The DWmegawad Club plays: THT: Threnody & No Rest for the Living

MAP14 - “Labour of Despair” by Philip “Liberation” Brown
I didn't like this one much, the visuals were okay for the most part, but ammo was far too light and I didn't find a beserk pack or chainsaw to save ammo either, some of the monster placement was questionable and some areas were far too big for their own good. The double cyber fight I simply skipped because I could not be bothered, especially after the vile and slow blood combo almost fried me.

MAP15 - “TY45-15” by didy
This one was pretty good on the whole, the start was a little frustrating as I seemed to be able to be hit by every hitscanner on every attempt but after this the map moved along at a decent pace and I had quite a bit of fun here. The visuals are nice and despite the author using some usual forms of switch pressing it wasn't hard to figure out. Definitely a thumbs up from me had, the music was decent here too and I preferred this to the "Hells bells" remix on map12.

Map11
The "two versions of the same place, and what you do in one influences the other" was also done in Going Down, if I recall correctly. It's a decent enough concept, though I did think it was a little drawn out here: a bit too much teleporting back and forth between areas you'd already (mostly) cleared.

Looks-wise it is solid, with both areas being distinctive despite their similar layouts. Said layout is mostly pretty strong, though I did find that there were a couple of places where you were under attack from monsters you had no change to see due to height differentials.

I think this would probably be an interesting map to see a really good demo for.

MAP16: Ayahuasca - Chris Hansen
Time: 11:10 (03:39:26) | Deaths: 4

Arch-vile behind you as soon as you start the map. Oh shit, flames, where is it? Boom. Dead. Why is this a thing.
After a lacklustre MAP04, I was hoping the project leader would deliver one really good map in this project and...nope.

For the most part, this was not fun in the slightest. Difficulty creeps up slightly, but judging by rileymartin's post, the only major challenge comes from pistol starting the map, but that apparently wasn't fun in itself. The map features some slightly obscure puzzle-y progression, I got lost a couple of times, and that wouldn't have mattered too much, but having the blood being damaging really restricts how long you're allowed to be lost for. I really think that should all have been non-damaging, would have been more fun that way.
Cyberdemon looks cool and imposing before it wakes up, being all silhouetted, then when it turns up it's a complete non-threat and skippable, so I didn't even bother wasting my ammo, as there is 0 incentive to kill it.

The later stages of the map were dark corridors that weren't particularly fun to fight in, summed up by the fact that I brought the BFG out for small fights where it really wasn't necessary just to get them over with quicker.

Another fantastic looking level, but the gameplay just isn't there for me. Not shite from continuous, and not the worst in the set, but some poor design choices IMO present here, redeemed only by the fact the map isn't that long. Miles better than Wormhell, but this is likely to end up in my bottom 5.

5/10

Hi DWMC! About time I decided to join one of these, always wanted to but I've never had the chance. After finally finishing Ancient Aliens and blasting through Icarus in preparation I think It's time to play some THT. Hopefully I catch up by the time NRFTL starts!

I'll be playing GZDoom, UV-continuous, freelook and save scumming.

Map 1 - Eirene
Pretty fun opener here, not much in the way of opposition, mostly lower level monsters. As far as first levels go, it does a good enough job of grabbing your attention and making you want more.

Map 2 - Rockage
On to what feels like a homage to Quarry from Icarus, or at least the general feel of Icarus's planet levels. Maybe I'm just seeing things though, but things like that winding caves and the red key to end the level sell the idea to me. Fairly short, although I spent longer that I should have trying to find the red key, walked right passed the opening too many times.

Map 3 - Chemical Facility
Looks like a nukage processing facility, infested with all our demonic friends. The action picks up around here, especially after picking up the double shotgun. For over 200 monsters, the level goes by quickly, not really any sort of dull moment to be found. I'm not sure if it was the level or me just being careless, but I got down to 1% health more often than I would have liked to.

Map 4 - Manly Hatred
Some sort of techbase nested in the mountains is our next destination. The opening trap with the chaingunners after getting the double barrel was nasty, completely took me by surprise. Aside from that, the level never got too difficult, more high energy action, albeit in a slightly cramped locale this time. First time using the rockets, and I gotta say I'm not too much a fan of the rocket replacement sound, but maybe I'll get used to it.

