What are you playing now?

[TheGreenZap]

I played through SIGIL and I really liked it!

Terrific stuff from Romero.

I would have to go with Unspeakable Persecution as my favorite map in the set.

 

[matador]

On 7/6/2021 at 12:08 PM, Walter confetti said:

Yesterday I've played the "recent" wads on idgames of Mercenaries (fully played, pretty nice wad with neat mine camp effect) and a little bit of some Joe Ilya new maps: Space Travel is Boring (until E1M2, then the start of the other maps), 10 monsters (this one looks interesting, is a series of short silly maps with only 10 monsters in it) and the funny jokewad Bad Weather (blasted out by the first wave of monsters lol, also I've expected a midi of "it's raining men", you have to play this map for understand).

 

Bad Weather is pretty funny, I had a lot of fun with that one.

[galileo31dos01]

I had this text file laying dry in my desktop from when I played Rylayeh a month ago. For those who don't know what this is, it's a modest set of 10 maps by Psyren for limit-removing source ports, specially those that support freelook and/or the option to disable infinite height in a way, like crispy doom is a good choice (for the latter most importantly). I went a little more talkative here than usual, because the maps invited for longer paragraphs, though I was hitting a wall at the end so it's when I stopped doing these for the moment. Anyways, two things that I can add about the wad, if you are interested in taking a look, are first how much grateful you'd be to have infinite tallness disabled in general (not that it's mandatory anywhere, but it quickly shows that's how the mapper tested their stuff), and second would be that I have the feeling this set is one of those where foreknowledge marks a particularly huge impact on how things can be tackled, but someone else can confirm this. Anyways...

 

Spoiler

01. Ah, the ship sinking behind you, neat. One of the sectors didn't change to water unfortunately. Anyways, the place seemed to be a large fortress on an island. The midi felt appropriate throughout, like perfect when exploring a strange ominous place in the middle of nowhere. It didn't quite accompany the type of combat designed here, which was generally laid back without "spooks", but it was okay though. Plenty of chainsaw and shotgun grind (zerk included if you want it), green demons, gray imps, gunners (new nazi replacement included), and two HK trios, all classic Psyren tropes, just magnified for an atypical map 01. Lots of cool secrets too, including a very belated blue armor plus chaingun that I made no use of, as everything else was dead, meh. Well, I could have been crushed almost. If there was a standout, it was definitely not the combat (cleanup duty hardly ever registers as a highlight in doom, tbh), but the "new age vanilla" flavor in the layout's geometry, sharp angles and shit, which felt cute and "ahead of its time". Aside from that, repurposed space and mild platforming, with that exploration tag courtesy the setting, made the time well spent I think. One weird thing, depending on my position the chaingunner would never hit me, nor could I hit him.

 

02. An entire something, vaguely themed like a labyrinth inside a castle, except it was generally roofless. Samey texturing aside, I dug this setting, which again was thanks to the extremely varied geometry and great music. The cramped atmosphere reminded me of Perdition's Gate a little. Classic Psyren had me perforating loads of trash early on, not without often looking at my ammo stock in the status bar. Heh, most gun upgrades appeared in early secrets. Thanks to the computer that I could spot all of them, the super camouflaged SSG the most valuable. PR and rockets definitely played their part too. Thing revolved around unlocking few doors, not always in plain sight, and getting briefly lost in those intertwined hallways. It could still live without the arrows, but all good anyways. There were also some floating eyes that could be destroyed, keen replacements. Not sure if killing them all opened something somewhere. That chainsaw trap was the highlight of unexpected mean, lol. That lone HK too I guess. What was the deal with the block lines and useless green demons though...

 

03. Oof, that existed. After a shitty welcoming, things didn't get any better soon. Whoever is reading this, and has played the map before, knows what I mean: the lifts, or technically slow moving floors. Agonizingly slow, no matter what. And the midi added to a sense of psychological punishment for some reason. But rather than idclip every time I had to hop on them (in reality I can't), I took my phone to send messages in the meantime. Yup. Anyways, the level more of that hallway cleanup, booby traps here and there, slightly congested rooms. That one maze of imps and demons though, largely ineffective due to the angles, as they had it hard to path towards me. Some latter areas had generally poor mid-tier treatment, though the HKs/mancs/PEs room was fun to mop up with rockets. Lot of secrets again, gently telegraphed once I snagged the computer. Favorite bit was funneling rockets to a hapless horde of gunners. Two weird things: a broken teleport, and a potential softlock if using one of the doors before lowering it from elsewhere. Ugh, thank fuck for crispy's option to set infinite height off...

