dobu gabu maru

MAP06: This one was pretty brutal from pistol start—lost a lot of lives just running in and eventually getting turned into swiss cheese, trying to learn who my assailants are. The symmetrical layout is kind of a bummer, but I really liked the design and texture choices here. Probably my favorite level visually. MAP07: A quaint map this time, pretty easy due to the lack of perched chaingunners. Unfortunately the central room really wasn’t a good fit for the mancubuses as they are unable to flank the player. This leads to a really easy fight with them all since you can hide out there, or get them stuck opening doors and trying to hogpile you. The arachnatrons are much better executed since the pillars lower and their large size makes it harder for the player to move around (I liked the idea of using the manc trigger to instantly warp them in too). Overall a nice, if not too memorable map.

why that enemy composition Ribbiks? why? ;_;

Shame about that lost footage guys :( MAP05: Didn’t like this one as much. Due to not having the SSG for the majority of the map, it really becomes apparent how obnoxious the chaingunners are, especially at the part where you climb the stairs and there’s four surrounding you (or three if you shoot one out at the window). I really liked the visuals/detail and dug the layout, not minding the symmetry and thought it was neat how the weapons were obtained by the player. But the sheer amount of hitscanners really wore down my appreciation to where I was thankful that it ended. Also, yet another AV needing to be kept in his den or GG, which I am not a fan of.

Whew, finally got through reading the first page. In case anyone is curious, we have over 7000 words on the first page alone, which I think is the most so far. This thread is going to be quite a lengthy read. MAP04: Tropiano continues his love affair with murdering the player in this nukage themed map. I appreciated barrels being thrown about here and there at random as it spiced up some of the gameplay, particularly in the red key courtyard if you leave some around (as the mancs like to blow up the barrels behind you). I noticed, like cannonball pointed out, that the brunt of Tropiano’s nasty attacks often come from releasing chaingunners right next to you (and often two so a single blast of the SSG won’t suffice). The red key is a particularly riling example of this, since the high amount of enemies and hitscanners will tear the player to pieces pretty fast if they're trying to SSG through it. I still really enjoyed this map, especially the yellow key sector had a smart caco trap for the player with an abundance of rocket ammo where their other munitions had been bled dry (like me). I’m still amazed at how simple but effective his enemy placement is, especially those hanging around corners and pillars. Closed the level out at a measly 7% health… thank goodness for pistol starts!

Oop, guess there will be two spider maps since I've been working with the same theme

MAP03: The difficulty is ratcheted up once again with this outing, being somewhat stingy on ammo and placing a ton of hitscanners together in close proximity. For the most part I thought the level was difficult yet well designed; but the blue key courtyard sticks out to me as somewhat egregious, since there are such an overwhelming amount of enemies (and hitscanners) on the walkways and on the ground that its nearly impossible for the player to do anything other than corner shoot from the yellow key door. The trap afterwards was good, although I wasn’t really excited about the AV finale, seeing as you have to keep him under house arrest or risk getting roasted.

MAP02: Here we go! Maybe it’s because I’ve always liked the metal + water theme, but this map really gelled with me. There were a couple instances, like the water pit with the HK in it, the blue key area, and the RL battle that just had so many enemies in just the right places that I couldn’t help but shake my head with envy. I died several times here too, so I’d say the difficulty really hits the spot so far. Good good good!

A big reason the club was put together (besides bickering about design decisions amongst ourselves) was to actually push people to play more wads and encourage stragglers to finish what they start. Plus when writing down your thoughts to a specific map, it helps you encapsulate what you enjoyed/disliked about it instead of just going "meh" and forgetting the existence of the map long after its completed (although both aspects are unavoidable sometimes). MAP01: (Pistol starting this whole episode) A good starter map. I think Tropiano puts a perfect amount of detail into his level—not too much as to distract the eye, but enough there to always amuse and delight the player with its quirks. Plenty of lights, height elevation, looparounds… I think this is going to be a fun playthrough. Gameplay wise, it’s a bit tougher than a traditional opener, throwing chaingunners and those bony bastards at you already, but it wasn’t anything the player can’t handle. Good composition and good placement.

Actually, the theme lends well to a small mapping frame, so I'd like to participate too.

