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dobu gabu maru

The DWmegawad Club plays: Japanese Community Project

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MAP03 - UV - Pistol start - No save

It was a lot of fun! Shame I decided to not continue with recording FDA as I managed to finish it on first try but had some intense moments, like getting out of punching revenants and HK with 1% of HP left.

I am a sucker for this theme and the detailing was great. Enjoyed most of the traps except two that were mostly harmless (the blue armor and BK ones).

There was a weird visual glitch here with PrBoom+:



Not sure what's going on as I haven't DoomBuilder installed here (missing texture would be my guess).

Anyway, I loved it. And cheers to Masayan for this midi tune. It contributed to the experience :)

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Map03
This is a mostly fun map. It's a little all-revenants-all-the-time in its monster reveals for my tastes though. I know revs are an easy way to create difficulty given their mobility and homing missiles, but I'd rather see a bit more variety. The reservoir is a nice open area where some flyers and an arachnotron or mancubus would be interesting, for instance. Or spill a bunch of imps onto the walkways to bombard you from all sides.

Sadly one of the few non-rev ambushes at the blue key room was rendered toothless as the bars make it hard for the arachnotron to target you. The ending archvile is also rather pointless given his inability to leave the room.

Plenty of secrets, of which I got 71%. Certainly not gonna complain about going into the next map with a backpack and 200/192 health/armour :)

The map did have a bit too much backtracking for my tastes: seems like I ran back and forth a fair few times.

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MAP03: The Sign of Armageddon

This map definitely has teeth and isn't afraid to use theme; more and tougher monsters make good use of the setting which is basically a series of warped castle and cavern areas around a flooded reservoir of a courtyard. Pacing and monster deployment are really good, with a general sense that there aren't a lot of safe spots and covered angles without a feeling of overwhelming vulnerability; the player is kept moving, but not fleeing in constant fear for their life. Seven secrets in a relatively small map keep the player hunting; there's always something new to find, but it's never been too long since your last discovery. OTOH I do feel that the Doom 2 bestiary and the super shotgun are "made for each other" and it saps the fun a little to be asked to deal with the one so extensively as here without the presence of the other, even tucked away in a secret closet somewhere.

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MAP03: The Sign of Armageddon

After two cramped techbases, we finally get a more interesting map, a system of caverns and ledges around a central pool. The visuals are very pretty and appealing, and though the combat isn't too tough this is a fun map.

One fight I disliked was the blue key one, where you're attacked by two Cacos, a Baron and an Arachnotron. The fight wasn't hard at all once you ran out of the tiny arena, and the monster choice seemed random. On the other hand, there was a nice moment near the end; I didn't bother to kill the arch-vile in a distant window, because I didn't have enough rockets for that, so I just headed for the exit... and was rewarded with a chance to fight the selfsame arch-vile up close, more comfortably. However, the author then subjected me to yet another series of fights before I could reach the exit switch. This felt like an artificial attempt to extend the map's lifetime, and the final arch-vile was completely nonthreatening and just plain annoying to kill through these bars.

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MAP03 The Sign of Armageddon

Real talk, a bit more open this time around, with numerous stuffs outside and all. Plenty of secrets, some were hard to figure out. combat gets a bit harder with chaingunners and revenants.

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MAP04 - Thaumasia
ZDoom, UV - Pistol Start, KIS(%): 100/100/100

A short and simple, and yet intriguing one. The layout is absolutely symmetrical, except a few parts of level such as stepping-rocks and an essential secret area which provides a super shotgun. The architectural detail is not boring, and the author did a nice job with green-colored brickwall environment. About the combat, this level has balls to throw revenants and chaingunners at the beginning, which is not I was expecting for an early level with the previous difficulty curve. And there are even an ambush, surrounded by demons and chaingunners, and an encounter against the arch-vile trio. And finally, after you push the last switch, this level dares to show its balls by throwing a hundred of monsters around the whole area. Then again, it was easy to deal with zombies and imps across the pit by spamming rockets(And yes, it was somehow satisfying to gib those poor guys). Overall, it was a sudden change in the difficulty curve, but it's a short level with surprising moments.

