Looking for specific types of puzzle+action wads

[unbirthday]

I'm really not into the heavy action maps anymore. I'm playing Hellbound, but I just can't get into it, and I've given up. It was only recently that I played the Master Levels, and I actually quite enjoyed the puzzles in some of the better maps. I'm looking for that sort of flow between a bit of vanilla action (not gazillions of enemies) and puzzles. More like a half-life sort of rhythm of action + puzzle + reward.

What would be perfect for me, is vanilla-like maps (doesn't have to be vanilla, but I don't like excessive detail) similiar to Doom episode 1 and episode 4, but with more puzzles.

There are soooooooo many wads to look through, and I seem to find ones I like initially, but then they just turn out to be action-only maps.

I've played cyberdreams, arch-vile jump, and I really enjoyed Doom the way Id Did. I really liked the playstation TC, especially the hidden/secret maps. But moar vanilla+puzzles. I've only found single maps that are like I describe, as opposed to an entire wad.

Could you lads/ladies please help me find ones I'd like?

Reviews
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Countdown to Extinction: ticktock.wad
Short maps each with a unique mechanism is a brilliant idea. The vanilla abstract design, with newer design rules is what I was looking for. However, the way some mechanisms are totally unforgiving is a huge nuisance. There's something annoying about making the player become obsessed about quicksaving just in case his next move kills him. There wasn't near enough puzzles to consider it a puzzle wad - it was too action heavy, requiring the player to do some incredibly mad things such as running past a cyberdemon at the risk of instant death. I played through without cheating, however when it got to the part where you're teleported into a lava pit with a cyberdemon, I couldn't understand why I died whenever I fell in the pit. It took many many attempts, and even after killing the cyberdemon, I still died when going into the pit. The last boss battle was insanity and I cheated there too. The first half of the wad was ok, but as I got nearer the end, it became more of a action slog. Maybe it's because I'm getting older, but I just prefer brains over instinct in my gaming these days. The map where you are running away from an archvile whilst trying to press buttons - that was impressive.

barrel2.wad
OK, that was fun. Right at the beginning there's a really good puzzle, and it's endless fun from then on. There's a few times where I wasn't sure what to do, and it's so much better if the designer doesn't kill the player in teaching them something. There was a moment where I had to fire at a barrel to get out of a trap - but I didn't realise until after a quickload. It's best that the designer makes it clear what the player should do (Put the barrel closer, and with a texture behind it, highlighting it to the player). The architecture was very plain even for vanilla, but the puzzles made it seem redundant anyway. Jolly good!

[scifista42]

Try out Temple of the Lizard Men (1,2,3) series, though they require (G)ZDoom.

[Obsidian]

*Toots own horn*

It's vanilla compatible and most of the levels have a central gimmick or puzzle to them. Hopefully it fits the criteria. :)

[joe-ilya]

Momento mori and heroes.

[Yuki Senmatsu]

I may know a good one, Evileye.wad.

[durian]

No Rest For The Living had some nice puzzly moments, as I recall.

[Maes]

Evileye.wad as Omegalore said, and Cyberdreams (not to be confused with Cybie dreams ;-)

[Archi]

There's plenty of nasty puzzles in Cheogsh series.

[Never_Again]

Any map by any of the following authors:

• Jim Flynn
  
• Bob Evans
  
• Cameron Newham

All vanilla, all brain.
You'll find the most devious puzzles in Cameron's few levels. Two WADs out of the three will likely make you think that it's impossible to get out of the starting area and require out-of-box thinking. Jim's levels are massive and take hours to explore.
Good luck.

[40oz]

Chris Klie is a mapper who is responsible for some of the puzzle oriented maps in Master Levels. You ought to try BF_THUD!.wad, which is a compilation of his released works. His maps are easy from a monster combat standpoint, particularly because he is generous with powerups, but there are catwalks and teleport puzzles and switch quests and a lot of other unconventional puzzle solving type stuff you might only see in a game like doom.

