The DWmegawad Club plays: Zone 400

Alright, one of my picks made it this month! When I first started really getting into Doom WADs, I wasn't really paying attention to map authors or anything like that. I just downloaded WADs and played them, I didn't care. It wasn't until I started reading ONEMANDOOM that I began to get some info about authors. One of the first I remember knowing about was Paul Corfiatis, since there was a stretch where it seemed like every post on that blog was something of his. I was like, "Dang, this guy has been around for so long and is so prolific!" That didn't really translate into actually trying his WADs, mostly since I was only doing full 32-level megaWADs and didn't think anything smaller was worth my time. The only PCorf WAD I believe I've actually played is Whispers Of Satan, which I really liked. I've only dabbled in map-making for a little bit, but while figuring things out, I routinely opened up WoS in Doom Builder to get a sense of how to use some Boom features, do teleport traps, combine sectors, visual design and more. I've been super excited to play Zone 400 ever since its release, considering Coincident's speedruns of levels of Zone 300 had peaked my interest. It was on my list, I just had to get through Auger;Zenith, Dungeon Synths, and Perpetual Powers (I'm on this one currently). Though with this being a daily thing, I can do this one alongside my normal weekend play of PP (assuming I'm in the mood. I've been having personal issues at work that have left me mentally taxed lately that I hope can be resolved soon). So, with this dumb preamble out of the way, let's do this. I'm ready for some 400 line (or less) bite-sized action!

GZDoom/Blind/UV/Continuous/Saves

Episode One: Street Names I've Lived In (Swampy base, pink sky)[I hope PCorf doesn't have any of these as answers to security questions]

Map 01 - COOMBE

100% kills and secrets

Time: 3:49

A very nice opening level! We're in a stoney/caverny area with some tech influences.  Right now, our only opposition is some normal ol' zombiemen, so we can pistol the 3 in front of us and the others on the stone stairs behind. Make sure to check out the area where the yellow key is currently out of reach to nab the shotgun. You'll need it for the room that contains the switch lowering said key since there's a few imps packed in there. Also, some cubbies open up with shotgunners in there too. Grab the key and enter the door to find a nice chunk of baddies in this room. I managed to set off one of the barrels behind a bunch of them before they got too close, so that was nice and effective. If you have your automap set up to see secrets, you'll easily spot the lone secret here, the chaingun. Lower the wall and grab it quickly, cause the Hell Knight and zombies that saw you aren't just going to wait for you to snatch it. That chaingun is super useful on the Hell Knight. Hit the switch behind it to raise some stairs, and open some imp cubbies. Blast through the next room and hit the switch to lower the rocks back in the opening. This will open the rest of the cubbies in this area, which unleashes 3 imps and a revenant. Again, that secret chaingun does wonders on the rev. Head in, hit the switch, kill the imps that lowered, the hitscan in the path behind it, and the pinkie in the ext hall, and you're golden.

Again, this was a nice opening level. I liked the minimal detailing here, mostly with the lighting in the first imp room. It's subtle, but I liked it. The cubbies in the opening room having that skull wall texture was something I liked as well, as it was kinda weird with the rest of the natural looking environment. I also really dug the MIDI, "ROCKTRACTION", too. There was a grungy sound to it that I don't hear too much in Doom MIDIs. IDK anything about MIDI instruments or soundfonts or whatever, but I think there was a different type of guitar in it that gave it a little more heavy distorted feel. The soundtrack is another aspect of this WAD I am excited to experience as well, since PCorf did an entirely new OST for this WAD that he says has multiple styles in it. Could this be the 3rd amazing one-person WAD OST this year, behind Stewboy's Heartland and AD_79's Arrival OSTs? We'll see! As of right now, so far, so good!

(Also, in the PDF he mentions Meat corridors, and that this level has one. What the heck does that mean? Halls with a bunch of monsters in it?)

Enjoy everyone!

MAP01 - “Coombe” | UV Continous | Doom Retro

400 linedefs! Now that is... small. Ha, love the whole idea. Creativity and good layouts will be the cake that will give us the real flavor of this. A great challenge that I hope will give positive results. The first map seems to give a good touch by establishing a simple and attractive jump of what will be this megawad. It's short (obvious), fast and quite intense. The difficulty in UV is no joke; it throws us right into a respectable repertoire of enemies, including some terrible Spooky bois and we barely have a pistol and the simple shotgun. Resource management is necessary as well as being aware of your surroundings. Despite its size, it is well populated and with a design varied enough to entertain. Not bad for the beginning.