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MAP03 - “The Sign of Armageddon” by Masayan & SkullDemon

The biggest fun I had in this map was figuring out how to get to the exit without any keys. I'm sure it is intentional, as the first skip is a difficult jump via a lift platform that seems to serve no other purpose, and the second involves getting a helpful archvile to open the exit door for you. Its not easy, as it also skips a lot of guns and ammo, but luckily i had the berserk fist. And if it isn't intentional then I really hope they don't fix it because it really adds an extra bit of depth to the map.

edit: managed to record a no-key demo if anyone is interested
http://www.mediafire.com/download/9jav2lpnxq6n7pq/jpcp1-1_03_mouldy.lmp

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MAP04 : Thaumasia by Burabojunior

Starting off in a completely enclosed safe room always puts me in a suspicious mood. This feeling was validated when I got caught in a Revenant pincer attack as soon as I grabbed the shotgun. Which sounds like the worst thing ever, but it’s actually a very good fight as you have to constantly move around a very narrow perimeter in order to survive. This whole map is basically a confined ultra-violent slugfest with some mild platforming elements, in a suspended sky fortress made of green bricks, which yet another really cool setting. I guess the whole thing is very Plutonia-like, thankfully without all the brown. Resources are tight but manageable.

Those specters in the blue key trap might be a bit too cruel, I’d say maybe remove one. Other than that, I was expecting a longer map like the previous one, but that’s really no issue. All-around, good stuff.

Demo update:

On second though, that trap isn’t so bad if one uses it as an instant safe corner before losing much health at all. Not to mention, there’s only one specter. I don’t know what I was thinking. Again, this solution to a puzzle of extreme peril is very Plutonia. I’m sorry that the infighting to so long to get going, the game really wasn’t cooperating with me there… By the way, does PrBoom+ have a noclip toggle key setup by default ? Because either I hit that by accdient during one of my recording attempts, or this map has the potential for a very weird bug occurring. I kept a lmp file which includes a failed attempt, it makes things a lot less awkward for me when the beginning is the toughest part.

Demo here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q352H0X8src

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04 - FDA. This was pretty good! Interesting visuals that don't really remind me of anything else and fun combat in small areas. I'm not a fan of the three arch-viles though since killing them is rather trivial after you quickly run away. This looks very funny imo (tourists on a crowded day).

Budoka: it's an emulation of a rare vanilla bug. Set this option to "NO" and it won't happen again -> https://i.imgur.com/ib3TGiv.png

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MAP03: The Sign of Armageddon
100% kills, 6/7 secrets

After a couple of tiny techbases, we have a rusted outdoorsy map that reminds me of much more modern stuff, especially with the "ruins floating in water" theme and the layout... shades of Valiant here. The southern area feels different though - much more boxy and symmetrical, even down to the monster placement. I notice there's two authors on this one, I wonder if one author did most of the outdoor parts and the other did the southern section?

Anyways, it works pretty well all-around, with a small monster count but still remaining a bit challenging through lack of the SSG and use of revenants. The progression is good until the end, where the sudden barrier appearance in front of the exit leads the player on a bit of an unforeseen quest, leading to a switch I had forgotten in the drink and then around back. It's a little bit anti-climatic (the AV inside the exit is fish in a barrel; the last 'fight' was a single revenant) but oh well.

Others mentioned the big texture glitch on one of the metal bars in the water, so I'll point out a much more innocuous 'bug' - one of the windows flanking the blue door has the flicker light effect, and the other doesn't. This annoys me far more than it should.

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I attempted to read the Map03 development thread and while it doesn't say who made what, apparently it was originally more sinister looking with red rocks and stuff. Then Tatsurd retextured it with CC4-TEX and in the process the map became more peaceful, "which is perhaps more fitting for an early slot". I guess that explains why it's called "The Sign of Armageddon".

