Snikle

It's easy to seen why people would have "turned on" generative AI in the past few years. I know I did. It's cause 3-4 years ago it was a stupid novelty that could make weird psychadelic blobs or crazy nonsense sentences that vaguely resembled a prompt, and it was fun to mess around with. But then it got better, and it can make images that just look like shiny versions of the real thing with bad hands, or clickbait articles that sound almost normal. It's like the difference between watching and laughing at a "so bad it's good movie" and just a bad boring movie that makes you feel nothing. And then on top of that it's just fatigue from seeing AI images start to get used for album covers or movie posters (Civil War says "hi") or motivational posters on an office wall. And on top of that there's the ethical issues that only get talked about more and more. And on top of that there's the annoying AI search integrations, like the stupid rock pizza google one that you can't even turn off. And on top of that there's the immense amount of energy that these AI systems use to run, and the bad working conditions at the companies too. So yeah, no shit that public opinion on AI has turned lol

Finished with this area, which I actually started over 3 years ago.

At least in the classic game, there's WADs that have changed the status bar face to a woman. Sometimes a realistic one, often an anime girl or something, but you'd probably be able to find one you like. In the new games it'd be nice if there was an option to change it, if not for the campaign then at least for the multiplayer. I can only imagine what a certain type of annoying "gamer" would say about that though... I mean, just look back to the thread about that Doom movie from 2019 to see what some people thought about a female protagonist in a Doom property.

Perhaps it's been noted already, or even an intended behavior, but there's a way to get the secret BFG in MAP24 that doesn't seem to match the way people did it in the DWMC thread. I tried poking around in the crates in the red skull fight, evidently not well enough to find the BFG passage. After finishing the cybers, I save-scummed some strafe jumps through the gaps in the ship's railing and after 2-3 tries was able to slip through to the pier and walk to the BFG from there. I thought that was the way it was done until I read the DWMC reviews, since there was a different secret that also needed strafe running to reach (the teleporter to the outdoor soulsphere)

I'm still here, been mapping slowly on and off since the project announcement. There's still a few untextured sections that I want to fix, but I'll post some WIP shots soon.

Blaming "Politics" seems to be ignoring the second half of the reasoning. And dismissing the first half as "politics" might be seen as suspect itself by some folks. I like playing the DBPs as much as anyone, but not including them doesn't make the Cacowards (always subjective to the writers' anyway) any less legitimate. The DBs can make their own awards, with blackjack and hookers, if they see it necessary. They can rate all the DBPs from worst to best, I'd read it. More a question for the writers than the quoted repliers, but is the goal of the Cacowards to "judge art" at all, or is it more about showing off community output and taking a yearly opportunity to highlight appreciated creators? I too would find it hard to laud the creations of people who put the community through stress and hardship, if I were a Cacoward writer who witnessed these sorts of things firsthand.

This is so awesome so far! I just played the first 3 maps and Visuals are amazing! The 3rd map is so cozy and nice.

I didn't find all the secrets but I'm happy to have beaten it. There's a certain mancubus-filled Chasm-like room that annoyed me very much, and as expected the fights were hard as balls even on HMP. I appreciate the ammo balancing, where I simultaneously always felt like I didn't have enough and still made most monsters die when they needed to. All the maps are great though, and it's always a joy in these maps to see what sorts of areas lie around the next corner or switch.

MAP16 - Nocturnal Abyss (HMP) The player starts alone in a small room, outside of which are some former marines and a few sergeants up high in some pillars. The MIDI sounds very familiar. The visuals in this opening area are exquisite as well. Up some stairs is a hallway with some neat faux-room over room. On one end is a Hell knight, but he’s no nuisance to kill. Shoot a switch to get some armor, and also a revenant on the other side. Doing all this lowers the blue key back out in the main area. Grabbing the blue key activates a nice, nasty trap with imps, all manner of zombies, and a few demons and Hell knights. Even with no more than a shotgun and chaingun I was able to take minimal damage and have fun doing it. Incredibly luckily, I didn’t get hit with any revenant missiles behind the blue door. I went past them to the bridge where I don’t think they could follow, and was able to use 1 to block the other until one was dead, then I could stunlock and kill the other. Out here is a backpack and a lot of ammo, and a switch. Hitting the switch activates a tough aerial ambush of cacos and Pes, with a mancubus blocking the area where you came in. What I did was quickly get behind the manc before it gets out of the bigger room (because you can’t get past it once it’s on the thinner area) and let the cacos pelt it from behind while shooting it yourself from the front. Due to the ingenious layout of the map, the flying enemies can be fought from the main area once they begin to get close enough to overwhelm up top. Now, the elevator across from the blue door is accessible. Up there is the yellow key alongside a few chaingunners, a pinkie, and an arachno that thankfully didn’t fire at me until after everything else was dead. Through the yellow door is a small lift that leads to a larger lift. The larger lift spawns a Baron that killed me. After reloading I kinda walked atop the Baron’s head to get to the exit before the lift had gotten halfway up lol. I didn’t want to single-shotgun a baron in that tiny space. Sadly didn’t find the secret though, but this is one of my favorite maps so far (Really wish I got an SSG though).

