Endless Random /idgames WAD Adventures #043

[Sena]

Thy Wicked: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/s-u/thywic

 

An Ultimate Doom style level, with an above average level of detail. I normally play on HMP, which I kind of regretted for this one, since while I cannot level any real complaints against its level of difficulty, the professionalism on display here makes it clear to me that I would have enjoyed the greater level of challenge that would have come from playing on UV. But from what I did play, I managed to find that they got just about everything right, the pacing is sharp, and while the combat is certainly on the easier side, it is still thoughtful and requires good decision making to get out of alive, and while it may not compare to The Day of Chains (which I played and thoroughly enjoyed months ago) in terms of visual detail, it's no slouch either. 7/10.

[Walter confetti]

unlag4.zip by Vorphalack (GrC) of The Innocent Crew - Vanilla Doom 2, DM. 1995, played with Zandronum 3.1 and bots

Spoiler

A small and clustered DM arena made by one of The Innocent Crew, a doom mapping team extremely known in the early years of Doom mapping for creating many impressive mapsets like Slaughter Until Death, Obticuary and to have made the Memento Mori series. Unluckily this is not one of those feats, but it's kind of fun.

 

The Day of Chains by Serious_MOod - Limit Removing ports, Doom, 2016, played with Eternity "forseti" 4.0.2

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A pretty moody and creepy "The Shores of Hell" style map with some Alpha and Doom 2 tributing made for

@Chainie birthday, lots of interconnected paths thought the derelict station and many places to discover and explore during you play, the map is also very challenging and fun to play. Everything is really good here! A really great present!

 

Bloody Hell by Doria Dibble - Vanilla Doom 2, 1995 but uploaded in 2021, played with Eternity "forseti" 4.0.2

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Two boring maps made in 1995 by this Doria Dibble lady and then uploaded for preservation in 2021 by RL for some reason. Conceptually is not a bad map, using some cool effects like invisible pillars, that fake deep water section via teleporting into a pit in MAP02 and mazes\new room appearing from the ceiling as well as having new sections of the map opening at your passage and this is neat thing in old (but also new) maps for me, but for the rest as i wrote above is a annoying map with a confusing progression that goes even worst in MAP02 second half after the red key door. Also two maps aren't a small episode, it doesn't matter of how many enemies you'll add! Maybe in 1995 2 maps are considered as such?

Edited October 16, 2022 by Walter confetti

[Roofi]

Month 12 Day 22

 

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

 

 

[1] Phobos Power Station by @DooMBoy (roofles) (2004)

 

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Another good old fashioned E1 type map

 

Phobos Power Station replaces E1M5 and uses the stock midi. Its author tried to imitate the theme of the E1 but it appears that detailing is more elaborated and polished than in the original iwad. At some point, I feared getting a crash from VPO but fortunately, it was not the case.

 

In order to stick with the suspenseful midi, Doomboy created several dark places but I found this level easier than Ultimate Doom's E1M5 because. It has more spacious rooms, lower monster density and less elaborated traps. Easiness doesn't bother me concerning maps inspired by iwads but I would have enjoyed this level more if the mapper had designed more tricky situations.

 

By the way, it's a competent map and I really enjoyed that tribute to Ultimate Doom.

 

Grade : A-

 

[2] Death's Door by Paul Hoskinson (1994)

 

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Small and AWESOME DEATHMATCH LEVEL, interconnecting hallways, lots of doors, nooks in side for weapons

 

A repulsive Ultimate Doom DM map I already visited during Month 11 Day 10. I launched it via prboom this time and what changed? Nothing ! it's still crap !

 

[3] Goodest wad by Mike Myers "Zoolu" (1996)

 

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Small Doom ][ DM level, vines and a kewl fire room.

 

"Goodest", english isn't my main language but I don't think it's the "best" word to use when you want to qualify your map better than good lol. Despite how blocky the layout looks, the "fire room" is classy. The contrast between black and bright hellish red never disappoints me.

 

I stop here for today.

