Magnusblitz

MAP31 - “Dextromethorphane 84%” by William Huber 100% kills, 2/2 secrets It might be a bit passe now, but I must admit I'm a sucker for the light grey + one color "clean" techbase look, with the curved corners and the like. Combat is pretty good too, some mini-slaughter that constantly threatens to become overwhelming but never quite does. Like @finnks13 I think I focused too much on the perched AV in the first big fight, not realizing there was plenty more to come and I could just save him for later. I do think the dual Cyber fight at the end was a bit of a down note to end on as they're a bit too far away from each other and can be pretty easily taken out from safety (the plasma gun corridor). Secret exit was fun to find, always a fan of the subtle sound clue. Overall, easily the best map so far (though apparently it took 5+ hours, so maybe that's not a fair comparison). MAP32 - “Safe Zone” by JC Dorne 100% kills, 1/1 "secret" Cute concept map, changing up the usual Doom gameplay for one of scambling and avoidance using the magic yellow tiles. The AV section is excellent, and the SMM ones work pretty well. The cyberdemon ones not so much, since as many others have noted, not only can the rocket splash still kill you, but the safe zones aren't even really necessary because you can just run at full speed and avoid the rockets as one normally would. There's a long wait at the end too so you can get 100% kills. Still, fun concept, and paired with a good unusual aesthetic too.

MAP14 - “Sarcasmes Malsains” by Datacore 100% kills, 3/3 secrets A blocky marble temple, or perhaps corrupted techbase given the lifts (but it feels more Inferno than Shores to me overall). Aesthetically it's nice enough in its rectangular 90s way (marble solves a lot), but the combat design/balance in this is pretty dire. First up is a pack of pinkies to be slowly chewed through with a single shotty, then a pack of cacodemons which exists for much the same purpose - the lift really negates them from doing anything except coming down one-by-one. Stop making me single shotgun so many bigger monsters! The yellow key ambush really requires you to have gotten the plasma gun or SSG. The imp/shotgun room is sorta interesting, but honestly after a few attempts I ended up cheesing it with the teleporter (enter, fire a shot, retreat through the teleporter until the imp fireballs are gone, repeat). Then I ended up having to abuse the teleporter for the barons as well - the room is too small to run around them, and they won't tend to walk into the teleporter because it's facing the opposite direction of the exit. Also, good god, it makes you teleport back to the start so if you do need to re-enter you need to run through the whole map again. However, I did finally get them to go through the teleporter, which is how I accidentally discovered the SSG secret. Then there's a pointless BFG secret at the end. Ah well. MAP15 - “Les Comtes de la Crypte” by Jambon 100% kills, 2/2 secrets The second Jambon map, and like MAP11 this one is both symmetrical and aggressively monotonous brown. The combat design is a bit better this time around though, thankfully, although I think the ammo balance is still a bit too strict - I basically had to ensure the final AV didn't resurrect anything in order to have enough ammo to finish everything off. No idea how the secrets worked, I just wallhumped everything and later found the secret walls had opened up.

MAP13 - “Traumateck” by franckFRAG 100% kills, 1/1 secret This one felt different, more of a combat puzzle-box than a straightforward Doom map, with extremely cramped confines and lots of monsters perched in places where they can't move but can easily shoot at the player. In retrospect, looking back at franckFRAG's other entry so far (MAP04) you can easily recognize the same author - similar design with relatively cramped settings, use of different vertical tiers in the same area, lots of enemies in windows or on ledges. This one felt even more constrained though, and the fights a bit nastier (the teleporting AVs will likely smoke you if you don't have the right weapon out already). Funny enough, like MAP04, the end battle is also a bit of an anti-climax. I did end up playing this through twice - the first time, I neglected the red door, not realizing it was basically an armory, and didn't open it until the end and thus spent most of the level at extremely low health and armor. Visiting it before the AV fight makes things a lot smoother. All in all another fun one to blast through, quite punchy, though if you don't like FF's style this won't change your mind.

