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dobu gabu maru

The DWmegawad Club plays: Hadephobia

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Map 10 -- Excavation Site - 99% kills / 100% secrets
Enjoyed the hell out of this one, fine work indeed, A. Gamma. Right off the bat, the "archeological/mining expedition uncovers an ancient evil" theme is one of my personal favorites in DooM, and this pulls it off with style; I like the segue from natural caverns to old manmade areas (e.g. the crypt and the hidden graveyard) to hell-temple/flesh stuff in the site's deepest reaches. The lighting here, though not flashy in any way, is very well-considered. Again, I say 'kudos' to a member of the Hadephobia team for not being afraid to persistently use darkness, and for considering that even the areas designated as relatively 'high visibility' in the map's flow don't need to be as bright as day--I'd say they look about right for torchlight. The music selection was also appropriately moody; unfortunately, I'm unfamiliar with its author. In the realm of aesthetic nitpicks, I don't have much to add about the map itself, but I think the story segment itself could use some work; it's a little awkwardly-worded, and I think in this case it probably does describe too much of the map's progression....not in a "oh no spoilers!!!" way, just in a "why am I reading this?" way. Fortunately, this one tells a story pretty well on its own.

This also has the highest monster count and biggest fights in Hadephobia thus far, and a great deal of the opposition presents itself either via teleport wave or by instantly bursting from the ground. The latter trick often seems to be a little controversial, but I think it's mostly okay as it's handled in this map. It's true that in some cases it can tend to look a bit odd/tacky, but here the monsters often pop out when you likely aren't looking directly at them, and sometimes in ways that make some sort of loose aesthetic sense, or both, as in the case of all the shit that pops from the graves in the hidden graveyard. More important than how it looks, though, as that it generally always makes sense from a gameplay perspective (e.g. that first chaingunner that Dobu mentioned can handily flush you forward into the group of monsters approaching from farther down in the tunnel), unlike that strange group of insta-zombies from map 02. It's not terribly difficult given the generally high availability of health aids (even less so if you can find some secrets), but the ammo balance is pretty well-judged for a map of this size--for a pistol-starter, a lot of it burns away quickly in the first leg of the journey, primarily because you spend a significant period of time armed only with the basic shotgun and chaingun. This adds some pressure to some of what would otherwise be fairly rote early fights (e.g. the three teleport waves at the blue skull), although some will probably resent the number of hell nobles and revenants they'll have to kill with such light armament....for my part, playing that way once in a while feels like a nice change of pace, and there's generally room enough to make this style of combat quite viable. Now, I'll agree with Dobu that the map's best setups are the ones that are entirely optional--namely the hidden graveyard I've mentioned already, the puzzle/secret that turns into a pitfight for the yellow skull, and then the room which the yellow skull unlocks--but I feel that leaving them optional/secret adds a lot of interest/character to the map. It's a joy to come across a secret once in a while that's more than just a weapon or an artifact in a closet or on a distant platform; those that offer interesting sights or hidden bonus battles you wouldn't otherwise see feel like far more of a real reward for the effort of finding them, and sort of underscore the value of making that effort. The icing on the cake here is that the secret areas here are worth the effort in both senses; the hidden areas/fights are neat in and of themselves, and the rewards they leave you with--plasma rifle, rocket launcher, etc.--make a really relevant impact on how the rest of the map plays.

So, yeah, suffice to say, this one really worked for me. It had action, looks, atmosphere, character, the whole shebang. As a last note, there are a couple of technical problems in the current version, though--three of the monsters from the last teleport wave right outside of the exit hole never showed up to the party. From what I could see with IDDT after I'd looked for them, one of them is apparently either deaf and never woke up or else stuck in place, and happens to be blocking the two that were awake from reaching the teleport line. Also, the monsters in the hidden graveyard are partially visible through the floor while they're still underground, although I guess this one might be a port-specific rendering issue.

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Demon of the Well said:
As a last note, there are a couple of technical problems in the current version, though--three of the monsters from the last teleport wave right outside of the exit hole never showed up to the party. From what I could see with IDDT after I'd looked for them, one of them is apparently either deaf and never woke up or else stuck in place, and happens to be blocking the two that were awake from reaching the teleport line. Also, the monsters in the hidden graveyard are partially visible through the floor while they're still underground, although I guess this one might be a port-specific rendering issue.


I'm curious as to what port you were using to be able to see the enemies in the ground and for the monster issue. I just checked Doom Builder and none of the monsters are set to deaf that is in that last teleport wave.

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Played through MAP07 and MAP08 yesterday.

Not too fond of MAP07, actually. Thought it looked kinda weird and not very pretty. I'm one of those who preferred MAP05. I did immensly enjoy the fight(s) in the storage facility down in the crate warehouse. Good arena! And interesting mix of monsters as well. The map placed Arachnotrons in manners they're not usually placed.

MAP08 was short. Bite-sized fighting in dimly lit subterranean station. Doom 3'ish, in a way. Kinda liked it. Good action. Wasn't too fond of being forced upon Toxic, but it didn't really matter. I thought the map had a good flow.

