Endless Random /idgames WAD Adventures #024

[Sena]

Day 6: Iraki Terrorist https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/g-i/iraktrst

 

Another work by Ruba, whose Goomba level I played a few sessions back, and in the 3 years between that level and this one, he didn't get any better. To be fair to him, he built this in less than an hour, but to be fair to myself, I'd like to play a level that's actually fun to play, and being an actual terrorist would probably be more exciting than this. You go around a vaguely military-base like place, really just a courtyard with boxes and random lava holes, you kill about 10 shotgunners, get a key, and that's it, level's over. As with Goomba, there's not really any clear rationale to this, it's something completely pointless, as it's over as soon as it begins, it offers nothing in the way of gameplay. It's not that uncommon for people to have an exaggerated self-view of their own talents, but even with that in mind, I really can't believe that Ruba thought people playing this would think "wow, that was really good, I can't wait for his next map, maybe that one will take me a full 45 seconds to beat!" 2/10, playing this shite probably entitles me to a purple heart.

[LadyMistDragon]

Ultra Anomaly(2014) by @Armaetus(Eternity)

 

A replacement for E1M8 by a mapper that was shockingly prolific at one time, this one comes off like a fairly early effort. Start room is as generic as they come, stuffed to the gills with ammo, along with the hallway upstairs. But the sight you gaze upon is entirely different. A massive battle clearly took place here, as the numerous amounts of monster corpses on the ground suggest, in the middle of some computer banks and framed on the sides of two fireblu portals. When you pick up a rocket launcher, Barons of Hells will emit from these portals, but the room is so large that this fight's hardly a challenge, even if you're playing keyboard-only. Once they all die, a wall lowers and a more honest portal from which the Deimos portal opens up gazes out at you. Some nice ideas I guess, but this is painfully simplistic. It's probably just another 90s maps, though, so it's fine.

 

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Edited January 20, 2022 by LadyMistDragon

[Clippy]

I wanted to play a random map from ID games today but a small single map one - I pressed the random button a few times before I got it haha

 

 

A pretty beginnery map that didn't give me any grief but still had some charm

 

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/j-l/kaotic

 

[Clippy]

On 1/10/2022 at 2:35 PM, Rujasu said:

JarJar's Last Pinenapple Fritter by B.P.R.D

IWAD: Doom 2

Difficulty: UV

Source Port: PrBoom+

 

I haven't participated in random WAD reviews before, but I gave the archive a few shuffles out of boredom and suddenly felt like I might want to talk about what I've witnessed.

JarJar's Last Pinenapple(sic) Fritter is, as you might imagine, an old jokewad. It's a flat plain decorated by a couple of elevated spots, fences and big brown brick tunnels. Powerups, barons and hellknights are the primary inhabitants, scattered randomly all over the grass; eating a Tom Hanks from one of the fritter-guarding cyberdemons is the only way anyone's dying on this map. The fences are the only things stopping the player from beelining at the eponymous fritter, and nothing on the way presents a credible threat. It even gives you an invulnerability for the small clump of hitscanners.

The sprite and sound replacements seem equally arbitrary, the only common thread being that both rockets and cells are Tom Hanks. God knows what the plasma bolt graphic was, other than way too large for its purpose. It's also a relief that nothing in this 19-year-old jokewad seems to be in particularly poor taste by today's standards, and it doesn't wear out its very short welcome of under two minutes.

 

I feel like this is one of those cultural artifacts that are only possible to find thanks to long-term archiving, because nobody in their right mind would have kept this if they curated their HDD space even a little bit. Well, I guess it is the whole point of the thread that these things are there for us to find.

