The DWmegawad Club plays: Slaughter Until Death & The Evil Unleashed & Obituary

[Capellan]

OBTIC MAP01

The Möller’s continued aesthetic improvement is obvious here, as is Denis’s affection for “The Inmost Dens”.  Many architectural beats from this map call back to Doom 2’s map14.  This is a theme Denis visited again in Memento Mori.  The homage is not quite so extensive here though, with the map offering some variation from the theme.

 

Also obvious is that the kid gloves are off, monster-wise.  In addition to the super imp and rocket soldier, both of whom appear here, we’ve got a several of the larger Doom 2 bestiary as well.  The latter are mostly placed in locations where they are easy to corner snipe, so the difficulty isn’t actually all that high, but it all adds up to a clear indication that we shouldn’t expect an IWAD difficulty curve here.

 

As far as the new monsters go, I’ve long felt that Doom 2’s bestiary needed some more “low HP but dangerous attack” adversaries, so I can appreciate the intent.  The rocket soldier might be going a bit far perhaps, but I didn’t let him get a shot off here, so I haven’t actually seen how deadly he can be.

 

For guys who are probably best known for the “co-op friendly” MM megawads, the Möllers sure are fond of 64-wide corridors.

 

Found both secrets, so I already have a backpack, which is a big change from SUDTIC and TEUTIC!

[Demon of the Well]

Wall of text mode: -- ENGAGE --

 

E3M1 -- Out of Control - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets

Echoing the sentiments of others, I think this is a pretty cool map, and not just "by 1994 standards", either--it's just plain cool, period. I daresay it might actually be the best map in the set (and how often have I said that about an m01/m1 before?), and I think it feels more like a complete, coherent finished design than anything that follows it, which seems to somewhat fly in the face of expectations I had that something by Thomas would inevitably steal the show in TEUTiC.

 

Level progression is charmingly nuanced and unorthodox here, beginning with an almost immediate (unprotected) plunge into a toxic trench, and while the actual extent of the playspace is fairly limited (smallest map in the set with the possible exception of E3M8, I think?) a lot of mileage is wrung out of it through using a lot of elaborate traversal based on physical changes in the environment in concert with liberal usage of lifts, bridges, and teleporters in lieu of direct avenues of traversal between objectives; often you feel as though you're worming your way gaps and loopholes in the construction rather than following the 'intended' in-world route, which is cool. From a more purely aesthetic standpoint, the level is also notably more thematically coherent than anything in SUDTiC, using a fairly disciplined scheme of toxin, industrial composite, the signature Möller rusty metal (used for both support/trim and structural purposes), and some moldy gothic flourishes for that touch of macabre flavor. Every part of the layout is robustly featured in one way or another, ala the elaborate crusher-finish to close the map out, and even some of the apparently cosmetic stuff is hiding more than it may initially seem, ala the cacodemon behind the crucifix opposite the red key.

 

Indeed, perhaps barring its immediate followup in E3M2, the level seems to have been conceived as more of a whole place with a definite identity than anything else in the set, the later maps all adopting the more classic surreal thematic mashup ala the original Shores of Hell that was the order of the day in SUDTiC. Having just sessioned the whole set, it also strikes me that if anything TEUTiC leans even more heavily towards sci-fi/techbase than towards Hell/gothic stuff than SUDTiC, a quirk of direction considering that it's replacing E3. As a general note, the only real disappointment in the presentation here is that this time around the authors opted not to reshuffle the episode's music tracks, for whatever reason....maybe they felt the original track order suited the new levels just fine, or summat?

 

I think it plays well, too, comfortably/credibly slotting into a reasonable m1 difficulty without feeling like it's going out of its way to handle you with kid gloves. There are a number of entertaining little traps on offer, several of which make good use of the oft-underestimated pinky demon, which by all appearances must be Denis's favorite monster. The difference in design between this and something like E2M2 of SUDTiC, where the monsters were mainly hostile bits of scenery used to fill out the setting, is quite striking, I thought, and the ambush at the blue keycard is very arguably the most effective trap in the whole WAD, at least as far as modern ideas about pressure and its application go. I also quite liked the introduction of the Baron (who disappears almost entirely from the game for most of the rest of the episode, sadly), staged to bellow in your face and chase you into a soft dead end when you first meet him, but also in such a way that a keenly aware player can foil his ambush by taking potshots at his back by paying attention to changes in the environment as they happen.

 

So, yes, good map, for 1994 or any other year.

 

E3M2 -- Military Depot -- 100% Kills / 100% Secrets

Odd one. Rather off-brand for the usual Möller style; from looking level geometry on the automap, and considering the somewhat 'realistic' bent of the setting, it occurred to me that maybe this was intended as some kind of experiment in Tom Hall's style of mapping, something like that (we do know that the brothers were quite fond of the original E2, after all). Even moreso than m1, there's a definite sense of setting here, depicting something like a deep storage facility, complete with cold rooms, quaratine bays for storing hazardous waste, cargo lifts, a hidden security station, and of course the demi-requisite warehouse full of unlabeled crates. It's noticeably flatter than any other map in the set, and more blandly lit (particularly pronounced in the eyestraining uniform fullbright of the expansive warehouse), and probably doesn't stand as a particularly bright spot in Thomas's mapping career, and yet it's certainly interesting, in its own particular way.

 

Progression here is rather obtuse, doubly so since the layout never really loops back or provides some other form of shortcut for returning to earlier areas, like many of Thomas's other maps do. I mean, it's pretty clear that you need to somehow eventually reach the blue keycard, seen early on (though if you're the sort of player who insists on spending every moment with the game as though it were either a speedrun or a practice session in preparation for one you might miss even this, since the key is introduced behind you as move forward from the start area), but it's never really clear how to actually do this until you've done it. Myself, I honestly couldn't tell you what actually causes the key to become available, or when; I simply ended up wandering back there at some point because I'd run out of stuff to do deeper in the base, and found that the barrier consoles had receded granting access.

 

Further muddling this is the whole to-do involving the the hidden 'security center', mentioned earlier, which I've dubbed thusly because it contains teleporter booths granting quick access to other parts of the base (always with port destinations in other, similarly hidden rooms). Several of these areas contain switches, and while the four in the security center itself are transparent in function (opening up each of the four booths), the effect of many of the others is never readily apparent. Some surely drive changes in the warehouse area, granting access to extra monsters/supplies, but could others perhaps be involved in the BK quest in some way? Again, I couldn't say, myself. All the weirder, you can even get an early peek at the setup if you make it through the one-time door triggered during the sergeant ambush in the long southern corridor, which takes you into the strange mostly empty cement 'auditorium' but then promptly kicks you out via a functionally invisible teleport spot blocking off the room's prominently displayed switch. Curiouser and curiouser.

 

"Objectively" speaking, I reckon this map's something of a case of "more interesting than actually good", though in truth I still kind of liked wandering through it, only really resenting the piss-poor choice of lighting in the warehouse area. There's something ballsy about refusing to draw clear delineation between mandatory progression and optional content, even by 1994 standards (and especially considering that the TiC WADs are generally much more 'authentic' to the spirit of the original game than a great many other PWADs of the time), and I find it hard not to admire that. Also some credit is due for a relatively comfortable marriage of representational design with the actual gameplay concept of the map (though as aforesaid it's rather Wolf3D in terms of combat dynamics, granted), which is something that talented PWAD authors still often struggle with to this very day.

