The DWmegawad Club plays: Stardate 20X6 & Monochrome Mapping Project

[dobu gabu maru]

What is the DWmegawad Club?
This is a place where we settle down, have a cup of tea (or drink of your choice) and take a month to play through a megawad on our own, together! Any keen observations, criticisms, or frustrated ranting about it goes here in the discussion. As long as you want to say something about what you've played, feel free to speak your mind.

Can I join?
Sure. The only rule is that you have to play at least some of the levels in our monthly megawad to contribute, but you're generally encouraged to finish the whole thing, even if you've played it before.

What levels am I allowed to post about?
We're starting off with Stardate for the first 7 days, and then moving on to the Monochrome mapping on the 8th.

Do I have to post an entry every day?
Nope, not at all. This is only for our more enthusiastic members. As long as you play through it with us you’re part of the club.

----------

The megawad we are playing through is Stardate 20X6

>>>DOWNLOAD STARDATE 20X6 BETA_R3 HERE<<<

>>>DOWNLOAD MONOCHROME MAPPING PROJECT HERE<<<

This month we have a double dose of lunacy with Stardate 20X6, a purple themed boom-compatible 8-map wad and the Monochrome Mapping Project, a white/gray/black/brown themed 23-map megawad, both being released on idgames this month. The former is a difficult gameplay-focused mapset by Ribbiks, taking cues from slaughtermaps but staying relatively light in use of horde numbers (remember, HMP is fully implemented for the less resilient of us). The latter is an effort by the community to play around with lighting, atmosphere and gameplay with a minimalistic approach towards texture use, which hopefully yields some really interesting results.

Maplist for Stardate:

Quote

MAP01 - Amethyst II
MAP02 - Mud Bunny
MAP03 - Foxhole
MAP04 - Tanagra
MAP05 - Sector 8
MAP06 - Vehelits
MAP07 - Magnus
MAP31 - Hyperspace (bonus map)

Author and Maplist for Monochrome:

Quote

MAP01 - Dada by Scientist
MAP02 - The Temple Of Light by sawd
MAP03 - Support Storage by Jaws In Space
MAP04 - Abusive by FractalXX
MAP05 - The Primitive by Da Werecat
MAP06 - Control Centre by Jaws In Space
MAP07 - Brown Room by Jaws In Space
MAP08 - Tessel Dose by FractalXX
MAP09 - Coagulation by Membrain
MAP10 - Mono Asbest by FractalXX
MAP11 - Outpost Gamma by Jaws In Space
MAP12 - Abstraction Complex by Membrain
MAP13 - Tan Temple by Scypek2
MAP14 - Shortwave by Membrain
MAP15 - WhiteRoom by schwerpunk
MAP16 - Town Hall by Jaws In Space
MAP17 - ZdLightCrap by gggmork
MAP18 - Monochromatic Nightmare by Phendrena
MAP19 - Up Town by Jaws In Space
MAP20 - Monochromatic Affinity by Cacowad
MAP21 - PaintTheTownRed by Death Egg
MAP22 - Ultramarine Kingdom by CorSair
MAP23 - Good & Evil by Obsidian

BONUS CONTENT
Where's All the Data?'s playthrough: Stardate 20X6 1 2a 2b
Monochrome 1 2
Suitepee's playthrough of Monochrome Mapping Project
----------
OLD THREADS
BF_THUD!
Community Chest 4
Jenesis
MAYhem 2012
Memento Mori
Interception
2002: A Doom Odyssey
Hadephobia
Coffee Break & Fava Beans & Double Impact
HYMN
Stardate 20X6 & Monochrome Mapping Project
Realm of Chaos
Back to Saturn X E1 & Favillesco E1
Kama Sutra
Unholy Realms & Zone 300
Vile Flesh
Ultimate Doom
Whitemare & Sacrament
Scythe
Epic 2
Whitemare 2

Edited May 9, 2023 by dobu gabu maru

[Ribbiks]

yo dobu, had some last minute bug-fixes, could ya update link?

Download [Beta_R3]

[Suitepee]

Oh boy, looks like I'm going to be involved in this thread for sure! I'll be mainly waiting for the Monochrome Mapping Project to come out though to contribute for this one, since I'll be LP'ing it for my channel. (I'll do it similarly to my Coffee Break run; post link of the LP videos alongside a lengthy text description per level)
I might decide to do a livestream of Stardate at some point in the next few days, but no promises.

[purist]

Stardate 20X6

So what does the title mean? That's the first thing I think during the couple of seconds it takes to download the WAD. Do people who put an arrangement of numbers in their titles put any thought into them?

I'm going to play this one continuously in HMP with strategically placed saves to mitigate the amount of my ass this wad will no doubt attend to hand to me. I remember Ribbiks' maps from last year's MAYhem so I'm expecting a rocky but well crafted road.