 

 

LMAO I am so playing this

[LadyMistDragon]

Thirst for Blood (1996) by Karl Jackson & Matt Hindle (Eternity)

 

A deathmatch map created for the Canberra-based deathmatching competition Thirst for Blood by the Degrees Centigrade crew which might just be a group of two for all I know. It is sort of interesting to think deathmatch competitions were occurring in the months leading to Quake's release when everyone felt pressured to move on after a while. The map itself is quite boring, mostly consisting of long, boring, grey hallways, twisting around in random fashion (that maze in the southeast feels drawn-out) and some rather lazy texturing in spots, with a few notable locations, such as a blood-filled room or a hallway where something industrial seems to be occurring. And the opening room is nice too. Some of the custom sound effects are ok (shotgun sound is borrowed from Mark Klem) but most of them have an abrasive mechanical tendency that proves quite grating, such as the item pickup noise. I guess it's ok to deathmatch in, and those are some uniquely-detailed teleporters, but it's about as dull as any deathmatch map its size could possibly be, which ain't good. 4/10

 

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[Sena]

Day 7: Temple Palace https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/p-r/palacet  

 

Short and basic, this level is typified by its very narrow and very short corridors, so short in fact that you never at all leave your effective range, you will never have to burst-fire your chaingun to maintain accuracy, or have to get in closer to ensure your shotgun does optimal damage, because these rooms are so small that it'd be impossible for it not to. I don't see many rooms that put a key in the opening room, and it's kind of bollocks having me fight 2 chaingunners at once in such a small room with nothing but a pistol, but apart from that, there is little in the map to really inspire commentary, walk through small rooms, shoot stuff, notice that the level's opened up a bit, and then it ends. It's not like a Ruba map in that it's so short that it feels pointless, nor is its claustrophobic level design particularly frustrating, the whole thing's just something you breeze through without thinking about it. 5/10, couldn't sell you on any architectural features if I wanted to, it's just too constrictive.

[Clippy]

On 1/10/2022 at 2:35 PM, Rujasu said:

JarJar's Last Pinenapple Fritter by B.P.R.D

IWAD: Doom 2

Difficulty: UV

Source Port: PrBoom+

 

I haven't participated in random WAD reviews before, but I gave the archive a few shuffles out of boredom and suddenly felt like I might want to talk about what I've witnessed.

JarJar's Last Pinenapple(sic) Fritter is, as you might imagine, an old jokewad. It's a flat plain decorated by a couple of elevated spots, fences and big brown brick tunnels. Powerups, barons and hellknights are the primary inhabitants, scattered randomly all over the grass; eating a Tom Hanks from one of the fritter-guarding cyberdemons is the only way anyone's dying on this map. The fences are the only things stopping the player from beelining at the eponymous fritter, and nothing on the way presents a credible threat. It even gives you an invulnerability for the small clump of hitscanners.

The sprite and sound replacements seem equally arbitrary, the only common thread being that both rockets and cells are Tom Hanks. God knows what the plasma bolt graphic was, other than way too large for its purpose. It's also a relief that nothing in this 19-year-old jokewad seems to be in particularly poor taste by today's standards, and it doesn't wear out its very short welcome of under two minutes.

 

I feel like this is one of those cultural artifacts that are only possible to find thanks to long-term archiving, because nobody in their right mind would have kept this if they curated their HDD space even a little bit. Well, I guess it is the whole point of the thread that these things are there for us to find.

 

 

Thank you for bringing this into my life - just the kind of funny/silly positive spirited fun I needed - it was also surprisingly fun as there is JUST enough ammo to get the job done. And that 3 handed pistol is GOLD JERRY

 

 

[LadyMistDragon]

Planisphere 2 (2012) by Perro Seco (GZDoom)

 

When this map came up, I was filled with much trepidation as I was aware that this was probably the largest map made for Doom (it wasn't uploaded to /idgames until some years later, it seems). Turns out there's really no need to worry because the map's structured just a real city (the author reportedly used a model of New York). And the most amazing thing is that it's comprised of almost 100 percent vanilla texturing, other than a few of the vehicles and some scattered detailing. I guess making actual houses out of Doom textures can be somewhat misleading, but the warehouses, parks, office buildings. skyscrapers, chapel, industrial center, and train station are all quite easy to identify. Just like Grand Theft Auto, the map is divided into 3 separate sections, each requiring a key to access. The blue key proved to be the hardest to find, located in an alley that's incredibly easy to miss, due to its small size.

