The DWmegawad Club plays: Community Chest 2

[E.M.]

MAP04 - “Deja Vu” by Gene Bird

DSDA-Doom, UV, Pistol Start

 

(I couldn't resist.)

 

Here is the first of several levels by Gene Bird, who was elevated to meme status by the Dean of Doom series. Of all the mappers in this wad, Gene's work is the most amateurish. His maps have no consistent theme, the layouts are simplistic, and the fights are forgettable. In the case of Deja Vu, you start off in a marble temple, then go through a stone room, then through wooden halls, then greywall, then green techbase, then brown techbase, then a bedroom, then a demon jail. Nothing stood out to me, but nothing pissed me off either. It's just mediocre.

[Veeda Vidlak]

I’ve been wanting to join one of these chats about megawads for a while now. I should have time this month to do the whole wad, which I wanted to make sure I could do before posting.

 

Map 1: The Furnace (GZoom, complevel 9, UV pistol start)

 

A snappy little opener by Erik Alm. Unsurprisingly it plays like an early scythe map, with a streamlined layout, techbase tones, competent enemy placement, UAC crates… There’s a neat close-quarters berserk encounter with two hell knights in the titular furnace (though you can just leave) and a plethora of dangerous enemies at the level exit so the combat keeps players reasonably honest for a map 1. I like how the actual furnace is snug (like you’d expect a furnace to be) and you get to jump into a little chimney to enter it, which is stylish. It might be short but I wish more levels in this megawad followed Alms lead with its crisp gameplay and short runtime. It’s also a nice gesture to continuous players to give an easily located secret backpack.

 

I gotta say, it would be spicy if the red door shut behind you at the final ambush. You have megaarmor to tank hits and it would help leave a bigger impression on the player (perhaps this was the intent at one point? Given the presence of the megaarmor?) That might be a bit nasty for the first level of a community project though.

 

Map 2: Coolant Platform (GZoom, complevel 9, UV pistol start)

 

Was this level designed for Doom 1? I don’t recall seeing any Doom 2 elements. Coolant Platform is a nondescript techbase with reasonable amounts and use of nukage and a decent layout. Unfortunately, the gameplay is a snooze. Your only weapons are the single shotgun and chaingun (not even a chainsaw) and you use them to kill smatterings of imps, Doom 1 zombies, pinkies, cacos, and barons (ugh). Interestingly, this map utilizes boom features (like spawning the red key at the beginning) and does a pretty darn good job of executing them. The problem is the level is otherwise forgettable and can’t properly showcase that.

 

Another complaint I have is this level provides 12 rockets but no rocket launcher. Hell, you get these in secrets making two of the maps three secrets de facto useless. This can’t even be excused as a “for continuous players” quirk because map 1 didn’t have a rocket launcher. It annoys me more than it probably should because it would have been real nice to use them on the barons. Six rockets each? It’s almost like that’s what they were meant for.

 

This map had potential but it kinda falls flat for me. I guess it has enough going for it to be a passable map 2, especially in an older wad.

 

Map 3: Slige Control (GZoom, complevel 9, UV pistol start)

 

So here we have an interesting concept map. Prior to CC2s release there was a contest in which participants were provided a slige generated floorplan and tasked with creating an authentic looking level without altering the original framework… At least that’s what I got off of doomwiki… Slige, to the best of my knowledge, is a computer program that generates doom levels that tend to have corridor heavy layouts and tons of 90 degree angles.

 

Backstory aside this level is solid. You can clear out the level going multiple directions and its well-detailed. Gameplaywise you can play at a brisk pace, having some nice chaingunner shootouts in the corridors which drain a bit of health if you’re charging through guns blazing. They can also peck at you through the various windows, which I like. The level also has meaningful progression with the switches that lower the pillars in the central room, leading up to the map’s marquee fight against cacos and a bunch of lost souls. You can take quite a bit of damage here if you’re careless (and choose to stay in the room because, again, you can just leave). After that there's only cleanup but its quick and the level does not overstay its welcome.

 

Both the monster placement and the level itself are highly symmetrical (I don’t know if slige did the monster placement or the Flange Peddler). Normally I’d bellyache about that but here its clearly inherent to the gimmick. Overall I liked this one. Good “slige control” indeed.

Edited January 4, 2023 by Veeda Vidlak

[Anarkzie]

This level begins in a nice safe little room that opens to a large chamber. The texturing in the main chamber is not great but the geometry is interesting and far more creative an idea than a lot of maps I have played. It sees the player having to crisscross a number of times through the space(I randomly just made a map that does that myself). Sadly this gives way to a number of Wolfenstain 3D like rooms, that besides a very basic and ugly pillar design that appears to me to be copied, draged and dropped at random, don't have a lot going for them. These pillars do serve the purpose of being a place to hide enemies behind, but it's never really caught me off guard. A room very similar to the opening room is repeated before the level undergoes a thematic change.

The new theme seems to be an abstract brick and wood setting. These rooms have some creatively unexpected ideas in terms of their use of geometry but also some redundant moments, you're given a key right before the door that it opens, why?

There's another change in theme, this has a nice out door section and a cool looking gore tableaux decorating the area. I remember this being the end of the level but I'm surprised to find that the level keeps going, featuring a Doom cute bed, a slime area that reminds me of the level Congo from Plotonia and a cool prison section that I thought appeared in a completely different wad.

Overall this level is not as bad as it's been made out to be, it's certainly playable, which may not sound like much but I have played this wad before and some of the later levels really don't have that going for them. It has an odd way of over using a design theme before drastically changing it for another that then gets overused. I think it's become cool to hate on Bird which I don't think is all that cool.

