LadyMistDragon

Well, I missed the black and purple keys but that's ok. This map took an INSANE amount of time to decipher progression in, not to mention at least one particular obscure shootable switch seeming to be mandatory! I kept missing the switch that lead to the blue key which was kind of disappointing. A couple of things relating to the meaning. The tiny little caches in the most obscure points made me essentially think there's always hope in darkness and madness. The numerous circle-shaped platforms and the overall feel of the map made me think of going around in circles over and over with hardly a better clue on what to do next and any finding of progression forward always managed to feel like pure happenstance :P The BFG message was hilarious and to be honest, how I'd expect this kind of relationship to be I missed out on far too much of the story, but if I were to take one overall theme from this, it's the contrast between turbulence and tranquility, between nihilism and the ever-tiny bits of hope which can be found throughout(the obscure non-secret caches and the lights that can occasionally be spottedin the distance. What's more, I would say the memory of what made the relationship happened has never really faded. As evidence by The industrial area was oddly enough, the most interesting to pick apart. The poisoned liquid wasn't harmful, yet, it was definitely precluding of actual harm. Navigating the area around the blue key was unsurprisingly the grimmest and probably touched on how life forces us into machine-like roles and breaks us down or smth. All I know is that it may have been too dark here because one would have to either look at the map or take a leap of faith to reach the blue key Then that ending......what were you saying about dramatic exactly?? :P A massive portion of the map opens up and we get swarmed by a stupidly massive swarm. But when that's all concluded, the closing walk through heavy rain is precisely how it feels to cool off after something quite extraordinary. And of course, I have to shout out the ending screen message that everyone will get their first time. Video coming soon.

heck +1 to FRAYED

Floating Points - Fast Forward

To be honest, I'd spotted those covers Dark Pulse found but catching the references wasn't my purpose. I feel like there might be references to Alien and Event Horizon in there

I hope little of note gets released tomorrow is all I'll say for now :D

I just couldn't figure out how to open to exit. Otherwise, nice callback to some of your early hell-themed material in the design sense, although the only real puzzle box is at the end.

Good idea, though there are visibility issues toward the end.

SURVIVAL.WAD (1995) by Jay Ashworth (Crispy Doom) Weird enough that this was made for Doom 1 in 95. But there's little else to say. STARTAN is everywhere. Themes change randomly. There's an oblifgatory Cyberdemond. Enemy groups are thrown into some rather non-threatening positions. There's a random slime-floored maze. And soooo many overly open areas. The stairwell leading outside seems it could lead to something cool with the framing. But nah. And what's the point of returning to that stupid maze anyway through the COMPBLU hallway? And the last wall raising before the end is pretty pointless when one can just press a nearby switch to lower it again. I swear there's a Jay Ashworth who went on to work in games but a quick google search revealed no obvious answers. 2/10

Catastrophe (2002) by Kevin "Magikal" Reay (GZ Doom) I knew I was going to hate this map the moment I rolled it. I also knew I was going to need plenty of time to finish it! And thank god this is only one of TWO Magikal solo releases in the archives (there's a few more on his personal website but that can only be accessed through archive.org and uh, I don't have to elaborate) Because this map in addition to throwing large hordes of enemies into places which are best avoided until quite late in the map when you've found some weapons, also loves sector tricks. Let's just say this: the each tower of the central building will spring some kind of maze inside, other than the one behind the blue key door that leads to a deadly trap that doesn't make a whole lot of sense until you return to the command center and find a red switch has appeared. Magikal's ability to be deceptive with visual language is quite vast and also has plenty of sadistic traps up his sleeve. For instance, fooling around with the console at the beginning will trigger a mass teleport trap probably best dispatched with a chaingun from upstairs but you're going to be ruined no matter what! Though I like the unique way the chamber opens to reveal itself. Probably only possible with pre Doom Builder editors! And just like Citadel at the Edge of Eternity, Kevin is not blocking off a single gap, meaning that you'll plunge yourself into an unwinning in the ugly as hell courtyard surrounding the tower if one doesn't watch out! The most infuriating region would have to be the maze that it seems really easy to find oneself going around in circles, especially if you miss a thing or two like I did, like the rocket launcher. One can probably expect the textures to hide things at times. And indeed, in one case, this opens up to an ugly as sin lava-room with transparent walls and nobles teleporting through the middle. But there's two switches. One leads to a key while the other opens the way back. But wait, it deposits us near the red key door! There's also a fake hallway that loops back in on itself, a marble room probably best described as a temple and what seems to be a waste plant with slime leaking everywhere. This latter one leads to a massive courtyard, containing pinkies at the bottom for no reason and all and a massive Imp teleport trap, backed by Revenants in seemingly inaccessible areas. Bottom-line is, we end up in a beautiful lava-filled cavern, with seemingly scattered enemies and increasingly uninspired teleport trapping. Although the one bit with the Baron in front and Revenants appearing mysteriously in the back is kind of nice. At the very top is a switch, which lowers a lift to the darkened chamber across from us and also causes two Cyberdemons to teleport on different pillars here. Thankfully, the darkened chamber is the exit, though you'll still have to contend with a Revenant or two. This map is so difficult to summarize, besides being profoundly cheap at the beginning. Like it's clear Kevin had a vision and stuck with it to the end. Perhaps the last crater scaling was meant to be a bit of a cooldown even. But while progression isn't quite as cryptic as it seems (some areas almost channel Jim Flynn I swear), the amount of inexcusable meanness is a bit much. If you want a Doom equivalent of the original Mother, you could certainly do worst and once one knows where to go, only the beginning is utterly unbearable. 6/10

