Charybdis - 3-map wad, flesh-themed.

[Albatross]

 

 

 

3-map wad for Boom+, flesh-themed, medium difficulty. Tested in ZDoom, GZDoom and PrBoom+.

 

Download from idgames

Edited July 17, 2022 by Albatross

[paymentplan]

Well, MAP01 was really fun and awesome. I'm trying to get into MAP02, but the AV encounter after the crusher room is really tough. Eager to play more, really love the theming. The whole time I was creeping through MAP01 I just kept thinking, "where the hell am I? why is everything so gross?" So far so good, hoping I can tackle the rest of MAP02 when I get back to it.

[baja blast rd.]

Cool theme. White-recolored assets are a nice touch. FDAs for 01 and 02, maybe 03 later, have to go. 

 

Crusher room in 02 is quite a fun fight. 

cd0102_rd_fdas.zip

[Scypek2]

The mid-texture spine is the coolest.

[Impie]

That looks pretty neato so far.

 

I made this crappy horror game years ago called Beyond the Doorway which I thought about remaking in Doom, where you end up exploring other worlds, and one of them was inside a giant fleshy worm called Charybdis. Nice knowing other people are mythology fans around here.

[paymentplan]

Hey, I finally finished MAP02. Pretty tough map for my poor Doom skills. Great jaunt overall, though. Pretty much all of the encounters were hard! I liked the crusher fight the best, before the AVs. Second to that would be the room with the RL. Must have been killed a hundred times by those revenants before I decided to just rush for the rocket launcher.

 

The final encounter was harrowing as well. Couldn't come up with a better strategy than rocketing down the skeletons first and hoping not to die. Then just mopping up the cyber and mancs with the plasma. Really enjoyed the secret and the crushers, nice touch!

 

Will hopefully get to play MAP03 tomorrow. I'll post my thoughts then. 

 

E: Oh I forgot to mention how kickass the MAP02 MIDI is. What's that from?

[Albatross]

21 minutes ago, paymentplan said:

Oh I forgot to mention how kickass the MAP02 MIDI is. What's that from?

These are all from Jimmy's 30-in-30 sessions:

 

Titlepic: Jimmy - Charybdis
Interpic: Jimmy - Adirgio
Text Screen: Jimmy - Octarine
Map01: Jimmy - Encrusted
Map02: Jimmy - Roadlites
Map03: Jimmy - Charybdis

 

22 minutes ago, paymentplan said:

Couldn't come up with a better strategy than rocketing down the skeletons first and hoping not to die

See rdwpa's demo for a better strategy.

 

23 minutes ago, paymentplan said:

Will hopefully get to play MAP03 tomorrow.

 

12 hours ago, rdwpa said:

maybe 03 later

Map03 is where it's at!

[baja blast rd.]

Map 03 feels like an RNGfest lol. I discontinued my FDA after a few deaths and decided to figure out how the map worked first, although it was pretty clear that if I got good RNG I might have done it on the first attempt. A few deaths isn't what I'd consider a lot, but I stopped pretty quickly because I'd rather iron out a consistent strategy than keep rolling dice.

 

The first part is somewhat irritating, not because you can die, but because ideally you want to save a decent amount of H/A for the next part (big difference between 150/150 and, say, 90/90), and killing the hitscanners as they descend is very unreliable, and trigger-happiness combined with them not getting hit will get you below 150/150 fast, and not to mention it's just mechanically uncomfortable to be sprayed by random hitscanners that you can't hit reliably. Fighting the viles with very little cover is surprisingly fun, but that's solely because you can semi-cheese it by going behind some of the viles before they wake up (otherwise this part would be annoying too, because of random things like chaingunners hitting viles that are attacking masterminds and subsequently dying, which gets the vile paying attention to you again). 

 

I don't mind unbalanced stuff because it's usually possible to semi-cheese it, and working out strategies is part of the fun of Doom to me, but yeah it's still pretty obvious that was designed with apathy towards reliable strategies existing. :P 

 

Here's a demo. cd03_rd_ma.zip

 

Overall thoughts: step up gameplay-wise from Tyrant, but a bit unpolished in that the difficulty of a few encounters comes more from potential random things going wrong for you rather than nuanced encounter design.

 

[Albatross]

@rdwpa Fair enough. I think I'll remove 2 viles for the final release and maybe tone down the hitscanners too.

[Grain of Salt]

Albatrosses are cute.

[paymentplan]

Wrapped up MAP03 just now. Thoughts basically align with @rdwpa. Love the aesthetic and I've always loved maps that unfold. It's a big spectacle boss map with a lot of enemies and a lot of frustrating deaths. 

 

I'm glad more people are doing these shorter mapsets. Much easier to keep a focused and consistent theme without wearing it out over a full episode or megawad. Loved the atmosphere of the first map and the tough fights of the second map. Not much for me personally to like in the third map, but a fitting conclusion to this little romp. 

[an_mutt]

Fantastic idea for an episode aesthetic!

 

The happy-sounding midis jarred pretty heavily with the tone I was feeling from the visuals though, so I wasn't able to get into the maps themselves all that well. Likewise, I found the gameplay a little too run-and-gun to let the gross and hellish theme really make an impact on me - I was expecting something a little more tense, something with more unsettling atmosphere. Dripping in atmosphere, if you'd pardon the pun. :V

 

Anyway yeah the aesthetic is what drew me in, but it felt like everything else was kinda trying to pull me back out. It's a shame, 'cause I feel like this has a lot of potential as an episode idea.