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map03 - FDA here!

really liked this map - lots of interlocking areas, and i got to punch revenants AND archviles which was fun. i guess depending on when you went looking for secrets the map could be quite different - possible Tyson map here? i didnt find most of the secrets as i couldnt be bothered after i'd killed all the monsters - sorry!

i liked the truly dark area, it made me actually pause and think what i was going to do next. i liked that novelty a lot.

i almost bought it a few times trying to punch HK/revs and the archvile had me trapped but luckily the damage wasnt the highest.

also the music has been great and it continues here. loving this project so far.

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MAP04 - “Thaumasia” by burabojunior

surprisingly violent after the difficulty of the previous maps. a rather small, symmetrical map. first chase some revenants around the entrance area , then you have two stairs alongside the locked exit room leading to a very telegraphed trap... i just didn't expect so many of them to appear. i was stuck in the tunnel while that pain in the ass arachnotron kept shooting plasma halfway inside the tunnel and other baddies were spawning outside, then the stairs looked like in kuchitsu's image, crowded with hellish denizens, and perfect for lobbing rockets at them. had fun with this one.

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kuchitsu said:

I attempted to read the Map03 development thread and while it doesn't say who made what, apparently it was originally more sinister looking with red rocks and stuff. Then Tatsurd retextured it with CC4-TEX and in the process the map became more peaceful, "which is perhaps more fitting for an early slot". I guess that explains why it's called "The Sign of Armageddon".

There will be perhaps no opportunity again to talk about the origin of JPCP map3, so I write about it now.

8 or 9 years ago, masayan sent me a wad which had 4 maps and invited me to a project. The project's title is "Armageddon". I would take part in the project and I thought some ideas for maps, but this project had been abandoned before I started to make a map. After that, we started another project but it has stagnated a long time. There are very few skilled mappers in Japan. As a result, it was a serious problem. I gave up making a megawad in Japan and stopped mapping, then I was enthusiastic in speedrunnning and making videos for youtube at the moment.

About 5 years later, I had enough experience of mapping through some DW's community project and many Japanese doomers known me by my speedrunnning videos. I had not started any megawad project myself yet but I noticed I was a suitable person to gather Japanese Doomers. I started a project with low-threshold rule for inexperience mappers or beginners. I thought Japanese megawad would not have appeared again if I would do not the success of this project. I poured my effort to the project with such enthusiasm. Japanese community project is it.

When masayan joined in JPCP, he proposed me that I can freely use maps in Armageddom, then I prepared them for spare maps. Map4 in Armageddom is especially my favorite, so I wanted to just release it. As a result, one map slot was only leftover. I inserted map4 with adding map2's elements to the slot instead of my 5th map. The map's title was "Armageddom" at first, but it seemed to be exaggerated for elary episode. This map's title is "The sign of Armageddom".

Armageddom here (4 maps), if you are interested in it.
Ammo blance is too tight. You must use a berserk punch, a chain saw, and monster-infighting very well. If you are not good at them, I recommend to select lower skill level.

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MAP04

A small map with a ton of enemies and the first super shotty of the wad (Thankyou!) This map is very green. The encounters are pretty tough out the door but once you manage to take care of all the enemies outside the start room. The rest of the map was pretty easy. The blue key room was nice looking, it may have been worse than it was if it wasn't for the spectres sponging up damage for me. The Arch-vile encounter wasn't too bad, just deal with the first one, then fire rockets at the cage ones. The final encounter was pretty fun to see imps get splattered by my rocket launcher. Another fun one.

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Map 3

Pretty big jump in difficulty from the two easy maps before with lots of Revenant traps and Cacodemons. The weapons you're given are crap and shotgunning Cacos and Hell Knights gets old fast. Some of the navigation is also a bit confusing. Found 6/7 secrets. Nice visual style and midi though.

