The DWmegawad Club plays: Stomper

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP13 The Slums (The Homecoming)

Well this was quite a fun challenge. A lot of small monsters that could easily overcome me from rooftops and other structures, after a while they're mixed in with the big enemies which causes me to weapon switch all over the place. It's definitely got a city feel to it (for some reason reminds me of DOOMCITY.wad) with plenty of secrets. The music has a lot of familiar Doom melodies including the "familiar Icarus melody". The red key zone was actually my hardest point though, nice use of arachnotrons. I was sort of expecting a teleport ambush after the key but it turns out they're all back near the starting point. I had to squeeze through to get past them to the doors to the central area though (fuck infinitely tall actors). That central area with the red doors has the doors staying open, plus more grub teleporting in. It clearly becomes the highlight after seeing how many extra monsters come into that particular area. Blue key area went all right with rockets, and so did yellow area with plasma gun. Exit wasn't complicated either, although I had to backtrack to get a sort of easter egg after hitting some switches. A pretty long, nice level with nice challenges. Good one!

[CorSair]

Map 13
Monsters come from that one direction, if not counting those pinkies, it is easy to clear horde easily. It would make it bit more exciting if they flank where pinkies come. Is there monster blocking line there?

Proceeding to red key area. Now, I could do this patiently, wait arachnos and that mancubus come closer to get killed. Or, just bum rush. Little bit dangerous, with arachnos in corners and rifle zombies in buildings. Now, this would be setup for good little danger, if the door would close when entering that area. And you can get out with only red key.

Taking red key, getting back to those doors, I quickly greet small group of enemies with chaingun, proceed back to the main area... And I get one welcoming committee. Letting chaingun loose, I'll start mowing demons down, and removing those pesky zombies from that ledge. Problem is, you're stuck there for the moment when you kill demons. And again, some monsters got stuck on that blood trail alley. I wondered where they came once everything settled for the moment. Now, if that ambush would come when you have opened that red door... And as for red door when you open it, you just need to have super shotgun readied and take that pack of monsters. Just choose the door where you do this, you got pillars to cover or corners to go.

With that, game plays as it is, being nothing too dangerous, or exciting.

As for the level, layout is rather straightforward when you got the keys, with a little bit of sandbox at the start. This style of brick and mortar doesn't appeal much for me, though.

Note to alter: There's lot of bleeding issues here. You might wanna take a better look here. Like that red key area, the blood trail at the start etc.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP13: The Slums
96% kills, 4/7 secrets

At 305 monsters, I was worried this was gonna be a slog, but a large amount of those enemies are zombies/imps/demons, which are pretty easy (and fun) to blast through. I had one-sixth of the monster count dead before leaving sight of the starting door.

I agree with Corsair that the monster blocking lines at the start (most noticeably near the dead marine near the medkit/blood puddle) should be removed, as continually prevent large amounts of enemies from flanking the player. At the start, it's the imp swarm, after grabbing the red key, a large amount of shotgunners/demons got stuck there.

The large swarm that comes out of the red doors is pretty fun, but really starting making me ache for some rocket ammo (I ended up using my BFG for the first time). That's actually been something I've noticed a lot in these levels... it's the Cave of Wonders when it comes to shotgun ammo, but rockets and cells are very hard to come by, usually only in secrets. I suppose that's a good way to balance it out and make the secrets special, but man, sometimes I just wanna lay waste to everything with the RL.

The columns that open up to reveal cacodemons in the red door area courtyard (after grabbing the blue key?) create some pretty bad HOMs if you climb up afterwards: http://i.imgur.com/Nw4u0dK.png

Also, I like that replacement painting texture with the Doom 2 cover art as the painting. :)

[Veinen]

Agh, lagging behind already. Demo recording filling my Doom quota...

Map11: The Bloodtower

Heh, didn't even notice about the glaringly obvious E1M2 homages at the first part of the map before you guys pointed it out here. Cannot unsee it anymore but hardly bothers me since I didn't notice them in the first place. Anyway, something about the layout of this map irked me a bit. Compared to the highly interconnected layouts we've seen as of late, this one felt very, very straightforward and easy to navigate. Essentially it was the room after room, separated by doors or lifts, -style that bugged me since it lacks the connectivity of the previous maps and so felt a little underwhelming. There are plenty of windows placed from which one can peek at other rooms so there is some connectivity here for sure and if you compare this to the first handful of maps you see not much difference. But the contrast is pretty noticeable after all these "open" maps. Obviously this isn't really a flaw but I'm just speaking my mind.

Combat here is pretty decent though. A lot of meat and certainly a lot of hitscanners. And Archies, we finally get some Archies. Taking things slow is a surefire recipe for success here since unnecessary rushing will only escalate things and outright kill unprepared players. The second Archie is a bit of a dick move, no? I'm not sure if he's supposed to be immediately alert when the lift lowers, but he sure was when I just played this and with no way to hide on the slow ass lift, he got an easy shot in. The fight at the bloodtower is another memorable spot, that wall one the right opening and revealing a bunch of Revs is sneaky as hell. The HK that are revealed way back are not though and seemed to serve little purpose as they tend to join the party a bit too late to contribute effectively.

Map12: Grand Gate

Yea this is most definitely an introductory map for E3 and a really easy one at that. For such a large map there are very few enemies and absolutely no challenging situations present. There are a couple of traps with the YK one being the most obvious one but they aren't much to talk about. I quite like this one visually though. Huge buildings and large height variations are very fitting to the name, although I'm uncertain which part was supposed to be the titular gate here. It's really brown and details are simple grey metallic supporting pillars and such but it works for me. The insides of the buildings especially look pretty nice, outer areas are maybe a little plain since there are much less in the vein of the aforementioned details. Cool trickery with all the 3D-bridges and room over room stuff too, they do steal some of the show for sure. I think it was this map that was a special pain in the ass in the Zdaemon survival session though, due to those 3D bridges that collectively broke all the time heh.

[Salt-Man Z]

MAP11:
Man, this map was huge. It kept unfolding and unfolding with each key. I was afraid it would never end at one point! Anyway, I dig it. For the longest time, I was thinking, "I don't see any blood or towers," but then I (finally!) got to the end and ah, there it is. The massive blue key area reminded me a lot of a Vrack map. I got everything but one secret; I did a run back to the start for supplies, but otherwise it's just too much area to cover to go searching for a single wayward secret.

