Demon of the Well

Yeah, it's the one trap that works right, whereas most fail mechanically (everything involving the blue wisps in particular) or are prone to misfire based on how the player moves (all of the shots after silent teleports). Intended strategy is presumably to not panic (easier said than done) and let the mummy hit the vile, easy in the initial configuration of bodies. But of course it all goes horribly awry if you flee (which one understandably might), gets hard to manage at that point because there's really no place to go.

@diosoth: the WAD onscreen at 2:01  in the video is Hellbound, m31 I believe . Not by the same author(s) as Speed of Doom (as linked by Chainie), but the level shown is made in direct homage/tribute to one of the secret levels from that mapset.

@PasokonDeaconlooks like part of your post on m05 got mis-pasted/cut off.

Map 07 -- Mind Screw at the Cemetery Complex - 102% Kills / 100% Secrets

The product of collaboration between a new and presumably inexperienced mapper and.....someone who really ought to have learned more than this by now, "Mind Screw" (sic) is a weak and somewhat disjointed showing all around, depicting a couple of classically Doomcute graveyards abutting a hill, with some anonymous and mostly featureless rooms (presumably the titular 'complex') tunneled into said hill. Quaint and yes, 'cute' in presentation, these two graveyards are the apex of the map's limited structural repertoire, and the poorly-lampshaded monster ambush occurring in the second could perhaps be read as intentionally humorous, but the rest of the runtime presents a budget-rate trot through a series of very bare-bones tunnels and chambers housing a gauntlet of small ambushes which seems to be trying for more of a horror/jumpscare angle.

Conceptually, the map's party-piece is that it's based around the notion of switching suddenly between two realities, very similar to that seen in m03 earlier on. While the mechanism is just the same (silent teleporter lines in not-strictly-obvious locations), it's here played much more for shock than for a slow buildup of atmosphere, with most shifts immediately hurling you into danger of one sort or another, often by way of introducing creatures primed to attack much more quickly than introducing or staging them more conventionally within the confines of the generally very stringy/weak layout would otherwise allow. Played at speed this might allow for a series of crash-cuts into combat, though as handled here it quickly becomes predictable (mostly) and rapidly loses impact, and is inclined towards dysfunction in the likely scenario that a player naturally adapts by beginning to move much more slowly, both as regards the actual points of shift and at other points liable to be negatively impacted by this natural adaptation (being infinitely-talled out of the second graveyard if you're not very cognizant of infinitely-talling as a A Thing, etc.).

The best of the ambushes actually involves an insta-collapsing floor rather than a plane-shift, but such a brief bit of excitement doesn't really compensate for what is generally a somewhat hamhanded and occasionally rather poorly thought out grab-bag of disassociated ideas. The radsuit + berserk secret is kind of right-brain clever in its way, yet comically useless in its positioning, the RK appears to have no actual application (is it intended to be a 'bait' item, maybe?), etc. Incidentally, the map does actually debut another new enemy of sorts (though it doesn't count as a 'monster' per se) -- a large electrode which infinitely spawns the blue suicide-wisps -- though I did not notice it to be a harmable actor while actually playing, as it's not used well here and was immediately destroyed in the explosions from my shooting the pre-placed wisps which spawn near it in the first appearance, and as fallout from my shooting rockets at stuff on the upper level near it in the second.

Map 06 -- Chrono - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets

Ah, this is a nice change of scenery! Lots of space, and lots of color; a broad palette of both the Blood textures and a selection of others from other sources playing backup creates something which in sum total greatly reminded me of the look and feel of Eternal Doom. The map is arranged into four quadrants, each with a distinct texture theme; the map name might perhaps indicate that these are meant to suggest slices of different time periods, though to me they all communicate something of a grandiose castle/fallen civilization feel, albeit some being decidedly more macabre in tone than others. Another possible interpretation, seeing that the Blood and non-Blood resources are largely (though not rigidly) segregated between two of the four quadrants each, is that the former is meant to represent some kind of corruption or "darkside realm", which seems to be a prominent idea within the mapset thus far.

Aesthetically, it is somewhat sparsely-detailed but not unattractive, with sweeping yet largely unadorned architecture that carries a sense of authorial similarity even as the texture schemes differ; I was most reminded of the work of Big Memka, from the Russian community, though the ED impression might be running some interference on my mental radio, there. There's a strong sense of verticality throughout, in that most of the structures are quite tall, and you spend a lot of time traversing or fighting atop elevated throughways with ever-present precipices as a dramatic backdrop, with a recurring theme of some dashing (though simple) leaps from one structure into another, though in practice the degree of actual interplay between the 'high road' and the 'low road' (where you will likely begin your foray into each quadrant, unless you're aware of and actively trying to play against the default progression scheme) is usually pretty limited, in part because of that striking tallness.

Nevertheless, the consistent spaciousness, even above and beyond the relatively open track of m05, is a real joy to behold and to scamper about in, in contrast to the more constricted feel of most of the earlier maps. There's a relative openness in terms of available avenues of progression: you pick from one of two quadrants at the start, from there you can prioritize working towards any of the others, though getting expeditiously from one 'blue' quadrant straight into to the other 'blue' (or from one 'red' to the other 'red') requires some map knowledge and is highly unlikely to happen 'organically.'

This, in combination with the general spaciousness, is what most defines the action element-- you run through these big spaces, engaging at will as you see fit, maybe letting some larger multi-front combat situations develop, though it's pretty easy to ignore the majority of the opposition and run past them just for the joy of running, if that's your inclination. This kind of passive approach is not entirely without consequence, since a couple of the quadrants are largely peopled by gun-using enemies who'll inevitably make you pay some kind of nominal damage tax for speeding on by, though in sum this probably isn't much different from what you'd soak in a gunfight, and the healing/armor balance writ large is not very punishing. It's not a very punishing map in general, really, which considering the generally 'high-offense/glass-cannon' tone of the new monster set is something of a departure in itself; the biggest issues are that the key weapons are placed in farflung locations which don't really interface elegantly with the general flow (it's a 'one per quadrant' sort of scheme) -- I completely missed the SSG entirely on my first pass through its quadrant, to whit -- though the overall balance still allows the level solid playability (if not ideal tuning) in most conceivable cases.

Oh, and lest I forget, another new enemy just sort of casually debuts here as well, some kind of spectral sorcerer/bishop-looking phantom which seems to have a deceptively potent hitscan 'wail' attack (or maybe it's a really fast invisible projectile, not sure) -- rather disquieting actually, if I do say so. It may be a rather low-key intro as far as this map's concerned, but I can see this being a genuinely frightening/intimidating enemy used in the right kind of map, not unlike those lovely chainsaw-wielding maniacs from earlier on. Oh! I also finally found out what The Count does, thanks to the somewhat drab exit-guarding brigade -- evidently he's the new revenant, loosing some homing-bats he apparently keeps up his sleeves! An animal-loving vampire, splendid. Sure to be a popular fellow! :)

Edit: and the arachnorbs! How could I forget them? These are broadly similar to the enemy's grand debut in Skillsaw's Valiant (though here they hover/fire indefinitely once they've begun, more similar to a classic 'tron); as usual, it's great to have something that's close to a 'flying imp' in the monster roster, though thematically these little critters seem far out of step aesthetically/thematically with most of the already highly-varied new crew. I could see them fitting well in either some kind of 'mad science' or 'alien invasion' theme, though....

