The DWmegawad Club plays: Stomper

[Seele00TextOnly]

Map05 - "Fusion Plant"

Now we're cooking with gas! Gameplay was fun and dynamic, also difficult. Repopulation and traps worked, layout flowed and was decent. No complaints.

http://imgur.com/llaXId0 No idea why this switch texture is here.

[mouldy]

Oh yeah I forgot to mention that switch texture, whats that about?

[Ashstrodamus]

Map 05: Much better. Hard too. No complaints.

[Magnusblitz]

Ashstrodamus said:

That berserk pack I found in clip mode but couldn't find it normally. I assume you run past a trigger to open it and run back. If that's the case, there needs to be a sound that lets you know something is opening. I don't like having to do triple-somersaults to find secrets either.

Spoiler

Lowering the lift in the central room there also lowers the wall to the berserk pack. Easily noticeable on the minimap, sound can be hard to discern since the other lift is moving, but it's there.

[Demon of the Well]

Yeah, when the two lift-sectors go back up, you can distinctly hear a second 'kachunk' as the lift in the central structure takes most of a second longer to rise back into place, implying that more than one sector was in motion. That's how I found it, anyway.

[Ashstrodamus]

Demon of the Well said:

Yeah, when the two lift-sectors go back up, you can distinctly hear a second 'kachunk' as the lift in the central structure takes most of a second longer to rise back into place, implying that more than one sector was in motion. That's how I found it, anyway.

Since that's the first lift you get to, I don't see how anyone would ever think that lowering that lift would activate anything else. I hear kachunks all throughout these maps, even when you're not opening anything. Has anyone else noticed that?

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP06 Mainframe (Ultimate Gloom)

Pretty neat base map. Now it seems to offer more rockets for me to smash the bigger fries with. Kinda tougher too with more emphasis on chaingunner and revenants than usual. The area with the nukage pits had me annoyed though, with me completely forgetting the radsuits most of the time. And I see quite a few near the switches that remove barricades, prompting me to say "Why didn't you give me these sooner!?" before realizing there were some other radsuits lying around. Whoops. But it still was a fun level, with a slight Slayer-influence in the music track. I was expecting something big to be in the exit room though.

[mouldy]

Map06 - "Mainframe”

Fun map, starts out with a scramble for weapons but settles down into a steady exploration with occasional flurries of monster activity, never anything too hazardous. I found the most dangerous time was right at the start when bouncing around soaking up bullets and struggling to find any medkits anywhere, they were all lurking indoors I think. After that you barely have to think about ammo, though it was nice to finally find a backpack. I lucked on finding the computer map pretty early, so that made a nice change being able to easily raid all the secrets. I must say I was expecting more of a finale at the end, felt like the map was leading up to something that never quite happened. Brave move using the doombuilder default wall texture, but overall it looks quite cool, especially the silver/nukage area around the blue key.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP06: Mainframe
95% kills, 2/5 secrets

Definitely back in rusty techbase-land here, which makes the last level look even more out of place. I would definitely think about heavily re-texturing MAP05, it looks weird among the other techbase maps.

The layout here somewhat reminds me of Suburbs, in that there's a big outdoor circle containing several structure inside that need to be explored. It's pretty nice-looking, and I really dug the mainframe itself (blue key area).

I agree that the ending is a bit of a letdown, though. Knowing that this map was supposed to be the "E1 finale" I was expecting... well, a finale, and really expected something like a Cyberdemon behind that last door. But no, just a couple revs and chaingunners. So, E1 ends with something of a "meh". Without the automap name and the screentext, no idea that this was supposed to be a finale of anything.

[Alter]

Well, since you guys are asking for a better map06 finale, I say, how about the end lift lowers the player into a giant reactor sort of an area, where he fights a cyberdemon 1vs1? I'll have to figure out a decent way to stop the player from easily just exiting the level though. I think a little switch hunt can stop the player from effectively speedrunning to the exit with ease.

[Ashstrodamus]

alterworldruler said:

Well, since you guys are asking for a better map06 finale, I say, how about the end lift lowers the player into a giant reactor sort of an area, where he fights a cyberdemon 1vs1? I'll have to figure out a decent way to stop the player from easily just exiting the level though. I think a little switch hunt can stop the player from effectively speedrunning to the exit with ease.