MAP12:
Not much to say about this one. It's very brown, and a bit of a breather after last map. But dat 3-D architecture, wow. Oh yeah, I found a spot where I kept falling through the floor:

[Demon of the Well]

Map 13 -- The Slums - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Another stark shift in pace here, this map is almost like the polar opposite of the one before it--'Grand Gate' was a map all about the visuals and setting, with only a few token battles to fill out the experience, whereas 'The Slums' is visually/structurally utilitarian and focused almost entirely on mindless action. The free shotgun and 50+ shells and the demons charging you from the moment the map loads sets the tone: as soon as you move out or fire upon these initial assailants you'll promptly begin to encounter scores of bloodthirsty monstrosities and murderous walking corpses swarming in, on, and around the ramshackle shops and tumbledown flats like so many deathfattened maggots squirming and writhing on a chunk of week-old roadkill. This scenario presents probably the most fast-paced start to a map up to this point in Stomper--be quick or be dead, it's possible to be torn to shreds in moments in a hail of gunfire from the groups of zombies perched on shop entablatures and other convenient vantages all around the starting area if you're not mindful of them, and even with full bandoliers it's probably possible to be swarmed and overwhelmed by the scads of ground-bound beasts if you wake too many of them up and then try to turtle up in a corner somewhere.

There's not much nuance to most of the combat; the vast majority of the assaults are very straightforward (very little in the way of feints or traps), and while there is a consistent theme of monsters firing down upon you from ledges, the majority of the opposition nevertheless approaches over flat ground, and the actual vertical span of the height variation is limited (we are in the slums, not the highrise district, after all) enough that the snipers are usually pretty easy targets. The return to the main area after getting the red key soundly encapsulates the nature of the action: you find that Mainstreet (if you'll pardon the inappropriately grandiose name) has been reflooded with a fresh batch of Tartarean rejects, and opening one of the three initial red-locked doors will unleash a deluge of clamoring beasts and undead shock troops from the inner yard--opening one door causes all three to open, meaning that you'll have enemies closing in on you from three or more directions if you don't act quickly. All that being said, it's actually not at all a difficult map, it just prompts you to play aggressively: huge stockpiles of ammo (esp. shells and bullets, of course) and other supplies are scattered all around the map like so many little Christmases, you just have to have the gumption to charge in and get them, and occasionally demonstrate some presence of mind in not being too thoroughly outflanked.

On the downside, the map does climax rather early with the aforementioned initial breach of the inner quarter--from that point it's basically a straightforward hubspoke setup, collecting keys one by one in a sequence of side areas until you can make it to the exit. Each of these side areas has a slightly different flavor--a building assault to the west, a supersized helping of ledge snipers to the east, etc.--but none of them really compare to the furor out in the main areas. I think it could be fairly said that the action in the map strongly favors raw quantity over sophistication, but I don't think it's really a problem in this case--this map offers us simple, dumb fun, which is a valid component of a Balanced Doom Diet. If anything needs to be reworked here it's the visuals--they are serviceable, but nothing more, lots of orthogonal shapes, lots of beige, a pretty uniformly flat-bright light level (this is probably where it suffers the most, IMO), not much done to articulate the scene/setting other than the anomalous (and rather unconvincing) sector-fireplace in one of the flats. As far as texture alignment and other concourse issues go, however, this actually seemed pretty clean, few errors that I can specifically recall.

Despite the spartan visuals and simplistic layout, this is nevertheless a genuinely fun map that succeeds through thing placement and by virtue of the sudden change in pace that it represents. Given what seems to be Stomper's overall gameplay/map style, I'm not sure that too many levels like this in the set would be a good thing, but if there's 2-3 over the course the 32 maps I reckon they could do a lot of good...sometimes your brain needs a breather, too.

Edit: I also noticed the monster-blocking line past the dead marine to the left of the player start point, and I don't like it either, but I reckon there's a specific reason it's there--seems like it's supposed to keep too many monsters from clumping up around the base of the nearby raised landing outside of the storage area. If it weren't there, seems like it'd be pretty easy to become stranded on that landing after returning to the main area after getting the red key, courtesy of infinitely-tall mobs. Not really sure what could be done about this, to be honest...I don't think I'd want that repopulation wave to simply be removed.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP14 City Outskirts (Untitled)

If I had three words to describe this level it would be "Elongated Inmost Dens", because that's what it feels like. Very, very homagey map that really isn't frightful at all, with no major traps or anything spectacular. Perhaps it's because I'm on HMP though. Given that it's like Inmost Dens, there's not even any secrets, and the level was quite the sandbox. A few oddly aligned stairs are in this too. Not memorable.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP14: City Outskirts
86% kills, 0/0 secrets

With the brown brick and water theme, I can see why some would think of the Inmost Dens, though it's also got some more flat areas with buildings that reminds me of Heretic, strangely enough (might just be the music). But yeah, nothing too memorable, just the usual trudge through lots of hitscanners (which, given all the windows and ledges, will really wear the player down over the course of the level) and the odd smattering of revenants and cacodemons. And boo, no secrets!

[Ashstrodamus]

Map 12- Crazy beautiful architecture, too bad the action wasn't that great. After I had cleared the large areas, I kept getting lost and thought I'd never find my way through. Not bad though. Not sure what to say to make the action better.

Map 13- Hit scans from Hell, though I liked the map and the large number of monsters to fight. When you had to trek from one side of the map and back and forth again, I felt it could've used one more huge wave of about 100 extra monsters. Enjoyed the map though. Very good imo. I am noticing this habit of putting chaingunners high up so they can pot shot the player from far away and it's okay on a few maps, but it's becoming too much of a habit.

[Demon of the Well]

Map 14 -- City Outskirts - 100% Kills / No secrets
Yeah, the similarities to 'The Inmost Dens' are hard to miss. It's been a while since I've actually played that particular Doom II map, but the use of sniping monsters on lifts, two-door causeway bridges, and the path's tendency to have you travel from building to building via little hops through holes in the walls all struck me as obvious homages (as well as the general 'Venetian slums' texture scheme, of course). Feels a bit larger, though, and also a little more dangerous from a combat perspective, although both of these impressions might stem from the fact that for whatever reason I've been playing like shit tonight (I got lost once, which usually doesn't happen to me, and hoo boy did I have some trouble prioritizing which zombies to shoot first).