 

E3M3 -- Lost Defense Base - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets

This is much more representative of the rest of Thomas's maps in TEUTiC, an eclectically-themed nukage/storage/computer base vaguely implied to be situated "somewhere unpleasant" from the occasional brief peaks the passerthrough is afforded at the surrounding geography. Built largely of confining corridors with a lot of elaborate mechanical linkages between areas (a series of motion-sensitive shields along the northern silo stretch, building stairs, moving lifts, and some of Thomas's signature 'interlock' passages, ala E2M5 of SUDTiC), it eventually loops back to where it begins provided you explore sufficiently, and is stuffed to the gills with fodder monsters, ensuring you'll be carving many a notch into the butt of that decidedly hard-won shotgun. As mentioned above, the overall aesthetic impression is very much like what one might expect to see in some lost chapter of The Shores of Hell, though the mechanical and architectural sophistication the Möllers prided themselves on is very much in evidence (I particularly like the buttressed cut-through staircase on the east side), and there are some bits of representational design for additional flavor, ala the large missiles in the northern silos (and they are totally missiles, at least presuming that this is a 'Defense Base', in the same sense that something like NORAD is a 'Defense Base' ;) ).

 

The 'most memorable' setup in the map for me, in the sense that I immediately recognized it despite not having played this set in nigh on two decades, is indubitably the huge (and mostly harmless) battery of imps which greet you from across the nukage-reservoir as you return topside with the blue key after visiting the silos. Funny how stuff like that can stick with you. More substantive, I suppose, would be the pistol-start, which I think is quite entertainingly designed here: you aren't just handed a shotgun, one way or another you have to work for it, which involves taking some non-trivial risks: you either ignore the pack of demons baying for your blood in favor of pressing deeper into danger in hopes of finding something to turn the tide (<-- how very modern, yeah?), or alternatively you can use some fancy footwork and a bit of wit to outsmart that first trap and slip into the pens the demons emerge from, where you'll find a shotgun and a case of shells to put them down with.

 

Later action in the map mostly involves protracted close-range shotgun engagements vs. squads of zombies and other hell-mooks as well as the first of what will turn out to be a repeating motif for Thomas's TEUTiC maps in the form of a conspicuously overstuffed offmap monster group (the dudes beyond the aforementioned staircase). It's not particularly advanced stuff given the confined nature of the level construction, but it is definitely bloody, notably moreso than anything in the set prior, and so reads fairly well as a result of that. However, the constant repetition of this same general playstyle (shotgunning through arterial clots of inept mooks) does come to be something of an issue for the set as a whole, as we'll see moving on.

 

 

[Capellan]

There is a rarely triggered but map-breaking bug in OBTIC MAP04.

 

Spoilers for the issue below.  I've tried to keep them as mild as possible.
 

Spoiler

 

In the chainsaw room, the western alcove contains a mandatory switch for progression.  If the door to that area becomes shut before you can go through it, you'll need to IDCLIP through, or restart the map, as it can only be opened once from the eastern side.  This can happen because the western side of the door is a monster-usable "open, wait and then close" line.  Fortunately, it's early in the level. 

 

 

[gaspe]

I see that OBTIC is also included in Maximum Doom and I remembered the titlepic... I guess that at least I started to play it, years ago, but the first level didn't tell me anything so this will be a new experience...

 

MAP01: Quite liked it, it's rather cute visually, especially the yellow key area with the cages and the wooden walls. On the other hand it's a cramped level. I like that tougher monsters start to appear already here but the lack of good weapons put the gameplay on the dull side. I was using gzDoom but the yellow key sectors was bugged and I wasn't able to pick it. About the custom dehacked stuff: the double pistols seem cool and powerful at first but then you realize that it's just a reskinned pistol. And it's interesting the idea of glass cannon monsters: the super imp and the rocket zombies. For the latter I except some funny situations where they blow up themselves or the other monsters, as it already happened here.

[vdgg]

17 minutes ago, gaspe said:

the double pistols seem cool and powerful at first but then you realize that it's just a reskinned pistol. 

Not true.

 

The damage only is inflicted when the left pistol is shot (good catch!), but the rate of fire is a bit faster. Standard Doom pistol fires every 14 tics, Obituary double pistol every 11 tics.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP01 Entrance

 

A very weird entrance level that is mostly short, but has quite a few hell knights lying around. It's actually pretty broken for a map, as I ended up having to noclip to get the yellow key which got stuck and having to run around the map a few times to figure out where to go.

 

oh wait I think I loaded it wrong THERE WE GO...I used OBTICFIX from DSDA, it seems that the wad itself was a weird installation package that obviously didn't do well for modern source ports. Now I have the weapons, maps, and enemies without the "could not load DEH support data" message showing up. The hell knights now get replaced with imps that throw their fireballs, and there's the now-Realm667 rocket zombie in this map as well. Oh yeah, and the pistols, did notice the quicker rate of fire too, although the chaingun has the same sound effect. A lot of confined spots in this map make it kind of annoying to move around in. I then figured out how to get the yellow key, which actually is a really bad method. First, go out onto the field and wait for the cacodemon ledge to rise up, then from the walkway run north very quickly to get the yellow key. The caco's ledge seems to rise up to the sky and you can see an HOM, there needs to be a much better way of reaching this key than that, because it becomes inaccessible upon missing it (according to Doomwiki). Really not a good way to start there!

[Capellan]

22 minutes ago, NuMetalManiak said:

MAP01 Entrance

I then figured out how to get the yellow key, which actually is a really bad method. First, go out onto the field and wait for the cacodemon ledge to rise up, then from the walkway run north very quickly to get the yellow key. The caco's ledge seems to rise up to the sky and you can see an HOM, there needs to be a much better way of reaching this key than that, because it becomes inaccessible upon missing it (according to Doomwiki). Really not a good way to start there!

 

Are you sure you have the right complevel set?  If the yellow key rose higher than the green brick box around it, then you're on the wrong on.  I certainly had no such issues on complevel 2.

 

 

[Demon of the Well]

-- ENGAGE --, pt. II

 

E3M4 -- Disastrous Unrest - 100% Kills / No secrets

Zero secrets? Huh, weird.

 

This is much simpler in design than Denis's E3M1, in many ways perhaps even simpler than much of his work in SUDTiC. The starting rooms are fairly elaborate in design--dig the staged spot of platforming that takes you out of the starting area, rather convincingly simulates room-over-room construction--but as one moves deeper in these are quickly replaced by fairly nondescript boxes and hallways clothed in a variety of themes, military green and corporate-kitsch blue carpeting predominating, but also including medieval wood, marble, computer readout panels and others in a freeform array. The main point of distinction from the maps that surround it, which also tend to be very corridor-heavy, is a matter of scale, these spaces generally being less tight/claustrophobic than those often favored by Thomas. A far cry from sophistication vs. E3M1, all told; there is occasionally some sense of wanting to have a particular room or space act as a centerpiece of sorts by dint of having the player pass through it a number of times, as in the case with the room with the large poison pool to the east, but in practice most of the actual goings-on tend to take place in the closed corridors surrounding these areas, and so the impression of an important space never really comes through.