Map 05 -- Orpheus Desu - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets

A simple but enjoyable little romp, Impie's first map depicts a rustic old village in a vaguely 'Japanese' idiom, overrun by creatures of darkness. The emotional tone of the map is somewhat mixed/odd, as the setting itself has a number of rather grim details -- inhabitants strung up and gutted in a shed, a small quarry on the outskirts with skeletons and a flamethrower in it, presumably used for burning bodies, piles and piles of unearthed bones (or are they simply unburied, given that cremation-pit?) littering the grounds around the desecrated shrine outside of the village, so on -- juxtaposed with an air of general jollity; a nice jog on a crisp fall afternoon, with a somewhat silly but admittedly infectious BGM selection. Odd or not, though, this somewhat self-contradictory impression is not really offputting, perhaps in the way that many horror movies have an unabashedly goofy streak alongside the blood and guts, and maybe even adds a little something-something to the map's memorability (I still have the damn BGM stuck in my head, now).

Apart from the jack-o-lantern propped up against one of the tori gates at the outset, the Blood resources are surprisingly adequate for realizing the setting. This kind of efficiency as regards both resource usage and geometry has been part and parcel of Impie's style; most of the layout is comprised of roughly carved out natural terrain, with buildings serving mainly as solid objects in the field, or as visual dressing along the outer boundary, sat up on cliffs to keep them away from the player and downplay their lack of interior space (too many buildings with little/nothing in them tends to hurt the immersiveness of a town/village setting, as we saw to some degree in m02). Texturing is broadstroke and pays little mind to aesthete's banes, like tiling around the cliff edges or the 'hovering' midtex bands used for the shrine building, but the scale and styling of most buildings is suited to minimize these issues there, and the overall setting and elements of the scene communicate themselves very clearly (i.e. 'this is a sort of idealized Japanese farming village'), in spite of and perhaps partly because of the simplicity of the presentation. The lighting is rather bland--room for a lot more overcast light/shadow contrast here--and I was not sold on the use of the stock E1 sky in this case, though this does seem like a deliberate choice in this case rather than a default selection.

The play is loosely but intuitively structured, with more of a sense of freedom to run/roam than in earlier maps. From pistol-start, the ammo and weaponry you receive at the outset is not adequate (or, if you really game it, maybe *barely* adequate) to kill the creatures roaming the grounds, and if you insist on fighting everything as it first accosts you you'll be basically out of ammo to fight the reinforcements which materialize at major progression checkpoints. Instead, you are clearly intended to run through the village, firing on targets of opportunity, but largely leaving the monsters to riot among themselves, until the final cleanup. Navigation is initially controlled by fences, which shapes your route but leaves all active monsters 'in play' to some degree from beginning to end; ammo pickups are also strategically placed to inform this track-style layout, though some major caches (mainly rockets) are placed in such a way that they aren't easy to spot at first, which can throw a hitch into/somewhat muddle the sense of flow.

The level notably uses a much smaller number of creature types than has thus far been the norm -- skeletons and imps predominate, with mummies as beefier (jerky-er?) muscle to act as limited blockades in the later stages, with a couple of other cameos for color. The flamethrower also debuts as well. This is another fairly familiar weapon in PWADs, and in my experience it tends to either be absolute trash-tier or giddily overpowered; happily, MAY19's version is definitely an example of the latter, and can melt through dense clusters of demonic HP with astonishing speed, rendering the potentially troubling mummy-blockades as substantial as tissue-paper, though its ammo consumption is truly voracious to compensate. Broadly speaking, using smaller selections of new actors/weapons in more pointed ways as this map does seems to give those assets more time to shine than the hodgepodge showcase approach of the earlier maps, both because you've more opportunity to notice individual quirks outright (the skeletons look hilarious while infighting with other creatures, by the way) and because the player has more time to learn/digest and ultimately engage/counter-engage with them in this way. Doom is over two decades old, mind, and I'm not saying that PWADs are always well-served by introducing everything on a drip-feed as though none of us has ever played an FPS before (often this is a recipe for a very dull/flat low-plateauing experience), but this more focused/intentioned use of new stuff certainly helps individual maps assert more of a definite personality, especially in these early-game slots.

Map 04 -- Dull Needle - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets

More conventional in design than any of the first three maps, this map also struck me as a bit sharper (heh) and more focused in design, and would've been an equally natural fit for m01 vs. "Spiteful Hall", in my opinion. Posing a brief quest for a single key, the compact, linear layout draws out progression slightly by being markedly switch-driven, having the player take a short walk up to a blue-locked door to introduce the level's main goal, and then funneling them through a short series of staged encounters before looping back to the locked door. Most major points in progression are marked by small but decently effective ambushes of one sort or another, which apart from the somewhat stilted 'safety-fenced' handling of the starspawn (read: Cthulhu) monster generally make a more considered showcase of the enemies' different abilities than anything seen in the earlier maps. As aforesaid, the progression scheme is very switch-y for something so small/short, but rarely does a switchpress cause anything immediately dangerous to happen (often the danger is tripmined in well ahead of the switch approach), giving the pace a subtly off-kilter feel which plays off decently well against its general simplicity.

As far as the monster implementation goes, the star of the show is the chainsaw zombies, absolutely (who perhaps gain a slight edge in impact from this being their actual debut, as opposed to a formal debut). A zombie with a chainsaw is a classic/ancient staple of monster mods at this point, but never before have I seen them be so legitimately threatening. Traditionally/historically, they have tended to walk slowly (though a bit faster than a normal former human, granted), have low damage output even if they do manage to close distance (electric chainsaw vs. gas-powered I'd warrant!), and stand up to weapons fire like a sheet of cotton candy would. The hockey-masked maniacs we meet here, by contrast, move at a sprint, take a really well-aimed, center-mass SSG blast to take down, have a disturbing painstun resistance if you try to suppress them with a faster weapon, and frightening damage output if they get close, something like having a classic chaingunner unload on you at point-blank range. Of the new monsters seen in the set to this point, they are currently my new favorite by far (I both shudder and thrill to imagine what a crueler mapper might do with them), though the twitchy-ass skeletons are amusing for their sudden knee-jerky movements, and I'm still waiting to see what Count Bathrobe is really capable of.

Map 03 -- Entryway??? - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets

Taking a bit of a different tack, Walter provides us the first of the set's maps (and hopefully not the last) to lean more determinedly into horror/suspense proper, vs. the more loud/brash guns & guts action focus of the first couple of maps. Generally, IWAD homages/tributes really don't do much for me, but I have to admit that the dead silence and crumbling afterlife take on those iconic first few steps here kind of got to me, nicely done. Outside of the first room or two, the resemblance to the classic Entryway becomes vaguer and vaguer, eventually disappearing altogether, though something of the general feel of its rhythm remains, though by any measure this is a more slow-paced affair by far.

The general concept of the design is that, as you walk through the silent, empty, corpse-strewn base, you occasionally spontaneously 'slip' back into the otherside or nether-realm wherein the trip began (this itself raises a lot of interesting questions to the map's story in microcosm, for those who care to ponder these kinds of things), usually slipping back out again shortly thereafter. The analogousness in structures and settings between the two dimensions or realities or whatever they are is often fairly intuitive, though occasionally the effect can be appropriately disorienting. Nevertheless, progression itself is literally as simple as a county fair 'haunted house' attraction; just keep walking forward and you'll make it out soon enough.