In about 5-10 minutes, we're finishing Echelon before moving on to other stuff! https://www.twitch.tv/ladymistdragon1

And there was me thinking it was some shitpost. Looks so cool

Floating Points - Peroration Six

I don't know how much of a pillar it was when it was a serious thing for like, maybe 5 years if I'm remembering my Cacoward skimming right? Anyway, it's like Terry wads or other general immature tendencies of the time that are much better left in the past. If someone wants to make a jokewad, they're free to so, but most attempts are made by people that simply don't know what they are doing.

Thank you very much for sharing this! Although I wouldn't count out Map 04 entirely. I didn't spend too much time with it but people who don't mind claustrophobic issues will likely not have a problem with anything other than the possibility of it being too easy but that's a subjective perception so I really wouldn't worry too much about it. Admittedly, the exit rooms were quite repetitive from what I saw. The pathfinding for Map 05 was pretty curious tho since it was just backtracking to the yellow key. Nice willingness to use Arch-viles btw. First one in 05 especially is going to be pretty nasty! Cool usage of teleport traps all around.

Just because this was kind of ignored. I didn't care a whole lot for the first map, but afterwards, there was some truly inspired Doomcute and even some fairly cool ambushes!

A Very punch you in the face Christmas (2020) by @punch you in the face man (Nugget Doom) People on the /vr/ boards tend to have rather colorful aliases if they aren't entirely anonymous. 'punch you in the face men,' sounds a little uninspired or perhaps the reflection of a meathead mentality. Anyway, his maps tend to be at least interesting and to a degree, have similarities to Huy Pham, due to both slaughter tendencies and Eternal Doom influences at points. This particular map is a short, easy, and straightforward Christmas map. Pinkies at the beginning seems intimidating but targeting the Pain Elementals should keep things from becoming too difficult. The green and red industrial bricks in the last main are pretty cool and the Cyber in the middle going up and down makes it more probable to target the enemies on the sides. The Mancubi room will require some targeting of the central cell though because the teleporter which takes you to said cell will plop you in the middle of them otherwise. Map ends in a lift with 3 Cyberdemons and plenty of ammo. 7/10

I'd rather not. Although props to Todd Phillips for showing what a stupid idea a sequel was

ACS Arcade (2007) by Isle (GZ Doom) In a time when people were still eager to experiment with ZDoom comes this set of 4 little minigames, each accessed by a Doom-themed arcade machine. One of them is like Duck Hunt, the other is a blatant copy from Doom 3, the other is just simple Pong while the other is a Rad Racer-type game, only with the car model having something of an influence. Though the games are simple enough I can't really recommending playing them for long, they're at least fully functional within their limits 5/10 Pond of the Deathmatch Crater (1995) by Michael Lundy (Crispy Doom) Don't you just love descriptions that leave writing anything about the map pointless? :D So basically, every player starts out in a house next to a dresser or bed. It's square-shaped and other than having a fairly boring layout, actually seems pretty fun. And that midi slaps. I do wonder why a DM map was made for the first Doom at this particular date. SSG hater? 6/10 Happy Birthday InsanityBringer (2010) by Jon "40oz" Vail (Crispy Doom) 40oz and InsanityBringer were both kind of new to the community at this point. Although I don't think that's why this map was short and speedy. 40oz was certainly capable of magnum opus maps as UAC Ultra had already proved by this point. Anyways, this is a map of constant action, albeit one that won't give the SS to you until probably around 3/4ths through then quickly earns its keep when a pair of Revenants was encountered when backtracking from said boomstick. There are also two Arch-viles which appear after this, one at the entrance and another one on the ledge in the exit room. Be careful though, a Baron of Hell gets chucked in the exit room. There should be enough spare ammo to get by however. The pre Super Shotgun Cacodemons are enemies we could probably have done without. Still well-worth the time to play though 6.5/10