Right, the issue of danger: Apart from the two northerly strongholds which house or protect the blue and red skull keys, this map fields a very open layout. 'Open' not so much in the sense of open space--a lot of the architecture is rather smallscale, and buildings and walkways usually tend to huddle in close together--but open in the sense that it offers many possible paths that all feed in an out of its handful of major areas in a variety of ways. The kicker is that monsters are able to traverse the map nearly as freely as the player (though the few mandatory jumps between sections stymie them, of course...unless they fly!), and most of them seem to become active early in the proceedings, responding to the sounds of battle as the player clashes with their cohorts in the earliest areas. Discrete battles are thus fairly rare; the action tends to play out more as one protracted slow-burn engagement from start to finish, not unlike map 05 in that regard, although where that map was about blinding speed and continuously outpacing the heavy opposition, this one is more about twitch reflex and constantly checking your six, lest you catch a bullet (or worse) in the back. The number of times I would take a small (but painful) hit on my flanks from some asshole who'd ambled his way towards me from the other side of the area (if not from the other side of the map) was invigorating, and kept the action interesting despite almost all of the combat occurring on a very small scale. As has been the case with the majority of Stomper up to this point, ammo was more than a little excessive (except for rockets, I think there's 12 of them in the map), but health and armor both felt spot-on; I spent most of the map hovering around 50-60% health or so, always finding a little more just as my injuries from the constant chip-damage were starting to become life-threatening (though granted, I wasn't playing very well, as aforesaid).

As far as complaints/improvements/tweaks go, I think that the first switch that removes the ugly scrolling barricade (come to think of it, pretty much all of the scrolling barricades look rather unattractive to me here) at the start of what turns out to be the path to the yellow key could be removed, thus streamlining flow and slightly augmenting the early nonlinearity, without sacrificing anything. No monsters appear to be related to that switch, and my initial glance at the central kiosk (from the south, where the area is most likely to be first entered from) showed me 3 locked doors, so it didn't occur to me until after a few minutes of downtime that there was an unlocked door on the north side. Secondly, I feel that the map once again ends on something of an anticlimax--after you get the red skull the map's essentially over, but you still have to backtrack and traverse some previously unreachable walkways where everything is likely to have already been killed in an earlier combat. There is some element of monster repopulation already at work in the level, ala the monsters that teleport in to the central area after opening the yellow door, so I see no reason this practice couldn't be carried forward as the level continues, particularly when it's time for the player to head for the exit. Finally, the lack of secrets (and items, at that) in this map does seem very odd, since this type of fairly complex layout invites exploration and attempts to reach places in novel ways, although I suppose this is something I could come to accept as just a strange little quirk of the level.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP15: Tremont City
91% kills, 2/2 secrets

Another map with plenty of monsters to kill, this time set up in a city-scape with plenty of apartment buildings and such to explore. Need to grab the red and yellow keys for the normal exit, or all three for the secret one. Grabbing either of the red/yellow keys unleashes a horde of hellspawn across the entire level, including a cyberdemon each, which can lead to some surprises when you think you've grabbed the key in safety only to suddenly have a horde of revenants chase you from the other side of the map. Not all that hard to navigate, thankfully... pretty much just walk into each building without trouble, no tricky switch-hunting or the like, except for maybe the blue key.

Looks pretty nice for the most part (though the textures aren't ones that excite me, woo CEMENT) though there are a couple of misalignments. More important is some bad HOMs: 1, 2. I think they only show up after the keys have been grabbed, but I'm not certain. Also, while the roads generally look nice, there's one part that I'm assuming is supposed to be a slope, but because normal Doom can't do slopes, it's a series of (large) steps, which looks really weird for a road.

No change to the special map text, boo :(

[CorSair]

Map 14
I gotta admit it. I got lost here, once or twice. And if we are seeking IWAD references, I would say Inmost Dens. I liked that map somewhat, same applies here.

And I got hammered pretty hard here. Enemy category isn't overwhelming, only handful of barons, some mancubuses (five or six) and same amount of hell knights and cacodemons here and there. The spotlight shines on imps, revenants, lost souls and various hitscanners. Since the layout is little varied, it easy for them to sneak few potshots at you in the initial/main area.

The objective is simple as it gets. Grab that key, return to this central point, grab that key, return to central point, grab that key, return to central and exit. Would say "non-descript" and "forgettable," even after that beating I took.

Map 15
Skycrapers, large buildings... And large horde. Once you begin firing, prepare for great amount of carnage coming. First attempt was to take shelter from that small warehouse on your immediate right, since it has good supply of medikits, shells and bullets. But since it is two door building, cacodemons and occasional imp can flank you, possibly even drive you out into rain of hellfire, provided by mancs and arachnos, along with few chaingunners. After third death, I first wrestled control of that warehouse. Grabbing few bullet boxes and a box of shells, I decided to conquer my next Alamo, the black building with courtyard and a shop. Taking some damage from shotgunners and arachnos, I took that building for my control. Now, this is a perfect place. Pillars, all routes lead to same killzone, and the store provides some health and ammo.

After a while, pile of dead cacodemons, imps, arachnos and mancs lie in once empty courtyard. Now, it's time to clear the streets and buildings from rabble. With that, momentum begins to cool down eventually, even with few hot spots and tight battles inside the buildings. With monster count effectively halved, let's talk about the map and layout itself.

I really dig the city after intense battle-look. Barricades, damaged buildings and craters, they all seem fitting. Layout itself is total sandbox, main streets all connected to each other, no blocked routes, with buildings dotted around, and each of them is a different adventure. Apartment, warehouse, store... And I think the northern one is subway. It's like downtown. Except it doesn't feel like one, I can't connect any of the buildings to that map.

With all that said and done... Something began raise my anxiety. Fuckload of shotgun shells. Bullets littering all around. Even plasma gun ammo is handed like candy. I took the red key. Nothing. I then proceeded to take the yellow key. Nothing, still. I wandered to what I believe to be exit. Red, Yellow... One door more... Hello Cybie!

And with that, you are getting overwhelmed by everything. Horde of demons, imps, revenants, arachontrons and zombies begin roaming the streets. And as a cherry on cake, you get two additional cyberdemons to battle with, along the one at the exit.

Even with that horde, it still doesn't feel like there's enough to contend with. The west end is completely clear of enemies, maybe that minimizes the impression. Dunno why it is not populated with monsters, but maybe some breathing room should be left too. It's not like cyberdemons wouldn't get there, though. Worst what could happen to you is that you navigate yourself into that water-filled crater, while demons block your way out, and cyber stomps nearby. It is a wonder how I was still alive, even with cyber getting free shots on me.

