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dobu gabu maru

The DWmegawad Club plays: Moonblood (it's our 5 year anniversary, golly!)

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MAP18

Certainly a wild and eclectic mix of textures here.  Some fun combat, too, but sadly the only thing I'm likely to remember in a few days time is that timed lift run nonsense in the computer map room.  Ugh.

 

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MAP09 - "Delta Labs Industrial Research"

So this is where the nukage from the sewers ended up. Various marble decorations are more prominent here, giving this map the E2-style corrupted techbase feel. Pain Elementals is also the name of the game, with a liberal amount of them scattered throughout the map vs the ammo you're provided with. Progression is rather free-form and I ended up missing the RL behind the yellow doors until the end of the map.

 

MAP10 - "Toxic Treatment"

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This is the most "environmentally interesting" map yet, forcing the player to manage radsuits as they navigate a flooded base with frequently changing geometry and traps. There are usually enough suits, although I've had to backtrack through the poison a couple of times after taking too long exploring in the later areas. Still, nothing compared to No Radsuits in Sight!

 

MAP11 - "Logistics"

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A mixture of blue comptech, green marble and my favourite - cement, also known as the dirty bathroom tile or toilet-tech! There's no shortage of visual variety in this episode closer as it manages to touch on nearly every common techbase element as well as some hellish stuff. Some tricky secrets too, which I probably wouldn't have found without the Computer Map. Resources are more suited to blasting mid-tiers with rockets and plasma and health/armour are also frequent. Again, a cool looking outdoor section near the end, and judging by the start of the next map, maybe there will be a shift away from the tech stuff.

 

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MAP17: Moving down to HMP after this; had a bit too many instances where I was dying to hitscanners from afar or taking an unlucky shot from a rev. I enjoy playing Doom most where I can be a lot more gung-ho but Moonblood has gotten to a point where it really, really punishes you for getting bad RNG (like an 80% dmg rev rocket) and not playing uber cautiously. Like I stated before, I really appreciate the ammo deprivation but just can’t stand the lack of health. 

 

Anyway, this was a weird little map… the texture combinations certainly didn’t evoke “BFG lab” and I actually got lost for a little while since I didn’t realize the archvile cubbies contained doors. It seems like Moonblood’s E4 seems to follow a texture scheme that’s closer to Doom’s E2, where marble is mixed with a lot of tech stuff (plus some FIREBLU thrown in for good measure). Plus the music was really… bizarre? Unfitting? Goofy? This is the only track I feel like is a “miss” on the whole OST thus far.

 

MAP18: Aghhh I was worried this would happen! I go down to HMP and pistol start this map, yet finish with 200 bullets, 80 shells, & 120 cell! On UV I'd be lucky to finish with a double digit ammo count but now I’m practically swimming in goodies. Thankfully a lot of the monster placement isn’t all too different—I checked out UV after I finished the map and the only thing I was disappointed by was the lack of a PE at the RL trap (2 lost souls is ZZZZZZ).

 

I enjoyed this map a bit more than the others in E4 thus far, solely because of the tricky switch hunting at the southern end—I liked having to consider what each switch did & when to hit them. AVs and revs are everywhere but I wasn’t expecting much else from Deadwing since he clearly favors the “higher” tier of difficult monsters (we haven’t seen an arach, manc, or caco in a while have we?) The map ends on a bit of a downer (SMM is an easy one shot and that room was just begging for AVs to come crawling out of the darkness), but I still had a lot more fun with this than the previous maps, probably due to the abundance of health I’ve been stumbling across.

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MAP19

Possible bug: It's pretty easy to snag the red key without triggering the trap in that room.  I did it without even really trying to.

 

"Oh look, revenants" got a bit tedious here, but this is mostly a pretty fun base level.  I liked parkouring over sector 310 to get to sector 309.  I also liked the imp swarm at the end.  Not really enough of them or enough space for them to come at you fast, but the variety of routes did mean they could pop up in unexpected places.  That was quite fun.

 

Got both secrets, not that either of them were really worth finding.  Moonblood needs to up its secret goodies game :)

 

 

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MAP20
At the start, there are two teleports leading to two different places which can be revisited later.
This map design reminds me some Sandy Petersen maps, mainly layout and openness.
It's possible to raise the bridge by shooting the button, along with other switches which are activated by gunshot.
The final sky-hole area, I thought there are cyberdemon hiding in there.

