Simulacrum | 32 MBF21 maps by muumi and myolden | now on idgames!

You had me at "Simulacrum is a set of 32 maps in MBF21 format by muumi and myolden."

Seriously tho, you 2 are some of my favorite mappers out there currently. Some of the most creative maps I've played in a while have been by you guys, so seeing a full collab megawad from you two makes this an instant play. Even if I am suffering a bit of Doom burnout, this will make that take a backseat. Very excited to try it!

Ok, played the first 10 maps on UV continuous. As expected, these are all excellent. Already a challenge from the second map on, imo. Love the distinct visuals for each map, and the color combos all mesh well so far. There's been quite a few fights that have given me trouble already, so I'm scared to see what comes later. The part of MAP09 with the caco cloud took me a ton of attempts until I realized what I needed to do on that one. Very clever set-up there, and there had already been a lot of clever set-ups so far. The whole red key tower in I think it was MAP04 was another highlight with how that area unfolded in multiple stages providing unique layouts and monster combos. Soundtrack has been great too so far. I'm definitely excited to see where the rest of this goes! I was going to do MAP11 tonight, but then I saw the kill count and was like "I don't have time for this now." But yeah, this is incredibly high quality stuff on pretty much every level.

Hey folks, just a quick bump to announce that we've updated the wad to RC2. Just some small fixes and balancing tweaks. Thanks to everyone for the kind comments, we are glad you're enjoying the set!

Just made it through MAP11. Spectacle abound, some absolutely monolithic slaughter fights whilst never feeling outside of my mortal capabilities. And, just like the rest of the set so far, looks like a million bucks. Incredible map.

Solid maps, thanks for sharing.  Here's FDAs for 1-6.  I found most of the secrets.  Gonna go back for the soulsphere on 06 and take a break before continuing.

noisy_Simulacrum_RC2_m1-6_hntr.zip

Gonna go back for the soulsphere on 06

edit: ahh yiss yiss, how did I not see that switch.  of course. *nods*

These mancubi in map20 are completely stuck

Started to play. It seems to be a very promising megawad!

I've been playing this sporadically and I'm enjoying my time. I feel like both individual mapping expressions mix so swiftly with each other, like peanut butter and chocolate. And the art style of both is incredibly attractive to my eyes, from the choice of colour combinations to the little doomcute things, and most specially for all the out-of-bounds scenery. And then the gameplay is as advertised, challenging and exciting. And... you probably wouldn't expect a comment on this particular thing, but I personally love it when there're are random hidden bonus pickups on places you wouldn't need to be (e.g. map 04). That adds points to enjoyment lol.

Some few observations:

Maps 07-15 - noisy_Simulacrum_RC2_m7-15.zip

I played some on cl9 but nothing broke... Look forward to the rest.

Here's the rest.  I played each map until I exploded, which happened a lot.  I usually got at least 5 mins into each map though.

noisy_Simulacrum_RC2_m16-32.zip

Anyways, That was a solid set, excellent even.  Most maps were comfortably short, but there were at least several chonkers in there, more so the deeper you get into the WAD.  Extremely fun slaughter content back-to-back-to-back... or is it "combat puzzles", whichever one is politically correct.  There was enough splash of engaging gameplay variety between them all for sure, and all felt fair.  I wasn't insta killed for falling into pits, which is nice.  I enjoyed finding the 1-3 secrets in each map - usually it was "find that one shoot switch" kinda stuff but even that didn't get old.  The weird trippy astral voodoo visuals rocks.  I didn't get to see exactly 100% of it all but I might revisit a couple maps when this hits idgames archive.

MAP20: Linedef 19937 has the same action as the switch nearby (5245). Not game-breaking but interesting.

I now want a megawad based off of what MAP24 is.

EDIT: Like with the Doomium II thread, I will mention that monsters telefragging each other on MAP30 can be a problem, especially in the last battle there.

Perhaps a little "floor mistake" (water) in MAP 02. I will not hurry with this megawad (completed 4 levels in UV), but it seems valuable for playing it from the beginning up to the end.

Super small mistake on map04 (classic software mode moment)

Excellent mapset btw :)

I'm playing through this and am currently at map 20. Holy hell it's one of the best map sets I've played but godamn I never expected a myolden map to be this hard. This is like the pina collada WAD but on steroids

Played through the first 12 maps tonight, loving it so far.  Gorgeous maps, great combat, and things don't drag despite high kill counts.  Nice and zesty, too!  Can't wait to play more!