Map 4

I like the green texturing, very original. Also great to finally grab the SSG. I dun goofed at the triple AV trap and ate a good 2 or 3 blasts. Good thing there's tons of HP and an armour there to get back to 100/100 quickly. The final trap was not too hard as I mostly camped the switch while firing rockets and shotgunning as the monsters came at me.

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MAP04 - UV - Pistol start - No save

I suck at secrets so I found the SSG after I cleaned the whole map, yet it didn't prevent me from having a lot of fun. Oh, and the Quake/Plutonia fanboy in me loved the theme. The author managed to find a good balance with those textures.

If I'm to believe the txt, burabojunior did this all on his own. Looking forward to his numerous other entries in this project, and beyond if he still delivers.

So far, this project comes as a good surprise. I was expecting something akin to the first Community Chests but as of now it feels more like a modernized version of classic community megawads from the 90's. We'll see if this impression holds up later on.

-EDIT-

tatsurd-cacocaco said:

Armageddom here, if you are interested in it.
Ammo blance is too tight. You must use a berserk punch, a chain saw, and monster-infighting very well. If you are not good at them, I recommend to select lower skill level.

Thanks! I don't know when I'll have time for this one but I'll give it a shot.

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Map04
Short and green brick and gothic level. Looks are a big pedestrian: the exterior feels kind of flat despite the biggish drops in some areas. Having some variety in the roof line of the buildings would really help with that. The BICKGT6 sections need their alignment tidied up, too.

Gameplay-wise, everything up to flicking the northern switch is kinda plink-plink stuff. It’s easy to clear out the starting enemies, and the dual archviles can be safely rocketed from positions they can’t see.

Things pick up a lot with the big teleport swarm at the end, which is good fun, but it is marred by some of the monsters getting stuck and not ‘porting in (probably sector 293 or 257 is the culprit) and by the pointless imps in sector 125. Make most (if not all) of them cacos or souls, and they’ll be much more interesting.

Got the secret SSG. Mmm, super-shotgunny.

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MAP04: Thaumasia

A short, but very sweet map which involves a lot of fighting in close quarters over dangerous acid pools. The visual theme seems to rely on the visual contrast between the two areas, the sunny green outdoors and the dark gray indoors.

The combat starts getting serious. The two revenants at the beginning are a little annoying to fight (the safest way is simply to hole yourself up in the starting room). But the final battle, where you find yourself besieged inside the dead-end corridor by relentlessly teleporting zombies--and provided with enough rockets to take on a small army--is great fun, and mopping up the imp hordes on the other shore with the rockets is satisfying.

I didn't figure out what the two red symbol switches in the indoors area do, I heard them open a door somewhere, so I suppose they reveal some secret area?

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MAP 01 UV/No save 100% kills/50% secrets
Nice, easy opener. Pretty stndard map1, but fun. I liked the look of the outside area.

MAP 02 UV/No save 96% kills/33% secrets
I liked the beginning maze as well as the bigger arena outside. I must tell that, that Mancubus at the end scared the s**t out of me.

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MAP04 Thaumasia

A green and rather cramped affair. A lot of it reminded me of 1024Clau MAP01 except the teleport traps aren't anywhere as ridiculous. the secret SSG requires a bit of guesswork on the textures.

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MAP05 - Woodexial
ZDoom, UV - Pistol Start, KIS(%): 100/100/62

