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matador

DBP47: Dreamcatcher Apparatus

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The theme here is what I would consider a dream wad. You did such theme justice and produced replayable maps for the ages.

So far I found the maps by lunchlunch and Matador memorable most and can't wait to dig into the rest! I'll try to show later in this post two favourite screenshots I'll make from this wad.

 

I'm endlessly impressed how high quality content you're able to produce in just a month. It's an instant classic.

 

Also, thank you for letting me participate in it.

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Congrats on another month, it looks great!

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Nice mapset! The palette and textures are great. The design of most maps is very interesting and well done. Some of the music is fantastic (especially map 6 & 8). Playing on easy I noticed that the big fight on map 12 (Star Gate) is quite overwhelming and I guess the BFG is a secret on that map. Also map 14 is a bit too scarce with health on easy. The big boy at the end with all his colleagues is a bitch if you have used up most or all of the health before. Fish Tank is an interesting concept, but maybe could do with a bit more care. The last map was a great finish to the whole set :)

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Really liking the shades of purple in those screenshots. Gonna have to remember about this one. Gotta finish Uprising first.

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This was a sweet set and my favorite DBP release of the year so far.  The theme looked great and there's a nice variety in the levels, all of which I enjoyed.  I have some notes in the spoiler:

 

Spoiler

MAP01 - there are two secret sectors by the chainsaw but I don't think one of them can be triggered (the one around the chainsaw itself).

MAP08 - a minor thing, one of the sides of the platform that the secret blue armor rests on wasn't scrolling like the others.

MAP12 - it's possible to get to the megasphere behind the yellow door by jumping through the window, but doing so will trap you if you don't have the yellow key.

 

There was a minor typo in the first intermission screen.  The word "against" was missing the second 'a'.

 

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Only checked out map 11 by dannarchy in this but I enjoyed it so much I'm probably gonna have to check out this full megawad!  Have heard very encouraging things from people playing through it also.  Here's what I played:

 

 

If this is any indication of the quality throughout I'm looking at some beautiful levels that aren't too tough, as well as a striking colour palette.  I'm sold

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Fantastic maps. Enjoyed all the levels so far and after MAP09 I just had to take a short pause, log in to the forum and write Fantastic maps... and how MAP09 was so especially fantastic that I had to stop playing to log in to the forum and tell how especially fantastic that particular map is.

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Im in half of this map pack, very nice maps in "dark style". Cool wad.

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On MAP16 you can squeeze through the yellow bars without taking the yellow key.

Spoiler

Screenshot_Doom_20220505_234723.png_compressed.jpg.b7eadd14f35e71f270619a0698dbd7aa.jpg

 

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18 minutes ago, SP_FACE1 said:

On MAP16 you can squeeze through the yellow bars without taking the yellow key.

 

Maybe that's a reward for following the map title.

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Just finished the set and this may be a hot take that some will disagree with, but I don't care: This is better than Auger;Zenith. 

 

I really did enjoy this set, and while the triple feature of @lunchlunch maps have to do with it, the rest of the mappers on this set provided exceptional maps from beginning to end. Even when it comes to mappers whose work I don't typically score very highly, I found their maps to be excellent here. I wanted to go into a map by map breakdown and review but I don't think I've got the time for it right now. I highly suggest people give this one a shot, it's highs are just as high as AZ but the lows don't fall nearly as far down. The music is great, the visuals are fantastic, and the combat is grades above the typical DBP. I loved it. Great work fellas 

Edited by ABearInThaWoods

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Awesome stuff, my favorite part was "You're drowning"

 

Full playthrough (starts at 5 Minutes in):
 

 

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On 5/5/2022 at 10:38 PM, ABearInThaWoods said:

Just finished the set and this may be a hot take that some will disagree with, but I don't care: This is better than Auger;Zenith. 

...

I respect that take.  I still like A;Z better because, on top of the overall theme that I liked, the highs for me (Android District; Altered States; Luminescent Synapse by their three respective mappers) were so high that it not only knocked it out of the park, but flung the A;Z into my top 5 wads of all time easily.

