Mucus Membrane (single Boom-format map)

[baja blast rd.]

"Mucus Membrane" is a Boom-format map. Difficulty settings are lovingly implemented.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/ton3tzj8wm4dc7y/MuMe_v3.wad

Some -nomo shots.











FDAs/comments appreciated.

--

Old version for compatibility with demos posted up to and including 4shockblast's:

Spoiler

http://www.mediafire.com/download/7wksshcxb84pu5n/Mucus_Membrane.wad

http://www.mediafire.com/download/l1059rz95aqe8hj/MuMe_v2.wad (for RjY's second demo)

[40oz]

Ho boy this looks beautiful.

[Ribbiks]

holy shit this one was insane. I eventually made it to the RSK room, where I decided to stop. uv-fda: https://www.mediafire.com/?sq29mb377xmxwqs after the fda I played through with saves to see the rest, and then poked around with cheats to find the secrets. aside from the cyb tele I didn't find any of em during normal playthroughs.

extremely hectic start, absolutely brutal chaingunner usage. Very frantic trying to carve out some space and find some ammo to deal with the encroaching cacoswarm. ammo on uv felt rather sparse, I wasn't sure when/if I was going to be granted sufficient ammo to clear out the roaming enemies at the start. Though in my fda I missed the bfg area and didn't infight as well as I could've, so partially my fault there. I think I'd welcome another green armor by the time the RSK room comes around (or perhaps as a reward for completing the 4 AV area? I wasn't sure what was accomplished by going over there)

overall another fantastic map. very hard (or maybe I'm just getting rusty, haven't dooming much recently) but orchestrated well enough to keep me chomping at it.

other misc commentary:
- god damn this map is dark. looked washed out in high software gamma so I went back to gl for this one
- avj secret was neat, I knew one of those corners was going to have something in it, but I wasn't sure if it was going to be the one with the circle or the 2 faces, so I didn't go for either. In general I enjoy that these maps are unafraid to use things like inescapable pits and av-jumps :D
- might make sense if the terrace you get to after the cyb telefrag had some cells or something? would make it easier to take out the arach bastard in the distance
- sky cutoff here

[scifista42]

HNTR FDA, failed anyway - I wasn't any persistent today, just gave up when the 4 Archviles killed me. The challenge was not mundanely easy even on HNTR, which I liked. Impressive design and visual style. Good work.

[RjY]

First exit on HNTR.

Spoiler

Not previously unseen (FDA). That went nowhere, so I started again on a lower skill, having also run wadspy on the map, which gave a ratio > 1 so I knew I would have to play very conservatively with ammunition. As usual I took this too far and tried to kill everything with infighting.

Very lucky not to die in the fight inside the fortress. However, then I got too near to a rocket explosion and wasted 89% of a berserk box I'd only just picked up. Damn! Fortunately I then stumbled on a soulsphere+armour.

After getting the red key I wandered around looking for secrets but missed pretty much everything. Eventually I open the red door and - oh is that the exit already? Surprised that was an exit - thought the teleporter would take me to the other fortress behind which I hadn't got into yet. That must be secret. Should have kept looking.

Three of four secrets and fourteen monsters remain at end.

If you watch this, I suggest to speed it up as I play very slowly on unfamiliar maps.

Issues:

- Please, no spaces in filenames. Thank you.

- Slew of error messages at start about unknown switch textures. Please trim SWITCHES lump.

- Contrast of low light levels and bright sky texture made things hard to see.

[scifista42]

RjY said:

- Please, no spaces in filenames. Thank you.

I also prefer it that way, without spaces. But just to inform you (I'm almost sure you know), quotes around the file name solve the problem in CMD. I recorded my demo via this command:

prboom-plus -file "Mucus Membrane.wad" -warp 1 -skill 2 -complevel 9 -record mume_fdascifista

[RjY]

scifista42 said:

I also prefer it that way, without spaces. But just to inform you (I'm almost sure you know), quotes around the file name solve the problem in CMD.

Indeed, any shell worth using will be able to tab-complete the filename and escape any special characters, but the fact remains special characters in filenames are annoying, especially to deal with in scripts, so I prefer to discourage their use. Of course the author is free to ignore me, it is only advice after all.

