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Demonologist

To Mega Therion [single map, boom compatible]

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I must say that I really liked weird visual experiments demonstrated by Lainos' Urotsuki series, so one beautiful day I thought it'd be cool to make something crazy in similar vein, and with same resources. Well, similar or not, but crazy it is.
Gameplay-wise, I felt inspired by Darkwave0000's work, above anything else. This map, while being relatively short, offers lots of open space and is very densely populated, so be prepared for one hell of a fight.

Screenshot (quite self-explanatory I presume)

Notes on difficulty settings:

UV - quite fierce and demanding, as it requires fast thinking and really good crowd control skills. Some trial and error, too, as weapons and keys are heavily guarded, and running around carelessly is punished swiftly.

HMP - would be a better choice for first playthrough if you want challenge, but don't feel like attacking the storm. Powerups are stronger and are more generous, weapon progression is more favorable, and monster count is reduced quite noticeably.

HNTR - pretty much like HMP monster count-wise (with a bunch of problematic individuals gone), but bfg is available without any keys, and there are a couple of extra invuls. Yeah, sure, a damn walk in the park.

Special thanks:
- Lainos for inspiration and texture compilation, as well as all the texture authors;
- Phml, Ribbiks and Archi for additional playtesting, your sweat was not shed in vain;
- Christian "darkreaver" Lian for his awesome music track, check out more of his stuff on https://soundcloud.com/motorzag (the one playing on the map is "The man who came from the stars")
- Marc "Fanatic" Pullen for title/intermission music, both tracks taken from "Tidbits", 2006;
- H.R. Giger for title/intermission images, these are "Spell IV" and "Spell I", respectively, and his works served as an inspiration, to a greater or lesser degree.

Download link

Have fun... I think?

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This would have made a good SF2013 map I think. was playing on UV and made it to around the 850 kills mark.

- The high powered weaponry being heavily guarded makes it even more challenging. My strategy was to take the MegaArmor, SSG and go for the PG to unleash the 2 Cyberdemons so they can help get infighting going. I then ran around in a large circle until I was able to escape and go back to get the (now unguarded) RL.
- Pain Elementals are such a pain! I'd love to know how often people who UV-Max these sorts of maps accidentally rocket themselves to death off a Lost Soul. Quite a lot of the time I actually play with infinitely tall actors disabled and Lost Souls still annoy the hell out of me! The BSK area that unleashes the wave of PEs and Imps I struggled to clear. I'd love to rocket them to death but the charging Lost Souls make that exceptionally challenging and often some fly off into the distance and spout tons more Lost Souls.
- Homing rockets from millions of miles away are also a pain!
- Awesome music track!

It's very chaotic and I do think a bit of luck is essential (on UV anyway) but there is space to run around which makes it fun. It'll be a while before I complete this in one go I think!

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The blue skull key area feels like a lazy summer afternoon compared to the inescapable hellhole of the red key area. The only thing I've been relatively successful is triggering all the AVs, grabbing the Megasphere and then AV jumping out of there. I ran around hoping it would clear itself out a bit, but the Revenants killed the two Cyberdemons with several hundred Revs still alive. So now it's too packed to get back into the red skull key area.

I feel like I'll need an invulnerability sphere and the BFG to make any more progress. It's hard for me to truly judge the gameplay in these kinds of maps because most of the time I'm not really 'playing.' More like running around hoping those 1000 Revenant rockets don't catch up.

What I do feel capable of commenting on is the aesthetics. It looks nice, and looks like it's mostly, if not all, stock textures. It has a very oppressive vibe, even before noticing the thousands of enemies.

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Awesome map, i rarely play other difficulties than UV, but in this case i switched to HMP since UV was far beyond my skills without save scammin, so thumbs up for including difficulty settings.
Nice visuals, especially the large fleshy structure in the RK area.

The only thing that really bothered me were the AV's in the RK area which blew me out of the map several times with no way to get back up.
Everything beside the above mentioned point was truly great.

The AV's guarding the entrance to the final battle can easily be tricked by hiding at the side of the entrace and killing them separatly.
The Final battle was the ice on the cake, really enjoyed that one. Though i think 2 V-Spheres in here would be sufficient enough, at least on HMP.

I spare you from watching my lousy FDA attempt, still i got an First Exit on HMP.

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@ Linkrulezall: Indeed.

