The DWmegawad Club plays: TNT: Evilution

[Tristan]

Getsu Fune said:

an orthogonal abortion

DWMC has found its Malcolm Tucker <3

[Jayextee]

(short) story time: it's cold as fuck in the apartment and I get seasonally-blue like a motherfucker. Hence lots of lie-ins and even when I wake, time sat in bed to warm the fuck up. Cue PSP Doom; the version I'm using (OFW-compatible) being basically vanilla, and I started TNT: Evilution on the thing a few days before this very thread.

I basically played alongside y'all (even if I didn't comment), but rushed ahead and finished yesterday. Even though I didn't comment (until now), do I still get a vote for next month's?

Because if so:
+++ Revilution (beta)

Seems like a nice follow-up.

[dobu gabu maru]

Jayextee said:

Even though I didn't comment (until now), do I still get a vote for next month's?

Anyone can vote, even punks like Linguica that spam the thread every month with a joke nomination :P And playing along with us but not commenting is always wonderful to hear, as I think the club's primary purpose is to simply get people to play these damn things.

Also looks like Revilution is currently four votes ahead (of No End in Sight)

MAP26: The first half of this map is pretty bad. Linear caves that don’t do anything interesting other than high contrast lighting, and then you’re shoved into some dark caves where you can’t see sergeants firing at you in the dark. I do like the efforts put into the visuals and the superbly trippy exit structure floating out in the void that warps you back to the beginning, but besides that I feel the previous map did the whole “dickery caves” schtick better.

MAP27: Fuck this map. Buncha long ass corridors filled with hitscanners and barely any health, boring symmetry, overabundance of shotgun shells, and a big room at the end that’s basically a middle finger to the player. While a lot of maps nowadays are so tightly designed that you can see what the author was going for with every room, this one is such a mess that I refuse to believe O’Brien did anything more than plunk enemies down and call it a day. This has to be his earliest effort, right? Whatever the case, I never wanna touch this dull-yet-somehow-frustrating pile of rectangular sectors again.

[Magnusblitz]

+++ Whatever is closest to overtaking Revilution in the vote

[gaspe]

MAP28: Overall this is very close to Plutonia. It's also a very polished level, even though it's unispired and relies more on rip-offs of Doom 2. I quite liked the blue key maze, and it's funny how if you go to the yellow key before picking the red key the pain elementals are useless since they can't spawn lost souls.

[Memfis]

+++ Revilution, should be fun comparing it to the original.

[Linguica]

dobu gabu maru said:

Anyone can vote, even punks like Linguica that spam the thread every month with a joke nomination :P

Actually, this month I am NOT voting for the Brutal Doom megawad:



But one day, it will happen. Oh yes.

[BlondieMcFilthy]

Map 25 - Baron's Den

One of those maps that I completely forget exist every time I go through Evilution. To be fair, there are some solid aspects to it; I like the stringy layout of the map, in large part because it offers multiple paths to move through it that doesn't feel particularly linear, and some of the traps here are pretty nasty. It's just very forgettable looking, for the most part just being a series of brown-textured dirt tunnels with some lava-heavy passages.

Map 26 - Ballistyx

Better, though by trade off it's a little more linear. Agreed with whomever said that the bit where you descend into the underground via a bunch of elevators with spectres is repetitive, but this map has some solid claustrophobic combat, with again, some really nasty traps. (including the notable one where you're inside "the cage" getting fired on by a bunch of demons in a rough craggly area. I think this midi also makes FAR more sense here than it did for map 16.

Nothing great, just a solid map...

Map 27 - Mount Pain

I had called this map one of the highlights of Episode 3 earlier in the thread.. lol after having played it again.

The problem with this map is that there's way too little health for all of the wideopen spaces that hitscanners are allowed to pick away at you with inpunity; this is definitely the biggest map in Evilution and in areas like the infamous area near the end, festooned with lost souls, revenants, cacos & chain gunners, it really doesn't help. Evilution has done that sort of thing plenty of times throughout the WAD, but here, between the lack of health and the huge amount of space most of the rooms in the map take, it feels really cheap. There's a lot of weird aspects, like the oversized sewer tunnels, the Disaster Zone room.. even the way the map ends is janky.