What a beautiful level! This level gets my thumbs up by designing this kind of elaborate level with vanilla doom textures only. About the layout, this level is highly explorable, and it gives you many options to choose the route. You can either take a shortcut to take the yellow skull, or you can take a conventional route to get a reward; a rocket launcher. Keep in mind that there are lots of zombies around, so prepare to deal with those hitscanners with your trusty chaingun(Then again, surprisingly, this level has only one shotgun guy, hidden behind the secret door, in order to make the shotgun highly unique.). I do like the overall monster placement, with lots of low-tier monsters and some mid-tier monsters to spice the combat. After you reach the exit area, this level gives you another quest to storm the secret dark hall. Keep in mind that this section is hidden on the automap, so It could be tricky to navigate the area, or to find the secrets. Speaking of automap, the author did a great effort to clean the automap by hiding every detailed parts, leaving the only essential parts to navigate. Secrets are just fine; some of them are easy to find, some of them are a little bit cryptic. But the best part of this level is supporting alternative starting point. This level consists of two sections, divided by middle section with corridor, yellow skull room, and dark hall I mentioned earlier. And you can enjoy the alternative route if you're playing co-op with your buddies, or you can just switch the starting point. So after I beat the level with normal route, I tried again with the opposite starting point. The experience was something different with the previous one, but it still has a same consistency on the difficulty. If you enjoyed this level, then please, give it a try on the another starting point. I guarantee you that it will not disappoint you, and you'll appreciate this beauty even more.

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Thanks for that Kuchitsu, I just fixed it. Oh and according to Choww, the splash screen is one of 88_alice’s works. I didn’t even know she was from Japan, but I suppose I should have recognized the style.

MAP05 : Woodexial by Toooooasty

Demo here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3um9xKttjd0

After a brief look behind us at a mysterious carpet of demon corpses, we enter a massive wooden structure. Is this Sunder ? Thankfully not, this map is actually kind of easy and ripe with entertaining moments, like the barricade of barrels getting blown up by a Revenant missile before you can use it for anything (not that there’s much you could do with it either way), or the multiple fake out exits. I also really enjoyed the treasure hunt that leads to the Super Shotgun/Megaarmor secret. I’ve always liked long-winded secrets like that.

I do have a couple gripes about this map. First, it’s so open-ended that it’s a little awkward. It’s not Epic-level awkward thanks to the high population density, but still, I really can’t be bothered to figure out a route that would let me clear this level in any sort of optimal time. Second, the actual exit is completely counter-intuitive, I wish it stood out at least a little more that that once you’ve pried it open.

Still, another very beautiful and creative level, and it seems atmosphere is the leading word for the next map. Man, every time I feel like this wad has done enough to earn my interest, it keeps delivering yet more surprises.

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MAP04 - “Thaumasia” by burabojunior

This one features quite the onslaught, after the cheeky archvile trap. So many monsters crowding the space they could hardly move, perfect for rocket practice. With any other weapon that would have been a gratuitous body count, but the author obviously appreciates the pure joy of exploding hordes of monsters. Fun map.

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So Map03 might be the oldest level in this project? That's interesting, thanks for sharing!

05 - FDA. I guess a lot of time was spent on decorating these areas. I'm not a big fan of this high detail style (too messy for my eyes), but I can appreciate the effort. The gameplay is very chaingun-oriented with some rockets. Again, not what I enjoy the most in Doom. But for some variety it can be good to have such a level in a megawad.

Idea for a possible improvement: make sector #164 taller than 56 so that the hell knight could walk through it (hell knights are 64 units tall, which can cause problems in small areas).

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Map05
I like the use of large numbers of troopers and the masses of chaingun ammo around the place. These are elements you don’t see very often. I also like the eclectic layout of many of the outdoor areas. Those areas often also had some good fights: I liked the use of long range mancubi for instance (though for some reason the arachnotrons got put in weak locations).

On the other hand, there was a lot I didn’t like. The indoor areas were generally quite dull and boxy, and the texture selection ... what’s door what’s a wall what’s a switch? Hump it and find out! Not really my idea of fun, that. I’m also not a fan of exit fake-outs in general, and this one leads to a big room of shooting stuff you can barely see, which doesn’t exactly thrill me either.

Bit of a mixed bag all ‘round.

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MAP04: Thaumasia

Compact, straightforward, and intense, this combat playground knows when to hustle on its way and doesn't overstay its welcome. It's the kind of bite-sized bloodbath that wouldn't really work for me as a standalone level - I'd be left going "Where's the rest of it?" - but in a lengthy WAD like this it's a delightfully vicious little morsel indeed.