 

Combat is quite easy. While not overloaded by any means, you can get most of your weapons very early. The only thing I had to keep in mind was the tower of Cyberdemons that can fire from a million miles away and put an end to unaware players with hardly any time. The proportion of harder monsters increases as you progress further, however, they're almost never in significant numbers. While I can see why the combat's 100 percent incidental, the pace suffers.

 

You're probably wondering why I'm not saying more, and the main reason is how it's a little difficult to talk about stuff made from vanilla texturing, regardless of however distinct many of the locations are. It's all largely Doomcute, if anything. While seeing a corrupted Times Square might seem nice, there's also little to it other than that. The problem of rendering a map of this size is also showing much habitation was here. I guess it'd be monotonous to have the streets littered with corpses, but the end result just feels like an extremely large map in Doom. But of course, this takes place in 2040 so maybe we shouldn't be too surprised (vote Detroit for Planisphere 3!).

 

Honestly, I think this a map depending more on its scope than anything else, clearly drawing inspiration from GTA in how 'secrets' are accessed. You definitely shouldn't be expecting much challenge. Cool musical accompaniment though. There's just so much room to avoid and run around enemies almost everywhere that enemy threat becomes almost non-existent. That's not to say Revenants and Chaingunners should be just ignored for obvious reasons, but still tells you all you need to know about the challenge here. 8/10

 

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Edited January 18, 2022 by LadyMistDragon

[Rujasu]

Dimensions by Killer5 09/06/17

IWAD: Doom 2

Source Port: DSDA-Doom

 

Okay, this one is already pretty well-known so there's not much I need to say about it. Not that I'd be able to, because it's really very hard. Still, it was a good excuse to give it a shot.

Attached is my HMP first attempt.

RujasuDmnsnsFDA.zip

 

 

The Fortress (Lev 9 in the Series) by Brian Dawe aka Loki 01/09/98 (idgames review says December 1995)

IWAD: Doom 2

Source Port: PrBoom+

 

This is a very spicy WAD for its age. The very start has you occupy a small nook in a room with a Cacodemon, some incidental zombies and imps, and chaingunners on both sides of the room discouraging you from even taking your first steps. Look out the window in the second room and you see a loose archvile running around (if you didn't hide from the new set of chaingunners). You get relatively little ammo for all the barons, revenants, and the cyberdemon-mastermind combo it unleashes in an open space (and the spider always wins). I admit I gave up at the yellow key room, which throws just an unholy mess of monsters at you in a tight space. See screenshot.

 

That said, the combat feels far less incidental than most 90s WADs. There's actual design here; the author not only knows how monster teleporters work, but seems to have put some thought into the composition on the enemy force and the space they're going to occupy.

This seems to have been intended to be map 9 in a megawad, but no other maps have manifested. Brian's biggest claim remains narrowly losing to Cranium in the Deathmatch '95 UK Heats final.

 

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[Sena]

Day 8: Legacy Fan https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/j-l/legfan

 

Not to be confused with the unrelated Spinning Ceiling Fan which I played 2 ER/IWA's ago if my memory serves me correctly (was definitely one of them), although they are quite closely related, and while I do not wish to accuse anyone of plagiarism without solid evidence, it's peculiar that there are two separate levels dedicated to this exact same peculiarity. There's the point that it's probably for people who actually make levels, but even then I'd assume just writing up a tutorial on how to make a fan would be the better choice. But I don't make levels, I'm just another part of the 90%, which means I can only look at it as a level from a gameplay standpoint. Accounting for the fact that after replaying Long Days, an actual level with which my opinion would be liable to change over time, I instead found myself believing it to be exactly as good (and bad) for the exact same reasons as last time, it will not come as much of a surprise that I've not changed my views on this non-level either - it's a decent tech demo, but, considering the most common response you get for people disliking Doom 3 is that it's a "glorified tech demo", it stands to reason that an actual tech demo with zero gameplay is not one that I can really engage myself with. At the end of the day, it's just a fan, it fans, nothing complicated. Also nothing complicated about the fact you'll probably want a level with enemies in it, consequently.

