The DWmegawad Club plays: Solar Struggle

Alright, after my early exit from CC2 due to some hand pain-related issues, I've been fancying getting back into the DWMC and this seems like a perfect place to start since I've been holding off on playing Solar Struggle until it was picked anyway! Hopefully I'll be able to get through the whole thing, especially since the last couple of episodes look incredibly cool from what little I've seen about the wad. I'm playing through dsdadoom, on UV from a pistol start. I've honestly stopped caring about getting 100% kills at this point, so I'll go back and hunt for secrets & stuff if I feel like it :P

E1M1 - Detention Facility by myolden:

4:34/0 Deaths
It's always hard to make a megawad opener, so I don't envy myolden for taking the task on for Solar Struggle. I think this map does a good job at grounding you in the story of the wad immediately with you starting in a prison cell, and with a lot of the map's enemies coming out from cells of their own. Kinda makes you wonder why you specifically were spared the horrible demonic transformation that claimed your fellow inmates, and more importantly why you were locked up with a pistol and 50 bullets in the first place! While I do like the prison theme and the gallows in the main courtyard are great, I think this map is pretty ugly if I'm being honest. It's a bit of a pet-peeve of mine when I see details aligned to the lines between the bricks in STONE2/3, like the cell bars & computer panels in the first building are here, but the top and bottom of the texture is completely cut off by ceilings and floors, since at that point, why care about the brick lines at all? I also dislike how SP_ROCK is used alongside the other rock textures on the outer-edge of the map, it's very busy and because of that it becomes the focus of the scenery when it probably shouldn't.

The combat here is decent, the pistol-only section doesn't outstay it's welcome and sets you up against just the right number of foes for it to feel engaging but not a slog. I like the incidental combat that takes place after grabbing the shotgun, but the ambushes all feel the same as one another, shotgunning a bunch of imps, shotgun guys and zombiemen that teleport in vaguely around you. I think if one of these were cut (and to be honest the prime candidate is the one right in front of the exit switch) then I wouldn't have this problem at all. Ultimately, it's a fine start to the wad but I feel like a lot of effort was put in the wrong places in this map and the result feels much lesser than it could have been.

E1M2 - Admin Offices by Peccatum Mihzamiz:

8:58/0 Deaths
This gets the wad going much more strongly than the previous map, with a much greater sense of place and flow to the combat than the norm for an Episode 1. I really love how this map directly continues on from Detention Facility and how you jump down into Barracks at the end, while I'm unsure if this will continue as we progress through the wad - and given that this map was apparently a very late addition that seems likely - it's nice to have here. I absolutely love all the doomcute that's everywhere around the map, from the little office cubicles that are inhabited by grouchy demonic workers, to the water fountains that are found throughout the map and top you off with 15 health bonuses when interacted with and the weird paintings that use the sky and rock textures. The ridiculous sculpture on the ceiling of the yellow key room that's the centerpiece of the map is incredibly cool too.

There's not too much to say about the combat, it's mostly incidental here with the main trap of the level taking place for the yellow key but the presence of pinkies really does help with variety and I even didn't mind taking the chainsaw for a spin. The secret chaingun that you get by climbing on a toilet (I really think we did this zombieman a favour by shotgunning him given the state of the scene in here :P) does let you turn your brain off and mow down the fodder, but I found it late enough that it didn't make the entire map mindless, and the toilet area itself is rather easily missed. I think allowing the player to tackle the map either clockwise or anti-clockwise was a good idea since it's a nice surprise to end off the demon slaughter right where you began. The only thing I can really think to complain about here (I've gotta keep up appearances ok?) is the MIDI, who's whimsical tone feels rather out of place in this benign office environment. Great stuff!

E1M2 - “Admin Offices” by Peccatum Mihzamiz

Always nice to see continuity from the previous map at the start. This one sells the office theme well, especially since vanilla Doom 1 textures aren't the best at realism. Nice attention to detail with all the Doomcute and interactive sinks and toilets. The garden area in the centre is also cool. I managed to have some fun with the Chainsaw and Chaingun secrets, but I don't think withholding weapons is the best idea with Doom 1's limitations. Regular Shotgun gameplay has never been my favourite, as I've always preferred precise Chaingun-tapping of the weaker enemies in more casual situations.

E1M3 – Barracks by @Doomlust

DSDA-Doom v0.24.3, UV-Fast, Continuous, non-blind run w/saves

When I played the RC version of Barracks it was the first time I heard of Doomlust, who contributed MAP16 to Plutonia: Revisited Community Project 2 later in 2022. While it presented a simpler layout if compared to the previous two maps, it was by no means underwhelming. Combat was ok most of the time, exploiting odd angles, blind elevators, and a few teleports to surprise the player.

The first areas provided basic resources for pistol starters, but the intended progression was downwards, passing in front of the locked infirmary and exit room, and descending further in a long hallway with elevated zombie snipers. I must carefully kill them with chaingun to avoid a rain of bullets on my back, then I stormed the control room helped by some pre-placed barrels. The way to the RK required to do a full lap of the rooms surrounding the previous hallway, where bridges had been raised, and to manage some closets and turbo Pinky ambushes. The Partial Invisibility was a welcome bonus, but I was shocked to learn that -fast Shotgunners were only slightly impaired by it in such a narrow environment. A secret teleporter I found right next to the Combat Armour sent me to the outside, where I admired the bunker structure with a double-cannon turret. A rocket launcher was in the middle of an impact site, maybe a weapon dropped by a military squad, now reduced to a bloody pulp.

I returned to the sick bay of the Barracks, more like a slaughterhouse than a medical clinic, and endured a nice Demon & Imp ambush in a hazardous tunnel to retrieve the YK. At that point, I knew how to access the secret level and I can only hope that blind players randomly shoot the panel hiding the related switch, or else they will have a hard time finding it. However, Doomlust submitted a solid level for a beginner, and his more ambitious work for PRCP2 reinforced the good first impression.

E1M9 – Excavation Area by @LateNightPerson

DSDA-Doom v0.24.3, UV-Fast, Continuous, non-blind run w/saves

The secret level was the only one in the episode to have a specific requirement, besides the given name. In this case, the mapper should homage the OG Doom by having a ‘demonic star that spawns a lot of demons when approached’. LateNightPerson chose to claim this slot and did a good job at keeping it compact, while stuffing it with as many monsters as he could. The rules permitted to include Lost Souls and Cacodemons as well, though the bulk of the opposition consisted of zombies and Imps as usual.