[Jacek Nowak (jacnowak)]

Bleah II: Tower of Stupidity by Walter "Daimon" Confalonieri (2007)

Ultimate Doom / GZDoom / UV

 

Screenshots:

Spoiler

episode 3:

 

episode 5:

 

Oh well, I was very lucky with idgames previously so this needed to happen one day... The title of the WAD sums it up quite well... It is supposed to be a jokewad. It contains 2 episodes - episode 3 and 5 and two or three maps scattered somewhere within other episodes. The WAD has a lot of silly sound replacements. Episode 5 is complete garbage - square rooms with misaligned illogically put textures and some completely nonsensical triggers. I gave up after the third map, only because they are extremely short. Episode 3 at least meets some minimal quality bar in terms of aesthetics but it has very irritating long, unskippable cut-scenes. I gave up on the second map there after yet another long pointless cutscene I couldn't skip. I didn't find it fun at all, complete waste of time unless you are into those kind of "jokewads".

[LadyMistDragon]

Jupiter Carnage 2: To Hell and Beyond (2016) by Bzzrak Ktazz (Eternity)

 

I..sort of think I would've got another Ruba map before this. But anyways, this is an incredibly bland troll job, consisting of a smattering of corridors, some of which have annoying shapes and terrible texture choices scattered ever-so-tastefully throughout. The nadir of this map probably comes when you're walking through incredibly narrow and red triangular corridors, just so you can meet two Barons of Hell and collect the Blue Skull Key! No, that's not even the worst part! The room with the YK is stuffed to the brim with Imps and you get only one berserk pack and Invulnerbility Sphere to deal with them. See what the problem here is? Then toward the end, you're confronted by more Barons than you can possibly shake a stick at. After a pink maze, you then engage in a stupid switch-press series before you can finally exit. Actually, this last bit was kind of funny, like the random fireblu. But this just misses the mark in so many other ways, I can not even. The custom title screen and ENDOOM are unfortunately the best parts of this. And replacing the plasma rifle sound of course 2/10

 

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[Roofi]

Month 12 Day 23

 

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

 

[1] Foothold.wad by Cameron Jiggins (1995)

 

Spoiler

 

 

A large half-circle shaped courtyard which somewhat reminds me of Doom 2's map 18. I really like the openess while the vanilla limits prevent from adding a lot of details. The weak weapons are stored in nooks hidden behind lifts and the most powerful ones in the central buldings. You have to cross one of the two slow crushers so it's more dangerous to obtain them. Hidden lifts also allow you to reach a secret megasphere and soulsphere , but the invulnerability is impossible to reach by any mean.

 

[2] Metallica by TY KNAPPETT (1996)

 

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Just bunch of metallica to listen to in doom

 

Contrary to what the title might suggests, it's not a musical wad with a crappy midi version of "Enter Sandman", but a pack of new sounds for your guns. The chainsaw sounds like a microwave and your shotgun does a laser sound. I don't recommand to use it at all.

 

I exploded myself after trying to remove the barrels blocking the exit at the end of Doom-X's E1M2.

 

Spoiler

 

[Walter confetti]

18 hours ago, jacnowak said:

Bleah II: Tower of Stupidity by Walter "Daimon" Confalonieri (2007)

Thanks for playing my wad.

Yeah, the unskippable cutscenes in that wad are pretty boring in episode 3 and episode 5 is really a old time jokewad type of maps with not much jokes on them over being ugly maps, but overall i had fun making it and some jokes are funny imo (especially the one in E3M4) and the story beyond it it's... Cool i think? But i can understand that this mapset is not the best from me.

[Thelokk]

Guacamole by @AnotherMansGuacamole (2020)

GZDoom / UV / 100% kills / 100% monsters

 

Author themselves dubs this three maps set, inexplicably titled Guacamole, as "baby's first published wad, 3 run-of-the-mill standard Doom maps", which I kind of agree with... and kind of don't. They are actually three fairly competent mapping efforts: sure, they are a bit bog-standard, and they do display some newbie mistake, but to be fair I've played much worse from the random /idgames thing. 