Edited January 18, 2022 by Sena

[Clippy]

Played another random map 

 

This time I found a doom one map. Felt like some excessive hit scanners with limited health  - there's some interesting ideas in this one but a few bugs here and there and some soft locks. Overall I found interesting

 

I'm on my phone so I can't properly link but the link is in the description of the video

 

 

 

[LadyMistDragon]

The Room Below (2013) by @TimeOfDeath666 (From Doom with Love)

 

I think I may just go with GZDoom for most slaughter wads I get through /idgames because that's where most of the mods are and besides....I forgot where I was going with that, but that's ok because I failed to finish, due to feeling unclear on where to go next upon killing the Cyberdemon on the arch in the very first room where you're provided plenty of cells.

 

The map itself feels like an incredibly strong effort at an Ultimate Doom slaughter map. Some cool initial setpieces (an elevator bit, the room with some Barons and a Cyberdemon where you also have to hold off a massive Imp mob) eventually give way to some fun and strategic slaughter stuff amongst dark, vaguely tech-y environments also containing lots of red).

 

One cool and shockingly Doomcute bit has you coming upon a room with a console, some shotgun guys and a harmless Cyberdemon. Push the console and the little silver lines hanging above the Cyberdemon will come down and skewer him. Beware, this is the last remotely easy Cyberdemon kill you'll have here.

 

Another cool little fight was this one where you press a switch and open a little room in front with Barons coming at you from the sides and some Imps and Barons in the room front of you with windows gazing out to the mountains on the sides. Switching your rocket launcher out at the right time is invaulable.

 

Every key collected for some reason would trigger a Cyberdemon to teleport into the central hall from whence every keyed door was located. You're not provided with consistent amounts of ammo either, so this took so long. The path to the yellow key attempts to change things up by raising some stairs in a sort of tower up and down and even dumps you into some sewers at one point. Maybe it's because sewers universally suck, but this part felt long in the tooth. The part with the raising stairs and sergeant closets was probably my favorite in the early section (and I'm not sure if the purposely misaligned exit sign is a reference or just a bad dirty pun).

 

I'm not so certain about the rest, though it was quite hilarious how you had to shoot a series of switches behind the yellow door which then triggers a small Baron of Hell trap. And it goes on and on. There was 1,000 enemies left almost by the time I ended up quitting, which led me to believe there was that one series of big fights still waiting to be unleashed. 9/10

 

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Edited January 18, 2022 by LadyMistDragon

[Rujasu]

14 hours ago, Rujasu said:

Brian's biggest claim remains narrowly losing to Cranium in the Deathmatch '95 UK Heats final.

Speaking of which,

 

Derelict Station by Sverre Andre Kvernmo (aka "Cranium") 11/08/95

IWAD: Doom 2

Source Port: PrBoom+

 

A deathmatch level first and foremost, Derelict Station manages to be a fun bite-sized Doom map for singleplayer with another brutal start. All you get here is your pistol, a few rockets and a chaingun once you manage to not find yourself at the wrong end of the barrel. The rocket launcher is probably best preserved for the two barons that try to ambush you individually. A hellknight and a caco are the only other higher-tier monsters on the map.

 

The visuals are pretty good, with plenty of work done on sector lighting and a solid grasp of vanilla textures. I'm led to believe by the text file that this is also a Master Levels reject, due to short deadlines. It's not a particularly remarkable level, and would keep you wondering about why they're called the Master Levels in the first place, but this would still probably be one of the better maps of the package if it had been in there.

 

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[Endless]

Cranium was quite the big shot back in the 90s, and one of the few actual ''Master Mappers'' that had some solid quality WADs/levels to prove it.