 

Dreamcatcher Apparatus is pretty damn good though.  The 40oz-lead DBP packs usually focus mostly on a narrowly color-focused aesthetic theme, in my opinion, which usually makes for clean and decent "just make a map" kinda maps.  i.e something like Monuments of Mars; or even compared to Luminous Gloom, which I hear was one of the better and more stylish ones; Dreamcatcher Apparatus in particular kinda felt like that, but a step up from even that, and also brought out a wide range of mapping styles to the table.

 

While they're fresh in my head, I'll do a quick spoiler blurb about each map.

 

MAPLIST:

  Hide contents

MAP01: "Orientation" by @40oz

---Solid opener.  Standard 40 stuff.  "Hey bartender, I'd like a techbase on the rocks".  Opening shot showcases the main theme well: indigo/browns sprinkled with a saturated color-spectrum of magenta-cyan-lime bits.


MAP02: "Twinkling Spires" by @Glikkzy

---Very basic and orthoganal in strucure.  But is decent, well detailed, comfy, and plays well.  I don't think I've played many Glikkzy maps but seems talented.  Good job.


MAP03: "Unkind Reverie" by @kvsari

---Wacky cool donut megastructure.  We now start to see the "abstract dreamy" interpretation that some mappers took, even with a bed in the exit room.

 

MAP04: "Elon's Pheromone Musk Factory for Thirsty Catgirls" by @NoisyVelvet

---I could've opened this up more into a more connected "sandbox city map", but went with lazy waterfall trickledown progression instead.  Players so far that i've watched seem to find where to go by teleporting to the top and going where they haven't gone yet; success?  There's a hit-or-miss vile fight that can be tricky, but I was aiming for the map to mostly be easy-going.  I shoved this map onto the project a day before release, but I think it worked out.  I think matador picked the music for this one.

 

MAP05: "Imposter" by @A2Rob

---Back to brown-rock mixed with tech-terraces.  A lot fancier than I'd expect from a usual A2Rob map, but I can see it.  Gameplay starts heating up with this map.

 

MAP06: "Notice Me Senpai" by @lunchlunch

---First of four maps by the connoisseur of fine slaughter cuisine.  The starting area is beautiful, especially with those layered, concave pillars.  The inner techbase fun and stylish too.  It's mostly non-iconic tech fluff except for the double-key door.  Not sure how much if it is trying to directly rip off one of the slaughtermap gods, like ribbiks, tourniquet, etc.

 

MAP07: "Crashlands" by @40oz

---I would've thought this was a Lunchlunch or An0n map, but it's 40oz.  A good bunch of maps in this pack fall into the "brown rock + tech-basey elements" sub-theme, and this one is another one.  It's a sprawling, spacious canyon.  We also continue our descent down the slaughter-spectrum of this mapset.

 

MAP08: "Hypnagoge" by @segfault

---With this map, we do another flip back into the more "dreamy" cluster of maps.  Though more dreamy, this map is mostly a basic 4-pronged hub structure, with setpiece side areas you go into one by one.  A decent and playable map.  Good job.

 

MAP09: "Intoxicating Dreams" by @matador

---This is my favorite map in the pack.  Given the theme, I didn't expect a well done sandbox city map out of it, but here it is.  It's open and exploratory enough without being too large to chew on, and it has funny-but-modest use of doomcute sprinkled around.  (On a side note, I saw some people express grievances over the bumpy nature of its architecture and how that interacts with combat and gameplay, in their eyes, in a "negative" way... NO! Pls no.  Bumps and stairs are a part of Doom just like damaging sectors; and they are satisfying to manage mentally and fun in many contexts: like navigating casually through a map under low pressure; or even when juggling monsters in a slaughter setpiece.  I've even seen good slaughter arenas, in the past, have their character neutered because of things like "stairs that make combat awkward; all Doom fights has to be on a flat plane", etc.  NO please stop.)  Anyways, *cough*, Despite my praise of this map, it isn't necessarily one my top favorites of all time. But! it is my favorite in the context of this mapset, and is also my favorite map by matador so far, to this date.

 

MAP10: "Colorblind" by @joe-ilya

---A really comfy filler map that pads things out very well, especially after last map and before the next one.  This map is short, and you mostly just hold W with a plasma gun, with the last fight having some actual bite.  The titular gimick is kinda corny, but I didn't hate it :p

 

MAP11: "Lucid Nightmare" by @Dannarchy

---Hypnagoge, but on extreme roids.  