 

Most notable thing about the play is the thing balance, which is noticeably tighter than in any of the previous three maps. The early berserk pack is somewhat of a red herring, in that while you can certainly use it against imps/pinkies to help build up an early ammo buffer, it's never really a marquee weapon since you'll often be engaging messy clots of hitscanners or monsters at some different elevation level (or both). Shotgun is again the primary weapon, though the chaingun also has a stronger showing here than in many of the following maps, since it's placed in the open fairly on and is thus difficult to overlook. Monster placement definitely favors raw quantity over all else, large chunks of the opposition appearing as blocks to be mowed down as one first enters their space. For all of its simplicity, this can be surprisingly dangerous depending on how neat and tidy your play is; armor is nonexistent as far as I recall, and healing is very sparsely doled out, mostly appearing in the form of the occasional stimpack. This is a rather low-budget way of lending extremely simplistic monster placement some element of threat; many will understandably resent it, but if there's anything to be said for it it's that this approach to balance is the last time the set's heavy slant towards zombie-blocks vs. the shotgun in simple spaces feels like it still has ground to be explored as a concept.

 

The final encounter at first seemed like some kind of bug or design oversight to me, since the monsters don't appear until after you're safely past them and can hit the exit switch, but since this same thing happens again in a later map I can only presume it's an intentional design. Odd.

 

E3M5 -- Infernal Vortex - 100% Kills / 85% Secrets

Somewhat reminiscent of Thomas's E2M3 from SUDTiC, featuring a small hub with some element of environmental hazard leading to a selection of one-off conceptual areas. 'Conceptual' is perhaps too lofty a term to use here, though; most of what I saw here read to me more like idle shape-making doodles in the editor (which, it seems, may have indeed been spurred by developments in editor capabilities?) rather than construction serving any particular end in design. The most accomplished of these is probably the two-level 'fourleaf clover' setup surrounding the final key, while something like the tangle of lo mein noodle corridors surrounding the pentagram pit reads as decidedly uninspired (and something of a minor pain in the ass to fully clear out if you're aiming for maxkills). In line with E3M3 earlier, at the northeast corner there's also a patch of much more representational design just for the heck of it, in the form of a shooting gallery/firing range. Given the nature of the setup, the actual combat here is about as lively as you'd expect (read: not very), though all the same it's hard not to see some charm in how lovingly the area is put together, particularly the finely shaped and trimmed ammo bays, even moreso than the range itself. The map is also mildly notable for being the one in the set which looks most like it credibly fits in the traditional Inferno theme (though it has some competition in E3M7 in that regard), featuring only a couple of isolated computer rooms in the context of a generally infernal texture scheme and setting.

 

In practice the shotgun vs. groups of fodder occupying small rooms and narrow corridors thing is once again the order of the day here. The somewhat overly coy approach to pistol-start balancing in the set as a whole (i.e. where you're pretty much always using the shotgun, maybe the chaingun if you're lucky, and almost never any other weapon) was beginning to wear a mite thin for me by this point, though ironically Thomas's apparent eccentric fondness for the chainsaw granted this map something of a reprieve early on, since that weapon is available in the start room (albeit lightly hidden) and is a pretty effective/efficient choice for carving through the complex marble interlocks comprising the first area, where the enemies are chiefly pinkies and imps rather than hitscanners. I think I also mass-melted the comically oversized throng of zombies milling around in the circular yard near the fourleaf clover setup with the plasma gun, which of course was patently unnecessary overkill on a tactical level but quite welcome as an opportunity to cut loose with something other than buckshot for a change.

 

Mind you, you'll only have the weapon if you've the necessary stubbornness to claim it from its rather environmentally inhospitable secret area, which is half-flooded in toxic blood, requiring you to carefully clear out its occupants by luring them to the entrance and then using stimpacks floating in the mire to partially offset the damage you take running to the prize at the far back corner, which can be significant if you try it without any armor (all armor also being hidden in secrets, IIRC). This particular design tack is for the most part patently unpopular today (and, TBH, I rather doubt most folks were very amused by it in the 90s, either), but again, I'm inclined to think of it as ballsy approach to adding a sense of something different to an otherwise standard pushwall/item cache secret.

 

E3M6 -- Dark Altar - 85% Kills / 0% Secrets

Another weird one. Cool name, though nothing I saw ever really struck me as being much like an altar, or indeed any other place of ritual (perhaps it was in the part of the map I managed to miss?), the overall setting reading something like an infested faux-rustic admin building, with lots of windows between areas and a mixed wood/tech/cement theme. It's the smallest map since E3M1, too, and so I reckon the fact that a sizeable chunk of it seems to be hidden/optional is a pretty bold decision.

 

I quite like the opening battle here, a good example of a hold the door/hold the breach fight done right, using droves of enemies which can be killed just barely quickly enough with your shotgun as they approach from more than one angle. The more compact nature of the layout and more concise nature of the level progression in concert with the consistently high monster density which has characterized most of Thomas's maps in the set somewhat refreshes the sense of bloodiness which carried E3M3 and which had begun to wane through E3M4/E3M5, though in parts I think he frankly overplays his hand and starts to inch out of the realm of 'staging a bloody massacre' and into that of 'wasting the player's time', ala the ridiculously overstaffed and catastrophically ineffective shotgunner pillbox in the southwest room, or the similarly staffed and effectively pointless blue/tech room on the east side (chainsaw is of very little use in this level). The player retraverses the central space a few times, though it never really gets properly restaffed (I think some lost souls eventually wander into it from somewhere?), which seemed like a lost opportunity. There's also a nearly invisible slow-crusher in a narrow hallway at one point that has likely caused more than its share of ragequits through the years, though I was fortunately able to recall/avoid it owing to prior experience.

 

Secret exit path here is pretty weird. Pretty creative, too, in that think-outside-the-box, metagamey sort of way, not unlike the path to E3M9 in the original Inferno (at least in the days before straferunning was widely understood, at any rate)...that is, assuming it's actually intended to work in the way that I made it work. In fact, I wasn't entirely sure I didn't break the intended progression somehow by managing to hit the gunswitch that kicks it off from a place I wasn't supposed to be able to (I hit it during a mid-air leap after a return trip on the teleporter atop the little wood spire in the nearby side-yard), which might explain the part of the map I missed.

 

Edit: apparently not, seems the bit I missed was a monster-stuffed sidetrack ending in a soulsphere off of the tiny 'garden' at the end of the lava/platforms room, which I guess means the flying gunshot followed by tiptoeing around the awkwardly shaped/blocked metal platform is indeed the intended sequence of events for the secret exit. Quirky!