[Fairen]

Map 4: Deja Vu (UV)

 

You know you're in for a good time when the map title seems to refer to how repetitive it is. Several rooms repeat the same layout, including what is basically the same room with slightly-different encounters three times in a row. That's largely the problem here—the entire level consists of fighting the same encounters in the same sorts of hallways, over and over, with the super shotgun being the obligatory weapon of choice due to a dearth of bullets and overabundance of shells. (Then again, if you find the plasma rifle, that'll probably coast you to the end of the level, not that it's really necessary. They aren't difficult encounters, barring taking the magical 80% RNG revenant rocket to the face.)

 

There's also quite a few odd nonsensical moments design-wise. The level layout just feels weird and inconsistent, there's a random bedroom and bathroom that continues into the rest of the level, and there's an awkward moment where you need to drop into a pit occupied by an arachnotron you can barely get a bead on, while grabbing a red key for a door that's twenty feet away. It's even a little odd that the map doesn't play into the whole "repetitive rooms" gimmick enough, given how it pads out the start of the level in such a manner.

[RHhe82]

2 hours ago, Anarkzie said:

I think it's become cool to hate on Bird which I don't think is all that cool

Has it though? I’m not that deep in community, granted, but I haven’t seen that much hate on Gene Bird. Lowered expectations, sure, due to that Dean of Doom video (which the host themselves seem to regret with regards to mister Bird). I’ve seen Gene Bird apologists more than mockers.

[Fairen]

I find it absurd that Gene Bird would be the individual most scrutinized in regards to this WAD when the very next map is a thing that exists.

[Anarkzie]

17 minutes ago, RHhe82 said:

Has it though? I’m not that deep in community, granted, but I haven’t seen that much hate on Gene Bird. Lowered expectations, sure, due to that Dean of Doom video (which the host themselves seem to regret with regards to mister Bird). I’ve seen Gene Bird apologists more than mockers.

If you've not seen any hate, mocking etc then that's how you see it, I'm really not motivated to change your mind. 

[Book Lord]

2 hours ago, Fairen said:

I find it absurd that Gene Bird would be the individual most scrutinized in regards to this WAD when the very next map is a thing that exists.

 

It has some sense because he is the main contributor to CChest2, with 5 maps. I am surprised that some people are so upset at his levels, while the following MAP05 gets a pass because it is... difficult? We'll discuss it tomorrow as planned.

[Somniac]

MAP04 - Deja Vu - Gene Bird

(I should add that I am pistol-starting all of these and playing in Woof!)

 

Okay, I'm not gonna sit here and totally rip on this level, as its author has become something of a meme in recent times. Its clear that CCs are meant to be a "grab bag" mapset and I find that quality endearing about them. Its clear that some effort was made, at least. For me, there's no such thing as a *truly* bad map, unless its obviously a joke or perhaps something from the earliest recesses of idgames, and even then I'm compelled to consider such things contextually - except blatant troll maps obviously.

 

I'm not entirely sure why the majority of Bird's contributions to CC1 and 2 were previously released Blind Alley maps. Are there any changes to the previous standalone releases? Were they added to pad out the WAD following some people dropping out/not enough contributors? Not sure. Either way, Deja Vu represents a drop in quality compared to the previous three maps of CC2. It is by no means terrible, just not exactly up to par and somewhat forgettable. It feels like a mid-90s map in a mid-2000s mapset. I don't like copy and pasted rooms, and the platforming bit at the start is a little irritating. Combat kindof just happens, with one or two moments that might wake you up if you were feeling complacent. I remember thinking some of his CC1 maps and later CC2 map Redemption were perhaps better than this. 

 

I don't have too much else to say, other than this map could really have benefitted from some more time in the oven, and perhaps some collaboration. Assuming that Gene Bird's maps helped fill out the first two CCs and get them over the line, I think he deserves acknowledgment for that. 

Edited January 4, 2023 by Somniac : correcting minor wall-of-text syndrome

[Nefelibeta]

Map03 Slige Control

 

Spoiler

 

Another very basic and incidental-based techbase, now with a super shutgun! It's very short, plays exactly like what you would expect, with the only thing worth mentioning being the "gimmick" with the 4 switches that you need to press in order to get the red key. The midi fits(even though it seems like the mapper didn't gave it a midi at all lol) and the length justified for its lack of inspiration. In short, it's an alright map if you want to relax.

 

Map04 Deja vu

 

Spoiler

 

A lot better than I expected, though it's definitely one of the worse maps yet. The visuals come straight from obscure 90s shovelware and the gameplay reminds me of Evilution. I tried to rush through everything and ignore as many mid-tiers as possible. It's more fun that way and I recommend it. There are some traps that are actually potentially lethal, but I guess that's because I chose not to SSG for 10 minutes straight.

 

Obligatory Abtrary Ranking:

Spoiler

ok:

Map01 Furnance

nothing special:

Map02 Coolant Platform

Map03 Slige Control

meh:

Map04 Deja vu

 

[Monsieur E]

Map04: "Deja Vu"
By Gene Bird, 181/188 kills, 6/6 secrets, 15:19 

Apparently, most of Gene Bird's maps alongside some others including map03, were essentially filler maps so that the wad would reach the 32 threshold and even prior to the DoD episode on CC2, GB's maps seemed to be panned compared to other cc2 maps. Are these maps as bad as the detractors say? Well, in my opinion, they're bad but not necessarily terrible. The biggest issue this map has is it's 10 minutes too long.

