The DWmegawad Club plays: Eternal Slumber Party

[Magnusblitz]

MAP14: Split Wide Open

98% kills

 

Aesthetically I'm split (ha) on how to feel about this one, on one hand I think the bright and bold colors separating the shapes is actually quite helpful for the style of gameplay, on the other hand some of the texture choices are ugly as fuck, no way around it (such as the pillars with the unaligned exit doors). I liked being able to quietly creep up to the supplies at the start, and after that it's basically just BFG spam for the rest of the map. Did have a bit of trouble early on since supplies are actually a bit scant - if you're not 2-shotting the cybers you can run out of cells, and sometimes I'd get low on health after a battle but have hitscanners in the way to the next megasphere. The final area is overloaded with supplies though and it's not really tough at all (once you know the viles will pop out of the columns that is).

[SleepyVelvet]

I knocked a lot of these out ahead of time.  These next stretch of three maps is a doozy.

 

Eternal Slumber Party: Map15 - "Drown in Blood"

Playtime: 2.29 hrs (prb+ cl-1 uv-savescum)

 

This map gave me brain hemorrhages.  I mean that in an endearing way.  Some of the encounters felt like puzzles, like one where I had to time the invuln-sphere pickup so i don't run out too early.  There's also some actual puzzles here and there, like the series of several long hallways crushers; one of which doesn't kill you if you have a keen eye.  I love shit like that.  My only problem with this map is that it was just so darn long.

 

 

Eternal Slumber Party: Map31 - "Nostril Caverns"

Demo Playtime: 110 mins (death) (prb+ cl9 uv-nosave single attempt dnf)

Total Playtime: probably about 2.5 hrs

 

I actually thought Nostril Caverns was Map30 from tom19.wad.  This isn't what I expected at all.  Similar premise to the map I was thinking of, but not the same.  I thought it would be fun to go in saveless first try to see how far I got, and even though it wasn't the map I thought it was, I got two hours in without dieing, blind.  wooo!  I fumbled around the start area and probed the surface of the map in game, and when I realized that it was an infinite ammo map, i barreled to the end of the imp wing and found the Rocket Launcher; and with that, carved into the Arachnotron wing to find the BFG; things were going so well first try!  I actually cleared out the Cyber-wing soon after because I didn't want to deal with that last.  I did it, I killed everything, but didn't hit any switches, so I went back and forth for several minutes hitting those.  The last one was a suspiciously empty one.  "Huh, I don't remember that one... There must have been spectres in here that I can't see" I poorly rationalized.  After some confused wandering I returned to that same spoke of the wheel, and it was in fact the only switch I hadn't hit yet.  Well, it ended a bit afterwards because that releases all the archviles.  GG, well played.

 

I continued from that point and the rest of the map is actually kinda hard if you don't know what's happening.  When I broke free back to the middle, I spammed all 4 switches on the center pillar each try, which in hindsight was not wise because they released everything, making it near impossible.  I also didn't realize that there were mega-cacos that shoot green streams until I slowed things down a bit.  I was being hasty because my first impression made me think each wing released archviles separately, and it was a frantic race to get out and manage them, but actually there weren't as many as I thought there were.  I also found that it helped to keep the cyberdemons alive for the when Spiderdemon panorama opens.  I didn't get go back for max kills but I at least found the exit.

 

Well that was a thing.  The first half of the map lets you get comfy with BFG rhythm and doorway control with the BFG.  And by that, I mean you better try to get comfy because you are in for a two hour ride of holding down the BFG trigger almost non-stop.  The sadistic joke to this map is that it loads the difficulty density towards the end of the map, after almost two hours of grinding.  I can only laugh at it's cruelty.

 

 

Eternal Slumber Party: Map32 - "Eternal Memories 1"

Playtime: 3 hrs (prb+ cl-1 uv-savescum)

 

woah this is long

 

I played the first stretch of this without sound; my headphones were charging.  Pro-tip, don't play this without sound, idiot.  From the textfile, it's based off of Eternal Doom.  I hear Eternal doom is hard to navigate.  This map has tons of lifts here and there, and it helps if you can hear a lift when it's triggered.