Given the flavor and apparent intent of the general design, it's understandable that the combat here is very sparse, though in a sense I kind of felt that it's not sparse enough, and in the later stages of the level, where it's more frequent, pulls the map away from its interesting/unusual atmospheric conceits and towards more of a standard "traditionally trivial map 01 combat-tutorial" feel, which is as underwhelming in this aesthetic idiom as it would be in any other. This is one of the challenges of horror in Doom, of course; there are any number of ways for an imaginative designer to create a spooky atmosphere, but carrying a sense of tension through encounters without either underplaying the threat or moving too far into a genre-shift action focus is definitely easier said than done. 

Map 02 -- Murksville - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets

As it says on the tin, a decidedly dismal "town" map with a rather nasty case of subsidence. I'll bet insurance rates are positively *awful* here. Sort of reads like an idtech1 backport or 'demake' of a Blood user-level, naturally enough, though the presentation and layout are both a bit on the primitive side by either standard. M-town consists of a smattering of shoebox-y little buildings, most more accurately described as one-room cottages or shacks rather than 'houses' proper, with conspicuously larger building in the south of town, with mirrored reception areas (gendered changing rooms perhaps?) and a large, mostly empty blood pool in an odd auditorium sort of space, with remote shuttered windows. Odd....guess we know where all of the public works budget (and every other budget, judging by the sorry state of the rest of these hovels) went. Map progression involves poking around in the various buildings (nearly all of which are open from the outset) until you happen upon a key to allow you access to the northern "business district", where you'll repeat the process a second time.

The sort of slovenly, depressing Doomcute representational style on display here is not without its charm, surely, and most of the secrets remind of callbacks to Blood and other Build games, where instead of pressing on an off-textured wall or such instead you fiddle around with 'mechanical objects' or props in the environment -- registers, deskpads, etc. In a sense the gameplay sort of reads like a parody of Blood as well, where proceedings are made (theoretically) dangerous by a great abundance of gun-toting enemies (getting a better look at them now, I *really* like the look of the black-hooded pistol-cultists, by the by); these guys don't hit any harder than Doom zombies, but the infamously withering wallop packed by the cultists in Blood proper is here simulated by providing the player with very, very little healing (proportionately speaking), an almost comical lack of it of past the halfway point. This can be easily overcome by temporarily shifting into cover-shooter mode, but a realistic first attempt for many players will be to get all banged up in the opening gunfight, survive that fight, and then just die to a staph infection or a stubbed toe or a particularly hurtful verbal insult sometime later on because you never do quite recover from those early injuries.

You quickly become rather heavily armed (can't say I noticed a shell shortage myself, it begins with shotgunning the laser-cube-thingie on Main Street and ends when you pick up the shell box from the Murkmart steps all of three seconds later), and clearing the buildings is a generally mindless affair, at least until you discover that the town's communal shed is chock-full of Cthulhu (as they indeed often tend to be, in my personal experience), though even that's no great disaster if you happened to be cynical/distrustful enough to edge arund the blursphere pickup just beforehand. The gotcha! at the exit is surprisingly mean-spirited, particularly considering the aforementioned dearth of healing which characterizes the level, though I can't entirely resent an ostensibly spooksy outing managing to be startling, if only for a moment.

Protip: Don't let Dracula upskirt you in the swamp.

Beta feedback: recommend more healing, I don't think the increased hardship/inconvenience the current balance poses really benefits the map's atmosphere or goings-on in any significant way. Using a blue armor instead of a green armor on the crate at the start may be a compromise, as well (though I'd suggest one or the other for skill 4, not both).

Error: the sign above the northeast building in the "business district" is misaligned.

1 hour ago, tmorrow said:

Map03 item counts appear to be screwed up (or I have overlooked something). Both prboom+ 2.5.1.4 and gzdoom 4.2.1 report 19 items that can be collected on the map. I can only find 16 items (15 health bonuses and 1 berserk pack) and nothing else that normally counts as an item. Even the gzdoom console "items" command does not report any other items to be picked up. Everything else about the map appears to be working fine, even the strange walk over line triggers that whisk you to different parts of the map in a surprising manner.

I noticed while IDDT/IDCLIPing around in it after my initial playthrough that one of the props, the chandeliers with 4 black candles, has inherited the 'item' property in the setup (side-effect of dehackery) -- your 3 missing items, one above the '666' Bible earlier on and a couple in the foyer which eventually turns out to house the exit door.

13 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Let's get in the mood real quick:

MAYhem '19

Map 01 -- Spiteful Hall - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets

Interesting selection for a first map. I can imagine a number of different -- and some competing! -- reasons why it may have been chosen, but if I had to guess at one it would be that it wastes absolutely no time in wetly gobbing the new creatures at you, like a llama with a lisp (or, Occam's razor: it's very short). We begin outside of a nameless edifice, decidedly charnel in aspect, with no foyer and an unlit hall leading away into the distance, which is surprisingly moody despite the very plain visuals. I like the way this is done: rather than starting out in front of a door, or in a quiet cemetery or something of that nature, we begin the game looking at that long dark hall, already peopled with several different kinds of creatures, some more familiar in aspect than others. Seeming to draw one in, to beckon, to join the danse macabre.

The actual proceedings are all a lot more gonzo than my poor imitation of Vincent Price-ian soliloquy may suggest, mind. Once you step inside, the place veritably shits monsters at you, all capering and cavorting together in a tangled mass of fangs and claws and horns and other, more *unsavory* appendages. On a visceral level, it really hits home with that shock of the new/unfamiliar, moreso than in any other MAYhem of the past several years, and in that sense it continues to play to that sense of drawing one into the game's world. Very short in progression, the level can be played very fast (on my trip I did immediately find the rocket launcher, and used it judiciously), and probably reads best precisely as a sort of dazzling whirlwind tour, before you have time to digest too much. Having such a motley mélange of creatures does potentially afford one the opportunity to hang back and study/learn them for future maps, but for my part I have left this level knowing what very little of them actually do, save that the blue wisps are evidently "lost soul x barrels <3" and that the skellingtons are going to be doing a lot of merry little jigs at my expense.

On a more analytical level, then, very little of the placement is particularly effective, or even seems to follow any particular pattern of coherent logic, either in a broad encounter-framing sense or with respect to the roles that the new enemies would seem to naturally fill, given their attacks and modes of locomotion and such. Most of them are found in disorganized, highly heterogeneous mobs that promptly infight with one another at the drop of a hat; the few who do tend to stick to their own are, ironically, the human(?) cultists, who wield firearms, and thus also infight with one another at the drop of a hat. Later creatures are placed where they are fundamentally less effective or outright ineffective (flying caco-lanterns in the exit antechamber with the wisps behind them, assorted beasties trapped in pits on the side of the area too deep for them to fire out of, etc.) or where their fields of fire continue to overlap and interfere, making the whole surprise party writ large something of a grand bungle on their part.