Edited by riderr3

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Map 20: Moonblood Gateway

 

The indoor areas feel like typical Moonblood stuff, but there was a lot more attention than usual given towards designing a rich setting. The rocky hellscape where the gateway resides has more in common with map32 than anything so far, suggesting it was designed (or substantially overhauled) closer in the process to when maps 21-30 were made. The dual teleporters at the start are a compression of Moonblood's approach to non-linearity. One gives you a much softer time than the other, but the more dangerous teleporter gives the observant player a chance for an early BFG that can be used for essentially the whole map, making the options a trade-off between speed and security. 

 

As far as skips and stuff go, there is one here too, but success rates are quite low, probably 1% or so. You need that pesky chaingunner to cooperate. I try to straferun as much as possible over the cracks in the ground -- damaging floors don't hurt you when you are on a 'step' between two damaging floors. In this run I took only one damage tic in the first area, which was quite surprising.  

 

 

Edited by rdwpa

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MAP20 Moonblood Gateway

 

Now here's a dangerous episode ender, with almost full openness and even the slightest budge into an area awakens a hitscanner who comes up from behind. You think with two teleporters at the start that you have to go to two distinct places, kind of like MAP09 of Icarus, but then again, wandering around in this open place that definitely gives the Gotcha! vibes proves you can go anywhere here without too much trouble. The red key lift puzzle is the one part that truly is interesting when you factor in the stuff outside of the combat itself. And combat stays strong, nasty too. Look out for the hitscanners as always, and the cacos that come in from somewhere I think too.

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MAP20, E4-5: Moonblood Gateway

 

Big, tough, and menacing rather than spooky, though I don't know that the two teleporters at the start genuinely present the player with a choice; there's no indication that I could see as to where either of the  might lead, so without foreknowledge you're essentially just picking between one blind leap of faith and another.  The map consists of a variety of dilapidated substructures scattered across a burning crater, referential in its own way to Gotcha! but rather less playful thanks to its gloomy and red-drenched surroundings, with the long lines of sight put to use by chaingunners and other snipers as the player puzzles out objectives and solutions.  I found the balance of secrets to be a little on the wonky side here; one conceals a soul sphere, another the BFG, the third... a medikit?  Though depending on how the player handles some of the meaner encounters here, that medikit could be very much appreciated.  I did like the arch-vile tag team at the exit, itself a gaping sky-portal to unknown regions, and I'm enjoying the tone of the story that connects one episode to the next even if it's a bit sparse in terms of actual information.

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MAP18: Hidden in the Dungeon

Time: 18:09

 

This Map really loves his Archviles. On the one side I like fighting against them but on the other side it's kinda boring If hard situations are just created with them. I liked the Puzzle area in this Map. It took me quite a time to figure out all steps. This felt like a overdesigned TNT Map. It's very non-linear and open. I also liked the Room with the 3 different Lifts... The Green Armor secret maybe wasn't well hidden but not that easy to get ^^. The Fact that you turn back with the red Key to open the small door behind just for one medikit was also nice haha. The Spider-Mastermind Endfight surely was a surprise but not that hard to handle with the BFG in my hands :)... Also the Music in this Map was again very atmospheric and cool

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MAP 20 - Another quite tough level, although this might be the most hostile of the wad. Monster count is really low, but the encounters are mostly hard because of the environment, where the player will need to move carefully and move strategically.

 

This map is indeed made from scrath, and probably not as much far from map 32 indeed haha I was quite tired from enclosed levels (again), so instead of using the current level 27, I pushed that away and decided to create a new one which was more open. It's my favorite of the 4th episode, and maybe from the wad, but it has also very specific elements which I guess some players would definetly hate it (especially the big damaging floor and the plataforming).

 

I was imagining what skips would be used for the map and then I watch @rdwpa's video and... Woah D:

 

Since this level is not remixed, here's normal playthrough of it. UV here is alreadly really hard for me, and difficult will get another step up in the end of next episode D:

 

 

 Overall episode's 4 thoughts - This episode marks a somewhat breaking point for this wad. I saw many streamers giving up when they got here, and somewhat with reason. The difficult here is a big step up from what we saw before and it focus on some controversal monsters of the community: Archvilles and Revenants. On other hand, some people didn't like much the first two episodes and ended liking this a lot more, which shows how much diverse actually the Doom community is and how I was unware of it.

 

Anyway, I think now I like it more than before, but going back to enclosed tech-bases was a step in the wrong direction, IMO. It wouldn't be a problem if it was only 2 levels like this, but it's the whole episode except the last one. Map's 16 and 17 could've definetly be replaced into more open and interesting layouts, maybe even with stronger linearity.

 

Next episode will probably have the most complex maps of the wads, which might be a good thing, or not =x It will be required to have some navigation skills, though haha Some players have been gotten easily lost.

