[-cl2] Star Cycle

[Synami]

 

 

Star Cycle is a Limit-removing set of 11 short, punchy maps which take 2-3 minutes each to beat. Snag it now!

 

Difficulty settings implemented. Textures from greenwar2-tex. Palette by @stephyesterday. Music credits are in the WAD file.

[Maribo]

Exactly what it says on the tin: breezy maps highlighted by a gorgeous color palette. Progresses from bite-sized rhythmic shotgun room-clearing to gibfest-style rocket slaughter and caps itself off with a BFG map, for good measure. Thanks for the lovely half hour trip.

 

starcycle-maribo.zip - playthroughs (UV, -dsdademo, v0.27.5)

 

My one minor suggestion: in the maps that have a secret on the player start sector, consider moving them to another mandatory sector, like the exit hallways. I know these are here for the ports that don't display 100% secrets on the intermission if the secret count is 0/0, but for a WAD that is pretty demo-friendly, it's nice to not hear the secret sound at the beginning of every reset.

[ivymagnapinna]

30 or so minutes worth of adrenaline-filled maps that are tiny but never disappointingly so and never boring. The transition from simple Scythe-y stuff to full-on slaughter was so smooth it didn't even register in my head til the end. (also, the combination of electro music and high risk of instant death in map11 made me feel kinda like I was playing Hotline Miami.) Great wad, no notes.

[baja blast rd.]

uploaded this to chat with Maribo, but might as well post here too. good set! can see it getting a lot of speedrunning activity. 

 

 

[kvothesixstring]

Really enjoyed this! The palette work was great. Fights were engaging but not oppressing. Perhaps I was just particularly on my game but I don't think I died until I got to map 10? Really well paced difficulty-wise. 

 

I look forward to doing demos for these maps. 

 

Well done.

[TheGreenZap]

This is a ton of fun!

I love the atmosphere of this one as well.

 

[SleepyVelvet]

Good 'n short doom levels.  I played all of them.  Exactly what I needed in this exact moment.  Thx.

 

FDAs:  noisy_synstarc.zip

[myolden]

Really fun bite-sized maps, I had a great time with it. 

[SleepyVelvet]

22 hours ago, baja blast rd. said:

uploaded this to chat with Maribo, but might as well post here too. good set! can see it getting a lot of speedrunning activity. 

~snip~

I was waiting for the next "casual" max from you.  Good shit.

[plums]

I don't know if it's intended but both maps 1 and 2 have key doors that don't need the key they're marked with. MAP01's blue key door needs the red key, and MAP02's red key door needs no key at all. Haven't played further than this so I don't know if it's a sneaky intentional theme or not.

[Synami]

5 hours ago, plums said:

maps 1 and 2 have key doors that don't need the key they're marked with. MAP01's blue key door needs the red key, and MAP02's red key door needs no key at all.

 

I will admit this wasn't intentional, but I'll keep it in case if players just want to get to the more substantive maps faster. Fairly certain only the first 2 maps have this issue.

[Nefelibeta]

Cool maps

Spoiler

What's really good about these maps is that they each have a focus. The maps are perfectly short, the gimmicks make them stand out to their own, and flow really well as a whole.

 

Here's some complaints though.

1)There's plenty of setups with a room behind a door with monsters basically all around it, which incentivize door camping a lot. It's not that significant of an issue but get pretty noticeable, especially later into the wad. I guess it's not that bad when you just want to rush through everything though.

2)The Keys+Hub design. Again not that significant but it's present in almost all of the maps. Some interesting progression points won't be necessary but will improve the experience greatly.

 

Those are pretty minor issues but probably asking too much for speedmaps, so take it with a grain of salt. My favourite map is Map11.

 

[CblBOPOTKA]

Impressive set. Played it today and had fun time. Not the biggest fun of single shotgun, but other stuff was really good

[Treehouseminis]

Played this yesterday and forgot to comment.  Fun maps overall.  Since they're so short it almost started to feel Same ish between maps but as a whole its a good time.  Map11 was a difficulty spike for me though, I died there like 10 times haha. 

[knifeworld]

Finished this set earlier today, total banger in wad form! Doubly so thanks to the mod tunes, the difficulty curve is noticably smooth and ramps up nicely toward the end.

[Ludi]

Most face-melting 30 minutes you'll get this year, REALLY good set.

[Mr. Alexander]

Really fun set! Cool palette, good music, nice escalation of difficulty over a set of short levels. I recorded some FDAs, but didn't get the W on Map11 because I'm bad at dodging revenant rockets and I have a habit of running directly towards cyberdemons. I need to practice "wall of enemies" maps, and this is a good map for doing that. Good for a quick hit of action. Nice work!

 

FDAs recorded in DSDA-Doom 0.27.5b with an extended HUD:

synstarcfdas-mralexander.zip