wertercatt

Martin Niemöller

"Brutal Among Us coming this fall to patreon subscribers!" - Sergeant Mark IV

https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=29466&

Still struggling through Alkylation so instead you get a double feature of 'wertercatt Random Maximum Doom WAD Adventures.' joey cato's J.C. Herhous: DeathMatch Wad (MAXIMUM/DOOM1/HERHOUS.WAD, 1995) This is a Heretic level. Maximum Doom and /idgames/ both categorize it as a Doom level, but it's for Heretic. It has its text file, but that doesn't help with figuring out what IWAD you're actually meant to load it with. It's actually not that bad, although you get like four weapons max. I mostly just ran around with the Gauntlets of the Necromancer shredding the Zandronum bots I played it with. The interior is too cramped, you'll just be running in there to restock on Tomes of Power and Ethereal Crossbows/Arrows. The actual fighting takes place in the front and back yards, as this is a classic house recreation. I attempted to take some screenshots with Zandronum, but it doesn't appear to have worked. There's a HOM effect on the love seat and couch, which are mysteriously made of lava? Probably a conversion error with DM2CONV, as this was originally released for Doom 2 as J.C. House: DeathMatch Wad (levels/doom2/deathmatch/j-l/jchouse.zip, 1995) Don't think I'll play on it again, but it was serviceable for my first Heretic WAD review. I'll give it 4/10. Sal Buttiglione & DM2CONV's COOL2.WAD (MAXIMUM/DOOM2/COOL2.WAD, 1994) This is a Doom level lazily converted to Doom 2 by an anonymous user and dumped onto the CD. There's no text file to go with this one, but Funduke's indispensable reference guide helped me source it here. You can find the original version on /idgames/ as levels/doom/a-c/coolwad.zip, but I wouldn't recommend it. This level sucks. There's an optional super slow elevator part with 20 damage nukage that has a single zombieman in it to fuck with UV Maxers which is actually broken and basically a deathtrap unless you GZDoom jump it. There's also a teleporter that takes you to a red key door, I was unable to find the red key and had to GZDoom jump out the window to escape the softlock. It ends with a dual cyberdemon fight that you do not have the space/resources to deal with without IDKFA and IDDQD. Seriously, what did they expect you to kill them with, the SSG? And this is a conversion, you were expected to just regular shotgun them both originally?? I got a chaingun from DM2CONV turning some shotgunners into chaingunners, but that didn't help. 0/10, I would have gotten softlocked twice if I was playing on DSDA-Doom and the last room is basically impossible to deal with legitimately. I don't even blame the conversion, at least it gave me an SSG.

Working on an Alkylation playthrough. I'm on MAP03 and I can recognize that these are well designed and nicely detailed levels... but they are too hard for me to play enjoyably even on ITYTD and therefore I do not like them. New music is good, the Realm667 monsters are nice picks (except for the Hell Warriors, how dare they attack me while shielded so I can't attack back? Bullshit.) I'll write a full review once the playthrough is finished.

Glad my comment inspired you to check it out and you enjoyed BRAIN2 like I did, @Endless As for Lavacity, it's designed for GZDoom jumping. Like pretty much all maps that require it, they don't just outright say it. I had to use the context clues of the author including a jump button in their recommended controls to deduce that. The jumps are pretty easy to make when you hit the button, I did runups in my playthrough mainly due to unfamiliarity with the mechanics but it worked out for me. Some of the seemingly impossible jumps require pressing switches to raise the slowest rising bridges I've ever seen though, and I only realized there was a bridge triggered by the switch after falling down and seeing the notexture from one raising up.

Do you have a scan of the D2RPG comic?

Same. I have an octagon with random cover so far.

