The DWmegawad Club plays: Scientist 2023 & Tetanus DX

[Capellan]

Tetanus MAP08

I’m not generally a fan of “rocket launcher maps”, despite having made at least one, myself.  But this threads the fun needle, for me.  There are plenty of rockets, and generally enough room to use them without it being wholly suicidal.

 

There are also plenty of barrels, which I always appreciate, especially when they come with swarms of riff-raff to gib in big clouds of gore.  Thumbs up for that.

 

Thumbs up also for the liberal distribution of health potions and (to a lesser extent) armour shards.  I like it when there are plenty of those scattered about to hoover up.

 

Probably my favourite of the set so far, mostly because I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did.

 

 

[Junglist]

+++ Fragport

[PrinceOfBrains]

Unity port via Steam, Hurt Me Plenty, saves, continuous, hella casual, no other mods in use.

 

MAP07:

Spoiler

Gonna be thinking about this one for a while, but it's a good thing, promise! 

 

Fantastic MIDI as always, but much slower and more ambient like the last one, almost creating a more survival horror-esq atmosphere (which the occasional ammo juggling certainly added to). 

 

Might be the most "fun" level in this WAD so far, geometry-wise? A lot of varying heights in adjacent areas and small spaces leading back into more open spaces, which makes the combat a lot more flexible and interesting, allowing you a little more control over when and where fights can happen (as well as what you can use during them). There's rockets a-plenty through the map, even if you're doing pistol starts, but the nice thing is that you actually get some spaces where it's feasible to use them. 

 

Of course, when rockets won't cut it, why not just have the monsters fight each other? My two biggest challenges in this level - the area flooded with Knights & Barons where the second Supercharge is, and the area just beyond leading to the blue & red keys - both gave me a lot of hassle, until I remembered sometimes demons just don't get along. In the first area especially, this came in super handy to deal with the Arachnotrons on the far side (who I didn't have to fire a single shot at during my final successful attempt), and certainly did a lot to thin out the herds of Cacodemons and Hell Knights.

 

After frantically scrambling to the other side of the final barrier in that room, I found myself faced with what seemed to be a pretty unwinnable situation given my current health percentage, until I had a brainwave. The barrier was juuuuuuuust tall enough to prevent every single enemy projectile from hitting me. This meant that, as long as I occasionally kept irritating them with random shots until they all got in each other's crossfire, they'd eventually sort themselves out. (This went much faster after I managed to snipe that stupid Arch-Vile with a chaingun.) All I had to do was hide behind a wall like I was a kid listening to mom drunkenly scream from the other room again, and (much like mom's drinking) eventually the problem sorted itself out! (It's okay, my therapist says I should talk about it more!)

 

Otherwise, my favorite strategy of hitting the bricks came in handy a few times, and while I have less health starting the next map than I like, I feel like I'm finally starting to get the hang of Tetanus' unique rhythms and repeating challenges. Shame there's only a few levels left.

 

[Cutman 999]

MAP07 - “Corrode” by Yugiboy85 (Pistol started, used saves, 98% Kills, 66% Items, 0% Secrets)

 

I feared this was going to be a "magnum opus" map looking at the kill count, and also listening to the midi, it seemed to me like this was going to be another btsx like map with all its intricacies, but no, is a bit more nuanced than that.

 

Fantastic combat encounters that make sure you know about positioning and reaction, the water pit were you get the rocket launcher is one of my favorite segments in the wad despite looking like simple circle strafing, but really those big mid tiers can eat all space available rather quickly. Also I loved the archvile usage in this map, forcing you to scout all throughout the arena to see a way to not die in 3 seconds.

 

Also, the pacing was really good, before each ambush there's at least a close quarter encounter with fodder or some random mid tier that can get rather tricky if you try to rush it.

 

I'm not familiar with the mapper like at all, but I liked this btsx-redux kind of map, one of my favorites in the wad.

 

8/10

 

MAP08 - “Desaturate” by uber (Pistol started, used saves, 100% K/I/S)

 

I'm a rocket launcher junkie, obviously I'm going to love this map!

 

Similar impressions as the last map, heck why you decided to make this wad so consistent in style? I'm obviously going to have deja-vus with some pretentious magnum opus stuff that lasts a hundred years, but this barely lasted 15 and plays awesome!

 

Lots of low to mid tiers to blast with my favorite doom weapon, making the encounters quick and snappy, while still being real hard. my favorite fight in the wad is certainly the soulsphere arena, where you have a lot of stuff coming at once while you try to find good spaces to rocket everything. Most of the combat here can summarize like that, and it's fun.