The first map is a sort of myhouse.wad set in a kind of canyon, which we traverse in order to move from one building to another. It obviously features the blight of my life, doomcute (really, why are you all so obsessed with toilets? I don't get it), but it does have a progression of sorts and the combat, while IWADish and mostly inoffensive, is serviceable enough.

The second map is much larger, and far less intersting: a red bricky techbase hodgepodge, too large for its own good. There is some interesting sector and lighting trickery, so perhaps it could simply be that I don't vibe with this kind of maps: I just feel that, in Master Levels-ish mapsets like this one you have to contain the size, or maps just become a slog. 

The third map is some sort of hellish arena and features plenty of green marble, a texture set that makes every map automatically worse. There are slopes for no good reason whatsoever ( a doomcute monster tongue? not sure, it didn't look very convincing regardless) and is, for the most part, bright as day, which just kinda doesn't work with this theme. The very Hazmat Hazama-ish first room is kinda nice, but too little to save the map.

So yeah, rather strong start, which peters out at the end. Still, played much worse. My first map certainly was worse.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

[LadyMistDragon]

The Kronikil's Vol 1 (1995) by Fred "Kronos" Carillo (Eternity)

 

Set of 6 maps made by Kronos over a somewhat protracted period. Seems to be a collection of already released maps. On the scale of deathmatch maps better off skipping versus those that actually have some interesting touches applied, this one falls squarely in the middle.

 

Map 01: An outdoor area consisting of several buildings that are largely stone (and even a Heretic painting!) but with some out-of-place tech rooms. Like every other map, the default title pic accompanied by the wad's logo  is plastered on one wall, this one in some sophsticated station where stuff happens.

 

Map 02: A..linear? sort of map, all in one room, with some stone and tech stuff facing toward a cool-looking series of bloodfalls. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how this could remain fun for long. It's just so substanceless with few places to hide.

 

Map 03: Christ, that stupid nailed-wall texture looks even worst than STARTAN! That's surrounding an area with a non-dmaging lava river and some rather squarish lava pillars. Despite that, there's lots of places to run around and hide, so maybe don't judge this one by it's looks so much.

 

Map 04: Brown, brown, so much brown, and the most unusual texture is...the fucking nail walls. Yeah, the lengthy development time kind of shows. Extremely boring layout that sort of feels like Fred wasn't really sure where he was going and just ended up going with something with the basic shape of a typical deathmatch wad. Although there's a decent balance between small and large areas. Why did I spend so many words on this? ummmm

 

Map 05: Not unlike Map 02, but square instead, with more of a clear identity, and considerably stronger hiding possibilities. Shelf life probably isn't significantly higher though.

 

Map 06: This is some rather interesting mid-east music! This is a remake of a wad called OUTPOST (not to be confused with te early adam Windsor map) that seems to have been single-player. It now contains a more concise deathmatch-style layout, though there';s still a small amount of monsters. It's not so good-looking, but room shapes and light use of verticality really show some thought given to a fun and stimulating experience. And the handrails in that one room were probably painful.

 

5/10 overall, I'm not feeling generous. The balance resourcing does seem spot-on, didn't really think to take notice earlier

 

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[Jacek Nowak (jacnowak)]

8 hours ago, Walter confetti said:

Thanks for playing my wad.

Yeah, the unskippable cutscenes in that wad are pretty boring in episode 3 and episode 5 is really a old time jokewad type of maps with not much jokes on them over being ugly maps, but overall i had fun making it and some jokes are funny imo (especially the one in E3M4) and the story beyond it it's... Cool i think? But i can understand that this mapset is not the best from me. 