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Larzuk said:
I'm curious as to what port you were using to be able to see the enemies in the ground


I could see the ones beyond the red door; I'm using prboom-plus-2.5.1.3 in Win7/64bit. I didn't notice it anywhere else, but that could just be me being oblivious.

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Map10 – Excavation Site – by A. Gamma – Kills – 92, Items – 90, Secrets – 100. Time Sucks. End Health 100, Armor 0. Death Count – 20

This map is so good it deserves to be studied. The opening cavern is all kinds of awesome. I just loved it. Fantastic organic shaping of the room, great detail with all the ledges and alcoves, great use of darkness and light for those bright areas in the wall. Fantastic stuff. The wood area off the cavern was very tastefully done, although for the most part it had only one light level – 128. However, Risen3D has glow effects, so it looked fantastic wherever torches were encountered. The mortuary was yet another highlight, with well-done crosses, and right down to the thoughtful detail of tiny crosses on the coffin lids. Holy fucking shit! A. Gamma is a name I'm gonna watch.

Allow me to note that with Risen3D, I was not able to see any monsters in their Insta-Lifts.

Which brings me to the gameplay, which wasn’t bad at all, despite an overuse of Insta-Lifts. Lucky for me, I read some accounts before I played, so thank you, dobugabumaru, for letting me know there’d be a Chaingunner behind me right at the start. I was still surprised by the sheer number of pop-up monsters, but without the warning, I surely would have been dusted the first time through. As it was, to my amazement, I survived, not only that crazy pop-up trap, but one after another. I have seen Insta-Lifts before, but never Insta-Lifts that deliver enemies by the platoon! Jesus fucking Christ, man, it was so over-the-top I had to smile. Especially that one guarding the entrance to the blue key area, which pops up 4 Pinkies, 2 Hell Knights and a Baron on one lift. I thought, “C’mon, man, you’re fuckin’ kidding me!” That one had its humorous moment, because when I first opened the door a Chaingunner hit one of the hidden HKs, and because it started moving, when the lift came up the HK was standing on the head of a Pinkie. ;D That trap led to my first death, because, as usual, I backed away from the big boys, and for some stupid reason, I decided to open a door way back near the stairs that I thought led to a room I had already cleared. Instead, there was a load of Sergeants, Chaingunners and Revvies on the other side, but I didn’t see the Revvies at first, so I charged in to kill the hitscanners and got downed by Revvie rockets.

I didn’t get killed again until the third teleport wave at the blue key. I got killed twice there, I think, while finding the right spot to kill everything from. Worth noting is that this is one of several areas where I encountered, for fuck’s sake, Medikits in front of switches! There should be a law against this. I can’t believe I keep finding this error in modern maps. And it IS an error. Stop it, people, stop it! Gaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

If only I had known that after I opened the blue door, a simple run past the Revvie guard would take me to the exit, I could have saved a lot of time. Instead, spooked by the Revvie, and shocked by the ensuing heavy monsters teleporting in, I did a Capellan, leaped off the cliff, and let them fight it out. That led to the time-consuming tedium of shotgunning some Barons and HKs. After discovering that I had an exit up there, and after doing my first run in about 36 minutes, I decided to find the yellow key and see if I could grab the Soulsphere.

I disagree with the other reviewers, and am glad this annoying meatgrinder was left as an optional adventure. There is not one thing I liked about this part. First, the nonsense with going down to the cellar to flip a switch to lower a platform and run back upstairs before it rises is the kind of thing I’ve done and yet hate most about Doom. This is purely personal, I admit. I simply do not like this type of gameplay. And then we find ourselves up on a narrow wall, having to jump to another narrow wall, before jumping to the yellow key. Oh joy, I save a game up there and try and try and try and – gimme a fuckin’ break! It’s like I suddenly woke up in a 1985 sidescrolling Amiga platformer. I shoulda clipped for the key. I shoulda.

I got killed twice in the ensuing trap, and by now was annoyed to the point of ordering a first strike on A.Gamma’s house. And then, of course, the big trap at the Soulsphere, all that heavy meat in a tiny room. As a walking keyboarder of limited skill, there was really no strategy for me to pursue. There was nowhere to go, nothing to grab, so all I could really hope for was luck. Most of my deaths came in this trap, something like 14. Now, I died 14 times in a row – as I like to boast! ;D – at the very opening of Capellan’s MM2 Map15, but I saw ways that I could win, things that I could do, and when I finally prevailed, I felt very good about it. But in this Soulsphere trap, oddly enough, I almost won through on my third try, and all I used was the SSG. I was lucky with the infighting, because the Chaingunners and Revvies teleported in. Sometimes they didn’t. All I needed was to fade one HK, and I wouldn’t have been cornered again. Oh, well.

After my 5th death I figured the Soulsphere wasn’t worth it, but I still wanted to beat the trap. I didn’t have enough Plasma, though, but I remembered reading about a “hidden graveyard,” so I went looking for it, and sure enough, after searching and humping everything in sight, I found it. What an obtuse secret that was! But there’s the Plasma Gun and a Cell Charge Pack. Yay! And a pretty nasty trap, too. Chalk up 2 more deaths by Revvie.