Oh god please no more switch hunting. That is one of my complaints in one of your later maps but I'm not allowed to talk about that yet.

[j4rio]

Played up to map 6, enjoyed it a lot so far. Very cool and surprisingly fun stuff.

alterworldruler said:

Well, since you guys are asking for a better map06 finale, I say, how about the end lift lowers the player into a giant reactor sort of an area, where he fights a cyberdemon 1vs1? I'll have to figure out a decent way to stop the player from easily just exiting the level though. I think a little switch hunt can stop the player from effectively speedrunning to the exit with ease.

Replace revs in last room with avs and you have a finale. No cyber even remotely needed.

[CorSair]

Bit bored, so I decided to play bit more Stomper.

Map 06
Well, this map feels alive. With all the constantly moving platforms, players might have troubles to find secrets that require you to hear door or floor going down. In this case, there was only one secret, and it wasn't that hard to search around. The switch where it was, however, was clever. Pint for that.

As for the base itself, it goes with the same theme as the four first ones. And I liked those, nothing I wouldn't complain. While first part of base is more of sandbox, second one requires you to assault the place, making it bit linear to advance.

With about 113 monsters, it doesn't feel slog, but neither it is easy. Not my part. First area, being sandbox, makes this pretty dangerous for someone to sneak on you. If they are in elevated positions and you don't notice them, bad for you. Few shotgunners flanked me, and some of them in towers made my head scratch for few seconds, only to deliver more buckshots to my back. Overall, level emphasizes more on revenants and chaingunners, sometimes turning these troublesome nuisances into credible threat, ruining your day.

When I entered the second part, the toxic pools with blue key, I noticed that my health is below yellow. I picked few medkits and stimpacks here and there, the sandbox area managed to take good amount of health (I entered 100 health 200 armor), and suddenly the issue about mortality became relevant. Luckily, that room with revenants and chaingunners were open, giving me 50 health to get through to blue key.

Overall, pretty sound map. It might be good idea to put few shotgunners or zombie groups to roam in first part, to keep players bit on edge. On second part, accompany some imps, or possibly revenant with chaingunners. And if you wanna be douche, turn medkits into stimpacks. (Though pistol starters might be bit pissed.)

And agreed with j4rio. If you wanna be a dick about it, teleport those AVs from distance, resurrecting monsters, or one in exit, and one resurrecting monsters. And hell knights, or some tough meat there to block. Barons, probably. And maybe few rockets more to the end.

... Also, one other thing. Once you end, listen a bit. It was a nice touch when I really started noticing things.

[Veinen]

Map06: Mainframe

Yup, this is a good map. The level can be pretty much split into two parts, first is the small sandbox with a couple of buildings and then what I suppose is the titular mainframe with silvery walkways above pools of nukage. And it looks really nice! Easily the best looking map of the first six; the map has a distinct theme and follows it all the way through with consistent and stylish texturing. Didn't even notice anything to report regarding misalignments and such so at least they weren't very noticeable if there were any. The relative darkness outside in the first half of the map also compliments nicely your/Nmn's use of varied lighting.

I'm actually pretty amazed at how much I liked this map since combat here is not that much to speak about to be honest. It's quite an easy map in my opinion and the threat comes mostly from hitscanners getting shots in from far away or from above. Yes, the first part is a sandbox so roaming monsters are theoretically a problem but there aren't very many of those present here. Granted, this is only map06 so it's understandable that the monster counts are low but I feel you could still put some small time baddies like packs of Sarges or Imps wandering around and it would hardly affect the difficulty nor make things grindy in any way. The fights inside the various buildings and in the second part of the map are pretty standard stuff. The PEs that emerge from the closet when you pick up the BK can be a little bothersome if you're unawares but that's about it. The finale has been dissected here pretty thoroughly already so no need for me to flog a dead horse. I was once again swimming in the over-abundance of shells and bullets and you could probably take three or four shellboxes alone out and the player would hardly even notice. Health seemed much more balanced on the other hand.

Nice map all in all and visually perhaps the best thus far. Combat left maybe a little more to be desired but I suppose it was alright too considering it's only the sixth map of the set.