With everything cleared, all monsters dead, this map gave me good impression with freedom to go wherever you want, (except the exit), and the action. Probably one of my favorite map in Stomper.

[Alter]

CorSair said:
With everything cleared, all monsters dead, this map gave me good impression with freedom to go wherever you want, (except the exit), and the action. Probably one of my favorite map in Stomper.

Thanks, Map15 was one of the hardest maps to work with, it was completely barebones visually in many areas, there was no item placement and no proper exit. It was a pain to work with. Also often I was worried it would be too hard :) on UV.

Anyway guys, if you want to know the exact list of maps I worked on majorly (with the ones not included being minor tweaks, including 08 which was just a visual tweak), here it is: 13,15,17 (This is actually an original map by me),23,24,27,28,29,30. Doesn't seem much but there was a lot of work required with them, fixing the flow issues, CREATING thing placement, and some of them really needed better visuals and some maps (17,30) just had to be created.

So it doesn't surprise me that the other (or earlier) maps aren't gonna be received as well as the ones I did had to work my butt off on. Can't promise I can change that, but I can tune things around, to make them work better with everyone's feedback.

[mouldy]

man i'm well behind..

Map10 - “Toxic Yards”

This is a fun map, spent most of it on low health ducking and covering from stimpack to stimpack. Nice how open and visible everything is, and the large height difference makes lower and higher floors into disticntively diferent areas. I managed to get to the exit without any keys, there is a switch to raise a lift platform that can be pressed from the ground, bypassing a couple of the red doors - the red door guarding the exit didn't actually need a red key, so maybe this was intended as a shortcut? To be honest i'd killed 90% of the enemies by then anyway. As with a lot of these maps I spent the whole thing with just shotgun/chaingun, which is adequate but gets a bit stale. I guess this isn't an issue for continuous players, and since I'm so behind I'm going to play the next few maps continuously just to see if I can get some more weapon flavours.

Map11 - “The Bloodtower”

What started out as a conventional looking map turned into quite a sprawling meandering adventure, with some nice hellish elements creeping in by the end. Health at the start was pretty sparse, later on its all over the place, but surviving the first bit was a real pain. There is damage coming from every direction, and enemies filtering in from god knows where, but there seemed to be a lot of meat and stray bullets to wade through to find the first stimpack. Medkits almost feel like secret items. Later on things even out, and the map leads you on a merry journey, somewhat confusing at times, but still nothing that had me reaching for the automap.

more later..

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP15 Tremont City (The Resistance)

Enemies were everywhere but there is more than enough supplies to take them all down. The layout was entirely sandbox and nonlinear making it easy to run from enemies; although the beginning was rather tough for me to avoid, I found sanctuary eventually on the right side of the map. There I would pick at enemies or let some (like the mancubus) pick for me. For the normal exit, I needed the red and yellow keys, both were pretty easy to figure out, and netted lots of teleporting monsters who would make things tough. Or not, because they were also easy to dispatch given the space. When I got the red key, apparently a wall lowered, and a TON of HOM's were around this area.





After getting both keys, I go to the normal exit to meet my first cyber in the wad, and ended up finding a secret before backtracking to figure out the blue key, which didn't seem hard. On my way to the secret exit I found this...room.

So yeah, this one needs a lot of fixing. There's a ton of misalignments and HOM's that need fixing if this is to be any good. But even if those are fixed I'm still not gonna like it, cause it's just way too 1995-ish for my taste. Music was also pretty obnoxious even though it makes sense for a city level. Also, four arachnotrons were supposed to teleport in, I think after the yellow key, but they never did. Oh, and the secret story text hasn't changed. Woo.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP31: Bad Mojo
100% kills, 1/1 secret*

A big hellish cube that involves gathering keys in order, each one granting access to the next key and unleashing a horde small mob handful of enemies. The combat here is pretty easy... monsters teleport in pretty far away from the player, and are generally of the projectile type rather than hitscanner type. The cube is huge, so there's plenty of room to dodge. The only part that gave me pause was the cacodemons, since some of them tended to sneak into the hallway behind the player.

The true test, on the other hand, is finding that doggoned secret exit, which is interesting since last map's was so easy (free computer map!) This one requires 1) walking over an invisible line that opens up a shootable switch that requires running halfway across the map to shoot, 2) finding what that switch revealed, 3) activating the non-obvious lift in the back of the new area revealed, 4) shooting another shootable switch, which opens the door to the secret exit. I was stuck on step 1 until I opened it up in DB2, I had sussed out where one of the switches was based on the minimap but had no idea how to open it.

Between the paucity of monsters and the aesthetics, this map seems like a bit of a rush/unfinished job. For example, the lava ceiling has been kept for everything, including the doors and switch insets, which is just lazy. There's some bad HOMs in the secret exit, and there's also a very strange switch in the middle of the map that does nothing except raise the floor under the player and create another HOM.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP31 Bad Mojo (Tears of the Past)

This was a pretty fun arena map under the lava. Run around in a counter-clockwise circle getting keys or fighting the enemies on the ground, it all went pretty well. I wish there was more to it though, maybe a cyberdemon in the mix would have made it better. The path to the secret exit had some weird visual effects (read: HOM's as MB had pointed out) and one monster didn't teleport. No story text? Bah.

MAP32 Ezxzentiel (Ezxzentiel Abbrukkas)

This one's definitely got an earthly feel to it. I find having the exit right at the starting point but still inaccessible to be quite underused; it's rather cool this one has it. I need the blue key, but it looks like a long way to get to said key. In fact, there's a puzzle involved! I have to press three switches in three different areas to press three MORE switches, which are thankfully in the same area but locked off. Those three switches create staircases in some nearby room which lead to teleporters, which help build a staircase to the one key. A pretty nice puzzle for this medium-to-large sized level. Combat is decent, one particular area had a nasty trap though. The four shotgun guys plus the hellknight/shotgun guy combo near the marble tomb area was certainly something for the unwary me. Another notable area was the northern slime canal with hitscanners and mancubi, but I took that one slower so it wasn't a problem at all. I did take one good look at the cyberdemon but didn't awaken him. While acquiring the key some more enemies spawned in and I decided to awaken Mr. Cyb, who decided to teleport to an earlier area that I had cleaned. Destroying all in my way, I eventually exit. Pretty fun level, and it's also more texturely refined than the other maps I've played so far, so it's definitely one of the best for me. A few things though.