I still had a pretty small amount of Cells for the huge amount of meat I was facing, and try as I might, I wasn’t able to beat that trap. I failed to get the Soulsphere, and since it wasn’t a fun fight to me, I dragged my ass to the exit. So if this adventure had been mandatory, I’d either have spent the time needed to get another lucky break, or I would have quit the map and pistol-started it at a lower difficulty. But because the adventure is optional, it doesn’t lower my appreciation of the map. For those who like that combination of puzzle and raw brutality, have at it and enjoy yourselves. The rest of the map was only medium-hard, just right for me, and I actually left a huge amount of health and a fair number of shell boxes behind. Maybe all that stuff was for speedrunners who like to UV Max at the highest possible pace, and thus go in guns blazing against a horde of enemies. Anyway, finally, I can say that this is a stunning map and a pretty fun play. I liked it a lot.

End map ammo: 381 Bullets, 100 Shells, Zero Rockets and 142 Cells.

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MAP09 - Terminus by purist

I remember making this during my Christmas leave and the extra free time allowed me to make a larger and more complex level than Washed Up within the same week-long period. Do I prefer it though? Hard to say. I suppose I would say it's good parts are better and it's bad parts are worse. I'm pretty satisfied with it overall in any case.

My primary inspiration was an idea I had been waiting to use where a level is built around a central lowering area. If I had more time maybe the red key and blue switch annexes would have been as large as the top level but maybe that's something for me to elaborate on in another map.

The story for this map had been pretty much written for me. At this point we were trying to be more story focused and it had been decided that the invasion had been unwittingly unearthed in a mine. The music is just the regular Doom 2 MAP09 music, which I'd grown accustomed to and I decided it fit the map well.

If I was going to change it I would maybe add more detail to the cavernous areas and add another angle of danger in the final step stone area - although this second revision would be based on the feedback here as I previously thought the difficulty was about fair. My least favourite part of the map is the exit, which is boring and one of the least dynamic seques you'll see in Hadephobia. I should have come up with something more intriguing than a big door.

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MAP10 - Excavation Site by A.Gamma
Right this map has the highest monster count so far by a long way. This is also the best map so far. Puts you under constant pressure but not to the point where you should die too often as there is plenty of health to spare. Whilst the author who obviously know his/her way round using boom actions could have varied how monsters appeared but this is very minor. I like the secret key idea, that's a nice touch. Also using plenty of monsters for secrets but making it feel encompassed in the level which is a nice touch.
Despite the monster count there are no boss monsters or even arch viles which was surprising.
One little flaw was the red key, why you put that in 20% damage lava you evil dude.
Great map otherwise.
Oh some extras, must compliment the look of this map, it's fantastic eye candy with bits and bobs everywhere. Oh and I had to save on the yellow key jump.
Despite my almost willingness to be killed over and over again. Just the one death which was being caught out by the third teleport trap at the blue key. Ok maybe that room was a little overkill.
I would also add that carrying plasma from previous levels did help a lot here.
I would admit this map will be a real pain to pistol start. As only ssg which is heavily guarded is top weapon unless you find the secret plasma gun (same area) or the rocket launcher which is on route to the secret yellow key.

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SteveD said:
the big trap at the Soulsphere, all that heavy meat in a tiny room


Did you not see/use the switch to lower the wooden walls? Or do you mean the room as a whole when you call it 'tiny'? (which seems excessive) Or was that switch on a timer and I just took so long doing part of the process that it popped up straight away for me?

Because I literally grabbed the yellow key, thought "teleport trap inbound" and then saw the switch to lower the walls. Clearing up that room then was a piece of cake.

Actually snagging the yellow key took me about 8 attempts, I think. Maybe 10. But with F9, it wasn't a major issue. I imagine it would be less fun for anyone trying to do the fastest possible UV MAX :)

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MAP10 - Excavation Site by A.Gamma

I remember being staggered by this map when I got the near-to-final draft of this level from A.Gamma. IIRC he sent a rough sketch of the layout, which was very bare and difficult to tell anything about the final product, except that it was big. Then A.Gamma seemed to disappear. It got to the point where I was about to find a replacement author or bump Walter into this slot when he re-appeared with this behemoth of a map.

Yeah, I like this. It's a map that you can almost objectively like - or at least find plenty to hold a healthy respect for. Like Cell's maps the detailing and special affects here belie an author willing to go to painstaking efforts to achieve his aesthetic goals. The graveyard and lift areas being the most obvious examples in this regard.

Gameplay-wise I find the map less accomplished. I think Memfis put it best when he described the gameplay as dense. Swathes of mid-threat, high HP opposition result in fights that can feel like a slog, unless the player intentionally takes risks. Exceptions to this are the first fight with it's pop-up army and the optional secret ambushes, however I didn't particularly enjoy these fights either as it seems as though choreography is substituted for sheer volume. Strangest of all is the final fight which you can avoid entirely if you can run past a revenant in a large room.