For my part, too busy scarpering about ooh-ing and ahh-ing and MY PRECIOUS!!-ing at seeing a Blood-themed Doom set, I paid most of the creatures in main halls, central chamber, and rear 'auditorium' very little mind, except to notice that the cluster of skellies near the main switch were able to get their shots off fast enough to hurt me despite my pulling the trigger first with the RL, and that basically all of the initial crowd and most of the new arrivals warping in on said switchpress were all soundly spanked by one certain red-robed, floatin'-and-showboatin', Nosferatu-ass-lookin' motor-scooter who'd been sleazing around in there since the outset. Whatever unwholesome thing he does must be super-effective, but I don't know what that is, because when he finally got around to noticing me I promptly blew him up with the RL, mid-scarper, without missing a beat. In sum, given the opportunity to do so, I have thus far learned basically nothing, and while I feel at least *some* of that is on the disarrayed, almost random monster placement, a lot of it is surely on me (and my precious). Cue it promptly coming back to haunt me.

Map 30 -- A Harsh Message - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets

....seems to be "2017 kinda sucked", more or less. Not disagreeing!

BeeWen is another relatively unsung Russian mapper, though I hope that changes someday with the eventual completion of Voyager et al, perhaps some other projects. Difficult to pin down in style, I've seen this mapper create many different types of maps with many different types of design emphases (atmosphere, puzzles, survival combat, etc.), but if there is a thread running through all of it I reckon it's that their maps tend to have a lot of moving parts and a lot of mechanical interactivity, often braided closely into core progression, as we certainly see in "A Harsh Message."

The level's overall progression scheme is straightforward enough: it's divided into distinct quadrants, each separated from the others by stone walls, visited in a set sequence before returning to the central hub, where new switches are periodically revealed granting access to the next. In practice, things are lot more involved. The quadrants themselves, save for the southwestern 'maze' yard (much shorter/simpler than it may sound), tend to be focused on fights with some background mechanical oddities adding complication or flavor, i.e. controlling the door into the SE gatehouse via switch, or the odd cycling "revenant batteries" jeering from the sidelines of the Mastermind yard. The level has a surprisingly pressuring start, throwing quite a concerted stream of opposition at you while you're still vulnerable and relatively lightly armed--I spent my last two shells on the final revenant to come tumbling down out of the disorienting 'lightning lifts' of the southern hub-extension and was somewhat taken aback at how hot the fight was, especially by this WAD's standards--but once you reach the second quadrant your power snowballs very rapidly, and the identity of the level shifts away from being defined by survival and more towards how you navigate its whimsical central structure.

The map certainly has its share of 'puzzles', most of which involve surmounting new/unforeseen twists in how progression plays out, diverging away from what at first seems like it's going to be a straightforward pattern. That's what I like about it, though (and something I like about BeeWen's maps in general) -- the progression scheme really is just as it initially seems, it's just that sometimes you have to do some lateral thinking to make it happen, whether by asking yourself if it might be worthwhile to see if you can squirrel your way up to higher ground, or if a given lift or door or staircase might have more uses besides the most immediately obvious one. This kind of stuff makes a level feel a lot deeper and more fun/engaging to navigate, and is one of the most underappreciated facets of mapping, arguably even moreso in modern mapping than in more old-fashioned stuff.

All that said, given the general nature of Bloodspeed, it's perhaps not entirely fair to hold the map to conventional m30 standards....but I'm going to do it anyway. While I liked the map, moreso than many of the others in the set, even, it is nevertheless disappointing that there's nothing about it (unless you want to really stretch and point to the little 2017 sector-coda) which distinguishes it as final map in the set, either in terms of tone or concept; it could've just as easily been m21 as m30, and this does send the whole WAD off on something of a flat note, though I suppose this is really more of a criticism pertaining to Bloodspeed writ large than to this specific map.

***********************

On that note, I think I've been pretty transparent in my assessment that Bloodspeed broadly lacks the magic of many of its predecessor projects from the Russian scene, which were built on a core of speedmaps but augmented and curated to produce a generally much more consistently designed and intentionally paced experience. Bloodspeed, by contrast, is (with a handful of obvious exceptions) more of a 'true and honest' speedmap set, with much looser theming, and much less elaboration on its core material, which is composed largely of very conventional and often very broadly similar small, short, simple maps with very basic gameplay, on both the combat and traversal levels. The WAD absolutely has shining moments, of course, maps which likely would've been lynchpins in that older production style; yet, to me, a 30-level megaWAD where 20 or more of those levels might as well have been conventional map 02s or 03s or thereabouts is not a particularly appealing prospect; players with more of a fondness for casual coffeebreak-style maps will likely warm to the set much more consistently, though I think regardless of taste most would agree that it's very uneven in quality, which only underscores the power that theming/other stage-dressing can have in those older projects.

My top 5 maps from the WAD, in no particular order:

Map 09 -- Point of Accident

Map 29 -- Iced Sanctuary

Map 27 -- The Edge of Reason

Map 13 -- Moments in Doom

Map 30 -- A Harsh Message

Map 29 -- Iced Sanctuary - 101% Kills / 85% Secrets

Saving the best for last, eh? This is a thoroughly enjoyable adventure-style level depicting the grounds of an ancient monastery or temple, complete with the nearby ruins of a tiny parishioner's village, nestled in the lap of some snowy mountains. To say that the visual and aesthetic presentation of the level is top-notch would be an understatement. Not only is the setting wonderfully realized, host to a wide variety of distinct locales which all fit naturally into the overarching theme--stone facades, an ancient forum, rickety old bridges with artistic latticework, dank caves and defiles, a secret crypt, the aforementioned abandoned village, a strange shrine to a stranger obelisk of sorts, and more--but each is carefully appointed with an eye for thoughtful scene composition, in both the smallscale, sector-chiseled sense and the broader sense of scale, vista, and contrast.

Compelling views, often from on high, across large, complex areas and into places visited much later (or earlier) in progression are commonplace, and every room, cave or chamber, no matter how minor its role in the overall scheme, has some feature or detail to lend it personality. The result is that the map's sense of place is superbly defined, not simply looking good but communicating a palpable sense of some buried, mysterious history. There definitely seems to be an implied story to the place beyond "it's an old temple and there are monsters in it", something of which I'm invariably fond; I wonder, what's with that relatively understated obelisk at the heart of it all, which looks to originate from an entirely different civilization and perhaps climate than the one which erected the monastery (I love that he casually used Doom II's stucco textures for this!), which in turn seems vastly older than the village and mine fittings and such dotting its outer grounds.

As aforesaid, it is at root a very linear level with set, on-rails progression (though I found at least a couple of major sequence breaks, neither of which appeared to be fatal--didn't seem intentional, but perhaps I'm wrong?), but never reads as contrived or overly chaperoned, in part because the setting is so consistently visually enchanting, but moreso because it's well-paced and strikes a pleasing balance between smaller, more convoluted areas and larger, open expanses that afford you a lot more license to stretch your legs and amble or occasionally climb around at your leisure. Several of the entertaining secrets involve parkouring about or poking around in out-of-the-way little nooks (the one I missed appears to involve an arch-vile jump momentarily blasting you into the hereafter, which in hindsight seems cleverly hinted), and as the level nears its end everything reconnects in a natural, satisfying way.

Along the way there's plenty of action, and while the level never musters anything particularly vicious or epic its approach to its combat is generally effective for similar reasons as the setting itself is convincing; while largely incidental in nature, it's well-paced and varies in intimacy and emphasis as the surroundings dictate, and has a compelling cadence between more face/face battles and traps or ambushes. The thing balance, while quite adequate for the level's ends, is perhaps less well-judged; I felt that there was consistently too much ammo and armor given out (healing items seemed more on-point, but I hardly used them), keeping the player in a very dominant position most of the time, right up to the end. Most players will probably not find this to be a real problem--it certainly doesn't actively *impede* the action--but nevertheless, more tuning seemed to be in order to keep this sense of largess from dampening the thrills/excitement. Likewise, as has tended to be the case for all of this author's maps I've played to date, I felt that the final battle was a mite limp, again especially considering how powerful the player is by that point. Regardless, for most of the duration I was soundly entertained, despite these criticisms.