Edited July 16, 2017 by Demon of the Well

[Capellan]

44 minutes ago, Demon of the Well said:

I guess means the flying gunshot followed by tiptoeing around the awkwardly shaped/blocked metal platform is indeed the intended sequence of events for the secret exit. Quirky!

 

Nah, you are supposed to shoot the switch from the fidget spinner room in the SE.  It's a clear shot from there :)

 

The barriers around the teleporter lower when you find the secret teleport in the lava and up/platforms room.

[Magnusblitz]

51 minutes ago, Capellan said:

 fidget spinner room in the SE

Heh.

 

But yeah, only meta-gamey knowledge needed is that the whole line is an infinitely tall switch, and shooting the area above the actual gargoyle face still works.

[Magnusblitz]

Okay, time to move onto OBTIC, after downloading three different versions (using OBTICFIX.wad and .deh)...

 

MAP01: Entrance

100% kills, 2/2 secrets

 

Actually a bit disappointed to see the 'normal' Doom 2 palette here, as it's always been far too brown for my taste. This level wastes no time building up though, as it throws a lot of the Doom 2 bestiary at you right away (chaingunners, a pain elemental, revenant, archnatron, mancubi... everything except an AV, I think) as well as two new monsters, an improved imp and a rocket trooper. I think the rocket trooper is introduced pretty well actually by placing one in full view of the player so he can see it, recognize it's different, and likely what it does.

 

Still lots of hitscanner spam, and single shotgun play. Pretty cramped too, which all makes for some good combat with the dangerous hitscanners but a bit tedious when taking out the larger monsters. I also got the yellow key bug (playing ZDoom 2.7.1). Also got a bit annoyed that you can jump to the blue armor from the red key, but it's not intended, and there's no way out of the lava should you do so.

 

[rehelekretep]

teu8 fda

quite a fun little infighting simulator. i liked the start, and most of the rest of the map aside from the zombiemen platform and the lost soul janitor clean-up. would be quite fun to speedrun this and try and get everything going at once, which i did half-and-half in the demo. better than SUDTIC's boss map.

 

on to OBTIC we go!

[Salt-Man Z]

For Obituary, I'll be going back to continuous, mostly because this mapset scares me. Probably for no real reason other than the first few times I tried it, it wasn't loaded properly, and so the super imps still had HK health! Which is why last time I played on HMP; this time I'll try UV. GZDoom/saves/keyboard-only per uzhe.

 

MAP01: Entrance

13:04 | 93% Kills | 100% Items | 100% Secrets

 

So I've played the first 1/4 or so of this map...a lot. On account of testing out different setups and ports etc. to make sure things actually work! (Just before this play for the Club, I must have run 8 attempts to compare versions of GZDoom. (Last time I played in PRBoom+ because ZDoom-based ports weren't loading the imps properly.) I think everything's working correctly now. I did get the yellow key bug, but I reloaded from a previous save and got it legitimately (by not letting the platform raise without me on it.) Still got that nasty HOM, though. Also the last 6 kills got trapped in a monster closet and never appeared anywhere. Besides all that, this is a pretty fun level. Pretty nasty right from the start, with flanking shotgunners facing you down. (Not terribly difficult with the new slightly-faster pistol.) Knowing what's coming up helps a lot here, with all the chaingunners right away. The first "holy crap" moment comes in the caco cage; not much of a chore since that supercharge soaks up most of the damage you'll take. Still a bit eye-opening: "Oh, so it's gonna be like that now, is it?" I really like the super imp; that much more dangerous without bogging down gameplay by being an ammo sponge. (The only time I died here is in the tunnels when walking forward releases a couple imps behind you; I was actually ready for it, but the second guy imp just as I killed the guy in front of him, so I got blasted.) The rocket trooper was pretty inconsequential here; he was never able to get a shot off; that said, I did freak out a bit whenever I saw one, and always made taking him out my first priority.) Not a fan of tackling all those mancs with the single shotty, but the backpack helps out a bit there. And whenever I play this, I always miss where the blue key went and wander around for a bit before jumping back down and finding it. :D

[vdgg]

Obituary MAP01

 

I love this level, but I admit it's not perfect and any critisism you write is probably right;

 

Let's start with: how many of you used the SSG? Because:

THIS LEVEL HAS AN SSG!!!

 

and is near the start and it's quite visible... but the scary super-imp makes you not focus on this little detail.

Anyway, I recorded three max runs on this one, in 5:38 (in this one I didn't find the SSG either), 3:40 and 3:10 and I remember having so much fun doing it... My favaurite moment is the blue key, there is a pillar lowering and a platform raising at the same time, and if you time it right, you can grab the key, jump back to the ledge you came from and then jump from that ledge towards the BK door and you not lose time by getting out of the floor level: 1 2 3 4

The mid-tiers appear quickly, starting with the pain elemental! About 6 monsters that Salt-Man Z  missed I guess he didn't press the switch which has to be run into as the platform leading to it lowers... it makes 6 chaingunners (on UV) accessible, your typical Moellers unnecessary switch weirdness.

The most scary monster is of course the bazooka trooper (3 on UV, only 1 on HNTR/HMP). Some of you noticed it is very slow. But wait until MAP12 where it is used in deadly and totally unfair setups :)

 

[T-Rex]

Okay, I'm tackling TEUTIC, and while the level design has improved over SUDTIC, the difficulty ramps up as well. Anyone who is playing on Ultimate Doom, don't try installing the graphics patch as it overwrites the main Doom.wad file. Okay, here we go, The Evil Unleashed, played on Ultra-Violence (aka I Want Blood!)

 

E3M1: Out of Control (Denis Moeller)
100% kills, 100% items, 100% secrets
Time: 08:58

This is nicely done map, but it can be pretty hard due to the fact that you're forced to fight with weak weapons against squads of demons in several parts, including the start where you need to get one shotgun from one of the shotgunners, but there's demons and zombies coming your way. You'll have to conserve ammo in several places, especially for taking out duos of Cacodemons and even the Baron of Hell near the end. Save the radiation suit before you tackle the northern canal where you enter the area where you'll grab the yellow key as you'll need it to avoid taking damage from the slime while evading the cacodemon fireballs. A pretty good mixture of themes that could easily feel like a Shores of Hell map, with the techbase combined with hellish sections. At the end I touch the metallic face to trigger the crusher so the demons below can be killed. A rough but decent start.

E3M2: Military Depot (Thomas Moeller)
100% kills, 100% items, 100% secrets
Time: 14:22

Now here's a pretty good techbase level, and it has a few funny moments there. The exploding barrels can be of good use for weakening or thinning out the numbers of the monsters. You'll have to watch out for the three crushing ceilings as you make your way through the dark hallway. The map also features the same wall gimmick used in SUDTIC E2M5, only that it's in an optional area, though mandatory if you're going for 100% of everything. Funny how this is a long map, yet it only has one key required to exit. The hallway before the warehouse has hidden doors that open once you reach the end. You have to hunt for switches in order to be able to reach the blue key located back at the started, and it's pretty nifty how there's four teleporters that transport you to different parts of the map. This is thankfully not as tricky as E3M1, though you need to be careful for a few of the ambushes.