Anyway on topic, I watched your and Ribbiks' demos and can't believe I didn't think to just jump over to the black castle from the top of the hill. That said I would certainly have died in there so I guess it's better I didn't. Not crazy about inescapable death pits or mandatory archvile jumps for 100% secrets either... Finally I noticed thing #333 (a teleporter exit) is in void space.

[baja blast rd.]

Thanks everyone. Posted an updated version, with among other things a spaceless filename and tougher BFG/RK fights on HNTR. I'm glad the AV secret was noticed. :)

[4shockblast]

Tough map, but quite fun. Like Ribbiks I tried FDAing it but ended up rerecording anyway since the map was quite hard and I'm not really accustomed to FDAing hard maps. Still, my last attempt before the rerecord got quite far, and I only ended up needing one more segment. Start is very hectic, some pretty brutal use of chaingunners, revs, and snipers, and I quite liked the fight with four archviles. It's definitely manageable, though, at least once I knew where to go for armor, powerups, and health (and with some pacifist strats :D).

Some suggestions:

- There's 2 linedefs (1846 and 10615) closing the entrance to the area with four archviles, which I think is a bit annoying since you can trigger the second one on the way out and have to reopen the entrance.
- The yellow key pickup sorta confused me at first, I went down there a few times thinking that after picking up the key I'd have to do something before I checked the editor to make sure that it was in fact just a timed fight. Maybe somehow make it clear that the player has to wait (possibly have the stair out of the area raised by a switch I have to wait for or something).
- I think the faraway arachnotron would be better placed closer; as a speedrunner, having to shoot faraway snipers with rockets and hoping they hit is annoying for maxdemos (plus the arachnotron as it is right now doesn't really serve that much of a purpose).
- There's a small strafejump that I do in my FDA a few times that would skip a bit of the map potentially (a bunch of my deaths were to trying the strafejump), not sure if that's something you care about removing, as it doesn't make the map much easier.
- Also, I didn't do this in my FDA, but you can leave the red key room by straferunning out of it before the bars close and then you're locked out of it.

FDA and rerecord here (so many deaths :D).

[4shockblast]

edit: double post even though it kept telling me that none of my posts were coming through because of 60 second time limit :\, please delete

[RjY]

rdwpa said:

Thanks everyone. Posted an updated version, with among other things a spaceless filename and tougher BFG/RK fights on HNTR. I'm glad the AV secret was noticed. :)

Thanks for the update, here is a second HNTR demo, which gets 100% kills and secrets, now I know where they all are.

However this time I died once, really early on, due to carelessness.

Also, as you can see, the reason I don't like archvile jumps is that I am hopeless at them.

Bug: it seems EXITSIGN is missing from the texture definition lump - lines 10616-9 report an unknown texture.

[40oz]

I'm pretty impressed with how the brown slime liquid is used; the yellow in the sky kinda tricks you into believing its yellow slime. Very cool :)

[ArmouredBlood]

I recorded a demo, but around the time I was reliably getting to the yellow key or bfg I got a blue screen. I think my computer didn't like how many times I suicided and reloaded in seconds. I hate the stair ice in the bfg part, but I'm not the most careful person regarding movement. I'll try it again later, but, got stuff to do.

[Demon of the Well]

Ah, CC4Tex. We meet again. Sensibly used assets here, but perhaps a mite monochromatic in the visual department. That yellow sky is really cool, though, and looks familiar somehow. Where's it from?

Anyway, I have a skill 4 FDA for you, but I'm afraid it uses an older version than the one you've got up as I write this--I downloaded it this morning before leaving for the day's work, and played it first thing once I settled in after getting back this evening. If you only posted 2 versions then of course it's the first one, but if there are three it could've been the second...can't tell you because I renamed the file, heh. Another bid to use more 'conventional' filenames from me, there, I guess...older executables used to have a character limit on WAD file names they'd run, and while that may not be the case anymore, I guess it's a habit/OCD quirk a lot of us still have.

Edit: 99% sure the FDA uses the first version of the WAD. Reading comprehension, DotW, it's a thing!