 

04. Okay thing. Guess I was in trapped in some catacombs, with Heretic-ish bgm. Kind of uneventful, yet not all that boring in places. Theme was gloomy dark thin hallways, not in a mazelike way, but the kind you take the low road first then bunny-jump on the higher road, giving a vague sense of faux 3D room-over-room. Reminded me of the Congestion 1024 maps. Not much to highlight though, as most implied frontal corridor shooting, generally chainsaw fodder and SSG double kills, the better part of the gameplay imo. Preferred that over those several HK trios, or the baron one, only effective at disrupting the flow midway, but that stuff never truly bothers me. The couple wider rooms were thick in pointless pit demon hordes and cacodemons. Early on I could have gotten a RL to abuse infinite tall splash, but the cacos intercepted too soon. Missed the secret backpack at the start, and almost died to some greenies in a small optional annex close to the exit. Oh, umm, what was up with the imps inside walls...

 

05. More dim lighting! Thought this played rather nice and sweet, for the set's context. The slightly limited mobility on ledges and thin corridors continued, but the openness in the cistern reduced any feel of claustrophobia. Lots of gunners/imps ambushes at different places, some that spawned in questionable places. Most every other bulky horde (greenies, nobles, cacos) served as the hard gum to chew that characterizes Psyren's tropes. I quite liked the RL and torture rooms aesthetically. As usual, the secrets felt clever and their requirements stood out for me. Even the random chainsaw at the start made me giggle. I exhausted it on lost souls, mostly. Reckon the last room was meh as a climax, though I had so many rockets/plasma that it went like a breeze. Nice music.

 

06. An interesting departure from the cramped interconnected catacombs to something more systematically hub-based. Not without its classic initial hitscan fest. That music spoke tension and suspense. Each shrine, as the mapper called them, had its own particularly shaped arena and selected bestiary, and secret gifts too. They looked cool, sharp angles, floor figures, and light contrast within each other. Some extra ambushes greeted me back into the hub, which I appreciated for the ammo. So, first shrine involved tight moves to herd barons and arachnotrons away from the outer ring, so they could kill each other. I rooted for spiders, they were doing great until they weren't anymore. It was fun, good crowd control. A few random intruders managed to tp with us. It amused me when I figured where they were coming from...

 

Second and third not as exciting as the former. They had a similar idea of (optional) infight management, except with poor area control from the monsters' part since they could only do so much in such ample spaces, HKs and cacos in particular, though the third shrine felt more cinematically satisfying to orchestrate in the darkness. Fourth did push me towards a blur sphere as fast as possible, before I was shredded by the undead assholes. A satisfying climax for the ears, gunners tearing each other in a massive arena. The archvile was a surprise, though it only spawned because I shot a HK. A couple monsters never spawned. Looking at the automap on IDDTx2, I'm inclined to guess the tp lines were W1. If so, big mistake!

 

07. Anomalous place. Not trying to interpret the setting this time, other than it reminded of Perdition's Gate middle stretch regarding the layout's complexity and monster pathing - on this subject I also thought of this set's map 02. Had a rough start, constantly cycling between very low and full health, yet survived those burst shots like a champ, heh. Got a bit disoriented after killing the initial wave, then I remembered in which map I was. Yeah, the mancubi may seem like you'd approach them on their level, but thankfully I found the rockets to snipe them all. As I expected, it was logically followed by ground arachnotrons, mixed with nobles for absolute pressure freedom. Not quite my thing when I have to search for the monsters I need to kill to progress because they are dormant somewhere else instead of tracking my position, but whatever. Suddenly random SMM noises. Something must have gone wrong with her platform as it didn't raise properly (I mean, it did, but only after killing the thing). In the end my memory betrayed me as I forgot where the RK was and I ran in circles for like five minutes, grr. 