 

map looks good, plays good, not that much to say, personally the most recognizeable map from the set, map 5 might have the underwater gimmick, but this has the essence and substance to stand up.

 

10/10

[FragsBunny]

I have a cool idea for next set. If you accept it, I might join the next month with you!

 

The theme is lunar bases. So,
+++ DBP66 Lunar Strain + Lunatic

[PrinceOfBrains]

The amount of times BTSX has been mentioned in this thread has immediately shot it to the top of my "to-play-next" list. I love Tetanus a ton so far but Corrode is absolutely my favorite map to this point, so if it's anything close to that kind of philosophy, I'm down as heck.

[Horus]

15 hours ago, Junglist said:

+++ Fragport

This was already played in March 2023 

 

 

[Celestin]

MAP08: Desaturate by uber

 

Emerging from the starting location, Desaturate presents the player with snipers, explosive barrels and numerous weak monsters on the ground. Very quickly the map leads the player to the rocket launcher, which is there the combat changes into a string of explosive fights. Besides eliminating some distant monsters, there's little reason to use anything besides the rocket launcher, as ammo is everywhere and the enemies often appear in groups.

 

There are some tricky moments, like an archvile triplets or the yellow key fight by the end, the latter is considerably more limited when it comes to available space, but for the most part you'll be dealing with small-scale traps or incidental fights. There's very little dead time, you are always fighting something and the map does a great job pushing the player forward.

 

I do like the inclusion of more natural environment, such as how the deeper parts of the facility seem to be built into a giant cavern, so big you can't see the bottom. But the fights are the main star. Desaturate's rocket-propelled combat is one of the most exciting I've experienced in a while. It's just one big rush of energy that is hard to be topped.

[baja blast rd.]

map08: Desaturate by uber

 

Don't feel like writing much today so here's a playthrough.

 

 

This map feels like it's giving me different things that I asked for from the set: a rocket spam map, more of the void themes. It's a bit of a crisscross between map01 and map05 in parts, and also map10 but that comes later.

 

[PrinceOfBrains]

Unity port via Steam, Hurt Me Plenty, saves, continuous, hella casual, no other mods in use.

 

MAP08:

Spoiler

I was pretty nervous going into this after seeing some mentions of how rocket-heavy it was, but time and demons wait for no man!

 

Love how oddly mellow and atmospheric the MIDI is, pretty fitting considering the combat pace of this level is fairly distinct from the rest of the WAD. 

 

The battles seem to be a bit more room-by-room than usual. Instead of encountering smaller enemies between the bigger encounters, everything in this one feels more divided up by major rooms full of monsters, each offering their own unique little tricks (typically some well-placed barrels, or a surprise Revenant in a corner behind you). I can't tell if I'm just getting used to how Tetanus works, or if maybe this map telegraphs things a little more generously, but I wasn't quite caught off guard as many times in this map as I have been in the past. Now, before that sounds like a complaint, I actually kind of liked it. While the location of the next battle was always pretty easy to spot, the placement and variety of enemies was enough to keep it interesting, which I myself would consider the most important thing. 

 

As mentioned, I never really look forward to rocket-heavy levels, because despite my decades of Doom experience, I'm not uhhhhh very good at using them. For some reason I've never quite been able to get my arms around exactly how far away I need to be to avoid splash damage, which has led to far too many accidental injuries and deaths on my part. (That, and the fact that I tend to shoot without thinking about the ramifications, since that's the only weapon with splash damage, meaning I have absolutely blasted one into a wall directly in front of me more than once. I've played this game before, I swear.)

 

The level's various gimmicks were fun to explore, even if I totally managed to whiff the yellow keycard at the end?? I dunno if this is by design (due to teleporter speed/placement, etc), but when I first got to the yellow keycard, I was so excited that I managed to not notice that I neither got the pickup message, nor did I have the yellow indicator on my HUD. When I realized what happened, I couldn't tell if I wanted to laugh or bury my face in my hands. Luckily, I managed to get it by reaching around the back. (I know what I said.)

 

Edited October 29 by PrinceOfBrains

[Celestin]

MAP09: Circulate by Skronkidonk

 

Circulate adopts a hub-and-spoke design and mostly arena-based encounters. The underpowered nature of the start leads the player into the only available route, where corpses are already placed. I have to say, it's the only section of the map I don't like, as you only get an SSG at this point and are forced to fight against two archviles and whatever they resurrect. This was not fun, as the only gun you have isn't enough to deal with the masses here. Fortunately, this is an outlier, as the next setpieces hand you a rocket launcher to deal with threats. This starts with the rush of revenants that appear after grabbing the blue key, it's a familiar explosive fight that Tetanus contributors love.

