The DWmegawad Club plays: Revolution!

What is the DWmegawad Club?
This is a place where we settle down, have a cup of tea (or drink of your choice) and take a month to play through a megawad on our own, together! Any keen observations, criticisms, or frustrated ranting about it goes here in the discussion. As long as you want to say something about what you've played, feel free to speak your mind.

Can I join?
Sure. The only rule is that you have to play at least some of the levels in our monthly megawad to contribute, but you're generally encouraged to finish the whole thing, even if you've played it before.

What levels am I allowed to post about?
Whatever day of the month it is, is the upper limit for the map you can post on. So if it's the 6th, you may discuss up to MAP06.

Do I have to post an entry every day?
Nope, not at all. This is only for our more enthusiastic members. As long as you play through it with us you’re part of the club.

When do we vote on the next month’s megawad?
Voting begins on the 25th of the current month.

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>>>DOWNLOAD REVOLUTION! HERE<<<

Revolution! is Thomas van der Velden's first megawad! The levels are short, sweet, and fun! Oh boy!

Maplist for Revolution!:

Quote

MAP01 - "Carnivorous Cargo"
MAP02 - "Depression"
MAP03 - "Infestation"
MAP04 - "Phobopolis"
MAP05 - "R 'n R"
MAP06 - "Wasted!"
MAP07 - "The Valley of Death"
MAP08 - "Rockit"
MAP09 - "Wrath of Man"
MAP10 - "Lab of the Lost"
MAP11 - "The Transporter"
MAP12 - "Utopia"
MAP13 - "Amok"
MAP14 - "Dead End"
MAP15 - "Battleground"

MAP31 - "Raw"
MAP32 - "'Zombie or Not to Be'"

MAP16 - "Utopia Factory"
MAP17 - "The Miners"
MAP18 - "XS"
MAP19 - "Xenocracy"
MAP20 - "X Marx the Spot"
MAP21 - "Hausterium"
MAP22 - "Beyond the Oracle"
MAP23 - "Pyramide of Pain"
MAP24 - "The Sect"
MAP25 - "The Prefect"
MAP26 - "Phragmobasidium"
MAP27 - "Necrosis"
MAP28 - "Exodus"
MAP29 - "Hall of Maim"
MAP30 - "The Forgotten God"

BONUS CONTENT
Dehacked file (courtesy of antares031)
Doomwiki
DSDA
Suitepee's playthrough
Lingyan203's playthrough
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OLD THREADS
2012

• BF_THUD!
• Community Chest 4
• Jenesis
• MAYhem 2012

2013

• Memento Mori
• Interception
• 2002: A Doom Odyssey
• Hadephobia
• Coffee Break & Fava Beans & Double Impact
• HYMN
• Stardate 20X6 & Monochrome Mapping Project
• Realm of Chaos
• Back to Saturn X E1 & Favillesco E1
• Kama Sutra
• Unholy Realms & Zone 300
• Vile Flesh
• Ultimate Doom

2014

• Whitemare & Sacrament
• Scythe
• Epic 2
• Whitemare 2
• Sunder & Countdown to Extinction
• Doom 2 the Way id Did
• MAYhem2048
• Stomper
• Back to Saturn X E2
• Going Down
• Rylayeh & Crimson Canyon & Azagthoth
• Serenity & Eternity & Infinity

2015

• Resurgence
• Requiem
• ConC.E.R.N.ed & Draft Excluder
• Doom 2 Reloaded
• Valiant
• Scythe 2
• NOVA II
• STRAIN
• Icarus: Alien Vanguard
• Sunlust
• Plutonia 2

This will be my very first review with DWmegawad Club. Plus, I was planning to play this wad since the author, Thomas van der Velden, showed awesome contributions on Plutonia 2. Now I have a proper chance.

MAP01 - Carnivorous Cargo
ZDoom, Pistol Start, KIS: 100/100/50(?)