The first area contained many hitscanners that could not be ignored on UV-fast. The shotgun was trapped, but at the bottom of the staircase I found a backpack and an easy secret with the Computer Area Map. Firstly, the progression required to enter a waste treatment room, explore the hazardous tunnels (do not miss the secret Radiation Suit as I did), and pick up the BK. The next step was entering the room with the crushers, possibly drilling machines at work, and collecting the YK in the storage room, which opened a nearby monster closet and spawned additional rabble in the level hub.

The yellow door led to the courtyard, where the only way forward was clogged by a slow and rather excessive teleport spam. I was playing continuously, and I almost ran out of shells and bullets during this fight. I descended via elevator to the lower caves, collecting the rocket launcher, the Combat Armour and even the secret Soul Sphere. I am glad I did because the above-mentioned pentacle was close, and it spawned a ridiculous number of monsters, including lots of -fast hitscanners that kept hitting me regardless of my constant circle-strafing and shooting. This was the highlight of the map, but not its last fight, since another large group of Imps and zombies appeared in the dark hallway before the exit. Excavation Site was bloody and combat-intensive, its cramped spaces did not allow to the flying monsters to express their potential, but it properly represented a dig site that went too far and discovered a buried demonic shrine, with tragic consequences. Good work.

Hey, it's been too long, Clubbies! (Clubbers? Doomers!) I didn't play a ton of Doom last year, but have gotten back in the habit the past couple of months (mostly playing some old faves--Rylayeh and Sacrament--and trying to play catchup [ha!] on the DBPs; I've knocked 10 out so far getting me up to Auger;Zenith.)

Anyway, thought it would good to drop back in on the Club and see what was up, given the month's just begun. I'd never heard of Solar Struggle (even as an avid Cacowards reader, it's hard enough to remember the winners these days, let alone the runners-up!) but it looks like something right up my alley, so let's goooo! Playing GZDoom/continuous/saves as usual. I usually play modern WADs on HMP, but Ultimate Doom WADs I'll often go with UV... let's give HMP a try for now and see how it goes (I can always adjust at the episode break!)

E1M1: Detention Facility

13:25 | 100% Everything

We start in a kind of prison break. I love all the little jail cells, with the peeks outside and the light shining through the bars onto the floor. (Unfortunately, I also noticed the lefthand brick texture on the inside edge of every cell window in the eastern cellblock was misaligned... oops!) Fairly short and sweet, a nice opener with some great visuals and more teeth than you'd expect with a number of surprise ambushes. The secret with the tiny little switch in the window was tricky to find--I only found it on account of the automap--and all it gave was like 3 imps and 12 shells? Sheesh. A good start to the WAD.

E1M2: Admin Offices

11:58 | 100% Everything

First off, I gotta say that I love how the maps keep continuity between exit and start areas. Especially as a continuous player, that always really sells the story, and really helps a community project like this keep a cohesive feel. Secondly, this sure is an office building! Love all the DoomCute going on here, tons of cubicles with computers and coffee mugs and bananas (!) Also some, uh, creepy closets that don't bode well for the future. The layout here looks great with the lovely fountain area in the middle of everything. It looks like the blue key is optional, you can either hike all the way around the office to said key, or you can access the ventilation shafts to bypass the blue door; either way, you'll have needed to search the cubes for the red key. (I just happened to end up taking the shortcut.) Hitscanners are the main danger in this map, as they have ample opportunity to potshot you from a ways away.

E1M3: Barracks

21:18 | 100% Everything

More hitscanners, more DoomCute (OMG that weightlifting room.) The first couple of areas seem to take a considerable amount of real estate just to get you kitted out with a shotty and chaingun (in case you didn't already have them.) Then it's a couple lifts down into a much more typical Doom-abstract level than we've seen so far. A quick circle around to get the red key, a little annoying you have to backtrack, well... back. In a kind of silly state of affairs, the red door and yellow door lie across the room from each other, and entering the former basically just hands you the yellow key. (It's slightly more complicated than that, but still.) I was stumped on the final secret for quite some time (hence my time to clear this map is the highest by far.) I also thought it was rather goofy to have an exit teleporter right next to your classic exit door. (But then, I always forget which Ultimate maps have the secret exits!) The automap again was my clue to solving the last secret and thus accessing my fourth level of the day...

E1M9: Excavation Site

10:59 | 100% Everything

This is a very small-feeling map, seemingly both in its footprint and its aspirations. There a couple of quick missions to collect the blue and yellow keys, both very cramped and forgettable (except perhaps for those crushers: RIP imp ambush.) The map really only shows its bite in the titular dig site, particular in the pitched key battle, which nonetheless is almost entirely negated by just running in a circle and letting infighting handle most of it. Which is not to say I didn't still get a rush out of it, mind you. The perfunctory nature of the map really betrays itself in the way the red and yellow doors are just slapped onto the walls next to each other, and the final ambush past the red door feels like a half-hearted attempt. Not a particularly good map, IMHO; as a secret map, though, it's probably fine.  

E1M1 & E1M2

HMP continuous no music; the playthrough will be blind, though as I mention in this video, I have played the first two maps before - I just forgot to record it, the first time :)

E1M2 - Admin Offices
by Peccatum Mihzamiz

The two midis we have had the pleasure of hearing so far have been 
 

"Nightfall" on map01 and now "Dancing Snakes" by Stuart Rynn (stewboy)

And I love this midi. Especially that middle8 where a harp holds on an arpeggiation on what sounds like a diminished II and then the bass returns on the I, outlining the melody oh, all the 7s, stewboy does know how to write them.

I am pleased to see continuity between maps, like back in Fragport a couple of months away! Always fun, always the best feeling for udoom megawads as well, this foregrounds the environments as the protagonist again. This is a spaceport and the lobby is gorgeous if not a bit overrun with pinkies, but we fix that quickly. There are water coolers all through the map that one would do well to refesh themselves on. This is a really fun space to explore! The plaza ceiling is gorgeous. There isn't any space that doesn't have a personality to it, yet it all feels a little like an oversized lego set as well, the uniformity of scale and the spacing of the points of interest.