This is a great map, a fine example of how compelling the 'directed', linear adventure school of design can be--it takes more than attractive scenery, but also a strong sense of pacing for both action and thematic changeups, which the Iced Sanctuary delivers in spades.

*cracks knuckles*

Map 28 -- Captured - 99% Kills / No secrets

3 seconds in and you betcha ass it's time for some IDMUS13 pally-man.

That aside, this was my favorite of the maps from Shadowman to feature in Bloodspeed, definitely. That timeless PWAD conceit of starting in an almost adorably badly-made birdcage (with a pistol that nobody bothered to cop for....reasons....inviting speculation about a whole new facet of the marine's resourcefulness) soon spills out into a rollicking little snow-holiday taking place largely outdoors, in the fresh and frosty air.

There are demons in them thar hills, of course (of course!); the majority of who will spring forth from drift and dale in a series of high-ground ambushes of ever-growing size and desperation as you schlepp farther and farther out of bounds. They're a motley bunch, with a notable skew towards flyers (pain elementals are almost guaranteed to spawn lots of souls in this one), and while they do together represent one of the largest attack forces seen in the WAD to this point, there's plenty of space and plenty of ammo to fight them with, and so for most players this should read as more fun/relaxing than hectic or stressful. In keeping with the running theme of the past several winter-maps, a cyberdemon also features prominently in proceedings, this time serving as your jailer. As in m26 prior, you can (and should) take him along with you as a playmate for as long as you're able, but again, he can also be dispatched before the level is half over, provided you've the presence of mind to save at least 80 cells after getting the plasma gun for that BFG you likely got at the start.

Enjoyable map; though simple in intent, like many of the E3 maps it feels a lot more concept-complete than the earlier stuff. It also gave me the impression that there might be a story behind it, beyond the simple jailbreak narrative implied in the proceedings themselves, I mean--what with the Star Wars music and all, maybe it's a redrafted/converted Dark Forces map or somesuch? Certainly looks/feels the part.

Issue: the last 3-4 arachnatrons (sequentially) in the map seldom/never teleport out, due to undersized closet/destination conflicts.

Map 26 -- Lord of the City - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets

A simple wintry city map by Shadowman, with an almost-medieval theme vaguely reminiscent of the classic Mordeth--everything's made of stone and iron and wood, save for the flickering techlamp 'streetlights.' Rather plain-looking (the aforementioned Mordeth, several epochs older, pays more attention to fundamentals like lighting/etc.), but functional enough. At a cursory examination (which you're free to make in person as soon as the map begins) it appears to be an old-fashioned sandbox map ala "Downtown" or such, but in reality it's not--every building is mandatory, and they are visited in a rigidly fixed order, as gated by key-locked or mechanically-locked doors, the odd teleporter, etc.

The titular Lord is the cyberdemon who not-so-warmly greets you from the outset, who unlike so many of his brethren elsewhere in the set is free to roam, and is presumably intended to act as your best frenemy for the duration of your stay within the city limits. Indeed, the most entertaining and efficient way to play is surely to not fight anything that appears outside of a building yourself, and just let him sweep the streets at his leisure; there's very little risk of hitting an infinitely-tall roadblock or anything of the sort, save for one potentially awkward slow-opening exit out of the first building you teleport into. Naturally, playing this way carries some risk, as the simplistic grid-pattern of city blocks allows the cyberdemon relatively easy access to long, unobstructed angles of sight on you which can prove dangerous whenever you're trying to first enter a new building (they all have a welcoming party of some kind in the foyer), but I reckon really is the way to go, and the best contrast with the straightforward shoot/loots which fill the interiors. Alternatively, there's plenty of healing and ammo meted out in sizable doses every time you open a new building (not all Shadowman maps follow the Hellfire pattern of balance!), and cybie can be readily dispatched as soon as the SSG shows up for the first time, but.....where's the fun in that?

The lack of any real openness in the progression perhaps undercuts the potential of the city-style layout somewhat, but rushing progression to let a smallscale riot of sorts develop outside is entertaining enough, and it is good to see a speedmap with a little more content to it vs. the many extremely brief base-dips which have preceded it in the running order.

Map 27 -- The Edge of Reason - 91% Kills / No secrets

I quite liked this one, for the most part. While small, it's tightly-conducted (again, for the most part), offers a lot of action that satisfyingly scales up in scope over its short duration, and makes the most of its handful of gameplay ideas, as opposed to treating being small/short/quickly-produced as the only real idea it needs. Similar to a number of the preceding maps, the central gameplay feature at first seems to be the presence of a turret-cyb which controls the clifftop clearing; you don't actually spend all that much time out there, but it can easily blast you to smithereens through any number of uncanny angles if you don't stay constantly alert while trying to fight your way into the enclaves carved into the cliffside, similar to Eternal's use of the cyb in m23. However, very little of the level's action actually revolves around this setup, and this first(!) cyberdemon ends up being unexpectedly (or I didn't expect it, anyway) telefragged as the preamble to the level's real conclusion, a more conventional BFG vs. rocket-arm showdown with a second cyb who somewhat (melo)dramatically Kool-Aid-Mans his way through the cliffside.

Between dancing with these two unkindly fellows, there's a lot of concentrated bloodletting to be had in the interior reaches as well; the cozy library-cave is the domain of a pair of very trickily-placed arch-viles, one of whom has you buckshot-sledgehammering your way through his burly bodyguards while trying to avoid eye contact at chatting distance, and the other who'll do his best to spook you into dropping back down to the foyer, right into the path of a rocket from the turret-cyb who has probably by now slipped to the fringe of your immediate awareness (or so he hopes).

As something of a bonus, the final duel is apparently supposed to be spectated by a crowd of cacodemons, and it's here that I have to add my "for the most part" caveat--there's a cluster of them perched atop a rock formation off to the east of the map, which can only see (and fire at) you if camp on the soulsphere outcrop after teleporting there. They are out of your autoaim range, and apparently unable to access teleport lines which would introduce them to the fight proper. The same is true of the similar group to the west, though these are at least in range of your (and the cyb's) weapons. The cluster of imps to the far north work as intended--they port into the library-cave as the player takes the red skullkey.

Even with the malfunction (or I assume it is), though, this is a briskly-paced and quite enjoyable outing, and continues the broadly stronger showing in design we've seen from this last episode vs. the earlier two.

Halloween is THE TOPS okay

*shakes fist impotently*

I usually am more likely to take an immediate interest in something relatively substantial, whether this be an episode of maps (of whatever style and length) or a single map with a decent playtime (or, yes, a proper megaWAD, though for practical reasons these are something I'm more likely to plan/schedule for rather than begin playing immediately), as opposed to a very short/low-investment 'bitesized' outing, doubly so one that openly advertises itself as simple/casual. Any number of factors can trump this--cool-looking shots in the introductory post, I'm already familiar with/am particularly interested in the work of the author(s), the flashy marketing campaign makes it seem Totally Up My Alley, etc.--but generally speaking when I want to sit down and play Doom, I want to sit down and play Doom, not be finished and having to go on the prowl to DL something else 5-10 minutes later. This, for me, largely holds true whatever idiom of design an author or team of authors might prefer, whether it's more conventional/familiar in approach or playing at that much-vaunted realm of Real Unbridled Creativity (whatever in blazes that means); whether the order of the day is staunchest traditionalism or reveling/wallowing in brazen, boldest transgression, I tend to feel that ideas, styles, and authorial voices are all a lot more interesting and engaging when they have sufficient time/space to breathe, to explore and be explored.