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MAP19: Obstructed Zone

Time: 6:11

 

A quite short Map compared to the one before. It starts action packed with revenant and archvile cabines. If you don't have your BFG ready this could turn hard. Another big enemy encounter is the Red Key pickup. It looks pretty hard when all walls go up but it isn't that bad if you rush for the entry and shoot everything down from outside. The Cyberdemon Fight area was good looking with this green rock texture and that bloody red sky. This Imp cave was a dream for me and my plasmarifle until the 2 archviles showed up ;)

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MAP21 - The Abyss
ZDoom, UV - PS, KIS(%): 99/100/100

 

The level starts with the typical settings of this wad; explorable non-linear layout with no significant height variations around.  But, speaking of which, this level already stands out just because of the view around the blood pit in the middle. Tell me if you saw anything more than 10 stories high in this wad so far. Anyway, the gameplay is something that you can expect from the fifth episode; more difficult than before, thanks to the unexpected, tricky monster setups. Especially a platform with the big bad monster, and arch-vile twins in some places. A good challenging level, but any player without foreknowledge will going to have a few stressful moments.

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MAP21
I really like mossy bricks and vines, this is one of my favourite texture themes.
Also monsters are appeared rarely on this map, so it's kinda relaxing style especially with this music. Only the cyberdemon appearance broke the silence. I finished him with 13% HP.
The sequence behind yellow door starting to be tedious.
I found the exit just accidentally.

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MAP20

Ostensibly the episode ender, though frankly it doesn't seem much like the maps that immediately preceded it.

 

It's a cool-looking map, and I had fun playing through this, but I must confess I never felt a clear sense of progress or direction.  I just kept bumbling along, always finding something new to do, until "oh look it's the exit".

 

I did kill two AVs with the same single BFG blast, though.  Pretty happy about that. :)

 

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MAP21 The Abyss

 

Hate to be honest, but I never was one for verticality. This one is memorable as a level though, but it's really difficult to come up with an efficient maxing route. The two secrets took me a long time to find, and then there's the worst matter of falling into pits and such. Apart from that though, I guess this level has its moments. Mostly in the cyberdemon encounter, which wasn't that hard. The puzzling room on the west side is actually the real standout. It can actually be quite tough just to figure it out.

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MAP21, E5-1: The Abyss

 

You know, I really wanted to like this one more than I did.  There's a dramatic shift here from the largely horizontal layouts so far to one with strong vertical elements, where it's the northwestern section leading up to the blue key that feels like The Living End in miniature, or the central hub with its looming tower surrounded by marble platforms at arbitrary heights that conjure to mind nothing so much as the twisted architecture of the Alice games.  It's pretty, it's tricky, there's a good balance of combat and puzzle elements, even if the switch sequences of the latter start to wear out their welcome around about the time of the yellow key hunt...

 

The downside to all of this is that the level really doesn't do a lot to communicate its objectives to the player, sprawling out in all directions and saying "go, wander," then blocking the player's progress in ways that seem arbitrary.  I think this would be a better level if, for example, the blue key was visible from the 'great hall' at the foot of the tower stairs, clarifying to the player what their first goal should be; communicating that wouldn't do anything to diminish the player's freedom to roam, but it would give a sense of a specific objective that their efforts are bringing them toward, rather than just groping blindly in whatever direction they deem to be forward and eventually stumbling across the blue key in its cubby with little more than a "huh."  It's otherwise a very fun environment to explore.

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Well, I just watched an rd video where the first 75% of the map was classic style to the point of actually using fireblu and then it ended with a cave of Unreal rock textures. That's my review of this wad, see you next month.

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MAP22 - Skeleton's Gardens
ZDoom, UV - PS, KIS(%): 100/100/50

 

Man, reading the name of this level already agitates me. In fact, nearly one third of monsters in this level on UV are revenants, so there's no doubt about the fact that the name has the word "Skeleton". Once you press the switch at the beginning, however, you'll notice that there are not that many revenants are moving around. As you can expect from the name, the layout of this level is a large open-field with lots of vine-covered passages and some pillars, scattered around as monster turrets. And thankfully those revenants are not acting mainly as turrets; more like as guards in several areas, like around the blue skull. Other monsters are placed pretty reasonable without stressful moments, and I enjoyed exploring around just to grab my weapons and supplies. Pretty good level to play, I must say.

 

P.S.: A Possible glitch near the blue skull. It seems like the dummy sectors are not working as intended; they are separated because of height difference, resulting those hidden cacodemons remain inactive until you manually "open" the ambush.