Map 5 - Nukevil
The difficulty keeps on going up with this hectic map. Quite a large number of critters here, compared with the first few maps at least. The duo of revenents right at the first doorway destroyed me straight away, learned pretty quick not to run ahead. With the secret invul sphere and BFG I was expecting some more heavy resistance, although the BFG came in handy for quickly dispatching the arch-viles. Strong E1 feel here, with the textures and especially the midi, gave the level a classic feel.

MAP16 - “Ayahuasca” by Chris Hansen
I feel so far that I might be the odd one out here in saying I liked this map, sure you have to put some effort into acquiring the bigger weapons but I actually managed okay with skipping a lot of the monsters and picking off the weaklings before getting both the rocket launcher and the plasma gun. The area beyond the yellow key door I struggled a little bit but this was mostly due to the fact that I put around 10 bullets towards that shootable switch but somehow RNG managed to miss that switch every time so I spent around 10 minutes trying to find something else, the lifts could be made a little more obvious I guess. I liked the final area as you can get easily caught out by monsters released a long way from you so a baron and a couple of pinkies lead me into a false sense of security when I was suddenly swamped 30 seconds later by a horde of archviles, cacos and pain elementals.
Hansen has always had a habit of testing the players in non-conventional ways ever since the likes of 2002ado and to be honest I have never minded his maps and the same could be said about this one.

MAP13: Binde Haldetmand Palae
23:14 | 100% Kills | 78% Items | 0% Secrets

A nice little breather map. I thought it was a little odd how (aside from an initial ambush) the staring areas stayed completely empty for a time. Of course, then bam! baddies everywhere. More gorgeous gothic texturing. I couldn't for the life of me figure out a single secret, and I could only guess where two of them were.


MAP14: Labour of Despair
41:49 | 95% Kills | 92% Items | 100% Secrets

I liked this one a lot. It put me in mind of something from the Death Tormention series. Not normally a fan of slow floors, but as it was only used sparingly here (in deep-water blood) it wasn't too bad; still not sure it was necessary, though. Loved the vistas once you got outside. Great map with lots of fun secrets to root out.


MAP15: TY45-15
30:04 | 100% Everything

Another map seemingly plucked out of Eternal Doom. Lots of switches to hunt and wonder what they did. Everything's nice and compact, though, so there's not a ton of hunting to do. Combat was mostly decent, and I liked all the bars/windows open to other areas to shoot through. The tribute at the crypt exit area was very neat.


MAP16: Ayahausca
34:51 | 100% Everything

I loved this one, too. There were definitely some dickish areas (most vexing for me was the blood-crawl past the yellow switch door, where I lost a lot of health wandering around trying to figure out what to do.) The starting archie did freak me out, but I was able to dodge into an alcove in time, and then (since I already had the SSG via continuous play) I was able to take him out quickly. I love-love-loved the multiply-nested secrets accessible from the blood-pool in the southern edge of the map, and how the path to the exit wrapped around that entire section. Super cool.

MAP16 - “Ayahuasca” by Chris Hansen
UV - Pistol Start - gzDoom

I enjoyed this map. Smaller but with lots of exploritory bits. It felt like the design here had a kind of "Dark Soulsian" kind of philosophy going on. Meaning that anywhere you can see.. eventually you will be. Or could be, if you find the secrets. Which is why I liked crawling around various passages to come out on the other side later on with an "ah hah" moment. The "I recognize where I am now" feeling is a rewarding experience after being lost and exploring tight dangerous areas.

I liked the idea of a sneaky AV that greets you at the start to eventually ambush you later. The Caco swarm with the two spiders perched above was fun. Multiple smaller enclosed open areas with imps all around, kept things tense. Especially when you throw in a chaingunner, couple of Caco's, PE's, HK's and a few Revs sitting in the far corner behind you. Just a good smaller mix of things here and there.

The visual early on of the still Cyberdemon in the shadows was cool.



Also liked the blood cave/sewers parts with neat looking stuff.

Map 16: Ayahuasca

Bless you.