The shame of this map is that I think there's some good aspects to it, but the execution is wildly off.

Map 28 - Heck

Basically a less difficult Plutonia map, which is not at all a bad thing. This has a lot of the Casali brothers' tricks on band - the traps putting instant & immediate pressure on the player, usually from the flanks; the liberal use of middle tier monsters also in those situations - two noteworthy rooms being that "keep" with the horde of Revs and then the yellow key room with an absurd number of Pain Elementals. The catacomb bit it totally from Doom 2's The Courtyard except nastier and with Arch-villes running around.

Unsurprisingly, it's probably the most dynamic map from a gameplay standpoint of any in the third episode, and maybe the whole WAD - while not as difficult as your average Plutonia map, it's just nasty enough to force you to stay on your toes all the time. While it's a hub layout, it's very well done and doesn't force you to back track excessively.

One of the best maps in Evilution, and definitely the best of the Casali's contributions here, at least with Map 32. Good shit.

[Marcaek]

TNT is eclectic and varies in quality all over the place, but once E3 hits it really shits the bed.

Guess it's appropriate everything is so brown...

[Spectre01]

I'd totally be up for Sarge's BD megawad but, as Ling posted, he's working on a new version and I'd much rather wait for that.

Kind of disappointing that we're back to 'The DWBetaTest Club'. Considering how low the voter turnout and participation generally is, all it takes is a few contributors to raid the thread and nominate their upcoming wad to have it win.

+++ Anything not Revilution

[AD_79]

^ well I was gonna vote for NEIS, but you've convinced me otherwise : ^ )

+++ Revilution

[Demon of the Well]

NaturalTvventy said:

+++ No End In Sight

Looks like Revilution is going to be the clear winner here, but just keep showing up this time every month, and we'll get NEIS picked before too long, NT. I intend to throw my vote at it from here on out until it gets picked, anyway. ;)

I must say, I was both pleased and surprised to see as much positive reception as there was for maps 20 and 21 of Evilution. They, along with maps 31 and 32 and a couple of other stragglers, are my favorite part of the WAD, and I'm used to thinking of them being the sort of thing that doesn't sit well at all with modern sensibilities. O'Brien had a knack for translating sprawling maps with broad scope and disparate conceptual elements into surprisingly coherent levels with a strong sense of place and a fairly comfortable blend of abstract and representational stuff, not a common feat. I am generally inclined to agree with the popular consensus about m27, though.....so many cool concepts in that level (not the least of them a truly ambitious idea for diorama detail), but they are almost all executed badly to the point where actually playing the level is never really any fun. Sort of the WAD's E3 in a nutshell in that sense, I suppose.

[Steve D]

Demon of the Well said:

They, along with maps 31 and 32 and a couple of other stragglers, are my favorite part of the WAD

I agree that Map32 was wonderful. What a total blast that was! We need to get Plutonia on the docket soon. I've never played more than a few maps.

I'm down with NEIS, too. I'd also like to see Nihility get some love, since I've heard good things about it. Throw in Jan van der Veken's "No Sleep For The Dead" in some episode month that needs quality Ultimate Doom material, plus a cannonball episode or two. And for Adam, we need to bring on the Obtic. ;)

[sincity2100]

Map28 - Heck - Milo Casali

This is a replica of what a Plutonia map looks like, the formulaic Casali style where the maps are curved, wooden textures for every passage, not using much doorteck textures, more powerful monsters, a lot of Revenents,some good numbers of Mancubus, "I'm surprised that there are not much Chaingunners since they are the primary focus in Plutonia" , Archviles traps, and paying Homages to maps that are made by ID software,espically Doom and Doom2, the Architecture looks simple yet well designed, it's clean, everything is detailed, curved, a lot of health and ammo with a lot of powerful monsters, a typical Casali map,doesn't mean this is a bad thing,it's a Care Bare compared to Mount Pain,easy map.

By the way, the red key Section is a homage to the maze from map18 of Doom2 , the blue key section, the Baron Marble walls are a homage to the Baron Marble walls from e2m8 tower of babel of Doom , and the yellow key section is a homage to map28 the spirit world of doom2.