That said, I don't reckon you need to worry overly much about what I or any other single person thinks on this matter. For every player like me, after all, there is another who does prefer and is more attracted to short/bitesized single maps, so whatever pattern of creating/releasing feels right to you, if you focus on doing what you do well you should be able to find your audience, with some persistence. Some things, however, are a general courtesy and are broadly a 'best practice' independent of all other factors and no matter who your audience might be. These have basically all already been mentioned by others: a few screens, detailed and accurate port/design spec/testing information, vital info on your WAD (IWAD required, number of maps/in what episode or mapslots, skill settings yes/no, co-op compatible yes/no, etc.), credit for assets you used where reasonable/appropriate, and so on and so forth.

For October, I suggest playing the following:

1. Alienated (10 maps)

2. MAYhem 2019 (I'm told this is in the neighborhood of 20 maps)

C'mon guys. C'mon guys.

Guys. C'mon.

C'mon!!

Guys...?

(Edit: for Dobu: +++ Alienated & Mayhem2019)

Map 25 -- Hermans Rest - 115% Kills / 100% Secrets

This one's a lark, feels like it would have been right at home in Pinchy's Alfonzone from last year. For such a relatively small playspace, this seems to field the highest density of more powerful monsters of any map we've seen thus far in the set (with a really notable skew towards the oft-overlooked arachnatron in particular), and as soon as you leave the relative safety of the odd/abstract central "garage" it's very easy to be fried by curtains of plasma bolts or decimated by salvos of homing missiles if you don't stay in constant motion; yet, while it's certainly not Salad Days like quite a few of the tiny little bases which dominated the early and middle parts of the set, it's also much more loose and empowering than it is oppressive, since you've basically got a sort of impromptu racetrack to run around in, and your primary weapons are the rocket launcher and plasma rifle--the only bullets you get are the 50 you start with, and there is no buckshot of any kind.

Two keys are needed to open the exit (which is also plugged with a stopper of rotten tomatoes as a final failsafe), each being located in a short dead-end run on opposite sides of the lot. These are blatantly traps, of course. Of course! But they're designed to be run away from with relative ease, the catch being that doing so can bite you in the ass if you've been doing a little too much running and not quite enough killing, since the addition of arch-viles to the monster mash plus the accumulation of chirruping arachnid gangs at key 'lane-change' points can elevate things from 'fast-paced' to 'frantic' in short order. The thing balance is very well judged and plays off briskly against most of the likely gamut of player and monster movements; your route is most often determined by the need to seek more ammo on the fly, and each new pocket of it has an attendant cost of waking up a few more creatures, requiring you to balance face-off fights with eluding or beating back the mob already following you. It's practically begging you to have a good time, and I reckon it's on you if you're too tactically conservative to do so!

If I've a criticism, it's that the steep, narrow staircase leading up to the blue key's gallery prevents the trio of arch-viles up there from ever realistically making it down to the main track, which feels like a missed opportunity or miscalculation--there's the possibility of them nuking you from the windows while you're running part of the southern stretch, yes, but it's a fairly remote opportunity (imps tend to jostle madly for space here as well), and so this is a trap that's essentially meaningless within 5 seconds of springing, unless you're quite slow on the uptake.  Nevertheless, an enjoyable short map, much more engaging to my taste than any Kiddie Menu Basecrawl could hope to be.

Map 23 -- Vainglory - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets

First order of business: IDMUS 13, thank you very fucking much.

Second order of business: Hey, it's Eternal! It lives. Great!

Humble and yes, again, obviously a simple speedmap with a basic forking layout comprised of mostly modest spaces of varying shape, there's nevertheless a certain je ne sais quoi to the proceedings here that leaves it feeling a bit livelier and more 'designed' than many of the other simpler maps. A cyberdemon-turret is the conceptual centerpiece here, though its level of oversight initially appears to be surprisingly limited, somewhat deceptively--you don't need to worry so much about it for the part of the progression where you're most exposed to its field of fire, yet forgetting about it while skirmishing in the transitional hallways of the side spaces, where you might easily be pushed back just a step too far, can be disastrous.

Eternal is an old hand as regards minimalist monster usage; even though he has in past sometimes opted to use hordes of creatures, much of his large body of work makes due with a much more reserved style of monster placement, as seen here. Many other authors past and present have similar predilections in this regard, of course, but for my money few do it as consistently well as he does. I wouldn't say that every monster is used to generate 'optimal pressure/movement generation' or anything of the sort, mind; but every creature placed does make a real contribution in the encounter in which it appears, whether as a distraction or main attacker or rear guard or whatever, and there's a carefully measured cadence of face-to-face skirmishes, obvious traps, not-so-obvious traps, and a somewhat sudden yet intuitive final battle to close on, coupled with a natural shortform weapon progression closing with a BFG for that last fight. In a sense, it's a varying, constant stream of small or even very small fights which nevertheless each have some kind definite structure to them--a lot of 'crunch' and just enough catharsis for your 5 minutes and 80 or so monsters, like a chocolate-covered Doom-flavored granola bar, if you will.

The visuals are the least interesting aspect of the map, incidentally, though it must be said that I'm not particularly partial to the white-on-white-on-more-white snow theme to begin with, as a general rule. The structure, architecture and lighting of most of the playspace, while eminently functional for the action it houses, is admittedly rather spartan, with a very plain texture scheme (save for the rather tacky X-mas trimmings, which we'll forgive) not doing it any particular favors. The approach to and facade of the temple or baths or whatever the place is does look nice enough, at least, and one gets the impression that a lot of the presumably limited time budget was probably spent here.

Map 24 -- Cyber Melter - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets

This is by Wraith, one of the less popularly heralded members of the Russian community perhaps, but nonetheless an author who can be safely relied on to produce an entertaining level with a pronounced sense of place, no matter the theme or technical/conceptual strictures. Not unlike the previous map, the level prominently features the cyberdemon, or rather a pair of them, which initially lord over the stony glen and ice-rimed geothermal station perched on its lip, cheerfully reducing any imp or stumbling ex-human or even saucy marine daring a single step askance to a fine pink mist lingering in the frosty air.

The outdoor terrain is more expansive, more height-varied, and generally more complex than in any of the cyber/turret-centric maps seen previously, offering more cover but also more prolonged periods of exposure to their relentless shelling, featuring a number of pushes across an open space into different sections of the facility or areas of the surrounding hills, several of which are closely contested by smaller enemies. After an initial bottleneck in the opening moments, the level also features a path-split after returning from the isolated little mill, which is interesting both because it can basically invert the order you play the middle leg of the level in, and because it's not explicitly telegraphed as a split per se, but rather something to be spotted by the sharp-eyed or the lucky, with a decidedly whimsical conceit of teleporters concealed inside of hollow trees. The split can also afford you additional options for how to deal with the pair of cybies, allowing you to amass enough weaponry to engage them in an artillery-duel at a distance, or opting to leave them for a more conventional (and more dramatic) brawl at the end, after their high ground has been melted.