MAP01 - Amethyst II

Rocky road indeed. Ribbiks pulls no punches in terms of monster usage making none of the usual MAP01 concessions. For an episode length map set this is fine by me and the player is suitably tooled up for the occasion. All ballistic weapons up to and including the PR are included (I guess, I never found a PR but there were cells).

The monsters are used very well in all encounters. I can't say there was a fight that was either unenjoyable or ineffectual with the exception perhaps of the imp square, which the layout encourages you to cheese the majority of from the doorway. The pick of the fights was the final one. It was great encouraging the revs and Cyb to work on each other and though I died here a few times I managed to clear it in the end with a good amount of health for the equally cool arachnatron/caco showdown.

Rocky road indeed. Amethyst II looks great. The jury's still out on the purple theme and Ribbiks has a penchant for bumpy floors (didn't bother me too much but I know it's not a popular design choice) but the abstract architecture and detail are both good to look and accommodating for the fights.

The layout is quite simple but works well. I like that a fight takes place on either side of the divide.

A great map to start off with. I'm a little worried where the difficulty curve might take me but outside of this I'm really looking forward to the rest of the episode.

[Steve D]

@purist

As to the difficulty curve, I've done my preliminary monster count checks. First, it looks like difficulty settings haven't been fully implemented, as there's occasionally little or no difference between HMP and HNTR. For example, on Map07, there's 1,079 monsters on HNTR, and 1,081 on HMP. Then again, there's 1,493 on UV. ;D

The monster counts are not enormous on the first 5 maps, though, but most of the enemies have high-HP. Lots of Revvies and Hell Knights, very few Sergeants.

Given that, I'm debating whether to try this on HNTR or ITYTD, because double ammo might be nice given the monster mix.

[Ribbiks]

as mentioned in textfiles/whatever, there are pretty much 3 levels: UV,HMP,ITYTD. the easiest is nearly identical to HMP but ofc with doubleammo/halfdamage, and the occasional troublesome monster removed. The idea of completely gutting monsters out of traps on HNTR and destroying any semblance of strategy the rooms once required brought me physical pain. So yeah I'd recommend ITYTD :)

also purist the numbers in the title are a homestar runner reference. Twenty exty-six!

[Steve D]

Ribbiks said:

The idea of completely gutting monsters out of traps on HNTR and destroying any semblance of strategy the rooms once required brought me physical pain.

I completely understand. ;)

[schwerpunk]

Wahey! We'll definitely be watching this thread closely when the MMP is released (any day now!). The feedback we receive here will no doubt have a great impact on how we undertake the second monochrome project.

[cannonball]

MAP01 - Amethyst II
Nice starter map here. It feels like the map is struggling to decide whether it is a slaughtermap or a much more standard map. Most of the encounters here are things you will find in most pwads, nicely monster placement and neat traps involving small numbers of monsters.
The map does end with some bigger hordes which is signs of things to come.
I died stupidly a few times and noticed that for large portions of the map I was on low health. The first death being a mancubus early on. Thanks RNG, only you can kill me from one shotgun blast and one fireball :P
The final room is nice as it give you the option to play safe and do things one step at a time which makes the fights very easy or do in one go which is harder but much quicker.
Looks wise it's very nice and I think we will need to get used to the textures used in this map as they are pretty much the staple diet of this wad.
Also the music brought me a smile to my face, the last time I heard that midi was playing marswar many aeons ago :)

[Capellan]

HMP, continnuous, frequent save/load, no music.

map01
Based on map01, I doubt I'll finish this map set. Let's get that out of the way right up front. It's pitched above my skill/patience level. The latter part (patience) would still be true on ITYTD, so I figured I might as well see how far I get on HMP.

I liked the looks and architecture of this map, and while the purple seems like it's just a gimmick for gimmick's sake, it's been implemented pretty well.

Gameplay ... well, it's lots of monster closets and teleport traps, mainly. The storm of imp fireballs was a neat way to restore some respect for the little brown beasties, though.

I did the 'run around and ignore the monster's thing in the end area, and successfully exited with 75 health/25 armor.

[Steve D]

Stardate 20X6, playing on ITYTD, frequent saves, using Risen3D in Basic Doom mode.

Map01 – Kills – 98, Items – 50, Secret – 0. Time 35:39. End Health 100, Armor 0. Death Count - 2

I’m popping my slaughter cherry here, and decided to do it in the easiest way possible. I wanted to make sure I’d never be ammo-starved against the large number of heavies on Map01 even on Easy.