The title "Deja Vu" seems to refer to the early castle segment which seems to repeat a few rooms with some variations after that, it just becomes an odd vignette of different themes. There's a sewer section, a wooden section, an odd courtyard adjoining the wooden section, a brown base, another demonic fortress, and my favorite, a simple doomcute house which sure isn't too impressive but I liked it either way (but I found it extremely jarring it directly connected to the aforementioned second demonic fortress). And you end the map by returning to the odd courtyard to press a switch to end the map by crushing a Romero head. 

The combat barely shakes up through these different sections, just super-shotgun through groups of demons which are varied sure but play out identically in the end. The only notable thing I noticed is because of the relatively open areas, shotgunners get to shine as they can pick you off while you're fighting against heavier opposition who hold your attention. I also don't get why the keys almost immediately lead to the door they're supposed to open. 

Deja Vu isn't awful I'd say, it never goes out of its way to annoy you, but it isn't good either unfortunately.

[Doomy__Doom]

Map 04 - Deja Vu

 

An entertainment for spine rather than brain describes 99% of combat here. Design wears 90s on its sleeve, but fortunately doesn't go full sinner route - secrets are quite open (especially when a nearby Revenant politely reveals the trapdoor), weapons/ammo are given out generously enough, there is no obviously excessive meat stack blocking your way. While themes are a bit hodge-podge and keys only really exist in the level because Doom has keys, there is a sense of... I don't know, getting somewhere. I'll take this over early Hell Revealed levels any time of day, that's for sure.

[Veeda Vidlak]

Map 4: Deja Vu (GZoom, complevel 9, UV pistol start)

 

Ah yes, time for some Gene Bird. I’ve played CC2 before but it was years ago and I don’t really recall much about Bird’s levels. I do, of course, know about the unceremonious roasting he received from MtPain27. So does this level live up to its fearsome reputation of awfulness?

 

Well, after playing it twice I’m gonna go with a hearty no. I would criticize this map as amateurish and painfully 90s and there is indeed a litany of problems here. Overreliance on super shotgun combat, jarring transitions of aesthetic theme, awkward encounters (please don’t drop players into a tiny hole with a spider primed to light them up), boring detailing… and the level definitely drags.

 

But you can find all of those on a regular basis playing through Memento Mori. There’s nothing egregiously bad about it compared to most other works of that era. The closest thing would be how repetitive the combat is (basically just room after room of various monsters). Maybe I’m just easily pleased (I am) but meh doom is still doom and that’s what this is, a mediocre, dated doom map.

 

And seriously, compare this map to others you consider awful. The layout isn’t an interminable maze, the textures aren’t constantly misaligned, the level isn’t broken, you can get 100% kills without cheating. It commits sins but overall, it plays fine. Save the “legendarily bad” label for something like Memento Mori’s map 12, you don’t need it here.

[finnks13]

MAP04 - Deja Vu by Gene Bird:

13:21/0 Deaths
To get the elephant in the room out of the way immediately, Gene Bird's maps in Community Chest 2 are, on the whole, not as good as his maps in Community Chest. He takes on the same role as the first, being the go-to guy to fill the wad up to a full 32 maps, but I definitely prefer the Blind Alley maps that he sent to CC1 to the ones that are here, though I'm not sure if that's just because CC1 as a whole feels much more primitive than CC2 so his style of mapping blends in much more with the rest of the set.

 

His first map in the set is Deja Vu, which is basically fine. It goes through various themes, starting off with a marble castle, before going to bricky ruins, generic techbase, prison and then inexplicable doomcute filled house. Any of these themes on their own, or perhaps a combination of two of the closer themes, would have probably been completely fine, but it feels weird with how often and how sudden these jumps are. That being said, I can excuse bizarre texturing and weird theme choices if the map is fun, and this map is at least pretty enjoyable. I should also mention at this point that I am playing with the Alien Vendetta MIDI pack over any of the unchanged MIDIs, and the excellent Map04 replacement song "Shotgun Shawarma" definitely improves the map, giving it a more propulsive, energetic feel than "Between Levels" ever could.

 

Like most of Gene's other maps, you'll be going room by room, clearing a varied assortment of goons with the super shotgun for the majority of the map. The large amount of fodder enemies keeps the pace up and there are a couple of actually pretty decent fights here, such as the walls lowering to surround you with shotgunners, imps & hell knights when you first enter the rocky section and the arachnotron room at the north of the map which nearly got me. There's a slightly weird section near the start where you have to make a blind jump into a slime pit with an arachnotron stomping around in it already, which isn't the most inviting form of progression I've ever seen, and I'm not sure why the map ends with the death of the Icon of Sin, but these things don't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

 

Deja Vu is fairly rough around the edges, and definitely feels the most aged of the four maps we've played so far, but I don't dislike it at all because Gene's maps tend to be, at worst, uncomplicated fun, and that trend continues with this map. 

[Azure_Horror]

Map 03 Slidge Control by The Flange Peddler

UV, DSDA-Doom, pistol start, complevel 9,

Mod: Bite-Sized Threat

 

You roam, hunting switches.

Monsters roam hunting you.

Lots of doors, many hitscanners.

End result: very simple, but thrilling gameplay loop. Central room gathers many monsters from many directions and also contains interesting Caco/LostSoul ambush. Of course, Bite-Sized Threat mod mitigated the pistol-vs-pinkies problem. (with that mod, shooting pinkies with pistol can be fun!) But I also replayed the map mod-less – and found two things

1) There are just enough shells to clear the initial wave of pinkies

2) You can decide to move forward immediately - this can a bit risky (shotgunners are mean, man!), but push-forward gameplay (r) is fun.

 

All in all, this was a very nice map. I had great time playing it! Didn't even notice that Slidge Control was almost completely flat.