Once again, I'm stoked one of my nominations was chosen. Am I on a roll or what? ;^) :^P

MAP01 - Coombe

UV | Continuous | GZDoom with Vanilla+

A lovely first impression, Pcorf gets the ball rolling with a wooden/stoney area with some classic gameplay feel to it. The map doesn't throw anything too difficult at you and has an easy-going progression. There's elegance in its simplicity, which I expect to be the common theme for the WAD. I haven't had the pleasure of playing much of Pcorf's work except for perhaps a map or two he may of made for any of the previous megaWADs we've played together, so I'm really interested to witness his mapping sensibilities in a more concentrated environment. It's a comfy first map and quite enjoyable. Really curious to see how each map turns out with the linedef limitation and what creative problem solving Pcorf was able to devise.

MAP01 - Coombe (HNTR, Continuous, Blind): K 100% (39/39), I 100% (8/8), S 100% (1/1), T 6:19, D 2 - If the start is an indication of what's to come - with a Revenant on first map - i have a feeling this is not going to be my type of a set, but i'll give it a go for a few levels.  My health went down to 4% on the first ambush, having also been chipped away at the very start not knowing what to expect, and subsequently died soon after at the hands of a hitscanner.  And the second death came similarly while fighting the Revenant.. i wish i had found that secret Chaingun beforehand!  Not much health combined with hitscanners and ambushes from hell. :D

Nice little map, nothing special but nothing to complain about either.. i hope i can act more prepared on MAP02.

10 hours ago, TJG1289 said:

(Also, in the PDF he mentions Meat corridors, and that this level has one. What the heck does that mean? Halls with a bunch of monsters in it?)

The meat corridors are the exit rooms full of Demons to maximize the amount of monsters in a map, carried over from Zone 300 but less repetitive in Zone 400.

I did play the first level of Zone 400 two days ago, almost got my ass kicked. But, I managed to pull through...

7 hours ago, Biodegradable said:

Once again, I'm stoked one of my nominations was chosen. Am I on a roll or what? ;^) :^P

 

MAP01 - Coombe

UV | Continuous | GZDoom with Vanilla+

 

A lovely first impression, Pcorf gets the ball rolling with a wooden/stoney area with some classic gameplay feel to it. The map doesn't throw anything too difficult at you and has an easy-going progression. There's elegance in its simplicity, which I expect to be the common theme for the WAD. I haven't had the pleasure of playing much of Pcorf's work except for perhaps a map or two he may of made for any of the previous megaWADs we've played together, so I'm really interested to witness his mapping sensibilities in a more concentrated environment. It's a comfy first map and quite enjoyable. Really curious to see how each map turns out with the linedef limitation and what creative problem solving Pcorf was able to devise.

 

 

Great write up AND video, you really put in a lot of effort and it makes this community all the richer!

Map 01 - Coombe

UV, pistol start

I won't lie, Paul knows how to make maps(I was playing The Great Urban Battle the other day which is kind of a polar opposite of these maps design-wise). Honestly though, I probably wouldn't have played this otherwise because I don't normally play megawads whose main draw is size restrictions. However, it seems these maps will be short enough that I'll have no problem playing multiple maps a day if need be. If the DW Miniwad Club comes back though, I won't be writing about every map(but I think we can leave 32 out of that:) ).

Now this is a nice start. A teleporter in the midst of what seems to be an average Doom II complex with former humans facing away from and the surrounding stairs. And indeed, exploration bears that out, despite containing many demon face icons interdispersed throughout which seems to tell you not to press meaningless walls or something (I sort of miss secrets when it seems like a speedmap). And this music has a nice groove to it as well. I knew Pcorf was a composer, but the only stuff I've heard from him was during a Whispers of Satan prelude, which was...fine mostly. The high-note melodies it reaches later are truly a nice touch and get you ready to do stuff.

Anyways, there's not much to speak of until you pass beyond the yellow key door and come across what's a fairly large group of E1 Doom enemies, complete with a couple of barrels in the center. If you're lucky, you can blow them up and save some ammo, but most likely, you'll find there's too many baddies in the way for that to be effective. Duck into the side hallway with a switch which raises some nearby stairs to a particular platform and you may notice a black groove on the wall on the side closest to the yellow door. Press on it to find a chaingun which makes things considerably less tediou. Secrets like these are a general feature of Pcorf maps.

Press the switch I mentioned earlier to raise some stairs and also to open up an ambush with Imp closets on both sides of the hallway. Continue up the stairs and press a switch which opens several closets with Imp, but also a Revenant directly across from you. Good thing you picked up the chaingun, eh. Killing Revenants with a shotgun is annoyingly long.