Anyway, I had fun. Lots of Doomers seem to hate hitscanners, possibly because you can’t dodge their attacks, and possibly because some people feel diminished being killed by mere zombie boys. Slaughter maps often seem to provide a solution for the hitscan haters. Aside from a few Chaingunners, it was all fireballs and rockets in this map.

One thing you notice right away is the purple. Purple happens to be my favorite color. Indeed, a 1970 Dodge Challenger convertible in Plum Crazy Purple with white interior is my idea of a Dream Car. And give me a 440 Six-Pack with that. But I’m not so much in love with purple in a Woodmet-themed map. The other thing that hit me right away is how much I hated the music track. I was too lazy to go to idmus, though. ;D

The map was good-looking, but IMO the Woodmet theme was overdone. It was Woodmet inside and out, Woodmet in every direction, Woodmet as far as the eye can see. I would have welcomed fully Metal corridors, some bricks, some Gstone accents, almost anything to relieve the sameness of it all. Worth noting, though, is the purple glass block floor in the RL room. That looked pretty fuckin’ cool.

The gameplay was very enjoyable. Even on ITYTD, this was like a tougher-than-usual Doom 2 map on UV. As Capellan said, there were lots of monster closets and teleport traps, but there were plenty of on-site enemies as well. I was able to induce infighting on several occasions to shave down the enemies focused on me, not that I had to worry about ammo, but it’s instinct at this point. ;D

The big room full of Insta-Lift Imps was fun as hell. Lotsa good rocket practice as I jumped out, popped off a few rounds, and ran back into the corridor. Even when there was like 20 Imps left, the rocketing had damaged them enough that I was able to go out and use the single shotgun on them. One especially satisfying shot achieved a triple-kill with a single shotgun blast. Now that’s fun!

I was never in serious danger until the final fight. It was startling, to say the least, to see a Cyb and a full platoon of Revvies appear from an Insta-Lift. The strategy was immediately apparent, so I switched to the RL, popped off a shot, and circle-strafed to induce the infighting. I then hit the switch that unleashed the Caco swarm and kept circling. It was amazing how well that worked. I was hardly ever hit until the Cyb had killed everything. I had to fight this battle 3 times owing to mistakes I made in fighting the Cyb, including the classic fuck-up of doing a cutback. “Got ya that time, laddie!,” said the Cyb as we celebrated my stupidity. The third time I decided to do some controlled circle-strafing, and fired only 3 rockets at a time, since that helps me maintain directional control. “Got ya that time, jagoff!,” I said to the Cyb, because I’m mentally disturbed, and thus the kind of person to hold conversations – albeit brief ones – with Cyberdemons.

Only after Herr Cyb was dead did I find the stairway out of there. I might have noticed it earlier, since I’d hit the switch, but once again the sameyness of the Woodmet made it virtually invisible. But I did appreciate the diabolical design of it, because anyone who tries to escape the fight might make it, or they might get a rocket in the back while they wait for the damned lift to finally come down. This is the kind of “Fuck you, player!” cruelty that I find entirely admirable in a Doom mapper. A tip of the hat, Ribbiks.

So in the end, I liked it. God knows what insane cruelties await me as the difficulty curve ramps up, but I was definitely entertained by this map. We’ll see how long I last in the mapset, because, like Capellan, I have limits on my patience. I might be wrong, but slaughter maps, I guess, are geared to the kind of players who like to do speedrunning, which entails playing a map over and over to find the best route, and dying and dying and dying until it’s demo time. Such players are a major and important part of the Doom community, but I am not one of those players. I rarely replay a map once I’ve beaten it, and if a map is too tough I’ll rage-quit, or more accurately, frustration-quit. Fun for others but not for me. That said, my intro to the slaughter style – the first such map I’ve actually played – was fun. I know it wasn’t really slaughter. The slaughters will come later, but the style and approach seem consistent with what I’ve seen.

My big gripe – aside from the unending acres of Woodmet – is that the secrets were maybe a bit too weirdly difficult, for example putting a switch behind the switch in the Chaingunner room at Sector 673, when there’s not enough room for a player to get back there, isn’t so cool, IMO, though I can see how others would like it, and say that the fact that this is a freestanding switch when all the others are embedded in walls, is clue enough. But I didn’t dig it, is all I can say.

And that’s about it. All in all, a very successful map.

[Demon of the Well]

Alright, let's get started. Playing in Eternity on UV, pistol-starts, no infinite-tallness, etc. etc. etc.