[Clippy]

I played another one - still looking for gold - this was from 1997 and very crude with bizarre progression lol

 

I plan to look for more maps - let me know if I should keep posting these or if I'm annoying ppl

 

 

[LadyMistDragon]

The TAB series has lots of good maps, and something that tends to show up if you look for random files often enough

 

[LadyMistDragon]

  The Inquisitor 2 (2013) by Shadowman (GZDoom)

 

This guy has done quite a lot, but the only stuff of his I know anythinjg about are Heroes' Tales and Whitemare II ( the latter proves he's RRRussian, see?). Anyways, the Inquisitor seems to be the sequel to another partial TC in the same basic style he also did. And interestingly enough, this originated from a competittion where the object was to build upon a randomly-generated map, like the Tuning Contest wad I did a few months back What is this style, you may ask? Old-school fantasy adventure, of course! You start in a town, where you can talk to some select people and attempt the burgling of houses, upon which you'll be instakilled by stone golem guardians in most cases. The little quests are the sort of hilariously generic Level 1 starter quests you're all familiar with, being spider extermination in one case and a fetch quest in the other). The latter made me chuckle especially, since the guy tells you that you can just keep the sword.

 

After this, you enter the usual dungeon that give 'dungeon crawlers' their name. The combat very much take its cues from old-school RPGs. It's purposefully clunky and basically intended for you to cheese all your foes(speaking of which, they include Blood zombies and these skeleton dudes I just saw in another Heretic wad released recently that wasn't WMC04). There was one case I had to run around a pair of poison-shooting Butchers because they has such an obscene amount of health when taking my current equipment into account. Which lead to the only area I really loathed - more damn spiders in a cellar, ridiculously hard to hit and sapping my already limited health pool. Not long after this, you'll fight a boss that I suspect would have been easier if I had a few more crossbow bolts, On the other hand, he's got an annoying habit of knocking you back if you engage in any sort of frontal attack. It's a very tricky encounter.

 

This is a nice love letter to the old dungeon crawlers I guess, but I can't speak to its quality of life. That's part of the point, though. I think crossbow bolts were better than the flechette potions. 8/10.

 

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[Walter confetti]

Stronghold by Steve Vilotii (Bytor) - Vanilla Doom, 1994 but uploaded in 2010, played with Eternity forseti 4.0.2

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At first i thought it was the map by the same by tormentor667, but after seeing the ftp directory and the file size, i see that it's not the case. But overall is a neat medium length map with a very interesting layout work and theme execution (maybe someone of you will found this map even a good candidate for a wadarcheology map, who knows?) and somehow feels like a TNT map, is not that bad! There's also some room design that are really neat for 1994! I also think to have played already this map long, long ago... don't remember where now. Gameplay is pretty standard with 100+ monsters and quite some places to explore but not being really hard, but nonetheless fun to play. A decent and fun map.

 

Ponte by Renato Pinheiro - Vanilla Doom 2, 199x but uploaded in 2004, played with Eternity forseti 4.0.2

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A medium sized, raw, dirty looking (literally, i felt dusty playing this map) proto slaughtermap made by Renato's friend, Rodrigo, and uploaded for some historical reason unknown to all but them in the archives, is a bland and unfunny map with many monsters (140 in HMP) that can be skipped away easily, a weird teleport system and overall a un-exciting experience where nothing memorable or funny (involuntarily or not) happens trough the map. A some sort of "troll map" with a deciding file size having a big amount of monsters.

[Clippy]

Here is a short little map but it had a few bugs in it from 1999 

 

@Doomkid left a kind review that inspired me to play it and I was killed by an invisibitch lol

 

 

[LadyMistDragon]

Tekstat (2012)  by Daniel Thomas Chard (Eternity)

 

How many of you have got the same wad on multiple occasions? Because just before this, I got Medevil again! While I actually quite enjoyed it, and enough to where I'd certainly play it again, that would defeat the purpose, no? So I hit 'random file' again and get this buried gem, seemingly made by a guy whose map I trashed about as completely as I could without going into personal attacks or declaring he needed to be executed by a Mancubi firing squad.