Marten Mellberg's Lavacity (levels/doom2/Ports/j-l/lavacity.zip, 2000) This is a level designed for ZDoomdos 1.17c, with all the jumping and mouselook implied by that statement. The author provides their control setup in the text file as a suggestion, but I decided to continue using the same setup I already had in GZDoom. As the single review on the old frontend points out, the end switch is one of the hanging GI Joe sprites on a wall, and you can press use on his lips to end the level. Makes for some early queer themes, which may or may not be intended. The level appears to be Martin's first and only contribution to /idgames/, as nothing else comes up when searching for their name or email. It's a decent level, although it did give me quite a bit of trouble due to how much I suck at the game. There's a weird usage of the teleporter flat to signify a set of 4 linedef switches, and I also saw a door that used the outer door texture as the door tracks. Regardless, it is beatable and can be pretty fun. I've been getting pretty lucky so far in the ER/iWA, although I'm sure the worst will come soon now that I've said that. I'll give Lavacity a 5/10 as it feels very middle of the road to me. I took a bit too many screenshots, so you can find them in an imgur album. Life-Saver's LIFE2.ZIP (maximum_doom/doom2/life2.wad, 1995) For the second time in a row, my random file script has dredged up one of the complete wad+txt combos in Maximum Doom, and it has once again picked the txt of the two. Weird. (edit: The script was filtering for txt files! Fixed.) Life-Saver, a French Québécois hunter, brings us a recreation of their house. Thankfully, they chose to represent their hunting rifle as the SSG, as you'll have to kill all the enemies including two Mancubi with it. The text file opens with a fancy header giving a true title, but they put 'LIFE2.ZIP' in the title field of the template, so that's what I'll call it in the review. oOoOoOoOoOo LIFE-SAVER oOoOoOoOoOo --Chapter one: The House-- I ended up having to open the map in SLADE and IDCLIP to finish it, as I was unable to figure out how to open the exit shed and then unable to figure out how to reach the switch for the door. It also has key doors that aren't indicated, a classic sin. All the health in the map is stacked up in the bathroom, while all the ammo is found in the same place you get the SSG. Which means running back inside when your health gets low from trying to fight the Mancubi in the front yard. LIFE2.ZIP is a serviceable map, although it's clearly no MyHouse.pk3 :P The close quarters fight with the closet archvile was a nightmare, fortunately the bathroom with the health is nearby. The text file also has a unique gimmick of having an intentional mojibake encoding error to bleep out a hint which threw me for a loop when Windows 11's notepad tried to interpret it as Chinese. I'll give it a 6/10 since, having read previous ER/iWA threads, it doesn't sound like I've truly hit a level worse than average yet. Here's the screenshots for this one. I've got another nearly 50m playsession recording for you all, this time with some rudimentary text commentary circa 2009 YouTube tutorials.

Gregory.W.Percy's BRAIN2 (levels/doom2/a-c/brain2.zip, 1997) A decently hard level made by a 10 year old, featuring an Icon of Sin that I only disliked. He included most of the weapon roster, and made good use of the enemies including the WolfSS. I've certainly played better levels, but I've played worse ones too. And like I noted previously, the level editor he was using was reportedly very laggy and premature. I'll have to make a note to check out his BRAIN3 sometime. I played it with my standard GZDoom setup again on Ultra-Violence. I'll give it a 6/10, I certainly wasn't making anything this playable when I was 10. I've decided that as a bonus from now on, I'll use a script for choosing a random file to pick myself something from Maximum Doom as well. Feel free to count this or not, @ICID Will Pendleton & Ryan Fysse's HELLYEAH! (maximum_doom/doom2/hellyeah.wad, 1995) According to Funduke's The Maximum Doom Reference v. 1.0 (docs/misc/maxdoom.zip, 2008) this file can also be found as levels/doom2/deathmatch/g-i/hellyeah.zip on the idgames archive with the modified MAP01 stripped out. I forgot to take screenshots of this one, but it's a 7 level deathmatch wad that only had two levels without any monsters in single player IIRC. No idea as to how they'd play in Deathmatch, as I was nearing the 50 minute mark of playtime so I couldn't boot up Deathmatch Simulator or Zandronum with bots. They're pretty decent in singleplayer though! MAP07 has a fun room where you get to blast a swarm of WolfSS away with the Rocket Launcher which I enjoyed, and they made decent use of the rest of the roster too. I ended up having to turn off Corruption Cards though, it made the levels a bit too hard. I'll give it a 7/10, the modified MAP01 is kinda interesting but you're probably not missing too much playing the legalized version where it's been removed. If you're disappointed about the lack of screenshots though, I recorded the whole play session without commentary, and you can watch it on my YT channel C: EDIT: It's actually three maps with 0 monsters in HELLYEAH! I got confused because Corruption Cards spawned some in MAP03. I decided to use Yonatan Donner's Doom Things Analyzer version 1.03 (utils/wad_tools/dmtha103.zip, 1996) to get more information on the two WADs in a readable form. Here's the output of that.

First host selection is by a 10 year old 5th grader. The release date is very unclear though. There's dates from 1997, 1998, and 1999. Looks interesting, apparently their father wrote the text file. There's a very 90s attitude to it including their address and home phone number! I also appreciate the 'in case you don't know how to play a pwad, here's the command' bit in the textfile. I always find it a cute touch. It's also made using DoomCAD, an obscure 16-bit Windows level editor that doomwiki says was the first to implement 3d previews. I'll always respect anyone who managed to make something competent with those premature tools. Searching for other textfiles with the same email reveals that the 5th grader also made BRAIN3 when they were 11, and presumably their father created STRONGHOLD AT TIKAL. All three files were uploaded the same day. I guess they were a father and son mapping duo, which is pretty wholesome. I'll record a playthrough once I get home and can write a proper review.

Metabolist's patch for Requiem. They mention needing it to play https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/megawads/reqhelp back properly, but the geocities site isn't on the wayback machine and I couldn't find the patch on the doomworld hosted site that replaced it: https://doomworld.com/metabolist/

Ease of sharing via demos, and all the custom content on /idgames/ when you want to go beyond the IWADs.

Can you upload it to the AUR?

I'm willing to try and map for this. Do you know of any complevel 2 deathmatch bots I could use for playtesting?