 

Right, I'll leave it from here as it's late on my end. Good night, and I'll continue more of TEUTIC next time.

Edited July 17, 2017 by T-Rex

[Magnusblitz]

4 hours ago, vdgg said:

Let's start with: how many of you used the SSG? Because:

THIS LEVEL HAS AN SSG!!!

 

and is near the start and it's quite visible... but the scary super-imp makes you not focus on this little detail.

 

 

 

Wow I feel stupid. I even tried pushing the obviously differently textured wall that leads to it, just too dumb to try to find a hidden switch instead. And when I hit 2/2 on secrets later, well...

[Demtor]

E3M8 - “Raze” by Thomas Möller
gzDoom - UV – pistol start/continuous/no saves

Hmm, not bad for a boss fight map. You get the classic SMM vs Cyberdemon affair mixed in with a lot of running around all over to avoid other enemies and get to each switch to open up each of the stars points with more enemies. For Doom in ‘94 this is all pretty cool stuff that doesn’t happen much until Doom 2. 

Final Thoughts
What can you say, this was for sure better than their first episode and the difficulty went up considerably but it had a tendency to be kind of bland at the worst of times. Doom 1 stuff always is though so I’m not sure you can put the blame on the mappers themselves. Especially considering this was all in 1994. There was very little else to elevate the game then, so to speak. This was it and was pretty damned good. The Möller’s put a lot of effort in to each map. Making sure that every area is at least visually pleasing and if not singular in theme at least similar in quality level. It’s a fairly impressive feat given the times and how pioneering their efforts were.

Some of my favorites from both episodes
E2M3 - “The Blazed” by Thomas Möller
E2M5 - “Mutilated Corpses” by Denis Möller
E3M2 - “Military Depot” by Thomas Möller
E3M3 - “Lost Defense Base” by Thomas Möller
E3M5 - “Infernal Vortex” by Thomas Möller
E3M7 - “Infested Ruins” by Thomas Möller

 

No real surprises there I suppose. I liked The Evil Unleashed better then Slaughter Until Death and Thomas’s maps are more to my liking.

[Magnusblitz]

MAP02: The Cataract

85% kills, 2/6 secrets

 

This one provides the SSG at the start in plain view for people like me who didn't find the one on MAP01. Combat on the whole feels a lot easier here, both because of less dangerous opposition and setups, and the large amount of resources provided for the player (I think there's at least two megaspheres and two soulspheres, and I didn't even find two thirds of the secrets!) The 'staircase devours secret' from SUD E2M3 shows up here, which I like, as well as the chain of areas it leads to. More good use of the rocket zombie here, especially one I had which kept popping in and out of a teleporter. Just wish I found more secrets...

 

[Pirx]

On 7/5/2017 at 9:27 AM, Demtor said:

RE-WIND!!

 

wrrr-#^(@%#^*!

 

It’s 1994. In my world, I turned 12. Bill Clinton helps complete George H. W. Bush’s diplomatic work and signs the USA into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico. Forest Gump and Dumb and Dumber hit theaters. Kurt Cobain is found dead. Video games like Donkey Kong Country and Earth Worm Jim are released while Sony quietly launches Playstation. The Dallas “cocaine” Cowboys beat the Buffalo Bills to win Super Bowl XXVIII. Nancy Kerrigan cries and asks the age old question, “WHY?!” O.J. Simpson murders a few people and leads police on a televised low speed car chase inside of a white Bronco riding down an L.A. freeway. TV shows like ER and Seinfeld were crushing it on NBC at the same time Friends was warming up. Ace of Base was a thing as bands like Pearl Jam, Green Day and The Stone Temple Pilots were hot young acts. Custom levels for Doom start coming out. Slaughter Until Death is released in June and people start learning about wads.

 

*whew* I have some catching up to do! The story of my summer.

 

* sniff *

 

and i went with a box of floppies to a friend who had a computer capable of running doom.

 

 

now here's a bit of rambling about SUDTIC, before i'm getting nowhere as before. the rest will follow hopefully soon.

 

 

 

E2M1 – “Flying Guts” by Thomas Möller

i like such posts that explain why a map has certain features, rather than just stating what features it has. i have played all of tic's maps long ago, shortly after they came out, so my memory is blurred. back then i didn't find anything unusual about the visuals, of course. now we're used much more refined maps. so, it looks a bit plain for modern standards. but what stood out in the first map was the brutal start and the part with those damn seargeants shooting from below the bridge, i barely got away alive here. and no armor. surprisingly difficult if you think "lol i'll just walk over a 1994 map". unfortunately no barrels to make guts fly.

 

 

 

E2M2 - “Mysterious Halls” by Denis Möller

mostly those corridors with imps in front of you, connecting halls. not that mysterious tbh, perhaps making them darker would have helped. those pillars with skull switches on them rising from the floor are a weird construction. almost missed the armor here because the fat dead caco fell on it. shooting 3 of them with just a shotgun feels rather tedious. there's a rocket, but no launcher yet, i guess for continuous play. got a graphic error at the end

 

 

 

E2M3 - “The Blazed” by Thomas Möller

the map that's going to suck if played from pistol start and you miss the all-important chainsaw secret. it's challenging when played with the chainsaw, also due to no armor and a lot of hitscanners. consists of a bunch of looping corridors with strangely tagged secrets and guessing which random wall to push. the part with the specters in the lava results in nothing but a loss of health, so avoid that

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

E2M4 - “Death Pain” by Denis Möller

much more e2 in looks than the maps before, aka corrupted techbase, however notably little height variation overall. some cacos and finally a rocket launcher. the most effective way of playing this map was often to just stay in place, let them come and shoot and them, since there's not much that could force the player out of his position. a bit confusing teleporting, seem to have stumbled upon a teleport lab.

 

 

 

E2M5 - “Mutilated Corpses” by Denis Möller

a bit standard corridor shooting, with the yellow key section being the most tedious one. some nice detailing on the stairs though, and i liked seeing the exit from the start though, and how one can get from there to the secret exit again. which, in turn, can be seen on the automap, and it's opened by shooting a seemingly random wall, not by pressing it.

 

 

 

E2M9 - “Arena of Punishment” by Thomas Möller

quoting demtor here because that's literally what i thought about this map. unfortunately i read his post only afterwards. cramped, eclectic, that terrible corridor with sergeants in every nook (they got me from 100/100 down to less than 20/20 though because i didn't expect to find that many  of them at every step. and then i got stuck at exactly the same stupid bridge that didn't raise. i shot the switch from the entrance, but that wasn't it. plenty of time spent with a mediocre map, even for its age, because of that switch.

 

 

 

 

E2M6 - “Damned Bastards” by Denis Möller

a kind of corrupted base, with very hellish, fleshy parts (the red key area, with a crusher designed to catch players who backpedal too quickly) joined by rather tidy looking sectors, like the computer hub, or the raising concrete blocks - these were something i don't like, as they seem an artificial obstacle. anyway, better than the previous map, and good that i decided to play continuous, with a save only at the beginning of each map, as i guessed that continuous was much more common back then, and the maps less made for pistol starts.