Cool opening, though much of that's the music.

MAP01: Coombe - dsda-doom - skill 4 pistol start

Fun and punchy start. Wasn't super hard and over-the top with hitscanners.
What I might do is only use rewind if I die. So far I did this map skill 4 legit.

I hate admitting this but it was nice to get chased around by a revenant fireball again. I even miss arch-viles, which I'd bet we'll see soon.

edit: gotta also mention the awesome MIDI which i enjoyed quite a bit

Map01 - Coombe

An inoffensive opener - A couple of mid-tiers get thrown in, the hellknight is essentially a blockage rather than a threat, the revenant however could catch someone off guard after the general mix of imps and zombies. Not much else to say here really, it is rather blocky but looks okay on the eye, the layout is fairly short and simple, but at least loops around to the start area a couple of times. 

At this stage it will be interesting to see if PCorf utilises lines more effectively compared to zone300 and whether gaemplay is more spicy compared to earlier work.

prboom+ uv pistol starts, cl -1

map01 fda

this was quite fun but a little bit repetitive although the short run time and midi help with this. i did like the introduction of the hell knight and rev i just wish there was a more convenient way to make them infight: i always find that match up funny.

MAP02 - Tait (HNTR, continuous, blind): K 100% (34/34), I 100% (25/25), S 100% (2/2), T 8:59, D 0 - So far, what i've liked about both maps is that even with the limitations imposed, the author found room for proper and useful secrets.  i don't quite see yet but the obvious result from the 400 lines limitation.  Despite this map having some appearance of complexity, it turned out to be linear as a plumb line, unlike the seemingly simpler first map.  Regardless of that, the map was a nice little romp, now with the addition of Barons and Cacos, who taxed my ammo a little bit (as i didn't find the RL secret before looking for it after the facts).  i wish i didn't have the habit of looking for secrets mainly at the end in combat-heavy maps, because the existence of one in the nukage was obvious and the SSG would've been a big help - that's something i've got to change in my gameplay.  The ammo hasn't exactly been sparse, by the way, but there's always the feeling that it's going to run out soon, but somehow there's always been just enough.

Nothing special so far, just competent short maps.  My favourite things on this level were the RK visible but out of reach upon the ramp at the start, the nukage pits, and the secrets, which gave the variety to elevate the map a little bit.  i'm just worried when the Arch-Viles and Pain Elementals appear.

Map 1: Coombe - UV

Simple, but nice. I used the pistol mainly because I didn't know how generous the map would be with shotgun ammo, which was a bit of a problem because there aren't many health pickups. Actually using the shotgun as soon as you get it would make the map a breeze. The one thing I didn't like was the revenant near the end, not only because of the lack of armour and few health pick-ups, but because it's too trivial to deal with from higher ground. (And I suppose the yellow key's existence in the map is kind of superfluous, in that the switch to lower the platform could have just opened the yellow door.)

One man, a completely original midi soundtrack, 30 maps across four differently themed mini-episodes, two (plus one super secret) secret maps, 400 linedef limit—It's time to see what pcorf can do with almost an additional 8 years of mapping experience, and 100 more line defs than this wad's predecessor. 

UV | Pistol Start | Crispy Doom 

MAP01 - Coombe
Take a moment and gauge the surroundings because—once shots are fired—enemies to the left, right, front, and back will wake up to defend their stony fortress. While in this map01 it's not-to-threatening zombiemen surrounding, it potentially could be a tutorial cautioning against immediately rushing forward—guns ablaze—without any thought. Clear the area, climb the steps, do some more killing, press the switch, pistol kill the incoming shotgunners for a shotgun, and then go grab the yellow key—only now noticing there was a shotgun in plain sight all along. Heading through the yellow door will be met with more shareware resistance before turning a corner and encountering the first hell knight. While not a major threat (plenty of space to maneuver), expending shotgun shells on him could make the rest of the map more pistol-laden if the nearby indented wall hiding a secret chaingun goes unnoticed. A couple more rooms of imps, zombiemen, and shotgunners and it's back overlooking the start of the map. A switch press unveils the first and only revenant, and, once dispatched with, it's smooth sailing to the exit. A fun, simple, straight-forward opener that's tight pacing had me bounding from one encounter to the next blasting away with a shotgun then chaingun as pcorf's fantastic original midi—with arachno soundfont which sounded great—pumped through my headphones.

Good, keep taking a few more steps forward. Fools! 

Excited to play through this one! I haven't played its predecessor, but I have watched a few runs of it done by Coincident. Excited to give this one a shot.