[j4rio]

Boo, map 7 on the other hand was a bore with notably poorer use of heights (as almost every encounter is just monsters on flat floor in front of you) and less engaging monster distribution in comparision to previous maps, almost as if it wasn't by the same author. The minimalistic interconnectivity doesn't help. I'm not even getting to the ridiculous beginning part when playing from pistol start.

[Salt-Man Z]

MAP06:
I liked this one as well, and the difficulty level remains high, which is good. I'll agree the ending is kind of weak (especially for a ep finale) but it didn't overly bother me. Honestly, it felt like MAP07 (which I played immediately afterwards, and which I'll go into more detail about tomorrow) felt more like the "true" episode finale.

[Demon of the Well]

Just to be clear on some of my earlier comments about the action/difficulty, I don't think that the earlier maps are generally screaming for more mid-tier enemies; just putting knights and mancubi and the like around just for the sake of having them will probably only bog down the pace without actually increasing difficulty in any really relevant way, given the nature of the layouts in the early maps (though I'll grant you that it's a lot harder to fuck up revenant use, those bony bastards are a versatile lot). What I would say they need is a much more liberal dosage of weaker enemies, who can make the combat in the early going feel a bit less halfhearted by being selflessly mown down en masse by the custom weaponry. There's nothing necessarily wrong with early maps in a megaWAD being kinda easy; what you generally want to avoid (or what I personally prefer maps avoid, anyway) is having them feel uneventful or underpopulated unless you have a very good reason for doing so, e.g. to build suspense or the like. So far Stomper seems geared in both its looks and feel to be a new take on a 'classic' style of action, something SteveD would probably refer to as "run 'n gun", so spamming the imps and zombies early on seems appropriate, especially since the beefed up chaingun/shotgun can kill them even faster than usual. The time for larger numbers of more powerful monsters will come in due course (or at least I hope it will, I don't think I'd want to play a whole megaWAD of E1-pitch maps, either).

Map 06 -- Mainframe - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Decent enough little outing, but it definitely didn't grab me the way that map 05 did, mainly because the heat is ratcheted back a few notches in this one, although I suppose the change of pace is not inappropriate given the casually sandboxy nature of about 2/3 of the map. Lots of incidental skirmishing, the main threat is from gunmen in the guard towers and manning the windows of some of the buildings; they aren't a threat because there's a particularly large number of them, or because they have a devastatingly powerful vantage or the like (in fact, the guys in the towers are only likely to clip you if you stand still in a handful of very specific places), but simply because the health balance is fairly tight, and also because the map doesn't give out blue armor like sugar-free candy, unlike some of the previous maps. There are still piles and piles of ammo that the player doesn't really need littering the later parts of the map, which probably means that the continuous play progression is still going to be pretty far out of whack, but I don't think it actually negatively impacts pistol-start play very much on this particular map, simply because a lot of the supply surplus is back-loaded. Indeed, the most interesting phase of the action from pistol-start is probably the first few minutes, since you have to run around a fair bit in the sandbox security base area before you can get properly tooled up, and of course you're stirring up all kinds of murderous intent in staff and their 'guests' while doing so.

Anyway, it's not my favorite style of gameplay, but it works, and I think it does underscore the failings in balance that maps 01-04 currently show to a greater or lesser degree. As per usual, I don't think that sprinkling more basic enemies into the small handful of main fights the map fields would hurt; for example, the cacos and PEs that pop out when you get the blue key from the mainframe are well and good, but the PEs in particular would be a bit more pressuring if you beamed in some imps or pinkies or the like on both ends of the walkway to run interference. Similarly, I'd agree with the general sentiment that the action behind the blue bars is pretty anticlimactic. I don't think you need to go so far as to set up a boss arena or anything (this might only water down the sense of location in this case), just give the player a bit more of a to-do that will require some quick reaction; CorSair's version of j4rio's idea is pretty reasonable, I think. Oh, and one more thing--the complaint Veinen made about those vagrant imps outside of the windows in the ooze room in map 03 probably applies even moreso to the imps beyond the fence on top of the cliffs in the sandbox area; they really didn't seem to contribute anything, you could probably just ditch them entirely, or maybe introduce a few extra cacos at some point if you still want the extra fireballs flying around.