 

With the blue key, you can enter a cave network, where the yellow key sits in an enclosure. There's not much room to move, but the map spawns a lot of pinkies inside and cacodemons outside, so you have to be confident with using explosive in confined spaces and constantly mind your surroundings. This is the final key, so you can now prepare for the final battle in a cavern below you. Pressing a button reveals a truly imposing sea of pinkies and several archviles behind them, but I managed to hide in a corner and pump rockets until they died. This is only round one, though. The second wave consists of a mastermind, cyberdemon, two more archviles and more monsters that appear. The order of operation is similiar, kill the viles quickly and hope for the bosses to fight one another.

 

Besides that one fight, Circulate is another great action romp. 

[PrinceOfBrains]

Unity port via Steam, Hurt Me Plenty, saves, continuous, hella casual, no other mods in use.

 

MAP09:
 

Spoiler

Dang, but that background MIDI is spooky. Perhaps ominous is more accurate, as though it's trying to warn me of a great evil up ahead.

 

Starts off pretty hot, but not as hot as some others in the WAD. Had an oddly enjoyable time using rockets to make everyone in the big enclosure at the beginning of the level get in fights with each other, even if I did cost myself a little health because the rocket's auto-aim was directed at a chaingunner I did not know was beneath me. C'est la vie. 

 

Reminds me a bit of MAP08 in that it seems very focused on 'objectives'. I really enjoy the pacing this offered the level - you're shown your goals well before you get to the solution to them (the right button, the right keycard, etc), but there's always decent visual indicators for what way you should be going next, and then it's up to you to handle it when you get there. It's really nice for preventing you from running in circles while still not just laying the solution out on a table for you.

 

The combat has a similar flow to it. Most maps in Tetanus to this point tend to place major conflicts throughout the level, with smaller encounters spread between them for pacing and variety. This one feels more like it's building to a gradual exclamation point, allowing each of the 'larger' battles to grow in scope and complexity as you progress through each one, until you get to the end and encounter an amount of Pinkies and Imps that actually got an audible laugh out of me. 

 

That fight was easily my favorite part of the level, and the Mastermind/Cyberdemon fights afterwards were exasperating to the point of being funny. To the map's credit, this is absolutely one of the more manageable Spider Mastermind fights I've ever played, with ample opportunities to block her hitscan attacks with cover, and plenty of space to move around. 

 

(My least favorite would be the area with all the Pinkies and Cacodemons, but at least half of my struggle with that area was due to user error. I'm comfortable admitting that.)

 

I'm sad to see we're coming to the end of Tetanus because I finally feel like I "learned" how to play it, or at least started to understand its ebb and flow a little better. Still, I'm excited to see what the next couple maps -

 

- I'm sorry, is this map about to be called Engorge?

 

I laughed so hard at that, that I didn't realize the enemies in the beginning area automatically wake up when the level starts. Oh well, that's Wednesday Prince's problem, I'm outta here!

 

[Cutman 999]

MAP09 - “Circulate” by Skronkidonk (Pistol started, used saves, 100% Kills, 97% Items, 66% Secrets)

 

Lategame already, time to kick things into higher gear...

 

Despite the starting area looking very menacing, is actually kind of manageable, the archvile ambush is easy for the most part.

 

The other ambushes in this map are very entertaining to tackle on and show some plutonian levels of savagery, like the chaingunner/hell knight one that definitely has casali dna on it, or the double front rev ambush after you get the blue key, which might be my favorite fight on the map if I'm being honest.

 

If you discovered a not-so-subtle megasphere, be prepared, since the map teases you with no one, but two ambushes until the final one. First one is easy, just rocket the pinkies and the and cacos can really hit you since they take a bunch of space. The second one, oh boy, almost all my saves went through that stuff. You need to execute a sort of basic, but understandable, crowd control ambush with a lot of low tier mass and some hell knights behind, FAST, since behind the piles of meat, are 4 archviles that will punish you very hard. Even with the megasphere, this fight is extremely punishing. Then the final one is just boss monsters with a shitload of pinkies you can thankfully escape from, since the entrance door is opened now... and you can just clean up everything just fine.