MAP01: Coombe

UV, pistol start, no saves

100% kills, 1/1 secrets

The opening map of the wad brings us to a small grey stone base underneath a pink sky. The midi to this one is a groove and a half, with a nice driving riff and some pretty great synth melodies. As one would expect to an opener, the difficulty is easy, with the biggest threat probably being a hell knight which has the potential to lean on your shotgun ammo if you don't spot the chaingun secret at first. Apart from this guy and the revenant that pops out of a monster closet toward the end, the threats are kept low, with fodder and pinkies making up the rest. I still had fun with this one though, and quite enjoyed the level's design. I'm excited to see how the rest of the wad does with the limitations at hand!

I'll be playing this on UV with saves, pistol starting each level.

I really don’t know anything about this wad except what was written in the text file that came with it. Very excited to play after hearing about the new midis, textures and skybox art though. Also I expect to be busy at work, so it will be nice to unwind with some small levels when I can.

Map01 - Coombe

Fun opening to start off the wad. Nothing too difficult, I like how Pcorf uses the same opening area a few times in order to get the most use out of it. The map has some good interconnectivity too, where you can see the later areas through the windows as a little tease. I was able to get the secret chaingun, which came in handy fighting the surprise revenant near the end. Another part I liked was the big gang of enemies crowded around the toxic barrel (always fun). Good texture usage too, the level looks great despite the 400 limit. I think the star of the level though is the banging midi, love it. This opening makes me feel like we'll be in good hands this month.

I'm playing in DSDA-Doom, UV, complevel 2.

Map01 FDA in 3:05

z401fda-305.zip

I usually try to avoid using the pistol, just as I did here, but I ran out of shogun ammo eventually and wound up killing a few zombies with it. Health is scarce as well, but the hitscanners were a bit shy today, so I didn't take enough damage to really notice. I wish I could get this kind of RNG in difficult maps. Anyway, it's a good start to the wad, not much to say about it.

Okay guys apparently I posted the wrong video and for whatever reason it will not let me edit it so here's the Right video

MAP02 - Tait

UV | Continuous | GZDoom and Vanilla+

Our man of the hour, Pcorf, turns up the heat a touch with some ambushes here and there and makes a good challenge out of double-teaming the Imps with Cacos as two particular fights involving the spikey, flame-throwing comrades almost cost me my first death of the run! I managed to get by the skin of my teeth and tactfully left a Berserk lying around for me. Wasn't sure where to even really look for the second secret and just resorted to wall-humping, but had no luck. I also noticed this map was a little bit more sheepish with ammo as I leave the map with only a handful of bullets. MAP03 might be a hard start, but we shall see!

^{Only now noticed I accidentally cut-off the last minute or so due to a rendering error. Whoopsie-doodle, how embarrassing!}

Getting completely overwhelmed by the Cacodemons on my FDA, here's my SDA of Tait on HMP: dei-z400-map02-hmp.zip

Map02 FDA in 5:39

z402fda-539.zip

More challenging and substantial, I was actually brought down to 9% health here at one point. I liked the room with all the perched imps, where I was low enough on ammo that I was hesitant to kill them when I could be spending it on more important threats, but I also had to conserve health, so the abundance of their projectiles kept me on my toes while I explored the room.

Zone 400 Map01 Coombe, UV continuous, Keyboard Only

Kills - 100%  Items - 87%  Secrets - 100%

Death Count - Zero

Fun starting map, which I first played in July, long before making my playthrough video. Nothing too difficult here, but you do get a Revvie and a Hell Knight, though only the former is likely to do you any damage. More likely, you'll make mistakes with the hitscanners, especially if you take a few blasts from the sergeants.

The map has an excellent midi, where pcorf demonstrates his well-known musical skills. All in all, a very nice opener. Difficulty will ramp up fairly quickly in future maps, so get ready for it. ;)

Well, I'm back for Doom (At least for a little bit), so it's time for more analysis:

zone400.wad - Zone 400 - Paul "pcorf" Corfiatis:

In a similar way to 1K Lines (where pcorf made a map), and trying to work as the Zone 300 sequel, made by the same author, a well known Doom mapper brings us yet another compilation of maps where the main premise of it all is to make maps below the limit of 400 linedefs. The maplist divides into episodes acording to the well crafted PDF file inside the zip pack. Map names are called according to different topics, some of them hilarious (like the episode in which all maps have the name of the mapper's ex-couples, for example), that englobe certain episodic theme.
Having to work with limitations such as 400 linedef limit gives us map that can be pretty small or undetailed for today standards, so the main goal for the author is to make fun maps that play and look as best as possible even though they certainly won't be masterpieces (Sandy Petersen's philosophy of mapping).