 

There's lots of cells in this map even though they are redundant.  Was this designed first for the normal BFG and then later ToD said "fuck it" and put in the Pink one.  That's what it looks like.  Wait, p.s, does the Pink BFG do half damage?  It seems to do less damage against Barons.  Or does it do "Pink" flavored damage like in an RPG, where barons are resistant to Pink because their color (i'm joking).  Huh, interesting.  I actually used the normal BFG when I got it seemed to work better.

 

That ending area with the television and bedroom was my favorite part of the map.  It has catwalks, book-cases and interactive puzzley stuff all confined to a smallish and manageable area: I freakin' love it.  I actually once made a map that was just an overscaled room with a TV, remote control, and giant couch.  This was early on, when I was learning mapping.  I thought "Babysit the Cybie" was a funny gimmick concept; a "my_house.wad" room scaled up to make the Cyberdemon look like a toddler and Doomguy look like a shrunken babysitter who is in way over his head - kinda like a scene in the movie, "Honey I Shrunk the Kids".  ToD's room here is normal sized, unlike that one, but it still has a functioning tv remote.  ToD is just better than me; ahead of the curve and also capable of finishing and outputting maps.  I am a tad jealous here.
 

-----

I assume Map33 is for the 31st of March, which is actually a short map.

[tmorrow]

ESP is mostly out of my league with its off the charts difficulty but despite my modest doom skills, I have used my cunning and sneakery to manage to pull off a few of the easier maps, mostly those from tom19 and sf2011. Rather than knock myself out butting my head against the high difficulty wall, I decided to relax with 3 of the easier maps, two short (map16 and map28) and one long (map32) to keep my stress levels low.

map32: Eternal Memories 1 (from sf2011.wad, map28: em1all)
zdoom2.8.1, uvmax, pistol start, no saves

Another one of TimeOfDeath's large, epic maps that is oodles of fun. Unlike many of his other large maps, this one is not all that hard. You are given the overpowered infinite ammo bfg right from the start, a marines' wet dream! "We don't need no stinkin' 2 shot cyber mechanics with this baby!".

The map has its dangers in some rooms but the fights are almost always fair since ample health is provided near most difficult areas. The main dangers are getting cornered or failing to see a cybie 3 rocket volley and being splat against a wall. You can guard against these hazards by staying on the move until you clear enough enemies to make some safe zones. Usually at each new section you are provided with nearby megasphere(s) and the enemies are facing away from you, giving you an opportunity to take a breath and pick your strategy.

Getting into each new section usually requires some puzzles involving switches. Progression is not always obvious, for example in the final building it took me some time to find all of the hidden areas and switches needed to make my way forward. A relevant point for uvmaxer's is that some enemies are hidden away and you may miss or overlook them unless you know how to trigger them.

It took me a day to analyse the map, practice and learn enemy positions (several fake walls and doors with cybers behind them) and develop reliable strategies for difficult map sections. The problem areas are mainly rooms where the key cards are found and the final building. I managed to execute a uvmax with my first proper run, with no major stuff ups. I did miss 4 items somewhere, not sure whether they were health bonuses obscured by corpses or well concealed non official secrets. My time for a casual, uvmax was 3+ hours but I was delighted and well satisfied with a successful finish.

[Catpho]

MAP31 - “Nostril Caverns”

The only review i can put out right now lol

This map just showcase the weirdest of weird qualities from TOD. The original repetitive monster grind map, thats starts out looking daunting and like a quick ticket to boredom, with you shooting monsters over and over in similar scenarios(and arbitrary variation, ie different textures) with limitless ammo capacity guns. Honestly, this map isn for everyone. I DID felt bored at the beginning, but after a while it became quite... enjoyable. It maybe the music, and the infinite ammo that goes with the bex. I dunno whats with the custom cacos(maybe added challenge?). Strangest cave ive ever seen too, and everything so towering outside it makes spiderdemons look small! All of this perfectly compliment the maps gameplay.

Very very much a niche.

Some screenies:

[Grain of Salt]

 

Gotta catch up, since it's Nostril Caverns day.