What an interesting concept with vanilla doom level design technique. I do admire that kind of effort. The combat takes place in train, which means the circulation is extremely linear. The difficulty is easy since it's the first level, and you won't have lots of problems after you obtained a chainsaw. It took me a lot of time to find a last secret, but failed. Later I realized that I need to "crouch" in order to "find" a secret, although I already found that one from the beginning. Oh, and I need to mention that the zombies in custody are also hilarious.

Is there a version of TVR! with a DEHACKED patch changing automap names inside the wad?

scifista42 said:

Is there a version of TVR! with a DEHACKED patch changing automap names inside the wad?

I've searched a little bit and couldn't find one. And I guess the character limitation on automap name in DEHACKED may change the original name of level. Or at least you need to modify the "level XX:" prefix.

EDIT: Nevermind. I've made one for you: tvrname.deh

Oh boy, a DWMegawad Club I can participate in for the first time in 3 months.....because I've already played through TVR!

http://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/c/5963815 = all 32 levels on UV, continuous.

I found this to be an incredibly fun megawad, which sits well with being played in one sitting over 3-4 hours as the levels are short and the gameplay flows well.

Well that was hard work, now I'll have to consider catching up on Plutonia 2/Sunlust for the last 2 months Clubs.....

Yes! Playing on pistol starts, UV on PRBoom+.

MAP01 - Carnivorous Cargo

Kills: 100% | Items: 100% | Secrets: 50%

Here we go. A train level with some chainsaw action, very easy but allright for a MAP01. The trick of giving the impression of the moving of the train through animated textures is kinda neat. The first secret is also impossible to reach as the alcove is too low, though it's still possible to get the green armor. There are some cuffed zombiemans (which replaces the keen) in some kind of cells. I wonder if this will be related to the story; if there's one, but I didn't find anything on the text files.
Also, does anyone knows of an alternative fitting music pack for this wad?

antares031 said:

EDIT: Nevermind. I've made one for you: tvrname.deh

Thanks. I thought maybe somebody had already have it prepared so that nobody would have to make it anew, but it seems it was no hard job anyway. :)

Thank you antares031 for the map names patch. :)

MAP01: Carnivorous Cargo

A fitting name for the first map of a WAD that promises to be full of bite-sized delights. So... train map. It's the very definition of linear but enjoyable nonetheless. And yes, I did backtrack once I had the chainsaw to dismember the prisoners.

MAP01: Carnivorous Cargo - HMP, Continuous

I do like the idea behind this map to make it take place on a moving train & I think the effect was pulled off rather well. There's lots of cute Doom furniture as you move along the train, each car has it's own theme to it, passenger seating, cargo, sleeping quarters, & of course the chained up zombiemen. Gameplay was super easy, even by map01 standards though I guess there's not too much you can do in a linear map with very little room to fight. Still I think the map is an effective opener & I look forward to seeing what the rest of the wad has to offer.

MAP02 - Depression
ZDoom, Pistol Start, KIS: 100/100/100

I scored the first death within less than 10 seconds, that damn "static" railroad. Anyway, this level has another interesting concepts; station, storage, and theater with vanilla doom theme. Once again, the difficulty is pretty much mild even if you play it on Ultra-Violence, and the layout is slightly non-linear compare to the previous level. I like how the author designed the theater. It was simple but fun to look around, reminding me the first level of Duke Nukem 3D somehow. And yes, I also like the rainy day in vanilla doom.

P.S.: Come to think of it, which timeline is the standard for DWmegawad club? My timeline is UTC +9 and It's already December 2 here, so I posted it.

TVR! huh? I guess I'll make a comeback since I might actually have some free time in December and TVR! has rather short maps apparently. Even though I've had this wad in my doom folder for ages now, I've never really played it properly so it should be interesting to see how it is.