 

 

 

 

E2M7 - “Dehumanization” by Thomas Möller

the elevator at the start is irritating, especially if you happen to ride it back to the lowest level and then up again. but wait, the map continues with this moving sectors nonsense in several more areas. i understand that those moving sectors were pretty novel at the time, but they're only an artificial break today. you can't do anything while waiting for them to lower, you're fighting some enemy (the baron priest in that chapel and his imps who came after me) and suddenly you have a wall between you and them. add a lot of tight hallways you have to cross over and over to get from point A to B in the map and it's nothing but almost idkfa to get the fuck out. at least, the savage zombie ambush before the yellow door made me smile, as i had 600 cells and nothing to do with them.

 

 

E2M8 - “Baphomet's Throne” by Thomas Möller

@ demon of the well, that's how i remember too killing the cyb. he was scary in those days. now you just shoot it until it dies. simple but impressive architecture however, these arches.

overall, this wad is pretty much a time capsule, with its plain visuals, and stuff that would get the möllers smacked over the head today, as steve said. the corridoritis is what i found most difficult to deal with, from a standpoint of rather limited patience. good thing we're playing these wads in the order they were released, so we can see the progress the duo makes.

 

 

edit: what's with that editor, it froze to a crawl.

 

[vdgg]

MAP02

 

It's a totally oldschool level with clashing styles. I found TEKGREN to be a rarity in Thomas' texturing repertoire. Some parts look good, others not. Nice use of windows so you can see the areas you will visit. I didn't know SUDTiC E2M3 had the same kind of "stairs eating secret" thing, I guess I will replay it... Some neat little things include a well leading to the yellow key and a pair of fast lifts in the crate room.

[Capellan]

OBTIC MAP02

Oy.  Pickup-based progression; that is, levels where picking up certain weapons or powerup is what opens up new areas; isn’t always easy to do well, and this map fails at it pretty hard.  Making a berserk the necessary pickup when the player has had a couple of chances to grab superchargers or megaspheres is just bad planning.

 

TiC continue to love their stair-builder linedef, even at times when they could have just had stairs there to start with..  Both levels so far have featured fairly superfluous examples of the tag.

 

This map is a lot more texturally divergent than map01.  It will be interesting to see if there’s a consistent variance in this regard between the two brothers.

 

There are some decent encounters here, such as the bad guys ‘porting through when you grab the RL (though it would work better with more teleport destinations), and a few backstab traps, but a lot of it is still fairly straightforward door and corner camping.  I don’t think a single arachnotron or mancubus has been given a clear shot at the player yet.

[rehelekretep]

im using the fixed .wad/.deh's from DSDA (and the first page of this thread) so if you want to watch my demos then you'll have to be using them. here's my batch file cmd list:

glboom-plus -iwad doom2.wad -file obtic.wad -deh obtic.deh

ob01 fda

fun opener. very brown as someone else mentioned earlier. @vdgg i did notice the SSG and even got it by accident (is the lamp the trigger for the lift?). i did like how you could wallrun to pick up one of the CGs, just like in SUDTIC m1 where you can get an early SG: i wonder if it is intentional? if you dont have the SSG i can imagine this map would be a real slog to get through so im sure i wouldnt have enjoyed it as much if i hadnt got lucky there.

i considered SR50'ing over for the BA but i thought 1) there wasnt enough space for a run up, and 2) i wasnt sure if they knew about SR50 at this time so i decided to skip it. is it possible here?

we get introduced to the rocket zombies but they didnt get a chance to hurt me. im forewarned about them having seen them in another mapset (i think?) so they are high priority!

good start.

[rehelekretep]

ob02 fda

weird map. i exited with 30 monsters left, and the map definitely felt less dangerous than 01; maybe i missed the challenging bits? i might actually try this one again to get uv-max. i did like the texturing so i thought it odd that people are criticising it. kinda felt to me like an attempt at a twist on doom2 map02, with the water replaced with nukage.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP02 The Cataract

 

This one is much less tight than the one before it, and quite a lot to do. Mostly zombie action with a few demons running around, but nothing difficult. Progression is pretty weird, there are a few early detours to take before we really get to the keys, and the crate room in particular can stump players as to exactly what to do to proceed. Having played puzzling maps before, I didn't have too much trouble though. It's interesting as a whole, but apart from the crate room, not one particular area stands out.

[gaspe]

On 16/7/2017 at 1:44 AM, vdgg said:

Not true.

 

The damage only is inflicted when the left pistol is shot (good catch!), but the rate of fire is a bit faster. Standard Doom pistol fires every 14 tics, Obituary double pistol every 11 tics.

I didn't used it so much tbh, I felt it was like the stock pistol. And thanks for pointing out also the SSG on MAP01.

 

MAP02: An abstract level with a rather "wild" texturing. But I liked it a lot, I think that only the red area after the yellow key door feels out of place, a sudden amateurish touch in an otherwise nice level. The progression has some puzzling moments but nothing too hard, maybe the yellow key pit is hard to notice if when you come back the platform is at the top so it looks like nothing has changed. Nobody mentioned yet the well where the blood and the nukage converge? That was cool.

[T-Rex]

Hey, everyone, back again to pick up the pace with TEUTIC.

 

E3M3: Lost Defense Base (Thomas Moeller)
100% kills, 100% items, 100% secrets
Time: 13:10

Here is an very linear map which is another techbase one with the Shores of Hell theme going. The level itself is mostly cramped as you're navigating through a bunch of narrow hallways for the most part, with a few large areas that contain pools of toxic slime that varies in damage. There's tons of monsters to kill, so there's rarely any moment where you'll have room to breath as many of them will see you as you enter the rooms and as you attack them, you alert more enemies. Secrets aren't that hard to find, but be sure not to rush through them so that you'll register each and every one of them. Although the level is linear, there's a part where you'll have to take one path before you take the other, notably where you need to locate the blue key. I like how you see the exit, but you have to loop around the map to reach, much like in Memento Mori Map09: High Tech Grave, though I have no idea why Thomas forgot to change the floor textures for when you activate the stairs to the blue door near the start. Solid map, if a bit crampy, and so much slaughter.

E3M4: Disastrous Unrest (Denis Moeller)
100% kills, 100% items, 0% secrets
Time: 09:14

This map is arguably Denis Moeller's most simplistic in design. Still, it manages to be at least as polished as E3M1. You have to go up an elevator to an area full of imps, and there's thankfully a berserk pack if you're short on health. Then you board the column with the shotgun ammo and a door leading to a circular staircase opens. Many of the enemies come in packs, so you'd want to use your chaingun against them, especially the gunners. It's far more linear than E3M3 as well. Watch out for hidden doors that open as they hold squads of enemies. At the end, don't hit the switch yet until all the enemies teleport in so you can get 100% kills. There's really not much to say about this map as it's very simple and linear. Strangely, though, there's no secrets.