MAP12 - “Wrong A[d]dress” by Memfis 100% kills, 1/1 secret Fun little town map, with indeed a 'sandbox' layout that lets the player explore to find weapons and armor, but at the risk of waking up more monsters. A good mix of the bestiary here keeps things fresh and allows for infighting (which may well be needed given that the balance seems tipped in favor of the monsters, at least at first). Health is a bit light and you probably won't find the armor for a bit, so be careful to avoid those hard-hitting rev and manc fireballs. Snipers can also be dangerous. Like @Book Lord I didn't try the yellow key pillar until I had cleared out all the other places I could go, and the straferun along the wall was a bit annoying if you fall down and need to repeat, but these are minor complaints. Overall a solid fun level. And hey, Memfis remembered to include a real secret this time. :)

Some of the levels in the Monochrome Mapping Project fit the bill, MAP21 especially.

Good news, looking through the wiki, looks like only two more maps have this 'feature' (21 and 32).

MAP11 - “Cendres Humaines” by JC Dorne 100% kills, 1/1 "secret" I'd love to know what the 'intended' way to play this map is, because to me it just felt like a slog. I originally tried to get the mancs and arachnatrons to infight, but it just doesn't seem very doable as they move too slowly, are a bit too far away, and there's not really anywhere to stay out of the line of fire. So, I eventually settled for just fighting each group separately. Killing the mancs is extremely tedious with just a single shotgun/chaingun. With the next fight, you can at least use the cyberdemon to get rid of the imps and AV, but then it's just plasma gunning a cyberdemon down a long hallway. Return to the opening chamber and fight some more AVs and revenants (which at this point, again, kinda tedious with single shells/bullets), and then one final cyberdemon - 100 cells is not enough, so back to again the single shotgun. So yeah, this really just felt like a "better" version of the previous map - it's not uniform brown but still isn't much to look at, it's got a small symmetrical layout that's pretty forgettable, and the actual gameplay is tilted far too much towards using underpowered weaponry for mid- and high-tier monsters.

I feel a little dumb now, as I completely missed that (I even loaded up the level a second time and missed it again - I think because I always sprint forward to avoid the enemies, and the sign isn't marked on the back). MAP09 - “Generator of Death” by Sid Zetmeck 100% kills, 2/2 secrets Good first half here, felt a bit like a combo of E3M3 and some of McGee's Doom II maps (Underhalls and The Focus maybe?) Not to say that this is trying to be a homage or anything, just that the low ceilings (an underrated design point IMO) and old-school architecture gave me that feeling. Lots of small fry early on too, but not in a way that's too boring, plenty of the more dangerous hitscanners. The blue key 'ambush' though was a bit undercooked, with all the demons and imps far-off not making much of a threat. After the blue door things ramp up, with revenants, mancs, arachs, AVs and then some masterminds at the end. This latter half all feels a bit artificial to be honest, as if the author wasn't confident in just making an early-monster-tier map and felt he had to have a ramp-up through all the weapons and bestiary, which I think is a mistake that a lot of community project maps make. Obviously it's hard to know what the other authors will be doing and making the whole megawad have that sort of flow, but when every map goes from 0 to 100 it loses the impact I think. And, aside from the dual-AV fight after the arachs, none of the final fights here are all that interesting, with the monsters generally just being placed ahead of the player in a tight corridor. I think the spider one was intended to require a lot more player movement, with the looping hallways around it, but there's nothing pushing the player to move. And it's far too easy to make them infight then finish off the straggler without even needing to go into the side rooms. Still though, one of the stronger maps so far, as the first half was definitely on the more polished end. MAP10 - “Culture et Confiture de Mobs” by Jambon 100% kills, 1/1 "secret" This one hits a lot of my pet peeves. No real secrets, it's entirely brown, the ammo balance is a bit too lean (no I do not want to have to plink at hell knights with a pistol), and it's entirely symmetrical with fights repeated. My favorite fight was probably the dark room lock-in with the spectres, which is a good sign of how dire this is. Eminently skippable.