 

Map03 thoughts:

• It's pretty big.
• This is almost like the platonic ideal of a ToD map. But it can get pretty exhausting.
• Was a submission for SF3, where it was map29 for a long time iirc... but similarly to map02 I'm not sure if it's still in the set. My personal opinion is it detracts a little from both ESP and SF3 if they share maps. But idk.
• A couple of times, progression in this map is really bizarre. I once had to crack this open in db2 to help a friend out of an apparent dead end while he was streaming (the next course of action was to jump onto an exit sign which is also a teleporter, of course).
• Possibly the most extreme example of ToD's penchant for tagging pillars as secrets?
• Lots of doors that go "AAAA" when you open them.
• The bit where you fall into a HOM and end up in a new area is silly but also excellent.
• The music reminds me of Ken's Labyrinth. In a good way. Music for a level where Ken is marooned on Pluto but it's okay because there are cute bats.
• Archvile bridge.

Map04 thoughts:

• One of five maps returning from tom19.wad, which was basically ESP's predecessor. Also another Silent Hill map.
• Really cool opening fight.
• Music makes it feel like a spy drama :l
• I'm docking this map one star for not having a giant cyberdemon made of cyberdemons.

05:

• Thankfully, this map has a giant cyberdemon made of cyberdemons.
• The twin of map03. Very similar in style and size, and both were SF3 submissions. This one is slightly nuttier though, imo.
• Also features a section where you have to physically leave the map and walk out to the point where the map loops over to get to the next section.

06:

• Possibly the second hardest of the returning tom19 maps?
• This is ToD's take on the doom 2 map01 edit cliche.
• Was once a zdoom map, featuring traps where monsters fall from the air. I think there's a demo of that version on youtube somewhere?
• At one point you play an organ that summons cyberdemons. QED.

07:

• The endless imp/rockets section at the start is actually my favorite ESP fight. Seems easy-ish to begin with, but then gradually ramps up to a light simmer.

08:

• Another tom19 map, and one of my least favorites. The gameplay is solid enough, but the deliberate oblige style makes the whole thing feel sort of cold and empty.

09:

• Probably one of the better sf2011 maps.
• Stylistically a sort of precursor to things like Escaping the Spiral Labyrinth.
• I distinctly remember Phml being annoyed by the cacos at the beginning when he playtested this back in the day.
• One of the demos in the sf2011 demo reel is Danne dying to this map :3

10:

• I was hoping to be the first to mention that this map is made of triangles because it was a 100 lines submission, but several other people got there first, boo.
• One of the shorter and easier ESP maps. You could almost play this one blind and saveless if it weren't for the slightly mental fight before the exit.
• Sector trees. 10/10

11:

• Another sf2011 map. This time opening up gradually, spiral labyrinth style, rather than going all-out right from the beginning.
• Beginning imp triangle is another nice little rocket fight, similar to the start of KSP, but much shorter of course. iirc ToD's max demo actually skips this fight and lets the cacos out immediately, despite it being one of the more fun moments. Tsk!
• The title comes from ToD being mystified by the name of pain au chocolat. ToD lore.

12:

• Oh god brookhaven hospital.
• Well, anyone who does DWMC just for adventure maps with no gameplay should be right at home in this map... at least until the end section.
• Not really a fan of this one overall. I get lost immediately, weapons are hard to come by, and I'm not sure how to progress ever. Would this setting be easier to understand if I'd played the Silent Hill game it comes from? Who knows.
• Even though I don't like it much, this map still has tons of neat ideas, like the multiple floors, the locked doors with messages, shelves, the combination locks...

13:

• A sf2012 map, I think? Possibly one of the first contributions to that project. I think ToD might even have revealed it in the sf2012 thread OP.
• Not a fan of grey bigbrik. Or brown bigbrik, really.
• Overall not one of my favorites. The setting just seems kind of joyless, somehow.
• Some cool midtex bridges in this map.

14:

• ToD's explanation for this map at the time was "I was high on the 90s". Which makes sense.
• This "deliberately unlearning normal texture use" style returned in map33, which is actually even sillier.

15:

• The longest map to return from tom19. This map is actually a compilation of maps from a wad called Drown in Blood, with some edits. DiB was designed for coop with multiple lives, iirc, whereas this map makes you do similarly death-defying things without that luxury.
• This map is so long my heart sinks when I see the opening room :3
• "ToD is playing jazz drums at 3000 bpm and suddenly he gets an idea! "you know what's more challenging than a cyberdemon?" "three hundred cyberdemons!"" - dew

31:

• Nostril Caverns \o/
• My favorite ESP map. It's just ridiculous. First, kill sixteen rooms of each different monster type (well, nearly). Now clear out sixteen open areas of archviles and spiderdemons. And finally, BFG hundreds of cyberdemons.
• This is the map equivalent of those eating challenges where you have to eat a 50kg ice cream sundae, or something.
• This map also has the best music.
• For the curious, Benjogami made a tribute to this map called World Orifice, which is arguably slightly more ridiculous.