This is good in many respects -- design and atmosphere, the better parts of the combat -- but the earlier parts can drag in places unless you unlock some of the secret chain. The yard with the rocket launcher is awkward. If you stay put, you have to contend with the infinite height of the souls combined with the awkward map geometry. If you jump straight to the SSG secret, you have to contend with the infinite height of the imps combined with the awkward map geometry. The BFG shrine throws a pair of really high cacodemons in a tiny space, just because. After the infinite height shenanigans are over, it's a pleasant map. The last BFG sweeping area could use additional monsters for cinematic effect -- the fun is over in just a few BFG shots! The cyberdemon might have been intended to teleport down when it awoke, as there's a set of teleport lines around it with an incorrect tag.

Hectic scheduling means I continue to be behind the curve, but I'm still here, bringing up the rear.

Map 10 -- Fomalhaut - 100% Kills / 88% Secrets
Here we see a lavishly modern take on a classic location-focused setting, that being a UAC research station and excavation site found near some macabre ruins, presumably another of the many so-called Anomalies. I finished this with 8/9 secrets in about 57 minutes, making it fairly short by Mekmap standards, something I'd attribute to the northern hemisphere of the level being much larger than it is dense--that is to say, the sprawling network of caves and grottoes around the excavation site housing the shrine to the red skull key, while spatially expansive, is fairly sparse with its action, with the vast majority of the monster presence there materializing in or immediately around the walled yard, where it can be liquidated pretty quickly in spite of the huge bodycount (or at least it can if you've got the BFG 9000, anyway). Overall mapflow also turned out to be more straightforward than it initially seemed, with the route making complete loops through the facility after acquisition of each key, most of what limited navigational complications are present eliding from the welter of red-locked doors on the west side all going to different chambers.

As is so often the case with Mechadon's craft, the most striking aspect of the presentation is the expanse, depth, and the sheer scale of the setting. Not a piddling budget-conscious outpost, the facility is a towering citadel of vaguely industrial science (I was personally reminded of the atmospheric processors from "Aliens" while scampering around outside of it), marked by sweeping cupolas and broad, airy topside thoroughfares with cramped utilitarian maintenance tunnels running the length of its underbelly and battened in between the seams (and, if you look closely, you can surmise that these offmap areas are the final resting place of most of the base's ill-fated staff). Surrounded by flood-plains and complex knots of wind-caves on all sides, the intermediary zones between the base proper and the wilderness (what planet is this on, anyway?) are often occupied by large, more or less open yards, which serve as venues for much of the level's most intense bloodletting.

As touched upon above, actual level progression here is more or less linear and more actively guided/mandated than one might initially suspect (particularly in comparison to something like "Tricyclic Looper" or "Unstable Journey" from BTSX, for instance), but never feels particularly on-rails since you can explore much of the facility upon first entering (most of the gated/locked progression milestones take you outside of the base rather than to a new place within it), and a couple of short optional 'sidequests' (for the BFG and a visit to one of Threnody's several memorials to Ty Halderman) presenting themselves farther in. The sheer scale and richness of the environment, allowing you plenty of space to run free and poke around for technically inconsequential bonus items and the like (esp. in the northerly region), also complements the linear route nicely, establishing a sense of incidental location in lieu of a more baldfaced experiential corridor. While the level's pretty straighforward/traditional as far as its progression tropes and monster reveals and such are concerned, it also manages some memorable cinematic touches in places; making you navigate a brief prelude before entering the base proper (which also presages the deceptively outdoor focus of the level's second half), the slow lowering of the northern barricades to reveal a demonic siege force, and the distant view of the base suddenly crawling with hellspawn anew as you appraise it from afar just after scoring the red skull being but a few of these.

Action alternates evenly between incidental skirmishing in and around the station itself and a series of larger battles against mixed assault waves of foes tied to progression milestones--these are often framed as 'ambushes', though they are generally so heavily telegraphed that no genuine element of surprise seems intended. The trick about maps built expansively like this one is balancing monster placement in such a way that the large spaces don't feel empty, while also ensuring that the longform progression doesn't become untowardly exhausting or labor-intensive. IMO, Mechadon has consistently been very good about this in his maps, and "Fomalhaut" shows a lot of his usual playbook: the aforesaid 'skirmishes' involve sizable groups of weak monsters (groups of a dozen zombies, six-packs of imps, etc.) positioned in a variety of ways (hallway guards, snipers, flankers, etc.) which credibly staff the environment while presenting an experience that is bloody without being particularly demanding, allowing focus to remain on the environment rather than on fights per se, with the larger milestone battles serving as cinematic exclamation points, and the cave-crawling to the north acting as a sort of atmospheric intermezzo to break up the pacing a bit.