 

 

Map 04 Deja Vu by Gene Bird

UV, DSDA-Doom, pistol start, complevel 21,

Mod: Vesper

 

I absolutely do not understand, why people meme about this map being bad. Yeah, the map is linear. Yeah, it is SSG focused. Yeah, I played the map with Vesper weapons like:

1) Energy shotgun – versatile projectile workhorse, deadly up close, but still decent at longer range.

2) Energy SSG: fires hitscans & fires projectile salvo & projectiles can hit many targets in a line! That monstrous cannon eats 3 Ion Shells per shot, but it can reliably oneshot a caco from full HP!

3) Nox Launcher – fires slowly, but has fast projectiles, huge aoe, and leaves a damaging cloud after the explosion. The weapon needs even more care than normal rocket launcher, but is an absolute beast damage-wise.

 

Still, I think that Deja Vu is objectively fine map. The level has great enemy variety. This leads to diverse combat scenarios and also allows for infighting. The geometry is right on the edge of Narrow and Wide-open, enhancing fights further. So the gameplay is good, IMHO.

 

Art direction is cool too. All the rooms look interesting and well-made. Of course, there is hodge-podge of different visual themes. But why is this bad? Shores of Hell and Inferno from Doom 1 also blend lots of themes in their levels, after all!

 

Personally, I enjoyed playing this map. And I also had quite alot of memorable moments in my playthrough! There is even a possibility that this map would be among my top 5 maps from cc2!

 

P.S.: To be more objective, I launched Deja Vu without mods. Not gonna lie, I missed the Energy SSG. But I still had good time! So I really do not understand, why the map is considered bad by some...

[Monsieur E]

Map05: "Elixir"
By RjY, 366/372, 6/7 secrets, 18:53

The anticipation and discourse surrounding Map04 seemed to overshadow this flaming pile of garbage. I'm not going to be mincing words here, this was one of the most unpleasant DOOM maps I've played. This map has such a unique premise too unfortunately, seemingly taking place in a health processing facility nearby a mining operation where they extract the resources required to make the health packs. I like the doomcute bathrooms, the boss chaingunner's office, the entire area with the crates and processing apparatus looks great. Unfortunately, everything else in this map is utterly misreable.

Despite the setting, there is a constant health and ammo famine. This map has some extremely obnoxious ambushes blocking every route out and dropping monsters straight into your face, constantly dropping in monsters into cleared areas to complicate matters. I wouldn't mind any of this if there was an incentive to be aggressive and active, which there is not because of the aforementioned health and ammo famine. I couldn't trigger much infighting and berserk punching the several midtiers constantly when they have backing usually was simply not too viable. The entire cavern section is dark and claustrophobic, littered with ambushes which often catch you in the tight passages.

This map is loaded with hitscanners who will chip down your precious health one after another forcing you to almost doorfight, the only armor in this map seems to be in secrets which were often guarded by ambushes after the fact. A particular section that served to annoy me was the crate area which was constantly refilled with enemies when you take an inch of progression who you can't deal with easily unless you descend down there in the claustrophobic environment where enemies can easily trap you and hit you. I have played many maps which starve you for ammo and health and I have found myself leave them with a largely good experience, mostly because they usually telegraphic hard hitting sections and in general, provide a more well thought out safety net even if they are harder than this map (see: several D-D maps and for those the club has played recently, wormwood2 m04 and wormwood3 m03). Also they don't have over half of their map be hitscanners when you barely have any health.

I can list specific moments which I despite specifically; the barons and friends blocking your exit after pressing the final switch raising the exit floors, the arachnotron ambush, the pain elementals teleporting into the crate area, the pinky sandwich when you pick up berserk on damaging floor, among many others; but the worst is easily the final cyberdemon. You have to do some very specific and obnoxious maneuvering to reach the exit, carefully past the 'things' placed on the ledges, which is annoying on its own but I think is impossible when you have the cyberdemon trying to rocket you into oblivion. This means you have to get rid of the cyberdemon and if you waste too many shells, that's it. There's no way to complete the level if you can't take out the cyberdemon. This isn't a dilemma just for UV-Maxers because of how dense the opposition is, you will have to cut through a significant chunk of the enemy count either way, I wasn't aiming for a UV-Max here but I still ended up running out of ammo. You don't even get cell weapons here and you only get a measly 7 rockets. 

In order to not end the map on an entirely negative note, I'll just state again I like the setting of this map. But this map frankly made me regret being as hard as I was on Deja Vu, I'll take its standard ssg fest over this in a heartbeat.

-----

As a sidenote, on the cc2 demos thread, I found a comment by iori saying that they had placed the secret rockets for continuous players. I guess in that sense I appreciate the considerations, wonder if the ammo famines in m05 are a result of a similar continuous design perspective. 

[Dusty_Rhodes]

Map04: Deja Vu

by @Searcher

played continuously in PrBoom+/UMAPINFO on Ultra Violence

 

I really like Gene Bird's maps, I'm in the same camp as my friend Gibbon, and apparently TheLokk. This is not one of his best though, those are in CChest 1, if you ask me. Firstly, the good: I love the little doomcute bedroom, the health and weapon balance is solid, and the marble theme is done well. I love that awkward little strafe run at the start as well. It's strange and affable, and part of what makes this wad have the character it does. That said, I think this should've ended earlier. That's really the biggest problem: this level is quite long for what it is. The level starts to run out of steam near the end, and I just don't want to ssg anymore Imps and Revenants at that point. Not really as bad as all the negative hype says, but after playing it so many times, I just don't care for it too much.
Solid map, but not my favorite.