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On 8/20/2017 at 2:24 AM, dobu gabu maru said:

MAP17: Moving down to HMP after this; had a bit too many instances where I was dying to hitscanners from afar or taking an unlucky shot from a rev. I enjoy playing Doom most where I can be a lot more gung-ho but Moonblood has gotten to a point where it really, really punishes you for getting bad RNG (like an 80% dmg rev rocket) and not playing uber cautiously. Like I stated before, I really appreciate the ammo deprivation but just can’t stand the lack of health.

Sooo glad it's not just me. I feel bad about complaining, like, these are legitimately very cool maps; am I whining because I'm just playing poorly for whatever reason? But man, it just feels like every encounter where I'm not at 100% health it's like a coin-flip on whether or not I'm gonna get obliterated and the RNG is rigged to come up tails every time. ("I'm fine if this revvie fires a non-heatseeker" = instant DEATH.) It just feels like there's never any margin for error. At this point I'm 5 maps behind and I feel like I should start MAP16 on HMP, but I've got anxiety about pistol-starting being the trade-off...

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Map 21 - With this episode I wanted to go something different from the previous episodes, focusing on more plutonian (?) texture set with a somewhat weird purple sky which I did like. My idea for this level (Abyss) was to take more advantage of vertical spaces, which was quite challenging for me. Monster placement is even more sparse than usually, which remembers me somewhat of Monti's levels (but not with the same quality haha). Some traps can be really tough to deal with, although this isn't the hardest "feature", which would be to navigate through it.

 

This is probably the hardest level to navigate in this wad lol There's lots of one-way passages, lifts everywhere and key doors doesn't always take where you want. Of course, I didn't notice this until I saw some streamers getting lost on it (and badly). Lots of small fixes could've been done help in this though, like the blue key one @TheOrganGrinder pointed. The puzzle is also more bureaucratic than needed, but not as much as the one in the level 18. Still, for me, the hardest part is the Cyberdemon one, although for you guys shouldn't be a problem lol By the way, I just discovered by trying to record that the Cyberdemon battle is optional >.>

 

 

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MAP22, E5-2: Skeleton's Gardens

 

Oh, now that is not a name that fills me with confidence that I'm going to love this one.

 

The 'playground' feel of the preceding level is, if anything, cranked up here, with its open-air central section criss-crossed by walkways and bars that give it a sense of nothing so much as a giant, infernal jungle gym.  It's a hostile space, with snipers hurling fire at you from unexpected directions and elevations compounded by the vines everywhere that make it more than a little tricky to see just where those attacks are coming from, but it's also a great deal of fun to crash about in.  I'm not sure about the mix of monsters; maybe this is different on the higher difficulty settings, but on Hurt Me Plenty I was left somewhat disappointed by a lack of demons and spectres for whom this kind of map seems like it would have been a natural habitat.  The fact that there are vines, bars, and dark cubbyholes everywhere also makes this a natural habitat for revenants, whose numbers seemed quite endless.

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MAP20 | E4-5: Moonblood Gateway

100% kills, 3/3 secrets

 

Not much to say about this one, except that yeah... it's tough. Most of the encounters are only a handful of monsters, but it's the use of lots of dangerous ones (chaingunners, revs, AVs), getting attacked from all sides with lack of cover, and lack of munitions that helps drive the difficulty. Definitely a lot of fights where I needed a couple shots to sorta 'learn' what to expect. The dim lighting throughout really helps the atmosphere on this one. The last fight was a pain (didn't go and find the secret BFG until later) and that was with infinite height turned off, I can only imagine how annoying it would be with it turned on.

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MAP21 | E5-1: The Abyss

100% kills, 2/2 secrets

 

Looks like we're going into hell, but not the redrock and magma one, but moreso the marble and woody kind similar to Plutonia or Thy Flesh Consumed. I liked that this map was a bit more open, especially the large outdoor area to the southeast, felt like a bit of fresh air from the rest of the WAD so far. Monster and item placement remain the same though - bit of tooth and nail fighting to arm up, and then being on your toes for some tricky monster placement later on. The first pair of AVs was amusing (your reward for solving the yellow key timed switch puzzle!) but the second pair near the end felt a bit gratuitous.

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MAP22
This vineyard filled with many kinds of vines, mostly they are blocking the view.
Very non-linear layout. I can say even unnecessary non-linear.
Also, no safe place at the start, until I ran to another place.
The exit pit is kinda obvious, even without a sign.