 

08. Aha, keen eye time! Finally those objects got their own quest. The hallway with portals looked neat, as did the second and final ring, structurally Psyren showing again they knew their tricks with geometry. Great music as usual. Early on I woke up the HKs and demons by accident, which pressured me into taking the portals. Low pressure but it gave the fight a better purpose. Megasphere was tempting yet I missed the clue. Quite liked how the RL and CG were sitting casually on the lava. Next place, the ring, I believe would have been more exciting had I opened the eye-locked barriers while stuff was still around, for a change of pace, assisted chaos that'd make sense with foreknowledge. I didn't have to kill much anyways, just leftover barons and imps, and one last gunners ambush (casually lowered a blur sphere just in time). Just then found this secret with switches that locked or opened the heart of the ring, okay? lol.

 

09. Back to the thin corridors. Felt engaging in places, mostly due to using gaps to my advantage, and slightly dull in others. The chainsaw and SSG rooms for example, both requiring to sneak past ambushes quickly to snag the weapons. I assume if you don't think ahead almost every section can play like a slog, like the early pistol vs. imps. Regardless, a lot of slower grind in the darker areas though, because of spongy monsters. Cutting skulls to half is one of my pleasures so I was good there. The visor really destroyed the atmosphere there lol. Not a fan of the mancubi and revs clogging the BK door. It was compensated by that spicy hitscan sandwich halfway through, classic trope, because mixed gunners quads are visually amusing too. One of the secrets required SR40 (or 50?), that was new. Just had to find the right angle to get it. The highlight of everything was logically the final area, one of those "destroy the core of the invasion" concepts. Bit bland outdoors, lacking details around, though the central structure looked not bad. I was a bit confused at first but I figured things out eventually, not without having some many invaders on the ground (oddly no PEs or souls ever spawned, but a caco every now and then). They couldn't climb up to my spot, which I wasn't sure about. Interesting setup overall, effective barons HP wise imo. Forgot to look up for a missing secret :(

 

10. A familiar setting, first descending rocks to enter the final portion of the ancient city. The hitscan cavalry coming out of the door had me taking social distance for a bit. I had to laugh though, once inside they were clogging a hallway killing each other. And even more of them outside. Good stuff. Eh, also  lots and lots of sponges, goats mostly. Infight took care of some, while I went north inside, though I was immediately kicked out by an archvile waking up in a corner between barons (had no RL). Went back to the hallways and took the longest path. There was the RL, accompanied by a highly cinematic fight with greenies, spectres and HKs. Heard arachnotrons teleporting in the meantime. They were clogging the entrance outside the keys area along with more HKs. I found the tiny switches before and took advantage of them, thinking they'd do me a favor later. Yup. At that point I started to think of the power of foreknowledge, because I didn't know the outdoors area was going to repopulate each time I lowered a key. Tricked the caco horde to infight some leftover goats. An unusually fun spectacle, given that the goats couldn't reach the cacos up closer, so it was a fair fight for them. Still the goats claimed victory, not by much difference though. Lastly, as a sort of epilogue, the marine returned to the first map to find his boat had resurfaced. He was ready to escape the island, and so was I to finish this mapset :)

 

[Valboom]

"Hellevator" good boom megawad with relatively small maps and fast gameplay,i like It.

[Mr. Alexander]

Unable to pick just one WAD to focus on, I finally decided on these four, a healthy mix of recent classics and the new hotness. Also I'm helplessly hooked on writing PowerShell scripts instead of actually playing the game haha

 

[LadyMistDragon]

I'm about 2/3rds a way through a playthrough of 'Going Down.' You know, I love the soundtrack and the design received much thought and care but it's also far more claustrophobic than what I normally favor in my Dooming. Also want to finish up WMC 02 so I can move on fully to Auger; Zenith! Also trying to get through Half Moon part 2.

[Walter confetti]

Completed 10 monsters by Joe-Ilya, it's a nice megawad of short, not-so-serious maps (with some maps that goes in jokewad territory like MAP02) that uses only 10 monsters each sets in a various envoirnment of Joe-Ilyaland themes, containing mostly nature-like levels and some diversions like techbase and a small ruin of a city. It's ok and have the best usage for that music in E2M1 from e2music1 i've heard so far. All maps can be completed in 1 minute!