Others have pointed this out already, but the other really noticeable thing about this map is just how much more polished it is in terms of concourse issues like texture alignment and such than any of the previous 5 maps; I saw some tiny errors in a couple of places (e.g. there's just a snippet of yellow lightstrip visible on the edges of the boxes that the pumping tech pillars rise in and out of), but generally speaking it looks a lot more 'finished' than the previous maps. Oddly, the sudden shift towards mostly clean visuals means that suddenly one has to start locating secrets based on induction and the old trick of trying to fill in blank interior spaces on the automap, since now some of the pushwalls have little or no visual telegraph of their presence. I don't have a problem with this--in fact, I kind of prefer it--but some may feel just the opposite. My only real aesthetic gripe about the map is that the incessant sound of the mechanisms of the various pumping tech pillars/revenant platforms in the mainframe started getting on my nerves before too long (which is weird, repetitive mechanical map noise doesn't usually bug me), but you can probably ignore this complaint entirely, since the pumping pillars are one of the map's quirks, and they didn't seem to bother anyone else.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP07: The Barricade
80% kills, 2/5 secrets

The start of Episode 2 (btw, I would definitely ditch the "EXMX" bits on the automap names), and like many MAP07s, comes with a 666 tag right off the bat. This opening battle is actually pretty boring, IMO, as there's so many radsuits that the slime is barely a problem, so it just turns into waiting for the mancubus columns to lower so you can shoot them. Then there's some hallway fighting, followed by a bit of arena fight for the red key (which I liked... might want to remove that floating hanging body, though). The end can appear a bit fearsome at first, though there's plenty of room to hide... and it repeats the first part, this time with arachnatrons. Having other monsters run around during this segments helps, though. Unfortunately, once the player has gone into the exit room, he can't leave because there's no way to get the lift to lower... just slap another action 62 on the back side!

The obvious texture alignment errors spring up again here... lots of brickwork not aligning when the ceiling changes, and there's a pretty bad misalignment on a wall that meets the metal ceiling in the opening area.

[Alter]

Hello Boom has no cooperative flag on things, the multiple rad suits are there for coop compatilibity because last time I tried to coop this map with just one spare radsuit laying around, everybody ragequit. Also the maps I DID work on properly because I was told to (and early maps being supposedly complete and that I should'nt touch them too much according to the original author, plus I AM NOT willing to do some serious overhauls, so I only handle gameplay issues and texture misalignments pretty much) are 13,15,17 (which was my own from scratch map to fill the slot), 21,23,24,27,28,29,30. The rest I just tuned.

[Salt-Man Z]

MAP07:
As I mentioned previously, this feels more like the episode finale than MAP06. I did really dig this level, felt like a Dead Simple rehash, then quickly expanded from there (and continued expanding!) I'll echo Magnus' crit of the exit door barricade not being operable from the backside. Also, in GZDoom the northern-most teleporting-monster cache had 17 baddies trapped inside it. I'm not sure when/where they were supposed to come out?

Just for the record, I'm at 100% kills/items/secrets so far, barring the aforementioned 17 monsters that never materialized. (Also, I spent like 10 minutes scouring MAP06 for the last kill, which ended up being an overlooked imp up on the cliffside; I agree with DotW that those guys could stand to be eliminated altogether.)

[Magnusblitz]

alterworldruler said:

Hello Boom has no cooperative flag on things, the multiple rad suits are there for coop compatilibity because last time I tried to coop this map with just one spare radsuit laying around, everybody ragequit.

I'm one of those persons who hates forced slime damage, so yeah, I'd rather have too many radsuits than not enough. Just saying that it's not the greatest setup... lots of sitting around waiting for the columns to fall.

[mouldy]

Map07 - “The Barricade”

Great fun, lots of open space and missiles to dodge. Not massively difficult, the main danger I had was from playing like a lunatic. After I cleared the final arena I noticed there were some monsters who had repopulated the central zone and were milling around in there, I guess to harass players who run away from the final fight? Anyway, they looked a bit lost and confused. The final fight wasn't really dangerous enough to warrant running away, but I like that you have that option. One complaint I have is the use of that torch-lit wall texture on the steps looks a bit weird. But yes, this is a map that encourages fast paced and reckless behaviour, which is cool. There were a bunch of enemies I never found, dunno if they were hidden in a secret area..