 

Either way, I love the Grandpa of Doom and he's got some more solid levels in this wad.

I don't really have much to say about this one that others haven't. I can't wait for the next few maps though.

[E.M.]

MAP05 - “Elixir” by RjY

DSDA-Doom, UV, Pistol Start

 

This is one of the most dickish and mean-spirited Doom maps I have ever played. Who thought it was a good idea to place a map this hard so early in the WAD? The biggest problem is the lack of health and ammo. I wouldn't mind that if this was a short map, but it's not. The level is also stuffed full of hitscanners who are constantly chipping away at you, a problem made even worse by the aforementioned health shortage. The design disincentivizes any sort of aggressive gameplay, which means you're forced to camp a lot. I spent half my time waiting for monsters to kill each other from infighting. Then there are the constant teleport ambushes. These are so common they're downright annoying. You can't even walk two feet without spawning a bunch of demons in front of you, behind you, and in the rooms you just came from. The final insult is the cyberdemon that is spawned right in front of the exit. You think you can just run around him, but no. There are decorations that you need to carefully move around, something that is impossible to do when you have a cybernetic goatman shooting rockets at you. Not only that, but this level never gives you a plasma gun, which means you're forced to kill the cyber with the SSG, and if you run out of ammo, then you're screwed. This map is cock and ball torture and I never want to play it again.

[Devalaous]

Lets see how my memory holds up.

Map 1: Fairly normal opener by a very famous mapper, this one will undoubtedly be scutinised more than most just for being a map by 'The Scythe Guy'. It was an alright map, the berserk fight in the titular furnace was the only real problem for me.

 

Map 2: A Boom map for the sake of it, this was a neat little Map 2 with a definite sense of place. A bit too linear for my tastes, but it looked nice. I too searched for a rocket launcher in vain.

 

Map 3: Ive played and made my own SLIGE maps in the past, and I wouldn't have been able to tell this was originally one, so the tuning up was a success. Having two kinda cool maps in a row though, sets up why Gene Bird is a meme.

 

Map 4: I actually enjoyed this from a gameplay perspective more than the first three. Gene's maps are simple but they are undoubtedly 'Doom'. Hes not trying to reinvent the wheel like everyone else. In both CC1 and CC2, ive noticed his maps have an unfortunate effect of appearing right after showstealer maps or otherwise interesting ones, thus the crash back to earth hits harder. There is literally a Gene bird map right before Citadel at the Edge of Eternity, and one after The Mucus Flow, for example.

 

Map 5: Bullshit in a can. I knew what to expect from MtPain's CC2 review, and even playing continuous, this map kicked my teeth in. Its just a little too cruel for a map so early. The windows were a little buggy too. This map exhausted me and made me put the game down for the day.

 

___________________

 

As for CC1, I actually played that 'alongside' you guys last year. At the time I was taking an extended break form forums due to the endless dramas they have, and I noticed CC1 was up, and all the raging at Map 6, and the foreboding dread about 29 got me to play it, where I often came back to the thread to see what opinions people had about maps I liked or disliked. I even made a small patch for CC1 that re-enabled the hidden version of Map 24, heh.

[Somniac]

MAP05: Elixir - RjY

 

"Urgh".....that's the review. 

 

Just kidding. I hope you're not playing this after midnight while tired, like I just did. This rather cramped map lays it on hard from the start with a deluge of hitscanners, surprise Cacos and Hell Knights with you having taken out a good chunk of the monster population before you get in the main building. You made it in? Hope you like chaingunners, obscene teleport ambushes, tight quarters and barely having enough ammo! Aside from being able to handle the archvile from just round a corner, I was gritting my teeth hard here. The gameplay in this map is savage. Even a soul sphere and secret blue armour aren't enough. I tried again on HMP and still couldn't be bothered trying to get past that Spiderdemon at the end with nothing but a few bullets and a chainsaw. I admit being sleepy and pistol-starting this does *not* lend itself to the experience, and that's entirely on me, but it seems like I'm not alone.

 

So...why I am about to say that I actually quite like it? Because of the sheer gall. If your map makes me go "oh, FUUUCK you" for the 5th time, before the 5th reload, know that I'm half-grinning at your audacity as much as I'm cursing it. Then there's the machine room. The ladders. The cute little forklift thing. The tiny health potion factory, and that midtexture crane that I am so going to try and rip off sometime...almost as neat as Suspended in Dusk's floating crate, despite the slightly broken 3D bridge....all topped off with even more batshit teleport ambushes. It's this juxtaposition of charming detail and slap in the face combat that stops me from feeling anything genuinely negative about this map. It's like the author is daring you to try and finish it. You win today, RjY. 

[Thelokk]

MAP05: Elixir by RjY

DSDA / UV / 100% kills / 100% secrets

 

 And then we have this - in my book, a good contender for worst map in the megawad. In the attempt to make one of those realistic, 'doomcute' maps I loathe, the author has made a painful, boring slog that has no redeeming values to speak of. 

The map is more or less divided in two parts. First is a monotone, drab cave where you will be literally inundated by a horde of hitscanners. They *will* get you unless you retreat and play peekaboo, in a ridiculous 'get bored or get owned' game I barely had the patience to get through. Then you have the almost-titular health bonus factory, a forgettable piece of 'doomcute', if we can call it so, that is rather characterized by dickish chaingunner ambushes and blocky architecture that I simply can't get into. If I want to play 'realistic' stuff, I play a Build Engine game.

Boring, forgettable, unimaginative. Far worse than Bird's maps, a low point in the megawad. Wouldn't surprise me some would simply decide not to move forward. 