 

Before I give my final thoughts, I have to say I really dig the art style of this map, is the only one in tetanus so far that did go against the bribant color palette, trying to contrast it with some very dark sector lighting... Despite the architecture and overall detailing looking very on par with the previous ones... there's something that makes those deep shadows as menacing as the difficult encounters.

 

Fantastic map, didn't expect the difficulty spike, but I think makes complete sense.

 

9/10

[baja blast rd.]

map09: Circulate 

 

 

This map feels like Tetanus through a dream. It's partly the weird MIDI; it's partly the way the lighting is darker than expected for the sky; and it's partly the setups that feel like they are remixing encounters I've seen elsewhere before, kinda like the way dreams take memories you had in the real world sometimes and use those as food for whatever weird brainramblings they produce. It's also not very much like the other maps, which contributes even more to that impression. The style reminds me of something long-past, like maps by valkiriforce, or like something I might expect in TNT: Revilution when it tries to be more oldschool. A lot of it is the design tropes being used -- less of that "bar-strip-bar"-style architectural scheme here. There's a lot less interconnectivity and looping in the layout too; feels more like a bunch of pieces connected to a central hub.  

 

It's an outlier for sure. It feels like a botanical garden. Even though the combat isn't much of a step-down in intensity from what we might expect around this slot, it's a map with a gentle spirit. 

 

map10: Engorge

 
  

 

Love this map. 

 

The first part of it -- which I consider the whole map up to the ambient outro -- is all tall architecture, cool angles, and fun rocket/plasma-centric combat that uses heavy monsters in smart, dangerous ways but pours on lots of fodder for satisfying fun. Nothing in this part is dangerous in a prolonged way, but there sure are some dangerous moments, like the archviles released around the blue key. I love the arena shape of the final fight, the way it's partitioned into different chunks that don't have line of sight of each other so the main thing you want to do is take whatever side the cyberdemon is not dealing with, while still needing to worry about its presence. 

 

I've come to feel the last part of it -- after everything is done -- might be my favorite minute-long stretch in the whole wad. It's an elaborately decorated monsterless journey to the exit (complete with a key door for a key that doesn't exist in the map, just for scenery). The path you take is not even that complicated -- mostly a straight shot from where it begins to the exit -- but it has maybe 3-4 of the prettiest 10 "views" in the whole wad, right here, for no real reason. Shout-out to being able to see the exit tunnel from across the big river, unrecognizably at first, because it only announces its presence through a subtly flickering light. There's also that one view with a decorative rocket launcher, suggesting some fight that went down that another Doomguy we'll never meet succumbed to (although looking at the corpse composition there in the editor, that Doomguy must have gotten overconfident and face-rocketed on that pinky). The architecture in this part reminds me of Mechadon with the way all manner of beams and bars above you wrap around and blend into the tops of different ledges on the sides.

 

 

 

Btw interesting map name. 

[Bobby :D]

1 hour ago, baja blast rd. said:

I've come to feel the last part of it -- after everything is done -- might be my favorite minute-long stretch in the whole wad. It's an elaborately decorated monsterless journey to the exit (completely with a key door for a key that doesn't exist in the map, just for scenery). The path you take is not even that complicated -- mostly a straight shot from where it begins to the exit -- but it has maybe 3-4 of the prettiest 10 "views" in the whole wad, right here, for no real reason. Shout-out to being able to see the exit tunnel from across the big river, unrecognizably at first, because it only announces its presence through a subtly flickering light. There's also that one view with a decorative rocket launcher, suggesting some fight that went down that another Doomguy we'll never meet succumbed to (although looking at the corpse composition there in the editor, that Doomguy must have gotten overconfident and face-rocketed on that pinky). The architecture in this part reminds me of Mechadon with the way all manner of beams and bars above you wrap around and blend into the tops of different ledges on the sides.

 

 

 

Btw interesting map name. 

I want to break into this thread for a quick moment to rant about the making of the ending area.