-First, the cybie can easily be skipped. Since I didn't awaken him at first glance, he stayed put in his closet. After picking up the key, his closet opens. But since the key is far away from the cyber to be seen, I didn't have to awaken him altogether. Heck, if I did awaken him and he teleported, I could still run away from him. While I did fight him in this run, someone might expect to have a "fight-to-the-death" scenario going, so maybe it's nice to delay my exit quite a bit.
-The invulnerability really wasn't needed for anything, at least on HMP difficulty. I didn't use it at first and I didn't use it against the cybie given how easy it was to dodge him.

[Veinen]

Well, looks like I'm rapidly losing steam on this thing, again. Not the wads fault though since I'm enjoying it for sure.

Map13: The Slums

Pretty good, pretty good. Like the hectic start although all the ammunition needed is right there so you can wait around near the spawning point for the enemies to come to you. Perched hitscanners are the biggest threat initially due to the lack of armor. The warehouse district is a box with four more boxes in it, kind of unimaginative and coupled with unimaginative combat, it's easily the dullest part of the map. The warehouses also serve as the ammo storage of the map with something like 200 shell and bullets stuffed in the four buildings. I at least had to return there a couple of time to refill my shells. While you're gone scavenging among the crates, a decent sized horde of monsters has populated the opening area. Roughly half of it is helplessly stuck on an alley on the right side of the central ruins and can be totally ignored while dealing with the other half.

Can't remember much beyond the red doors though, the architecture and visuals are very samey throughout the map and everything just blends together. Gameplay is thematically similar though, perched enemies are aplenty and ground level foes are can be rather easily dealt with if you have patience. Playing with the default complevel in boom, one of the teleport closets failed to function for some reason. Could be that it was just some optional area which I didn't visit that triggers it or I managed to skip a linedef, something I have a tendency to do. Wasn't there a lone AV at the end? A bit lackluster if so.

Map14: City Outskirts

Good lord. Now I have nothing against The Inmost Dens, in fact it's probably one of my favorite IWAD maps, but all these homage maps are getting rather tiresome at this point to be brutally honest. The Inmost Dens is just freaking everywhere in this map, and it is too bad beacuse this map is otherwise very good. The basic layout is really neat, combat is interesting and constant and the level just flows really well. There was not many quiet moments for me here, I did get a bit lost after pressing the blue switch but that was more due to my poor memory than anything else I think, as I had seen the blue bars a few times already at that point. There are a lot of routes you can take initially and finding the first switch may take some time depending on the player in question. Choosing a route that nets you the SSG is recommended, of course. After that it's a hub map basically, pressing key switches open up new areas that have shiny new keys you can use in the central hub. The last acrobatic trip to the exit door was something I really liked, even though there were no enemies left at that point. So yeah, a really good map that suffers a bit from the constant barrage of homages which went a little too far here in my opinion.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP32: Ezxzentiel
96% kills, 1/3 secrets

Weird name for what is actually a pretty straight-forward map that wouldn't feel out of place as a regular map. It's certainly a bit larger than the usual Stomper map, and with over 300 enemies, but that's it... it looks pretty good (lots of dark browns and some GSTONE temples). Objective is to scour the map for switches that open three doors, which open to switches that raise the steps to the blue key needed to exit. Took me a little while to find the last switch, until I realized I had just forgotten to pull one... one of those things where having standardized switch textures (like the skulls in Epic2's MAP28) really helps. I suppose the flesh textures on the back of the columns are supposed to be the clues, but they're easy to miss.

[Demon of the Well]

Map 16 -- Tremont City - 98% Kills / 100% Secrets
This is a tremendously fun level, easily the best in Stomper up to the point I've played (which is map 16, secret maps inclusive, at this point). It's a true city-themed sandbox map, employing the tried and tested trope of placing its exit(s) on the periphery of the playing area, securing them with keys, and then turning the player loose in the map proper to locate and acquire those keys in whatever order and by whatever methods s/he might wish. What puts this map a cut above a lot of maps in a similar style is the quality and intensity of its action--it is sustained at a consistently fast and freeflowing pace throughout the course of the map, only quieting down right before the exit. 15 maps in, Stomper is continuing to projectile-vomit ammo at us at a speed almost intense enough to break the sound barrier, but here for the first time it also shits monsters at us at a rate that makes its generosity with the munitions seem a lot more reasonable.

In actual fact, there's still a ridiculous glut of ammo in the level--probably enough to kill its fairly robust monster population twice over, if not more--but the map's laid out and paced in such a way that you're always on the move, always reacting on the fly to the crowds of demons teeming through the streets and clamoring around in the buildings and back alleys, ideally never staying in one place too long lest a siege situation prove untenable....though there are some places where you can probably pull this off if you like, I for one find it much more satisfying to get out and mix it up with the monsters, constantly changing venue in an improvisational way. The constant repopulating rabble of the damned is highly heterogeneous, including IIRC the Stomper debut of cyberdemons, who here reprise their classic 'streetsweeper' role when they teleport in after the player hits certain progress milestones (I also love the incredibly cheeky placement of the last cyberdemon). There are few formal restrictions placed on monster movement; for the most part monsters don't seem placed with any particular degree of care towards maximizing their specific traits (with the possible exception of the handful of pain elementals, who do seem to be placed with a mind towards highlighting their role as an obnoxious priority target), but rather they're a generalized motley flood of evil that spills around, into, and sometimes over the various buildings in very organic ways. Naturally, infighting takes its toll, but it's in no way the kind of map that really promotes a primarily pacifistic approach--the combat here emphasizes Doom's status as an action game, presenting a large open playground and an ample supply of playmates to wring a hearty portion and hefty variety of delights from it. In this map, I don't give a rat's ass that the ammo balance is, numerically speaking, "fucked"--it being piled all around the place lets me focus on being a rampaging 2.5D killing machine with little need for frugality or restrained pacing. I absolutely respect and enjoy more austere, survivalist-style gameplay in the proper context and setting, but it is neither needed nor wanted here.

Now, in its current form the map has a number of serious technical problems, which fortunately don't interfere with progression, but are severely unsightly--other posters have already pointed out the most severe HOM issues (the one near the chainsaw building is visible from the outset, the others arise when the ruined barricade opposite the player start position sinks into the ground, including a previously unmentioned one beyond the fence in the southwest corner of the play area); smaller issues I've encountered include an improperly pegged door in the southern part of the red key building (it initially contains a chaingunner, an imp, and a bulk cell) that looks like a rollup screen when opened, and a general unreliability in the transportation of monsters out of their closets--I've had arachs fail to show up, and the last time I played six pinkies never made it to the party. Other than this we see more of the now-familiar Stomper concourse issues here and there--e.g. textures on different faces of a building corner or pillar that have different vertical alignments on those different faces, etc.