Really like the color palette. Can I use it for my own project?

2 minutes ago, JackDBS said:

Really like the color palette. Can I use it for my own project?

Yeah, go for it.

Just finished MAP17. Some more incredible work from muumi - and whilst maybe not as balls-to-the-wall as MAP11, the forgotten library was dripping with atmosphere, and I love how the secrets were hidden. And that final fight gave me quite the spook, before it promptly killed me 5 or so times.

On another note, whilst I may not have properly started MAP18 yet, I'm being graced to its bespoke MIDI as I type this out, and god damn is it good. Seriously, @AD_79, how do you make tremolo picking sound this good in MIDI?

Way beyond my skill level, but I played through the set with cheats, as I often do when something is too difficult but too intriguing to stop. Gorgeous maps, and I liked to see so many themes. The animated skies look great, especially the black hole that warps space. Gives really ominous vibes.

I found the grandmother's cottage (or whatever) hilarious, the details; large round eyglasses that fit around the brain, pictures of grandchild arachnotrons...

Another quick bump to announce the release of RC3. Just some more minor fixes and balancing tweaks. The next version after this will likely be the idgames version, in case you folks who like to wait for that are wondering.

13 hours ago, myolden said:

Another quick bump to announce the release of RC3. Just some more minor fixes and balancing tweaks. The next version after this will likely be the idgames version, in case you folks who like to wait for that are wondering.

While you're working on RC3, something very important to know that there's a fatal flaw in Map30, thanks to vanilla Doom2 compatibility:

DO NOT have a bunch of monsters teleporting into the final fight arena on Map30. Reminder that the telefrag check is NOT PRESENT IN THE MAP30 SLOT! Meaning if a whole bunch of stuff teleports into a few destinations, the monsters will just telefrag each other and actually becomes significantly easier.

So if you want your final fight in Map30 to be the OMGSlaughter you want it to be, that final fight will need to be redesigned for more teleport destinations or at least spaced out better (Like have 2 or three waves) so that the enemies aren't just accidentally killing themselves.

4 minutes ago, Traysandor said:

 

While you're working on RC3, something very important to know:

 

DO NOT have a bunch of monsters teleporting into the final fight arena on Map30. Reminder that the telefrag check is  NOT PRESENT IN THE MAP30 SLOT! Meaning if a whole bunch of stuff teleports into a few destinations, the monsters will just telefrag each other and actually becomes significantly easier.

 

So if you want your final fight Map30 to be the OMGSlaughter you want it to be, that final fight will need to be redesigned.

The mapset is MBF21 format. By default MBF21 does not allow monsters to telefrag one another in map 30. This is one of a handful of things that will break if you play in a Boom port that doesn't support MBF21, or set your complevel to Boom in something like GZDoom. 

Ah okay, I must have missed that one when I was looking into it. I could never get DSDAdoom to feel quite right when I use that source port, so I generally default to GZDoom for most things unless otherwise specified, I probably just missed that compatibility flag setting, which is my bad.

Wouldn't be a bad idea to include a textfile for that in the download like most other wads have included, just in case someone plays on the wrong source port or settings.

There's a lump in the WAD that should force the complevel to MBF21 in ports like GZ, but apparently that didn't work in this case. I'll look into it and see if I can't figure out why.

9 minutes ago, Traysandor said:

Ah okay, I must have missed that one when I was looking into it. I could never get DSDAdoom to feel quite right when I use that source port, so I generally default to GZDoom for most things unless otherwise specified, I probably just missed that compatibility flag setting, which is my bad.

 

Wouldn't be a bad idea to include a textfile for that in the download like most other wads have included, just in case someone plays on the wrong source port or settings.

 

I've consulted the various wizards I keep in my basement and they've told me that GZDoom has an option called "Disable MBF21 features" which is ON by default. I'm not even sure why this is an option, much less why it's toggled the way it is by default. The wizards have told me if you turn if off the map will work correctly.

1 minute ago, myolden said:

 

I've consulted the various wizards I keep in my basement and they've told me that GZDoom has an option called "Disable MBF21 features" which is ON by default. I'm not even sure why this is an option, much less why it's toggled the way it is by default. The wizards have told me if you turn if off the map will work correctly.

My guess is that's there's probably some form of idiot proofing going on under the hood. Then again I'm not knowledgable enough about the inner workings of source ports and compatibility settings to be able to answer that question. I just casually play wads.

