DoubleCakes

I'm having a good time. These levels are snappy are full of atmosphere. The music selections have been top notch! There's a lot of archies, though. It seems like every time a group of enemies spawn in, an archie comes along with them.

This is it! Thank you!

I finished this one a few days ago and it was a delightful experience. The pacing was king, the level themes were inspired and overall the challenge was on point.

Going Down is my favourite Doom wad so its creator coming back and making a new project was very exciting for me. The staples of mouldy's style are alive in Overboard: detailed level design, enemy encounters that are chaotic but also manageable, surrealism, and cheeky wit. Loved playing this!

First level I am trying to remember is a treetop level where you are walking from one treetop house to another via bridges, I think. There might have been some jumping and the level was pretty open with the player able to see vast treescapes. I'm pretty sure it was part of a large megawad, and wasn't an individual level. The second level I am trying to remember is a forest level with relatively detailed trees. I don't think you could actually walk through the trees– the paths you can walk are contained by small cliffs, maybe? The level is dark, like it takes place at night, and there are parts of it where you could walk into caves, like there were cliffs nearby the forest with cave openings. Turns out this is from Hellbound.

Gave this one a little peak and brushed away the first five levels. They're a quintet of nicely paced and designed levels and I almost get the feeling this might make a good megawad suggestion for newcomers to the Doom modding scene, but I know that things are going to pick up later so I'll put that thought on the backburner. Map 03 and Map 04 have been highlights, although I like the spaciousness and adventure of Map 05 with most of the combat taking place inside the facility but having to travel around the edges of the canyon to progress.

I gave a couple levels a try and liked what I had played. With Doom II, a lot of the level names were concrete and evocative but the execution of those names were misguided which allowed the Doom II In Name Only project to redeem those names. With Doom I, I don't think the level names are nearly as specific and inspiring but I've been skimming a lot of the levels in Ultimate Doom In Name Only and they seems like inspired takes on these titles.

Alright. I finished Nostalgia and this turned out how I expected: 30+ snappy levels that give the feeling of an epic campaign without taking 20 hours. I think I could revisit this megawad and maybe try it without mid-level saving for an extra special challenge. A small error report:

Played a little more and I'm up to Map 16. As episode I progressed, I liked how these techbases were infested with hellish landscapes. The city episode has been a lot of fun as well. Map 12 has been my favourite level so far with its detailed and snappy level design. I think I might finish this megawad before long. It's infectious!

Player a few levels and this mapset is scratching my itch for mid-difficulty megawads with short, snappy levels– something I'm almost always on board with. I'm going to assume that Under the Surface is inspired by Underhalls from Doom 2. It feels like a remake for Doom veterans with monsters packed in every corner. It's surprisingly formidable compared to the levels before and after it.

I got caught up last night, finished all 14 maps. So far this wad has been nothing but knockouts. Each level is detailed, dense, and full of action. Sometimes that action was a little too rough, and my modus operandi was save scumming between each room, but these were some very crunchy maps. I'm thinking this'll go down as one of my favourite wads!

So this is it. The big one. ‘32: Go 2 It’. I still have vague memories of the first time I played this level. I was awestruck with how relentless it was. I couldn’t believe that they made a level so jam packed with monsters. This is Plutonia, once again, breaking the rules and pushing the envelope. The image of those ‘bleachers’ is one of the most memorable parts of this wad. I put on invincibility and did a practice run of this level just to figure out how this level actually works and what you are supposed to do to beat it. I made notes on the fact that picking up the red key unleashes all them archviles and pain elementals on the other side of the map. Or at least that’s what I thought. When I actually played the level, before getting the yellow key, many pain elementals released. Even though the baseball arena filled with lost souls, I remained calm and took care of it cautiously. This is the wad that introduced me to ‘archvile parties’, groups of archviles that go to town on a group of monsters you already slain. I had forgotten that this level did this. Years later after playing this wad for the first time I would encounter this trope again in community-made wads although I had forgotten about its use in Plutonia and wouldn’t make the connection. I knew that there was an archvile party that takes over the arena when you are coming back after opening the red key door, but I forgot about the one that appears when you get the blue key later. The baseball arena one, I used about 500 cells shooting BFG shots at them and got rid of most of them. After that I moved to the northeastern stairwell and fired rockets into the bleachers. I had to plow through lots of revenants but the return fire wasn’t too bad and eventually I killed the last archvile. Cyberdemon fights weren’t too bad. It was nervewracking to fight four cyberdemons especially with no mid-level saves. I got blindsided by a rocket which basically means it was time to pick up one of the megaspheres lying around the level. It felt like when it came to cell usage, I was either too frugal or too liberal with BFG shots. In the case of the cyberdemon in the blue key door, I got him with a BFG shot then finished him off by shooting him with SSG around the corner. When I opened the last area of the map, I let myself get surrounded by hell barons and even smoked myself with a rocket. I switched to plasma rifle and held my ground, though. The final three cyberdemons were intimidating, especially since I was at the end of the level. I got out the BFG and attacked but just as I killed one of them I was clipped by a rocket. I retreated out of there and ran around the level to find a megasphere but I used them all. With 100 health I went back into the column section and fired BFG until they were both toast. I roamed the level to find all the ammo I could then left the level. This was the first time I beat the level in one go, not that I've tried before. Still, this wasn't as bad as I thought! ‘Plunge Saw’ by Bucket isn’t a bad song but for a standout level like Go 2 It, I would want something really wild. I know it samples ‘Nobody Told Me About id’ to honour the original map’s use of that theme, but I don’t like the original’s use of that theme for this legendary level. It’s still a good track with intricate synth melodies.