Oresund Space Collective - Sleeping with the Sunworm

DEMONIAC.WAD (1996) by David "Hawk" Schultz (Crispy Doom) I don't know about 'memorable' necessarily, however it's not exactly empty bragging either. There are so many symmetrical layouts that might have decent backdrops but they blend into one another. While this one is greatly lacking in symmetry, there's a great balance between verticality, tight spaces and plenty of unique obstacles that players should be able to use to their advantage. I think Goldeneye maps were all better than this still but that might be Nostalgia speaking (well, except for Complex, that map can go to hell) 5/10 QDOOM - Quake Doom Doom Style (2001, 2005 re-release) by Marc "Fanatic" Pullen (EDGE Classic) With the recent release of a mod whose name escapes me (but it was pretty bad name anyway), this is oddly fortuitous timing for me to stumble on the very first well-known attempt at replicating Quake in Doom, by someone who had largely pulled back from the community for some time. I remember attempting to play this on PrBoom probably in 2007 and being frustrated because I couldn't get the awesome soundtrack to run and also, it looked like utter crap with zero effects. Later opinion seemed to suggest that it was quickly outdated. And after having given this a decent shot, I can't entirely agree. See, despite that these maps definitely aren't Quake-like in any fashion outside of the techbases to a certain degree, the design and emphasis on natural environments is such that it's almost better than OG Quake in that regard. Ok, there's far too much brown and green but that's kind of a Quake hallmark so I don't really think there's a whole lot to complain about there. And that soundtrack is utter gold. Like I know Pullen made music, having heard some of it in wads before. However, I didn't realize he was capable of producing a high quality catchy sort of thing like this! It definitely has a heavy industrial bent but at times, will dip into other styles. If nothing else, I have little complaints There are some rather serious problems however. First is that when the game gets dark, it gets DARK. It mostly doesn't matter too much except in underwater areas where rotfish will totally wreck most players but this isn't present in the first two episodes so it's probably fine. The second is how firing speed is decreased. While I think it's possible to work with that to a degree, it just feels so bad to miss what feels like double the shots than what one might miss in Quake. The final and probably worst one is the utter dearth in ammo. I suppose one might be able to find a marginal increase if they were good at looking in secrets, however, it does seem like infighting is expected to a degree, but it mostly failed to work out for me and in either case, starts getting intolerable in E3 when we get forced to fight a Shambler in the second level while rotfish attack from the water and Scrags annoy from above. I don't want to completely drag this down. It actually has some really good rain effects in EDGE and the canyon in the last map looks genuinely nice. At the same time, the constant enemy swarming is a little weird and ammo doesn't really get increased so much to compensate 5/10

Little River Band - Help is on its way

Shannara (finished) Turns out one of the Elfstones was hidden in an anoynmous bookshelf. Well, at least it's not any more cryptic than the original. Nice sort of glade near skull mountain btw! This last map introduces Wendigos along with an infinitely spawning mountain of Reavers and ends with a Hiersarch. And this where I found the Wraithverge is an ineffective weapon against them. Hiersarch dies, portal opens, new story text is played. Guess this isn't a whole lot better than vanilla Hexen in most respects which probably isn't a bad thing 7.5/10 WHIROOM.WAD (White Room) (1994) by Doug Ryerson (Crispy Doom) Supposedly an attempt at removing a rather nasty HOM at one point, White Room sinks into 90s cliches more throughly than any Ryerson map before or since. Pathfinding is nonexistent, unmarked walls are required for progress at a point or two, and the interlinking is not as through as perhaps it should be for a map of this kind. But bits of personality will show through, like the waiting desk at one point, along with the opening hallway. At the same time, the utterly random COMPBLU room does nothing to boost a positive impression of this map and if I meet one more random lift linedef located behind a cross-shaped barrel pattern I'll.....but it's not an especially complicated map. I also have to wonder where the custom midi came from because it's much too upbeat to be the cream classic 4/10