WAD

HMP / GZDoom

 

I have very vague memories of the original fred.wad and, if its sequel is to go by, I probably just unconsciously removed. I mean, I realize your map is shovelware so testing was probably done in a hurry but - a softlock thirty seconds in? that's what I call daring. The rest is the usual nonsense of hitscanner galore in rooms wide as a stadium, garnished with one of my personal peeves - sky textures used as decals. I give it 2 sequels/10.

 

Hellsley Suites

HMP / GZDoom

 

Things get a little better (but just a tiny little bit) with the Hellsley Suites, which suffer from the usual range of shovelware issues - seriously, how can one *not* see that these convention center-sized rooms are empty as **** if you put a single shotgunner in? - but at least redeems itself through an interesting use of verticality and a rudimentary, but functional swimming pool. As always, the map can't seem to settle on a theme: one moment it's lava, then it's wood, then it's a bricky pseudo-techbase. The range of shovelware-ish issues is extensive, among them I sniped some missing floors, non-functioning linedefs, and a progression so rickety a walk off a cliff was enough to utterly break it. Still, as crappy as it was, it still managed to surprise me here and there, something Fred2 didn't. I give it three stars out of five on Google Maps

 

Or, how to make UD's least threatening enemy even less of a threat. 

 

 

[Gibbon]

So here is one, FRED2!

Spoiler

FRED2, not to be confused with its amazing counterpart FRED.WAD is an action packed adventure series that will have you on the edge of your seat, real next generation amazement from the comfort of...

 

Ok enough with the bullshit, FRED2 is a disaster on epic proportions, The texturing was done by a blind possom and the level design was done by a Caco's tongue on a bad day.  The encounters are boring, enemy placement is that of a 'click and place' with no thought to how they are on various difficulties.

 

The doors to escape certain rooms are hidden, the keys cannot be found and the pit by the blue door is inescapable.  I could not finish this as after 10 minutes of searching and wall humping, I could not find the keys.

 

In short, FRED2.WAD sucks more than a toothless squirrel.

 

Just when you thought FRED.WAD could not get any worse.  Thank goodness there isn't a FRED3.WAD.....

 

 

 

Is there?

 

 

Demo (SRCD Doom - Choco / Vanilla Compatible)

FRED2.zip

 

[adamastor]

@Helm, @Thelokk and @Gibbon, I see you had an early start this week. I'll try and play the WADs first, and then I'll peruse through your reviews, demos and videos guys.

 

 

I'd just like to add that our DM server will be live at 21:00 GMT tonight. It'll be hosted on Zandro 3.1 and it's title will be Shovelware Society Deathmatch #1 - FREAK.WAD.
Hope to see you there, folks.

Edited March 22, 2022 by Mr. Kong

[Thelokk]

52 minutes ago, Mr. Kong said:

@Helm, @Thelokk and @Gibbon, I see you had an early start this week. I'll try and play the WADs first, and then I'll peruse through your reviews, demos and videos guys.

 

 

I'd just like to add that our DM server will be live at 21:00 GMT tonight. It'll be hosted on Zandro 3.1 and it's title will be Shovelware Society Deathmatch #1 - FREAK.WAD.
Hope to see you there, folks.

 

Sorry, got work at 1am tomorrow, by 21:00 I'll long be in dreamland. Shame, was hoping to be there. Next time!

[adamastor]

Next time, lokk.
If it all goes well, it'll be the first of many.

[LadyMistDragon]

Hellsley Suites by Chris Somers

 

Wrong map to play right now. Starting out, you see some sense of what was presumably always a hellish hotel of sorts. You've got the chair to the left which will damage any humans foolish enough to come into it. You've got a welcoming desk of Imps ready to greet you.  On the left are cubbies raised very high because....You have an island of sorts that I suppose belongs in the back courtyard. Finally, you have a pool at one point! Enemy placement is quite stuttery to say the least, and combat is kind of a joke, but it can be effective at times (the Lost Sould on the way to the blue key) and sometimes not (whoever thought placing a single Baron of Hell in the outside moat made any sense deserves to be taken out). The rather spotty way ammo is dispersed doesn't exactly help matters. Also, having a secret open only by someone from the inside is quite a stupid idea to say the least (I speak of the former human closet on the southeast corner of the outside).

 

Chris is more in love with the power of raising and lowering sectors it seems. Step into one area and another sector will lower somewhere else. I actually spent a stupidly long time outside of the room with the Baron cages and the lava before returning and seeing there was a very unobstrusive lift I'd overlooked to the left of the entrance. After that, things went much smoother. The last little trap behind the fence outside seperating two parts of the base was...a little annoying. So you're already fighting a horde of Imps and you're going to pop up some more? This map concludes by teleporting you inside the cubbies, and if you're willing to press on the wall of one, you can gain access to the totally useful BFG you're gonna need for the Caco swarm that teleports in (sarcasm alert).