Edited January 5, 2023 by Thelokk

[Veeda Vidlak]

Map 5: Elixir (GZoom, complevel 9, UV pistol start)

 

Um… Excuse me?

 

I’m going to parrot Monsieur E’s thoughts because after reading his comment I couldn’t agree more. To start with the good, this map’s aesthetics and theme are outstanding. Easily the best so far. I love how you can clamber over everything in the health flask factory and its so richly detailed. The caverns look great and everything about the main building is done well. The entrance with the security bars, the restrooms, the office, the rising floor.

 

But all of this is completely overshadowed by this map’s jaw-droppingly spiteful gameplay. It’s almost sadistic. You are severely constrained in both health (ironic) and ammo. Combat is… again… too focused on the super shotgun though I’ll give points for making the chaingun important as well (it’s legitimately a powerful tool in this level). There is no flow to this map because there are tons of teleport ambushes triggered by passing random linedefs that force the player to routinely flee and pick them off from safety. And I say routinely because taking them on directly gets you perforated by bullets, hammered by lost souls, or bombarded by hell nobles and revenants in very cramped areas. The level doesn’t provide anywhere near enough recovery items to tank hits from the nearly 400 monsters (!) that harass you so the gameplay inevitably grinds to a screeching halt, with the player constantly provoking ambushes then running away to clear the area before proceeding to the next one. This was an essentially blind playthrough for me and after some close calls I got killed by the hell knight/imp ambush in the main hallway (would have helped to know about the armor secret in the lobby… why is the green armor in a secret? You already have blue armor as the hidden powerup). After that I begrudgingly played at a snail’s pace so I wouldn’t get ganked.

 

And there’s so many little things that piss me off. I hate that the demon ambush at the berserk pack always inflicts some arbitrary amount of damage depending on RNG. I hate that the main factory needlessly refills with random enemies you’d best hide from. I hate the massive number of hitscanners in such a medkit deprived level all but requiring camping and hit-and-run tactics. And then there are minor grumbles. Like the windows that look open but actually aren’t… until they suddenly are after you grab the blue key (I think?), leading to cheap hits.

 

But none of this is as bad as that rocket-totting motherfucker that spawns in at the end of the level. As others have said, you absolutely, positively, have to kill him to finish the map. He can’t leave the starting area and you need to carefully slip around decorations to leave. You won't do this with him alive.

 

Putting this cyberdemon here is one of the worst decisions I’ve seen in a map in quite some time. You know how this level is tight on ammo? Well, you’d better have saved up enough shells to deal 4000 damage. If you didn’t your options are

1.     Be a good enough player to beat a cyberdemon with fisticuffs in an area slightly larger than hell in a cell

2.     Somehow get a baron or something to infight with him and complete the gimmicky platforming in the short time he’s distracted

3.     Idclev05 (or better yet idclev06)

 

If you’re not comfortable with Tyson gameplay and need to use your ammo then sucks to be you. If you’re playing blind and didn’t know you needed to save ammo then sucks to be you. Like… are you kidding me? How about instead you give the player a BFG and two energy cells at the very end of the level. That way they can charge up to the beginning area with the opportunity to two-shot cybie with limited maneuvering room. That would be a satisfying finish imo. Now maybe the BFG is a bad idea because of continuous play but if that’s the case just spawn another party of idiots for doomguy to plow through… or spawn nothing at all. Anything but screwing the player over with a potentially unwinnable situation at the end of the level.

 

I reluctantly played through Elixir a second time (I always try to play a map twice to avoid first-impression bias, same as MtPain27) and in all honesty, it was noticeably better. Knowing where the ambushes and secrets are takes so much of the aggravation out and I had a better idea of how much ammo I could expend per fight. But… it still isn’t good. You still need to keep triggering ambushes then yell “deuces” to grind your way through and it’s easy to forget one here or there. And I can’t forgive the cyberdemon, that’s just an outright bad decision.

 

Making a level hard doesn’t automatically make it good. Yes, I’m more likely to respect a level that forces me to play well, but goddamn do I hate it when every death feels like I’m being done dirty. Elixir makes me want to give Grandpa Searcher an apology for saying Déjà vu is mediocre, because it was substantially more enjoyable to play than this level. I’m not calling this map “legendarily bad” either, but its closer than any other I’ve played so far and the current low point of the megawad.

[Anarkzie]

Monsieur E and others have so perfectly summed up my feelings for this level that it feels redundant for me to make the same points all over again. I will only add that this level is fantastically detailed and that its clearly the work of a skilled artist, sadly he or she is not skilled at placement of monsters, health or weapons/ammo. I'm not sure if it was just a trend at the time to just fill rooms with as much shit as you can but this is not the only level to have this problem in the wad, this however is the most extreme.

 

That Cyberdemon at the end, I just don't have the words.

[Book Lord]

MAP 05 – Elixir by Rob Young @RjY

DSDA-Doom v0.24.3, UV, Continuous, blind run w/saves

 

An unofficial tradition in the Community Chest series is to feature one of the most imbalanced, rough, and repulsive maps in the middle of the first episode. I cannot say if Cadman & Co. did this on purpose, to make sure that a player putting up with the early harassment had the guts to play the megaWAD until the end. In any case, the role played by Magikal’s Goin’ Down in the first chapter was inherited by Rob Young’s Elixir in Community Chest 2.