I've played other Pecattum Mihzamiz maps, notably in DIY project which I adored. What an interesting name as well, the only Pecattum that comes to mind was the Emperor side-project with the dude's wife, I doubt that's that, so I will stop the speculation here :P In any case I wanted to note that in different maps by this mapper I've enjoyed there is a strong functional-doomcuteness factor, of little artistic contraptions that work as described (sinks, cupboards) and especially an artistic focus on the smaller-time detritus of actual-human daily life in a realistic space that bring a particular sense of humour to their maps. Much like needing to take a morning coffee before sitrep can detour into a wild globe trotting plane ride in DIY, I think the humour comes from the humanity of what is omitted so we have a rational doom playspace and what is stubbornly included that bring the funny to me. The elective doomcute and the scale factor are surreptitiously funny. 

There is an office space straight out of Going Down, where we can see what different demons have for lunch (banana shape is very popular sector shape with our mapper, it gives us beautiful slime trails, how apropos). A coffee cup has fallen, smashed on the floor of the rec room, coffee still devilishly hot and coagulating, one map unit thick, lol. There's little details everywhere but they're never boring details, they're all little notes on how life could have carried on in these surreal environments before O' Conner (I've decided I'm an O'Conner in this mapset to maintain the Flashback/Fade to Black connection that tickled me) swoops through like a hurricane of violence and explodes everything.

I love this. More than the combat or whatever about an early map in a udoom set, I am taken by the sense of place, the poking around and figuring out very well made secrets (couldn't get all of them! Urge to replay!) that do not necessarily lead to twenty megaspheres but just elucidate the purpose and function of these spaces. There is a cool duct crawl, there is a lot of water drinking - most of your problems are because you do not hydrate enough - there's snooping around a large inner plaza... by the by this has an intense Fragport nostalgia to me now because some of this spaceport is similar to what we saw at the best of Fragport. This is miles more completed in vision and execution of course, but it's been 15 yrs between or something. I like being back in a doom story that is contiguous and will take us from recognizable locale to locale, that part of Fragport was a riot, and in every other way I expect this to be a more complete experience than it! I would - and I will, once such a thing exists - just play 32 Peccatum maps in a row, I am a fan. Footage

E1M3 - “Barracks” by Doomlust

This map's detailing is more vanilla than the first two maps, though the outdoor secret area (pictured above) looks pretty cool. There must've been a serious mishap using that Rocket Launcher! The final key trap in the damaging hallway, with the Pinkies rising out of the floor, looks a bit strange visually. A teleport would be a better fit. I didn't manage to find the secret exit so it's gonna be an idclev there.

E1M9 - “Excavation Area” by LateNightPerson

Simple and fun low-tier slaughter. Lots of ammo and opportunities to unload into hordes of weak enemies. I like how you can leave the crusher trap and let it sort itself out as you battle the teleporting enemies near spawn. Cacos and Lost Souls are a welcome addition too.

Map 2 Apple HQ

What makes this level stand out is the obvious high degree of detail that makes a believable office out Dooms stock textures. A lot of imagination and creativity went into every inch of this level.

The first thing to notice is that you can see the last level if you turn around, this will become quite common in this wad but this is probably one of the more detailed examples.

This level just has so much cool shit to see. The sky box textures used as landscape portraits, all the cool office stuff in the cubicles, toilet faeces and just general really cool architecture. It's a pleasure to just look around.

The fake bridge in the vent section made me think that you don't really see much of this stuff now a days but it's used tastefully, in fact the whole vent system is kind of cool.

Good map made by some one who is clearly very skilled at what he does.

Map 3 Barracks

The level starts with 3 Zombie men hesitating if they should go in or not, I'd recommend they do as a fun time is had in the old abandoned barracks.

This level has a more classic feel to it although it does have cool details here and there. The combat is the probably the highlight of this level, although there is a limit to which enemies are allowed to be used what enemies are used, are used effectively. I like the bridge area with the shotgunners dodging area the pillars.

The red key door, I like that you have someone being being operated on with a chainsaw; that's pretty hard-core. Is the damaging floor meant to be a crematorium?

I think that the secret Rocket launcher section could have done with a lot more enemies. I could not figure out how to find the secret level, so I'll Idclev it.

Good level.

E1M3: Barracks. Played on DSDA v0.25.6, UV, PS. 114/114 K, 4/4 S, 40/40 I. Comp. time 8:40

Barracks keeps up the consistency of E1. It follows more traditional Doom aesthetics with less Doomcute, but still retains the semi-realistic look. It feels a bit like "TNT done right", meaning that the locale is realistic in a traditional Doom sense, but concise and efficient in its usage of space, and not one bit tedious. I'm still not longing that much for the SSG, although it helped that I remembered there was a RL secret, which helped me deal with the assault in the infirmary. Rocket launcher is the SSG of the Ultimate Doom.

*

E1M9: Excavation Site. Played on DSDA v0.25.6, UV, PS. 223/223 K, 3/3 S, 11/11 I. Comp. time 10:40

Another reason I like Solar Struggle is that it doesn't strive to be a riff on the original maps. That said, I loved the E1M9 tribute here in the red key area -- I imagine the original E1M9's pentagram "slaughter" was supposed to feel like this one! (Aside from the cacos and lost souls). Hope you saved rockets for this one!

For some reason the area leading up to the red key reminds me of... I would have said Alien Vendetta first, but that's probably because of the brown color. Maybe early Speed of Doom? In any case, good stuff. For a secret map it's not gimmicky or wacky, but enemy density sure is higher than what we've seen so far.

I forgot to record my time at the end of either of these maps. I hope you’ll forgive me.