[cannonball]

I must admit that I hit a brick wall with map21, I genuinely hated the map and 22 is awful too in my opinion.
Map 21 - The layout is ridiculous and the those monsters in the windows are a real chore to clear. There are a lot of poor ideas mixed with a couple of good ones here and there, the outdoor section is kind of neat.

Map 22 -This map has some utterly stupid progression at times, we have a key behind a fake wall, the path to the exit is open to abuse right from the start for reasons unknown and the maze where you literally have to traverse the entire thing to access the way forward, all the openings are marked as secrets??? There are shockingly a few good bits in here with the yellow key room and the bit in the nukage genuinely look rather neat.

[Jaws In Space]

27
There's no getting around the fact that this is one of the worst maps in Evilution, just everything about it is bad. From the crusher right at the start, chaingunners hidden behind walls, the long boring slime hallway, the entire red key section, & the horrible exit room. The only part of the map that I kinda like is the area behind the blue key door, but even that is nothing but a bunch of hallways with a nice view outside. Everything is just so bland & boring with some seriously dickish monster placement. I'm not a fan of this map at all.

28
So here is another Evilution map that I completely hate. Of course it's from one of the Casali brothers, this one being Milo's only contribution to Evilution. This has a lot of design elements to it that would later appear throughout Plutonia, lots of revenants, remaking areas from the IWADs, & even the starting platform. The map starts off in a hubspoke, I always go for the red key first, this area is pretty lame a mix of tight hallways & open areas filled with useless meat, the only real challenge comes when the revenants are released. The Spirit World section of the map is alright, it instant arch-vile is a bit annoying & the Pain Elementals are a nightmare when the lost soul limit is turned off. The worst part of this map by far though is the marble maze, just a bunch of 64 wide corridors & way too many shotgun guys hidden behind walls. There's really not much to like about this map, I barely like it more than Mt Pain & that's mostly due to this one being a smaller map.

[NuMetalManiak]

IMO February is kind of a shitty month to play 32 levels one-a-day-or-so in 28 days, probably why I think an Ultimate Doom wad would really fit due to how we can, like, play an episode at our own pace in a week or something. What.

MAP28 Heck

If I didn't know any better, I'd say we're in a Casali map. The better of the two brothers though. This is a hub map, unfortunately, we've played quite a lot of those. We're doing the best of the hard combat though. Weapons at the start, let's head for the blue first. This one is okay at the very most, a homage to the hell maze section of Doom 2 MAP18 with the hitscanners and the occasional arch-vile (also fake walls that are thankfully secrets and not something else annoying.

The red key area is a nicely glorified arena with demons and lost souls, the goal is to get the mancubi first and get the red key. The revenants come soon after. Pretty neat. The yellow key area screams The Spirit World, it probably makes sense given the mapslot too. Hardest area of the bunch that's for sure, but it's certainly a workable one. Could be quite annoying at the key though with the pain elementals. Sure it's a hub map. But I'll take one of those over a fucking shit can slog map any day.

[Jayextee]

SteveD said:

We need to get Plutonia on the docket soon.

Aw hell yeah. Any excuse to play Plutonia and I'm there! My wad waifu? Possibly. Switch out Tombstone and Impossible Mission for shorter and less-annoying maps (and possibly Hunted; great concept but sooooo shit to replay) and it'd probably be my favourite Doom ever. I'm game for that one day. :D

[Demtor]

MAP28 - “Heck” by Milo Casali
gzDoom - UV – continuous/no saves



Deaths this map: 0
Deaths so far: 6


A keyfinding hub map. Straight up. Works for me. Each of the three areas were distinct enough and a lot of fun to go through in their own way. I ran forward away from the Revs right away toward the blue armor followed by a rather easily obtained mega sphere guarded by an AV with no where to run.

I love a good arena set up and this one was pretty cool. Especially when the Revs were unleashed. Good stuff. Took no damage and skipping on by the megasphere again, heh. *muscle flex*

I got a kick out of the homage to Doom 2's map 28 "The Spirit World." Least impressive was the marble maze but it was still a enjoyable. I liked the AV scare but nothing too crazy. The exit was kind of different. The colors worked well together.

[T-Rex]

Getsu Fune said:

IMO February is kind of a shitty month to play 32 levels one-a-day-or-so in 28 days, probably why I think an Ultimate Doom wad would really fit due to how we can, like, play an episode at our own pace in a week or something. What.