Mechadon generally doesn't use much in the way of really complex choreography or unusual fight concepts/mechanics in his maps, and this one's no exception, though there is a running motif of the key fights getting larger and larger and.....yes, larger over the course of progression, leading one to wonder where the ceiling will be as a sort of light ratiocinative play. On this first blind playthrough, I felt that the various waves appearing around the northerly yard were perhaps a mite too similar in composition/point of origin and predictable in timing to be entirely compensated for by the cinematic approach, but I suppose there's some wiggle-room here in that you can probably trigger most/all of them at once for something resembling a true slaughter once you know what you're doing. If I had played this much earlier in my Doom career, I could also see myself getting scared of the sheer size of the enemy forces and hiding out in the caves for a sort of guerilla warfare approach, so some flexibility in the design seems to be available there, as well.

Satisfying and engrossing, as always.

Welcome back!

^ Thank you, glad to be back.

Map 11 -- Parallel Dimension - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
While this is pretty obviously intended as a play on the concept of what is probably Ty's most famous map ("Wormhole" from Evilution), like a number of the other Club players the first thing I thought of was actually "Time Warp" (map 05 of Going Down), by Mouldy, using a similarly compact design and some similar progression design despite the very different approach to diegetic framing. The bit with the soulsphere in the Eternal dimension also reminded me heavily of "Skinny Puppy" from Requiem, by the by, but in actual fact I kinda get the impression that these similarities are more coincidental than a case of active allusion or inspiration. The general level concept is fairly straightforward: there are two mostly identical versions of one more or less abstract general-purpose Doomplace linked by a portal which the player can visit at any time; actions and environmental changes occurring in one dimension will carry over to the other, and completing the level thus involves ping-ponging back and forth between them (while battling foes at every step, of course) in order to eventually collect the keys and build a bridge to the exit. I don't have any real experience with Antares031's work prior to this, so I'm not really equipped to make a particularly deep analysis here, but the two things that most jumped out to me were the eclectic/frenetic approach to aesthetic (particularly texture selection) and what I felt to be a somewhat overstated approach to monster placement.

First, the visuals: the 'main' dimension depicts what I guess you'd call a 'techbase' for lack of a better term, but it uses a wide variety of stock and custom assets in concert to present a place that's rather a thematic patchwork given how small it is--there's a clinical white computer lab, a corporate foyer decorated like a military base, a musty old wood/plaster library, a mossy antique well or cistern, and a bizarre slimy techo-shrine housing the red keycard. It doesn't look or feel like much of anything as a place, and transitions between themes are more than a little arbitrary, accentuated by the compact scale of construction. However, if you were to look at any given screenshot I reckon you'd find that adjacent textures/flats mostly fit together in intuitive and occasionally genuinely interesting ways (for example, techlamp insets flanking the SSG's podium). The parallel dimension is a lot more thematically coherent in that it basically presents a medievalized version of everything in its counterpart, using primarily Eternal textures, though in a no less eclectic way. Speaking for myself, my preference usually tends towards settings that are a little bit more unified in theme (or those that deliver an off-the-wall but very definite setting via an aesthetic madhouse, ala map 08), but I've been playing Doom more than long enough not to have my silkens bunch up at the sight of a looser or more vividly abstract presentation (and a looser theme is a hallmark of any number of TNT maps, to whit, in spite of their overarching fascination for representationalism), and I felt that Antares here made a pretty credible stab where any number of others would've likely shown something too garish/messy to be palatable, marrying an old-fashioned disparate non-theme with enough modern attention to concourse and detailing to hold everything together credibly. Really dig the little diorama out of the southern window-slits in the medieval dimension, incidentally--for something so inconsequential that scene looks ridiculously poignant, IMO.