 

When I entered the burrow leading to a small network of caves, I was positively impressed by the army of zombies guarding the entrance to a subterranean facility. Shooting from an elevated position and listening to the furious infighting between them was a good start. A water-absorbing device pumped liquid from a pool into the tech-base and its door was locked; the YK must be retrieved in the nearby caverns, where the realism in lighting went to the point of leaving the connecting tunnel bends in total darkness, not the best place to encounter a Spectre sandwich trap. The introductory segment set the standard for the rest of the map: almost every square unit was filled with enemies, with sudden teleport ambushes and monster pop-ups taking place at every slight progression step or item pickup.

 

If the wide caverns allowed for dodging and retreating when the enemy onslaught went over the top, the inside of the Elixir production plant was a sequence of nerve-wracking ambushes. The small and hyper-detailed place held supremely cramped fights, constantly trying to box in the player with gradually beefier opposition, providing barely enough resources to do the job on continuous play. Pistol starters must absolutely find the Berserk Pack in the outer caverns and use it whenever possible.

Spoiler

I am a bit put off when I see the attempt to represent realistic environments, indulging with many little details, and then making the combat an absurdly crowded affair with monsters springing out of the ground, teleporting behind the player, often without a justification besides the urge for more combat. Approaching world building and gameplay separately never pays off in Doom, but even great authors of the past made the same mistake (I would mention the famous Iikka Keränen). Collecting all keys and triggering the switch that revealed the exit was difficult, I would say “unlikely without foreknowledge” (= frequent saves & reloads on the first playthrough) but getting out of there alive was even harder. The facility produced Medikits from health potions but must have been operating just-in-time, considering the shortage of finished goods. Ammunition was not only scarce, but also piled up in narrow places, so that wasting it was a concrete possibility.

Spoiler

When I emerged in the cavern with the water pump, just to find it swarmed by tough foes I must kill with SSG and infighting, I realised the whole map was a spiteful mockery of the player’s efforts. If you managed to survive everything that was in store, ammo and health will be exhausted and insufficient to face the Cyberdemon that was now occupying the starting area, for some reason converted into the exit. Evading the boss and crossing the ledge to reach the exit was out of question, I could not perform it even on IDDQD, and judging from my resources a pistol starter might only have chainsaw and punches to deal with him. I spent my last 23 shells to weaken the Cyberdemon as much as possible, before assaulting him frontally with the plasma rifle I carried courtesy of MAP04. How a pistol starter could overcome Elixir is beyond my comprehension, as I survived with 13% health and almost no leftover ammo. The interesting premise of infiltrating a potion manufacturing plant was ruined by the wrong balance between realism and gameplay; the attention to the first inevitably compromised the latter, resulting in an obnoxious Doom level.

Edited January 5, 2023 by Book Lord

[Doomy__Doom]

Map 05 - Elixir

 

 

[Azure_Horror]

Some more thoughts about Map 04 Deja Vu

Frankly, I don't get why this map is considered "ye olde boring SSG-fest, nothing to see here at all".

- SSG is given quickly enough. Only one single midtier encountered before that point! (Compare this to CC4 map 04, where you need to fight quite a number of Hell Knights before getting your hands on a Rocket Launcher, and even more monsters before finally getting SSG)

- Other weapons are present on Deja Vu, and optimizing their use is fun.

- There is enough variety in monster compostion and locations for keeping combat diverse.

- No obligatory cornercamp-or-bust sections.

- There is even no barons either!

- Also, shotgunner+midtier monster composition is quite rare in SSG-focused maps.

- I take wacky hodge-podge of visual themes over yet another brown mase any day of the week.

TLDR 1: All things considered, Map 04 Deja Vu > Map 14 Shadow of Evil. Map 14 has only sleek visuals going for it, and even those sleek visuals are of your usual brown type!

TLDR 2: Dunking on maps by Gene Bird looks like a stupid meme, IMHO. People seem to exaggerate their badness. It is mean, it is boring, and it is opposite of informative.

 

 

Map 05 Elixir by Rob Young

UV, DSDA-Doom, pistol start, complevel 21 / 9,

Mod: 1st attempt - Vesper, 2nd attempt - No mods

 

Short version - this should have been map 20-something. For map 05, it is too jarring. Even in 20+ slot, that final cyber would have been mean.

 

Long version - there are redeeming features here. Quite a lot, actually. Initial hitscanner cave is cruel, but it still allows for some aggressive starts (at least one UV-max demo began that way). The there-and-back-again design with dedicated arenas is much more original than your usual techbase maze. Reuse of arenas with different monster waves is indeed memorable. Instant ambushes are unpleasant, but much less cruel than they could be. (Check Bloodstain map 11 or Hell Revealed 2 map 04, if you don't believe me.) And the theme of Health-Processing facility is facinating. Tech meets Alchemy! Doom meets Heretic!

 

But the final cyberdemon is a real blunder. The fight is similar to Valiant Candleclove (map 10) Butcher Pit cyberdemon encounter. However, unlike in Valiant, you get no Plasma Rifle, no Super-Chaingun, and not much ammo in general! Not only this fight difficult on its own, the player can just waste their ammo and find themselves softlocked from completing the map! This is bad design decision, especially for a map 05 of non-challenge community project.

 

Conclusion - Elixir is a memorable map, with some strong design choices, but also with some serious flaws. The flaws could have been partially mitigated by moving map into the third episode. But that one cyberdemon is badly placed in any case.

Edited January 5, 2023 by Azure_Horror

[finnks13]

MAP05 - Elixir by RjY:

20:44/13 Deaths
This map is a swift kick in the nuts to anyone who fell asleep from the easy going first four maps, because holy shit is this map completely over-tuned in the polar opposite direction to the point where I'd say that it's pretty much impossible to complete without the foreknowledge of two things:

    1. There will be a cyberdemon at the exit of the map that is non-negotiable to kill.

    2. You do not have enough ammo to kill said cyberdemon unless you punch nearly every non-hitscanner to death.

I knew this was coming, found almost all the secrets, caused infights wherever I could, made sure to preserve as much health as possible and punched two mancubi to death in the final ambush out of sheer desperation and managed to exit with exactly nine bullets to my name. This map does not fuck around if you want to get all the kills, but to be honest, the area reuse, lack of health and ridiculous numbers of hitscanners pretty much force you to kill everything that you come across anyway.