I’m playing this wad with no mid-level saves but in ’31: Cyberden’ , I quicksaved before finding those two archviles. Any level with a few cyberdemons is going to make me nervous even though in this level there’s a big arena for me to fight them in. The music from the midi pack is good. ‘Cry of Desperation’ from Eris Falling is a nice chill track that contrasts the carnage of Cyberdemon’s sparse but hostile atmosphere. I like the prominent use of drums. I did use a lot of BFG shots to take out the first two cyberdemons, and then for the last two I used mostly rockets which take down cyberdemons pretty quickly. I imagine cyberdemons having this colossal level of health but even with rockets they go down before long. In terms of the ‘switch rooms’, I handled the baron trap pretty well and the mancubus blood pool that hurts you wasn’t too bad. The room full of chaingunners wasn’t too bad. I kept by the door and sniped them with the chaingun. The pinky invasion later on in that room wasn’t too bad but admittedly I got myself cornered by a few of them when I was looking for the secret. I was nervous after getting that fourth switch because I knew there was a trap. I watched a video on this level and made a plan for the revenant rush. I readied the BFG and let them out. I got two shots off then went through the bunker passage to safer frontiers. Some revenants ran under that bunker but very sparingly so it made it easy to take care of them. I mostly used shotgun to take them out through the window but I could have used rockets, especially since the level has a lot of rocket pickups that went to waste at the end. Another rule-breaking Plutonia thing: having no regular exit out of Cyberden to Map 16 and instead forcing the player to do Map 32. Cyberden works as a great prologue to ‘Go 2 It’. On its own, it has a decent gimmick, the four cyberdemon fights are repetitive but are still intimidating. Up to this point, ‘Cyberden’ is probably the hardest map in commercial Doom. Then the next level happens...

‘15: The Twilight’ is a big sticking point in Plutonia. The aesthetics are cold and metallic. That opening hall sets the tone for the level. It’s not easy to shoot at the enemies that are firing back. You feel exposed. I was sniping the chaingunners in the distance with my chaingun and they were still getting hits on me in their return fire. In each of the six times I played this level, I opened the megasphere secret early, killed the revenants through the starting ‘nest’, but saved it to the end. I missed many secrets during the actual level, including that useful invulnerability sphere. I think the nastiest trap is the eastern wing and how it warps revenants and knights to the center of the intersection. The nastiest trap aside from the infinitely respawning chaingunner snipers. It’s been a long time since I had to just ignore a threat and walk around the place staying out of their line of fire (for most of the level, actually). The eastern wing, I can’t tell if it’s worse than the teleporting monsters. You can barely see the dozens of chaingunners sniping you and I used rockets to make sure most of them were dead. By the entrance to that big room is those small closets with cacos and pain elementals and I shot them dead each time. Never had to deal with that trap. The revenant that appears on top of the switch sucks, though. The final part of the map, the big spiderdemon room, is chaotic, but I fell back and let some infighting happen only to fire at pain elementals so they don’t spawn too many lost souls in the infighting. After the spiderdemon was dead, I ran up and grabbed the megasphere then returned back to the intersection halls to let the crushers crush the archviles. The only remain challenge was taking out the chaingunners around the spiderdemon arena and I guess the mancubi too. Before leaving the level I looked for some secrets and claimed that megasphere by the entrance. I’m surprised how easy it is to find the secret exit but my mind has been poisoned by all the community made wads where every map 15 you have to solve a complicated puzzle to open the secret exit. Anyway, this level is what I think about when I think of Plutonia. It’s got the chaingunners, the traps, and the tension that defines Plutonia. On the note of the midi pack, I love the uplifting and epic undertones of ‘Plummeting’ by Bucket. In such a climatic map, the big prog rock sound is warranted.

“14: Genesis” is a smaller map. It’s the opposite of cozy, though. The early parts of this level is me shooting everyone I can from the opening center area. I usually take out one third of the map’s pretty small enemy count. I was still stocking up on vitals from the previous map but walking out into that southern section with the arachnotron in the cage quickly put an end to that. I was getting punctured by the chaingunner in the corner and I didn’t realize that the floor is damage floor. I overcompensated in that room with the bridge where you pick up the blur effect and the shutters come down. I was beaten down pretty badly. That archvile that appears in the southern section, though… I got him to ride up the elevator by the yellow key in the western section of the map and took him out in his lonesome. Going down the elevator to take out the caco the archie revived sounded a little unpleasant with the possibility of the caco blocking the exit, but luckily the secret nearby teleported me to a ledge in the room, so I was able to take out the caco easily and grab the supercharge in the well. I don’t know what was up with that barrel room with the chaingunners. The barrels seemed inconsequential. The revenants on the way to the exit weren’t a problem and before I left the level, I remember that secret by the bloodfall and got the megaarmour. I took some hits between getting the supercharge and leaving the level but I still left in good condition. This is a short tricky level, but very good. ‘Plugged In’ by Bucket is a duet between suspenseful orchestral plucks and serene and melancholic waves of string section with electric guitar in the background. The motorik bass that feels like its inspired by post-punk wraps the song together in a ribbon.