Still this is a good level, with great music and a nice illustration of a mining exhibition gone horribly wrong.

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Whoa! lots of kind words, thanks a lot guys!

Map 10 was one of those maps that took way too long to complete; I remember that by the end of the week, I only had a very rough layout of the map (and it was a techbase!). Fortunately purist is a patient man and allowed me to use a lot more time than I was supposed to for my map.

The cave section was actually a lot brighter and a lot less detailed, but my brother pointed out that it looked ugly and did not looked like a natural cavern at all. So I went and took a look at every cavern map I could find (Specially at map 2 from Speed of Doom) and went and threw in as many detail as I could; looking back, it was not the best way to detail, but it worked and looks nice.

Also, the ending was originally farther behind the blue door, since somehow I mixed up my map's story with map 11; so I had planned to do a big fight with a Spider Mastermind, but then I learned of my mistake and just decided to get rid of that area.

Looking back, I can see a lot of mistakes in the map, and while I really enjoyed making it there was a lot of room for improvement (specially in the gameplay).

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ok, lets see how fast i can catch up. I'll be playing on UV but not pistol starting for a change. I won't bother with the story for now, I'll see what kind of narrative sense I can make of it from playing the maps.

MAP01 - Escape From the Asylum by Katamori

A classic start, escaping from a locked cell. Imprisoned no doubt for telling insane stories about monsters invading from another dimension. But the monsters are real.. or perhaps they are they all in my mind? Sorry I'm making up my own story.. Nice starting map with brooding atmosphere and claustrophobic setting.

MAP02 - Storage Basement by Cell

Managed to find a way out of the asylum through the storage basement, looks like I'll be escaping via the sewers. The scenery looks pretty dilapidated, makes me wonder how long i've been in this place and what horrors await me on the outside. I'm really liking how these maps are setting the scene, and of course the music is a great choice. Can't say much about the action, its pretty standard stuff at the moment but its early in the wad and it does the job.

MAP03 - The Stench of Freedom by Melon

More monsters in the sewers, if i'm on earth (and i'm guessing I am) then its not looking good. A nice juicy monster battle in this one, followed by a wonderful glimpse of sunlight at the end of the tunnel. These maps are pretty short, and fairly easy for now, but still it is only map 3.

MAP04 - Washed Up by purist

Looks like the sewer led out to a river that i've followed to a mountainous region. And what's this, a secret mountain base? Perhaps this place holds the key to the mysterious monster invasion. Lucky that asylum i escaped from was nearby. The bigger monsters are starting to come out to play now. Still no fear of death or need for saving yet, but its more about the journey I feel. Its making a nice change to play a wad where each map leads continuously from the last in some kind of logical sequence.


MAP05 - Rumex Crispus by magicsofa

Wow, what the hell is going on in this place? I think its a dock that has been over run by hell, those look like container ships.. And some of them seem to have been requisitioned by the demons to convey their own evil cargo crates. This map is having to work a bit harder to set the scene, and the mischievious music is a bit of a mood breaker, but the fighting is kicked up a notch with open plan ranged harrassment and an entertaining corridor of surprise carnage after the red key, not to mention revenants making an entrance. Seeing some rocket ammo about but havent found a launcher yet. I've stowed away on a vessel of some kind, lets hope it takes me somewhere friendlier than this place.

MAP06 - Hull Revealed by Vaporizer

Inside the bowels of the ship now, and talking of bowels, some nice use of intestinal textures in here, though I think this one could have benefitted from a bit more creative lighting like the first few maps. Some scurrying around the tunnels and a couple of baron smoothies later i'm up on deck, greeted by a swarm of cacos and various other nasties. This map is the first i saved on, mainly because it introduces archviles - those things can be a bit unpredictable. I think that one with the 2 revs must have been the captain. Where will this ship take me? Somewhere with a rocket launcher I hope, I havent found one yet.

According to the ending text I wasn't too far off with my assesment of the storyline, which is a credit to the mappers really. A nice build up of difficulty but no deaths occured so far.

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Larzuk said:

I'm curious as to what port you were using to be able to see the enemies in the ground and for the monster issue. I just checked Doom Builder and none of the monsters are set to deaf that is in that last teleport wave.


The port was Eternity. I'm not sure if it's the absolute latest version, but it's fairly recent, anyway....3.40.30.2251.

Can't tell you much about the semi-visible graveyard monsters...they're definitely there, with or without mouselook enabled. I went back and looked some more, and you're quite right about the monster teleporter at the end, though--that is, none of those monsters are deaf. The reason I initially surmised one of them was is that on my first playthrough, when I used IDDT before exiting, there were three green triangles left in one of the teleport boxes--two were slamming around frantically (probably pinkies) in the northwestern 'quadrant', and the third was stock still in front of the other two, making me suspect it was a deaf manc, or something. Turns out I was wrong...none of them are deaf, but more often than not, one or more of them will get stuck (thereby appearing immobile/inactive when using 2nd level IDDT) where the various conveyors intersect, and either take a really long time to teleport out, or not teleport out at all....the main culprit almost always seems to be a mancubus. I ran 5 quick trials; in one of them, three monsters never left, in two of them, 1 never left, in one, all monsters left but it took some waiting, and in one it all worked in short order.