Also, I’m gonna mix Doom and Freedoom terminology a bit, try to get used to it…

E1M3: Barracks (Doomlust)
Woof 10.5.1 (Debian 12), Freedoom: Phase 1 + Antaresian Reliquary Mod, Extreme Carnage, practiced, pistol start
Kills: 94%, Items: 100%, Secrets: 25%, Save Count: 0

Another quick and easy one I don’t have very much to say about. I guess I’m not very good at describing Doom 1 combat scenarios, but I feel like I have a lot more to say about most of Freedoom Phase 1’s maps even though they’re usually less detailed. Anyway, Barracks is a neat-looking steel and bronze base. Probably the parts I remember most easily are the hallway with the lifts, where the hitscanners above can be a little difficult to snipe, and the damaging tech floor leading to the yellow key, where Flesh Worms (Pinkies) and Serpentipedes (Imps) pop up. I forgot it the first two times I played, but the secret exit wasn’t terribly hard to find. Just shoot an out of place wall texture and hit a switch to open up the door briefly. I’ve gotta start seeking out these secrets; there seem to be a few in every map.

Oh yeah, and I like hearing TNT MIDI Pack music in people’s maps, even if they’re not my contributions. This is the first megaWAD I’ll be playing with Woof; I wonder if something is different with its renderer compared to Crispy, because all these maps look better than I remember.

E1M9: Excavation Site (LateNightPerson)
Woof 10.5.1 (Debian 12), Freedoom: Phase 1 + Antaresian Reliquary Mod, Extreme Carnage, blind, continuous
Kills: 100%, Items: 100%, Secrets: 100%, Save Count: 0

I didn’t like LateNightPerson’s map in PUSS IX, so I’m happy to say that Excavation Site completely redeems them for me. It’s really a quality map, with a beautiful outdoor area visible from the start, and has some fairly clever moments - a walk along the edge of a slime pit to find the blue key, an extensive teleport ambush on a pentagram around the red key, and the outdoor area is spiked with zombies from above, and Flesh Worms and Trilobites (Cacos) below. Still very easy, especially with Antaresian Reliquary’s overpowered rocket launcher replacement; I beat it first attempt without even saving at the level start. But that’s no matter, it looks great and it’s fun to play.

1 hour ago, Anarkzie said:

The red key door, I like that you have someone being being operated on with a chainsaw; that's pretty hard-core. Is the damaging floor meant to be a crematorium?

That's exactly the idea, a medical room where the marines' bodies went through a ritual and were cremated.

E1M3: Barracks

by @Doomlust

In the first of several instances of an unknown mapper taking a slot in Solar Struggle, E1M3 is somewhat less visually interesting than the previous two maps but at the same time, increases the enemy density by quite a bit as compared to the previous two maps. There's admittedly lots of brown, but there's also quite a few large ambushes, but we are again adequately supplied with ammo, especially shotgun shells which we are swimming in most of the time.

At the same time, secrets feel overall  more interesting than they did in Detention Facility because they aren't all located in tiny closets. It'll be a while before we find the first one. It's ok though. The green armor location is cool because it's located next to a wall of closets with something like dumbbells on the floor? In any case, the red key room is a highlight. The corpse on the table suggests some kind of medical facility and blood can unsettlingly be observed flowing out from the corpse locker. The YK is located in a room that is apparently highly-irradiated. Which is strange because those MRI machines aren't really designed to kill a human within 10 seconds and it doesn't even look broken down but anyway.....

...this is also the first map where the skybox is displayed front and center. Once at the beginning and once in an obscure outlook we really thought had to contain the secret exit. Speaking of, it took some time to figure there had to be a passage leading to the megaarmor we could spot behind some lights. In retrospect, we should have realized there were lights in the other corners. From here, it's some console pressing, teleport accessing and holding off an immediate assault from Imps and a couple of demons in a massive outdoor area with a star-shaped structure containing a rocket launcher sitting in the middle. Presumably this led to the "Excavation Site" but noooooooo. Grabbing the rockets in the corner for continuous players failed to net any clues. After something like 8 minutes at least, we realized we could stand in the window of the med office to shoot at the radiation sign we'd shot at earlier. Strangely that worked, then the door in the exit office with the regular exit teleport will open and that's the map.

Something I wanted to mention in the last map is that I really hope they go beyond the E1 roster. When sets like NostalDoom and Lockjaw show zero reluctance in deploying monsters from the later episodes, it's a little strange why vanilla rules would so strictly be adhered to in this case. It does seem like they'll be in the secret map at least, so that's something to look forward to.

E1M9: Excavation Site

by @LateNightPerson

Holy shit, Doomworld is being wonky. In short more abstract, slaughter-lite better than LNP map in PUSS X, but probably grindier than necessary and nice E1M9 homage. Nicely timed teleport fights near Excavation Site entrance as well as the map exit. But please more bullets! Forgive our BK missing though

E1M3 - Barracks - Doomlust (100%K/I/S):

This one gives more of an E1 vibe, there are also some things I think I saw in TNT Revilution, it must be the music usage, but for some reason, that section where the lifts go up so you can go from side to side, I think I've already seen it in TNTR. Nonetheless, this is a really fun map, I never got the idea of what a barrack is, having one almost next to my house, but I guess it is, indeed, a barrack. I won't bother, because the map is good as it is. Again, this has some E1 vibes in comparison to the previous two maps, and because of that, this one feels less detailed. I liked the idea of having to put a hazmat suit to get the key inside a radioactive room. 
I had to play this map twice because I accidentally exited the level with the regular exit teleport, which is in your way, trying to go fast for the secret exit as the door that leads to the room is timed. Luckly, the RL secret helped me a lot to do my "second lap" faster and proceed with the secret level.

E1M9 - Excavation Site - LateNightPerson (88%K/100%I/100%S):

This one feels less detailed, and simpler than the others. There are some improvements from Skulltiverse MAP08 from the same author though. Though simple, this map has one interesting moment, and goes well with the naming convention of the "excavation area". There is a fun fight there, with a star-teleport resembling the one found in the original E1M9 (Which I guess, is one of the obligatory references some maps needed to have according to ViolentBeetle), that you will easily deal with, as circle-strafing with your rocket launcher will fix your problems. 
I've encountered two big problems though, some monsters did not spawn for me, and also, I had the "all-ghosts glitch" by using the shotgun with so many corpses at the middle, causing it. I had to save and reload to fix it, but I guess this caused the remaining monsters not to spawn. 
Progression here is straight-forward, and there is nothing too amusing here apart from that specific encounter. It is, a simple map, and I does not give a big twist being a secret level, so I guess it is kind off skippable.