Anyway, this map indulgently subsidizes the way I like to play sandboxy maps of this type, so color me enchanted--it's fast-paced, it's violent, it's highly replayable, it's a grand old time. Excellent work on the thing placement/other upkeep work, Alter.

Map 31 -- Bad Mojo - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
This one needs a lot of work. In concept I think it's viable enough (and for my part I kinda liked the chain of tricks that eventually open the secret exit), but like many of Stomper's early maps it feels far too restrained as far as combat goes (I'm playing on a modern UV and it feels like I'm on an antiquated HMP), and IMHO it's also rather ugly.

Improving the gameplay should be fairly simple in this case, I reckon all it really needs is some more dangerous/versatile monster waves--as it stands, most of the beam-ins are fairly small squads of ground-bound projectile-type monsters, with a few hitscanners to taste; given the vast amount of space these are not very threatening, and in fact in its current form this map is probably fairly easy to complete Pacifist-style. Apart from purely practical considerations, there is again also a certain element of anticlimax at play--when the fleshy compartments on the large supports ringing the small central booth began receding, I thought that perhaps the map was finally ready to get serious, but all that's revealed are three small groups of basic monsters and....a closet full of free ammo in a map already flush with it. Be still mine heart.

The key to improving this, I think, will be to make it harder for the player to either categorically dominate (or, alternatively, completely ignore) the situation. While it's a spacious map with a lot of resources in it, it doesn't really need to become a slaughtermap or the like (although perhaps it could work as one); I'd say that more persistently using groups of flying monsters and adding additional beam-ins to the upper levels to discourage the player from camping/stirring up infighting from up there, combined with slightly larger and slightly nastier beam-in groups on the ground (I'm thinking of using 1-2 arch-viles per wave, something like that) should be enough to do the trick. Something you might consider doing at the end is using larger beam-in group and introducing a couple of cybs or something as well--there's enough space, ammo, and health that you could do this without sending the map's overall difficulty into the stratosphere. Another tack might be to include an invulnerability artifact (perhaps in the center booth), and a shit-ton of monsters to melt through while under its effects.

From a visual standpoint I find the map somewhat ugly, to be honest. The symmetry I can live with--it's part of the overall progression theme--but the flat neutral light level, universal lava ceiling, and oddly squarish shapes, not so much. Of these three, I'd say my biggest beef is with the light level--vary it up, use more shadows/contrast and a lower baseline light level, maybe experiment with an open skybox, see how it goes. I gather that a lot of the visual strangeness around the super-secret exit is intentional, but as the player stands in front of it and is about to enter, there are some nasty slimetrails oozing off of the front faces of the posts supporting the floating fence which probably ought to be addressed. As Magnusblitz mentioned, the central booth is also badly (though not fatally) broken--the switch in there (and its attendant dysfunction) seems like a remnant of a scrapped progression path, near as I can tell it presently has no effect other than generating some HOMs and rendering the booth off-limits once left, hence my suggestion to use the booth for a V-sphere or something.

So, needs lots of work, like I say. Curious to see what might become of it, though--it's a secret map, so the door is open to be pretty freewheeling with it.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP16: Bastion
96% kills, 2/3 secrets

Back to the city levels, with this one consisting of one main city-esque section, another section behind the red door, then the titular 'bastion' behind large yellow key doors. This is probably the most vertical level of the city ones, certainly more than the Slums and probably more than Tremont City (which admittedly felt more like a 'real' city, whereas this one feels more like a 'Doom' city of a few buildings containing the typical esoteric hallways). Difficulty-wise, this is a real step down from the hordes in MAP13 and MAP15, and back to the 'only a few enemies in each room' approach of earlier maps, so definitely a bit of a breather here (which is fine coming after either MAP15 or MAP32, both of which are relatively loaded with monsters). Still some little issues here... there's an armor bonus stuck in a wall, and this teleport exit is too close to the wall for the cacodemon, getting him stuck (which is fine, cacodemons are the most unloved of all the Doom God's demonic children).

[Demon of the Well]

Map 32 -- Ezxzentiel - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
A taste of what Stomper's Hell setting is going to be like, perhaps? This place isn't characterized by fire and brimstone or gloomy marble palaces, but rather seems more like an infernal analog to Stomper's Earth setting--a dingy, gritty wasteland of high-tech structures built on the decaying remains of much older construction (in this case what appears to be an ancient sacrificial temple of some sort), like so much noisome fungi blossoming on an aging cadaver. In terms of texture selections and even shapes, this actually reminds me more than anything of map 05 (again driving home how odd that map's texture selection was as regards its supposed theme/setting), although the amalgam of brown composite, unworked stone, dark metal, old marble and masonry, and filthy water makes a lot more sense thematically here than it did there. Again this freewheeling texture scheme, while not always the most elegant thing in the world, gives the map a decidedly 'classic megaWAD' aspect; for the most part it works well enough for me, although I think the lighting in the blue key room really ought to be changed to something less bright/flat. A lot of the standard texture alignment/cutoff issues continue to show up throughout the map as well, particularly pronounced almost wherever the riveted metal support texture is used.

From a gameplay perspective, this fits in neatly with a lot of what we've seen in the second episode of Stomper--attrition-based play (medical supplies can again seem painfully scarce in this map) utilizing monsters through the lenses of distance and elevation to keep the player constantly wounded and on the defensive. Seems like a game of momentum--I reckon if you get off to a good start the map's probably not particularly hard, even accommodating in some ways (yet again, there's a ton of ammo, and there's a lot of space available for handling larger fights, ala the cyberdemon when he finally exits his pen), but I played like a brash fool early on and so ended up forced deeper and deeper into hostile territory by the weight of my mistakes, meaning that I spent a considerable amount of time hovering around 20%-40% health over the duration. At first it seemed to me like I was going to end up doing a lot of cleanup of cage/ledge-bound monsters, but if you make it far enough the map actually gates you nicely around at various height levels to eventually fight the majority of the monsters head-on, somewhat curtailing the feeling of a cleanup operation. I did find the purpose of the three main switches somewhat nebulous and so once again was lost for a couple of minutes, mainly because I first saw the teleporter room before any of the staircases had been raised, and it didn't immediately occur to me to recheck that area (the teleporters don't necessarily look like teleporters from ground level), but this is perhaps more indicative of a failing on my part than on the part of the map. I felt like the cyberdemon at the end needed a few buddies to back him up, especially considering the V-sphere that's there for the taking in the yard he ports into.