MAP14 - Deception (HMP) Cool opening area with many monsters outside the playable space, making the map feel larger than what’s accessible. Everything here is easily dispatched with the standard shotgun. I also made sure to damage some of the cacos and kill the imps through the window before opening the front door. The 2 pinkies inside were easily killed as well. The whole opening area is really nice looking. Inside the fortress I had to pistol another caco, but then got some shells and an SSG. I killed the 2 chaingunners in 1 shot, then the Hell knight. On the other side was another switch and some more chaingun ammo. The dual switched in this room can lower either the supercharge or armor, it seems. I took the armor. In the now-unlocked upstairs hallway, there’s more of the expected chaingun boys and imps. There’s a sequence of 3 shootable swtiches that each only spawn in like 2 monsters, kinda felt a bit like padding, but not horribly so. Hitting all of the switches opens a door to the central courtyard. I killed the hell knight and anything else I could from the upper windows, so it wasn’t too bad. The monsters that teleport in took a fair share of my health though, dang sergeants. Then the next switch lowered what was apparently the exit. After leaving once I popped back into my last save to find the sole secret, a backpack hidden in a wall down in the front hallway. MAP15 - The Inmost ConDens'd A Doom II favorite, shrunken down to fit the constraints. The opening is fun and frenetic, since the shotgun is a good distance away from the start (relatively speaking). Once the nearby chaff is dead, hit the switch between the 2 yellow skull blocks in the corridor opposite the pinkie pen. Getting the yellow key down in the little pit brings forth a Hell Knight above, who took a lot of my health by having the high ground. Inside the door where it came from are some stairs down to an imp area. Grab the rockets and go through the little door to hit a little switch that will raise the blood to another switch outside where a chaingunner once stood. Since I was low on health, the next part was precarious and required a few deaths/reloads. Eventually I learned to stop going around the corner and waking up the rev and additional demons on top of the Hell Knight and demons on the other side. After killing the HK and turreted hitscannners, I went through the door next to where I came out from and went across to the other side, killing cacos and a baron. I woke up the rev and his friends from up here, but autoaim didn’t work too well so I killed them from below. Hitting a switch on the Baron’s side allows access to the little pinkie pen from earlier. Here you can hit a switch that gives the blue key, which opens a little teleporter. The teleporter leads to a little punching-fish-in-a-barrel section that’s super fun until a Hell Knight shows up. It ate a lot of health, and then came a revenant ambush to get the red key. Once it is obtained, hit another switch in the pinkie pen to raise a lift to kill some revenants (who can also be killed through the bars behind the doorway). The supercharge is now unlocked, giving me much needed health. The chaingunner assault wasn’t as bad as it sounds. Kill the arch vile and anything he brought back, and the exit is yours for the taking. I didn’t find either secret, but this map had enough fun gameplay to where I don’t feel like I’m missing out (Reading things here, I'm glad I didn't go around trying to look for it). Amazing map that really felt like it broke free of the spatial constraints.

MAP13 - Assualt (HMP) Neat looking opening area with an evil chaingunner facing you. Lucky for me it paced around for a while before taking its first shot, so I only took a little bit of damage before shelling it into paste. The other monsters here aren’t too big a nuisance, and hitting a switch guarded by a shotgunner in a little room creates some stairs up to the chaingunner corpse and way out of the area, for now. Down below is a perched Hell knight, and before it can be dealt with, a revenant and some demons pop out as well. I killed them and left the Hell knight for later (or maybe I won’t even care to kill it, who knows). Inside the following room is gaggle of chaingunners, which are fun to kill. A shotgunner in the red-locked exit area took more of my health than them. Also I love the ladder and the Doom room-over-room part. Kill a popup hell knight in the hallway below, and then a large(ly tedious) group of pinkies. I don’t have any secrets yet, so there may be a chainsaw/berserk/early SSG I’m missing, but who wants to shot-or-chaingun a half dozen pinkies. Things heat up again with a caco and some lost souls once the player goes up the stairs toward the switch, and a chaingunner (that killed me once) pops up behind the bars where you came in from. On my first attempt at the next part, I tried to grab the SSG, missed, and then ended up running back through the rest of the level trying to get back to where it was, even though the opposition had upgraded into assuming I had it. Then I died, and my last save was at the ladder, so let’s hope I can grab it this time. Also I missed the red key, lol. The time I finally did it right was fun though. Grab the SSG to kill the dual chaingunners in 1 shot, then take out the Baron, and be sure to get the chaingunner behind the bars at some point too. I also found the secret backpack behind the fake wall. The final segment of the map was a breeze. Having killed the 2 visible imps from the floor below, all that was up top was a Hell knight, 1 more imp, and another chaingun asshole. Dispatch them and then go outside to the starting area where a Pain elemental awaits. Be sure to hit the red switch, I didn’t do it the first time and had to go around again after killing all the hell knights down below. Spent a long time trying to figure out how to open that circular shaft, thinking it was the final secret, before giving up and hitting the “exit” switch. Guess I should have checked the enemy count, whoops. Never found the second secret though. Overall, a fun map with some cool looks and fun encounters.