(UV Playthrough - Crispy Doom)

Order of Preference:
 

E1M1: "Detention Facility" by Myolden

UV, pistol start, no saves

100% kills, 4/4 secrets

You start off in a cell, which soon opens up along with the other cells in the block. Every cell contains a dead marine, except of course yours. You don't always get a breezy Myolden map outside of early Nostalgia, so relish this one. The pistol and shotgun are your only weapons, and enemies are limited to former humans and imps. It's lowkey stuff, but Myolden does his best to spice it up with some monster closet and teleporter ambushes. Don't let that 100% secret count up there fool you, the secrets were pretty tough to find. My rule is I only put in the extra effort to look for secrets if I'm missing kills, and there were some imps in one of the secrets. Took me quite a while to find. Gotta say I already have high hopes for the set's gimmick, the premise providing some extra inspiration to give these maps a sense of place, and this one really does it well. The cell blocks with dead marines, the security guard zombieman's desk where you shoot the button behind him to open the door. It's great stuff, and it gets me excited to see more. Nice little opener.

E1M2: "Admin Offices" by Peccatum Mihzamiz

UV, pistol start, no saves

100% kills, 2/3 secrets

An absolutely precious display of Doomcute. Outright Doomdorable. Starting off in a nice looking reception area, you eventually make it to the office areas, where the monsters are all using their little cubicles and tapping away at their little computers. I love the effort into making each cubicle somewhat personalized, some monsters have banana lunches, blue-screened computers, and one has the red key that you'll need later. In the bathroom, you can step over the worst toilet in Scotland Titan for your first chaingun, and also interact with all the sinks and toilets. The indoor park at the center, which has a big fountain, trees, and a cool ceiling design holds the likely final fight. The map isn't too tough, but of course as an early map there are lots of hitscanners that can chip away at you. Loved this one a lot, very charming!

DSDA-doom, pistol-start, UV

e1m3:

The detailing is a bit less interesting than in the previous maps, but I really like how the sky is used. The combat is more of the same with a bit more interesting traps. The silver room with the yellow key looks strange, I like it. The map feels like it ends abruptly. Still, a nice map.

e1m9:

A big step up in the combat department. Fun fights, especially the red key fight (a really nice reference too). I also liked the usage of crushers. I feel like the smaller enemy roster in Doom 1 often drives mappers to use crushers and damaging floors more interestingly than in Doom 2. You can just run away from the last two fights which I don't like. Feels cheap. The lighting in the last room is great. Really nice map.

E1M3 – Barracks by @Doomlust
Woof, UV, Continuous, single segment.
 

E1M4 - Mineral Processing - Nightmare! 100% Secrets

After Death Bear stuff last month (I played more than I had opportunity to write about) and with the scenery from the starting building, I was expecting a bit rough but exciting rodeo and the level sure delivered. 12 attempts, most of which died between the starting room and the door directly opposite. Two resulted in tripping accidents followed by eventual chip damage adding up as I didn't really research a good recovery strategy for that situation and took wrong ways out of slime.

The start is once again the roughest part. NM pinkies are bad as-is, but now combined with shooting galleries and narrow bridges to navigate, some creativity and just plain luck to obtain the chaingun is required. Next comes the cave, one stimpack, one armor bonus and a health vial being all we've got to work with until blue armor and then the relative safety of the building past restored bridge. And yet another timely bullet box secret. Seriously, keep doing more random ammo secrets please :)

From there on it's a lot of hectic nonsense running on the ramps with awkward stair-driven momentum, dodging fireball volleys and pinkies, visiting keys in order of convinience. BK has coveted medkits and is thus first alongside rocket balcony secret, followed by RK and rocket lift secret, backtracking through RL to BK door section with a timely soulsphere, and once YK is down finally beeline for the exit.

This map has pretty much all pieces for an incredibly fun nightmare recipe:

• open for turret enemies but full of cover and los breaks layout
• navigation hazards
• reasonably spread out healing that lets you press onward, take hits here and there and plan for recovery
• backtracking through previously visited areas
• a variety of options on order of things to engage with (e.g. just because I delayed RL significantly doesn't mean you have to)

Combining openness and backtracking makes the map alive and dynamic at all times, just non-stop high octane fun. The only thing I'd consider missing here would be a random roaming Caco or two, but I guess that was banned roster-wise.

sstrgle_e1m4_nm100s-4-26-89.zip

GZDoom/UV/Pistol-Start/Saves

E1M3: Barracks - Doomlust

100% kills and secrets

Time: 8:12

I'm pretty sure this is the first map by Doomlust I've ever played. I know I haven't heard of them before at least. Their contribution to E1 feels like the most standard UD map so far. The environmental design is more traditional than the last 2 maps, and there's only a little bit of Doomcute sprinkled about, like the dumbbells by the beds. There are a few worldbuilding details though, like what I'm assuming is a turret that looks out to the secret outdoor area, and the medical room. The chaingun and chainsaw are non-secrets this time, and the chaingun is acquired pretty early on, allowing for quick mowing down of enemies, especially in the area with the partial invis. This is mostly a linear affair, but you can head to the actual barrack area before heading down to the rest of the map to grab a green armor. The path to the red key is the biggest leg of the map. For some reason, I'm not a big fan of the room where you go through the middle, while the other sides of the room are highly elevated which you'll eventually get up to in order to cross it. I saw that again this playthrough and went "ugh". I don't know why, it's not really bad. In fact, I don't really know why I don't really care for this map for the most part. It's fine, but I feel like it's lacking something, but whatever that something is I don't know. I do like the outdoor secret where you grab the first rocket launcher of the WAD. I like how it raises out of the center. And I do like the medical room. It's the part that feels the most like the other 2 maps to me, where it feels like an area with a purpose. I remember finding the secret level took a while my first playthrough, but I remembered it this time. Overall, this map is fine, but there's something missing with it up until you get the red key that makes me indifferent to it. 