Map 01 -- Amethyst II - 102% Kills / 100% Secrets
Well, let's get one thing out of the way up front: the overall aesthetic I'm seeing here is working for me. In architectural terms it's fairly simple, but also has a stylized sort of flavor to it. There's a lot of orthogonality, and while I was ready to say there was a lot of symmetry, upon looking at the automap I see this isn't really true--action areas are essentially boxes of varying sizes, but the placement of other features within them is a bit off-kilter (in a calculated sort of way), ala that very useful support column on the open-air deck where the last fight takes place. Even the 'natural' terrain has a markedly regular/synthetic quality to it, even by the standards of depictions of such things in DooM. In some WADs I've seen this kind of style makes things look cheap and slapped-together, but coupled with the whimsical color scheme and overall 'space' feeling I think it works here. And it really is color and shading that makes it all work--the fluorescent purple against the deep ruddy browns is an energizing contrast, and the generally simple but tastefully subdued aspect to a lot of the light levels accents things nicely in contrast with the simple black, starry sky (I would say the brightest areas are generally the least pleasing to look at). The BGM has been well-chosen, as well.

As far as the action goes, I reckon I went into this one a bit 'overtuned', if you will--not quite sure what to expect, I was treating the map as though it were a lot tougher and more unforgiving with health/ammo than it actually is, being extremely frugal by dint of extensive use of infighting, punching skeletons/nobles to death after I found the secret berserk pack, etc. None of this was actually terribly necessary, this being the first map and all; there are a goodly number of stimpacks and such sitting around in corners for you if you need them, and a very forgiving supply of shells/rockets, assuming you don't squander a bunch of them on every encounter you come to. I was a bit low on shells after killing the first cyberdemon, as I didn't find the plasma rifle secret until I'd essentially finished the map and was poking around, but the pile in the red key area got me stocked back up for the final fight. Though unnecessary, the infighting approach does work very well here. For example, the last fight works out pretty smoothly if you spring both parts of it while the second cyber is still alive, and let him do most of the work.

Speaking of secrets, they have a very heavy 'hidden button' theme to them, to the point where it becomes pretty easy to spot most of the rest after you've seen one....will have to keep an eye out on later maps and see if the trend continues. Fights have a similarly consistent theme: closets and teleporter attacks used to orchestrate very specific encounters. It does strike me that the amount of incidental combat/monster roam in this map is almost totally nil, with just a few set monsters in the wooden corridors and some basic sniping opposition in the main yard; this is fine in a fairly brief map like this, but hopefully things do get a little less micromanaged in later, larger maps. That said, most of the set-piece fights are simple but solidly entertaining, the highlight being the silly imp gallery to decimate with some high explosives, followed by the teleportation arrivals into the main yard when you go for the switch on their upper ledge moments later--a fine opportunity to get a cyber-turret to do a lot of dirty work for you. One small suggestion I would have would be to make it so that the cacodemons that beam in are able to float up over the wall into the actual red key yard to harass the player if s/he is dawdling around in there; as it stands they sort of hover impotently around the perimeter and are quickly decimated by the cyberdemon. Still a satisfying fight, that aside. My other highlight moment was finding the secret plasma rifle (actually available from almost the get-go) while poking around at the end; its insta-appearing guardians are a dirty trick I wasn't quite expecting; good use of the arch-vile beaming back into the other end of the corridor, there.

Well, this whets my appetite. Oh, one question for Ribbiks and/or the players credited as testers in the text file: is the purple ooze consistently undamaging in these maps?

[purist]

MAP02 - Mud Bunny

More of the same essentially. The theme still has those Quakesque abstract otherworldy but essentially brown with highlights feel. For some reason it also reminds me of the Sega Megadrive palette. I don't know if there's a technical reason for this, I think it's the contrast of the bright purple against the otherwise predominantly muddy theme. It works well for setting the episode apart from other releases but I wonder whether it will begin to wear thin after four or five levels.

I've not yet finished this level, I will edit the post after I have. I'm presently stuck in the rev/noble/imp fight where they appear to be constantly warping in but are actually teleporting around the area. This is a neat trick to stop me circle strafing the horde as what worked with the previous battles (the BoH/RL showdown apart). As much as I'm enjoying this I wish Ribbiks had provided some armour in this area as I'm going down after a two or three hits right now.

[Demon of the Well]

Hmm, well, without wanting to spoil too much for you, you can find a secret blue armor in the area before that one (the one right on the other side of the tunnel where you get barred in for a minute or two with some barons) if fortune smiles on you, or if your eyes are sharp. You also get a 'purple' armor vest if you approach that teleporter-mined area from the other side, although you have to endure at least one other major fight first coming from that direction.

[purist]

Well I've finished Mud Bunny now. In the trap that was giving me trouble was tactic was to circle as much as the horde as possible while avoiding those purple spawning pools. I concentrated fire on revs first (since their projectiles are hardest to dodge). I think this helped but it meant I was down to HK/BOH's with no room for error and no chance of infighting. Very tense, but I concentrated on HK's to give myself room and it was satisfying to finally conquer.