32:

• Another sf2011 map. I think in sf2011 this map was just called "Em1all"?
• Similarly to map15, this map is a compilation of maps from ToD's "eternal memories" wad, which contained remakes of Eternal Doom maps from memory, with added ToD gameplay.
• When ToD created this compilation map, he added infinite bfg at the start, but he didn't remove the normal weapons and ammo from the later areas, so you end up with tons of ammo that never gets picked up.
• The original eternal memories wad has a few demos on dsda, which are worth checking out. As you'd expect, the gameplay is pretty different without infinite bfg.

Peace out.

[rehelekretep]

wait when did you change your name? :D

[Nine Inch Heels]

25 minutes ago, rehelekretep said:

wait when did you change your name? :D

About 2 or three days ago from what I have seen. I find it quite cute.

[tmorrow]

39 minutes ago, Girl of Satan said:

For the curious, Benjogami made a tribute to this map called World Orifice, which is arguably slightly more ridiculous.

 

Off topic but I have to respond. I've played World Orifice to the end. It didn't help that the map is a bit of a slideshow in zdoom. I naively started off legit with a serious attempt, then after finally going down 1/4 of the way through, I resurrected and cheated (iddqd, idfa, idclip) my way to the end, laughing at the ridiculousness. Took me 4+ hours to complete it with cheats. The backtracking to take on the released archviles is what really killed it for me.  World Orifice is just wrong, so wrong!

[Nine Inch Heels]

2 minutes ago, tmorrow said:

World Orifice

 

2 minutes ago, tmorrow said:

slideshow in zdoom

 

*Ahem* Playing slaughtermaps like World Orifice in ZDoom is:
 

2 minutes ago, tmorrow said:

just wrong, so wrong!

 

[Grain of Salt]

18 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

About 2 or three days ago from what I have seen. I find it quite cute.

 

I never changed my name. It was the work of... the doominati.

 

I'm 100% responsible for not changing it back though :D

[Grain of Salt]

21 minutes ago, tmorrow said:

World Orifice is just wrong, so wrong!

 

So wrong that it's............ right? :3

[Benjogami]

I learned about Nostril Caverns here: 

I didn't watch the whole video at the time, but some weeks later I returned to it and watched it in pieces over the course of a few nights, and thought it was amazing. The midi has a lot to do with it, and I also think the low-res software rendering really suits the map. The ESP version has a different midi and I know GoS and others like it, but the original midi is the one true midi to me. :D Even though it's short and the map is long, it doesn't get old.

 

I actually only played through part of the map. I remembered that I should do zombies then arachs from the video, and then arbitrarily picked some other monsters to slay next, until the switch-room viles spawned. At some point during that clean-up, the ideas that I had brewing for a similar map took over, and I went to work on that instead of finishing Nostril Caverns. :P

 

At the time, I wasn't really into the seemingly-arbitrary vile trigger, since it makes some routes much better than others, and you can't discover a good route without opening the map in Doombuilder, or watching a demo, or by exhaustive trial and error. In retrospect though, I was spoiled because my first experience of the map was by watching a good route. Even if you have no idea in which order to do things, all of them are probably feasible since there's infinite ammo and lots of megaspheres, so maybe it doesn't really matter if you pick a bad one. I'm gonna have to check out @NoisyVelvet's demo to see how fair that death was. :D

 

But that's one reason why World Orifice is very linear. I wanted it to be clear to the player what they're in for and what they must do as soon as they open a couple rooms.

[geo]

Well I played level 15. Its dark, cramped, both easy to see what your goal is and easy to get lost if you snag yourself on an edge. It is both too cramped and too spacious depending on where you are. Those are the opening minutes.

 

The bulk of it plays out in a giant, bright cavern where you then waste minutes of your life whittling down some of the biggest enemies and numerous enemies with plenty of health and ammo around to ensure that you get through it. This is an endurance map. After plasma rifling down more cyber demons than I could count and BFGing as many spider masterminds who were useless to stop me... I noticed oh only 500 monsters killed out of 3,000... Then... looking at my time on the map with this try alone being 17 minutes I thought... nope time to abandon ship. So I did.