E1M9: Excavation Site - LateNightPerson

100% kills and secrets

Time: 9:33

I guess I lied last month; I've played 3 maps by LateNightPerson. I may have forgotten they took a part in this WAD. You can tell this is a newer map by them, as their mapping has improved over the previous 2 maps! We've got more than 200 monsters in this one, which is the most in one map so far. The map is pretty small though, so you know what that means. Ambushes! There's 3 big teleport ambushes that I can think of, but we have to get to them first. For that, we have to head outside. To get there, we have to find a couple keys. The first one is the blue key, which we have to traverse some toxic waste to get to. The WAD's first caco is here too, but you can take it out from the entrance to the sludge with a shotgun safely. Check the wall by the candle for a rad suit. After grabbing the blue key, you can open said door by the backpack and secret automap to a little quarry area with crushers. Grab the yellow key and deal with the closet that opened nearby and the monsters spilling in outside the room. I believe lost souls make their first appearance here. Now we can head outside. You'll finally grab a chaingun which you can use on the hitscan overlooking the area, but save some bullets for big teleport ambush #1. This little crater area will start filling with all the introduced monsters. That RL from the last map would have been nice here, but I'm pistol-starting this time, so shotgunning and chaingunning it is. Once that's done, we can head down to the titular site. Check the area by the crates for the first non-secret RL, and use the side of the sign with the candle to open a teleported to the soul sphere. Some platforming over lava takes us to the red star reference, and big teleport ambush #2. Jump in, and get circle-strafing. A TON of enemies will teleport in, and I don't think there's enough ammo here to take out everything. I did shoot a rocket into the center every so often, but there's no more rockets outside of the ones you just got, so save some for later. After everything has stopped moving, grab the red key and head back out. Behind the red door is big teleport ambush #3, which you can retreat out of the room and cheese that way with the chaingun. One small imp closet ambush is left, and then you're done! Overall, this is the most explosive map so far. The red star ambush is pretty fun, and the rest of the map ain't too bad either. A marked improvement over LNP's last 2 maps that I've played.

E1M3 - “Barracks” by Doomlust

A generally luke-warm map and sadly one that doesn't feel like it has changed much from the version I playtested during development. The visuals don't really match the previous two maps, also there are a lot of lifts that break up the map that makes the flow of the map rather stop-start. The gameplay tends t funnel you through without much of a fuss, the yellow key probably offering the only exception that offers a pincer attack on damaging floor. 

Overall, it isn't a bad map, but it isn't overly good either.

E1M9 - “Excavation Area” by LateNightPerson

This like the last map feels like an effort of someone starting out on their mapping journey, in the end the map is rather modest on the visuals and the traps tend to be easily defanged, the red key is more spectacle than anything else, which is a shame because the arena looks quite nice. The hardest fight fo me was by the exit, purely because of the fact that the amount of space is limited.

Like E1M3, not too bad, but lacks the flourish of the first two maps.

Oh yeah ... the secret map.  I forgot to even look for that :)

E1M4: Mineral Processing by Death Bear

This map is pure, non-stop action. Set in an industrial complex in the middle of a lake of toxic sludge, Mineral Processing is a rather open map, a playground of sort for the player to run around and fire at enemies that attack from every direction. This has an unfortunate side-effect of making it difficult to describe the overall progression, as E1M4 favours fluid combat over major setpieces. If I had to think about individual fights that stuck in my mind, that would be a couple of large-scale teleport traps. The first of those is triggered by grabbing the rocket launcher down below, a helpful tool for some bigger monster hordes, the other takes place right by the exit door.

I had a ton of fun here. The premise and aesthetics are fine and the music (Jimmy Paddock's "Pistons") is an ideal backdrop for run-and-gun gameplay.

DSDA-Doom, complevel 3, pistol start, blind, then speedrun

E1M3: Barracks by Doomlust

I didn't really vibe with this map on my first playthrough. It certainly isn't bad, but I found it kind of standard. The texturing especially kind of turned me off, and unlike the first two maps which had a more fleshed out sense of place, this map really doesn't feel like barracks to me. Probably wouldn't have cared if the first two maps hadn't buttered me up on setting, but so it goes. I feel like I'm being too negative, because it really is a solid map, just not a particularly exciting one. I will say the final jump scare at the yellow key was fun though! I also couldn't quite figure out how to access the secret exit and had to look it up. I figured out where to look, kind of, but couldn't active it without assistance.

However, all of that is my opinion on my first playthrough. I don't know why I've decided to try and do speedruns of all the levels as we get to them, but in Barracks case, I'm incredibly glad I did. I don't do much Doom speedrunning and even less routing, but figuring out strategies for this map was very fun. I accidentally found out I could skip raising the bridges by just jumping straight over, and also figured out you can jump in/out the window in the yellow key room without bothering with the door. These two discoveries, minor time savers they might be, really helped my enjoyment of routing. Doomlust also set some perfect roadblocks that were fun to figure out the best ways to overcome, like the two pinkies sitting in the gulley before the room with partial invisibility and also... the room with the partial invisibility. If I was going hardcore on grinding runs for this map, the shotgunners would probably make me want to tear my hair out, but for casual speedrunning, they add a fun element of luck. 

Demo: sstruge1m3-136.zip

E1M9: Excavation Site by Late Night Person

Banger map. While not the most visually impressive, it certainly ain't bad. The midi is great, and really made my speedrun attempts go from a slight heartrate increase to a full tilt rush. On a more casual pace, the fights are very fun. I especially like the yellow key fight, because at first you think the only trap is the imps/shotgunner closet that opens up right next to you, until you hear the teleporter going off on your walk back. The red key fight is a little weaker in my opinion, if only because you're given a rocket launcher right before, which makes it incredibly easy to take apart. The walk through a slime river was cool, I like that there's a small border around the edge to dodge damage while dealing with the imps, nicer than some mappers would be in a situation like that. The secrets are all quite nice, each giving you a tool to deal with imminent problems. I think "generous" is a good way to describe Excavation Site, it always gives you goodies right when you're about to need them.

Figuring out a speed route for this map was similarly generous. Other than a few things here and there, my route pretty much followed the normal route of the map. The only major change is sprinting to the red key and ignoring all the monsters that teleport in, then using the rocket launcher you're given to clear up all the monsters on the elevator that were skipped before. 