Agreed, we could have played both Obituary (17 maps) and The Trooper's Playground (9 maps). Both may be designed by The Innocent Crew and Matthias Worch respectively, but given how they share similar design and gameplay sensibilities, make use of Dehacked for new monsters, and they're close to each other in the years they came out of, they complement each other, and we'll be playing 26 levels in total. At least we were able to squeeze in Hell Revealed last year since 2016 was a leap year.

[antares031]

MAP28 - Heck
ZDoom, UV-PS, KIS(%): 100/100/100

A small-medium sized level with a simple, but non-linear progression. You have three options to choose from the hub area to proceed, and each of parts have their own style of environmental design. Like the other reviewers have mentioned, a couple of areas are based on the levels from Doom 2. The west section is based on the green marble brick maze from the MAP18 of Doom 2, with identical texture scheme but more claustrophobic structural design. The maze is full of shotgun guys just like the original did, but be careful with some unexpected guests. The east section is a homage to the front yard of MAP28 of Doom 2. It was not bad, although I would put some more details to the yellow skull room, especially those vertical red cracks on the wall from The Spirit World. The southern part, which is the original part of this level afaik, is a small arena with lots of pinkies and several revenants from behind the wall, and it was just okay. Nice touches on those homage parts, I must say. Although the other elements of this level weren't that memorable to me, in the ned.

Getsu Fune said:

IMO February is kind of a shitty month to play 32 levels one-a-day-or-so in 28 days

There's a reason that I voted Heretic, E1 through E3, for the next month. But I assume that everyone is not fond of playing one of Doom's cousins right now.

[Jayextee]

Could even do a couple of single-episode Ultimate Doom things, there are plenty lying around; OTOH my own 900 Deep In The Dead, The Classic Episode, any Favillesco, Fava Beans, No Sleep For The Dead, and so on.

Or a 3-episode replacement: Doom The Way id Did or Ultimate Needs More Detail spring to mind.

(This is, if none of these have been done before)

[dobu gabu maru]

Spectre01 said:

Kind of disappointing that we're back to 'The DWBetaTest Club'. Considering how low the voter turnout and participation generally is, all it takes is a few contributors to raid the thread and nominate their upcoming wad to have it win.

True, but that's always been the case and I don't think we've ever had people outside of the club hijack a nomination; note that the initial votes for Revilution have all come from people that participated this month (besides Eris). That, and beta testing provides phenomenally helpful feedback for the team. The only reason I don't like doing it is that the Club also serves as an archive of "contemporary" opinions for a megawad, and if that megawad happens to change dramatically after beta testing then the thread kinda loses its historical importance. That said, having played Revilution, I think the end product is going to look similar enough to the beta we'll be playing that it's not a big deal.

Getsu Fune said:

IMO February is kind of a shitty month to play 32 levels one-a-day-or-so in 28 days, probably why I think an Ultimate Doom wad would really fit due to how we can, like, play an episode at our own pace in a week or something. What.

This is actually a really good point that ties back into me not wanting to fit a 32+ map megawad into the timespan of a month. So next february I'll probably make it so we pick between a Doom megawad or handful of episodes instead—thanks for bringing that up!

MAP28: I haven’t looked up who makes what maps in Plutonia, but I’m quite confident that Milo is the gameplay conscious of the Casalis (assuming the Jaws/T-Rex conspiracy is bunk). This is a pretty cool crimson-colored hell map that has the player scouting for three keys before they can exit, with the blue key wing being the only weak area. The other two are pretty neat and have some good fights, the yellow key being my favorite (though I wish that floor was damaging). What helps keeping the flow of the map fluid are the dozens of rocket boxes (!!!) that are placed around the map, allowing the player to use something other than the SSG for a majority of the map. This was a really refreshing and much needed change compared to the previous map; perhaps I made in mistake in voting for TNT over Plutonia :P

[Capellan]

SteveD said:

And for Adam, we need to bring on the Obtic. ;)

I'm crazy busy in Feb, so quite pleased to see the DWMC tackle something else next month. Particularly a something else I have no interest in playing :)

[BlondieMcFilthy]

Map 29 - River Styx

One of the better - or at the very least, more memorable - maps in Evilution to me. This one has the feeling of a linear journey map, starting off next to a cavern system and moving through it before entering a hellish temple and exploring around in it. Lots of UD episode 4-esque marble texture use in addition to the usual craggly hell rock stuff you'd come to expect. I think where it succeeds as a map is that there's a strong sense of place here, and more importantly a sense that you're actually progressing as you move forward into it. The combat here is typically solid, though i'm not fond of the Revenant alcoves - they're just really easy to diffuse.