MAP05: Woodexial

If there's a theme to this one, it's "wacky funhouse bloodbath." Health, ammunition, and squishy zombie troopers are strewn about the place with wild abandon, encouraging fast-faced and reckless gameplay; I enjoyed the 'pull' factor of "Where's the next mob of zombies for my chaingun to chew its way through?" I would say there's a quite deliberate sense of increasing disjointedness as the player proceeds through the various subsections as the map; the initial wooden library are has its share of quirky details, but each subsequent courtyard, battlefield, or warren combines more disparate themes into a map that seems to reflect a mind disintegrating under pressure and trauma. The gloomy northern area after the exit fake-out, all blood and cement and FIREBLU, really ramps up the sense of hostility; it's chaotic enough that sloshing around in the blood gradually tapping away at the imps above doesn't feel like a productive way of tackling it, but taking the lift up there before you've cleared them out leaves you leaping from platform to platform as clusters of fireballs emerge from opponents rendered invisible by the darkness. I don't think this mapping style would translate well to a larger or more complex map, and I second Capellan's observation that the texture selection muddies the waters on what's interactable and what isn't.

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MAP03 - “The Sign of Armageddon” by Masayan & SkullDemon - UVMax on first or second try

This medium sized map took quite a lot of time to complete thanks to no SSG and backtracking to repopulated areas. Difficulty ramps up a big chunk after the two "appetizer" maps with many mid tier monsters to deal with the simple shotgun and a limited disposal of rockets. Secret hunting was good, I just missed the berserker pack one which was a bit cryptic. A very enjoyable, adventurous map with some Hexen feel.


MAP04 - “Thaumasia” by burabojunior - Almost UVMax on first try...

... because I fell miserably on a radiating pool on my way to the exit. Then I had to start over a dozen times to get around the hectic Plutonia-ish start I miraculously survived on my first play. Not much more to say outside of the fun slaugterfest in the end with the RL... Or so because I was afraid to use it as I feared having not enough ammo for the end, anticipating some barons and other mid tier monsters to deal with. Oh well. Nice SSG secret BTW.

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MAP05

Holy damn this map was quite an adventure. All sorts of stuff was going on this map. I liked it a lot. Any map that has a lot of zombiemen is a good map by default because it is fun to mow them down with the chaingun. Secret hunting was also a lot of fun, and rewarding (6 box of rockets secrets anyone?) I was honestly expecting a Cyber or Mastermind or something like that, to use the rockets against but nope, I'm packing 62 for the next map. This map was hell of a lot of fun to play. Awesome!

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Map 03 -- The Sign of Armageddon - 101% Kills / 100% Secrets - FDA
Something in more of a modern vestment here, looks like a pondside cluster of hoary old shrines and mound-chapels to sundry minor evil gods, with the ever-ubiquitous CC4 sandstone wasteland look (though in truth I'm not sure how many of these are actually in CC4, from memory--the main rock texture has its origins in Hexen, some of the sigil-plates farther in are of MM vintage, etc.). It's something of a dismal place, really, and the upbeat BGM seemed like a bit of an odd choice, come to think of it, although not one I found actively distracting or offputting or anything. That the map has more than one author or has been in development over a long period of time is pretty evident in the architectural and layout differences between its different sections, despite obvious efforts to unify the presentation--the buildings themselves have a generally squarish cast to them in both sections, and the smoothing techniques on natural terrain and sector lighting effects alike seem to bespeak a single editorial hand, but the outdoor section is significantly more developed, whereas the backstage areas have much more of a basic/flat room-door-room-door aspect, particularly the short sod-walled area around the two red doors.