MAP08: “Simple Souterrain” by Oxyde 100% kills, 2/2 secrets Definitely the nicest-looking map so far, with a good selection of rusty custom textures, nice lighting, and wrapped together with a nice remix of D_DOOM. It's also long enough to feel like a full-fledged (if short) level, and I really appreciate the way the layout wraps around to put the player close to the next door once the proper key is acquired. That said, the combat is actually somewhat dull I felt, as almost all of it is simply enemies laid directly in front of the player upon entering the next hallway/room. There's a good mix of enemies and sometimes the higher-tier ones can require a bit of backtracking (such as the sudden AV pop-up or the revenant room) but typically there wasn't much need to do anything except strafe a bit and keep firing forward.

I certainly am not that upset about it, but I do agree that I've always found it a little lazy. Outside of some very limited maps where I could see that it's a break in atmosphere or effect or something (and none immediately come to mind), the real solution is: just add one freaking secret! Even if it's just an easy wall-hump that reveals some shells or a stimpack or something. MAP07 - “Merciless Flow” by Memfis  100% kills, 1/1 "secret" Limited munitions and some mean-placed enemies early on (as well as the damaging water, ugh, another minor pet peeve) can make for a rough start. I think the nadir of the map is fighting the first group of enemies (trons, one rev and one hell knight) with only a single shotgun, as I had no bullets and hadn't backtracked for the plasma gun yet. (Admittedly, the PG helps, especially if you use the teleporter and don't waste plasma on the mancubus). I did like the final ambush though with the mancubi and the revenants, especially since the player has the RL by then.

MAP06: “Processus Logique” by William Huber 100% kills, 2/2 secrets Hot start here (literally emerging out of a small pit, surrounded by enemies) that can get messy if you're not lucky with the shotgunner RNG. Thankfully the map gives you some health and some armor at the start. The first few battles are a bit of a slog on pistol start as you're limited to shotgun/chaingun, with a fair amount of meat stuffed into small rooms. The imps and hitscanners are fine, but the three hell knights in the second room and the four cacodemons after the blue key definitely just felt like a waste. The SSG comes pretty quickly after that which helps speed up the rest of the map, though it's a lot of shooting fish in a barrel given the small sized rooms. No way back to the start from the drop-down I could find, which is always a no-no (though it did lead me to the second secret). Overall, it's okay, some punchy action in parts but would've been better served by leaning into that by getting rid of some of the earlier mid-tier monsters and maybe adding a bunch of barrels to liven things up. With all those monsters in cramped quarters its always fun to be able to shoot a barrel and make 'em splat.

MAP05: Vision by Ch0wW 100% kills, 3/3 secrets This one definitely comes across as a beginner's work - very linear (the layout is almost completely Room A -> Door -> Room B, repeat) and somewhat monotone (the brown room, the grey room, the sludge room, the red room...) Combat is fairly separated into a few areas, with the overall effect feeling very much like a bunch of random ideas for rooms thrown together with minimal connective tissue. Nothing here really stands out, and there's some parts that are either wasted (the verticality of the first brown room) or pointless (what's with the dummy exit?).

MAP03: Sombre angoisse by Datacore 100% kills, 1/2 secrets An improvement on the previous two, as the danger is a bit sharper with more ambushes and monster closets, and the darker lighting helps a lot. The amount of monster closets and meat inside is actually probably a bit much, but since it's a short speedmap it's not too much of a problem. Might've been better without the SSG and the monster count reduced a bit to compensate. MAP04: Entraxe by franckFRAG 100% kills, 2/2 secrets Ah yeah, now we're getting to a good map. This one has a decent amount of mid-tier enemies crammed into some pretty small space, nothing too difficult but the action keeps moving and you can get overwhelmed if you're not careful (for example, jumping straight into that back of revenants guarding the RL like @Book Lord). Unfortunately the final area is a bit lackluster, probably could use some fliers instead of or in addition to the snipers. Aesthetically it's nice too, using the brown-brick-tech Doom II theme while also adding some novel dashes of color to keep things interesting.