Mostly I think this map has solid atmosphere, helped out in large part because of the midi. (one of my faves from the game) That's mostly enough to carry this map through some admittedly janky parts. But overall it's good stuff.

[sincity2100]

Map29 - River Styx - Jimmy Seiben

The Best map in E4 IMO , with the cool music fitting this map, it starts with a reddish cavern with a blood sea , it takes you to a journey to a large marble fortress, the map is well designed , it has a puzzle in it, it's really a gorgeous looking map, the combat is solid, the atmosphere is really cool, it gives you the hellish feeling while you progress in this map.

in the red door area you won't notice that there are some hidden items at the black metal pillars at the sides, which is really clever, since you don't want to go to the next map with 3% or 2% health, it's hard, and I tried to go for a run with a pistol start while playing UV and I couldn't succeed because there's no Plasma Rifle in UV.

Overall, Awesome map.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP29 River Styx

Although I don't like the beginning of the map, it makes sense, go down the river, stupid. Then you reach the temple area. I ended up getting all three secrets right away, only the one at the entrance of the temple required any work, so to speak. The temple itself has its ups and downs. The scurrying over the walkways over lava is alright, and I guess the square rooms had some okay combat to go with them. The fuck's up with the crusher room though? That's pretty noobish and actually not as difficult to go past it seems (for the blue key). The surprise spiderdemon isn't all that tough. I guess the revenants on the sides of the lava river are good stopping points every now and then, they aren't that much of showstoppers anyways. Wait a minute, was that really the last spiderdemon in Evilution? Looks like I fought only 3 (there's one on MAP32 but only on ITYTD/HNTR).

The yellow key room is a low point, mostly due to the central tower in the middle. The mancubi and arachntrons come first, using the walls to protect against the stray vile attack. Trying to shoot rockets up top is a pain, as relying on autoaim is pretty tough and there's also a baron who'll gladly soak up my rockets meant for the arch-vile. The final section is more ortho-rooms, not really interesting, the teleport closets were constructed so lost souls go first, but sometimes they get stuck and don't teleport for a while blocking the hellknights for some reason. A fine penultimate otherwise, gets going pretty well.

[gaspe]

MAP29: This is the best map of the last episode, and imo also one of the best hell levels in the iwad. A cool journey that starts with a brief trek down the river to reach the marble temple. The map is visually very well done. I think it's odd that the lava isn't damaging, at first the raised pathways suggested otherwise. I liked the encounter with the spiderdemon, and I loved the trick to change the face on the wall when you open the passage to go to the red key. It's a shame that the map goes downhill in the yellow key area, and the exit area is rather underwhelming. I didn't like the lack of the plasmagun, and even though I found all the secrets I didn't have enough ammo to kill all the teleporting monsters before the exit so I just run directly to the exit.

[Jaws In Space]

Map 29
This map is from the same author as map 9, where that map was pure action, this map goes for a more slow paced atmospheric approach. Unfortunately I think the author failed in his execution & just created a boring map. The start reminds me of Map 26, a grand view of the sky & then a tedious hallway before you get to the main playing space. Most of the map takes place in a marble temple of sorts, the design of the temple leaves a bit to be desired. There are a lot of hallways with not much going on in them, then there is the area that is just a bunch of 256x256 boxes connected by doors & windows. There are other smaller problems as well, like non damaging lava, a completely useless Spider Mastermind, some poorly placed revenants up in some alcoves that serve no threat at all. There really just isn't much going on in this map other than lot's of hallways with the occasional room in between.

[rehelekretep]

sorry - no write-ups but here are demos for TNT maps 25-29 :)
https://www.doomworld.com/vb/attachment.php?postid=1711310