So it is that the first part of the map (to/including the yellow skull or so) plays quite a bit better than the second. The outdoor cluster of shrines is a fairly compact area all told, but it makes effective use of a varied monster-salad and the airspace over the center of the pond to frame the action--you can have a protracted exchange of artillery with your enemies over this space if you like, which is all well and good, but the presence of periodic sheltered patches (like the recess which leads into the southern chapel set into the side of the hill) means there's also nothing to stop you from proceeding up the wraparound walkway leading to the yellow skull to face each group of foes up close and personal if you prefer. Having played several maps from the set now, I feel like it's mostly pegged at a 'modern medium' level of difficulty, featuring paced combat with academically effective monster placement and a generally forgiving balance, and this shows here--I don't play particularly well in this FDA (especially not with the fisticuffs), but also don't have any really close calls, the result of the presence of several easy secrets (and also that niftier one you have to hop to from a moving shutter) and a marked downslope in threat level as the map proceeds. On that note, the post-YK stuff really is quite a bit weaker than what came before, I feel, fielding setups like symmetrical/static monster placement and basic frontal combat in the red door area, and a palpable sense of underpopulation in the northerly exit region--that red key room is spooky as hell, but it felt like such a shame to me that nothing of any real remark comes of it in the end. The final closet-reveals and arch-vile deployment also seem really really softballed, sort of undercutting the tension and excitement that the tease with the exit might otherwise create; I reckon this segment needs either more pressure (i.e. don't give the player the chance to fight all of the big monsters from safety) or simply more crass violence (more weak enemies appearing to be mown down) to lend it some extra flavor.

Edit: Oh yeah, I was able to find that last secret simply because its entrance shows clearly on the PrB+ automap, something which is fairly frequent in a number of maps here.

Map 04 -- Thaumasia - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets - FDA
Hmm, rather liked this one. As eventually tends to happen in most traditionally-patterned community megaWADs, the vague sense of theme the early maps evinced has somewhat flown the coop here, where we find ourselves in some kind of techo-gothic slough erected around some sort of pitch-flooded cyst, some of it burning. A hell-corrupted oil derrick housing, something like that? Whatever the case, this is a pretty interesting little setting that I felt had a lot of character, especially for such a small space. Initially the color combination of pale white, onyx black, and the strange neon-green and moss-green juxtaposition with bizarre little bits of modern trappings struck me as a little garish, but it grew on me quite fast somehow...really liked the dead-end bolthole with the flashing neons, I think that's where it started to win me over. The different types of saturate-hued masonry decorated with small demonic reliefs and the pallid overcast sky give the impression of a theme that's something like the bastard spawn of The Plutonia Experiment and the original The Darkening, something decidedly familiar in cast that at once also feels quite fresh.

It's not a secret at this point that I'm generally not particularly inclined towards very short maps like this, but this one has just what you need to make a bitesized map satisfying (and what so many of them seem to lack for one reason or another): a heaping helping of crass violence. Being hounded by the skeletal twins while underarmed at the outset makes for an engaging jumpstart that can quickly see you plunging into a number of sticky situations, either fired upon from above like a raging tiger in a pit or embroiled in the point-blank gunfight around the blue key. But of course, the real highlight is the cascade of miscreants that teleport-floods the joint as you reach for the switch at the end of the bolthole on the far north end, all so much infernal fodder ripe to be rendered into hamburger by your shiny new rocket launcher. This is a good example of a fight that's not very serious in a challenge sense that nevertheless feels tense and exhilarating by virtue of the way it's presented; you have your back to a wall and all the cards in your favor from the outset since it's almost impossible for the enemies to overwhelm you and literally impossible for them to surround you, but fighting your way out of the bolthole to eventually inflict egregious casualties on their massed ranks across the way is fine adrenaline fuel nonetheless, that special alchemy that can only be achieved where you're racking up dozens of kills in a matter of seconds. The one 'off' bit is probably the arch-vile ambush, as other players mentioned; my suggestion here would be to abandon the little nooks two of them teleport into in favor of having one of them teleport to the opposite side of the level, while the second approaches the player on the current side and the third stays behind the monster-blocking line in the bolthole to remove it as a safe spot.

Let us not speak of my remarkable secret-finding prowess in the midst of all this.

Fine work, burabojunior!

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