Map01: Carnivorous Cargo

Hmm, well it's an unconvential opener in terms of setup if nothing else. The moving train theme is indeed pretty cool and perhaps even executed decently well for a 2001 wad. It does pale in comparison to the only other train level I can remember, which is the one in Eternal's Epic, but Revolution! predates Epic by six years so the comparison is probably not really fair. Aesthetically the interior of the train is what you'd expect really; a train map is kind of inherently strives towards realism so the interior spaces are similarly realistic as well. There's the passenger car, the one car with cabins, the cargo car and so on. Gameplay in the maps is an afterthought, it's easy even for map01 standards. The most interesting part is probably experimenting what happens to the imprisoned Zombiemen when you shove a chainsaw to their face.

Map02: Depression

Okay, well this on the other hand is much more traditional, or at least up to the later parts of the level. I thought this was quite a good second map actually; it has a nice classic look with a few quirks for originality and a decent layout. Combat is very easy still but I took this as an introductory map instead of the previous one as that was bit of a gimmick map and not a "proper" map01. The hanged green marine is a nice touch and I do like the ventilation shaft thing too. The rain though... ehh, once again the immediate comparable for me is a newer project in Reverie and it looks a lot better there. The cinema has comparables in crappy 90s wads so it doesn't look so unimpressive here heh. The vent shaft secrets were easy to find, as you might have guessed from me mentioning the shafts, but I couldn't properly find the SSG one. Would have helped make the final fight with the two Cacos less of a chore.

Zandronum, UV, pistol starts.

MAP01 - "Carnivorous Cargo"

I don't like this map for the following reasons: Ugly erratic animations, crampedness, unreachable secret sector, and possibility to fall of the train / into a gap between wagons and just die there. Gameplay was dull and visuals generally ugly, but these are traits which I'm slightly more willing to accept in an opener map, although they're not good. I thought the Commander Keen replacement was cool, though.

I wonder what was DEUSF was used for at the time, but modern ports seems to do the trick without having to DosBox my way to launch it.

GZDoom, UV Pistol start without saves should be right for this MegaWAD more than Plutonia 2 I guess so here we go.

MAP01 - "Carnivorous Cargo" - UVMax on first try

Unusual choice for a MAP01 is that moving train, so I guess TVR! is a continuous adventure rather than a collection of unrelated maps, which is a good point to me. Nothing really unexpected for a train level, even though I was somehow looking forward the plant sort of carnivorous things. Finding secrets was not that obvious and tells how hidden the secrets will be on this mapset... Even though the invisibility sphere + shotgun + box of shells provided by one of them is quite overkill here.

Naan said:

I wonder what was DEUSF was used for at the time, but modern ports seems to do the trick without having to DosBox my way to launch it.

Vanilla Doom engine doesn't support custom sprite replacements in PWADs, unless they actually replace ALL sprites in the entire IWAD. DEUSF is a tool which adds the remaining sprites from the IWAD into the PWAD (all of them except those which the PWAD itself replaces) and saves the wad like that. This procedure makes it possible to play the wad in vanilla and have custom sprite replacements, while avoiding IWAD content piracy (wad author doesn't need to reinclude most of IWAD sprites into his PWAD).

MAP02 - Depression

Kills: 100% | Items: 100% | Secrets: 100%

After the train level we make our arrival at a station. It would be really cool if the wad keeps on having some kind of continuation in the level progression. The level is still easy and short but with different places to visit. The rain effect was a good idea but imo it didn't work well with that particular sky. I prefer that one of Icarus. The theatre part made me irrevocably irrevocably think of Duke3D.
Nice stuff.

This is a short set so it should be doable for me. Haven't played this before either.

MAP01: Hot damn this is a great concept for an opening map! Surprisingly asymmetrical, decent action, fantastic visuals, and doesn't overstay its welcome. This is definitely one of the few MAP01's that I positively enjoyed.