Episode 1 - Swampy Base (Street names Pcorf lived in):

MAP01 - "Coombe" (100%K/I/S):

Well, suspicious name for a street...
...This first map is a short, squary outpost, in an American McGee style, resembling those squarey Doom II maps, simple and effective as a starting map should be, even Pcorf have some extra linedefs to make some lightning effects like the one at the end. The map is short but does not look bad, feels like another throwback to the past, where things were simpler. I expected a bigger twist at the end, but only a revenant was at the middle, luckly for me, the wad does not start punishing you right from the first map.

MAP02 - "Tait" (100%K/100%I/50%S): 

Another nice outpost, now with the casual nukage pit at the middle, this one got harder than the previous one, for good, and it presents a bigger challenge with the caco-swarm trap mid-way through. The map may have some interesting challenges, and its size is considerably bigger than the previous one, without sacrificing too much detail. 
I liked everything except for the last part, which felt kind off like a filler ending, just a long walkway, nothing too bad anyways.
I feel Pcorf is making maps like this since the Twilight Zone days. I can't avoid this nostalgic feeling when playing this second map.
 

Deaths: 0

Order of preference:
 

I admire the capability of mappers making not only their maps but their music, something I wish I had.
 

Zone 400 Map02 Tait, UV continuous, Keyboard Only

Kills - 100%  Items - 100%  Secrets - 100%

Death Count - Zero

A tougher map this time. Decided to fight it mostly aggressive, especially the Caco battle. The area where you first encounter the Chaingunners is a bit slow thanks to all the Imp snipers, because they encourage cautious play. IMO the least fun part of the map. It didn't help that my aim was poor and the RNG was against me, too, so it took a long time to eliminate all the snipers. Luckily, the Caco battle which followed was the most fun part of the map, where I was able to do a lot of back and forth run 'n gun action, and all that happened to me was tanking some damage from Imps.

My luck ran out at the end when I misjudged a couple rockets from the exit Revvie and suffered 2 max-damage hits that put me down to 7%. As luck would have it, I had saved the Zerk, so I was able to exit the map at 100%. Thanks, Paul! :)

This was IMO a more fun map than Coombe, with more interesting architecture. I started savescumming in this one, but never had to open a save, though as you'll see, I spazzed a bit when attempting to save a couple times. ;D

Once again, a fine midi helps drive the action.  

2 hours ago, Steve D said:

Zone 400 Map01 Coombe, UV continuous, Keyboard Only

Kills - 100%  Items - 87%  Secrets - 100%

Death Count - Zero

 

Fun starting map, which I first played in July, long before making my playthrough video. Nothing too difficult here, but you do get a Revvie and a Hell Knight, though only the former is likely to do you any damage. More likely, you'll make mistakes with the hitscanners, especially if you take a few blasts from the sergeants.

 

The map has an excellent midi, where pcorf demonstrates his well-known musical skills. All in all, a very nice opener. Difficulty will ramp up fairly quickly in future maps, so get ready for it. ;)

 

 

 

Nice triple kill to start the set. I notice you pretty relentlessly use shotty on the imps, and chaingun on virtually everything else. Which is pretty effective as a strategy.

Good vid. :)

I do like watching the DWMC players who post vids. I try to pick one and watch their playthrough.

Map 02 was certainly tougher, though no deaths so far. Great midi too.

Despite not being a huge fan of vanilla-looking wads, I'm mildly interested in this one, so I'll participate in the club for the first time :)

MAP01 - Coombe / GZDoom / UV / Continuous

Short and easy opener, just the way it should be for a wad like this. I enjoy shotgun-only combat in early parts of a wad, so I enjoyed this one as well. Brief and inoffensive traps seem to be the focus here, which seems like a good decision for the first map.

I initially thought the barrels behind the yellow door were very poorly placed, since you can't shoot them with a group of monsters in front of them instead of behind them, but I suppose you can use them later to dispatch the hellknight or imps that come from the walls, so it's not that bad.

MAP02 - Tait

This one is a bit more exciting, with more threatening combat throughout. I first thought that you have to drop into the nukage to find progress, so I obtained the secret ssg easily. Considering the amount of mid tier enemies in the map though, I can't imagine this map would be very enjoyable without it.

Both maps seem to utilize the 400 available linedefs competently. All of the architecture is on the simple side, but nothing looks straight up ugly. Because of the linedef limitation though, I don't think the visuals will ever impress me that much, so I hope to see some really well designed combat scenarios in the future to make up for that.