General progression is quite linear but lent a lot of zest through the level's concept, with certain interstitial passages that you might take for granted in one dimension making themselves felt through their absence in the other, and playfully exaggerated presentations made out of key-get mechanisms, ala Yorick's stand-in as the 'red key' in the parallel dimension. The stuff's not rocket science, but it works. Actual combat doesn't always go down so smoothly, unfortunately--there's a heavy slant towards mid-tier Doom II beasties from the word-go, and given the compact nature of the surroundings things get a bit stuffy pretty quickly, though in a way that's more 'uncomfortable' than it is anything resembling 'threatening.' Hell knights "just because" and both flavors of gasbag in places where they don't function ideally (i.e. narrow low-ceiled corridors) are both constant occurrences, and lots of fights tend to leave little room for flourish or improvisation since motility of both monsters and player is usually constrained by the scale. One room in the parallel dimension stands out in my mind as particularly overblown, that being the podium room, which is carpeted in arachnotrons that can barely move and usually can't effectively hit you (or anyone else) unless you flagrantly disregard them. Balance also swings wildly depending on whether or not you find many secrets: don't get any and you've got a fairly slow, methodical slog; get most of them and you'll be stacked with so much plasma that you can treat the PR like a squirt-gun and just hose down everyone and everything with very little regard for tactics or weapon choice. The result is that most of the combat alternates between feeling forced, and feeling trivial.

It's certainly not all bad, far from it--there's a pretty solid helping of window-usage and height variation (somewhat downplayed by the squat scale, though), and the author has used a cute little setpiece that nevertheless has the power to kill you pretty quickly if you don't treat it with respect as a well-positioned climax to the level--but generally speaking I felt like the level's playability falls victim somewhat to the expectations of its spot in the roster/place in the difficulty curve, and would probably be more consistently enjoyable if it used mainly trash monsters, or perhaps favored a more tightly-balanced austerity/route-finding approach.

Map 17: Tyvivec

I think this is a fun map. Open, lots of bloodshed, and for the most part you are given the right weaponry to handle the job: no delayed mid-tier weapon, and a secret BFG that isn't so obscure. The highlights are the !<3! incidental combat !<3! around the square structures, and the blue key fight, which is a nice low-pressure slaughter moshpit. I also liked the distant sniping arachnotron. Distant snipers are a much maligned enemy usage, but here, the pressure is hardly annoying, and it looks cool.

But the map narrowly misses out on being in consideration for the set's top five, imo, owing to a host of minor design mistakes.

1) Weaponized mid textures. This is an author trademark. I really don't like this at all. It has the same problem as other related design element such as awkward map geometry and basically any cheap trick: if you take damage, it will not feel fair, at all! I can't imagine what the very last fight would be without the BFG. It would probably be the worst fight in the mapset so far.

2) Those caged imps. What are they doing there? They contribute zero to the gameplay at all other than being quite annoying to find on a completionist run.

3) The simplistic layout. It's a set of boxes, connected orthogonally, each containing a central structure. It would have taken no more than a few hours to conceive of and design a more sophisticated arrangement.

4) Use of impassable lines around the boxes prevent cacodemons from roaming more freely. It might have been quite interesting to release a fleet of cacos at some point! This one is minor, however, more a matter of taste, because I think the ground-level combat was enjoyable as is. :)

Okay, I enjoyed this map, but more than any map so far, it feels like it didn't live up to its potential.

Also I kind of like that TROLL partial invisibility secret. LOL. It would be a very big middle finger to whoever wanted to max the map, but the BFG liquidates everything quickly enough.

Just popping in real fast to express my gratitude for playing Threnody and for all the praise and critism! When you're done I will upload a new version with some fixes - more on that later.

Map 16 - Ayahuasca

Good level design & fair challenging gameplay. Sweet music too.

No further comment.

rdwpa said:

Weaponized mid textures.

What does it mean?

MAP17 - “Tyvivec” by Angry Saint

Hmm this map felt like it was made by someone who is rather new to the mapping scheme, the map felt rather boxy and simplistic at times and the secrets were rather cliche for the the newbie mapper (BFG secret in cyber fight for example).
This one you at least felt like you could play aggressively for most of the map which is a nice change of pace. The key fights are pretty decent to be fair including the mob at the blue key which I handled without the BFG.
The end fight is a real low point though, yeah, never do that again please :)
In the end I found this one to be pretty decent to play.