Taking a quick spin through the monster counts, looks like the 3 hour limit means relatively bite-sized maps (except for you, MAP28), so might be able to play this month. I remember 3HA3 had quite a few maps that were meatwall slogs despite the speedmap element. MAP01: Crash by Ch0wW 100% kills, 2/3 secrets Pretty standard start with an outdoor-set techbase, complete with some little window dressings like ye olde shuttlecraft. There's a very unfortunate block monster line in the doorway entering the base, letting the player dispatch the enemies from range with ease. It's probably better to just run past and get the shotgun for the pinkie, but later the line also blocks all the pinkies which come from the outside wall that drops, which is disappointing. There is a surprising jump up to mid-tier enemies but nothing very dangerous. Map ends just as it feels like it gets going, but that's not unexpected for a 3-hour speedmap. Backpack secret placement makes it useless for pistol starting. Overall, not bad I guess, nothing inspiring but nothing terrible. MAP02: Malevolence by subject_119 100% kills, 1/1 secret Not a bad name, given the placement of a fair amount of hitscanners lurking around corners, combined with the complete dearth of any health (minus the one medpack at the exit switch) and armor only being in a secret. The resource attrition helps create some potential tension. The base area to the west looks nice given the constraints, a nice two-tiered little design. This map definitely has some potential weirdness in the progression though. If you clear out the west side base first, you'll kill every enemy before acquiring the red key, rendering the green armor pointless (on pistol start) but also creates a bit of anticlimatic back and forth while you open up the exit. Better to go straight ahead and open up the red key first, but there's nothing pushing the player in that direction. Also, as some others pointed out, the switch that opens the exit can be pushed from below and without getting the red key to raise the bridge.

I side towards thinking that in-progress stuff should be in the subforum, but I would think that an actual full release should be allowed in the main forum. It seems to me the bigger distinction is between completed stuff (regardless of age), and in-progress projects. I see more similarity between a "new release" thread and everyone talking about it, and a thread doing in-depth discussion of a 20 year wad; versus uncompleted stuff which I suppose would be stuff like community projects recruiting/work threads, hype threads, or neophyte author "here's what I'm working on, let me know how it is" stuff. If the majority of people are here just to find recommendations (which I suspect is true, at least in terms of number of users, not who posts the most), then I think this distinction works - since they'd be wanting to look at completed stuff. (I'm sure there's some people out there who delight in playing not-yet-complete stuff, but I figure they're the minority). The difficulties of this approach would probably be in determining what a "release" is - i.e., how complete? A release that's mostly done, though more features may still be added? An /idgames upload? A "1.0" release would probably be the easiest definition, allowing for people to playtest and bugfix, but it's not an easy line to draw. Also, this would probably mean that there'd need to be a rule that someone needs to make a new post in the main forum once the release is done (as opposed to just editing the original thread, which a lot of people have done).

I've seen the study you guys did for D2TWID referenced before, is it ever something that was publicly shared? I ask because I thought it'd be really interesting to read, but I also understand if you guys would want to keep your work private.

Took a quick whirl with IDDQD on (no way I could ever finish this map on UV normally lol). Looks great, especially the vista at the start being able to see all the buildings floating around. Only things I noticed is that there were some lighting issues in the hub area (where the light 'bleeds' into the other sectors sort of like a slime trail, usually fixable by moving the vertexes of the offending sectors around and re-saving the map). Also the columns in the blue key area weren't rendering properly. I was playing in ZDoom 2.8.1 though so might just be an old port issue.