 

There are a couple of mercies in the map, those being the fact that the berserk comes very early on - telling you to start punching from the get-go - and the bars in the factory area are self-referencing sectors so getting everything to infight after you open the exit isn't too difficult since they'll try to attack you but won't be able to get through the fence, but your hitscan attacks will. That's it for mercy though, as doing pretty much anything will set off a tripwire and fill the map to the brim with enemies. The most ridiculous moment comes in the red key room, after a popup group of revenants and hell nobles that you've already had to punch out, trying to pick up the key itself spawns an archvile right in front of you, two barons on the completely unnecessary mid-tex table (that I totally approve of :P), and a bunch of cacodemons and pain elementals in the main factory floor. This fight is just miserable, you've got to kill the pain elementals as soon as possible, because allowing them to spawn in a lost soul horde will force you to either waste all your ammo shooting them, or all of your health punching them. And you have to do this while avoiding an archvile's attacks, and baron projectiles coming from two completely different angles. Great.

 

Elixir is not a very fun map, despite it's first impression of a fun zombie slaughter in a cave, you pretty much need to know what's coming in order to complete it and the lack of resources is just not fun to play around here. It's certainly tense, but that tension comes from the unknown of whether I'll have enough resources left at the end of the map to be allowed to finish it. I don't particularly like resource management of this extreme level to begin with, so I wouldn't have liked this map much anyway, but it's placement in the wad feels like a bad joke.

[Fairen]

Map 5: Elixir (UV)

 

You know, I was...negative about this map when I first played it. But in hindsight, and having read others' opinions on it, I feel we are all overlooking a critical aspect of this map and its design philosophy.

 

You see, a good megawad has a solid, consistent theme to it. Something that ties the megawad and its level together. A concept, a storyline, a design choice. Without that theme, individual maps can feel hollow and random, mundane and shallow.

 

It is in this regard that Elixir fully embraces the theme of the megawad and truly excels where all of the previous levels have failed. The prior levels may have ranged from decent to meh, but none of them really grasped the idea of this megawad, which is where Elixir's genius shines.

 

For Elixir, like no other map in the megawad, so fully and completely encapsulates the soul-draining mind-numbing hellish experience that is playing Monopoly.

 

A horde of zombies for the picking fresh out of the gate? All those properties ahead, just waiting to be bought. But before you know it, hazards await both in front of you and behind you! You seek your fortune, but as you near your goal, BAM! Pinned in on both sides by the demons that are landlords, gnawing away at your stock. The further you progress, the more the areas you once strayed safely through are now minefields, the greater intensity of the encounters reflecting your opponents accumulating monopolies!

 

Your starting fortune of health whittled away by rent, and what little pittances you can gain from stumbling by chance upon secrets will soon be eroded away too. That bathroom free of enemies...where you are free to park yourself in safety. Just when you think that property is yours...no! Your opponent gets a lucky roll and warps ahead of you, or they draw that one Chance/Community Chest card that lets them pop up right ahead of you. The ammo only gets more and more scarce...after all, what Monopoly pro doesn't know the strategy of hording houses to deny your foes the chance to build?

 

And lastly, perhaps the masterstroke upon this work of art, the coup de grace on this perfect emulation of monotony, unfairness, and tedium. You've raced around the entire board. You're eyeing the start, hoping to land on Go, get your $200 reward and be on your way for the next lap. But in the Community Chest, Chance has crueler intentions in mind. You land on that question mark, hoping to get zoomed into your next lap. Then you draw the card and read those dreaded words:

 

TAKE A WALK ON THE BOARDWALK

 

And situated right on the scenic Boardwalk, right near where it all began, is Chez 'Berdemon. To pass him by without paying rent is not an option. And here, in the Community Chest, rent takes the form of a barrage of rockets that will turn your destitute, struggling self into a financially and physically insolvent bankrupt little pile of mush before you can ever hope to pass Go.

 

This is Elixir.

 

This, is Community Chest at its finest.

 

And Elixir is a work of genius.

Edited January 5, 2023 by Fairen : Obligatory unquestionable improvement.

[Electro Rage]

Pistol Start, UV-MAX (even when it's not worth it), Saves (because I'm gonna need it) DSDA-doom 0.24.3.
 

Map 03 Slige Control:
Boring ugly map. Not fun at all, probably because it's a Slige Map. Why was this included?

Map 04 Deja Vu
Long SSG heavy map that repeats the same room several times, with little health and armor. A COLLOSSAL waste of time.

Map 03: D
Map 04: F

[Thelokk]

MAP06: The View by Lutrov71

GZDoom / UV /100% kills / 100% secrets

 

Finally a good map. There is movement, height variations, some actual thought put into texturing and detailing. This is dynamics. This is a map that, unlike its trashy predecessor, actually feels like a place without resorting to silly doomcute; and is all the better for it.

Sure, some pieces are more interesting than others - the 'visible monster closets' probably overstay their welcome and the chaingunners placement is a bit dickish at times, but I can't not love the proto-slaughter that makes up the map's spiciest moments. 

The care and love that has been put into this map oozes from its every pore. An excellent return to form, after Bird's mediocre offering, and... that thing in slot 5.