Angry Saint said:

What does it mean?

Thick mid textures used to obscure monster locations, attack animations, and projectiles (until the last moment). In TCCL, the opaque vine maze with hitscanners and a turreted mancubus is another example.

I think imps and cacos and hell nobles can be used freely behind these, but the rest of the ranged monsters require more careful setups. Revs can be especially obnoxious because their fireballs could loop around quite a few times.

rdwpa said:

!<3! incidental combat !<3!

The all-new hit musical.

rdwpa said:

Thick mid textures used to obscure monster locations, attack animations, and projectiles (until the last moment). In TCCL, the opaque vine maze with hitscanners and a turreted mancubus is another example.

I think imps and cacos and hell nobles can be used freely behind these, but the rest of the ranged monsters require more careful setups. Revs can be especially obnoxious because their fireballs could loop around quite a few times.

If you refer to the vine at the end, you cannot seriously say they obscure monsters location and attacks, as it it perfectly possible to see what is happening on the other side...

MAP17 - “Tyvivec” by Angry Saint
UV - Pistol Start - gzDoom

Fun, relatively straight forward map. Fun Cyberdemon battle. Lots of varied packs outside each little island sector. Enjoyable to kill.

The HK trap with the four switches in each corner was very dangerous but fair. I liked how one or two would get teleported right away so their starting positions switched just enough to give you an opening to start circling them the right way. If you step carefully through the bars and the RNG works in you favor right away they'll just bunch up in the middle while you Do-si-do with a shotgun. Good stuff!

The 4 platforms with Revs surrounding the two AV's was a weird choice. Pretty damn annoying going up for a SSG blast, and running back down again before you get destroyed as there is zero cover up there. Repeat over and over and over... blah. Not fun.

The exit encounter with the vine walls was deadly as hell. I died a bunch of times trying to get that down right. Ending up usings my last few rockets for the pack of Revs to start out, squeeze past the HK/Baron's once the first bars dropped open. Then I stayed behind the switch for some much needed hard cover after killing the spider. Worked out pretty well, eventually. Had just barely enough ammo to pull it off. Whew.

Eris Falling said:

http://i.imgur.com/6NY3UV7.jpg
The all-new hit musical.

lol awesome

Angry Saint said:

If you refer to the vine at the end, you cannot seriously say they obscure monsters location and attacks, as it it perfectly possible to see what is happening on the other side...

Not particularly well.

Map 18: Fallen Steward - Eternal Archive

An oddball of a map. There are way more rockets than you really need, enough to render the other weapons superfluous, and enough soulspheres to allow you to Good at Doom yourself a few times. Played casually this might feel underwhelming, I suppose, but it appears to be a fun map to speedrun. Only problem with that is it's entirely obvious that the quickest record UV-Max time involves hoping the spider mastermind gets stuck and killed, which is a sort of bottleneck that will render future attempts pointless whenever someone gets it, unless you want to grind RNG for something that might happen 1 in 50 tries or whatever. The soulsphere secret behind the yellow key might as well be a BFG or invul instead. The lift secret is a nice touch -- the switch displays a flashing "RIP TY" message on the floor near the SSG pickup.

MAP17: Tyvivec
36:33 | 100% Everything

This one was kinda fun. Almost felt like a rough cut of an Eternal Doom map. It's not really an impressive level, nothing is too terribly difficult; there are a handful of horde ambushes, but they're quite telegraphed and easy enough to handle if you've got your BFG ready. (The only one that caught me by surprise was the exit are, mainly because I had no idea what to expect.) Straferunning around the islands and stirring up trouble (and then killing it) was entertaining enough, though.