Demo: sstruge1m9-151.zip

E1M3 - Barracks by Doomlust:

9:49/0 Deaths
So after two levels that feel like they're setting up for a bunch of fairly realistic feeling maps, Barracks brings us back to the cosy realm of Knee Deep in the Dead-esque techbase abstraction. I guess there's a little doomcute with the world's saddest gym near the start of the map (I love the dumbbells, but I'm not sure how four of them are gonna keep an entire barracks fit!) and the medical room that's in the central area but that's not the case for most of the level. This isn't to say I thought the map looked bad, as it pulls off the Knee Deep in the Dead look very well. I liked the scenery around the rocket launcher fight, the large crack in the ground looks very cool, despite the heavy use of ASHWALL7 - one of the few textures in Doom that I honestly think is beyond saving :P

I don't have too much to say about the combat, it's pretty standard-fare for a KDITD styled map, which makes sense for something this early into the megawad. The most memorable part of it is weirdly the shotgun guys that are stuck behind the floor lamps just after the main hub area. Not sure why really, I guess it's rather uncommon to see monsters blocked by something that isn't a higher platform or midtexture. The secret exit is a bit dumb since you have to shoot a random wall to open it, but after the initial thought of "THAT'S the secret exit????" I found it pretty funny. Overall, it's a fine map that keeps the pace up for the rest of the episode.

E1M9 - Excavation Site by Late Night Person:

9:59/0 Deaths
Now THIS is why I love playing community projects, out of nowhere you get something completely insane that owns. You can tell immediately that Excavation Site is going to be an experience with the crusty Half Life 2 MIDI in the background and the GRAYTALL that covers the starting room. The main building in the map houses a few small ambushes and a highlight of my playthrough was seeing an imp getting squished by the excavators(?) without making a single pain sound, which was absolutely hilarious. I really want to highlight the little optional room at the start that houses the Player 2-4 starts, which is completely unnecessary but really cool.

The combat here is pretty easy despite the incredibly high monster count, though the introduction of both the cacodemon and lost soul (that really caught me off guard, since I was expecting this to follow Ultimate Doom's monster & item progression pretty faithfully given the first few levels) makes things more interesting. The major ambushes pretty much clear themselves, 90% of the monsters in the yellow key fight will get crushed by the excavators, which makes for a amusing watch. Then you have the red key ambush, which is a ridiculous horde of nearly 100 enemies teleporting into the centre of a circular room at once, and the sheer spectacle of that is something to behold despite how silly it looks and how the entire thing can be circle-strafed into oblivion. I loved this map, it was fantastic.

E1M4 - “Mineral Processing” by Death Bear

I love these large, outdoor maps that allow me to explore various points of interest before I move on to the intended progression. It looks great, plays well, and the secrets are intuitive enough for me to find all of them. There's a bit of pressure early on with Imps and hitscanners harassing from the windows and ledges. Grabbing the early Backpack and Blue Armour secrets ensures that the rest of the map is smooth sailing. Since I grabbed all those secret rockets, the bigger fights allowed for some RL spam to complement the Chaingun-heavy gameplay. Best map of the episode so far.

E1M3 - "Barracks" by Doomlust
MIDI: "Source of Stress" by Doomkid and Jimmy
dsda-doom v0.25.6 cl3, UV, Pistol start, blind run, single segment
100% kills and secrets

This barracks is small and cramped... and filled with demons. There is some doomcute in an exercise room and a medical room. There's some sort of cannon on the north side with an explosion crater in front of it. I wonder what went down there?

There is a red cross on the floor in front of the medical room. These days that's probably a bad thing to put in your level. I did enjoy the yellow key trap, although to me it was pretty obvious it was going to be a trap. So I immediately retreated when the pinkies popped up inside. There's also blood running out of a freezer (at least I assume that's what it's supposed to be), and it opens releasing imps right before you open up the yellow key.

The secrets are good. I managed to find them all with just a little bit of looking after I found the exit. The secret exit did seem like an afterthought, but it works. My main complaint here is you have to be careful getting TO the secret exit not to accidentally step on the normal one.

There isn't a whole lot of resistance, and I managed to beat the map blind. I still liked it though and had fun, although not nearly as much as the previous two maps.

E1M9 - "Excavation Area" by LateNightPerson
MIDI: "Half-Life 2 - You're Not Supposed to Be Here" by Kelly Bailey
dsda-doom v0.25.6 cl3, UV, Pistol start, blind run, single segment
100% kills and secrets

There's a couple places that makes this seem like some sort of excavation area, but for the most part it seems pretty abstract to me. I don't actually care about that though. It seems like this particular excavation had the misfortune to delve too deeply and uncovered something they shouldn't have.

I liked the room with the crushers. The crushers themselves weren't especially dangerous, but it was amusing to use them to kill some of the enemies in here.

The main attraction doesn't happen until near the end when you find a foreboding five-pointed star deep underground. It just so happens that hell decides to start their invasion when you enter. It's a pretty simple fight that you can easily finish just by the judicious use of circle strafing. The faily obvious secret soulsphere right before this helps as well, of course.

In some ways this map reminds me of the iwad levels more than the previous maps did, since it lacks the detailing and doomcute that the previous maps have. I enjoyed making my way through this map, especially that last big fight.

E1M4: Mineral Processing. Played on DSDA v0.25.6, UV, PS. 217/217 K, 7/7 S, 58/77 I. Comp. time 13:04

Another now familiar name, Death Bear delivers a map that revolves mostly around a single area you need to make through -- towers amidst a nukage sea. Somehow this one brings Valiant's middle episode to mind despite we are missing Doom 2 enemies and the custom Valiant ones. I'm not sure why that is, or if that was an inspiration -- probably not -- but good stuff nonetheless. I remember having small trouble finding all the secrets on my first playthroughs back in 2021 or early 2022, and even now I didn't remember them as such, not all of them, but I guess I've become better in looking for hidden, few pixel wide switches.

Single-segmented this one, too, but I had the advantage of foresight -- the ambush triggered by obtaining the RL has killed me before. Now that particular ambush is fun and enjoyable, as is the final area massacre.

E1M4 – Mineral Processing by @Death Bear

DSDA-Doom v0.24.3, UV-Fast, Continuous, non-blind run w/saves

I was doing well in my adventure until I stumbled through Mineral Processing and its wide-open layout, a typical UV-fast bugaboo. Death Bear is an author that never misses, and I remembered his Solar Struggle map to be a wonderful experience with normal monsters. The action pivoted on a large slime basin with tall artificial structures emerging from the harmful liquid and criss-crossed by walkways. The player must frequently enter the surrounding caves, giving cover from attacks and hiding many secret passages.