Oh yeah, the lift for the exit door went up higher than the door itself, which is a bit clunky. If that lift is raised by the 667 tag you could have it start sunk into the floor a bit, if its thin enough then the player wont fall down the hole.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP07 The Barricade (Wheeled Beast)

What to do when in an arena? Slither between projectiles of course. The raising lowering mancubi platforms makes them hard to hit somehow, the open space is very generous and friendly for dodging the enemies though. The cacodemon trap in the south was quite a scare, but nothing compared to the chaingunners later. At least I could retreat back and pick 'em off from the door. The last arena with the arachnotrons was another nice place to move around in while shooting and dodging, and that's what I like. Now, some things here make me go WTF. One particular group of teleporting monsters teleported while I was in the last arena, and they were back behind the red door for some reason. Finally, one teleporting closet never opened up at all. So really, this map isn't "COMPLETE".

[Demon of the Well]

Map 07 -- The Barricade - 90% Kills / 100% Secrets
It's......Dead Simple. Dammit. The blow is softened somewhat by spacing out the manc arena fight from the arach arena fight, at least, but on the whole my feelings towards the map are somewhat lukewarm. There ARE good fights in it; the definite highlight is the red key trap, a surprisingly nasty setup that left me seriously injured on my first encounter, very likely the most dangerous moment in Stomper up to this point. I also kinda like the big herd of pinkies behind what I assume is the titular barricade at the end (kind of odd that the map 06/07 intermission text narrates what happens before it technically happens, but no harm no foul I guess), I used it as an excuse to break out the secret BFG I'd found earlier on. The BFG's new sprites are really cool, incidentally....this is one weapon where I usually prefer the original functionality doesn't change, and fortunately it doesn't (the shotgun and especially the chaingun benefit from the buff, the Big Fucking Gun really doesn't need one).

Other than these two bright spots, though, the action here doesn't do a whole lot for me. The initial manc fight is pretty weak in most respects....the twist is that the arena where they're fought is flooded with harmful waste, but there are so many radsuits freely available that this doesn't end up being very relevant to how the player tackles the encounter. The space allotted is huge, so there's no real effort involved in dodging, and the pistoning platforms that periodically hide the turret mancs behind some metal shields just add runtime without adding challenge or real nuance. Pistol-starters will have to slowly shotgun these guys to death unless they find the secret rocket launcher (fortunately it's not particularly well-hidden, I guess, but still certainly missable), a dull prospect indeed. The arach yard's a little better since it has more riffraff involved than just the handful of caged imps from the manc fight, but it still amounts to dusting off static chunks of turreted HP, not something I'm generally a fan of. Some of the interim combat between the two special-tags fights is fine, ala the aforementioned red key trap, but the stuff behind the north door relies heavily on artery-width corridors choked up with more clots of HP, again not particularly engaging combat. It's kind of difficult for me to give you really constructive feedback on how to improve this because I know your agreement with NMN prevents you from changing too much on a fundamental level, and I think the fights that are boring in this map are kinda boring fundamentally, especially the manc fight. My best advice here would be to just turn up the heat a little more...maybe on UV you could put some revenants in the imp cages or something, maybe then the player would have to more actively pay attention to incoming fire while plinking away at the fatsos, at least.

Aesthetically, while I wouldn't say this is as sharp as map 06 was, it looked okay to me, again very 'classic', but shapely and fairly clean. I did miss some of the classy lighting from earlier maps, I guess, especially in the northernmost yard, but the map's far from being entirely flatly lit. Some have mentioned seeing a lot of alignment issues and the like reemerge here, but apart from the two mirrored misalignments where the walls eventually open up on the southernmost structure in the northern yard, I really didn't notice many such issues myself this time around. What I did notice and appreciate was the sneak peak at some of Stomper's new non-tech textures here and there--my favorite was the bizarre new wooden door with the twin horse skulls in gimp masks, but I liked the red Adept engraving and the pictograph with the fist clutching a black laurel (or whatever it was), as well. The way the metal pillar raised by killing the arachnatrons is significantly taller than the exit door is really weird, weird enough to seem like a design miscalculation rather than an intentional feature. I don't see how it being this way could possibly be relevant to gameplay in any way, unless it really was the intention to keep the player from exiting the tiny exit chamber once they've entered it, and if that's the case, well....I don't know what to say other than that I see no real reason for doing this.

