The DWmegawad Club plays: Kama Sutra

I seem to be a map behind everyone so..

Map27 - “Stairway to Heaven” by Adolf Vojta

This one seems to be modeled on a crazy golf course, very quirky series of massacres. A lot of the monsters can be left behind, including the entire final swarm, so I'm guessing this is more about the simple joy of killing than getting through in one piece. A jovial slice of doom cake.

Map 27 - Stairway To Heaven - 97% Kills - HMP Skill.

A break from the usual slaughterfests for more of a theme/fun map. I really liked how this level was laid out - like a 9 hole golf course in space. The Zeppelin midi really worked due to the dark starry sky atmosphere and the gradual ramp up in difficulty/music.

This map really begs to be played with a pistol start as otherwise the original feel could be ruined. The later areas also had many avoidable monsters, although I just barely managed to mop all of the ones in the last area up.

The whole level plays like a flashback to all of the previous and less difficult levels. Knowing that the next level is apparently the hardest of the lot, it also acts as a breather level. Overall, one of my favorite levels so far, mostly due to its theming.

Map27 - “Stairway to Heaven” by Adolf Vojta
Might break this down
Section 1 - Pistol some zombies, the end
section 2 - Berserk, most deaths came here due to horrendous rng, how often is it that every imp takes at least 2 hits to kill???
Section 3 - The start is quite frantic but soon eases into an exercise of killing small fry with a few middleweights. Funny exit
Section 4 - the chain gun stuff is pretty fun with some quirks involving skewered chaingunners and a windwill. Pretty simple combat wise.
Section 5 - Small area with four huts loaded to the brim with small fry, one archvile resurrects everything when you lower the teleporter.
Section 6 - SSG section which is deliberately set up where you remove the imps and afterwards finishing a very wounded cyber, again quite simple.
Section 7 - best section with the rocket launcher, great encounter but found an easy solution to check mate the cyber by standing at the bottom of the stairs, he can't hit you :P
Section 8 - Cleared most of this with the rocket launcher, the cybers seem to only exist as an excuse to use the plasma rifle.
Section 9 - Simple home stretch of BFG slaughter.

9 holes of fun, standard Kama sutra looks and a mix of combat situations, what's not to like.
Oh god map28 :P

Uh, I'm unsure of what votes got changed to Unholy Realms, but I know it's at about 3/4 votes while 1994 TU is at about 2/3 I believe. That means that we'll be playing Unholy Realms starting in October if that's alright with everyone. The maps are relatively short so I don't know if we should add on something like Z300 or 100 Lines.

Map09: Pretty brutal trap near the start. Fairly straightforward map, liked the cacos rising from the crevice, both boss monsters make an appearance for harassment purposes but are easily dealt with via infighting. More examples of Kama Sutra's fab prefabs, including the second best truck ever. Fun but plain.

Map10: Dreadful map, couldn't wait to get out of it. Lots of door camping, lift crowding, fighting monsters at weird height levels, pop-up traps, and generally just uninspired design. Boring cybers to boot :/ Projectiles sometimes hit invisible walls or disappear, lost 2 bfg shots to that.

Map11: Really cool electric chair, bet it pissed off the few people who exited map10 with low HP :P Starting ambush is brutal, really need to be fast and resourceful to survive. Laughed at the broken red key door. Hilariously cartoony skull near the blue key :P Liked the setup in the caves with the teleporting revs that chase you(if you let them of course). Not a fan of how easily breakable the exit setup is, but when it works it's hilarious. Fun and silly, for all it's imposing architecture.

Map12: This map is weird. A lot of strange, standout gimmicks like the red key barrier, that soulsphere pillar, a cyberdemon getting crushed for no apparent reason, etc. The staged fight with the lowering bars would have been okay if they didn't take so long, although the invul+berserk combo makes up for it immediately afterward. Also contains: the best wheelbarrow! Matching red and tan snake flat chairs! REDWALL curtains! :D But not as much to fight as you might expect.

Since Alfonzo and I have already played Unholy Realms we'll just play Zone 300 for the stream and then review both at the end of the month.

Stairway to Heaven - K:98% S:100%

I really like the idea for this level, that is a series of teleporters taking you to new entirely different section than the previous one, and the challenges increase as you hop from one island to the next. As many of you have described, it's very much like a Mini-golf map, especially with the windmill and giant monster-like crag thing, it is not hard to see this distinction.

Texture use seems to be a continuation of the past few maps: marble, ancient stone and wood litter the place but the starry sky really becomes showcased in this map as there are a lot of open skies here.

Difficulty is, well, difficult. The fight with the hitscanners proved to be biggest challenge for me killing me many times. Those damn Chaingun guys. The Rocket Launcher floor also proved to be nasty but the Invisibility sphere helped the Chaingun guy mob take out the Revenants. It was surprisingly easy to get the far group of Revenants to take on the Cyberdemon, although he managed to get me a few times.

Same goes for the final fight, Once you get the Barons/Knights spamming the Spider you're golden. The mob also took care of the Cyberdemons too. However you have to know immediately to run because it doesn't take the group long to converge on you and can end you pretty quick. The rest of the map is kind of tame, all things considering.

