The DWmegawad Club plays: Bloodstain

[rehelekretep]

rdwpa said:

Speedruns and casual repeats are > FDAs for sure, except for the rare people with an artistic sort of FDA style.

thats why i like to do FE - first exits. you get a nice balance between complete knowledge and some random stuff

[Crunchynut44]

Going to partake in my first DWmegawad Club playthrough :D

I completed BS when it first came out and really enjoyed it, the gindyness is an obvious issue that takes away from the overall experience but for me it was the visuals that had me coming back for more. Plus on HMP a lot of these maps are really fun from pistol start which was my primary play style my first time through.

Map01:
Really clean visuals and a cool setting, it's a standard map 01 by modern standards but that suits me just fine. Overall it's some what easy with the only real set back being the enclosed imp traps but they arent life threatening so it's no big deal. Everyhting else plays well enough, except for the easily dispatched rev through the bars.

Map02:
I really like the city setting, sure it's a small map but it's definitely sweet. Imo it's easier than map 01 especially if you sr40 for the Chaingun which allows you to play hide and seek with the entirety of the enemy line up. Like map 01 there is a bit of berserk action too, though it's less prominent with the CG's sniping capabilities. I like it, short, fun and plays smoothly.

Map03:
My favorite thing about this map is that adorable SS secret, it's really cute. However this map also introduces my least favorite thing being the Nazi's, who I think have way too much health especially with their high DPS. Again there are some really nice clean visuals and cool city like atmosphere that plays a prominent part in this WAD, lots of browns become a common theme and that's okay with me. I didn't really have any trouble with this map, I found that most of the opposition is easily dispatched from afar with the CG with the mid-tiers quickly taken out with some SS camping (mind you i'm playing on HMP). That nazi trap however sucks, but it's possible to retreat and take them out if you know the situation beforehand.

[joe-ilya]

MAP03

Now you're killing hordes and are introduced to a new enemy near the exit, these new enemies are like a demon with a gun, that's unique.
A more non-linear environment this time, you can approach encounters in various ways, so when you die you can try another route each time. The map's also pretty hard because of how you can choose a wrong way and get cornered by heck.

5/5

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP0904 Fallout Shelter

Is this an old version of Battle Strategy because I think I remember there being more percussion in Plutonia 2's MAP09.

Anyways, something indoors for once. A few nasty monsters and ambushes here and there, and especially that damn dark room was real nasty. Overall, pretty fun. The slow starters are starting to ramp up, I approve of that.

[SavageCorona]

For my first contribution to this club, since I'm a tad late should I start doing this one in lumps of 5 per video and drop them every 5 days or just do them daily and upload 4 of them separately today?

[rehelekretep]

i think that's really up to you. i dont think anyone would object to either method...

[Jayextee]

MAP04 FALLOUT SHELTER

Less-small, a primarily indoor affair on the better end of claustrophobic. After a hectic start (where I definitely prioritised the Z-Sec over all other monsters to fill with SSG pellets first) it cools down a lot, with only revenant fireballs and the pitch-black area offering any kind of threat; the latter of which was dealt with rather carefully (a wise move on my part).

Nukage looked like it may've hurt, but didn't. Got the rocket launcher secret, which aided with dispatching revs near the red key; through the door, all SSG fodder. And, out.

I actually did like this one, although mancubus placement seemed like they should've been revs. I'm on HMP though, maybe in UV they are?

[KBlaney]

Continuous, Hurt Me Plenty, zDoom with basic settings. I was away for the beginning of the month here, so I apologize for my rushing to catch up here.

Map 1: Sort of a slow start here. Quite a bit of pea shooting it out with zombiemen and imps. The Berzerk Pack helps a bit with a few of the traps and helps save some ammo. Otherwise this is a fairly small, if nicely decorated, map. Skipped killing the Hell Knight because he simply wasn't much of a threat.

Map 2: Another somewhat small map with no real major surprises. I was really expecting a trap ambush at the end so I was surprised when the level ended. I just finished playing through Brutal Doom, so I sorely missed the ability to free look when coming back down from the elevator to the Blue Key since I saw the door kept opening and closing.

Map 3: A simple map with some nice rotation which lends itself to a fun critical path. The super shotgun is available here but it will cost you as picking it up immediately drops walls revealing monsters. Still worth it, of course. This level also introduces us to a custom monster which appears to be a zombie with an auto shotgun (Z-Sec from Doom 3 and added to Realm667 I believe). Unfortunately, they drop clips and not some kind of super fun auto shotgun custom weapon. Oh well, can't have everything.

Map 4: Another fairly simple level that constantly hints at how the critical path is going to play out. The health is distributed in measured amounts. I never really felt like I needed to backtrack for med kits or anything because I seemed to burn through them nearly as fast as the level made them available. Excellent testing of the WAD or blind luck on my part? I couldn't tell you, but I'll assume excellent testing.