The interior of the southern building, comprised of a conspicuously bland demi-maze of dark hallways (edit: evidently they're not even dark, mostly, the presence of a nearby pair of light amp goggles rather mislead me in this on my playthrough) is a marked blemish on the map's otherwise generally fun character, not quite brief enough for me to handwave it away as 'simply nothing' given how many monsters are staged inside little caged cubbies in its walls and such, needlessly elongating the clear. Given my known biases I'm inclined to blame speedmapping (TM) for this, but one could just as well argue that a key point of effective speedmapping is knowing when not to spend space/time on needless chaff or fluff like this, I suppose! Fortunately the building's not a wash, as it also houses a neat little bit of environmental storytelling, presumably lending the map its name.

Populating and designing action in wide open spaces is a great challenge, for sure. It's generally good not to try to force the issue too much unless your core design is focused on optimizing this kind of action, as this can quickly lead to a certain degree of slog or slow cleanup, but by the same token leaning too heavily on the atmospheric tack too often can lead to things feeling empty/underutilized after a while. Best advice, assuming that you have as many of these kinds of spaces as you seem to, is probably simply to avoid consistently treating them all in just the same way--do different things with them at different times, as the mood strikes you.

Anyway, those are great shots, as usual. The nocturnal scenes are particularly striking, emphasizing the actual darkness of night as they do, whereas outdoor night-time scenes in Doom much more often assume full moonlight, for practical as well as aesthetic reasons.

*wriiiiiitheeeess*

I'm still here, as well.

Map 20 -- Follow the Trail - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets

There's quite the contrast between this and the other maps by Dragon Hunter, which kind of underscores something @gaspehad said earlier on about Bloodspeed not seeming as patently Russian in style as older projects from that community produced in a broadly similar way, i.e. by compiling, arranging, and "polishing" or re-theming speedmaps. The two maps seen earlier in the set by this author have much more of that "on-brand" feel to them, as large, ambling and highly atmospheric adventure-style maps which look to have undergone a fair bit of aesthetic makeover, if nothing else, beyond what one would expect from a normal speedmap, hence the "polished" qualifier (though to my eye even these look slightly rougher/quicker than the analogous entries in past compilations...). This map, in comparison, while still significantly larger and more expansive in scale than many of the entries by other authors, has a much, much simpler and more focused progression, looks more like a standard Doom II map (whatever that means, right?) in a somewhat rare Doom-II-Hell flavor, and, interestingly, has significantly more focus on encounters/traps for their own sake than on a thick/enveloping atmosphere. Perhaps this is what a 'true' speedmap by Dragon Hunter looks like?

The title presumably refers to the cyberdemon you meet for a moment before he promptly teleports away at mapstart, making a brief cameo in at least one of the other key-wings leading off of the main spoke, before reappearing for a showdown back in the start chamber (or rather, at its mouth, filling the "churlishly camp the exit" role that many of his brethren seem to also fill in this set). Incidentally, in the few moments he was present in that other wing (the east/RK one, near the rocket launcher), he managed to be hit by a Baron's projectile thrown at me before he had actually ported in, and so spent the final battle fuming about that rather than actively participating in any way (I had somewhat smugly left the offending noble alive). So it goes.

As aforesaid, this seems a more fight-centric level than many of the others, and skews noticeably towards mid/upper-tier hellspawn, often appearing in pincers-traps or other reveals that have you dealing with attacks from more than one direction/angle at once. The three keys can be gotten in any order--mine was red, yellow, and then blue--and while each seems individually balanced enough to be tenable at whatever point you approach them, there does seem to be something of an 'ideal' order, more or less impossible to suss out without some foreknowledge, to the sequence; if nothing else, most players will certainly prefer the plasma rifle to the rocket launcher for the RK wing's "steps" room, only possible if it's tackled after the north/BK wing. The final battle is a larger melee in step with the finales from the author's earlier two maps, though perhaps a bit simpler overall since provoking efficient infighting is less of a to-do in this particular arena.

Map 21 -- Frozen Outpost - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets

Another very tiny and tidy little base-type map by Chaingunner. Like many of the author's other very small maps in this set, I found this to be pretty unremarkable in terms of overall concept, and while I wouldn't say it's particularly well-wrought or gripping as far as the conventional play experience goes, it does have a couple of interesting technical design features (which perhaps were the focus of this particular creation?). The cooler of these is the effect of the base realistically powering back on in a believably staggered, not-quite-instantaneous way after you hit the main breaker in the power-closet on the east side--very neat effect, obviously achieved through careful voodoo-scripting. On the subject of lighting, the fine-scale strobe effect inside the exit gate is also quite eye-catching, for what it's worth.

The other feature of some note is the ice, or so-called ice. Boom-ice (or ZDoom-ice, or Hexen-ice, or any kind of itdtech1-ice, really) is, regardless of how one personally feels about the value of its impact on core gameplay, generally very straightforward and easy to understand, if occasionally troublesome. The "ice" in this map, however, is of a kind I can't immediately recall having encountered before; standing on it feels somehow like being magnetized to its surface, as it seems to rapidly leech all momentum out of movement, rather than exaggerating it as one would normally expect. Bizarrely, it also seems to reverse your directional movement inputs, such that pressing whatever your 'go forward' key is causes you to move (slowly) backwards, with an analogous effect on sidestepping. Maybe it's meant to simulate not 'ice' per se, but pools of sleet/slush, which might explain some of its mud-like properties? But then, why is the effect applied to the barely snow-covered UAC floor? This makes very little sense from either a diegetic or gameplay perspective, whereas at least putting the SSG in a patch of it serves as a sort of trap. Truly strange.

Map 22 -- Cold Blood - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets

And yet another tiny base. This one has less of an overtly hi-tech impression, more of a shabby just-barely-futuristic industrial feel, and is situated against the backdrop of a sleepy small town or village. Kind of reminded me of the look and feel of how Gotham City tended to be portrayed in the older Batman films (particularly that second one), a gloomy and gritty post-Dickensian drearscape. Some might say it's looking a lot more "Russian", even!

As aforesaid, though, in core design man_with_gun's offering is well in line with many of the other set's other maps, particularly those by Chaingunner, posing a short/straightforward spate of very simplistic breach/clear gameplay that can be casually completed in well under 5 minutes. Many of the same general commentaries/criticisms apply -- there's no real height variation (though you are made to scale a fence at one point), basically all action takes place in the thresholds of tiny rooms, starkly limiting what both player and monsters can do, no real climax, and so forth.

For all that, though, somehow I did seem to enjoy this more than many of those other/similar maps. The detailed/depressing visual scheme really does appeal, true, but more than that the map's just a lot bloodier and feels a little meaner than many of its compatriots, with its smallfry consistently densely packed for cluster-kills (though this is predicated on finding the secret SSG, granted) and somewhat endearing (if quickly predictable) baby-bulldog tenacity in trying to ambush you at point-blank range with baddies and giving you 'quickdraw' encounters every time you ride a teleporter. Ironically, I imagine a lot of the things I like more about it than its compeers probably play into things that others will likely dislike more about it (particularly the deal with being attacked literally every time you ride a teleporter), but hey, it's short, right? Your agitation ends as quickly as my joie de vivre. :)

Map 19 -- Pale Disease - 100% Kills / No secrets

Another by Memfis, featuring a marble fort in a blood lake with some other minor enclaves carved into the hillside nearby. Somewhat ill-fitting choice of Duke track here, I thought. For an author filling as many mapslots in Bloodspeed as he already has by this point, Memfis has certainly shown us a great deal of variety, further underscoring his talent/practice as a speedmapper--this level is laid out differently (kind of a 'tale of two halves') than preceding levels, has more of a straight Doom II look, and more of a sense of spaciousness to it than anything we've seen in a while, which is refreshing in its way.