Map 28 -- Hard Target - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Method's final map is also his most well-known. 'Hard Target' is, beyond a shadow of doubt, the most difficult map in Kama Sutra, fielding somewhere between 1,700 and 1,800 monsters to start. Its main inspiration, as noted in the textfile, is map 24 of Hell Revealed, the infamous "Post Mortem." Truth be told, I don't think it really even comes close to living up to that map's legacy of blood-devastation-death-war-horror in spite of fielding more than twice as many monsters, but it's stylistically different enough from all the rest of Kama Sutra that it still makes a contribution to the WAD.

There's really very little to say about the map's appearance--it's generally rocks/bricks and sludge all the way, with a few 'because we can' 3D bridges. I like that you can see from your start tower all the way to one of the final objectives at the end of the map (with the exit pit in between, though it's not obvious at first), but generally speaking the visuals here are functional, and nothing more.

The setup is broadly similar to that of HR 24 in that the floor is covered in harmful sludge and that there are huge clots of demons occupying fixed firing positions on 95% of the space up top, but that's about where the similarity ends (with one exception that I'll get to in a bit); you aren't being tetra-raped the moment the map loads in this one, and there's more of a focus on side areas. While a large part of the play time is spent trying to clean out some of the infestation in the main central area, actual map progression is achieved by hitting switches in various locations that gradually build a bridge to the central exit-pit. While these switches tend to be physically located in the main area, actually reaching them generally requires enduring some kind of crazy-violent setpiece battle in a purpose-built side area, and it's in these battles that the map is generally at its best, my favorite being the eastern chamber with the long-winded teleporter onslaught.

As might be expected from the volume of opposition, there are naturally piles upon piles of ammo, spheres, radsuits, and other supplies available, but the majority of it is concentrated in a handful of places, chief amongst them being the starting tower. While ammo will probably only be an issue around the eastern switch quest, it's easier than one might think to use up a lot of the seemingly endless supply of spheres and radsuits and end up feeling the pressure later in the map, although you can gain access to a huge second cache if you can survive (not to mention find) an almost comically violent secret battle in the southeast corner. All of this means that during casual play the proceedings tend to have a very distinct bombing-run/resupply-run rhythm, involving various excursions into the map proper periodically cut short by the need to go back to the start and get another radsuit, if nothing else....honestly, it's a bit on the awkward side, and pads out the length to a noticeable degree, even if you have no interest in trying to kill everything like I usually do.

There are other issues, too.....apart from the general terrain style, the other big reference that Hard Target makes to HR 24 comes in the form of a pair of humongous gasbag swarms that are released by approaching two of the crucial objectives. This almost certainly would be an overwhelming and climactic development IF the whole thing wasn't neutered, once again, by more wanton monster-blocking shenanigans (this time probably an unavoidable consequence of the 3D bridge setup)--as it is, the gasbags can come near you, and the cacos can still spit lightning at you, but none of them can actually physically reach you, making them prime BFG/rocket-fodder. True, you'll probably have to deal with at least some of them more directly since it's unlikely you'll have enough ammo to kill them all from near the switch, but this is still a painful gaffe--and it happens twice!

Hmm, well, naturally, this isn't going to be something that everyone will enjoy. It does alright by me (although I didn't have the patience to try to manage it without using a couple of saves this time) by dint of being a crazy stylistic spike in the WAD, but it's true that it is obviously flawed in some ways, like most of Method's other maps. As someone else has said, map 29 is another big change of pace, so if 28 here isn't doing it for you, don't worry about it too much.

MAP28 - HMP - scratch start - 65% kills 50% secrets - savestate use ~

This map has the biggest monster count in the entire wad! More then 1000!!
It's really small , it's like an arena revisition from MAP32 of the megawad.
But the game is long and hard , I would call this map "Extreme target".
Anyways , the start is very hard but as you progress it becomes more freely.
Lots of brick textures and toxic water.
The cybers are really tricky to kill.
And you don't have to kill all the monsters to win!
Which makes this map much easier , the hell knight traps are same , why would you put the same trap twice?
With this said , let's move to a visual map I like.

MAP28 Hard Target

You look at the monster count and go "Wow that's a shitload of fucking monsters!"

So yeah, here's the Post-Mortem that Method wanted. A much safer start though. About 600-700 monsters on HNTR, 1100 on HMP, and I forgot how many were on UV but about 1700 or higher. Lotsa rad suits, especially in the beginning and especially in one secret area. Caged enemies prove to hassle you as you go about here, and it becomes a slugfest. I preferred to find the northwestern teleporters to telefrag both cyberdemons very quickly before cleansing the cages, making sure things were fully empty. That took quite awhile, but no archviles or teleporting revenants on HNTR made it easier. Still took some radsuits though. Afterwards, it's raising the bridge time. The individual areas weren't hard, though the eastern one gives a nice surprise of teleporting enemies. The west side before the elevator had an interesting bug with one of the revenants.