MAP12 - Spitshine (HMP) Took a good bit of damage in the opening area, but everything died pretty quickly. Visuals are very nice so far as I open the unlocked door and walk into a curved hallway. The hall looked good with the blue floor lights, and the next room looked amazing with its flowing water, leaky wall crack, and midtex platform near the switch. This room had some chaingunners as well as the usual hitscan boys and imps. Hitting the switch let loose two revenants, which weren’t hard to knock out, and the blue key. Through the blue door is a chaingunner, shotgunner, and pinkie in a semicircular ascending hallway. There’s cacos in the back which awaken once the player goes in, and there’s an SSG in the further of 2 pods outside the semicircular area. Up the elevator, the 2 mancubi got me down to 6%, and then I frantically sprayed my new plasma at the shotgunner ambush, amazingly surviving. The pinkies and Hell Knights stayed outside the little plasma-shotgunner room, either due to monster blocking linedefs or maybe just good luck. Once everything died I could get the 4 stimpacks and leave. One teleporter took me to a secret stash of bonuses, the other took me out. The non-secret teleporter takes you to the circular structure within the hemispherical hallway from before. Then there’s 2 Barons, that I quickly spent my sparse remaining plasma on and then had to SSG the rest of the way. Kill 2 more arachnotrons in the starting room, an arch vile in the exit, and you’re golden. I didn’t find the other secret until everything was dead, but it’s location is easy to discern once the whole map’s been gone through.

MAP11 - Technicfear (HMP) From the start it’s easy to tell that the whole of the map will be in this main room, since it’s large enough to fill the allottable space. I ran around getting shot down to like 23% health before all the sergeants and imps were dead. I then had to run around and wait for 4 lifts to hit 4 switches, which was tedious, but then came a swarm of pinkies and a chainsaw. I chainsawed a couple of them, but then remembered I had an SSG instead. Now to the final, 3 key door. Behind it is a very surprising cyberdemon, and a few barons and mancubi spawn in too. Sadly, the cyber is stuck in his room and lives much longer than everything else, leading to kinda peekaboo shooting him with the SSG for a while. After he died, there was only 1 monster left. My guess of an Arch Vile was correct, I killed it without a hitch. Pretty short level with some tedium and padding, but certainly not terrible. The shotgunner frenzy at the start was tough and the cyberdemon was a legit surprise.

MAP09 - Bitter Sanctuaty (HMP) Enjoying the opening so far, and when I say “opening” I mean the walls opening with each step into a new area with a few more hitscanners to shotgun. The visuals are pretty nice for an area such as this, with nice lighting effects on the floor and nicely built light fixtures in the ceiling. Enter a small hall with monster closets and imps that teleport in behind you. This type of corridor gameplay is usually frowned upon in larger levels, but here it serves to make the map feel bigger than 1024 units. Reshaping the opening room for the next fight helps with that as well. Follow another ambush hallway to open some more walls. Still shotgun combat with an early-mid Doom 1 enemy roster. Soon, an ambush involves chaingunners, and that weapon is finally bestowed, despite the shotgun combat not even feeling tired yet. After a few more switched, there’s a downward lift into a long, thin room with cool heat exchanger fins or computer panels on the ceiling and cool lighting on the floor. Peak techbase visuals, at least for a map this size. Then came a frustratingly slow lift and a Hell knight teleported right next to me and took a huge swing. Killed him, waited even more for the lift, then killed a revenant inside. Turns out it wasn’t a lift at all, but rather a teleporter. It takes you back to the main area, only to find the exit to be open now, and checking the automap shows that all the monsters died. Turns out that last bit was the end. I enjoyed the map but I feel like it kinda petered out. I was still missing 1 secret when I got here, so I stuck around a few minutes to try and find it… Oh yay a health bonus. Anyway, I enjoyed the level, which definitely made more than full use of its play space (that’s a compliment) MAP10 - Mudbath (HMP) A fun hot start, grab the shotgun on the other side of the zombies and then start blastin’. The room in front has 2 shell boxes in windows facing an arena below, beware of the chaingunners on the other side. I first went in the section to the left of the player start. Killed all the monsters in there, and found a switch in an alcove that lowered a small lift into the next room. In here was a Hell knight, who got shot at with the shotgun from down below in the previous room. Kill everything in here to hit a switch. There’s still bars behind the switch, indicating that there’s another switch, presumably on the other side. I went over there to find even stronger opposition. I got a chaingun by killing the chaingunner close enough to the grate to grab it, so I got it a little bit earlier than otherwise. The caged revenants in the final arena can be killed beforehand, either from the arena entrance before being locked in, or from the room on the left of the map. Going to kill these revs is when I found the switch to activate the secret, which is stairs to a supercharge in the final fight, that I forgot to actually pick up until most things in the arena were already dead and I was almost there myself. Good level.