Finally, there is some kind of malfunction with one of the large teleporter closets. I visited everywhere and found all secrets, but the sizable group of demons, knights, and imps in the northernmost closet were never set loose, accounting for my 90% kills.

[Alter]

Yeah the broken monster off-map closet's fixed (by fixed I mean completely disables things in it, because from what i've seen, they would add nothing to the gameplay), also the manc fight could be fight by either putting those revenants in those imp cages on UV, or just stopping mancs from hiding and stuff so they all cross fire you at once, i'll try both options when tuning this map.

[CorSair]

Map 07
A dead simple turned into arena fight, if you ask me. In start, you've given good amount of radsuits and shotgun shells, along with shotty and super shotty, and if you can, rocket launcher. Along with few mancubus, four are placed on moving platforms and few that roams around, there are imps giving fire support, and even few hitscanners are getting shots through. After dealing those mancubuses, walls lower down and provides two cacodemons. Not really a challenge, unless you suck at dodging in the morning.

With that, there are two switches. One opens door, another raises floors so you don't need to travel over slime. The best thing what you can do to lower player's blood pressure.

Next thing is that you need to travel through that door, hit switch to lower blue key, fight some monsters, get blue key and open the door. Thing is, you can either clear methodically the upper passages or just go for the key and plow through revenants.

The red key room contains one nasty ambush. Doors open wide on the walls, and cacodemons emerge out. Along with that, few closets open near entrance, just two buddies there. And to top the shit out of it, you get beset by chaingunners. I hope you took that blur sphere before entering here?

Red key taken, party hardens. Possibly. Getting through the red door, we got yard full of demons, cacos, revenants, imps and guess what, arachnotrons. Latter ones enjoy their stay on moving platforms, few imps are scattered on towers, and on my part, they don't seem to be high threat. If their fireballs hit revenant, good for you.

First I tried to approach with small strategy, trying to make arachnos attack revenants and others, but few missteps and trailing revvie rockets didn't do any favors for that, so mood went to "fuck it, let's whip out RL and clear this joint." And that was more effective. Dunno the point of monsters coming to that blue key area, Didn't try get back, so I guess it's for that reason. And opening those walls made my life little bit miserable when chaingunners came toting with their heavy weapons. And hell knights, just for more meat to wall.

Generally, I really didn't dig much of this map, but at least it looks good.

As about that Rocket launcher, it feels like it has some weight, and looks pretty impressive. Sounds are what they are, but generally, liking this. I think I've seen this sprite around...

Oh, and then, there's the BFG. God damn, this looks sweet. Functions like the vanilla, so no problems on my part.

Map 08
I like the music here.

When you start the map, it's just on-going action. No moment when there is nothing to do. Unless you count the backtrack to health and you have cleaned up the map already.

Yet, the whole map felt too light. It boils to four places:
A: Yellow key has two revenants. No ambush.
B: Blue key has two rifle zombies. No ambush.
C: Red key has small group of zombies, two cacodemons and two imps. No ambush.
D: Exit is lightly guarded. Or possibly, no guards at all if you disposed them in the beginning. (Not counting that chaingunner. Not a damn threat even.) No ambush.

These are the major concerns when it slows down. You have cleared the area... Nothing. Nada. Not even imp comes in. Otherwise, if I count these out, I don't see anything wrong with general monster placement.

If you want some remedy, I could give these thoughts:
A: When you open the door, how about it opens some closets with more revenants? In UV, it could have max 8, or 10 closets. That area begs some terror in there. And to top that, put some zombies to roam on the ledges.
B: Teleport some zombies nearby, some on that armor secret, some roaming around the blue door, maybe few on the main yard. Just make it populated without giving too much threat.
C: It would be a nightmare if you teleport four cacos and pain elemental. Oh, that's just initial start. Put some hell knight squadron to block the way out here. And few imps to roam about, maybe move through that door to your position. Or make the red door populated too, that could do some wonders.
D: When proceeding on that ledge, open the closet ahead of you, about near the window, and unleash demon horde. Try plow your way out to exit through that horde! And to make it any nastier, teleport in mancubuses on that secret, giving some headache, and teleport in cacodemons or lost souls from those pillars. (One imp seemed to be stuck on that pillar, btw.) Nope, that's not the finale. Teleport in chaingunners and revenants on that ledge opposite of the exit.