For both sides, I tried killing the cybers with two BFG hits. It took many attempts actually, they don't cooperate a lot and move to the side which is annoying. Oh and they shoot before moving too. Then it's caco and pain rain. For the west side, I actually jumped to the pain elemental's cage to get them quickly. Couldn't do it for the other side though. I had some of them fly around so I went towards the exit, not in it, and took care of them there before leaving. So it's slaughtermap nicely put near the end of things. Final Time 18:10.

Map28 - “Hard Target” by Jakub Razak

The first thing I thought when I saw that starting room was "oh shit, this looks familiar". This map is a great big hairy bastard. At first you think wow I couldn't possibly need all those rad suits and megaspheres, and by the end of it you wish there were more of them. Well I did anyway. I'm not entirely sure how much I enjoyed it. I think I did, but then there were times when I thought this going back to get another rad suit is really getting old. And that lift that carrys you into a wall of hellknights is a bit harsh. And these refilling pockets of revenants are a chore to wipe out. And there are 4 of them... Why exactly are they there? Those 4 symmetrical corners of revs/archviles/hellknights only really seem to be defending themselves, and maybe the secret bfg, although you can just run past them for that. So they are a task for 100% people only I guess. The 2 side quests were entertaining, although they both end with that point-blank wall of hellknights. I didn't have the bfg at the time so was a bit confused what you were meant to do there. When I came back to them with the bfg I was able to set both switches off relatively simultaneously, which made the whole room fill with cacos and pain elementals. Which was interesting.

I do like this kind of map, despite its bastard moments. Its quite satisfying beating something that has done its best to throw everything it has at you.

Map 28 - Hard Target - 80% Kills, No Secrets - HMP Skill.

Unquestionably the hardest map in the set which acts as a frightening flashback to Post Mortem. You'd think with all of the ammo and health powerups lying around that it would at least be a bit fair in places, but I ran out of those powerups rather quickly. There were a few moments I had no choice but to cheat as a result.

The sections where avalanches of cacodemons and pain elementals appeared was damn near impossible, and I left quite a few of them alive in the end. I started out with 1100 enemies to kill and wound up with somewhere around 13-1400. I did like the two side areas which were brutal but a nice change of pace.

Those aforementioned four symmetrical revenant cage areas really were only a threat if you were going for the items there. Still, I didn't realize this at first and ended up clearing three of them out completely, (while going through about 4 megaspheres in the process). Overall, an absolutely chaotic slaughterfest, and one which gave me endless trouble.

pizzabob18 said:

I started out with 1100 enemies to kill and wound up with somewhere around 13-1400.

heh, I ended up with over 3400 monsters somehow. No wonder I was struggling with ammo

Map 29 -- I'm Just a DooM Addict - 101% Kills / 100% Secrets
That makes two of us.

For the penultimate challenge, Gusta serves up an expansive nocturnal cityscape, gradually being swallowed both by the underworld and by another massive sea of toxic ooze. And I do mean 'expansive'--this is by far Kama Sutra's longest map. It fields over 800 monsters to start, but its combat style is worlds apart from that seen in 'Hard Target', featuring incidental street skirmishes contrasted with attacks on infested buildings and punctuated only occasionally by big hordes. Like the majority of Gusta's maps, it's definitely linear, but this is disguised well here: apart from being downplayed to some degree by the sheer scope of the adventure itself, at a few points the player will hit forks in the road; even picking the 'wrong' fork will often allow the player to progress quite a ways deeper into the city before running up against the locked door or other obstacle signifying that the other path needed to be taken first. Unusual for this mapset, there's also a serious/traditionally-styled secret, although it arguably takes a bit of a talent for wallhumping divination to uncover.

As aforesaid, the combat here is in a far more 'traditional' or Plutonia-esque vein than that seen in several of the other E3 maps, but this doesn't exactly mean it's an idle walk in the park--things get off to a brisk start with a potential pincer-movement attack by a pair of arch-viles (with support from various other nasties) while the player is relatively under-ammo'd. From here, action spills out to streets irregularly littered with hellspawn of all shapes and sizes; actually acquiring keys or other objectives often involves entering one or more buildings, and in several cases one will leave these areas only to find that reinforcements have arrived at some point on the streets, ranging from lone cyberdemons to hordes of revenants to arch-viles with a propensity for appearing right in the midst of corpse-piles. Perhaps surprisingly, actual choreographed setpiece encounters are fairly scarce even in/around these objective-laden places; for the most part monster placement remains direct, simply increasing in volume in the indoor areas. This theme of methodically attacking/clearing fortified areas while repeatedly taking, losing, and re-taking parts of the streets defines the map's gameplay, establishing that up-down-up-down rhythm that usually works well in maps of this length.