 

Also, played a little of DBK project, is a really good mapset!

 

[Summer Deep]

Just finished DMINATOR.WAD, one of those things you can find on mid-1990s compilations like 1001 Nights Of Doom or DZone Collectors Edition, etc. At first I thought it was just another of those crazy E1M1 variants, but it turned out to be an entire Episode 1. It's got most of the faults typical of that era, and many people on this site would probably hate it (see also these hostile posts on a ZDoom forum thread: https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=19222), but I found it very playable and mostly enjoyable!

 

[joepallai]

Playing Bauul's "The Terraces" for the first time, loving the atmosphere and pacing so far, died by the first Mancubus encounter due to a stupid Lost Soul that just wanted to say hi.   Enjoying the map otherwise and will play this one over the weekend.

[Doom Guncaster K]

Just finished Refracted Reality(RC1) last week and the current project is a walkthrough series of Micro Slaughter Community Project with mod combinations.  

[FranziskaVonCaco]

the most recent thing ive finished is doom eternal: ancient gods part 1 to be honest

[loveless]

have recently played CC1, Arrival, and Ancient Aliens.  right now, i'm playing CC2(about halfway through it).  been nice mixing things up with some older stuff, newer stuff, and of course chill stuff.

[LUISDooM]

I'm halfway Perdition's Gate and it has been great so far. All map's have been really enjoyable, my favorite one until now is MAP 31, the white void section was great.

[Magicana]

I'm continuing my Sunder journey now - I stopped playing around about February last year (Hello Covid) for reasons unrelated to Covid and I've finally started making progress again.

 

I left off on Map 16 and I've now finally overcome it. The map is really a slog, lots of "little" fights that only really chipped away at the monster count.

 

 

That final room was an absolute nightmare to try and get through. In one of the few times that running the game without infinite height might backfire, the bottom area got pretty chaotic with cacos and pain elementals.

 

I finally conquered my fear about the swarm of arch viles hiding around the back at the top section of the final room, and that made everything a whole lot easier.

 

I'm loving map17 so far. Wasn't a big fan of the opening fight, but the rest has been great.

 

 

I'm up to the ssh room now, and I'm trying to work out the best strategy without getting absolutely blitzed by cyber rockets :). Great fun.

[TheGreenZap]

I've been playing Stroggman's Tundra. Very nice maps with some great looking architecture. The snow is really cool as well and adds to the atmosphere. Going to have to remember this one to play again over winter.

[Salt-Man Z]

Spent the past week or so cleaning up some WADs I started waaaaay back in 2016!

 

Alien Vendetta (replay, first time on UV) from MAP26. Dark Dome was a slog (but still an impressive map!) but the rest of the WAD was relatively easy by comparison. I even beat the IoS map legit for the first time ever.

 

Eternal Doom (replay, first time on UV) from MAP22. Beat Jim Flynn's MAP26 (and maybe MAP25?) for the first time ever, and now I plan to never play another Flynn map again ::barf emojii:: On the other hand, it took 2.5 hours, but I managed to clear Excalibur all by myself; the only thing I looked up online after the fact was the single secret I missed, on account of only half-remembering how to get it (I missed that dumb X on the lowest step, geez.) Chris Couleur's massive castles remain the highlight of the WAD, but I had forgotten how gorgeous Excalibur is.

 

No End in Sight (HMP) from E4M6. I hit this map like a wall 5 years ago. Finally was able to gain a foothold early (after a lot of attempts) and it was mostly tough-but-fair the rest of the way--until the exit area, which took literally dozens upon dozens of attempts, at which point I just got to the exit as fast as I could. Only later did I find out there was a secret exit to E4M0, which I later warped to, and turned out to be maybe my favorite level of the episode.

[Crusader No Regret]

Finished up Hellfire Dreams with Touhou weapons and enemies.  It gets more enjoyable after the low point of the map 6 sewers with its darkness and lots of damaging sludge to traverse and not many radsuits to spare.  Map 9 is my favorite from a setting perspective.  Map 10 was more enjoyable with the altered weapons to deal with a two-sided ambush.  The final map had a tense combat with a dammaku cyberdemon in uncomfortably narrow corridors it's not intended for.  Instead of the normal 3 shot pattern to evade, there are several different more erratic attack patterns it can choose from and not getting too hurt took some work.