I managed to squeak through this one without dying, but other than that it's kind of a lame demo, mainly because I never ended up visiting the grey shrine on the other island. I had assumed I was going to teleport there via the pads in the red-locked building (you can even see me nervously checking my ammo before stepping on), but this was the exit instead. In hindsight it's painfully obvious that I was just supposed to jump there from the hill itself, a marvel of folly that I didn't realize this while I was trying to scout the shrine's contents through the windows while standing on said hill...that's the power of assumption for you, I guess. Seeing as I wasn't the only one this happened to it might be worthwhile to simply have the optional area connected to the mainland more conventionally--doesn't seem like progression there is gated by anything other than reaching the hill, which can be done early--but I suppose there's no reason to assume that most players will be slow on the uptake just because a couple of us were.

As per usual, very tightly balanced, and a hellacious beginning, gets pretty nerve-wracking despite the low monstercount and relatively soft space restrictions--the lock-ins really count where they do occur, especially the BFG encounter, well nigh crapped myself there, if you'll pardon my crudity. I do think having the green armor available sooner than it is would be beneficial, for the chaingunner trap in the main (brown) building, if nothing else--obviously that's what the blursphere outside is for, but that poor artifact has been so abused and misunderstood by generations of PWAD authors (and id themselves aren't exactly guilt-free as far as that goes, either!) that many players will probably avoid it until it's too late. Not a big deal in a short map, I suppose, especially if you're not playing demo-style, but nevertheless I think having a bit more survivability for the shitstorm outside would still be nice, considering how carefully every other type of resource is balanced, and how superfluous the green armor can become soon after it's acquired. I was also going to suggest having a little more ammo to use in the iceberg room to kill the three cybers (doesn't even necessarily need to be cells), but that may not be an important consideration, as there's probably more slack to use there in a proper, educated maxrun.

On that note, some considerations, gleaned mostly from a second all-secrets/savegames playthrough:
* Barring some very favorable infighting, the arachnatron to the far north is only killable from one somewhat counterintuitive position, which doesn't feel quite right. As 4shockblast suggested, simply moving him much closer or even taking him out entirely probably wouldn't harm the map too much (although he does deter you from camping on that side of the building early on, in fairness). Another alternative is to try adding him as a second stop following the cyberdemon telefrag (which may be easier said than done given the 'tron's weird hitbox, granted).
* The YK encounter is effectively cheatable by staying totally pacifistic/not firing until after the timed step back up to the main island has appeared. On UV skill at least the chaingunners right at the start of the level are a serviceable diceroll deterrent to actually doing this, but one can severely blunt some of the early stress in the level this way provided RNG is favorable for those first few seconds (which may be even more pronounced on lower skill levels). I'm personally inclined to view this as a "Leave It In (TM)" sort of deal for clever players, but I mention it regardless for the sake of thoroughness.
* Some monster-blocking lines to keep the 'porting chaingunners in the crossfire trap from being knocked off of their ledges might be in order.
* The mechanism of the dual medikit secret in the RK room is effectively 'mute' the way it has currently been set up, which surely makes the secret much harder to find, but more importantly doesn't seem like it was really the intention of the design. Being able to hear the shield blocking off the little compartment move upon pressing on the proper plate in the wall seems like it'd be more sensible.

[baja blast rd.]

Pretty amazing demo, actually. You survived the YK fight non-pacifist at the very outset -- at which point it's usually near-suicidal due to the excess revs and cacos still being alive -- and in the meantime like half of the remaining incidental population (including the bevy of chaingunners in the building) infought themselves to death. I'm still thinking, "How the hell did all of that happen?" The shitstorm usually ends up lasting a lot longer but less intensely.

Ah, CC4Tex. We meet again. Sensibly used assets here, but perhaps a mite monochromatic in the visual department. That yellow sky is really cool, though, and looks familiar somehow. Where's it from?

It's from the resource pack "pk_1". I'm not sure what the official name is; I got it and arch_tx from the linked thread. There's quite a lot of overlap between cc4-tex and arch_tx.

[dobu gabu maru]

Fun stuff. I was expecting something more vicious given the grim atmosphere and number of enemies I bumped into at the beginning, but it was all quite doable--no Doomgod skills needed. Toughest part for me was picking up the blur sphere and saving once I jumped into the YK fight... I couldn't tell who was attacking me and who was just mad at the cyber. The RK fight is delicious--it looks absolutely intimidating at the start but once you realize to use the mancs as bodyguards to bottleneck the revs, it's a joyous slaughter. Ah, if only the map was longer!

Also, I definitely have to take that sky and use it for a project of mine.