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Map 22 - This is a pretty fun short map, IMO. It was a lot more complicate to build it due to how open it is (for this wad standard lol) and I didn't want it to be too annoying to deal with the monsters in it (and at same time I didn't want it to feel too empty, too). I tried to limit the snipers to few Imps and some mid-tier monsters and focus on closed-quarter battles, taking advantage of the sound-barriers + deaf monsters to create interesting setups. The layout can definetly be confusing for some people, though, which is why I think making the BK visible from far away would definetly help. Also, there's one section that you need to do a jump when you want to go out of the indoor area that felt too bureaucratic, which could be eased up. Anyway, for a wad full of enclosed tech-bases, this feels quite refreshing and unique, although probably not much for those who hate Revenants. (I love them :D)

 

Antares is right about the glitch =x Caco's wont go out unless you open the door, which can be quite stressful for doing a MAX playthrough. Gotta fix this... >.>

 

 

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MAP22 Skeleton's Gardens

 

These maps from this episode I actually do remember more. The previous one was about verticality, while this one has it in spades, most of it is played in a more horizontal fashion. A fun one at least, until you kill everything there is to kill around here and are stumped on where to go. The layout, as strong as it was, got me lost a few times, and it took awhile before realizing both secrets involved shootable switches too. There's more switch trickery in the northwest part of the map, excellent to deal with I guess. The thing I didn't like was that I missed two kills for the entire map and it took me a while to find where they are. Turns out they were two cacodemons in the demon wall above the blue key, and they were another of those monster-opens-closet things that involves sound. But they never once woke up, so you know what I did, I opened the wall myself. Should've just made that into an openable closet once I picked up the key, would've worked far better. Interesting map anyways. I'm starting to remember some of these well.

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TYSYStuh.png

 

MAP17 - "BFG Experiments"

gzDoom - UV – pistol start/no saves

 

Wow, hell of a start in the halls with all of those revs who break their huddle and start teleporting to the different halls. Happy to have that HK on my side for most of the fighting, heh. Don’t think you’ll find cover in the next room either, heh. Like I said, hell of a start.

 

I expected more shenanigans with the BFG but am glad it was mostly limited to that initial pick up where 3 AV’s and a rev come out to play. I know there is a switch that opens up the blocking bars and brings in a nasty group with another AV that could use a BFG shot or two as well. However, ammo seemed to be an issue for me at that point.

 

Getting through the back area to the BK can be a small trial in it’s own right. I liked the view out of the window on the way. The same spot looked good from the other side as well. Good stuff with the new red sky that really shines here with the brown and green.

 

Once I had the BK it was time to decide which of the doors at the start to go through first. Pain, pain and more colorful pain which lead to the PG. We have a winner!

 

Doubling back to fight through the mess of baddies to find that long line of crushers was really quite something. Think that’s maybe the 2nd or possibly 3rd time we’ve seen those. I liked how you could see them from the end hallway window at the start of the map too.

 

The soulsphere room after the RK pick up was a harrowing experience wading in the dark with a bunch of hiding chaingunning shitbirds. Deadwing does a great job of hiding enemies out of plain sight and giving attention to letting them loose at just the right moments either by player noise, sight or other tricky means. It’s done throughout this whole WAD to varying degrees and that room really stood out to me as being one of the better ones.

 

I think it was after the RK switch when it happened, but there was a point after getting the final exit door open with a switch where I was auto-ported back in to that area and forced to deal with a fresh new group of revs running loose from almost all sides of me in a much smaller space than I’d like. Holy hell that was a shock!

 

While I appreciate the effort made with custom music, the recycling of tracks is a shame. This one in particular doesn’t fit the map at all IMO.

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GrnneuOh.png

 

MAP18 - "Hidden in the Dungeon"

gzDoom - UV – pistol start/few saves

 

Loved the opening view. Liked the secret view below as well. It felt pretty pro to run past all of the baddies and go for the BFG right away. Handily dispatching the first AV (of MANY) hiding in the corner.

 

This was quite the frightening map going from one AV encounter to the next before finally jumping down to meet the SMM and his barons hiding in the corner darkness. So dark… I couldn’t see them. Shitty. I was on a really good no save run that was going really well until that point. That sucked bad. I used saves to get back there as the AV RNG really has a way of making me want to crush my monitor with my fist sometimes. I lol’ed at my previous trouble with the SMM the second time around. USE THE BFG! Why was I overthinking that one? You even get a big cell pack right before it! Hint, hint, dumbass. * sigh * I panicked and went for cover instead. Oh well. It happens.

 

The journey through the fiery lava with the revs was cool. Expected it to be MUCH longer with the amount of EV suits given. 3 for a total of a 20 second jaunt? Seems like a bit much.

 

Anyways, very cool level with it’s neat looking rooms, puzzles and AV encounters. I liked the atmosphere created with the music and the tense moments of silence before finding the next enemy ambush. All in all it was a lot of fun.

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