This map also holds the distinction of being the most visually rich and structurally complete/nuanced of Kama Sutra's maps. I don't think I like the fairly standard 'city' (texture) theme anywhere near as much as the 'abstract floating garden theme' of the past few maps, but there's no denying that Gusta stepped up his game for this one as far as build quality is concerned. Like so many of the other KS maps, this is once again a 'texture salad' featuring a plethora of different materials and colors, but in the context of the city setting the sum effect is less garish than in many previous entries, the large degree of variety contributing to an impression of moving through different 'districts' of the city--industrial/office, residential/apartment complex, old town areas, etc. Perhaps the most immediately noticeable distinction between this and most of the other maps, though, is that far more attention has been paid to lighting in this one, typically expressed through some fairly simple (but tasteful) sector-gradient effects which stand out against the somewhat more subdued baseline light level. There is also noticeably more juxtaposition between space-restricted areas (inside the buildings) and wide open expanses with plenty of room to move (the streets, of course) than in previous maps.

Despite the praise, however, I do feel that Gusta's attempts to communicate that the player is ultimately descending towards/into Hell as he makes his way deeper into the city don't really come through very well, only becoming evident in the last 3-4 minutes of the map, when the marine suddenly runs up against a street collapsed into a redrock abyss--there's no progressive darkening, no gradual increase in the degree of gothic/hellish aesthetics as the map goes on, etc. Despite this, though, this is still certainly one of KS's more seriously-toned maps in terms of mood (assuming we ignore a certain sector 'plane'). Well.....up until the bizarre finale, anyway.

Map 30 -- <|> - 1,437% Kills / No secrets
....and speaking of bizarre finales, there's this. On the slim chance that some of you reading this/joining in on this playthrough have somehow managed to escape seeing this or at least hearing about it until now, I won't spoil it. Suffice to say this isn't your standard 'ride the lift / pull the trigger at the right time' IoS setup; it's actually more in the 'survive for x amount of time until the target becomes available' vein, but again, that's likely to be one of the last things on your mind the first time see it. Ironically, the alternate 'Kids' route is probably tougher than the 'Adult' route, but it allows you to finish in 20 seconds or so if you can pull it off (wonder how many people in the WAD's history have actually chosen this route the first time they played? I'll bet one could count them on one's fingers...)

...and that's Kama Sutra, as off-kilter as ever.

Demon of the Well said:
For the penultimate challenge, Gusta serves up an expansive

I misread this as "expensive" and it made a surprising amount of sense.

I don't think I like the fairly standard 'city' (texture) theme anywhere near as much as the 'abstract floating garden theme' of the past few maps

How would you feel about an abstract floating city garden?

MAP29 I'm Just A DOOM Addict

*Regular Run*

A level so vast, it seems as if Gusta wanted to have the perfect city leading to hell type of level. Does he succeed? In my view, yes. Even though it's more linear than say...Ticket to Eternity, it's not bad at all. Hints of nonlinearity originate when you leave the first building, having a choice of where to go right or left. Many forks in the road offer different and fun paths. I'm quite fond of the tipped car as well as the parking garage, with the barons as "attendants" if you will. The cacodemons in the mini-stadium to the south could be surprising, as are the cacos that emerge when the cyberdemon in the second part of the level (beyond the teleporter) sees you. Some tidbits, there are several monsters that are stuck, imps near the beginning, two arachnotrons (they replace the spiderdemon on HNTR) and another imp somewhere else are stuck on level geometry. The hellish part had a bug with a chaingunner, don't know if it's intentional. Oh, and there's lotsa zombies here. I know what's trying to be accomplished, but I really hate seeing shotgun guys and zombiemen on MAP29. It's a sickening sight to my eyes. Well, gameplay difficulty is about on par with PL2 MAP29 in its regard. That ending seemed like an inside joke though with the SS. Oh, and Type 11 floor at the end, fuck off. Final Time 17:08.

*Reality Run* (Not Quite)