[Aquanet]

MAP04 Fallout Shelter

Pistol start, HMP, zdoom and prboom. Highlights for me: The hectic starting room, the obvious but still entertaining trap triggered at the end of the long hallway (I think breaking the monster closet into multiple smaller compartments helped), the moderate pacing and detailing.

This struck me as map that successfully honors e1 style while making small additions to it.

On my first playthrough, I had no idea what to do with the dark room where the lighted monster compartments open up one by one. Turns out I needed to trust the mapper. Now, I walk forward and with the SSG, and the sequence plays out great.

Quibble: Lighting is nice in the first room, but in the second, the trim just outside the main floor sector(s) is set to match the dark portion of the light flicker, but most of the time, the bright part is active. So it looks odd.

[joe-ilya]

MAP04

Every room filled completely with monsters unless the room opens up for a trap, it's off putting but it works seldomly, by that I mean that every encounter feels like the same door-fight repeated dozens of times, except for one trap.
This map just throws traps at you and you can just hide behind a wall and peek shoot everytime something opens up. If you just want to beat this map as quick as possible then it's going to play a lot differently guaranteed.

Also, that AV trap is horrible, it's not even threatning; you just shoot the AV with a chaingun from a high place he can't reach and you can just hide behind the wall, this trap especially stands out because the AV is always behind a group of baddies, in my run I was lucky because the AV was behind zombies and imps instead of hell knight and god forbidden revenants.

2/5

[Steve D]

Nice vid, Joe! It's like watching a Top Fuel dragster play Doom. :)

[SoundofDoomDoors]

MAP04: Fallout Shelter
100% Kills/50% Secrets

-The pacing changes a lot between the frantic opening and the slower remainder of the level.
-I got the secret in the secret. Those are always fun.
-I like how leaving some skeletons alive on a ledge at one point results in them being much easier to waste later on due to a monster blocking line.
-Normally I hate pitch black areas. I think the one here works well. The more you poke around, the brighter it becomes and the more enemies come out.
-There's so much health and armor laying around in the level that even the hitscanner packs in those closets don't pose a threat.
-I second joe illya's comment about the archvile. I just SSG'd him instead of using the chaingun. He's no threat at all. The enemies he raises waste time, but with all the ammo I have at this point, it's only a matter of being patient.
Overall: I prefer the faster pacing of the previous two levels. This is okay too. A lot of things I normally don't like are present here, but the way they're combined results in a pretty fun experience.

[mouldy]

MAP04 - "Fallout Shelter

Hectic start, luckily I remembered where to run to get the weaponry. I had fond memories of this map killing me loads on UV thanks to that dark room with the surprise hitscanners and the red key trap. Not so tricky this time around, though I wish I had found all those secrets before the exit, they would have been most welcome. I'll have to remember to check the automap more.

[Benjogami]

MAP04: Fallout Shelter

FDA 92% kills 0% secrets

Ambushes were pretty hit and miss. The blue key switch was the best by far. The guys at the bottom of the red key stairs did nothing. All of the combat around the red key was pretty inconsequential, actually. Except for the mancubus. He didn't even shoot at me but I can see that fight being pretty unfair sometimes.

The SSG ambush was the classic "here's that great weapon you wanted and then a trap that it isn't well-suited for" kinda deal.

The dark room with the hitscanner closets was too small and linear to be effective. Those 3 closets open up at such an even pace that only the first is surprising. Kinda.

Midi was good for the level. There were some nice thematic touches, like the outdoor detailing by the blue key, and the room with the lost souls and the corpses.

I didn't find any of the secrets so they must've been bad. ;)

[Steve D]

Map04, Fallout Shelter, gets off to a roaring start, with the player surrounded by monsters, including a fearsome Z-sec jagoff. However, simply racing to the left towards the E1M1 homage, and zooming up the stairs, allows you to grab the shotgun and CG and potshot all the monsters from above. Yes, more camping.

I played this on both continuous and pistol, and finished it first on pistol. It wasn't a problem either way, except for the annoying tightness of the spaces and all the stuff you can bump into and get stuck on.

I enjoyed the first telegraphed switch trap, which also telegraphed a chained secret. I didn't find them in the first rush, indeed, I waited until just before the exit to start searching for secrets, and got them all. Yay, rocket launcher! Woulda been nice the first time I fought the Archie clusterfuck. ;D

The path to the red key had a very campworthy section right after the dark room traps, which was my favorite part of the map. Overall, though, for me the action just isn't much fun so far. The map tends towards being extremely trappy, and when it's not trappy, it rewards camping and potshotting from above or to the side. The combat just isn't engaging for me, though some of the traps are severe enough to raise my death count a bit more, but I'm an easy out, so killing me does not, in itself, always result in entertainment value.