This map had me running around in poor health a lot of the time, and so provides me an opportunity to complain about something not specific to the map itself that I've been meaning to mention for some time: for the most part, I like the new status bar, and the design of Stomperguy's face, but I feel that his face graphics don't clearly display the varying player health stages to an adequate degree--the blood effects are very subtle/restrained, to the point of almost looking like light bloom in the higher health stages--very little pronounced visual difference in the character's condition until the bottom quarter, where the wounds become a little more apparent, but even then the most noticeable visual cue is the way he seems to pant more. He looks cool, like I said, but as it stands his face is significantly less useful at a glance as a HUD tool in comparison to the standard Doomguy face. Worth considering, I think, although granted this is probably largely a matter of taste--I myself tend to prefer really histrionically pronounced health states (ala the face on the Eternal Doom status bar, for example), for aesthetic as well as purely practical reasons.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP16 The Bastion (Keeper's Keep)

This is a pretty good map, which isn't as crazy as MAP15 city-wise thankfully. Feels alot like Doom II's very own Downtown in fact. No major challenges to note though other than the exit area. I think the whole northern courtyard could be skipped if one decides to climb the exit tower where the hellknight was.

[Seele00TextOnly]

I fell very far behind. Just got busy with personal life stuff, probably won't be finishing the mapset with the club sorry. I wasn't finding useful things to say anyway so it wasn't like I was being all that helpful. Maybe I'll finish it some other time.

[Demon of the Well]

Map 16 -- The Bastion - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
I found this to be pretty underwhelming. It has a cool 'Industrial Zone' flavor to its setting--lots of tall, differently textured buildings, ledges, windows, overlooks, and such--with a few thematic callbacks to 'Grand Gate' (the lines of severed heads on sticks that adorn the outer iron walls of the titular 'Bastion' area, etc.). Unfortunately, most of its play space doesn't seem to be used very well. Some content is optional (e.g. the northern yard mentioned by Getsu Fune, I think the point of going there is to get a plasma rifle, not that it'll do you much good so near the end of so lightly-populated a map), but there's not much sense of nonlinearity or 'sandboxiness', since the map is sectioned off into small quadrants with a building or two apiece, and progress through these sections/towards the exit is linear/gated. Apart from a very brief catwalk trip at one point, there's also not much interplay between the various buildings other than the occasional potshot from a lonely sniper on one building into an area of its neighbor....each plays more like its own little isolated task, so no flying leaps between buildings or anything neat like that.

Opposition is generally very light. Given the layout, naturally a lot of monsters fire down upon you from elevated positions at various points, but the vertical scale is usually pronounced enough and the clustering of the various buildings usually tight enough that one can easily escape any given field of fire by taking a few steps closer to a tower's base, or by casually strolling around a corner before a thrown projectile has a chance to connect. Because the monster population is pretty sparse and most areas aren't really built to accommodate a lot of active enemies at once anyway, there's also little real opportunity for the enemies to develop overlapping fields of fire, or for ground-bound enemies to represent significant enough of an obstacle to distract the player from attacks from higher positions. As per usual, ammo availability is overabundant (although far from the most extreme example of this in the WAD to this point, I suppose), and unfortunately armor and health disbursement (especially medikits, man) returns to the hand-holding levels of excess evinced in the WAD's earliest maps. In combination, these elements amount to a map that, while not actively offensive in any particular way, is also not very engaging and makes only weak demands on the player's attentions. Kind of struck me as a bit of a filler map, I've gotta be honest.

Map 17 -- Outer Power Plant - 96% Kills / 66% Secrets
Hmm, the different authorship of this map is pretty clear. Not to the point where it feels like it can't belong in the mapset, mind you--there's a lot of variety in NMN's own designs, sometimes the only unifying factor being the propensity to reference IWAD maps (which map 17 doesn't do, incidentally)--but quite clear, nonetheless. Spaces are much bigger and airier here, discrete setpieces (often in the form of large yards) are more common, textures are used differently (themed more specifically by area, I would say), etc.

Monster deployment also works in a different way, with a marked shift away from hitscanners and roving trash monsters, towards a lot of mid-tier artillery monsters (esp. mancubi and arachnatrons) acting as ambulatory turrets in key areas; the tendency for monsters to occupy fixed firing positions is quite pronounced, really, even a lot of the weaker monsters that are used find themselves in this role (the imps in the open-skied zig-zaggy walkway area leading up to the blue key setpiece, the groups of zombies in the nukage-piston room, etc.). Outside of the monster placement, the rest of the thing placement seems in line with most of the rest of the mapset to this point, though--tons of ammo (esp. shells and bullets), with health and armor being much rarer commodities. Weapon placement had some flavor to it, although it's not a flavor everyone will like. You get the SSG at the start of the map but very few shells initially, while the map practically shoves bullets down your throat but doesn't readily give you a chaingun unless you take a certain path at the start. My playthrough initially went a lot like my experience with map 32, in that I got off to a bad start and was on the defensive for a while: missed the early chaingun, had an SSG but very few shells for it, no regular shotgun because you only ever get one from a reachable sergeant corpse (not a terribly common thing in this map), got a bit wounded dodging around monsters since I didn't feel like fighting them with my pistol (and 200 bullets!), and so was on the defensive for a while. Because there's some degree of separation between the player and so many of the monsters, it's easier to get back on one's feet in this map than it was in map 32, though.

Something you might try here is giving the player the chaingun at the start of the map (maybe put the SSG where the chaingun is now), so the many bullets sitting around the early areas get more immediate use, maybe toy around with monster types a bit, see how it goes. The experience I had didn't offend my sensibilities, but like I said, some folks might find it irritating. Other than that, I can say that there are setpieces in the map that I liked (the cyberdemon in the blue reactor, the bank of overlooking imps there throws off one's concentration to a surprising degree), and others that I didn't (the cyberdemon that guards the blue key--he's a turret that stands on a big area of damage floor, so essentially the only way to fight him is to trade rockets with him from afar, which didn't strike me as fun at all, so I just ran up the nuke-stairs and snatched the key from him, then left). In all, I'm not entirely sure I'm comfortable with how detached a lot of the combat feels, but I'm glad the map essentially takes the 'ol 'The Citadel' approach and requires only two of the three keys in order to exit, allowing the player to do the weird demon-run area and then pick the cyberdemon encounter they prefer.