I think that area gave me most trouble, even if some others appeared more overwhelming at first sight but I had great fun with them all. One tip that seemed to apply everywhere in this map is if you see a cyb, get him to do as much work as possible. This was particularly useful in the last area.

Special mention should made of the area with revs on the moving platforms. At first I thought the repetition was too much but it wasn't overkill once I fought my strategy.

Great stuff, I'm sure I'm going to hit the wall at some point but right here is the sweet spot.

[Ribbiks]

Demon of the Well said:

Oh, one question for Ribbiks and/or the players credited as testers in the text file: is the purple ooze consistently undamaging in these maps?

yes. purple is always safe, and red is always damaging.


and yup purist, cybs are just infinite ammo rocket launchers :)

[cannonball]

Map02 has pushed me to the bring of insanity.
The room with the blue key door I could only describe as luck based given the ability of revenant rockets to pass through all matter except doomguy.
The cyber which whilst facing a barrage of fireballs still decides he will fire at me despite me not even putting a single shot into him
The revenant/arch vile room where autoaim just told me to fuck off pretty much, you want to hit that target? Nope :P
Death, death and more death for me. Will try again later.

[Memfis]

This wad seems to be more fun to learn in multiplayer. I too was very annoyed by map02 and didn't want to continue playing after my ragequit, but then one day I saw Ribbiks and Danne playing it in Zandronum so I joined and it was a great experience. :)

[cannonball]

I just gave up on the revenant/archvile section. Just could not beat it.
Either I have to take an av blast because there are half a dozen missiles after me or if I do get a shot on the archviles the rockets spray off towards the revenants or randomly into a wall.
Like the earlier trap I can't see a reliable method of not taking loads of damage.
edit - iddqd'ed through that trap, died once stupidly on the next trap and died a couple of times in the final room.
This map is fine except for one trap and one room as a whole. The revenant/archvile trap just felt annoying as I felt I had to make a choice of which monster would kill me. And the room with the exit door just doesn't really work. I see that it's an effort to stop circle strafing but it just throws random monsters which can near enough kill you instantly and survival depends on luck.

[Wordy]

Finished Maps 1 and 2.

Absolutely love the purple aesthetic, reminds me a little of Sunder's 'Obsidian Nightmare' which gave me a love for black and orange I never thought I'd had. Well done on making me a purple fan! As for the gameplay, I enjoy slaughtermaps and Map 01 was an enjoyable (particularly the mass-imp arena, that was awesome) introduction to that extent. In the vein of Combat Shock, it introduces you to a harsh UV style which culminates in a Slaughter-esque confrontation which sets the tone for the wad. A winner of a map.

Map 02 felt somewhat dull and long, though I enjoyed the gameplay in most parts. Traps felt a little trial and error, and the blue door one seemed a little unforgivable (I was punched dead in under a second). I have to say though, I love Archies and Revenants and that room which Canonball had so much trouble with I found to be really fun and engaging . Though this is probably symptomatic of my love for most arch-vile themed levels from the Plutonia styled 'hunted' to Vanguard's 13 angry archviles.

I like the aesthetics from the screenshots I'm seeing in later levels, so far I'm enjoying it.

[Demon of the Well]

Map 02 -- Mud Bunny - 102% Kills / 100% Secrets
Mud....bunny? Alright, then (is there a rabbit shape on the automap I'm just not seeing, or something?). This map does a good job of building on concepts established in the first map, while still leaving plenty of evidence/room as to where the set might be heading in its later stages.

The earthy brown/iridescent purple theme continues here, this time in a much more naturalistic setting, with lots of rocks and little pools surrounding the main manufactured structures. I think that if purple hues weren't such a rarity in DooM that almost every instance of the color tends to draw the eye, the mapset's overriding 'purple theme' wouldn't be as strong here--it's certainly not as pronounced as in the previous map. All the same, it's a good looking map, with more of that strange artificiality in its lines, except whereas Amethyst II was full of strong, straight lines, this one is full of ridiculously smooth curves that seem equally as unnatural, perhaps moreso. Lighting continues to be simple but tasteful, and again the BGM is a nice complement to the setting. I also like the way the entrance to the map ties in to the exit of the previous one (and indeed, the same is true in map 03); this makes the experience feel a little more like a journey, even though the mapset is geared towards pistol-starts, which is incidentally also how I am playing.