There's also, as Magnus has noted, signs of sloppiness, which you can see in joe-ilya's video icon. You see texture cut-off of the squares in Support2, in particular using it on the inner edge of the light enclosure, where Shawn2 would have been better. I saw instances of the Support2 squares being cut off in other parts of the map. Natch, one can forgive imperfections in an undertaking as massive as a one-man megawad, just thought I'd point those out. By contrast, the lighting was quite good, although the directional gradient lighting thrown by a Techno Floor Lamp, which shoots light out in all directions, was a bit jarring. ;)

All in all not a bad play, but I'm hoping to see less squinchiness in future maps, though after a quick look at kmxexi's review, I doubt that I'll get it.

[baja blast rd.]

I was working on a fancy shmancy write-up for map04 but I don't feel like finishing it.

map04

Sometimes the biggest threat to the monsters isn't Doomguy, it's the . . . stairs? Quite a few setups in this map are toothless because hellspawn is quite finnicky about where they put their toes. At the start, you can camp out in the little blue key area, and the archvile that teleports near the red key along with a group of HKs and revenants can't really hurt you unless you sacrificially fling yourself into their midst.

[rest of write-up is supposed to go here]

Anyway, this map was actually a lot more fun to replay aggressively with a mind towards doing risky things. Those light things on the bridge near the RK area are pretty irritating, though. It really seems like these maps were designed first in their entirety, and then monsters were added, and then (lots of) detailing was done. They have that sort of feel.

[baja blast rd.]

It seems like everyone is recording casual play demos. I guess I won't bother to do so much of that then, unless I feel like speedrunning something.

[rehelekretep]

but but but i like your demos :'(

[rehelekretep]

demo here

quite enjoyed this. took some bullet points as i recorded the demo:

+ like the start; giving you time to strategise. you can clear a lot with infighting :)
+ i have a soft spot for maps where you can hear an archvile so youre on edge waiting for him to finally appear
+ i liked the dark room, even if i was expecting the ambushes after the 1st
+ the mancubi at the BK just annoyed me as i was shooting them with the SG - i went looking for a secret SSG but only found a backpack
+ like the MIDI!
+ early map ammo balance encourages punching, which i like

- what is up with that lost soul room? should i say 'mouse1-chaingun room'!
- revenant/caco/chaingunner nukage room is just lame - why would i jump out into the open. ended up corner-camping and got some infighting with cacos/revs
- why is the green nukage not hazardous? i hope thats consistent throughout the wad...

pretty fun map.

[Spectre01]

Map 05: The Intersection 100% Demo(Does anyone even watch this crap? :P)

Hey, cool midi. Anyways, this map continues with the E1 techbase feel and generally "classic" gameplay. There's a Berserk secret right behind you, but you're better off leaving that after clearing out the soldier party happening at the intersection. As long as you don't rambo out there and play it safe it's not too bad. Might as well Chaingun snipe that annoying Revenant up there too. There's a rocket launcher secret behind one of the panels after the second door, with some more rockets and Spectres below. I forget if there's a non-secret one, but if you're playing UV-Pistol Start you definitely need that son of a bitch.

After some fun zombie chaingunning there's an SSG to grab in a crate area full of every monster we've met up to this point. Chaingun tap the dudes and rocket the HK's and Fatso. You can also hit up the yellow key room that contains a bunch of Spectres to punch out and a Vile to rocket snipe. The flashing right panel gives you a much welcome blue armour. There's a small Imp teleport as you open up the bridge path, but nothing too serious. Jumping from the bridge to the crates gives you another secret backpack (is there one in every level so far?), which makes ammo stockpiling quite plentiful for continuous players.

The final room is not too tough, provided autoaim doesn't fuck you over as you try and shoot the spiders by aiming at the Spectres below. The slime is, again, not damaging which is consistent with the previous levels. Now here's the only slightly dickish part of the map. There are some pop-in shitscanners in the cages as you ascend to the switch. If you take it slow they're not hard to kill, but rushing up there and triggering all of them guarantees a bad time. Jump into the Pain Elemental pipe for the final Soulsphere secret where the Revenant was and you're good.

This is the last of the easy intro maps and things will start heating up.

[baja blast rd.]

map05

Another map that feels like it was designed with a "basic layout -> detail -> monster spam", with the last two stages being interchangeable. It's irritatingly cramped, especially the start area, lol.

I lol'd at the row of never ending former human troopers; seemed like I'd end up turning a corner to mow down a new set forever. Music is also obnoxiously loud (and bad), hiding a lot of monster alert sounds.