This is a much better idea, and gives Egregor more time to work. I'll throw it up when he's done putting it together. Also, bonus maps! MAP33: I side a bit with both purist and Demon on this. I don't think the decorations and tightness of the rooms was as atrocious this time around, interfering with the all of the battles like they did in MAP19 from my experience. However, I prefer MAP19 over this one, mainly because this map has some utterly baffling fights (on pistol start, which might be a big factor). I never found the RL or PG (along with they keycards), so I had to take everything down with the SSG which was less fun than I expected. One room in particular, the red underground area that features a mancubus on the MARB face was really vexing. I couldn't fight the AV in that tiny space so I stood on his warp sector until I could use the tele out of there. Unfortunately after hitting the switch, two AVs pop up onto that space, raise the manc, and proceed to troll me as I camp in the opposite room, only wielding 30 shells to bring them down with. You can imagine my frustration as I sat idly by and let the manc friendly fire his yellow buddies, only to find revenants warping in after them. But perhaps this is what I get for skipping monsters. And the blue key switch trap was absolutely terrible as well! You hit it and two mancubuses work their way over to you, backed by an AV and PE in a small corridor. I had to run out and wait patiently for the AV to slip past his fat-ass bodyguards so I could snipe him. That room is optional so again, I suppose I'm doing this to myself in a way. I liked the final area and I really enjoyed all the detail cell put into his map throughout, but due to my unfavorable experience, I still think I came away from the bumpy ride of MAP19 more positively than this one. EDIT: Although as Demon mentioned, I do like the idea of it having a wild foray of secret sections of the map. That's always a cool thing to explore on a second/100% plathrough. MAP34: An interesting outtake to the finale. Getting the initial monsters to infight wasn't that difficult but the quadruple cybers actually gave me some grief as I attempted to corral them together for maximum BFG damage. After that I had to retreat and resort to rockets. I think instead of placing PEs at the exit, AVs would've worked much better warping in after, or possibly AVs along with the cybers here since the layout is a bit more dynamic than the courtyard in MAP30. I'd say the original finale is better due to atmosphere and looks, but this one plays just about as well. MAP35: Loved it. I've always enjoyed Grain of Salt's symmetrical brutality, and here she delivers the most difficult map in the whole set. It's a "small" affair that lasts a while due to a mountain of deaths the player racks up, but is quite enjoyable the whole time, forcing the player to make tough, on-the-spot decisions that the best slaughtermaps always entail. Great use of the lava to push the player away from circle strafing too. I would've preferred something like this to be the finale, where doomguy runs to find the spaceship just to fall into a hole and encounter this final, sinister trap Baphomet has set for him, although the difficulty jump would be quite steep for Hadephobia. Overall a great, challenging map that people really shouldn't miss out on.

Yeah, the lifts in the yellow key puzzle tend to go too fast so it's hard to even tell what switches show which lights. The puzzle was one of the last things designed and I honestly just wanted to get rid of this map by that point that I thought it was satisfactory. And this is the hint for the secret exit. I was hoping that the odd structure on the floor would correlate to the symbol before the teleport section if the player was paying close attention (as the shaft beyond the grate there feature an odd combination of torches).

Yeah, the five red lights are up first and hitting the switches will lower some of them. I wanted the player to lower all the red lights so the green ones behind them would be shown, indicating the correct combination, but I made it tricky by darkening one red light and leaving the pump behind it off as a sign that it doesn't work. Because of that, one of the switches would lower that broken red light but simultaneously lower an adjacent green light so it would provide a wrong combination. Additionally, the correct path is all the way in the back which can be very misleading as the player can hit the two "correct" switches but still be unable to find the path. I'll probably babify it and just have two switches lower all of the red lights and make the correct path more noticeably to take. Or, I might have the switches lower a shield to the pumps and you have to notice which two pumps are on in order to indicate the correct combination.