@ degree23: Thanks for feedback, though I feel reluctant about including this map anywhere. Initial strategy is correct, PEs were never too much of an issue for me with infinitely tall actors (though of course you'd better eliminate some of them when you have the chance), and I've been rocketing squads of them for quite some time now, it just requires a bit of practice. There's plasma to back you up, anyway. Homing rockets... well, hide from them and try to take care of snipers asap, what else to say. A bit of luck is always essential in slaughtermaps, heh, it's just that when it becomes the defining factor - then surely something is wrong with the map.

@ paymentplan: Running into the spider mastermind area for cover and vital space would be a better idea. Then it's a question of outmaneuvering the horde and evading possible attacks using cover and infighting. You'd better switch to HNTR for bfg and invuls then. And glad you liked the looks!

@ tourniquet: Thanks for kind words, glad you liked it! Then again, in rk area you're not supposed to stand still and take hits, those AVs are meant to force the player to run deeper into location. Possibility to trick the AVs after bfg is intentional, about the invuls... it's hard to tell. Feel free to try that part out on UV, haha, quite hectic yet quite enjoyable I think, at least when you can prioritize your targets correctly.
And thanks for the demo!

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Linkrulezall said:

Always a good sign when your Doom project is named after a Celtic Frost album

This.

Anyway, was impressed by your last map so tonight I'll play this.

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Some FDAs from me here. I'd avise not watching them as they're pretty embarrassing.
Going for the Blue key and slowly reducing the horde seemed the best strategy to me, although the PEs were particularly annoying to bypass. Some foul words were uttered during the second demo.

I should probably have gone for the Plasma Gun and Backpack instead, although the Vile up there + ground stuff seemed too scary.

Would have loved to see the final BFG9000 fight but I immediately and foolishly died at the Red key area, when I realized that the floor was too high to escape it was already too late. :)

Anyway, cool map, thanks for sharing. :)
Very challenging but not too absurd. It does feel like a "modern" Darkwave0000 map with its openness. The theme reminded me of SF2012 map 34, with a darker vibe maybe.

Awesome music track, too.

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@ saifi: Welp, it seems that people mostly expect crapton of revenants upon seeing my name attached to a map, so I'm glad it's not that obvious now, haha!

@ DeathevokatioN: Will be looking forward to what you might say!

@ [WH]-Wilou84: Thank you! And for the demos, too, on the contrary - it was loads of fun watching those, even if this fun is a result of another person's suffering, heh. I admit that sometimes I laughed so hard that I nearly spilled my tea. I believe this is what Steve Duff feels when he gets his pelts... Forgive me if you can, I'm always looking forward to your maps, so one day I'll certainly repay you with my own blood.
This map is quite painful for FDAs, as the only way to feel more or less fine in this damn monster soup is to know your way around and ensure maximum killing capacity early on. Yet you took the path of pleasure in pain indeed. In fact, it's surely possible to reach plasma without firing a single shot, as there are "holes" in hordes surrounding the start. RK fight is an excersize in evading and outrunning the crowd, and BK nasties could be engaged without too much trouble with all the weapons sans BFG collected. So far, Memfis has set up an absolute record in "survive this shit with ssg as long as you can", as he was able to collect both keys and nearly reached bfg with double barrels and nothing else, haha.
And final fight... I already hear more foul words and curses from just about anyone who tries to play it FDA-style somewhere in the distance. Unless they're very good at dodging all kinds of shit, that is.

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it seems the download link for this wad is dead, which is a shame cuz the screenshots make it look really cool and challenging :/ 

 

if its possible for a mirror download link of this wad to be re-uploaded, please do so. Id be grateful :)

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3 hours ago, i suck at nicknames said:

it seems the download link for this wad is dead, which is a shame cuz the screenshots make it look really cool and challenging :/ 

 

if its possible for a mirror download link of this wad to be re-uploaded, please do so. Id be grateful :)

This link is still OK

Edited by DaRkWeZ

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You can also play this level in SF3 as map27. The version here is only different in terms of coat of paint (which I admit the Urotsuki inspired stuff is pretty cool).

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Greetings, as @Catpho pointed out - this map eventually made its way into Slaughterfest 3, and aside from revised texture scheme, new music track and minor rebalancing where appropriate - it's the same (great) beast, therefore I felt there was no need to further support this thread.

Thanks for showing interest!

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