Given that I was wrong with the deafness thing, could it be something that might work more or less reliably depending on the simulation settings/complevels (floor motion behavior, etc.)?

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Personally, I like the idea of mouldy not reading the story text and just trying to decipher the plot on his own. Entertaining to see how close he is to the actual background.

11 - DESCENT INTO UNDERWORLD
...When you jump in that hole, you feel in a familiar place, like visiting a dream. You have seen this place in your visions at the asylum, but now it is so brutally real.

You feel like you're being called from a some sort of entity, the mastermind maybe. You feel powerless to resist and so you go to investigate. You're suprised how weakly guarded the cavern is but the huge burning rocks and deep pits of molton lava fill you with an ominous dread. One walkway collapses underfoot making you realise you won't get out the way you got in and the only way forward involves leaping accross rocks high above the certain death of the sulphur lake beneath. In the centre is a marble fortress, which crumbles to nothing revealing the Spider Mastermind before you. The creature teleports between rocks and attacks you from all angles but eventually you take it down. It's still alive but slipping fast. You decide to leave it in it's misery to die alone. The voices in your head are as strong as ever before but pathetically maudlin now.

Strange triggers raise more rocks up out of the lava to allow you accross the other side of the lake where you find a portal in the form of a wailing wall of trapped souls. They beg you to leave and all your insticts agree but there's no where else to go. With some trepidation you charge through the portal trying not to think too hard about what's on the other side...

MAP11: After a lengthy journey we’re given a boss map by walter with a surprisingly barren landscape… I guess all of hell’s inhabitants had moved into the mining cavern above. I don’t know about other players but I always like hopping between platforms (as long as I can see them below me), and the large lava hall walter presents is kind to the eye (the blinking didn’t irritate me).

The boss centerpiece is a mixed bag. One one hand, the concept is interesting, to have it warping about and assaulting the player from many fronts, but unlike the cyberdemon, this tactic is too cruel given the mastermind’s wide hitscanner nature. I came in with 194% health and left with 29% barely able to survive the onslaught. The fight, oddly, doesn’t end there as there are six more absolutely harmless enemies to subdue, ending on lost souls (walter’s favorite enemy to end a map on perhaps). I really, really wish there was some medikits at the end of this map to patch up my wounds, but what’s done is done.

Overall an alright level.

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Capellan said:

Did you not see/use the switch to lower the wooden walls? Or do you mean the room as a whole when you call it 'tiny'? (which seems excessive) Or was that switch on a timer and I just took so long doing part of the process that it popped up straight away for me?


You mean the yellow key trap. I did fine at that one. In fact, the first two times I jumped for the yellow key, I landed on top of that switch, but I didn't know what it was. It was in the process of dying the second time that I realized, "Hey, that's a switch. I bet that could get me outta here!" :D After that, as you said, the fight was easy.

No, it was the fight in the Soulsphere room that got me. There is a switch in there. I was looking at a book panel that was suspiciously short, and thought, "That looks like somethin'," walked towards it, and was slimed to death. :D The room may not be technically tiny, like 600x600, but when you fill it with 18 Pinkies, 2 Cacos, 4 Revvies (you had Chaingunners instead), 4 Hell Knights and 2 Barons (you missed out on the Barons, too), it gets a bit congested. :D

I must have seen the gargoyle switch behind that book panel. Walking across the line that triggers the trap also moves the panel, but I think my attention was diverted by the sudden flood of monsters. Attacking the player from every direction can induce panic, and knowing my skills were not up to the task left me very panicked indeed. A. Gamma got the best of me here, that's for sure. He got me panicked to the point of being mindless. ;D However, after studying the map, I want to try that battle again. If I can survive long enough to hit that switch and open the escape route, the battle will become a tedious SSG-fest against high-HP monsters. Not my favorite thing, really, I'm more into the E1-style hitscanner game. And after 2002:ADO last month, I think I've seen enough Barons to last me a lifetime. Maybe three lifetimes. ;D

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SteveD said:
No, it was the fight in the Soulsphere room that got me.


Ah, OK. That one took me three attempts (on HMP). But once I dragged the monsters into a clump, it was easy to kite them.


Map11
I've yet to meet a walter c map I'd want to play again, and this doesn't change that record. I did liked the emptiness of the early play, as it built tension ... which was then defused in humdrum fashion by a few clumps of imps that offer neither threat nor excitement.

The spider mastermind fight is very little fun, mostly just holding down fire on the plasma and hoping it doesn't teleport before the shots reach it. Well, that and hoping it doesn't get too firm a bead on you. I did OK on the second attempt, finishing with a hair over 100 health.

After that, there's some really really tedious backtracking to open up the route forward, followed by more harmless enemies that just soak up some ammo and offer no danger at all.

And then there's an unmarked exit. Yay!

Looks-wise, it's actually pretty nice. Certainly the best level I've seen from walter c, visually speaking. Boring to play, though.