 

E3M5: Infernal Vortex (Thomas Moeller)

100% kills, 100% items, 84% secrets

Time: 17:22

 

Definitely the longest map in the entire episode. You start out in a hub that is mostly hellish in theme, though there's the tech area in the northwest section. There are four doors that take you to different parts of the map, two secrets that are revealed by hitting the east and west skull switches, and eventually a passage that opens to the south section. The green section uses the same interlocking halls trick seen in E3M2 and SUDTIC E2M5. You'll have to take a lot of caution, because even though you get plenty of health and ammo, you don't get any armour to take less damage from enemy fire. I dig the huge pentagram further to the east before you reach another tech (Episode 2-ish) area, where you can find a switch that opens a path back to the connected organic room. After obtaining the red key, you need to take the southwest door to go up and open the red key door where you'll gain access to the blue key. Get the blue key, and you can enter the southeast door which has some pretty nasty opposition, like all those imps and cacodemons that randomly teleport, the platoon of troopers and sergeants in the outdoor circular arena where you grab the chaingun, and all the pack of demons that are revealed once you grab the yellow key. The south section from the hub leads to the exit. There are two secrets which are inaccessible as they are small compartments masked behind the exit signs, which hold medikits, thankfully. Pretty good level, but very tricky and lengthy. Also take note of the invisible wall situated in the middle of the outdoor yard from the northwest door.

 

E3M6: Dark Altar (Thomas Moeller)

100% kills, 100% items, 100% secrets

Time: 11:54

 

Tons of monsters to slaughter in this map! Keep your chaingun and plasma rifle ready, because you'll be facing a lot of them in hordes. I have no idea where the altar part fits in, though, but I assume it could be the small marble section you can get by teleporting from the room full of lava. The opened manhole when you reach the outside where you'll find the yellow key was certainly a nice touch as it adds a slight bit of realism. When you dive down to the large outdoor room, make sure the imps are all far from the lowered window and run like hell while firing away at them with the plasma rifle. Watch out for the cacodemons and the baron of hell. You have to step on the teleporter and then hop in on where you're teleported again so you can fire the face switch to raise the bridge for the secret exit. You'll have to patient while preparing to run in order to get past the two crushers on route to the red key. Not a bad map, but it is quite a weird one.

 

Alright, gonna finish the rest next time. See you then!

[Capellan]

OBTIC MAP03

More “progress by pickups” here, but with map02 fresh in my mind I wasn’t held up this time.  It’s still bad design, though - especially as in this case the lure was just a box of shotgun shells, in a map that’s already got heaps of shells available.

 

The trap on the blue key caught me here, and is pretty much certain death.  The yellow key trap, however, I anticipated and merrily strafe ran under before the bars could close.  Though honestly I wonder if the bars wouldn’t protect you from most of the baron’s wrath in any case.  Possibly on UV, where there are two of them, you might actually be safer inside the bars!

 

Map layout is quite square, not so much in terms of the rooms in the level - which do have quite a few angled walls - but in terms of the whole map itself.  I wonder if Thomas planned it on grid paper, and this map filled the whole page?

 

Lots of texture variety again - Thomas seems much less concerned about a specific theme than Denis did in his map, or maybe Denis just likes the brick and wood textures a great deal and so tends to use them a lot.  Evidence certainly seems to suggest he did.

 

I managed to get 100% secrets, despite not bothering paddling in the nukage.  Seems that Thomas decided that sladskul door was too obvious to count as a secret, or something.

[vdgg]

MAP03

 

A map consisting of mini-traps

Rather flat, monsters in front of the player, etc. Not good.

Blue key = crusher, extra minus points.

Yellow key = the trap too slow (30 second door). And I just checked and I let myself trapped on UV, no - it is safer to escape :)

Red key = this has some potential, but should be nastier, maybe the area would be bigger or place a W1 teleport linedef for those who want to backpedal?

 

There is a Commander Keen replacement (or rather, graphics change). It is more Doom fitting, but I don't see much of a point. There are three of them in the WAD if I recall correctly (the other two on MAP14).

 

So yeah, one of the weaker maps. Fortunately soon the WAD will start to shine.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP03 Chambers of Confusion

 

Meant to be a sort of Tricks and Traps style level with a few paths, I think, although at the start it's a quick thrust to kill the rocket zombie and then the exit switch is blocked. The level is pretty small overall, lots of zombies abound, and you can hilariously watch the rocket zombies kill themselves in one particular ammo depot. Many hitscanners to take out, and the keys are quite interesting. I like the red key area the most, but the surprise crusher where the blue key is comes as a second. Don't like the 30-second wait where the yellow key is though. A single baron isn't a challenge behind those bars.

 

(yes I still play on ITYTD, so what)

[Demon of the Well]

On 7/15/2017 at 8:43 PM, Capellan said:

 

Nah, you are supposed to shoot the switch from the fidget spinner room in the SE.  It's a clear shot from there :)

 

The barriers around the teleporter lower when you find the secret teleport in the lava and up/platforms room.

* Doesn't know what a fidget spinner is *

 

After I got done killing all of the imps out in the yard, I saw that there were windows on some octagonal chambers high up along the east wall where the gunswitch could be targeted from normally, but I never ended up finding my way into them, thinking at the time that they must be involved in the one official secret (apparently not?). So, I had to find another way. I wonder if the brothers knew the secret exit could be reached in the way I did? It's very hard to tell with maps of this age just how much authors understood about the finer quirks of the engine and the way these can sometimes be exploited to circumvent conventional map progression, but at the same time the Möllers were obviously more savvy than most at the time and might have viewed this stuff as fair game for players sharp/lucky enough to see the opportunities. Incidentally, a third alternate way of hitting the gunswitch is to get the cacodemon to chase you, hide directly on the other side of the switch's platform so it drifts over top to follow, and then shooting at it with the shotgun in such a way that some of the spread triggers the switch.

 

E3M9 -- Savage Area - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets

Of all of the maps in the episode, this seems to be one that is most getting mentally 'lost in the shuffle', so to speak--I'm having trouble recalling much about it at the moment, outside of the rather trollish treatment of secret sectors in the long toxin-sewer corridor and the notable inclusion of a rather strange optional cyberdemon battle, 'optional' in the sense that it's extremely easy to miss entirely, to boot. I think I knew about the yellow door which doesn't actually require the yellow key from an earlier playthrough--in my youth I used to always try to open doors clearly signposted as locked because I erroneously believed that you had to do so to get them to show up properly on the automap--but usually I'm not inclined to take advantage of major slip-ups like that, this time being no exception. Incidentally, one of the upper level switches in the computer area beyond the nifty drawgate-style blue door can be easily activated with an infinitely-tall usepress from the floor below, although the overall impact on progression here is minimal to the point of irrelevance.

 

The secret placement here is pretty asinine, if I do say so, though there are certainly better and worse ways of going about getting them all if you're the completionist type, the main thing being to get the blue armor secret first, which will have a major impact on the amount of incidental damage you end up soaking from splashing around in the toxin while triggering the essentially pointless series of secrets along the rest of the tunnel.