Secrets were an important element, not only because there were 7 in total, but also because the items stored inside allowed me to survive the hitscan and projectile hell I encountered when leaving my shelter. All those Imps might not seem like a huge deal, but they repeatedly shot fireballs and I could not move freely on a ledge. It took me some time to establish a foothold and regain health, before deciding to advance and collect the various keycards on display. There were multiple options to progress, even dropping in the slime and approaching the rocket launcher, which was protected by a chaotic teleporting swarm that humbled my already mortified Doom self.

The RK was in the southern cave area, while the BK was in the highest building at the centre of the map. They could be collected in any order and no big enemy groups had been placed to defend them. They were instrumental to access the locked part of the Mineral Processing facility, containing machinery at work and heftier ambushes. I knew how to obtain the Soul Sphere, so I was equipped for the upcoming challenges. I must return to the slime basin to collect the YK in another building, then I followed the yellow signs to the matching door.

The last ambush took place in a very large courtyard, featuring a conveyor belt with raw minerals, and pallets with crates and barrels on them. At least there was the option to fall back and find cover, so I was minimally exposed to attrition attacks from the plethora of hitscanners. The map looked great, and I found its construction quite compelling, with windows connecting the various areas and the same pseudo realism that characterised Knee-Deep in the Dead (i.e.: “I do not know exactly what it is, but it looks like a real place!”). Mineral Processing was fun to explore, and its only drawback was the lack of a return shortcut from the last courtyard. If you want to search for any missing secrets, a long, idle backtracking awaits you! An excellent contribution by Death Bear.

E1M3 - Barracks
by Doomlust

The midi is "Source of Stress" by Doomkid and James Paddock (Jimmy)


I don't believe I've played maps by either of the mappers featured today, so I wanted to thank them for contributing their time and putting in creativity so we get to play awesome free video-game. It never stops being novel to me how much this community has to offer.

We continue on with our struggle to get the heck off of Titan. This time O'Conner must pass through military barracks carved out of the rough natural terrain. Three zombie men guards have their backs to us and die bitterly. We get the sense they do not expect us to pass through. All the worse for them.

The midi supports our intrepid ingress with a stealthy, dangerous mood. Stepping through the rock entrance we find an internal metal2 courtyard lined with imps and, against it, a kebab stand with human appendages lined up to be swiveled. Not kosher.  

In the courtyard we lower a chaingun, and around the way there is a little doomcute gym with square dumbells, there we lower a green armor. We are udoom stacked, heh.

The map carries on with doomcute rooms describing the internals of this barrack, only slightly in worse light after following up a doomcute extravaganza by Peccatum. The combat flows well enough, a blur sphere reverses some priorities for a few combats, we do minor transformations on the adventurous layout like raise bridges and connect vantages, it's not extravagant but it works very well. 

There is a TNT-ish trap where we have to put on a hazmat and go in the reactor to fetch one of the keys, upon entry on the reactor we get ambushed both sides by a lot of pinkies and imps, I could have died there but it worked out. This map is quite TNT-ish in feel I would say actually, not that I'm an iwad expert.

Much like the maps before in the set it's the secret seeking that I am finding quite rewarding and fun. Any good udoom wad should be a good opportunity to sharpen some secret finding skills, and I do a bit better than usual on opening my eyes for this map. I find the secret exit! 

Straight on through to 

E1M9 - Excavation Site 
by Late Night Person

"You're Not Supposed to Be Here" by Kelly Bailey from Half-Life 2

An action packed secret level that starts us next to yellow and red door and sends us off to a multispoked dark techbase adventure that will indeed pass through a titular excavation site. We fight our first caco in the presage to a sewer section where we have to hug the walls to avoid tick damage. This is the kind of stuff that will get me killed over and over in udoom sets, world hazards, not imps and cacos. In any case, this one's not too long and not too hard, it's more to support the adventuresome atmosphere the map is going for. 

Down the way we find some mining equipment that has been left running, good for crushing a few imps and sargeants that will teleport through once we nab a yellow key left conspicuously by the crushers. I get fairly chipped down by this point but I carry on through.

So far I've literally been strolling through the set, I'm holding shift down through my doomperson is set on Always Run, in an effort to look around more thoroughly, do a bit of steadycam for the footage and generally change my clip for the set. However, with my yellow and blue key in hand I double back to the start of the map to go check out what's outside that yellow door. There's a open air ravine with hitscan peppering the bulwark and a caco and lots of pinkies in the main force and I actually have to let go of my stroll button and collect some hot health to not die to that brigade, so at least we're getting some resistance by map09. 

Going through the dark caves that follow the ravine we are reaching the excavation site. This is the bit of environmental storytelling we get on this map: through the detention site and over the spaceport and down the excavation mines, we find the (or a) source of demonic incursion, the fools dug too deep, they found an ancient bloody rock pentagram and they said 'this is fine' and now I have to deal with this. 

This is a circlestrafe fight that pops off on top of the bloody pentagram, the most significant numbers we've seen in the set so far, we do have a rocket launcher with some limited ammo, but we also have to pick off hitscan from the blender mix while we circle strafe to infinity... This fight was appreciated for the thematic juice and the change of pace. This is a cool map, the secrets are rewarding here as well, including a soulsphere I really needed!

Armed with all keys I double back to the start and take the red door. I miscalculate my position when a teleport ambush pops off and the silly low tier doom1 monsters almost melt me in seconds. I let go of the stroller key and play again and somehow make it through, but then we get a traitorous last ambush by the exit that again almost gets me!

This fairly simple map almost killed me 3 times and made me sweat and for the thrills I am very satisfied with my deathless run all the way through 1,2,3 and 9. Footage!

 

Map 9 Excavation Site 

I like the little slime maze that has you moving from safe space to safe space, I also like that the goal of entering the maze is clearly shown before hand. It shows that the mapper has ideas beyond flood area with lots of enemies.

The construction of the crusher is simple but believable in the sense that it actually looks like a machine. Finally, the final key fight on the star is pretty cool.