 

This is largely a better entry, even though facing a wall of misaligned textures is never a good thing. At the same time, placing weak weapons in the middle of annoyingly twisty corridors and placing the BFG in a location that is theoretically quite close to the Player 1 start is not exactly a sign of someone with a particularly strong sense of deathmatching. Backtracking in some locations is pretty much impossible, and the darkening of certain areas (especially scattered corners of the above-mentioned twisty corridors, ferfukss sake) feels incredibly arbitrary. At least you can turn on the lights in the room with the BFG, but there's only one switch. Maybe you can turn it off to piss your opponents off or something. I don't know. I wouldn't deathmatch in this map if it raised 5 million dollars for wilderness preservation. Only thing I really liked was the room with desks containing weapons at both ends - it was kind of like a check-in area but that doesn't make much sense here, does it? 3/10

 

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[Sena]

Day 9: Rainbow Software DOOM II WAD 2 (release 9/99) https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/p-r/rainbow2

 

Apart from a custom skybox, not much going on in this one. It's got some radsuits you don't need, peculiar enough that they'd put in one, let alone two, and it's generally on the narrower side of things, which means you can't just run through and ignore everything, but it also means you don't have particularly complex arenas that require you to cover multiple angles or anything, in other words you can just kill whatever they throw at you, and they don't have much to throw, for most of its duration it's short, simple corridors. Which I have no issue with, I'd much rather that than short and complex corridors that I can't find my way out of. Better than average for '99, as there really isn't anything wrong with it, although playing it now, it's not something that is memorable, its atmosphere and gameplay are both serviceable and nothing more. 6/10.

[Roofi]

Month 7 Day 15

 

I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I die/stop

 

[1] Skidball by Ceeb (2010)

 

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A game of soccer, played with a neon zombieman. It's meant for two. I couldn't be assed to make a proper team-selection system so just pick a color, have a coke and a smile, and shut the fuck up.

 

Well, I don't have a partner to play this kind of wad, just like any Deathmatch wad. However, I find the concept original and very amusing. When you send the "ball" into the goal by using the gun and the gloves, a huge explosion occurs so that each successful shot is a real moment of pleasure.

 

[2] PRISON.WAD by Tim Currie (2006)

 

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Sort of a prison complex for Doom. Works only with registered version.

 

A wad released in 2006 but created in 1994 that takes place in a kind of prison that looks more like a classic tech-base. We can see indeed towards the beginning of the map small prison cells which notably contains the red key, which is the only element reminding a prison. Now, for a 1994 map, I was surprised by some visual elements. The author had the habit of rounding off the right angles so as not to create a too rectangular layout. This is a simple practice, but wee often see in modern wads. Apart from that, the progression remains quite "realistic", the map doesn't present rooms with weird shapes, which is also unusual.

 

Anyway, the only drawback is the more than obvious softlock when you get the yellow key. In fact, you can get stuck in this map if you didn't get the blue or red key before. 

 

From a gameplay point of view, the mapper gives you a free plasmagun and a lot of cells, while you only have to face small foes. It is even possible to find a BFG and an invulnerability sphere. It's too simple but it doesn't matter. Nevertheless, you can kill an optional mastermind and a cyberdemon oddly hidden in a secret. 

 

I fell in a deadly slime pit in DMGOOD.ZIP -> DB-E2M1.WAD DMLOTS.ZIP -> DB-E2M2.WAD DMCOOL.ZIP -> DB-E2M3.WAD DMHREP.ZIP -> DB-E2M4.

 

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[Reisal]

On 1/16/2022 at 5:00 PM, LadyMistDragon said:

Ultra Anomaly(2014) by @Armaetus(Eternity)

 

A replacement for E1M8 by a mapper that was shockingly prolific at one time, this one comes off like a fairly early effort. Start room is as generic as they come, stuffed to the gills with ammo, along with the hallway upstairs. But the sight you gaze upon is entirely different. A massive battle clearly took place here, as the numerous amounts of monster corpses on the ground suggest, in the middle of some computer banks and framed on the sides of two fireblu portals. When you pick up a rocket launcher, Barons of Hells will emit from these portals, but the room is so large that this fight's hardly a challenge, even if you're playing keyboard-only. Once they all die, a wall lowers and a more honest portal from which the Deimos portal opens up gazes out at you. Some nice ideas I guess, but this is painfully simplistic. It's probably just another 90s maps, though, so it's fine.

 

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Thanks for playing the "Ultra" boss set I did. However, I'd wager you'd like Ultratower, the E2 equivalent and maybe Ultra Dis just for the architecture?

90s looks? That wasn't the goal but was to give a "classic" feeling by not being overdetailed. I think I made a much harder version of Ultra Anomaly somewhere..