 

When Tetanus was initially finished, there was no exit area for this map, there was no dam either, it was just a teleporter flat in the corner after the final fight that just sent you to Map10. I didn’t feel satisfied with it, so I decided to make a new ending. I didn’t know how much I would be in for, going into this I didn’t even know what I wanted. I made big pitch black boxes, scaffolding of the basic shapes, and constantly tried implementing idea after idea and deleting whatever didn’t stick. Did you know there was a midtex crane in the center at one point? That was deleted, too, along with many additions to the corridor to make the corners not overflow because of the view into it. I still wonder what I could’ve done, but my process made every room feel like an entirely different experience so I just decided it was good enough. A great mess was made and I worried the visual cohesion and styling of the areas were just not good enough, partially because of how much I tried to be consistent with my map and how I felt about the set as a whole. I was going under a lot of pressure to finish the map from the rest of the team, to the point that making this exit was maybe fated to join a new round of injokes. And with every line I deleted or repurposed there was another anxious breath, from me or others, hoping it would be the last time I’d have to make changes. Eventually, I was done. Planning out the exit area, the views the player sees, and implementing it into the map took many sessions over the course of 2 months. There was no fan fare when I was done, I barely even knew if anyone ever even cared about what I just dedicated seemingly dozens of hours of my life to realize, or if I even had anything to say with what I had made. Many questions had ran through me while making it: Why is it all of a sudden a different architectural style? Why is there structures made of both rock and metal? Why is there torches and hanging bodies in one of the shots? Why don’t any of the OOB areas look like the same map? What does a player even feel or make of what I made? Do they even care about it? Was it all even worth it? 
 

rd, you told me it was.

[Celestin]

MAP10: Engorge by Bobbylol

 

First of all, I find the use of verticality appealing, it gives Engorge this large scale that sets it apart from other Tetanus maps. There are some truly impressive sights that make you feel small, especially by the end, when everything is dead and you are moving towards the exit through a desolate complex. But first, you must earn your victory.

 

I think the best comparison of the gameplay style would be something like Valiant, with monster placement that keeps the player on the move and a couple of bigger fights. The map starts oppressive, as it's loaded with monsters from the opening frame. There's a rocket launcher nearby and a plasma rifle blocked by a pain elemental - a scavenged chaingun aside, those are the only two guns available. The opening is already a considerable challenge, as you are attacked from every side and pain elementals can cause havoc if left unattended.

 

Following this, the map was moving along with little issues, there was a couple of ambushes, but nothing special. That is, until I've reached the blue key fight. There isn't much room here, as you are squeezed between two or three archviles (depending on whether you kill the first one ASAP) and a lowering wall of monsters. I feel like this is the hardest part of the map, having to nail the viles in a space that can quickly get too crowded. However, completing this unlocks the standout fight of the map, featuring a cyberdemon, several archviles, flyers closing in and a sea of imps. Frantically trying to make space and murder enemies in masses is an awesome spectacle and a great ending to the map and an episode.

[Capellan]

It's already the 31st here, so Happy Halloween :)

 

 

Tetanus MAP11

The gameplay-free MAP11 finally pays off on that inaccessible BFG on MAP01, for I guess certain definitions of “pays off”.  I’ll admit to being mildly amused.

 

 

Tetanus Overall

I feel most of my early concerns about this set were born out.  The lack of anywhere to go for difficulty but “more monsters”, plus the very same-y aesthetic of every map, makes a lot of this blur together for me when I look back on it.  It also reduced my moment-by-moment enjoyment of the set, because it all felt very same-y.

 

That said, each individual map is solid from a level design perspective (a few minor things like some floating objects in map09 aside).  Even the maps I didn’t find any specific nice things to say about were still solid to play: there just wasn’t anything materially new or different about them to what we’d already seen from the set.

 

I think Tetanus would work best as something to dip in and out of, rather than the play back to back like we’ve just done.  With more time to breathe and reset between the maps, I think it provides plenty of entertainment value.

 

[PrinceOfBrains]

Sad news, friends. In my arrogance to save-scum my way through Engorge (a fact I've done nothing to disguise during this playthrough!), I seem to have done something the Kex Engine isn't too fond of, and now any attempt to load my one Tetanus save produces a series of error messages that surely mean something to people way smarter than I am. (That's a long list.)

 

So, despite how much defending of the Doom remasters I've done to this point, it seems my hubris has betrayed me yet again. Unfortunate timing, too, as I was very much enjoying Engorge and looking forward to seeing the rest of it, as so many of you have spoken highly of it. 

 

I tried giving it a couple tries from pistol start, and it was...fine, but that's not my preferred way to play Doom and I was a few beers deep besides, so it wasn't gonna go too well either way lol 

 

I'd love to revisit Tetanus someday when I get a second, and I'm looking forward to watching some videos and reading everyone's takes on it, but come Friday, I'm going to start leapfrogging saves again just in case.

Edited October 31 by PrinceOfBrains

[Cutman 999]

MAP10 - “Engorge” by Bobbylol (Pistol started, used saves, 100% Kills, 66% Items, 100% Secrets)

 

I want to like this map, I actually wanted to do it saveless first... but some fights here, I just don't agree with them at all.