^ That makes HYMN one vote behind Double Impact. I have no idea what to do if we have a tie. I mean, if no one's really opposed to it, I suppose we could go a little crazy and put Hymn in beside another mapset. That way people who don't have Heretic/don't want to play it don't have to comment, while anyone who doesn't prefer one of the three episodes (Coffee Break, Fava Beans, Double Impact) can throw in Hymn (or they can play it alongside one of the episodes, as Coffee and Fava seem relatively short). The only problem from this is that the commenting may get a little busy with Heretic comments interspersed, but I think it's a better solution than leaving it out entirely since we have more than enough people that want to play it (as opposed to throwing in another episode that only 1-2 people will talk about). Anyone for/against this?

I'd rather not have people brute force it so I'll change it to be more accommodating.

Slightly early posting for me since I have some stuff to take care of. MAP30: After clawing my way through infested islands, boiling caves, deserted outposts and even hell itself, I finally arrive to a spaceship that’s infested with… a handful of demons. Seriously, when the final wave of the cybers and their two golden minions popped in, I was excited to have a long battle with them... just to finish it about two minutes later with plenty of cell left. I ran back to the red key door, eager to find my next target when I hit some switches and blasted off. While it did have a “final fight”, I still feel there wasn’t enough pressure/difficulty to hit home a nice cap to the journey. It felt a anticlimactic, although I’m unsure if I would’ve wanted an IoS fight or not (no IoS is better than lift IoS IMO). Sad that even after all this survival, doomguy is just left out in space... or plummets back to earth... it’s kind of vague regarding his fate. Another bummer is that there wasn’t a final mastermind... for a creature so prominent in the start if the story, you think there would be one more haunting our hero, but nope, just a couple of rocket slinging bruisers as doomguy up and quits earth. Final time: 6:37:04 ====== FINAL THOUGHTS: Favorites were 15, 17, 20, 29 with the low points being 12, 22 and possibly 30 (guess I'm a fan of purist!). Everything in-between was still quite delectable; this megawad didn’t feature such a wide range of quality like Interception did. It’s a really strong mixture of maps that fares on the easy/medium side for the entire trip, being a good experience for any newcomers who are looking to see what kind of gameplay Doom offers beyond the IWADS. I enjoyed the special touch of prose each author added, although as others stated there’s really not much you can’t get from just using your intuition while looking around. A big bummer for me was lack of the Mastermind focus... when I first heard about it from the opening text, I thought it was neat to have a somewhat Doom 1 centered theme, with the mastermind spearheading hell, but after its breeding den there was very little left to do with the Hadephobia condition and more to do with Baphomet (who really did everything off camera, to the disappointment of the player). That and slaying the mastermind in MAP11 is the final real narrative accomplishment, as everything the player finds after that is either destroyed in front of him or dead, leading to a lot of thematic hopelessness. It would've been nice to get some kind of reprieve, or that doomguy could catch a break sometime, although it is interesting to have the badguys win in the end. Its overall quality is not as sublime as something like CC4 (which is a given since it began as a smaller speedmapping project), but it’s the second best megawad we’ve played so far IMO (although Jenesis might earn that spot as it was loads of fun too). Finally, congrats to PRIMEVAL for making some excellent music! MAP20 and MAP29 had my favorites and really helped out the atmosphere; they definitely would have been missing a key aspect without his musical touch.

Yeah, I knew the "gameplay" for the first half of it would be a bit of a turn off (although I'm glad moudly go through it which means it's not impossible to figure out!). It's a bit of a shame since I'm really proud of the big underground battle near the secret part of the map, which I suspect only a few people will get to or care about finding, but it is what it is.

^ It's a good schedule to follow, but I'm fairly confident that we'll have 32 by the time July rolls around. We've gotten a few in the past months so it's likely we'll always get a couple more contenders. Also, I bet my account that I'll have "Immundum" done for the deadline, so that's 29 maps.