  I'll start of by saying that it's been quite awhile since I completed a full megawad from start to finish in back to back play sessions (Mouldy's Going down would be the last wad I did that).  It's mostly because I just don't have much time anymore and it's also easy to get distracted with other wads/games too. But during the past couple weeks I did exactly that, played this megawad from start to finish. That should tell you something, especially since I still have other megawads I've yet to finish (Half way through ancient aliens, haven't even started sunder yet, and a more recent, only completed first episode in In City Only). There was something about this wad that hooked me in once I started playing it. Probably a combination of the great level design, awesome music tracks, and enjoyable combat for the most part. Oh, and like stated above, the sky textures are some of the best I've seen, too.

 Now, I'll admit that I was going to pass on this megawad when I first saw it posted as it appeared to be the standard affair. That was until I seen the last screenshot. Basically curiosity got the best of me, as I wanted to see if there was a new way of doing fog effects in Boom (Turns out, no). I figured I would give it a quick run through while I'll was looking for the map in question and to check out the rest. My first impressions were a bit of a mixed bag (Played on UV, skipped on to the next level after a few deaths without finishing), but there was enough interesting parts that made me decide to at least give the wad a proper playthrough (HMP, pistol start all maps, and used saves accordingly). I figured if I got to a point where I lost interest I would stop and move on to something else, but that never happened in the end. Heck, I'm not even a big player of slaughter maps either. So yeah, this is a great megawad. One I can see myself giving another playthrough in the future. Props to those who worked on it.

Being how there were only two of you making the maps, I figured I would give my critique to the both of you separately.

Muumi:

After playing through this wad, I believe your maps were the driving force that kept me playing. They were all enjoyable to play and I liked the unique setting each had (Reminded me a lot of the worlds in the games/books of Myst).  Great level design, and excellent texture work/effects. Combat was challenging at times, but I never found it annoying or impossible, rather it always felt like a puzzle to solve with different avenues of approach in most cases.  I don't recall playing any of your previous maps before this wad, but I'm now going to have to give them a try, as well as, keep an eye out for anything you make in the future.

Myolden:

I found your mapping style to be a bit on the "standard" side when compared to Muumi's, meaning each of your maps were rather similar in design and had the common themes seen in wads nowadays. Not saying your maps are bad by any means, though. Your maps are still great, on par with some of the best, and far better than anything I could ever make. The architecture in your maps was intricate and well done. I liked how you used lighting and basic shapes to great effect.    
Like above, combat was often challenging, but in a good way, and was enjoyable for the most part.  

As for nitpicks:

- Some of the battles (mostly in the later maps) felt a bit repetitive and less choreographed than others, which more or less boiled down to "Press this switch inside this closed off arena and deal with this pile of revenants and some other monsters mixed in while archvilles teleport in sometime later" affair. Of course part of this comes from the slaughter map type nature, I reckon.  

- The only unfair battle in my opinion was on map18 (The cramped section with the revenants up on a low height ledge, with a large group of pinkies flooding in the ground level around a central column, and the archvilles teleporting in later, in timed waves). This was the only fight in the whole wad that I got fed up with and just god cheated my way out (On HMP). I did however, come back to this fight after I finished the wad and finally managed to beat it (On UV actually). It took some save scumming though, so I still believe it's a bit over the top and RNG dependent. Seem like one small mistake or snag and it's pretty much game over.  

These are just minor complaints of course. Nothing to be overly worried about. And as far as bugs or game breaking stuff, I don't recall encountering or seeing anything out of place, so props for that. I'm also not the type who 100% maps, so make of that what you will. Actually, I don't remember finding many secrets, so they must have been well hidden.

Anyway, I thought about giving feedback on each map, but It's probably best I stop here so this reply doesn't become some 5 page essay. Once again, this is a fantastic megawad and awesome work from those who made it come to be.

One of the most enjoyable and eye-pleasing wads I've had the pleasure of playing, and I'm not even that big on Slaughter.

Congrats on an immaculate release.

Downloaded, played the first map, already liking it very much. If I can't have Altars of Madness 2, this will do fine, thank you very much.

I browsed through opening shots of each map, and holy hell there are some quite awe-inspiring ones... and then there is MAP24 I just stared for a while in amazement, wondering just how is this all achieved, until I figured out the probable explanation... but still, my god :D