Once again, the vast majority of the action/progression seems very heavily scripted; if anything, there's even less preset monster placement here than in Amethyst II, by which I mean that nearly everything you fight pops out in response to your having hit a switch or picked up an item or whatnot, as opposed to monsters being encountered "naturally" as you explore. However, Mud Bunny introduces some more play options in the form of alternate paths you can take through the level--while you still have to see/do pretty much everything, early on the path splits in two, giving you a choice of order in which to tackle major fights before rejoining in the main building/home stretch. The several secrets again tend to involve finding tiny hidden switches, but with the added element of looking for small parts of the terrain that you can climb on to reach them. I've got no qualms here, I think it's interesting that the same basic type of secret is used as in the previous map, but with that extra wrinkle added in. I sort of hope things keep building up on that one basic idea like this as the mapset progresses.

I found the fights here very witty, particularly the later ones that reuse the arenas from earlier fights. Like Cannonball, I was killed a couple of times in the earlier fight with the cyb/mancs/HKs on the ledge; once because I didn't foresee the arch-viles rising out of the skull cubes to flush me towards the mancs, and the other time because that damned cyb absolutely refused to do any real infighting. Also screwed up the first fight with the teleporter pools/dais on one occasion, but that was mostly my own dumb mistake. Unlike Cannonball, I really liked the fight with the vile teams and revs on the pumping pistons, and in fact I cleared it on the first attempt--what worked for me was sticking on the outer edges of the piston rows, near their bases, to avoid rev fire while blitzing the viles with the plasma rifle. I reckon there is a certain element of luck in this fight, mainly regarding what degree of line-of-sight the viles establish when they decide to stop and attack, but I wouldn't consider this bad design, as there's that megasphere there to compensate. The topper is the big wave at the other end of the room once you've thrown a switch, where you just funnel a river of rockets between the pistons. Much easier than what came before, but satisfying.

As to the "fuck you" at the exit, yeah, you got me the first time--gangraped by a busload of revenants. I laughed out loud, in fact. Cleared it with no problems the second time I reached it, but I thought the twin cybers inevitably getting to make use of that same teleporter dais from earlier on was very clever, as I said. The only thing I found kind of awkward was the first building fight, where I killed everything and then had to stand around waiting for those longbars to lower...maybe make it so that the nobles/skeletons don't appear until the player has actually thrown the switch, or perhaps port the nobles in to the opposite side of the room (back where the player enters)?

I quite liked this map, looking forward to the next one.

[Steve D]

Map02 – Kills – 97, Items – 55, Secret – 33. Time 54:39. End Health 89, Armor 75. Death Count - 4

Holy shit, I loved this fucking map. I loved it hard, man. ;D Just gorgeous work on the caverns and fighting arenas. The purple was working for me here a lot more than in the previous map. No more acres of Woodmet, thank God!

I’m totally spazzed-out in my reaction to this map. I just finished playing and I’m literally still pumped by how exhilarating it was!

Worth noting is that I really dug the BGM. It seemed to perfectly fit the mood of savage beauty generated by the curvy caves and the 50 Shades of Umber color scheme – except for the purple, of course. ;D

The early fights were pretty easy but entertaining, about what one would expect of a reasonably middle-hard UV on a standard map. I impressed myself by getting that first Soulsphere secret. Alas, I don’t have DoTW’s ninja secret-hunting skills, so that was it, I think.

The first reasonably serious fight was getting stuck in the RL cage with all the Barons and HKs. I almost died from splash damage, but managed to make enough half-ass decent moves to prevail. Then came the first real fight, with the Cyb/Mancs/HKs, and that was a real blast. As others have said, that Cyb wanted human blood, and kept after me when he should’ve been killing Mancs and HKs. I made some mistakes in this fight but survived and was able to replenish my health from the ample supply of Medikits and Stimpacks.

The Plasma Gun battle was just insane. I don’t think I’ve ever faced quite that many High-HP monsters at once, and yet, seemingly by miraculous luck, I survived this one on the first try, and suffered relatively few hits as I circled around, rocketing those jagoffs, and inducing a lot of infighting.

My luck ran out once I opened the red key door and faced the Revvies up high and the Barons/HKs below. The strategy was fairly obvious from the outset, but I made some errors and got cornered and slimed to death twice in a row. The third time, I opened fire on the spawning points and whittled the big boys down enough to get some running room, and from there, it was just a matter of time until all the critters were dead.

The penultimate fight, of course, the absolute highlight of the map, was the brawl for it all with the Revvies and Archies in the blue key room. I am so glad I took on this mapset in ITYTD, because even a diminished version of these fights is still wildly exciting. I thought the floors moving up and down, limited by dummy sectors somewhere, was cooler than shit. The ensuing fight was frantic. I died the first time trying to get the Megasphere, which for some reason seemed unwilling to be picked up. I was at 34 health when a Revvie and Archie cornered me. I got killed the second time fighting 2 Archies when a Revvie snuck up behind me and took me out. On the third try, however, I finally snagged the Megasphere, killed all the Archies and all the Revvies on my plane, and managed to duck into the alcove near the blue key. Once I took out the Revvies there at the end of the line, it was the beginning of the end of that fight. And yes, I noticed that at least 2 waves of Revvies teleported onto those moving floors. Yeah, it was a tough battle, and then, once I grabbed the blue key, Imps and more Revvies teleported in.