Fuckin' fuck this. It's MAP29, don't ya think that shotgun guys and zombiemen belong on, ya know, EARLIER LEVELS! This run was a lot trouble at various points, but almost all of them involve either hitscanners or a cyberdemon. First area had some enemies coming from two sides, and I had to watch the zombiemen outside and keep from getting too close to a window. It's pretty nerve-wracking. Going out to the west was a luck fist with chaingunners to my right and lotsa zombies and others to my left. I used BFG on a lot of them and tried killing the chaingunners fast hoping they don't strike before I start my movements. And the other monsters don't make matters easier, there's one particular revenant that hides in a hassle spot here. Going north from there wasn't too bad, although it's easy to be blindsided by the revenants or worse, the zombies outside the window where the lone secret is. I decided to not get the yellow key till I kill a large portion of enemies southeast of where it is, including one cyberdemon. Going down the stairs with lotsa imps took some painful attempts, as some sargeants in the distance are clearly motherfuckers where autoaim instead hits the imps in front of them. There are more sargeants on the path after the blue key switch (no spiderdemon on HNTR thankfully, but a number of arachnotrons, two of which are stuck) which I had to chaingun snipe as they could also be a problem. I had to backtrack once I reached the entrance to one area, where there's a wall of chaingunners inside, where I decided to finally get the yellow key. On my way, I found a blur artifact which may just give me the chance to kill those chaingunners without taking damage (once business was done in the yellow key area). But it's still almost entirely luck-based; I rushed them with the BFG and hoping they or any other monster wouldn't hit me. It took a lot tries dammit. The area with the second blue key switch had more enemies on two sides, where I made sure of how careful I should be, especially after the imps were done, as there's a parking garage to my left with zombies and a path to the red key with, you guessed it, MOAR zombies! Thankfully flagged as deaf though so they don't all come out in ambush-style. But I had to hug walls and hit them before they hit me. Afterwards I proceed to get the red key which had a large hitscanner corridor which took many attempts again. Shit, so many of these small guys, in so late a level! FFS! One BFG shot couldn't even kill all of them, so I had to hide close to the mud pit where the souls were and chaingun them. After that, I kill lotsa imps and two barons and proceed to the next teleporter. Act fast and kill the chaingunner before he fires, then discreetly attack the demon/mancubi combo before taking down arachnotrons, yet at the same fucking time being wary of some more sneaky chainguys! When engaging the cyber behind the tunnel, cacos can easily blindside me, so I backed off quickly and took them out before finishing the cyber. Getting to the only secret and going to the barrels wasn't bad after that. Though for some reason, I can trigger the hole that leads to the hellish part of the level, but I can't shoot the chaingunner until I get close enough. Bullshit. Another bad moment happened here when a cacodemon decided to play stupid and hover over where I had to go through. Had to turn off infinitely tall actors in ZDOOM options and take him off there. Now the hardest part of this run and the one that's impossible clearly was the cyber/SS combo. After a large amount of failures I decided to play sneaky with tagged linedefs. Seeing as how one opens the SS cages, one closes the gate behind me, and one raises cyber, I had to trigger the proper linedef that only does the first option. That way, I could chaingun snipe them before they hit me. Yes, SS can be as bad as any other hitscanner. Afterwards, really I was done. It didn't matter if I took damage battling the last cyber or not, because I will still take damage in a Type 11 floor at the end. Phew, this took a fucking fortnight and I got it off my fucking chest. Final Time 31:33.

Map28 - “Hard Target” by Jakub Razak
Flipped the required switches, shat myself and left the map with only 55% kills
Frankly the number of flying monsters was beyond insane. Made worse by playing in default pr-boom compatibility, yeah there were literally millions of lost souls.
This map was not my cup of tea, beyond the pain threshold and all that.
Luckily map29 is probably the best map in the set so I have that to look forward to :)

MAP29 - HMP - 97% kills 0% secrets - scratch start - savestate use ~

Why are the best maps are the last in the megawad? Tell me!
Lot's of enemies and long gameplay and a lot of detail , this is also a hard map but it has less monsters then the previous maps which is still harder.
I like all the detail but there are way too many detail they actually forgot to put some textures on some of the background buildings , you watch:
http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/7650/epu6.png
http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/4918/j8kk.png

Map 29 - I'm Just A Doom Addict - 100% Kills/Secret - HMP Skill.

Well, doom addicts it seems make the best doom levels. This one's easily the best in the wad for many reasons. The whole theme of the level was amazing to look at - going from a gradually hellish cityscape to hell itself. It manages to combine abstract areas with detailed sections such as the nazi castle, the science/university lecture hall, the parking garages, to name a few.

All the while you are being constantly assaulted by some of the fiercest opposition in the megawad. Luckily this level is much more survivable than the previous one. There is plenty of ammo and health although much of it can be out of the way when you need it most. Either way, I found this level to be a really memorable and enjoyable experience. A far cry from some of the more mediocre levels in episode 1.

Map29 - “I'm Just a DOOM Addict” by Adolf Vojta

That was an epic journey and a half, took me over an hour. Strangely the only bit i remembered from the last time I played it was the surreal cardboard aeroplane, I'm still not sure what that is about.. But yes, its one of those adventuresome maps, with a bit of key hunting at the start, and sprawling environment that seems to go from modern city to medieval castle and back again before ending up in hell, via the taj mahal(?). There is so much in here that I can hardly remember much of it, it seems like years ago i started playing this map, but its all good fun. Oh one thing I do remember was the start, which wasn't fun with just a pistol againt 2 archviles. That took me countless deaths to scrape through, and then it was more by luck really. Other than that it was quite enjoyable from start to finish.

Map29: I'm just a DOOM Addict

Phenomenal map, I enjoyed every second of it. The setting is a very large cityscape that turns into a hellish redrock ravine near the end and visually it's extremely nice looking throughout. Combat isn't as tough as in some of the previous maps and actually I died only at the start when trying to figure out an effective way to deal with those Archies but there's still plenty of target practice to be had since most areas are packed with all sorts of enemies of different flavors. Gameplay in this map is really, really enjoyable and features all the kinds of battles already seen in this wad. There's some corridor fighting, a big arena-like battle, the kind of slaughter-pit design used in a few maps etc. Just great stuff, I didn't even remember that it was this good.