 

I am not reading that chapter. I'll watch the DVD when it comes to video.

Edited March 15, 2018 by geo

[SleepyVelvet]

@Benjogami -skipsec 6550 is probably good.  It turns out 110 mins, as i reported above, is when i plotted a save so i could return casually if i died there, and i mixed up times (i usually use -nodraw -timedemo in prboom+).  I checked the demo and i actually survive 11 minutes after that point.

 

here's an abridged version:

I try to leave the spoke, but I fail it a few times vs a wall of cyberdemons that decided to cluster at it's exit.  I had to gobble all my megaspheres.  When i finally dug through the cybers, i spent my remaining time bfg spamming barons while they were resurrected by archviles.  It was kinda funny though.

 

Also, good job @tmorrow on map32.

 

 

[rehelekretep]

glboom+ / uv / pistol start / saves

map15 fda

oh boy - this one isnt that hard, but it is very long ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

coupled with the music this is a pretty chilled out slaughter map - the hardest moment for me is the AV-gangbang which can be irritatingly difficult if you get chain-jumped all over the shop.

there are some trademark ToD crazy architecture like the AV-entrance hall, the weird 'every corridor is a crusher except for this one' wall, the first cavern/great hall, and the staircases in the area just below all the AVs. crazy stuff, thoroughly enjoyed it.

[rehelekretep]

18 minutes ago, NoisyVelvet said:

Also, good job @tmorrow on map32.

 

 

but imagine doing all that and not having a recording of it D:

[tmorrow]

37 minutes ago, rehelekretep said:

but imagine doing all that and not having a recording of it D:

 

I actually record all of my uvmax attempts and preserve the successful ones and the notable failures. It's my way of keeping track of my own personal doom progress. I just don't distribute my demos very far and wide since my skills aren't that great compared to those in this community and I'm a very slow, safety based player! One thing I am good at is finding ways of making some difficult maps a lot easier. If I ever start using prboom+ rather than zdoom I might toss a demo out there every now and then.

[tmorrow]

map16: Be Quiet (from tom19.wad: map01)
zdoom2.8.1, uvmax, pistol start, no saves

This map is probably the only easy map in the ESP wad that anyone can complete using the right strategy. So if your skills aren't high and you're looking to earn some doom credibility, this is the map to play. Imagine smugly telling your friends "I've completed one of TimeOfDeath's Maps!" with their predicted reply "No way, dude! How'd you do it?"

The map title gives away the strategy.

 

Spoiler

Don't waken the enemies at the beginning. Instead, quietly make your way up the stairs to the small room with a revenant and berserk packs and shoot the face switch to the east (ensure door is shut so enemies don't hear). Then lower the west wall and run across to the building with a rocket launcher and backpack and shoot the face switch to the west. Return to the beginning and action the two revealed switches on the nearby pillars, the left switch blocks the revenant horde from approaching, the right switch lowers the distant pillars with cyberdemons past the revenant horde. Infighting will do the rest to take care of the revenants and cybies or around 200 of the enemies on the map. After that you just need to mop up and find the bfg secret (now kind of unnecessary).

Note there is one unreachable lost soul inside the columns at the start that cannot be killed, I assume he is there for ambience, I'm not sure.
 

[Grain of Salt]

4 hours ago, tmorrow said:

This map is probably the only easy map in the ESP wad that anyone can complete using the right strategy

 

 

Map28 is pretty easy!

[Magnusblitz]

MAP15: Drown In Blood

 

The first large section is certainly striking, with its huge ceiling, even despite the overly blocky design. And holy shit that's a lot of cyberdemons (something of a theme for this map)... took me awhile to finally find the teleporter out of here. Then comes the longest shoot-switch puzzle ever. The next section with keys is pretty easy, and the co-op origins that GoS mentioned is apparent here. I quite liked the next section, lots of good cyberdemon fighting in closer quarters. The AV/arachnatron section is just tedium, slowly whittling the hordes away from behind the safety of columns and block monster lines... the worst sort of cover shooting. Got partway through the staircase hallway and holy shit there's so many monsters I gave up, just can't commit to a grind like this. Looking at the automap seems there's still three sections after this, too, jeez. Might need a sabbatical from Doom after this one, can only kill so many cyberdemons...