MAP29: And here we go. We’re given a damn fine map for the last true level of the megawad, brimming and bursting with absolutely non-stop action. Purist constructs a really large city area that may at first remind some of MAP29 of Scythe or Plutonia, but this one is a much more basic, concentrated affair, lending well to the constant assault the player will experience. The yellow key courtyard may be full of baddies looking to chew on some doomguy for breakfast, but it’s just the start of this slog through hell’s new estate. Funny enough, there’s way more opposition in this invasion than in any of the hell maps prior, making me wonder what the demons were up to when I was trashing their place. The blue key path is my favorite since I had the most dynamic, stress filled fights there, although the final bout in the map was also a struggle due to my low cell. Twice I had to scavenge around for health and ammo, so I’d say there’s a good balance here for the consecutive players, and I can only wish the best for pistol starters. Visually it’s not a knockout, but purist does the best he can do with large open areas, keeping the focus on gameplay so as to not distract from where the enemies are at all times. It works well, and serves as a damn good quasi-finale to this whole journey. My duel with the final cyberdemon was especially memorable, since I parked myself between the two green torches opposite of him and strafed his one-hit-kill rockets until I filled him with more lead than he had blood. Let’s see how it closes out, eh?

Excluding Melon's suggestions, these are our current standings. Also, since it's three separate episodes, we'll jump right into it May 1st.

Download Iron Exuviae (v1) It's a somewhat unorthodox map with a handful of crude puzzles. I'm interested in seeing what you guys thing and how you fare at both the puzzles and fights. skills 2 and 3 haven't been playtested but are there, and there's a bunch of texture alignment left to do. Also remember it's MAP31.

MAP28: Finally a map is present that offers some stiff opposition upfront!. The music works well to push the player as they’re surrounded on all sides, and the best part of the map came after the blue key—the mixture of baddies is a very strong one, and with large space for the cyber to move around in it means the player will be forced to push on from multiple fronts (or, they could just toast him right there with the BFG). Shortly after that is a room that’s easy to camp, containing a really neat story moment as the player witnesses his promised boss rising to the surface to wreak hell on earth. The final room of the map, while seeming menacing, is actually a fairly easy one since everything infights and can be circle strafed… it was a shame coming off of the cool opener fights I experienced that never let up. Still a fun, pre-penultimate map that offers some rough action.

I like how moudly's entries read like doomguy's nightly diary at the end of each mission. A friendly reminder to vote for three out of the five episodes to play next month if you haven't yet!

MAP27: An eerie, nicely paced level. There’s more smart use of dark rooms here, playing to the player’s fear of monsters randomly popping in and out, although I personally felt the AV protecting the red key was a bit of a cheap move, given the lack of cover. The level moves nicely along, funneling the player from corridor to corridor with a good deal of warp ins all over the place (the cyberdemon had the best entrance, popping up just quick enough for me to fire and hit the barrels behind him as he re-atomized). The large drilling area was a nice battle but unfortunately not vicious enough for my tastes, as plenty of circle strafing will get the monsters to infight, allowing for a quick clean up with the BFG after. The nukage area played out much better, forcing the player to optimize their use of the rad suit and not play a corner-shooting kinda game. The AV twins that popped in here were especially devilish, lowering me to 38% health with no way to heal and only to push on. Detail in this level was nice, with plenty of bent angles and craggly wall detail. I also like the idea of seeing into the room where the eventual baphomet duel will take place, but there wasn’t enough room here to get a good view so I missed it's existence (until I read the story text).

Download Ceci n'est pas une lift.

MAP26: Another formidable map by cell. This one has the same delicious obsession with detail as MAP19, but this time with less restricting gameplay which really helps out. I don’t have much to comment on other than I enjoyed it a lot, getting my ass handed to me every time I didn’t expect a trap coming. Love the look of this map too… especially the underground area with all the water and blue torches. While I did die a few times, the map still keeps up with a modest difficulty, which seems odd since I’m so close to the end… can’t help but feel like I’m exploring hell more than trying to surviving in it. And now reading through the comments I can't help but laugh that we've all echoed the same sentiment. ========= MAY'S MEGAWAD(S) I was going to tally up the votes but a lot of people didn't actually vote for a particular wad, instead just sharing thoughts. So here are the wads we're looking at: ~10 levels HYMN Double Impact Coffee Break Dark Resolution 2008 Fava Beans 32 levels Vile Flesh Kama Sutra Rebirth Realm of Chaos Memento Mori 2 Personally, I think we should go with 3 ten level compilations next month, and follow it up with one of the 32-level megawads above. If no one has any strong objections to this, please pick three out of the five ~10 level titles the next time you post. For me, I'm throwing my votes to HYMN, Coffee Break and Double Impact (although Dark Resolution does sound alluring...)