Map 12 -- Wormhell - 106% Kills / 75% Secrets - FDA (mostly).
Alright, I generally try not to read the comments on maps I've not played until after I've completed them, but naturally I sometimes pick up little bits and pieces while skimming the thread, and what little I saw on this one made it clear that it was getting strong reactions out of folks (mostly negative). Put in me mind to record an FDA ('for science' and all that), although this one's not 100% blind--I caught the last 10 minutes or so of one of Suitepee's streams wherein he stopped in the middle of this map to go do something else, and so I saw part of the crate room (darkside, I think?) and a lot of the conveyor depot beforehand. The rest of the run is blind. Think I saved once or twice somewhere around 350 kills in, but ended up surviving and never had to load--didn't play particularly well (and I think I forgot I had the BFG for a while), but never really came particularly close to snuffing it, either.

The concept here is "Wormhole" again, obviously, and a much more straightforward (if greatly expanded) riff on/homage to the original level than map 11's reimagining. There are not one but two alternate dimensions this time, each more infernal than the last--my reading was that the first/starting dimension is our known reality, the third dimension was a sort of hellish mockery or parody, and the second was some kind of haunted, timeless limbo. Level progression here is pretty interesting in that it seemed extremely simple yet also patently unclear: I believe that a very large portion of the content is optional--the lightside conveyor room, the vast majority of the darkside dimension (the chief subquest here seems to be eventually acquiring the two plasma weapons?), etc.--with most of the mandatory stuff packed into the third hell-dimension. Some areas also seem to exist simply out of faithfulness to the mirrored-dimension concept and are not only optional but also contain little practical reason to actually visit them (which of course you won't know until after you've made the foray), ala the lightside yard or the darkside lobby. In hindsight, the actual route to the exit seems to be exceedingly simple--"go east", basically--but given the huge amount of diversion available and the fact that there is very little signposting concerning what you need to be doing and little or no immediate feedback when you've made progress, it can certainly be easy to feel adrift without a particular goal or purpose here, something which is surely bad news for more navigationally-challenged marines. For my part, I generally have a decent sense of direction and don't usually mind being lost when the situation arises organically (as it does here, mostly), and of course I'm not put off by long/large maps. However, I find I must agree to some considerable extent with the sentiment that this level's a chore to actually fight through, and its lack of guideposting will probably only exacerbate this for many players.

As I see it, the problems largely stem from thing placement and handling of combat, rather than from layout or level concept. This is a spiteful, passive-aggressive sort of affair, seldom truly dangerous outside of an admirably cheeky dick-move or two (i.e. the "Disaster Zone", easily the map's single most memorable encounter) but with a constant commitment to being as much of a pain in the ass as possible, for......reasons? Overall monster composition is quite heterogeneous, and the entire roster (save the SS Nazi) makes an appearance at one point or another. The single most common monster role here, regardless of type or tier, seems to be "sniper"--both more exploratory/free-play segments (crate rooms, yard runs, etc.) and the more tightly structured encounters (conveyor rooms, 4-square pit on the eastern half of the Hell dimension, etc.) seem to rely on snipery to generate most of their actual pressure, meaning that the former cases theoretically hinge on a player charging in to eliminate key snipers before cleaning up the rest of the mess, and the latter are all about area denial, attempting to keep the player pinned in a particular spot while simultaneously trying to crowd said spot with rushers/swarmers. The number of times the map goes to the well with this latter concept is really quite striking, and not entirely in its favor....take the "Disaster Zone" fight, where the cyberdemon holds the high ground and bullies you into staying on the entry half of the little shed, which is then subject to pressure from flyers approaching from afar. Okay, cool, I liked that fight, myself. Then I visited the darkside conveyor room, and it's a different coat of paint on a similar concept--the static arch-viles in the vents and scrolling artillery on the conveyors make exposing yourself highly untenable, so you have to use a small/inconvenient safe spot to gain some initial leverage, with the authors blanketing said spot in pain elementals to make the fight longer and messier and more resource-hungry (though not actually much more difficult). Then, soon enough, I reach the 4-square pit, and it's the same thing again, with irregularly phasing arch-viles rendering most of the playspace unusable until they eventually trickle out to ground level via an apparently somewhat shoddy pathing setup. By this point in a long map, I'm tired of using the same positional techniques to subdue cosmetically different setpieces.