Errors: Using the lift that leads up to the zombie platforms in the room with the computer area map from the backside reveals an untextured surface. There's also a nasty midtex-bleeding effect in the ceiling in front of the little hatch you use when you enter the area with the color-coded exit switches for the first time. Also many secret things are not tagged as secret--the blue armor in the yard the player is looking out into at the start, the plasma rifle eventually reached after triggering a shootable switch near the exit point, etc.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP17: Outer Power Plant
91% kills, 1/3 secrets

The idea of a different author didn't occur to me, but I did definitely notice a different feeling from much of what has come before in Stomper. As DOTW says, it's definitely larger/airier while still being mostly indoors, and the texturing is definitely more area-by-area. And there's only like what, 4 chaingunners? :) The other main difference is that, well, this level definitely lives up to its name, with a various obvious power plant/reactor in the middle, unlike some of the other levels which were a bit more esotericly connected to the name.

Basically a big map-wide search for three keys, though as far as I can tell, only the yellow and another key are needed, not all three. The yellow and blue are both guarded by cyberdemons, while the red is basically a big switch/door hunt, which can be a bit frustrating but solvable simply by exploring any new area you hadn't been in yet.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP17 Outer Power Plant (Glorious Struggle)

Large level here, with a huge amount of imps in it too. Things are indeed getting harder, judging by that first hitscan wing and the surprise shotgunners if I went left. However, most of the left side before the first cyberdemon was the easy part. A few interesting things were there, like the archvile (these guys are quite rare on HMP it seems) and the outdoor area with lots of demons and a couple of arachnotrons, plus the annoying revenant tower. There seems to be two pathways to the right, I went for the one with the cyberdemon in it, he wasn't hard, but the walkway over the nukage after that certainly had me on my toes. I went south to the exit area which had me burnt by imps and mancubi trying to figure out the exit combination. Not like I wanted to exit right away though. The cyberdemon I had previously killed held the yellow key, and I saw two yellow switches, which, it seems, do the same thing, so it was a waste of time pressing both. I figured out how to get the blue key after cleaning up the nukage walkway area, which meant fighting another cyberdemon, except he's easy prey again due to having a limited perch. Hitting the blue key switch in the exit room, I leave, never finding the red key.

I found out though that the red key was back in that demon courtyard, after pressing a switch behind the revenant tower, and the red switch in the exit area did the EXACT same thing that the blue key switch did. The map didn't feel as it was complete either. I missed six monsters, and found out the trigger for those six demons was the elevator in the yellow key room, far away that I can't backtrack fast enough to kill those demons (tag 13). The plasma gun could be marked as a secret too. And in the blue key area, did the stairs have to have nukage?

[mouldy]

Map12 - “Grand Gate

Dauntingly sprawling and complex to navigate, compounded by the uniform texturing, nevertheless its not as bad as it looks. I did end up having to use the automap, maybe for the first time in the whole wad. I guess its a stylistic choice to make it all look so flat and monotone, but the scale of the place has obviously had a detrimental effect on the details here and there, some very large basic shapes going on. Funnily after crying out for a rocket launcher in previous maps, this one gives it freely and yet I never had cause to use it. A decent map, hats off to the extensive 3d floor usage.

Map13 - “The Slums”

Dig the music on this one. This does a pretty decent job of feeling like monster suburbs, though like the last one it feels like the scope and ambition has diluted the visuals, lots of basic geometry and flat lighting (I even saw some goggles somewhere for some reason). The action is very cool, from the start it crawls with angry inhabitants and refills throughout, gets quite populous at times too.

Map14 - “City Outskirts”

More than a passing resemblance to a certain doom 2 map, though an order of magnitude more sprawling. I got totally lost in this one, though it didn't help that i had to stop half way and do something else. Lighting is used a bit more effectively here, though the detail is still pretty sparse, and some of the texturing verges on wallpaper (I saw plenty of windows disappearing into the ground). I started finding it a bit of a chore by the end, I think the beige is starting to bite now.

Map15 - “Tremont City”

A hilariously chaotic running battle, just a great big playground for killing monsters in, great fun. Love the layout, gives loads of options for progression and picking a defensive position when things start getting out of hand. Finally got to blast away loads with plasma gun, have to say i'm having more fun playing continuous with these maps, they seem to be more about the killing than playing tactically. Visuals are a bit rough to be honest, though I'm mostly saying that because the layout feels ambitious enough to deserve more, I think thats the case with a lot of these maps. They are great fun to play and explore, but I can't help thinking what they'd be like with a hellbound level of visual polish. Trouble is the maps are so expansive that this would probably be mountains of work..

Map31 - “Bad Mojo”

This one looks half finished, very minimal design and strangely under-utilised space. If the point is to have a large empty chamber for atmospheric reasons then i'd have spent more time on the visuals really. I guess its a secret map so maybe its not that important. The gameplay feels pretty basic too. And the music is a bit of a weird choice for a hell map, or any doom map really. Ah well.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP18: Assault
100% kills, 4/5 secrets

Despite the name, this is a fairly breather map, with only around 150 enemies. Progression is also pretty simple - climb around the staircases and raise a lift to the blue key in the center tower, repeat through the blue door for the red key, then one more section to open up the exit. None of the swarms that teleport in after grabbing keys are too tough (the Pain Elementals can be a bit of a pain in the wide-open area) but there's also a decent amount of monster closets that pop open across the map to keep the player from getting bored. Most of the secrets are pretty standard 'find the secret wall' that show up on the minimap. Probably the most impressive thing is the wall facade above the entrance to the eastern area, there's multiple textures above an opening, so it's done with a lot of midtex trickery.

[Salt-Man Z]

MAP13:
This was a blast. That first surprise horde that appears after the first key was just wild. I missed one secret, as well as 10 monsters that got stuck in a monster closet (they don't appear to have ever woken up, as they were just standing still on the automap.)

MAP14:
Another fun one, sprawling and maybe a tad overlong, but that's only a minor complaint. I entered this level with 175% health, and almost immediately lost half of that. I exited with 69%, and at numerous points I was running around in the single digits. Tough. Hitscanners everywhere, and throw in revvies and mancs in the later portions, and you've got to constantly watch yourself from all sides. I had a blast though.