 

Marathoned episode 3 of Scythe 2 on HMP in one sitting.  Made it all the way to map 15, grabbed the yellow key early, and proceeded to get mulched by the gangbang past the yellow door.  Being able to snag the key early raised my respect for the set as I was expecting the modern trend of not permitting any exploits or shortcuts.  I don't dislike Scythe 2 but I don't revere it the way many others do.

 

Now making my way through Tarnsman's Projectile Hell.  I'll leave most of my commentary to the project forum rather than here unless it feels too asinine to mention there.

[Pixel Fiend]

I don't play through every single map to the end. But in particular I've been enjoying those lately:

 

180 Minutes Pour Vivre (Woof)

Tarnsman's Projectile Hell (Eternity Engine)

 

Also I'm drooling at Quake Remastered. It's such a treat for retro shooter fans. It has a good low resolution filtre so I value it tremendously. One thing that's missing is 4:3 aspect ratio. How can we request such feature?

 

 

Edited August 24, 2021 by game

[Jacek Bourne]

Sunlust, Sunder, Death in Excess, Slaughterfest 2012

[Salt-Man Z]

A little over halfway through Deadwing's Nevasca (HMP/continuous/saves) and though it's a little rougher around the edges, it's perfectly clear that this is the same author who would go on to produce Moonblood and Exomoon, with all the classic Deadwing hallmarks like nonlinear progression and constant pressure from all sides, plus an amazing original soundtrack. The modified baddies make it feel a little like Valiant, with all of the organic projectiles being super-fast, requiring the player to get into a just-slightly-different mindset compared to your typical Doom WAD. Fun stuff.

[Paul977]

Having a really good time replaying Plutonia Revisited. I'm currently on map 08 

[joepallai]

Was feeling nostalgic but wanted a combat heavy map so I replayed Michael Krause's ABIGJOB which was always one of my favorites.   I just love how small and insignificant you feel inside his maps, coupled with the pacing and texturing.   Really outstanding stuff and would love to see him return to Doom editing.

[Jacek Bourne]

Sunlust

[Naarok0fkor]

Doom2...

[joepallai]

Played T_MEDEVL by Travers and Alistar Dunne over the weekend.   It is a fantastic castle level from the earlier days (97) with lots of exploring, secrets and puzzles.   Must have taken six tries but I finally completed it in a single play through with 98% kills.   I can easily see me replaying this level as it is a beautifully made vanilla sandbox with lots of clever bits to admire.   Combat is nice and varied, with the occassional cheap trap to keep you on your toes.  Fun level overall; reminds me of Hellrun, CastEvil, and especially FORTDTH!

[BaileyTW]

Started Plutonia 2 earlier this month and made it all the way to Map 20, Lurking Fear, and my mouse broke down and i thought hell no I can't beat this with keyboard only, so I put it off till I got a working mouse. Got a working mouse and I'm on my way to finish the last 11 maps of Plutonia 2. Damn near the hardest maps I've done so far. Probably gonna play Scythe 2 after this since that also has a 2 in its name, and also because I have just as much nostalgia for Scythe as I do Plutonia since Scythe was my first fan made pwad I played.

[Not into omelettes.]

Been playing alot of Final Doomer, Hellrider, Combined Arms and EOA

[loveless]

since my last post, i've finished CC2, CC3, and Down The Drain.  not sure what i want to play right now, i might take a break for a week or so.

[Salt-Man Z]

Finished Evil Egypt last week, which was fantastic, but what else would you expect from a DBP wad?

 

Tried getting into Shrine, but it just didn't do it for me, though I love the aesthetic.

 

I keep putting off Abysm 2, since I know that will suck me in for a week, just like the first one did.

 

In the meantime, I loaded up Brotherhood of Ruin, which I started a couple of times years ago, but never got very far into the first (or second?) map. It's tough! Lighting is fantastic, as well.

[LadyMistDragon]

Sector 666. Who knows skillsaw once had such a primitive approach to level design? On the other hand, the Doomcute detailing and custom sounds are much appreciated. It's pretty clear even early on that he was quite enamoured with the Central Processing/Suburbs mode of slaughter-lite combat.