Map30: <|>

Yeah I think everyone knows what this map is like already. Certainly a rather unusual map30 if nothing else. The kids route is indeed a rougher ride and maxing that route would be quite a challenge. Adults route is basically a BFG spam but somehow I don't think that's the main focus in this map... :)

Alright then, Kama Sutra is sadly now finished and it's time for the wrapup. I think this is an excellent wad overall, it's right up there with Alien Vendetta and Scythe 2 in my all time favourite mapsets. There are a few not so great maps present too but mostly the standard is very high, and especially in episodes 2 and 3 where the difficulty starts curving upwards. The gameplay is excatly what I find enjoyable, fast-paced and challenging with some slaughterish bits here and there. It's simply an extremely fun wad to play through to put it short. Visually it's a very unique piece of work and you can tell that Gusta and Method don't take mapping too seriously. It's definitely a little rough around the edges but all the weird and funny shit that's happening in almost every map just adds to the charm.

The thing with KS is, though, that it was made by speedrunners for speedrunners and it really shows in many of the maps here. As a wannabe speedrunner myself, I have no problem with this kind of mapping style but I can understand that our more casual players may find it unappealing. Diablo's Heart is probably the most glaring example of this but there's also the numerous spots where infighting can be easily provoked if the player just has the knowledge to trigger the events. Tough to come up with a top5 because there's so many excellent maps but here's something. Not in order:

Map29: I'm Just a DOOM Addict
Map14: Dog Eat Dog
Map26: Kill Bill
Map18: The Train Is Approaching
Map23: A Little Big Massacre

So I see it's time to visit the Unholy Realms next month. Briefly checked it out when it was released and even played a few maps in zdaemon and I definitely liked what I saw. I'll be playing the wad with the Club for sure, probably even record some FDAs while I'm at it too but I'll be busy writing my bachelor's thesis next month so we'll see if I have the time to do these writeups. But I'll post the FDAs if nothing else so see you guys next month!

Hard Target - K:100% S:100%

Kame Sutra's version of 'Anti-Christ' which HR's Post Mortem is also undoubtedly influenced by proves to be the most slaughter-ific map of the bunch thus far. I got all of about ten seconds in before realizing I will never beat this. The starting area is a nice somewhat safe haven but once you drop down into the slime and face off against Revenants in cages, Hell Knights spamming fire from every corner of the map, Mancubi shooting you from god knows where. I decided it would be in my best interest to use IDBEHOLDR liberally. You know, cheat, but not so bad that I can't still die.

That lasted until the Cacodemons and PEs came out to play. No way, no how. I IDDQD'd through the flying enemy waves and took it off afterward. As it turns out once you get the starting half cleared out and the two side areas. This map really loses its teeth, the rest of it is pretty basic, just making sure have enough ammo and if you aren't like me, I assume several trips back to the start for Radsuits. Both secrets make use of Invulnerability spheres, which I used for the second secret, having to over come 8 Cyberdemons, Cacos, and a horde of Revenants, which proved to be my final battle.

All in all, if you beat this without cheats I applaud you because I would never be able to. If I did, I would spend so much time save scumming that it would take eight or so hours and I just don't want to to devote that to one level.

A tough level, filled with slime, stone pillars and a shit ton of demons. What more needs to be said?



I'm Just a Doom Addict - K:99% S:100%

This level reminded me of the two Holocaust levels, and it seemed to be a spiritual successor in both form and function, although that is to say there were no large hordes trapped in invisible boxes this time. It does feature overturned vehicles, parking lots, a lecture hall, and a few more oddities. I had to laugh at the poor Doom Guy who refused to buckle up and got thrown from his nice convertible.

What starts off as a city-like level, with the occasional odd texture thrown in here and there, ends as a Hellish outpost, complete with...the Taj Mahal. I died in several places several times but the swarm of PEs and Cacodemons was for sure a few of them. Monster placement is phenomenal for the most part but the ever prevalent monster blocking lines come up big in a few places.

This level almost can be compared to Kama Sutra on the whole. It's a winding hodge podge of strange texture use, alongside more traditional and realistic settings, and features a wacky ending, setting the stage for the grand finale.

Upcoming month ideas:

First of all, if not already decided, I clearly think the main play should be UR.

As for on the side, I could see an argument for nothing as UR doesn't look THAT small, but on the other hand if there is a side play then it should be one of the line limit wads (Zone 300 would seem most appropriate) and it should be optional for those who want a little more to play, not a required one to play, if it's a simultaneous setup. Or could do three UR maps every two days followed by three Zone 300 maps a day.

Though I'd also like to make a mention that there could be a good future month with one 100 Lines Traditional, one Non-traditional, and one Zone 300 map per day, all played simultaneously.

^I think that's too much, dude. I'm fine with just one wad.

And with that... (I know it's not the 30th here in the Western Hemisphere but blah)

MAP30 <|>

Anyone else knew that the "kids" section was actually a condom on the automap? I did. Obviously didn't take that route. I tried beating the IoS using the speedy route I learned from J1Learn8Shiore's vid. Took some attempts, decided to back off a bit, but then shot rockets in and killed everything at once :). Didn't actually bother with the enemies much though. Final Time 1:02.