[LadyMistDragon]

WooD (2016) by @Walter confetti (Eternity)

 

Honestly, I'm a little shocking I haven't gotten at least one more Walter map. I'm pretty sure he's released more maps than anyone, including CPs at least. This little project was created for a mapping contest on the Battle of the Bits forum, with the only guideline seeming to be that it replaces the first map of an episode in Doom 1.

 

Now, it's hard to say Walter's known in any way for making stand-out maps of any sort, but this actually feels strangely inspired. Replacing E4M1, this utilizes that episode's sky texture to great effect, setting everything in a pair of fortresses containing a series of breathtaking vistas. The yellow key is located for some reason on a green pillar with some splendid stuff hanging above it A group of staked corpses, some hot skulls and other features can be spotted in the distance around the main wooden building. As if to emphasize the environment, you start on an invisible lift that slowly lowers as you're facing a group of former humans. At one point, you'll see a Baron portrait hanging behind a transparent wall for some reason. And don't bother attempting fancy straferunning to grab the secret chaingun early, that would be stupid and pointless. Just like the useless red arrows Walter places on the floor to taunt people that bitch about that sort of thing.

 

Once you enter the yellow key building, you end up in a fairly nasty teleport ambush more dangerous than anything encountered in the map so far. Spare your rockets though for the Baron. After this, Walter seems to kind of run out of ideas, as you go past a vine wall behind you leading to a secret armour, head through a darkened chamber to pick up a red key located adjacent to a red door before finally entering a circular wooden room and punching out some Imps to step on a slime teleporter that ends the map.

 

This would get a slightly higher score, but the last couple of rooms were wanting 7/10

 

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[Roofi]

Month 7 Day 16

 

I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I die/stop

 

 

[1] STAR WARS DOOM -- Still going.... by Greg Zapf (1998)

 

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Why? Haven't I seen Jedi Knight?

Do you fight Vader in Jedi Knight? Do you visit Jabba's Palace in JK? When was the last time you made a Jawa squeal "Ooteedee!" and then walk through his Sand Crawler? Visit http://home.earthlink.net/~darthpedro/ for information and screenshots! This zip file contains a Windows WRI file with embedded graphics not on the web site! Enjoy!

 

I don't know how to run this file. There is a WRI file that seems to be the ancestor of the word file. If there are resources to retrieve from the website, but it has closed.

 

[2] Living Quarters by Jonathan Masseo (1995)

 

Spoiler

 

 

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You've entered a group of structures. You know that you're gonna have to blast your way through. You'll have to get to the telepad. You've spotted it, you just need the keys!

 

A boring short level where the total absence of detail and the square layout take away all interest in visiting this map. You just have to find 2 keys accessible in less than 40 seconds to finish the level. Moreover, blue bars block the exit, but you need a yellow key to open them!

 

The outside area is populated by some arachnotrons. This placement of monsters reminds me a lot of map 12 of Doom 2 but without any height variation.

 

[3] Parallel Forces by Richard Smith Long (2010)

 

Spoiler

 

 

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three epochs, three warriors, three different styles. One single, timeless enemy... Baphomet and its armies. Time to reunite for the final struggle!

 

A gzdoom mod where you can play as three different characters: a helmeted space marine, duke nukem and doomguy who became a cultist of the Cabal (or converted to Islam?). Each character has his own weapons and his own strengths and weaknesses. For example, Duke Nukem can store up to 150 points of health thanks to medkits but runs more slowly. The marine's weapons are quite powerful but have a long reload time...

 

Besides, each of them has its own story, but knowing that no new level has been added, there is no interest. Anyway, I had a good time, the caped (or veiled?) doomguy strangely made me laugh.

 

I stop here for today.

[Walter confetti]

Thanks for the review! I'm glad you liked it so much, iirc in the same contest there was this Xaser map as some others authors ...

[LadyMistDragon]

I actually downloaded that one! I don't remember what prompted me to do it, beyond I saw someone write about it. I actually think I'll be playing it shortly, soon as I finish Quake II: The Reckoning.