That's just my few cents on this.

Generally, level has many different routes to churn through, tied up to get all the keys. If you miss the yellow, no problem, lift has been given to you. No need to go full length here. Feels little too Doom2, when it comes to aesthetics. Not digging that.

With more work on monster department, this could be good map packed with lot of action. Being as is, it feels little too light to plow. And the only death came because Auto Aim wanted to be a cunt and aimed cacodemon, instead of killing that chaingunner.

You might wanna check the area with super shotgun and the baron/knight duo, it seems there is some bleeding issues...

Also, same happens on yellow key room. It seems you should start checking more of this map, it seems bleeding issues are bound in here.

And holy nuts, that's a wall of text. O_o

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP08 Scrapyards (The Binary Choice)

All right, this one actually pissed me off somehow. I think it's because of the music, but not sure. A few nasty encounters I encountered in this nonlinear affair map, with the presence of chaingunners and revenants in areas once again being the primary threats. Actually, no, the lost souls were the biggest threat for me here. Pretty odd since I didn't find a pain elemental in the level, but they were just reckless in this map. Didn't have too much trouble elsewhere though.

Apparently this is also one of three levels that alter didn't say (in the original thread) as "COMPLETE". I was able to get 100% kills/secrets in this map though. I guess the organic type textures, like the ZIMMER ones right at the beginning, should be redone, as they don't fit with the base theme at all here. One imp (#161) is stuck. That's about all I could think of.

[mouldy]

Map08 - “Scrapyards”

Mostly enjoyed this one, its very mazey but generally everywhere meets up and there is plenty to kill along the way. I did miss the yellow key before reaching the exit, and had a lengthy trek back and forth through a largely empty map, but I guess that is the nature of this kind of beast. One thing I did find confusing is the number of dead ends, there was even one guarded by a blue key door for some reason, it looked like there was a lift that wasn't working maybe? The layout is quite inventive and chaotic, but there are places where the design feels very old school, and a lot of the texturing looks a bit arbitrary and cut-off, like there wasn't much consideration given to it. I think its well worth adjusting the actual geometry and height of sectors to stop textures getting chopped off by corners or sinking into the floor if necessary.

[Salt-Man Z]

MAP08:
I agree with mouldy on most points. I found the yellow key early, and didn't know what to do with it. (Backtracking through the thing, I discovered I had walked right by the blue key without realizing it.) The dead-end doors I assumed were one-way or something, but I forgot to go back and check like I intended. I like the small touch of having the lift raise when you reach the exit area so you can go back and explore but have that nice little shortcut back. Fun map. (And those chaingunners sure are deadly with the improved chaingun, aren't they?)

[Surreily]

Hello! This is my first time posting in these threads, but I love the idea of playing one map a day and then sharing my opinions on it. Unfortunately, I began playing just yesterday, so I am a bit behind everyone, so I'll keep the map reviews short until I catch up with everyone else.

I've been playing on Ultra Violence and attempting to get 100% kills and secrets.

MAP01: Incoming! 100% kills, 100% secrets
A fantastic introduction! I noticed that the first area was very similar to Doom II's first map - even down to the hidden chainsaw! I was surprised at the number of secrets in a map with only 26 enemies, but I did enjoy hunting them down. Overall, I enjoyed this one, even if the author was overly-generous with the ammo.

MAP02: Security Point 100% kills, 100% secrets
Another fine map, although I was being showered in ammo and came nowhere near close to dying. I also noticed that I could hit the exit switch from outside the room, resulting in a very large skip (but I still finished the proper way). There's still way too much ammo though!

MAP03: Radar Base 100% kills, 100% secrets
This one reminded me of Doom's E1M1 - especially the outdoor slime pool and that famous zig-zag bridge. Again, a great map! Bonus points for the blinky lights high above the map.

MAP04: Human Outpost 100% kills, 100% secrets
Whoa - suddenly the enemy count has jumped up! Most of them are humans (well, zombies) as the title might suggest. I had fun with my chaingun mowing down all those poor zombies.

So far, I'm enjoying this WAD. The new weapon graphics and sounds brings a nice change too, and the music is also good. The first four maps are a little on the easy side, but I can't really complain - they are the first maps after all.