When I finally got to the blue door, the Great Big Revvie Surprise really shocked me. Somehow, I survived through relentless circle-strafing, PG abuse, and lots of rockets.

So, I found this map to be beautiful, and once again, I say to anyone who hasn’t tried Risen3D, give it a shot. It’s free, after all, so unless you hate GL renderers, there’s nothing to hold you back. Risen3D handles darkness better than GZDoom, which enhanced my appreciation for this map, parts of which might have been a little too dark otherwise.

There was literally nothing I didn’t like about this map except for the set of bars that took a long time to come down. I suppose that was part of the staging and drama for the coming battle, but it seemed a bit much to me. Other than that, this map is phenomenal, a beautifully-crafted masterpiece. One reason my time was so long is that I spent a lot of it just looking around. The map was sedately paced, and once I cleared a room, I knew there was nothing to worry about until I pressed the next switch, so I played tourist. Of course, as each switch, at least in the ginormous areas, released a horde of enemies, there was always a bit of tension, and I had to say to myself, “C’mon, Steve, are you a man or a mouseketeer? Press that fucking switch!” ;D A total blast. Great stuff, Ribbiks.

[cannonball]

Map03 before I finish and review it.
First death comes in a secret, damn you Ribbiks :P
SOS - Err I might have broken the map, stuck in the final room, a few imps/revenants warp in a and some mancubi join in but nothing happens after that. It's very amusing that I died so many times in the cyber/revenant crossfire and in the final room I took no damage whatsoever. I gave up in the cyber/revenant area, another cyber who refused to infight whatsoever.

[purist]

MAP03 - Foxhole

Hmmm, this may be where I have to get off. I thought the last map was pretty much on the edge of my ability but I was hoping the set had plateaued in difficulty for a few maps at least because I was enjoying it so much.

Foxhole started off innocuously enough - and in familiar surroundings. The encounters are relatively tame and they allow you to handle them within your own comfort zone.

Then it hits you with an alleyway that has a cyb at one end and a hive of revenants at the other. I survived so long playing inverse piggy in the middle between rocket crossfire but when those extra monsters warp in I was quickly toasted. Unless I have missed a tactic I doubt it would even help much with ITYTD's half damage.

So I've left it saved right before I hit that skull switch of death and I'll have another go tomorrow. In the meantime if anyone has any sure fire pro tips please don't keep them to yourself :-)

[Steve D]

cannonball said:

Map03 before I finish and review it.
First death comes in a secret, damn you Ribbiks :P

I love attacking the player in secret areas. It's a time-honored Doom tradition since Knee Deep In The Dead. Hell yeah, go get them players! ;D

[cannonball]

SteveD said:

I love attacking the player in secret areas. It's a time-honored Doom tradition since Knee Deep In The Dead. Hell yeah, go get them players! ;D

Urgh there are traps and then there was this trap. This was about as rewarding a secret as catching a ball in a cup................ and then being mauled to death by bears.

[Ribbiks]

cannonball said:

SOS - Err I might have broken the map, stuck in the final room, a few imps/revenants warp in a and some mancubi join in but nothing happens after that. It's very amusing that I died so many times in the cyber/revenant crossfire and in the final room I took no damage whatsoever. I gave up in the cyber/revenant area, another cyber who refused to infight whatsoever.

fffff. I don't remember changing anything about that voodoo closet, but indeed testing it in prb+ that scrolling floor goes way slower than I remember. No idea how that happened. Guess I'll have to revise the version I uploaded to /idgames -.-

If you wait around long enough (takes like 3+ minutes, ugh, when it should've been on te order of 30-40 seconds or so) the HKs will eventually be revealed, then arachs...

damn it.


edit:

purist said:

MAP03 - Foxhole

In the meantime if anyone has any sure fire pro tips please don't keep them to yourself :-)

try hitting the switch behind the cyb before it gets too chaotic, you may find having a wall to your back helpful while everyone infights :)

[Capellan]

SteveD said:
I love attacking the player in secret areas.

Don't know what the situation is with this particular case, but there have been levels in the past where I've found a secret, been bushwacked when I entered it, compared the reward on offer to the threat it came with, then loaded a save and skipped opening the secret.

Putting monsters in secrets is fine if the reward is worth the fight. But if the player is better off not finding the secret, then IMO something is wrong.