Final Thoughts:

It's true, Kama Sutra is a modern classic. I have played this wad many times before and never ever got tired of it. While it has a high zombie-to-demon ratio, especially on the much-abridged MAP29, there are many other combat scenarios that are cool. MAP28 was the first map I had ever played that had more than 1000 monsters in it. I played in HNTR for the sake of trying no-hit runs; suffice to say, not every level can be done in that fashion as first seen with MAP09, then others later on. The novelty, IMO, is what matters most, and what's in some maps that constitutes novelty, are what make me like this wad. MAP15, the clocks in MAP16, the design gimmicks in MAP11, MAP24's death exit (no matter how much I fucking loathe a death exit in so late an episode I still like it's peculiarity),of course MAP30 and also MAP29's visuals, these are just examples of vanilla loveliness. Once I first played through this megawad, Alien Vendetta was no longer my favorite (yes I'm playing favorites here).

In fact I liked Kama Sutra's style so much, I'm learning a lot on mapping from this wad alone. When constructing my first vanilla-format 3d bridge in BCP of NOVA, I looked at Kama Sutra's very own MAP28 and its 3d bridges to figure out how to successfully make a bridge myself, and damn well I'm proud of it! (even though the bridge was only in a shitty deathmatch arena)

Grain of Salt said:

How would you feel about an abstract floating city garden?

When you say that, I start to imagine some kind of largescale Mordethian cobblestone/tech-hybrid thing with a lot of trees and greenery and vines and such, all hanging in space. Sounds pretty rad, now that you mention it.

To sum up Kama Sutra, I'll simply return to what I said at the outset, that being that whether one loves the WAD or loathes it (and we've seen reactions at both ends of the spectrum over the course of this thread), I can guarantee that it's one you'll remember afterwards. Its whimsical sense of personality is surely its greatest strength--there simply is no other WAD that has a feel or mood to it quite like Kama Sutra; I would argue that this is really why so many of us think of it as the spiritual successor to the original Hell Revealed in a way that HR II was/is not. It's not really because of the style of gameplay or the nature of KS's general aesthetic sensibilities being so similar to those of HR, because when you get down to brass tacks they really aren't terribly similar, though one can certainly see echoes/influence of HR in Gusta and Method's own styles. No, it's that singular sense of an abstract and whimsical world that, for all of its intense violence, really feels more like some dreamland playground than a battlefield.

It isn't a perfect WAD, mind, by any means. For my part, I certainly don't share Hurricyclone's view that it's superior to Alien Vendetta, or indeed, to a number of other 'modern classics.' It's hampered by a very noticeable feeling of artificiality in some of its combat, most often due to the presence of monster-blocking lines, as several of us have repeatedly commented on. In some instances these are evidently sacrifices made in the interest of the WAD's overall aesthetic (e.g. it's full to the brim with all kinds of kooky 3D bridge/sector effects), but in some others they are inexplicable, especially considering this is a speedrunner's WAD....suggests that perhaps there really is supposed to be one 'right' way to play a lot of the maps. Speaking purely for myself, I'll also say that I find some of its concept maps wildly more entertaining than others, e.g. 'Diablo's Heart' (which is kind of cool) versus 'King Arena' (which is kind of daft).

In general, I'd say that each successive time I do a full playthrough of Kama Sutra (and I believe this was my fifth since the WAD first came out), the first 'episode' or so tends to impress and entertain me less and less (although I really had fun with 'Water Base' this time, moreso than I expected to from memory), and each time I also tend to notice more distinctly just how much more I prefer Gusta's maps to Method's. However--and this is crucial!--each time I play, I end up enjoying a lot of the back half of the WAD, and particularly the majority of E3, just as much if not more than I have on previous playthroughs....and that right there is nothing to sneeze it. Like HR before it, I guess KS is something of a slow starter, but my lack of goodness is it ever an enjoyable ride once it finally does get going. My top 5 from the WAD is pretty easy to pick, in this case. In no particular order:

1. Map 25 -- Cow Face
2. Map 26 -- Kill Bill
3. Map 27 -- Stairway to Heaven
4. Map 29 -- I'm Just a DooM Addict
5. Map 18 -- The Train is Approaching

So, basically, the fun really starts once the stars come out. Gusta/Method, if you're out there: complete KS2 already!


Well, I'm all fired up for Unholy Realms, looks pretty tasty. If we're actually going to do one of the line-restriction WADs as an optional sidequest or something, I vote for Zone 300--I got ahead on the KS playthrough and so tried out big chunks of both 100 Lines WADs in the meantime, and really didn't find them very appealing at all, I must confess.

Map30 - “<|>” by Adolf Vojta

Yeah, I guess this sums up the irreverent nature of the wad as a whole, it doesn't take itself too seriously - it is hard to take a game seriously when making any kind of realistic setting ends up looking like lego, so fair play to Kama Sutra for continually skirting the line between serious wad and parody.