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Map 11 -- Descent Into Underworld - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
A short, simple boss map with a long lead-in. This makes for a nice pairing with map 10 thematically, though I imagine the big fight's very simple if you come in with a bunch of plasma. It has an unusual sort of feel to it--the combination of vast spaces with a pronounced lack of real opposition reminds me of grandiose old Hell maps of the sort that one used to be able to find buried in the depths of shovelware CDs, though of course the standard of construction is higher. I remember those old maps more for the way they stimulated the imagination rather than for how they actually played, and this one is much the same, though it has a serious attempt at a real boss fight. After a trek through an expansive infernal cavern (murderizing a few hapless imps along the way), the player comes to the boss chamber and only real fight in the map: a spiderdemon that teleports between a number of large redrock pillars jutting from a lake of lava. As aforesaid, if you come into the map with a load of cells (and a plasma rifle), this is probably over before it even really begins. From a pistol-start, things are a little more complicated, as the main weapon you are given to fight the mastermind with is the rocket launcher--probably the heavy weapon least suited for the task at hand, as the demon will tend to teleport away from the rockets, while its hitscan attacks suffer no distance-based handicap other than decreased accuracy. You'll also have a plasma rifle and 100 cells or so, and a chaingun and some bullets, but these are not nearly enough to slay the beast, so you'll have to score some rocket hits, or soak up bullets while you plow through the key sequence, which will afford a bit more cell ammo. Of course, if you stop and strategize for a minute, it's really not that hard--the key is to stick to the middle island in the outer ring, which has a large rock column for cover, and is at max range from two of the spider's teleportation points. Wait patiently for it to open fire on you from one of these faraway vantages, and then let fly with the rockets while it's holding still. Because it's so far away, most of its attacks will miss, but yours won't, because it'll be too busy firing to teleport away. After pumping a few rockets into its smug wrinkly mug in this fashion, you can quickly finish it with the plasma rifle next time it teleports in close. It's not a bad fight, though it tends to end quickly, regardless of the victor. It is nice to see someone try to come up with a creative mastermind battle, since the cyberdemon tends to get the majority of the limelight (no doubt because he requires much less environmental accommodation). The piddly number of cacos and souls that attack near the end are pointless and anticlimactic....I'd have left them out, honestly.

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Map10 Redux – Kills – 100, Items – 100, Secrets – 100. Time Sucks. End Health 200, Armor 0. Death Count – 23

Allow me to thank Adam for pointing out that there was an option I failed to use. Now, having fought the terrifying Soulsphere trap again, all I can say is, what a dumbass I was! Holy fucking shit, all I had to do was run for that switch, press it, and haul ass outta there. First time I died because I got mobbed as I backed up. Second time I died because the damned wall rose back up again as I ran towards it. Third time I got through and that was the beginning of the for all those monsters, although I did die a 3rd time by Revvie rocket. After that, I wised up and hauled out the PG every time I saw one of those bony bastards, and once they were gone, the Barons and HKs fell to the SSG. I then brought my health to 100, grabbed the Soulsphere and some ammo, and left the level a second time.

End map ammo: 400 Bullets, 100 Shells, Zero Rockets, Zero Plasma.

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Map11 – Descent Into Underworld – by walter confalonieri – Kills – 100, Items – 0, Secrets – 0. Time 13:34. End Health 128, Armor 0. Death Count – 1

I’m glad I played the previous map’s Soulsphere trap a second time, because the SS came in very handy.

I liked this map. As Demon said, the cyclopean architecture is reminiscent of an earlier era, but much better executed. It looked really cool. I have no idea how walter maintained the discipline to not put hordes of monsters on all the ledges and overlooks. I could never resist such a temptation, therefore I could never make a map like this. For shits ‘n giggles, I dropped to the floor at Sector 6, and lo and behold, there’s tunnels down there – with nothing in them! No monsters, no power-ups, nothing. How peculiar. Maybe it’s for deathmatch?

After killing some Imps, you get to the main fight. The strategy I used was different from Demon’s. I stayed on the second platform, which has a narrow column for cover. I was able to beat the Spider on the first try, but ended up at 2% health. What I did was time the Spider’s teleports. Once she was at the edge of her lair, I’d start shooting at the first platform, and she’d teleport into my fire. Of course, it took awhile before I figured this out, and I wasted a lot of ammo at first. But over time, it seemed that shooting rockets first, then bullets or plasma, would weaken her enough to finish her off with the SSG. The final kill was kinda cool, because she died as she teleported, so her collapsing body arrived at the destination.

My method was time-consuming, because I could only fire a short burst, then I’d have to back partway around the column, and then move forward again because she’d teleport behind me. That’s how I took most of my damage the first time, through bullets in the back. I also took a lot of damage from getting greedy, trying to pump a little more into her than I should, sticking around a half-second too long. I’m sure I could have finished at 150 – 175 health if I’d been more patient.

My only death came by Caco. Once I finished off the Spider, I went to the wide platforms above and went all over searching for goodies. There were none. One of the Cacos guarding the exit wandered in and got caught in the Spider’s teleports, so it went round and round, shooting at me, but I sorta forgot about it. As a result, when I encountered the other two Cacos near the exit, I backed up, shooting at them, and got blindsided by the first Caco.