 

The cyberdemon fight, accessed by leaping into an elevated teleporter pad in the toxin-fountain from a hidden nook high in one of the walls, is to all appearances designed as a gimmick fight of sorts, where the intended method of killing the cyb is presumably to lure him into the sinking pit to be crushed by the large pumping piston suspended from the covering in the center of the room. In practice, this method is both ineffective and tedious, since the cyberdemon will often be stuck in space from walking over the lift trigger at an improper angle, and even when he does finally get caught under the crusher it only inflicts a paltry amount of damage as a result of being the standard type rather than the slow type. That being the case, it's far more efficient to kill him with direct weapons fire, though from pistol-start this requires scampering about on the peripheral ledge to access a number of side chambers, one of which contains a plasma gun suited for the task.

 

Not difficult to see why this map was chosen for a secret slot. As with SUDTiC's secret level, not one of the set's stronger offerings, IMO.

 

Oh, and as a general aside, while this is something you can see in a number of other places throughout the mapset, you'll likely notice that the zombies and other monsters at the end of the long sewer tunnel don't wake up until you get closer to them, even if you fire in their area while it seems like they should be able to easily spot you. My best guess as to why this happens is that the reject-data threshold the map/set is using is apparently rather small (which would make sense, since most of the layouts are made of tightly-knit, confined rooms and corridors), meaning that when you first enter the tunnel you're actually too many pixels away from these actors for them to be able to "see" you initially, meaning they won't become active (even with sound readily leaking into their sector) until you walk partway down the hall.

 

E3M7 -- Infested Ruins - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets

I don't think this map is the one that should be credited for instilling the whole "always look behind you at mapstart" thing into me at a young age, though it's certainly an example of why this simple practice is generally worth the second or two of gametime that doing it requires, since the load of shells you can acquire from the optional/hidden trip into the yard beyond the starting hall makes a considerable difference in early momentum (from pistol-start). Like pretty much all of the other maps in the set, from pistol-start you will be using the shotgun almost exclusively here, incidentally, and while it's certainly more than up to the task from a pure balance perspective, after 8 maps of the same non-progression in armament I feel pretty comfortable saying the that pistol-start balance in TEUTiC is pretty lacking, moreso than in either SUDTiC or the later Obituary. I think the design here is falling prey to waffling about and refusing to commit decisively to either of the two standard mapset balancing styles (longform/continuous-oriented vs. the far more common pistol-oriented), with the result being that while the maps are certainly beatable from pistol-start without the need for austerity techniques or metagamery or anything of that sort, they often come off like dry-humping because you almost never get to use any weapon other than the shotgun, even the humble chaingun being a fairly rare appearance. Both the RL and the set's only BFG eventually appear in this map, incidentally, but the RL shows up very late and can only be used effectively with foreknowledge or good foresight, while there is honestly never anything worthy of even considering bringing out the BFG, suggesting that it's primarily intended as a trump card for the oddly-balanced E3M8.

 

The action being broadly similar to that found in Thomas's other maps in the set (with early austerity if you don't check behind you at the start being the main point of departure), the main thing distinguishing "Infested Ruins" from earlier maps is that it seems to have more of an actively creepy/atmospheric bent. I think that E3M5 still technically has the highest ratio of Hell : non-hell texture assets, but this one is certainly the most macabre in presentation, featuring draining pools and eventually whole rooms filled with mutilated and despoiled corpses, and more of a constantly and uneasily shifting blend of supernatural and sci-fi elements, whereas earlier maps often tended to sequester each of the two broad themes within discrete areas. Mechanical interconnections between areas are not as elaborate as in some of Thomas's other maps, but I got a sense that here he was actively focusing on using architecture in subtle ways as purely visual flourish--the aforementioned gruesome scenes, the angled stairs and finely cut ceiling near the RK, the shifting floor panels near the YK, things of that nature.

 

As aforesaid, action here is pretty par for the course by this point in the mapset. Lots of folks seem to remember spelunking in the bloody septic tank for the blue skull, a sequence which can quickly become quite frazzling if you don't snag the hidden-but-not-secret radiation shielding suit from the nearby secret compartment (incidentally, giving players a possible opportunity to see that suit ahead of time seems to be the only real practical gameplay reason for having the marble torches/grates room as part of the layout, though as aforesaid it's kind of a cool-looking little room in its own right). The post-RL trap can be surprisingly effective for something built before Boom-age actions (which generally make it vastly easier to stage a variety of flash-ambushes than it is with vanilla actions alone), but the RL itself will handily liquefy the threat if you use it decisively (though it can also get you injured/killed pretty easily if you hesitate).

 

I remembered to kill the final cacodemon this time. I think almost every other time I've played the WAD he got left behind, quite understandably, I think.

 

E3M8 -- Raze - 100% Kills / No secrets

Heh, I very nearly died to the first group of zombiemen, probably closer than I came at any other point in the mapset to biting the dust. Just goes to show, it's usually unwise to underestimate even the weakest of enemies.

 

Anyway, yeah, this is pretty daft. I don't have a whole lot to say about it, apologism or otherwise, though I do sincerely believe it's worth remembering when looking at something like this in hindsight that there was a time when this sort of thing--especially framed as part of a serious/authentic episode replacement!--was new and maybe even a little shocking. As with the rest of the episode, from pistol-start once again all you get to work with as far as firearms go is the shotgun (and a berserk pack, though the rest of the thing placement suggests it's there more as a health equalizer than as something meant to be taken seriously as an offensive option), which amounts to some beyond-simple plinking exercises if you play 'conventionally' and fight each monster group as it appears. Particularly to a modern player, though, it's almost impossible to ignore the potential for a basic infighting cauldron here, and pistol-start or no this is by far the most entertaining way to clear the map. The biggest challenge in this regard is not actually surviving, but in killing all of the monsters before the map ends, since the spiderbrain will often bite it before the rest are dead (esp. Cybie), though I actually got pretty lucky and pulled it off on the first try this playthrough, mainly because the cyberdemon was having an off day or something and got roughed up pretty bad by the Barons and cacos, weakening him enough for the spider to finish him (with the help of a few buckshot rounds in the backside from yours truly).

 

 

As far as comparing SUDTiC to TEUTiC goes, I think I tend to agree with Capellan, in that I'd say TEUTiC has higher highs (esp. E3M1), but also lower lows, perhaps. I reckon I'd also say that while SUDTiC is certainly rougher from a technological/craft standpoint than TEUTiC as a whole, it seems to have more distinct ideas in its design, both within maps and between them; each map of SUDTiC feels like its own distinct thing, whereas much of the middle stretch of TEUTiC seemed to me to be a mite interchangeable (esp. Thomas's maps), which again I suspect is largely a side-effect of the rather prudish approach to weapon/supply placement that dominates throughout. Nevertheless, to say that these mapsets are a cut above most of what else was available at the time is a rather severe understatement, as even other notable sets of the time tended not to display the level of development in both mechanical and fight design seen in this pair.

 

I will probably end up sitting out of Obituary in favor of catching up at least a little bit on some other things (both Doom and non-Doom), but I still am quite looking forward to reading others' thoughts about it, as it was one of the most smoothly put-together partial conversions of its day, a far cry from some of the other disasters from around the same time, ala Lord of the Flies or the like.

Edited July 18, 2017 by Demon of the Well