MAP02: This is a cute map. It's not as interesting as the previous map, but it still has its moments. The rain is... uhhhhhh kinda strange. Like it's clever and I could see what van der Velden was going for, but I think it comes across as too blocky to be effective. Plus, the rain probably should've been falling at an angle (as it doesn't animate fast enough to feel like a downpour). The movie theater was a neat touch—gave me some Duke Nukem vibes there—and action was mostly whatever. This definitely feels like it's going to be a fun set overall.

Heh I like when wads go for semi realistic locations like hijacking the moving hover train with prisoners. Or interrupting a movie screening and slaughtering a mass of weak hitscanners clamped up together.

The rain looked weird but memorable. The idea of the vents wasn't really put to use.

Already played through Revolution! Here's my full playthrough on UV continuous:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgS1ZoidySwPsBczM_gqZUEnAmMrqYP6D

01
Lame little map, it was dull and gave no fun. The only fact I like is that it's set on a train.

MAP02: Depression - HMP, Continuous

It's nice to see there will be some continuity between the maps, we depart the train & make our way through the train station in this map. There's a bit of fighting down in the sewers, outside in the rain, & a nice showdown at the movie theater. I like all of the cute Doom furniture aspects of the map, the movie theater was my favorite with posters of Doomguy plastered around, it seems that Doomguy is famous now & they made a movie based off of him. The rain effect while nice could have been done better, we even saw a better rain effect just a few months ago when we played Icarus map 19, the weird thing about the rain in this map is that it seems to just stop for a half second & that ruins the effect for me. Also it seemed weird to me that a door opened whenever you shot the vent covers when entering them. Gameplay is once again super easy, the only threatening area being the Movie theater, which is full up with hitscanners, but they will easily take themselves out if you let them. Still I like the ideas in these maps enough & they are well designed enough that I'm still enjoying myself, but I do hope the action picks up a bit soon.

MAP02: Depression

Not a commentary on this map in particular, just on the WAD in general, it's very interesting to come to Revolution! with its deliberate attempts to depict 'real' spaces on the heels of something like Plutonia 2 which is all about hostile Hellscapes that follow an internally consistent theme and style but don't try to 'ground' themselves anywhere. The contrast improves my appreciation of what I'm seeing.

Anyway! We've got an underground platform, warehouse/storage garage area, cinema... lots of pleasant little urban vignettes crawling with zombies to gun down. The cinema especially seemed like it was crying out for some sweet chaingun action, but no dice (unless I missed something important). Interesting to see the cacodemons come out to play this early in a WAD that otherwise seems pretty mild in the challenge it likes to present thus far.

@scifista42: Thanks for the info, didn't know about that!

MAP02 - "Depression" - UVMax on first try

The map title must have something to do with the weather, as I indeed never saw such bluish rain. Anyway, coming off the train we have a fairly realistic decent town setting with pictures and texts on walls. Secrets were easier to find and are still overkill - blue armor and SSG this time - even with Cacodemons joining the enemy ranks. I wonder if we'll get to an open city MAP13 style map soon.

MAP03 - Infestation

Kills: 100% | Items: 100% | Secrets: 100%

A step up in difficulty. Some tougher monsters make their appereance here, though the hitscanners will still be the more numerous enemies but they will be quite dangerous in the layout with lots of windows. The setting of the city is cool, and there's also a nice truck. It's really cool the usage of almost all green textures for making the buildings.

MAP03 - "Infestation" - UVMax on first try

Here we go, city level! Albeit a small one which is not unexpected as the third map, even though there's almost a hundred monsters to take down. I liked the non-linearity of the progression to get both blue and yellow keps, but a few embarassing details caught my attention, such as two green armors almost next to each other near the start, and the again overpowered secrets (BFG9000 anyone?). Still, definitely a step up in difficulty compared to the previous map. And that truck is pretty indeed.

Well I failed to make it through the juggernaut that was Sunlust, and real life busyness prevented me from finishing Plutonia 2, so hopefully this is the map set that will get me back on track.

First things first... what's up with the installer? I wonder what WAD in this day and age requires such a thing and why.