[cannonball]

The spiders never arrived, I hit the switch which appeared which spawned cybers and pain elementals, depleted my rockets and shells, collected the power ups and left with just over 70% kills. I just left the 9 million lost souls to fight amongst themselves :P

[Veinen]

Checked out Stardate when it was released but I gave up already on the second map due to a neverending death-spree at the revs & rising pillars room. This thread however inspired me to retry so I might as well share my thoughts. Monochrome looks pretty interesting too so maybe I'll stick around.

Playing everything on UV with pistol starts. Maps 01 and 02 were played yesterday and just finished map 03.

Map01
So I had already played and finished this map so it wasn't really too much of a problem since I knew what to expect. The imp arena was a pretty neat fight for sure as well as the last battle with the second cyb and his rebellious minions. The horde that teleports to the start-side of the map after the imp arena fight was maybe a bit too easy to deal with since it wasn't very hard to lure the cyber into shooting them by peeking around the corner. But eh, might just have been my cowardly tactics :D My strategy in the last battle was release everything & enjoy the show and it worked pretty well for me. Apparently there is a plasma rifle somewhere which would have helped somewhat but I never managed to find that secret. Still finished with some ammo to spare so not a big deal really.

Overall a pretty good introductory map for the wad and the last battle was definitely a sign of what to expect on later maps. Definitely got some Sunder-vibes from the architecture, but with the space-y and less hostile atmosphere. Purple theme looks really cool too. Agree with cannonball that in that the map kinda doesn't know what kind of map it want's to be.

Map02
Now this is where the real fun begins. Some great ideas for fights in this one, especially the teleports/pools -area which I absolutely loved. Somehow the first fight there feels really tricky since you got to break the usual pattern and do some dancing around the bad guys but still I died there maybe once or twice only. The cyber/mancubi/hk fight was alright, getting the cyber to infight wasn't too much of a problem for me and when it happens you're pretty much in the clear. Disappointed in the cybers effort tho, he didn't even manage to kill all of the mancubi so I had to do most of the dirty work myself :p The AV's were a nice touch in that area and they definitely increased the difficulty a bit. Now the rising pillars with revs feat archies was still a massive pain in the ass for me. Didn't really manage to establish a good strategy for the first part of the fight with only the archies teleporting in and got burned to a crisp a couple of times. Running around like a madman with the rocket launcher did the trick in the end :D The second part was the harder one however and it was what made me give up on the map first time around. This time I didn't suck at dodging revenant missiles and I miraculously survived on the very first attempt. Blue door trap... yeah, no chance whatsoever. Caught me way off guard and with a ssg in hand there's not much you can do at that point. Otherwise it's not that bad, revs get caught in the crossfire and die rather easily and after that there's plenty of room to move when dealing with the cybers. Still, the teleports in that area keep you constantly on your toes.

A solid map overall, just really fun to play. Much harder than map01 and looks like we're steering a bit to the slaughtery side of things. Looks great but that seems to be a given with this wad. Found all the secrets too, yay. That berserk secret was not very rewarding tho :p I actually did have something to complain about but it seems I forgot what it was.

Map03
Foxhole is a fitting name as in map03 we go from the larger areas of map02 to cramped corridors and very little room to maneuver. The opening fights in the narrow corridors were already pretty tough and I died there a few times. I liked the enemy placement here as there's enemies coming from multiple directions and backtracking doesn't really help either so you're encouraged to play aggressively. Cyber vs wall of revenants was a toughie and neatly done. Releasing everything will help your cause there. My strategy was to press the switch behind the cyber asap, grab the launcher and just move around in the cyber-corner and hope he's busy fighting the other monsters. After that fight on the other hand... "Hey, that wall looks like a secret... A berserk pack? Hell yes. Oh look, some rockets too. Well this was a succ-.. wait, what's happening now? Well, fuck. " That's just cruel. Berserk packs are bad for your health in this wad :p Yellow key trap was alright, nothing too fancy I guess. The big area in the end was cool with the gradual release of tougher and tougher enemies, Sunder-vibes are very apparent there. Again, the running around in circles -pattern is somewhat broken with the releasing of hell knights from the sides. Makes the fight much more interesting and enjoyable. And what about them pain elementals then. Personally, I did not find the combo of pe:s and cybers very pleasant and I had to resort to circlestrafing to deal with them. I play with zdoom so my killcount was over a thousand when I finished. I assume there's a plasma rifle/bfg laying around somewhere since there's random ec packs at the last cavern, but because I suck at finding secrets I couldn't locate it. Probably would have helped with the pe:s.

Very cool map, though a bit different compared to map02. I felt this had a better flow than map02 but it might just be me. The smaller fights were definitely better in this one, for big fights I say it's a draw. Difficulty-wise it's pretty much on the same level.

Sneak peek at the next map looked promising, hopefully it'll deliver.