I gotta admit I kinda liked how small and contained the first E2M4 was, basically being the one big setpiece with the lock-in room with the barons, and that was it. This iteration seems a bit overstuffed and self-indulgent, with two lock-in fights and two 'hit the right switch and run' puzzles. And I think this is magnified by it feeling overly busy and self-indulgent visually - while the original does benefit from some polishing and extra detail, I feel there's a bit too much of it in places. Too many different colors, too much detailing... it was all a bit overwhelming IMO. As far as the puzzles go, I was actually most puzzled by the teleporter that lets you telefrag a baron and see the yellow key... I initially just thought the map had bugged out, took me awhile to figure out to shoot the wall behind me, heh. The red/blue caco room took me awhile because I thought you had to hit all the switches to get the lift to lower, before I finally realized the computer texture on the lift was a clue and I only had to hit the corresponding switch, with the others being dummies. Once that was clear, it was no trouble getting to the elevator. The puzzle at the end is pretty easy too IMO, takes a couple of experimental pushes to figure out each one does something different, and you only need to hit a couple to get out. I really didn't like the second lock-in fight with the cacos. First, I think it also takes away from the baron fight and feels a bit repetitive. Second, it was just too damn hard... took me a good 12-15 attempts before I finally beat it, and even then I was narrowly squeezing out with 12 health (should put a soulsphere in the exit room or something IMO). The baron fight is hard enough but at least there I feel like you can make the choice to circle around and take dips into the water that you can't really do with the lava here. Maybe UV is just too tough for me and I should try it on lower difficulties... though, to be fair, I think difficulty in general is all out of whack across the entire mapset, with some levels having UV at the same as the original IWAD level, while others seem to be balanced for modern-day pros, so it'd be unfair to single this map out. 'Tis the trouble with a community project I suppose though.

Very good to see the rest of Limbo coming along... as galileo31dos01 pointed out I was having a brain fart and forgetting the difference between limit removing and Boom, so my ideas for any parts leading up to the final area weren't going to work. As for the center area, yup, of course, feel free to use it. I had been experimenting with a few more iterations/angles, see below. The circular hub might work the best though. Not sure if you want to stick with the 'well of souls' (wait, isn't that FDINO? oh no...) design in the center, I also tried one with a circular staircase to tie in a bit more with "Limbo as first circle of hell" in a way. I was thinking of surrounding the central structure with something more as well... maybe just some additional marble supports to make it more of a free-standing structure, or could surround it with a red rock spire and make it seem like it's jutting out of hell into this level. I also was trying some different designs on the columns, by flattening them and adding a little candle pillar to make them look more like graves. Not sure if that's preferable to the square monoliths (bit more alien/eerie). As for the light angle, you're saying the shadows should be wider? What I did was draw lines from the exact center of the lava circle to the far outer wall, connecting on where the 'light line' hit the corner of the pillar. It often is a very close angle (too close sometimes - if the pillar isn't exactly at the right angle facing the circle one of the walls will often be at the wrong angle, so some of the lines were at a wider angle to avoid the linedefs merging) but I think that's right, depending on the distance from the light source -- at least from some very basic experiments with my phone flashlight and a deck of cards in dark room, haha. One thing I was wondering about is that if the lava wall is taller than the columns, then technically the shadows should end at some point before hitting the far wall. But it depends on what happens with the final middle structure I suppose, or could just leave it this way out of simplicity. udino-e3m7-v3-d.rar

I do have another iteration of E3M7 I want to try, that does have some different areas (tech, more halfway corrupted, etc) though it's more linear than a hub. But still separate sections that could easily be turned into a hub, and have other people graft stuff in if needed. Looks like action 85 is just 'scroll texture right' so no problems there.