I really enjoyed this map. From the windows looking in at the giant bloodfalls to the innovative Spider fight, this map was a breath of fresh air. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Thumbs up.

End map ammo: 268 Bullets, 64 Shells, 13 Rockets and 100 Cells.

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MAP11 - Descent into Underworld by walter confalonieri
Well this map has a nice hellish construct of lava and red rock amongst little extra bits of marble and flesh. all but 1 of the monsters are pointless really in this map. Only the spider mastermind should have been used. The other fights are just filler that could have been removed to improve the atmosphere of the map.
Music err.... I don't know to be honest. Walter C likes this track (used it in his was for pc_cp.wad)
Now for the meat and potatoes, the boss fight, a teleporting mastermind of horrors but oh no! I've stood on your first spawn point rendering you stuck in now looks to be a marble coffin. Despatched very easily for me. For this to work well you need to make the reveal later so I can't just run to the first platform I was on which is obviously where she is going to teleport. Another thing would be to make the mastermind face the player when she is revealed to stop things like this happening. Or maybe I should save 100 cells from the previous map knowing it will be enough to kick her ass..... who knows.

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Map 10 - Excavation Site

Whew, played through the WAD to this point to catch up today. Visually, this was definitely my favorite map so far. Big caverns were very cool, loved the red carpets and streams of blood in the castle portions, and I thought the cavern lighting was the perfect level of darkness. Really liked the detail in that underground crypt as well.

I did see a couple of visual hiccups -- saw the same "enemies through the floor" thing that someone mentioned earlier. Also, I saw HOM on the wall containing the elevator switch that leads up to the room with the red switch to lower the red gate. I'm playing with ZDoom 2.5.0, if that's useful.

I really enjoyed the triple teleport trap (the dreaaded TTT) in the blue key room. I'm not doing the most thorough playthrough, and didn't find the yellow key, so once I realized where the end of the level was I went back to check it out with some IDKFA action. That Soulsphere room is definitely one of the more devious traps I've seen in this WAD.

Being a perfectionist has its perks, but sprinting by the Revenant in the exit room and yelling, "Fuck you, too!" over my shoulder as I dove into the pit while the final wave of monsters teleported in was pretty rewarding. I'm not going to fuck around with those guys...I've got hadephobia, after all.

Overall, great map, oozing with atmosphere, that I'm sure will be considered one of the highlights of this WAD.

And as a general note, I love that the levels in Hadephobia are continuous. I feel like I've come so far since the ol' asylum. Good job mappers, I'm really enjoying this.

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thanks for all the feedback guys... glad you liked it steveD!

Anyway when i did this map i had in mind to build a boss arena similar to the final stages of Doom, where there's not that huge ammount of monsters but its more focused on a unique level design.... but as i reading from your impressions i'd had to put much more harder monsters than imps and other weak enemies....

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walter confalonieri said:

thanks for all the feedback guys... glad you liked it steveD!

Anyway when i did this map i had in mind to build a boss arena similar to the final stages of Doom, where there's not that huge ammount of monsters but its more focused on a unique level design.... but as i reading from your impressions i'd had to put much more harder monsters than imps and other weak enemies....

I would say for the area with imps, just remove the imps, no need for monsters to be honest. Have the level vacant and silent until the mastermind appears. It would spice up the tension the map gives.

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I would say the level either needs a lot more or tougher monsters, to make the other encounters feel worthwhile, or it should have none at all. The dribs and drabs it currently has actively detract from the experience.

I'd also rejig the mastermind fight, though. Make it only teleport to platforms you (at least initially) can't reach, to stop the teleport blocking strategy, for instance.

It has to be said, the mastermind's not easy to make work well as an encounter. It tends to either be very easy to kill, or to smear you with pinpoint chaingun attacks in seconds.

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purist said:
The spectre is there to block shots from hitting the switch until the revenants are dead. It's not as fun fighting the revs after the lift has lowered so the spectre reduces the likelihood of that happening.


Ah, makes sense. Just looked weird at first.

MAP10 - EXCAVATION SITE

I wrote down my own thoughts, then read the other reviews before posting... and I'm not sure why I bother, since dobugabumaru pretty much said exactly what I would say!

Aesthetics-wise, it's a very nice looking level, loved the caverns, and also loved little touches like having the blood dripping into the grates. I'm probably not selling it enough here... it's a VERY nice looking level, and while some of the others in this set are good looking, this is the first to make me sit up and say "this is what a beautiful 2013 Doom level looks like!"

Gameplay wise, though... screw monsters teleporting/rising out of nowhere. The chaingunner at the start is really just a warning as to how the rest of the level will be. The graveyard room was a particularly egregious example I think, especially since the room isn't really worth going into in the first place (there's some ammo and some medkits, but the rest of the level is flush with these anyways - yes, there's a plasma gun secret in there too, but that's protected by it's own teleporting monster trap).