[unbirthday]

Thanks for the responses.
I've done evileye and cyberdreams.
I think I'll try obsidian's wad first.
Feel free to fill this thread up with moar MOAR MOOOOOAR :D

[Gez]

Eternal Doom and anything that it inspired. Like Epic 2 MAP28 or Reverie MAP32.

[Zed]

Gez said:

Eternal Doom and anything that it inspired. Like Epic 2 MAP28 or Reverie MAP32.

Correction: it's map 31 from Reverie, Metal Mansion.

Also, MAP14 from Epic 2: Orion's Belt, The Puzzler, Impossible, MAP08 from Reverie, among others. It all depends on what kind of puzzles you want.

[unbirthday]

Obsidian said:

*Toots own horn*

It's vanilla compatible and most of the levels have a central gimmick or puzzle to them. Hopefully it fits the criteria. :)

Alright, I've finished your wad and did a little review in the OP. I know you've done loads of stuff in the DOOM community, so don't take the criticism too harshly. I really enjoyed the first half, especially the first 4~5 maps. Short and sweet vanilla maps over huge complex maps where you pull a switch and have no idea what it did xD The reason I love the original episode 1, is because of the windows, showing you what you've altered.

Alright I'll try Never_Again's suggestions ^^

[Obsidian]

Hey, I don't mind: I can understand how the experience can get a bit tiresome after a while. Also considering the one hour build time, it's no surprise that some of the maps aren't overly fabulous. Thanks for the feedback :)

[unbirthday]

Obsidian said:

Hey, I don't mind: I can understand how the experience can get a bit tiresome after a while. Also considering the one hour build time, it's no surprise that some of the maps aren't overly fabulous. Thanks for the feedback :)

When I wrote about pushing a switch and not knowing what it did, I wasn't talking about your stuff btw. It's fine to not show the player what happened, as long as he finds out soon enough ha ha. In fact traps like that are good - surprises are fun. But also, I don't think surprises should always be negative. I think many in the community need to learn that. For instance, it would be nice to walk down a corridor and a trap open, with weapons and goodies, but for it just to be that alone, without consequences. There's a few parts in your wad where that happens. It was in Hellbound (I think lvl 18) where I pulled a switch and I hadn't a clue what it opened. I spent about 45mins just looking through this huge map. It was not fun. It made me stop playing it. Hellbound has fantastic architecture, but there's just tooooo much action. Too many people think that you make things challenging by throwing in more monsters. NO! I'd rather play a 20 minute wad that was really fun, with good pace (Similiar to doom.wad/doom2.wad) and a few puzzles, than play a monstrously huge set of maps for 20hours that are a slog to get through, have no puzzles and use masses upon masses of monsters.

[Obsidian]

I know you weren't talking about the switch thing: I try to avoid doing that myself and to be honest I really haven't made that much big maps anyway. :)

[Never_Again]

unbirthday said:

barrel2.wad
The architecture was very plain even for vanilla,

True, Cameron had no eye for aesthetics. It appears that his background was text adventure games; the readme for SCREAM subtitles it as "Zork - with a shotgun". Also note that all three of his WADs were made within days of the release of the first editor that allowed making levels from scratch (DEU v5.0).

A few moar classics: anything by Jon Landis (except maybe for BERSERK). In particular, !PIPE!.WAD is my all-time favorite.

There's also the recent Hexasketch. I found MAP01 very frustrating, interesting ideas notwithstanding. You might like it better; prepare to die a lot, though. MAP02 is more playable, IMO. You can skip the unlisted MAP31, it's pretty much straight action.

[Never_Again]

I extensively played Sminky2.wad (same author as Hexasketch mentioned above) this week and can recommend it for for die-hard puzzle WAD fans. There are some caveats, though - the upcoming T/nC #472 will go through it in detail.

[Avoozl]

void.wad by Cyb would probably count, it's a pretty fun wad with some nice uses of ZDoom features.