I've attached the (very) rough draft of my last idea for E3M7 if anyone else wants to see it (needs to be run with the UDINO alpha for the lava fall texture; assume larger/longer fight at the end). Dobu made an accurate point that right now the two 'wings' sections, revisiting the two Anomaly levels pre-hell, isn't very compelling. Could maybe go the other direction and completely hell-ify them (and even fill with 'normal' enemies), but that point it might be straying too far from the Limbo theme. udino-e3m7-v2e.rar Also FWIW I didn't really think of E1M8 (except the last area obviously) as really hell-ish, more just... damaged, with all the red cracks and such in the architecture. I figured the red/blue walls and the red puddles in front were leaking reactor walls or something, not hell portals. I could be completely off on this of course.

I generally prefer secret maps to be 'something different,' which could be a lot of different things: gimmicky/experimental gameplay, thematically difference, a joke/meta-commentary, etc. So most of the IWAD maps would qualify... and probably helped shaped my opinion of what secret maps should be. Fortress of Mystery has the infighting gimmick (and a good "oh shit!" moment at the time), Warrens has a thematic gimmick (also a good twist the first time), the Wolfenstein maps are a gag/homage, and the TNT maps are thematically different and somewhat novel themes. Plutonia, I give a pass to at the time, since "super hard" maps weren't really a thing yet. Now, though, I'm not a fan of the secret maps just being a designated 'hard slot' map. It's a tough line to walk -- if it's challenging but just enough, sure, a player will feel accomplished when beating it. But for those who find such difficult maps outside their skill range, it makes finding the secret not feel like a reward, but a punishment. Yeah, once you know, you can skip it, but then it feels like you're missing content, since a level is... well, a level. Feels different than say, playing a WAD on Hurt Me Plenty and "missing out" on playing it on UV or -fast or some other challenge. As @Nine Inch Heels points out, you can find whole WADs of that stuff now, so for those who like that style, it seems better to just keep those in their own releases instead of including them as part of an otherwise easier WAD. I do think that because of the way the secret levels are hard-coded, there are some interesting things you can do with them, such as the "alternate path" that @Doomkid and @Dark Pulse mentioned. I think that's perfectly valid too. Part of me does feel like making a megawad carries certain expectations, like seeing what someone can come up with creatively for the two secret maps... but a branching storyline is another form of creativity. @cannonball already mentioned it, but one of my favorites that immediately came to mind was Doom 2 Reloaded's MAP32, with its progression of secrets and seeing how far you can figure it out, being able to exit at any time when you get stuck. Kinda like "The Impossible Quiz" in WAD form.

I'm assuming the objective is to get to the top switches (near the BFGs), hit the switch to lower the spiderdemon cage, jump off across the black platform to the flesh platform, fire a few rockets, then run the circuit again? You can get a bit of a headstart by running up to the zombiemen and letting them kill each other, then sneaking by without firing a shot. Not that it helped me any, of course, but food for thought to switching them to imps. The skill changes don't really make a difference IMO, because the biggest issue isn't the imps and barons teleporting in, it's the cyberdemons (though maybe I just suck). Is it intended to have the player sit there and take them out, or just avoid/ignore them while making the circuit? Hmm, I guess you could make them infight with the barons...

I might have some free time to take a whirl this weekend. But of course if dobu would like to do something else it's all his.

That's an intriguing idea, Gez, and I think it'd work since it's the penultimate map (well, of the first three original episodes, at least). Early on I had the idea of a big interconnected ancient Greek/Roman-style city (similar to Dante's take on it, though I had misimagined 'castle' as whole city), and I was imagining having it mostly empty (or maybe with some small enemies, zombiemen and/or lost souls) and letting the player explore before unleashing a giant wave of enemies to fight off while waiting for the exit to open. Then dobu had an idea for taking sections of that ancient city and scattering them across a black void. I wonder if something like that might work - taking sections of other UDINO levels from the first three episodes. Not sure if it'd work better as segments suspended in a void, or actually fused together, but the idea of keeping it low light and somber fits, and gameplay wise, could still keep that creepy/haunted feel early on, let the player explore, grab keys, then unlock the last fight/exit... hmm