 

I would've enjoyed this map a little more buit I picked thr wrong time to play it I think. It still isn't complete trash, I do have to notice Chris' little tricks and experiments. Just no more pop-up monsters please.

lmd_hellsleydemo.zip

Edited March 23, 2022 by LadyMistDragon

[LadyMistDragon]

Fred2 by some guy named Fred

 

This map is such a steaming pile of shit and unfortunately, I love it. Starting with the fact that you can be in and out in only a few minutes if you head through the door behind you. You're not reallly overwhelmed with powerups like Fred 1, and what's there is largely scattered inconveniently in some sort of gladiatorial arena where the audience expresses their pleasure by throwing beer and nachos....or maybe just fireballs. Charging forward (because I could do nothing from where I was) brought me straight into the line of fire of an Arch-vile, where I did something we'll just say was INCREDIBLY ballsy. Turned out there was a Berserk Pack in the stands anyway, but honestly, you'd be a fool to do a full demo of this conflagoration without rewinding. True hitscanner hell. And it seems like you've actually got the shoot the wall with the hidden Berserk. There also that room with the Baron and 5,000 barrels for no reason at all, or the darkened corridor not long after with Lost Souls and an Imp completely non-responsive to the vicious Lost Souls in front. Did I mention there was a teleporter at the beginning which sends you to this very hallway?

lmd_fred2.zip

[Dusty_Rhodes]

 

Here's FRED2! It's a little weird. The rooms are strange and there's some bad fights (the Archvile room is a nightmare), but it's quirky. I love the use of SKY2, it's hilarious and endearing.

[LadyMistDragon]

Any chance we could do H!Zone when this is done? just sayin

[adamastor]

1 hour ago, LadyMistDragon said:

Any chance we could do H!Zone when this is done? just sayin

That's a very specific request, but it sounds good.

I was just planning for us to do Maximum Doom on our third trip to Hell, or on some kind of special date or something.

[LadyMistDragon]

You'd be absplutely shocked how few maps in that are worth playing in any capacity (I saw someone's playlist of the maps which are playable). There's one with a cyberdemon in a room, (and probably more than one) a Doom1 megawad with the name of newdoom.wad that's probably better than NJ Doom, but at a certain point, there is no hidden gem in that collection anywhere. And the failure's aren't even interesting - there are too many E1 techbases.

[adamastor]

Maybe I'll suggest four CDs to vote on when the time comes, as we've been doing with the WADs themselves.

[adamastor]

I've been so invested in starting these DM sessions with the Society, that I almost neglected these.

 

Anyway, here's my demo of The Hellsley Suites, by Chris Somers: The Hellsley Suites.7z

Played on Chocolate Doom 3.0.0, on UV. Got 92% kills, and a measly 16% secrets.

With my review below:

Spoiler

 

I didn't had as much fun with this one as with our old pal FRED, but I really like the creativity, DoomCute and "plot" of this one, with such gold nuggets as the TV in your room being permanently set on the Discovery Channel (for utlimate relaxation), and that Barry Manilow reference. Just awesome.
Anyway, I liked this one all the same. It had more backtracking, and areas such as that huge body of water which was empty, but it had some pretty fun combat encounters too, my favourites being the room with the caged Go-go Barons over lava, the small Caco swarm on the hotel's lobby (where I saw that tasty BFG, which I didn't figure out how to get), and that teleport ambush on the beach area, where there's stuff such as dead marines on beach towels. Just hilarious.

Anyway, it does drag itself a little overtime, but it's still pretty solid and lighthearted fun, and I do think that it's the more worthwhile of the two.

 

 

And my demo of FRED2.WAD: FRED2.7z

Played on Choco 3.0.0, on UV. Got 103% kills, and 83% secrets.

With the review, once again, on the spoiler:

Spoiler

 

Not too much to say about this one except that, even though I prefer the creativity and sense of humour (or just general wackyness) of HELLSLEY.WAD, I prefered to play this one, and had more fun with the combat in general particularly, of course, the big arena which, due to the Vile's presence, can turn sour very easily. I, however, ended up taking the scenic route there, however, so my experience with it was different.

Although obtuse, I had a good time finding the map's secrets, including that classic blue keycard which, of course, was vital to the map's progression.
The only thing I'm not sure of is that "window" with the red locked indications around it, as I don't think there's a red keycard on the map at all.

So all this to say that, even though it must be FRED's successor, it superseeded it's father's legacy, even if for just a little.
Good stuff.

 

 

As to FREAK.WAD, by Terry Welsh, dated October 5 1995, I'm glad to say that it was a success, so I'll throw a DM only map from this shovelware CD each time we decide our regular, SP, WADs.
Sadly, I didn't get a demo, nor screenshots to share this time, but I'll make sure to do so next week. Maybe @Gibbon has some to share.
That's all, and tune in for this Sunday, our voting day.

 

 

 

On an unrelated note, made this icon if anyone uses shortcuts or bat files, like myself, to play through our shovelware trove: d!zone_gold_cd_icon.7z

Edited March 25, 2022 by Mr. Kong

[adamastor]

This week's winner was WAD.WAD, with seven votes. Never has a WAD on this thread gotten so much hype, so let's hope it delivers (on a shovelware kind of way, that is)!

Edited March 28, 2022 by Mr. Kong

[LadyMistDragon]

some of the people that vote should really play one of the damn maps (looking at you unnamed people).

[Thelokk]

5 minutes ago, LadyMistDragon said:

some of the people that vote should really play one of the damn maps (looking at you unnamed people).

 

I don't need a vacation, I need a wadception.

[Hitboi]

10 hours ago, Mr. Kong said:

WAD.WAD (DOOM)                  -       Invulnerability

Lol'd at that name. Sounds like it's going to be a boring STARTAN1 themed map.
SATAN911.WAD sounds awsome.