[Walter confetti]

1 hour ago, Roofi said:

If there are resources to retrieve from the website, but it has closed.

 

Wayback Machine to the rescue!

As you can see from the second link, the pictures of the WIP project looks really, REALLY promising! I wonder if this project did even be released?

[Sena]

Day 10: The Ghoul's Forest 3 https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/g-i/ghoul3

 

Just a bit bland. You walk through a forest with a shitty bow and arrow that you probably shouldn't have with how unreliable it is when it comes to actually defending yourself, and there's some enemies knocking about who like to jumpscare you, and the place is way too fucking dark, as in so dark you can never see anything, worse than Doom 3, and the whole place looks the same, so there's probably an exit somewhere, but given my already crippled skill when it comes to figuring out where to go, from an effective standpoint I can say it's not possible to find it. Maybe if you like horror games in which getting jumpscared is the main appeal, you'll be able to have a good time in this one, but I never cared for those games, very few games have been able to genuinely produce feelings of fear in me, and peculiarly enough none of them have been made with that purpose in mind. On an unrelated note, the only games I've been able to enjoy are ones where I can actually see in front of me, and this is not one of them. 3/10.

[Walter confetti]

Zdoom Secret Sound by Sidhe Priest - Zdoom, 2015, played with zandronum 3.1 and gzdoom 4.7.0

 

This file didn't work for me, so i don't know if it's any good or bad. But from review by Joe-Ilya looks like i didn't miss anything.

 

lashme.wad by Andrew J. Hulme - Vanilla Heretic, 1995, played with zandronum 3.1 and bots

Spoiler

A small first map for deathmatch that is acceptable for the most part, flow it's... ok and the pool room looks cute. Nothing expectional, unluckiliy.

Also, have a pretty weird subdir placement for the file similar to another DM map i found earlier this week.

 

Goof's Deathmatch Floor by Ron Goof - Vanilla Doom 2, 1995, played with zandronum 3.1 and bots

Spoiler

 

A much better DM arena pretty reminiscent of exec and brit in layout terms, way more fun with more than the usual 4 bots (used 6 here). The level is well interconnected between the areas and as i wrote before, is fun with a lots of people around more than the usual 2/4 players, that feel a little boring to me. Also, is put on MAP04 for a change with the usual MAP01 slot.

 

Dead Simple: DooMBoy edition by DooMBoy - Zdoom, Doom 2, 2002, played with zandronum 3.1

Spoiler

 

A pretty barebones remake of already barebones map, Dead Simple, by a name not unknown to these threads: DooMBoy, author of other two maps already reviewed in previous iterations of ER\IWA, this time experimenting with the brand new crazy source port modding power of ZDoom, with a title script, colored sectors and ambient sounds of a thunder with the daylight stock brown sky. The gameplay side is just Dead Simple, shoot barons on pillars, shoot arachnotrons and raise the exit pillar. Nothing more, nothing less. It's ok and you'll probably love this if you like Dead Simple, just more vertical and with few more details in the main area, plus lots of METAL2 texture like it's TNT or something like that.

 

Let's make a Death (LetMak.WAD) by Eric Featherngill (aka: Feather, Eric the Red, The Weez-zul!!) - Vanilla Doom, 1994 but uploaded in 2005, played with zandronum 3.1

Spoiler

Ok, the title of this map is pretty funny, makes me think of some stupid shit like a reality show TV program where instead of doing deals people kills each other... "Let's make a death: who will survive to the final? NOW on...." CBS? ABC? VH1? i don't know much about TV channels in america or elsewhere that shows stupid reality shows, sorry... but thank me for giving you ideas for the next analog horror youtube video or lazy ass Creepypasta story that make more laugh than scar people. Now, how's the map? Is a first time newbie thing sets in in this extremely rectangular place with lots of marble walls, a neat trap concept with the guns on a pedestal of sorts that opens a door with a monster, take the right one for a baron and a invulnerability, take the wrong and a cyberdemon will annihilate you! But over this thing, the level is pretty bland and extremely easy, having already a big amount of ammo for powerful guns. Nothing expectional, really, apart the gun deal trap at the start.