 

MAP12: "Star Gate" by @Chris Moyer

---Now we're back to the "brown-rock with tech-basey elements" side of things, except this isn't disjoint tech-basey elements, it's one big base with chunky tech-furnishings everywhere.  Good mood.

 

MAP13: "Meager Windy Areas" by @SilverMiner
---Really fun romp!  The layout is chaotic and melted, but somehow flows really well.

 

MAP14: "Drowning Abyss" by @AnonimVio
---Another for the rock-and-techbase cluster.  It's like a Valiant map, but without much health.  Only some stimpacks lying about.  Well made, but hardest map in the pack imo.

 

MAP15: "Fish Tank" by @joe-ilya
---This map felt fishy to, and a bit tacky compared to the rest (I wonder if it'd be better in the secret slot, but this is a DBP).  I was playing continuous though and had the resources to ssg the cybers down.  I realize now that this is supposed to play more like a Cyberdreams map... oh maybe that's the pun... Hah.

 

MAP16: "Tread Carefully" by @lunchlunch
---Small map with high-impact monsters popping in here and there as you "tread carefully" through an indigo honeycomb hex-stair loop.  Fun addition to the set.

 

MAP17: "RAM Haunting" by @SuperCupcakeTactics
---Standard issue Cuppy base:  Barrels, check. Health trinkets, check.  A billion details and linedef triggers densly packed into a mostly orthoganal framework, check.  Good stuff.

 

MAP18: "Mescaline" by @lunchlunch
---A very iconic, well-framed landmark structure of a map, and one that I originally throught should've been the last map due to that fact (but seeing people struggle on Map19 makes me understand this decision).  In terms of difficulty, this is more like "comfort food" slaughter, as apposed to the next map...

 

MAP19: "Thrashing in the Web" by @lunchlunch
---Spicy, packed techbase.   I don't actually know what a "slaughtermap" is to this day, and even consider stuff like Vanguard "slaughter", but this is definitely a slaughtermap.

 

MAP20: "Dreamcatcher Apparatus" by @40oz & @segfault

---Cool fuckin' credits map.  Wow!  Apparently my nametag gets "green door" as it's backing texture and I don't get a cool texture like Lunchlunch's fireblu.  Figures, that's what I get for shoving my map into this last moment instead of 4 polished quality maps done earlier.  JoeIlya getting ZIMMER is fitting.

 

MAP21: "Nirvana but with Blacked-Out Textures" by  @SandyPetersen
---Neat, I never hated this map in the IWAD, per se, but I guess this techincally could be considered an improvement on the original.

 

Additional Graphics, like titlepic etc
---These were really cool graphics.  If @Pixel Fiend was the one responsible for them, then nice!

 

Music Choices
---Music choices were exceptional.  I feel like mentioning that.

 

Plot
---Wait, this wad has a plot?  I like the nebulous, non-descript, "dream like" nature of the text.  Heh.  And I'm glad everyone had a different take on the theme.

 

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Finished this wad today, was playing with PB. Textures are great music is good. I liked more first half of wad, leter we have more slaughter fights on maps, not my cup of tea. And i didnt like the last 3 maps, big arenas and slaughter with many many monsters. :D Good that we have cheats for situations like this.

Credits map was also cool.

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Going through this slowly, amazing piece of work.  Though as the above comment mentioned, it slowly starts to descend into slaughter rather than just traditional fun maps.  Seems to begin at around MAP11 and gets worse from there.  MAP01-09 were fantastic though.

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23 hours ago, Nefelibeta said:

Hey, slaughter maps are cool. :(

Unless you suck at them :P

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I noticed that the music for MAP03 is listed as D_DARKO from igpack11.wad, but isn't it just Bones/bonesr from Hexen?

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Absolutely amazing WAD. I wasn't expecting the slaughtermaps at the end, but it was a welcome surprise. Easily one of my go to recommendations now.

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RC2 is here and the first post has been updated accordingly. This should be the final release. Also I've sent this and DBP46 to idgames so hopefully everything goes smoothly there.

 

On 6/3/2022 at 6:09 AM, rzh said:

I noticed that the music for MAP03 is listed as D_DARKO from igpack11.wad, but isn't it just Bones/bonesr from Hexen?


It might be, I think 40oz tends to credit the music to whichever WAD he pulled it from, not necessarily the original source.

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