Anyways, playing in ZDoom, mouselook, UV, pistol starts, saves, etc.

MAP01: Carnivorous Cargo
100% kills, 1/2 secrets*

As others have said, this is a relatively novel setting for a Doom map, and one done quite well within vanilla constraints. Given the use of custom textures, I'm a bit surprised the author didn't do a bit more with the textures here (as the train is basically made up of all stock textures) but what he uses works well. Gameplay is ho-hum easy, as many MAP01s are, with a small monster count (24 on UV), nothing dangerous (only zombies/imps/demons) and half the monsters are non-moving prisoners anyways. The main error here is that one of the secrets isn't actually reachable (the item is, but not the sector containing the secret tag). I was also ready to complain about the other one ("why is climbing on top of an empty box a secret?" but after further exploration its actually quite clever.

MAP02: Depression
100% kills, 3/3 secrets

A small techbase with rain, plus a movie theater, continuing the representationalist angle so far. Still mind-numbingly easy, and unlike the cramped confines of last level, this one feels very empty, both in terms of aesthetics (the bland brown texture scheme doesn't help) and monsters, as the player will often be moving through hallways and encounter one or zero monsters. Texture alignment is also notably off in a lot of areas.

While I can appreciate the attempt at the rain effect, this one is pretty bad, unfortunately - just looks like blue pixels floating in midair, a combination of the color (bright blue) and the 'stopping' which Jaws mentioned. The vents are pretty good except that they use regular-speed doors instead of insta-open ones to complete the illusion. The sky is also pretty ugly.

the rain is charming, and you can tell what it's meant to be. No complaints here =P
this is a level-set I return to a lot so there's no surprises for me here. I'm trying to write a MIDI a day for this level set, I'll be sure to report back when I lose steam, lol.

MAP03 - Infestation
ZDoom, Pistol Start, KIS: 100/100/80

This time, you're in a small town. I started to like the concept of levels. They have unique theme for each level so far. As you gussed it, the suburb-like layout gives you non-linear circulation; you need to look around the whole level in order to beat it. And now the level introduces mid-tier monsters to make the fight little more tense, but still it's easy to beat it. One thing I didn't like is the sewage canal, especially the exit lift which you need to move to particular line in order to activate it, instead of press the use key like conventional way. Plus, if the circulation includes that poison canal, i.e. you must go into the canal in order to beat the level, it would be better if there's a single radiation suit even if the difficulty is UV.

MAP02 - "Depression"

Better than MAP01 in terms of design, somewhat more fun to play too. Semirealism and ideas continue appearing, that's good, even if the visuals are rough/basic for todays standards.

MAP03: Infestation

The urban theme continues here, soft brown shades giving way to grey and green, whether the latter is in the form of marble, slime-stained brick, or noxious acid sewers. The level name hints at your journey into the last of those, dealing not just with the zombies that patrol the streets in great clumps but with the entrenched demonic forces barricaded away in secure nooks and fortified dens that must be methodically cleansed of their presence. I like the fact that you're free to roam and can put down maybe two-thirds of the map's monster population just getting a sense of the local geography before you really start working on opening the path to the exit.

01 : 1/5

02 : 2/5
An okayer map, it features a buggily raining outdoor area and a cinema with doomguy's face on several movie posters, and there are vents which you're supposed to shoot in order to tear them apart, Lisa.
Some Duke Nukem 3D vibes come from the map, especially with the vents and the cinema place.
Combat is a little smarter, there are traps now, and a room filled with hitscanners, outdoors were cool, the rest of the map isn't as engaging unfourtunatly.

03 : 4/5
This is the spot where the megawad experience truly begins for me, after two filler maps, finally comes an important map to set an introduction of the megawad's true unique style in terms of non-linear layouts, lots of secrets and somewhat easy gameplay.
Map grants all the weapons if you look for all the secrets, that's too much for MAP03 in an already easy wad. Loads of locked doors that reveal small groups of enemies each everytime you get a key.