A natural argument here is that the onus is on the player to use different techniques in the name of fun, then, right? Not going to fly, here--for the most part, these encounters are weighted in such a way that aggression/charging in would not be merely brash, but actively/willfully stupid, since none of them really possess a hidden trick or optimization strategy you could learn through experimentation--they're very straight fights in that sense, what you see is what you get with few hidden wrinkles, and what you see is high-powered attrition mostly taking exposure off of the table as an option. Less of an issue if you're just constantly reloading a save, arguably (and I'm not a subscriber to the idea that mappers should always feel obligated to make their levels realistically beatable on a blind run), but the issue of variety remains. This repetitiveness is complicated by a welter of minor but persistent nuisances marking the more incidental portion of the play--for example, snipers in these segments tend to be high and far away, and able to jitter around a lot on long narrow tracks, making for lots of missed rocket-shots while cleaning them up (esp. revenants). Chaingunners positioned in distant, elevated pillboxes where they are difficult to efficiently target even if charged are a regular occurrence. Ammo and healing are both plentiful, and the overall thing balance is more than reasonable in that sense, but pickups tend to be concentrated in a handful of areas (esp. the crate rooms) where they are scattered in small doses pell-mell around irregular terrain, such that locating and collecting them to top up eventually turns into quite a time investment over the course of the map, further adding to its length. Occasionally, a truly baffling or nonsensical placement decision will crop up, ala the lonely spider mastermind in the darkside's central yard, which is pinned in place in one of the corners by a block-line. Monsters which silent-port around can regularly be caught (visually) in the act without even trying--it occurred to me that at least some of the time this was probably intended as a surreal cinematic element, but more often than not it made the choreography look unpolished/untested, like if you're watching a movie and the boom mic keeps intruding on the edge of the shot. Silly IoS outro aside (which I kinda liked, TBH), the level ends with a couple of stonewall camping fights prosecuted through an extremely steep and extremely narrow stairwell. WTF....?

Quality of construction/aesthetic and robustness of concept here are both above average; thing placement and encounter design are its problem areas. There are cool ideas in several places throughout the map's significant expanse, both on the setpiece level (Disaster Zone, crate room moshes, etc.) and in general framing (markedly rocket-heavy ammo balance, secrets found through interactions between different dimensions), but as far as gameplay goes I can only interpret what I see here as the result of practical inexperience meshing with the desire to create a tough map for the sake of it. In sum, I'd say the level feels more deeply inconvenient than it does truly/legitimately challenging; occasionally slacking the leash and varying pace more over a lengthy engagement often produces better results in the long run.

rdwpa said:

lol awesome

Not particularly well.

You're right. It may be subjective.

Nevertheless, thank you for your comments!

Map 17 - Tyvivec

I like the level design. It's unique.

Though the traps are quite cheap. It's Scythe-ish & I don't like it.

Oh & music is meh.

MAP18 - “Fallen Steward - Eternal Archive” by Mithran Denizen”
UV - Pistol Start - gzDoom

Run, run, run, run, run, done. I killed maybe two chain gunners and that was it. Maps like these, I see no point in trying to stick around and kill/explore. Just get to the exit ASAP. Not my favorite style at all but I won't hate on it either.

MAP18 - “Fallen Steward - Eternal Archive” by Mithran Denizen”

This map passes by very quickly and is pretty straightforward to beat, the mastermind is a definite presence at the start and the rocket launcher only set up is quite fun as the monster density allows the cacos and lost souls to be a minor nuisance. The library part is very easily with the traps rather limited to danger to a few light mobs and a couple of arch viles.
It was a nice breather map, not much else to say apart from the sense of foreboding at the last two maps.

Hi I'm on map19 now. I noticed at the start there's a door to the right, but it's blocked by bars. There's a BFG secret behind the bars, but I don't know how to reach it. Does anyone know how to get to the BFG secret? I thought there might be something to activate it, and I searched and searched, even looked up the map through doom builder, but no result.

Lingyan203 said:

Hi I'm on map19 now. I noticed at the start there's a door to the right, but it's blocked by bars. There's a BFG secret behind the bars, but I don't know how to reach it. Does anyone know how to get to the BFG secret? I thought there might be something to activate it, and I searched and searched, even looked up the map through doom builder, but no result.

Ugh... that map. I wouldn't be surprised if the BFG was inaccessible. Just a trolling taunt to start off the most difficult maps of this wad.