My final thoughts on this wad are that there are some great maps and a very distinctive overall character to it that few other wads achieve. I think it has some real gameplay issues in places, but I also get the impression the authors couldn't care less what anyone else has to say about it, they made what they enjoyed playing and thats that, and in the end that is the whole point of creativity. There are broken bits and gimmicky tricks, dodgy set-ups and weird textures, and of course the ever present blocked monsters which make it more of a shooting gallery at times. I couldn't say its one of my favourite wads simply because I like to suspend a bit of disbelief when I'm playing doom and that kind of breaking-the-4th-wall stuff pulls me out of it. But it definitely has something unique and original about it.

Favourite maps:
Map04 - “Water Base” by Adolf Vojta
Map08 - “Time Is Tickin' Out” by Adolf Vojta
Map13 - “The Holocaust II” by Adolf Vojta
Map14 - “Dog Eat Dog” by Adolf Vojta
Map31 - “Devastation” by Adolf Vojta
Map16 - “Leeds Castle” by Adolf Vojta
Map18 - “The Train Is Approaching” by Adolf Vojta
Map23 - “A Little Big Massacre” by Adolf Vojta

Mood swings abound in this final installment of the Where's All the Data? Kama Sutra streamthrough. Tarnsman and I will return for the following month, where both of us are eager to discuss the MWC's latest offering.

Part 3 = http://www.twitch.tv/st_alfonzo/c/3012855 (map21 - 32)

MAP30 - kids run - scratch start - 0% kills no secrets - 1 death ~

Basic run around and win : reminds me of MAP17 of this megawad.
The ending screen shows a naked woman with an open vagina! WTF?

Adult run - scratch start - 500% kills no secrets - savestate use ~

I can't belive I'm saying this in a this forum but : "Vagina! WTF?!"

The main objective is to kill the cybers and the arch-viles and then dodge fire while shooting penises down a vagina , and "you got her!"

TOP 5:
1-MAP15
2-MAP16
3-MAP18
MAP04
5-MAP29

Map29 - “I'm Just a DOOM Addict” by Adolf Vojta
Huge level with just two trouble spots for me, the first being the start where taking out the two arch viles can be a real challenge. The second is the area after the red key door due to the sheer number of flying monsters which try and ruin your day. It's worth noting that I arch vile jumped into the only secret and hence used this to grab the BFG early in the map. Once you get back to the main path the map isn't too hard, full of hard challenges and a lot of good looking areas to explore. The ending is amusing to say the least :)
Map30 - “<|>” by Adolf Vojta
Oh boy yeah this map. I ragequit due to epic amounts of bad luck. Clearing the cyberdemons was no issue but somehow I could never get a shot on the icon of sin, resulting in many face rocket deaths which lead me to give up in frustration. I don't quite understand what was going on as the icon was free to shoot but I could never get a shot away, whenever I did line up a shot some big monster blasts me away and again rocketed myself in the face. :/

Overall this wad is a mixed bag with a lot of quirks which adds to the charm. There are some superb maps in this wad which are up to the quality of the great maps of Alien Vendetta and hell revealed. I see this wad overall as the true successor to Hell revealed given the similar path of using 2 mappers as well as the obvious situation of the mappers learning their trade as they went along resulting in the map quality generally improving as you got through the wad.
Favourite maps were 11,13,14,16,18,23 and 29. These were all excellent.
Gusta would in later years be the most prolific mapper in PL2 and many of the design choices in layout and gameplay would later be seen in spades in Plutonia 2.

Map 30 - <|> - Too many kills to count - HMP Skill.

The most (in)famous level in the megawad, and the only one of which I knew exactly what to expect. The Kid ending at first seems like it'll be a pain, however the platform lowers rather quickly and you can easily exit with zero kills. However, the real action lies in the "adult" ending.

There's no time for pussyfooting in this level as if you're not careful, you'll be surrounded by enemies, it took me quite a few tries (and deaths) to hit the Romero head as many of the enemies overwhelmed me. Overall, a very tricky and very tongue in cheek end to a classic megawad.

FINAL VERDICT - I can recall never getting past about map 6 or so when I first played this wad many years ago, although I remember skipping to the final map to see what the fuss was all about. Playing it today, there are only a few criticisms I have -

For one, the secret placement is incredibly inconsistent. Some maps have no effort done in placing secrets (to the point where you start off the map collecting them) and some have very cryptic secret areas that you'd have to be a Doom God to find (Map 24). Also, I found Map 17 and to some extent Map 6 and 10 to be rather unenjoyable. In fact, much of the maps in the first episode didn't impress me at all.

With all the negatives out of the way, I can't stress how much playing one map a day helped me appreciate the wad. The second episode contains some amazing maps and the level design gets a big improvement. The final episode not only looks the best, but is among the hardest of levels I ever completed. Some of my favorite levels included Maps 8, 13, 15, 16, 18, 27, and especially the penultimate level, map 29.

Would I rank this as better than Alien Vendetta? Probably not. However, it is the sheer progression of the megawad and its not so serious factor that made it an enjoyable experience, and in my eye, it certainly deserved a cacoward, and recognition as one of the best megawads ever made.

I'll be sitting October out as to avoid burnout so I'll be taking a leave of absence from the megawad club for now.