Demo of 2nd time I played it; forgot most of the map but most of it is intuitive.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/snddc56lcdxp9tk/bstain05-rdwpa-2da.lmp

rehelekretep said:

but but but i like your demos :'(

okay, someone watches them at least :)

[Magnusblitz]

MAP04: Fallout Shelter
100% kills, 3/4 secrets

Things start to ramp up here... I was definitely glad to be playing continuous to have the SSG from the start, wouldn't want to try those early fights without it. I can definitely see where the 'rooms stuffed full of monster meat' criticism comes from, as that was the feeling I had with this one... seemed every new room or area was just stuffed full, while still being quite linear. I did appreciate that the level was designed in such a way that the switches showed when the keys were accessible, though; that's just good design. I think this map would've been more interesting with more rocket play, while I did (eventually, after it was needed) find the secret RL, a lot of the fights just feel a little grindy with the square design and large monster mass. Giving the player rockets instead of shells/bullets would make things more exciting, both from being able to splatter enemies and worrying about the close quarters.

Aesthetics-wise, I like it a bit better since it's starting to look like a real techbase. Still too much boring brown/grey for my taste though. I did really like the dark room, I feel that's an underused aspect of Doom design that a lot of mappers seem to shy away from these days... I'll leave it up to you to decide if that's due to the mappers or whiny players. The nukage being non-damaging was strange.

[Urban Space Cowboy]

Map 4's red key is easy to bump up against and grab from the floor below its platform. Like, hilariously easy. I was thinking "is this the intended progression?" THAT easy!

[Spectre01]

Urban Space Cowboy said:

Map 4's red key is easy to bump up against and grab from the floor below its platform. Like, hilariously easy. I was thinking "is this the intended progression?" THAT easy!

I noticed that too in GLBoom+ -cl 9, but it's not possible in Zandronum.

[Suitepee]

Won't be joining in this month. Got a couple of busy work-heavy months ahead of me, and I've chosen to focus my limited streaming time during this on getting my NOVA 3 map out.

[NuMetalManiak]

I don't like watching FDAs either. I'd rather see someone not suck on a map.

MAP05 The Intersection

ughh, oh my god THIS SONG. Certainly a bigger map now, and I love mowing down zombiemen in that one hallway and the big room with the cages. The toxic area to the north where the exit is was also quite a cute one, with enemies popping up in cages and such. So far the difficulty is quite Requiem/early Scythe-like.

[Spectre01]

Getsu Fune said:

I'd rather see someone not suck on a map.

Well, that leaves me out.

[Jayextee]

MAP05 - THE INTERSECTION

Opening notes of this midi had me thinking to myself OH GOD REALLY? Although I hear (from my savegame after playing this) a Quake II midi on the next map so I guess it's not so bad, I like Quake II.

The intersection in question is a central bridge structure that is far too cramped and made for some pretty uninteresting chaingun action both in the initial wave of fodder and on the return pass with the arachnotron. Yellow key area gave my first HMP archvile with some shotgun dudes, easy as pie so far but the distance between archie and my entrance made me rethink my approach thus far of just SSG'ing most of the map.

Outdoor area with overlooking manc seemed like an optional area until I backtracked to the door in and found that, well, it's locked. Okay, let's explore this thing. Oh, I'm back at the intersection bridge (that return I mentioned).

Final area wasn't too bad. Some easily-rocketed arachs to pick off, a pain elemental here and there; IMO the real threat coming from the caches of z-secs and shotgunners on the outside. But there was more than enough health to deal. Cue exit with utterly-toothless manc, done.

---

These levels are still all really short, aren't they? I mean, I'm not complaining (MAP02 snark aside, hahah) because I like 'em short in general. Just wondering if I've been making my own personal maps too long; I tend to stretch them on even after it feels they're done with because, although not to my taste, I'm under the impression other people prefer long maps.

This said, I feel this wad would benefit an ironman attempt; no saves, quit upon death. Because here on HMP (again, there was that warning about late-game tediousness on UV) it feels like that would be kinda nice.

[SavageCorona]

I'll have a video out later of me ham-fistedly working my way through the first 5 levels. I lost my patience towards the end and ended up resurrecting a couple times. I'll probably just do individual daily videos after this one.

Edit: Apparently it didn't even record the audio for some reason so there'll be a tad of a delay. I'll do them separately instead of spending 30 minutes on 5 levels.

[joe-ilya]

MAP05

Another claustrophobic map, it's a powerful weakness this map has; all this awkward walking, not to mention all the decoration that blocks your way and tries to literally keep you within a range of counter-fire.

Anyways, this map's tedious unless you find the many secrets that are scattered around here, the rocket launcher is especially a much needed item that's in a secret since there are many enemies that are set in groups. I can imagine the map being an SSG slog without finding the secret.

3/5