And yes, BOO NO EXIT SIGN. I opened the blue door, saw a bunch of monsters teleport in behind me, and ran into the pit expecting to drop down... end of level screen, what? I hadn't found the yellow key yet and was still 100 monsters short of finishing, so I was, again, surprised. A pox on your exit-signless houses!

I think this level also really needed some more rocket ammo. There's a metric shitload of shells and bullets, but slowly chipping away at huge groups of demons/hell knights/barons with the SSG gets boring after awhile. Give me some rockets!

Bug-wise, I also got the HOM in the elevator (though it only appears from certain angles, usually while standing on the very edges or outside of the elevator), and was able to see the revenants in their pits behind the red door. (Using ZDoom)

I usually don't give number ratings, but I could say that this would've been a 5/5 for me had there not been the bugs and the reams of teleporting/appearing monsters. 4/5 as it is.

SteveD said:
First, the nonsense with going down to the cellar to flip a switch to lower a platform and run back upstairs before it rises is the kind of thing I’ve done and yet hate most about Doom.


I'm pretty sure you don't need to go downstairs, just running from the elevator into the hallway leading to the yellow key was enough to get the platform to lower.

MAP11 - DESCENT INTO UNDERWORLD

A big, mostly empty map, leading up to an interesting boss fight. I think this is a good example of how to use empty spaces as a tension-creator, though I would say there was perhaps a bit too much emptiness after the actual Spider Mastermind fight (especially constantly walking back and forth to get the keys). The imps at the start were fine (helps create a sense of scale), but the cacos and lost souls just seem silly.

The boss fight itself I liked a lot, having the Mastermind teleport around is interesting, and I think its hitscanner nature actually makes the fight fairly challenging (whereas a constantly teleporting Cyberdemon is actually pretty easy to fight, especially in a room that size). That said, I also came in around 200/200 and left at around 30/30 - there really should've been a Megasphere at the end of this level, I think (or at very least, some medkits).

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Map 11 -- Descent Into Underworld

This turned out to be something of a collaboration between walter confalonieri and I, in a similar vein to how Hull Revealed was with Vaporizer. The original design had a much larger fortress housing the Mastermind in the map's core and it was a far more straightforward encounter (although hilariously I remember you could snare the Mastermind on thin raising platforms and harmfully waste her as she squirmed seemingly impaled on a pole). I thought it was too anticlimactic so a made I huge lava pool, dotted it with step stones and set up the teleportation sequence that has been maligned in part here. Walter at least liked it though so it became the definitive version.

Honestly, I still think it was a good idea. Yes, it's a gimmick and the execution isn't perfect but it's a novel way to make a one on one showdown with a Spiderdemon into a contest. Everything else was made by walter who took his fair share of design risks such as the inescapable lava pits (inexcusable in some people's estimations but in this map I think they are justified as they make the jumps suitably perilous. Plus there's no real pressure on you to force you into mistakes) and the meagre population (I'm not so sure on the caco's but the imps remind me of the trivial demon/spectre fights in E1M8 in a good way).

There is a good atmosphere about this one and I think it adds a shade of character to Hadephobia. The episodic structure here is split by story texts instead of skies so this rounds of Episode 2 and settles the second act of the story well.

EDIT: a few people have mentioned it is too quiet backtracking for keys/switches in this map. I thought more people would do that during the Mastermind fight for some reason. I suppose I should have anticipated that some people wouldn't and added something else to deal with but I thought adding more monsters would diminish it's "boss map" feel.

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Magnusblitz said:

I'm pretty sure you don't need to go downstairs, just running from the elevator into the hallway leading to the yellow key was enough to get the platform to lower.


You're right! Sheesh, this is what I get for playing in a semi-comatose state at 3 AM. ;D

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purist said:
EDIT: a few people have mentioned it is too quiet backtracking for keys/switches in this map. I thought more people would do that during the Mastermind fight for some reason.


If that bot-aiming ass is around, I kill it dead before I worry about extraneous keys and switches. I'd expect that to be the most common response, myself.

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When I was playing map11 for the first time I thought that you are not supposed to kill the spider at all (IIRC it is even written in the txt) so I was just running back-and-forth collecting the keys and pressing switches. I think it's more fun to play the map this way.

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purist said:A few people have mentioned it is too quiet backtracking for keys/switches in this map. I thought more people would do that during the Mastermind fight for some reason. I suppose I should have anticipated that some people wouldn't and added something else to deal with but I thought adding more monsters would diminish it's "boss map" feel.


Perhaps you could have one of the teleport lines teleport the Spider out of the map temporarily, and only teleport back in once the yellow key is flipped, etc.

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Memfis said:

When I was playing map11 for the first time I thought that you are not supposed to kill the spider at all (IIRC it is even written in the txt) so I was just running back-and-forth collecting the keys and pressing switches. I think it's more fun to play the map this way.


Not an option for those attempting UV max speedruns though.
You can tell I'm a newb speedrunner, as I'm still annoyed by that level 2 days after doing the run.

MAP11 is very good visually, and I suppose the Mastermind teleporting about is kinda cool, but after you've died about 200 times in the level, it starts to wear thin :P

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