Sorry for being very harsh in my review.
Actually, I copied the author's name without thinking and didn't "connect the dots" that it's you :) I recognize you from the forums and I played some of your speedmaps and they were great fun. I also played some community projects you contributed to and I liked your maps in there as well.
Hopefully I didn't cross the line in my review as I was criticizing the map, not the mapper.
To be honest, I completely don't get the idea of a "joke WAD" - for me fun in Doom lies in the gameplay (combat, exploration, etc.) and I don't find any "mapping jokes" particularly funny. Also, even though I enjoy story-driven games in general, when it comes to Doom I share John Carmack's opinion that the story in a game is as important as the story in a porn movie :)
When you take all that into account, there is very little left in the WAD for me to enjoy. But it's just my opinion, people's tastes differ and there is probably audience for those kind of WADs. Maybe I shouldn't review the WAD at all if I don't like its genre. On the other hand, I think the idea of random idgames adventures is that you hit the "random" button and play whatever gets thrown at you, then describe your experiences. I didn't enjoy that particular WAD but that doesn't mean someone else wouldn't like it. And that certainly doesn't mean I don't enjoy other WADs by you!

[Shanoa]

OzzY Wad Aaron Storey (a.k.a OzzY, or Gandalf the White), released in 1996. Played on DSDA DOOM (complevel 2) on UV, this wad replace MAP01 in DOOM II.

Status: Completed

 

While a fairly plain looking map visually it was surprisingly well made for the time. Obviously, one look at it and it's like "yeah it's a 90's wad" while true to an extent it also doesn't have a lot of what made those wads a 90's wad.

Spoiler

The starting room

 

Right off the bat you can acquire an SSG + Green Armor, although i'd hold off on the SSG because you can easily take down the early enemies with your pistol and anyway you get a shotgun not too long after. There's an ambush very early on that can make you lose a lot of health but beside this, it is not a challenging map. The map has a low monsters count of about 59. Almost everyone shows up, save for the bosses and the arch-vile. Depend how you tackle the level ammos may or may not be on the short side early on. In my case I tackled one of the secret that had a lot of pinkies so I ran out of shells after culling down the horde, leaving me with enough bullet until my shells supplies increased again. Same with healing, there's enough healing to get through without issue, just perfectly in the middle right next to "an ocean of healing" and "are medikit extinct". I did only find 2 of the 6 secrets so perhaps I'm wrong.

 

Biggest surprise to me is there's barely any square or rectangular rooms, they're all shaped differently, there's some good height variations, some lighting even. Similar to a lot of "Romero's mapping rules" there's 2 or 3 outdoors area that can all be accessed in one way or the other.. My favorite room has to be the one with a giant spiral staircase and to my surprise the textures were aligned properly too. Doors are doors, uses DOORTRAK and seem all properly unpegged. Truly it is a standout amongst 90's wads.

Spoiler

The spiral staircase room.

 

 

If you have 5 minutes to spare, play it. While we play a lot of bad maps there's the occasional standout and personally, this is one of those 90's standout.

[Walter confetti]

14 hours ago, jacnowak said:

Sorry for being very harsh in my review.

No worries!

14 hours ago, jacnowak said:

Actually, I copied the author's name without thinking and didn't "connect the dots" that it's you :) I recognize you from the forums and I played some of your speedmaps and they were great fun. I also played some community projects you contributed to and I liked your maps in there as well.

Thanks again, glad you liked them!

14 hours ago, jacnowak said:

To be honest, I completely don't get the idea of a "joke WAD" - for me fun in Doom lies in the gameplay (combat, exploration, etc.) and I don't find any "mapping jokes" particularly funny. Also, even though I enjoy story-driven games in general, when it comes to Doom I share John Carmack's opinion that the story in a game is as important as the story in a porn movie :)

Yeah, big part of the Joke wad scene is more based upon "i made a shitty map that comes out from the recess of worst 1994 maps lol look at this shit" gimmick than other stuff, now there's actually a bunch of maps that takes the Joke part more "seriously" like Tribute, Community is Falling 4, Nuts... I consider a jokewad even Doom 2 in Spain only due to the silly premises...

[ICID]

Thanks for the reviews, everyone! And congrats to Roofi on being the first to cross 5000 points (holy mackerel).

 

Here's the new thread, featuring our first randomly-selected Chex Quest WAD: