The DWmegawad Club plays: Tangerine Nightmare & UAC Ultra & Realm of Shades

[NuMetalManiak]

Just noticed that Mayhem had 28 maps, thought it had 22.

 

---Super Mayhem 17 and Combat Shock 2

+++ I have no idea what I'm doing

[Capellan]

30 minutes ago, NuMetalManiak said:

+++ I have no idea what I'm doing

 

Now that sounds like a community project in the making! :)

 

[Tristan]

I'd make a map for that, sounds perfect for me :)

[Grain of Salt]

+++ Out of cheese error +++

[Salt-Man Z]

I played the first map of

+++Super Mayhem 17

and it was amazing. (Start of the second map has me a bit worried, though.)

[Phobus]

MAP04

I liked this level to begin with. Then I kept getting trapped in rooms with Arch Viles and enduring a lack of health pickups. Then I lost interest and just resurrected my way through until it was over with. Could've been a good level with some changes, I think. The design decisions like very dodgy "3D" near the start and a door timer that you almost definitely won't trigger until the room is already clear around the red key (in the stand out most bullshit fight, IMO. A Megasphere doesn't make up for that relative lack of cover with that many Arch-Viles and Pain Elementals) made me miss modern source ports, where there are features to do that stuff much better. Good thing there are only four more maps, because if the health stays this low I'll probably lose interest.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP05

 

Although with ten secrets too many and quite a few nasty progression bits, this one fared considerably better than that trainwreck of a last map. Having a door hub is always fun, and searching for where to go here is par for the course for this wad. A few bits stuck out, the red key area THIS TIME wasn't that bad, the cargo area is cool, and there's at least two secrets with a BFG that are both easy to get. The teleport closet for the area with the shacks is horribly constructed, though.

[gaspe]

MAP05: I enjoyed this one a lot, and it uses one of my favourite iwads tracks. We got a classic 3 keys hub and there's a very cool varied design, sometimes it reminds a bit of Plutonia and I forgot to say on MAP02 but I like those custom crates. There were no arch-viles in this level but the author still enjoys to use pain elementals and barons.

[Salt-Man Z]

MAP02

41:17 | 100% Kills | 96% Items | 100% Secrets

Now this one wasn't too bad. Big and more-or-less nonlinear, with lots of room to explore. Fun sussing out where to go and how everything fit together. The huge swarms of baddies released sporadically took me by surprise. I missed two items, I assume they're just a couple of bonuses, but who knows? Cybie was obnoxious early on, but I eventually stared him down with my SSG, putting one of those thorny patches inbetween us to deflect his missiles. The ending was pretty anticlimactic, since I had already sniped most of the dudes in the exit hallways. Still, not bad.

[Snikle]

Well, since there is no chance of it winning

---Master Levels (One day...)

+++ESP

[NuMetalManiak]

Finally decided

 

+++ESP

 

I actually need to catch up on some coursework, so March is extra busy month for me. Rip this one apart, princesses

[rehelekretep]

[tmorrow]

map06
zdoom2.8.1, uvmax, pistol start, no saves, first time played

Another great map with an excellent, nonlinear layout. You can make your way through this map in many ways. The fights are not overly difficult, especially if you play conservatively.

There is only one nasty trap involving several archviles and mid and low tier enemies that teleport in, but even here you have room to move and obstacles to hide behind.

Note the secret near the blue key cannot be registered since the sector is too small to step into. This means max secrets is 83% (6/7). This is the only bug in the wad that I've noticed.

[Phobus]

MAP05

I see why people have been so positive about this map. Whilst it keeps up the relative sparseness of the health pickups, it balances this with less high-threat enemies, turning the whole thing into an exploratory war of attrition. Two spider masterminds, but both aren't particularly threatening. I see to have missed about 30 enemies and 5 secrets, which is actually pretty good, as it means the map had enough optional areas to warrant a replay some day, whilst still providing a solid progression that I enjoyed over my nearly half an hour play time. There's basically no mandatory damage in this map, but plenty of incidental threats and a remarkably liberal placement of Pain Elementals, which again leads to the damage being quite avoidable a lot of the time. All in all, a promising sign of growth by the mapper, which I hope bodes well for the remaining maps.

 

I'm surprised this wasn't remade for Doom Legacy, given the time period and how many faux-3D effects the mapper put in. Perhaps he moved on to Quake or something afterwards.

[gaspe]

MAP06: There's a more prominent Doom 1 vibe here with this castle/techbase setting. The arch-vile returns and it's used often. The map can be tackled in many ways plus there are again many secrets and optional areas to visit. It was really cool the usage of those very deep pits in some areas, it's something rather unique.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP06

 

Yes, these level are finally getting slightly better. At least in the fun department of course. Design-wise, this one is a crock. Lots of walls that can be opened, even though they should just be doors. Around the red key for example, easy to miss finding it if you aren't using a map. There's also these loooong chasms leading to inescapable pits. The ambush after the red key was honestly quite fun, good to get chaingunners to target arch-viles there. The yellow key is entirely in a secret area, one with another huge inescapable pit, and also a bit of waiting for platforms to rise, which thankfully wasn't that sufferable.

 

So that yellow key opens a nice little troll room near the end with a ton of enemies, good for BFGing. At least there is a good reward to reap there. The blue key involves a bit of puzzlework, but not that bad. Unfortunately, one secret cannot be triggered here. The endgame area isn't all too notable. There's quite a lot of weapons around here too.

[Paul977]

You all should try +++ Plutonium Winds,

also +++ Master levels

[Nine Inch Heels]

21 hours ago, rehelekretep said:

[rehelekretep]

not to be mean about other peoples nominations but i really thought the master levels are quite crap

[gaspe]

^ same for sleughtermaps :^)

[rehelekretep]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Poncho]

Master Levels are (as a whole) pretty good. It's just that maps like TEETH and some of Klie's maps are either uninspired or outright frustrating.

[Tristan]

virgil, canyon, geryon, minos, nessus, paradox, subspace, and vesperas are all pretty good imo

[Poncho]

Just now, Eris Falling said:

virgil, canyon, geryon, minos, nessus, paradox, subspace, and vesperas are all pretty good imo

For me, the good ones are Attack, Subspace (even if you can technically get stuck), any map by Dr. Sleep, Black Tower, Bloodsea Keep, Titan Manor and Trapped on Titan.

[Tristan]

To be fair I can find good things to say about any of the 13 that were in PSX Final Doom, although Fistula hasn't stuck in my memory as well as the others. I don't know the rest as well, though I recall at least Titan Manor was pretty good

[Poncho]

Just now, Eris Falling said:

To be fair I can find good things to say about any of the 13 that were in PSX Final Doom, although Fistula hasn't stuck in my memory as well as the others. I don't know the rest as well, though I recall at least Titan Manor was pretty good

Yeah... Titan Manor fuckin' amazing. People who say it's confusing don't understand its merits.

 

As for Fistula... it's got bizarre design and some pretty ugly rooms (none more so than that intersection room).

[Roofi]

Black tower was my favourite master level.

[Scotty]

+++ Super Mayhem 17

[Memfis]

+++ Super Mayhem 17

gotta counter the trolls

[riderr3]

I understand that some people will say that Master Levels is bland. After all, we are in 2018 now, when there are such wads like Ancient Aliens and such.
And now imagine that we moved in 1995, and just look which maps were released by beginners - for example, those 1800 wads that were delivered in the Maximum Doom collection. Many of them are ridiculously unplayable.
Those who created 21 maps for Master Levels even had old map editors for DOS, even without 3D mode, Carl! But for them it was not an obstacle. I can confirm that these maps were created by masters of map design, at the time of 1995.