Again, I did feel that the gameplay came out feeling a mite too limp or restrained overall, though. There is something of a hot start here, since the hillside where you begin is rather inhospitable from the offing (there's no making it past the fort's natural blood moat, you've got to teleport into it, which requires the red key), which seems intended to push you forward/into one of the hillside enclaves. Once you've done this, though, the heat almost immediately dissipates, as action in either is fairly sedate and you'll be in a strong defensive position vs. the beasts wandering/perched in the hillside on your way back out. Grabbing the RL from its stone perch requires brief exposure to the arch-vile, but the operative word here is 'brief', and the level has a much looser/less conducted feel to its weapon progression, so no particular tool ever seems indispensable. The map does skew noticeably more towards mid-tier enemies than the past several have, a trend which continues into the fort itself, but the relative spaciousness + player armament tend to make things feel slightly understaffed/sparse regardless, which is more pronounced an impression in a small/straightforward level like this vs. something a little more exploratory, ala Memfis's m04 from earlier or the heavily atmospheric maps by Dragon Hunter.

Map 16 -- Outskirts of Hell - 108% Kills / No secrets

This Hell episode (or 'minisode' if you want to call it that, since it hasn't been running for the standard duration of m10-20) that one traverses in this part of Bloodspeed very much feels like it's a collection of maps from one specific session, though perhaps that's coincidental and the similarities have more to do with the authorship (Memfis and Chaingunner completely dominate the batting order here, provided one leaves aside the secret levels) than a session theme, though there are nevertheless a lot of conspicuous thematic similarities--the texture scheme in the whole running is very particular in reference, IIRC armor is extremely rare or nonexistent (I only recall getting one green vest during this stretch, in m17 I believe), and so forth. Either way, "Outskirts of Hell" is then very strongly reminiscent of "Fortress of Tears" before it, and like much of this stretch of maps feels, to my taste, to be way too 'early game' in timbre for something running in the middle of a full 32+ level set--again it's very simple room-to-room spats vs. mostly small groups of small monsters, again the surroundings are humble in both scale and scope, etc.

Nevertheless, to give due I did feel that this was a significantly stronger map in a number of small yet valuable/important ways. Through subtle shifts in the usage of lighting, I felt this to be a more genuinely atmospheric environment, for one--darkness is used not only for visual effect (and more often at that) but also to more actively accent gameplay, as in the larger "Morlock-den" chamber beyond the blue-locked door, where more pronounced numbers of imps creep out of the tangled geometry of the side tunnels and burrows, cloaked in heavy shadow. The level is also more clean-looking and airier on the whole than m15, which works well for a small/modest level like this. There is one notable visual gaffe--a failure of perspective where the sky visible in the squat narrow tunnels leading to/from the rocket launcher's room spatially 'overwrites' the much taller dark room mentioned above--but this likely won't bother (or perhaps even be noticed by) most folks much, I'd imagine. The deft selection of BGM undeniably makes an impact as well, marking an all-too-rare appearance by the superb track from Iori's Songs of Damned.

While the action is again for the most part very (perhaps overly) restrained, it also transcends the bare minimum in design offered by other recent maps with a handful of more flavorful encounters, ala the concealed 'pincers' scenario which emerges between the imps and the lost souls around the seal shotgun-altar in the start room, or the use of a traditional vulture-vile to resurrect the many slain imps in the Morlock room, at which he's quite adept.

Map 17 -- Hell Sunrise - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets

Next verse, same as the first, more or less. This is, once again, a leisurely little Sunday morning stroll through some quiet backwater of Hell, offering more light/low-key, basically serviceable action. Like the previous map, it's also visually pleasing, in a clean, tasteful and unostentatious way--nothing terribly groundbreaking, but quite easy on the eyes, nonetheless, reminiscent of later work by Pcorf, or perhaps Dr. Sleep.

This level most distinguishes itself through its relative expansiveness compared to others in this same stretch, being a more normal-sized short/medium affair than the very short/tiny maps which surround it on both sides, and has room to include more traditionally pronounced 'legs' in progression, and even a secret/optional key leading to a small bonus area. Apart from being a mite longer in running time, it also simply looks/feels bigger, with taller structures in general, a more pronounced sense of certain regions of the level being at higher/lower elevations than others, and more development in off-map scenery in general, particularly the unique-looking picket-pikes atop the outer wall encircling the earthen pit where the player begins.

The most interesting thing about the level play-wise is the aforementioned secret/optional key, a miniature sidequest which comprises both of the level's two secrets. The material reward for doing this (a soulsphere and ten extra rockets, something like that) is neither here nor there considering how laconic the level in general is, but it's fun to search for nonetheless, with the first of the two secrets being pretty cleverly concealed.

Map 18 -- Demonic Bloodpool - 100% Kills / No secrets

Back to the shorter levels here (though this one tends to feel maybe slightly bigger than it is, just because its rooms are a bit bigger in general than what we've recently become accustomed to), though this one has a different look and feel to it than what has come before, with a combination of CC4 and UAC Ultra (?) resources, plus a few less immediately familiar assets, to create a dingy underground granite temple complex nestled amidst lava-scalded rock cliffs. The titular pool, which can be dimly espied from the start point through a semi-translucent sheet of stretched skin, is both a shrine to an opalescent crystal skull and the favored lounging spot of a local cyberdemon blueblood, who does not take kindly to intrusions on her "me-time."

The overall design continues the general trend of less-is-more as regards monster placement and encounter design, but with a very different spin on the idea than that seen in the past several levels. This reads more like a challenge-map of sorts, though in contrast to the space-management ambushes of m14 by the same author, this hinges more on endurance, with both ammo and healing kept rather limited in supply (and again, there is effectively no armor available, IIRC), and enemies often placed in ways where you'll be tangling with them at close quarters or from a self-exposing position, needing to balance defense with an effective offense that makes best use of your limited assets. Indeed, this is a good example of just how much you can find yourself missing the regular pump-action shotgun when it's not available, and a rare case of the sawnoff's doubled ammo consumption being an actual relevant factor of balance, as opposed to a vague background OCD-tickler--you are pushed not only to close with targets to ensure you get maximum damage output from your shells, but also to be mindful about grouping/multikilling weaker foes such as imps for the same reason. A rocket launcher appears midway through progression, but has to be used both without hesitation and with great accuracy within the confines of the shrine to make a positive difference, further underscoring the premium the map places on knowing how to get the most out of your arms.

The cyberdemon is also a more credible threat than the others we've seen earlier, as the limited space plus some unusual angles of fire make splash damage from rockets a real concern for the duration of your time in the bloodpool itself. Perhaps thankfully, the beast isn't framed as an ammo-tax on top of the strict balance--you aren't expected to scrimp and save enough to be able to topple her conventionally, but rather ultimately unlock a staged telefrag sequence, albeit one that exposes you to some hair-rising rocket salvos over its short duration.