[tmorrow]

1 hour ago, Girl of Satan said:

Map28 is pretty easy!

 

That's the 3rd ESP map I was able to do, not reality as ToD intended but a uvmax anyway!

[Nine Inch Heels]

19 hours ago, Girl of Satan said:

"ToD is playing jazz drums at 3000 bpm and suddenly he gets an idea! "you know what's more challenging than a cyberdemon?" "three hundred cyberdemons!"" - dew

Quite a good way to describe Drown in Blood.

 

When I first saw that map I thought that, eventually, things would turn into one large heck of a BFG fueled massacre, and one may argue that there was quite a bit of spamming going on, but not really the sort of spam that many people may find enjoyable for extended periods of time I guess. Just taking down the first pack of cybies made me go into the sort of circle strafe-spam that I consider to be more of a chore during bigger slaughtermaps, because that usually implies it's cleanup-phase, meaning the most interesting part of the fight is over.

 

The opening was quite alright for what it was in terms of archviles, and in hindsight I think it is maybe one of this map's highlights as far as situational awareness goes. Once you got the viles taken out you're left with SMMs and cybies, well, mostly cybies in that large room, at which point I felt like having a rapid-fire-BFG seemed like quite a nice thing, because how are those cybies gonna do anything as long as you just keep moving? Some fights later down the line had a tendency to be either quite meaty, or concerningly volatile if the dodging one was doing went "off-beat" at the wrong time. The latter was rather enjoyable and certainly exciting, the meaty aspects however felt a bit like a throwback to "castle lava's" fights. I don't know if it's just me being a bit overworked at the moment, but in a sense I thought in terms of gameplay the map felt somewhat undercooked in certain areas.

 

Visually there was some nice variety here from my point of view, also some moody lighting in some areas, which was very welcome. The huge room at the beginning was competent at, well, looking huge, but I feel like some of the smaller rooms and later areas in the map are the actual eye-candy of this map. A matter of taste, I suppose.

 

Here's hoping I don't fall behind too much, fingers crossed I can somehow find the time to do nostril caverns at the weekend or so. Might be able to review map 16 later today, but no promises there.

[Catpho]

Holy cow! Drown in blood is testing my patience to the limit! Im literally drowning in monster blood (and my own blood as well)

Not sure ill finish it, but seems like it will be fun in multiplayer (if i ever touch it).

[rehelekretep]

22 minutes ago, Catpho said:

Holy cow! Drown in blood is testing my patience to the limit! Im literally drowning in monster blood (and my own blood as well)

Not sure ill finish it, but seems like it will be fun in multiplayer (if i ever touch it).

its not too bad, its quite compartmentalised, in that after each encounter you can quite easily get back to 200/200 and save :)

[Catpho]

I save scum all the time lol

Im just complaining about the length because a bunch of things just popped up and they are keeping me busy :P

[rehelekretep]

oh yeah its a big one (lol) - i think my FDA was 87minutes or something!

[Nine Inch Heels]

2 hours ago, Catpho said:

I save scum all the time lol

Im just complaining about the length because a bunch of things just popped up and they are keeping me busy :P

Don't worry, "Be quiet" is going to be more forgiving on your spare time.

 

Yes, "be quiet" is, in my opinion, a really awesome map. With cool gimmicks, interesting progression (in spite of its small size), a dash of platforming (Yeah!), and an almost puzzle-ish appeal, it hits me in all the right places. This is what I came here for, this map is cool.

 

Getting the rocket launcher requires something like a nifty little trick that involves closing a door from the outside while passing under it (Don't worry, it'll make a lot of sense when you get there). If you don't do that, you're set for one out of two waiting games, one of which can potentially turn out lethal, because once the revs at the bottom of the map are active, you're going to get blocked from the RL, among other things. The BFG secret is nice as well, going for that is like a somewhat easy "tightrope", but under pressure, because there may be some ordinance coming your way.

 

Figuring out the ideal "order of operations" is half the fun here. Usually I find routing to be more of a "foreplay" (couldn't resist) to the actual fun that is playing the map (at times I actually consider the routing to be a chore, depending on the map), but tinkering with this for a few minutes ingame instead of doing a thourough "scan" in a builder was a lot of fun, actually.

 

Once all the goodies are in your posession, it's down to a "rocket-off" with a nice stack of revenants backed by cybies and "cacos on a stick". Aside of the "try to bait homing rockets in the right direction, or corner-camp this while being really careful with the RL", there's also  the chance of getting blasted from cybie rockets towards the end of the "revenant rocket off". The cybie rockets are something you may or may not see coming. "Blowing one's cover" clearly is being redefined here.

 

I like the texturing. I was particularly fond of the "midtexture abuse" near the cybies on the ground, for example. It's something I should be doing myself more often when mapping, and somehow I always seem to forget about that, even though I really like how the results look. I think it's hard for a map of this "length" to look boring, but short maps certainly can look bland, this one here looks neither bland nor boring in my opinion.

[rehelekretep]

map31 fda (DNF)

༼ʘ̚ل͜ʘ̚༽

went down one of the spokes after the big warp in; am stuck, send help

in all seriousness, too tedious to bother replaying again. the cyber 'spoke' was the most fun, feels like youre in the matrix when youre weaving 4+ rocket firing at once

Edited March 17, 2018 by rehelekretep

[SleepyVelvet]

Eternal Slumber Party: Map16 - "Be Quiet"
Playtime: 44 mins (prb+ cl9 uv-nosaves)

 

A contender for my favorite ToD map so far.  I actually vaguely remember this from tom19.wad years ago, but I didn't remember any details so I had to trial and error it all again.  I think it was one of the only maps that I was able to beat at that time, long ago.

 

This is a puzzle map, and a mostly good one.  I read in this thread that ToD likes Chip's Challenge, and apparently similar gameplay translates well into Doom.  

 

I wish the switch on the "fence" with 4 BFG's was marked, so you don't have to wall hump while dodging rockets to find progression if you run out of ammo.  I ran out on one attempt, so on a subsequent one I saved my rockets by infighting the revs and cyberdemons, before realizing how the switch worked.

 

My only other gripe is inescapable pits.  I like punishing pits, but truely inescapable ones seem bad in a map where you feel the urge to explore anyways; like, "I wonder what's on that terrace down there if I fall onto it and walk around".  Nah, it's just death.  The map length isn't too long though, so this isn't a killer issue if you are playing saveless.

 

I like this length of map.  It's short and to the point.

 

Eternal Slumber Party: Map17 - "Stares"
Playtime: 23 mins = 9 mins (prb+ cl9 uv-nosaves) + 13 mins (prb+ cl-1 uv-saves)

 

This map is pretty easy and short.  I switched to saves though when I opened up a wall and a dozen archvile that immediately nuked me. (edit: wait, it was earlier when i jumped into one of the cyberdemon pits to find progression.)  I don't wanna deal with that blind.  Also, there's stuff like the "hollow, bumpy stairs" very early in the map that you can fall into and die, etc.  You could probably probe your way through this one with trial and error, but it's better with saves.  It's refreshing and short though.

 

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Also note for maps ahead.  For Map18+, we're going into complevel 2 maps.  This changes the mechanics for the Archviles on Pillars motif that ToD has used a lot up to this point.  Basically monsters don't fall of pillars in complevel 2, but in complevel 9 they can get knocked off easily.  I had no idea this was a thing until Evolution of the Wad on the Boom engine.  Just a heads up.

Edited March 17, 2018 by NoisyVelvet

[Magnusblitz]

MAP16: Be Quiet

99% kills, 1/1 secret

 

I love puzzles and I usually like platforming (within reason), so this appealed to me. That said... it's obviously designed to have the cybers carve through the revenant army pinned against the columns, and waiting for them to do this was pure tedium. I actually started just browsing my cell phone, occasionally looking over to make sure the kill counter was still going up, until I heard the third cyberdemon expire. I cannot in any way claim that this is good gameplay (at least when I circle-strafing 300 cybers like in last map I'm actually playing the game even if it's equally tedious). The ending area with the two Viles and non-intuitive lowerable wall also feel pointless. But, cool puzzle nonetheless.

 

 

13 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Getting the rocket launcher requires something like a nifty little trick that involves closing a door from the outside while passing under it (Don't worry, it'll make a lot of sense when you get there).

 

I'm not understand what you're saying here? You can just close the door from the inside or let it close on its own, and shoot the two shootable switches without waking up the revenants.