 

What a final map, similar to btsx2 map 20, you mostly have rockets or plasma, and apart from the fact this isn't lasting hundred thousand years to finish like bee kingdom does, you also don't have a ssg nor a shotgun from pistol start. The mad routing you have to do in the beginning of the map is very accelerating and heart pumping, but also tedious to clean up thanks to the 3 PAs just clogging all the space.

 

After that and one plutonia-esque chaingunner encounter, you have a 3 archvile lift ambush that is where I start seeing the issues in here... At least in UV, there's a shitload of enemies just compressing so much space that is extremely finicky to get around, and like @Capellan says, it goes to a point it the difficulty here is just "more monsters=more difficult lol" were it just makes the encounters almost luck based in some times.

 

The final fight is this times a thousand, you have no space since the cacos just come at you from behind, you can die in one hit thanks to our friend the cyber demon, there's 4 archviles, like 50 low tiers, and as an icing on the cake, 3 pain elementals... screw doing this saveless, this fight is so unstable thanks to you not having any save space to move around, the viles and cyber easily eating your whole health bar, and those pain elementals worsening your space problem.

 

Idk what else to say, I wanted to like it, especially with that ending, but I just don't sympathize with a shitload of pain elementals in an open space.

 

4/10

 

MAP11 - “Thank You” 

 

You really came back just to grab the bfg at map 1... Peak fiction

 

10/10

 

FINAL THOUGHTS

 

Consistent good fun, that's it. Many parallels can be brought up with btsx1, mostly because both showcase very impressive visuals and nice texture packs. I might say that compared to that wad, the short map count and length plays into tetanus favor, it makes the aesthetics feel fresh from its entirety despite all the maps being extremely consistent in visuals and design tropes.

 

Despite not liking some of the maps, most if not all of them showcase some fantastic combat and design overall, so yeah, play it if you have the chance, is fantastic, it was a pleasure to at least experience the wad in the little spare time I had.

[Horus]

@PrinceOfBrains it is probably best if you share your error message here, perhaps it’s a bug they can address in a future update

 

 

[Bobby :D]

9 hours ago, Cutman 999 said:

After that and one plutonia-esque chaingunner encounter, you have a 3 archvile lift ambush that is where I start seeing the issues in here... At least in UV, there's a shitload of enemies just compressing so much space that is extremely finicky to get around, and like @Capellan says, it goes to a point it the difficulty here is just "more monsters=more difficult lol" were it just makes the encounters almost luck based in some times.

 

The final fight is this times a thousand, you have no space since the cacos just come at you from behind, you can die in one hit thanks to our friend the cyber demon, there's 4 archviles, like 50 low tiers, and as an icing on the cake, 3 pain elementals... screw doing this saveless, this fight is so unstable thanks to you not having any save space to move around, the viles and cyber easily eating your whole health bar, and those pain elementals worsening your space problem.

IDK what to say other than I played this map keyboard only for testing my balance and seeing what I needed to tweak for HMP/HNTR and I didn’t have this much trouble :P

[PrinceOfBrains]

PrinceOfBrains' Tetanus Post-Mortem

 

I came to understand my previous post may have been made...in haste, although I'm super glad @Horus pointed me to that glitch thread, where I plan on dumping some screencaps of the errors I ran into when I get a second. 

 

Me giving up on Tetanus because of a corrupt save file was simply the liquor talking, so instead I chose to become the liquor and try it again from pistol start.

 

And you know what? I was out there, LOVIN' EVERY MINUTE OF IT. I don't see myself suddenly becoming a big pistol-start devotee, but by God I can see what y'all like in it so much.

 

Maybe this was the universe's little way of getting me to try pistol start the hard way, because I have to admit this might be my favorite map of the entire WAD. The ridiculous peaks and valleys of the enemy placement kept my head on a dang swivel, my more limited inventory made me a bit more inventive and careful than I might've been otherwise, and the influx of plasma ammo near the end of the map made me feel like I was an anime protagonist unlocking some end-of-the-series special power.

 

The Cyberdemon/Arch-Vile/meat horde area had me sweating to the point where my wife, who could apparently hear my sighs of exasperation and quiet encouragements to myself over Agatha All Along in the next room, asked if I was both okay, and if I was playing Doom, only one of which was true. Swear to god, at one point, a projectile knocked me down to one percent health...directly on top of the final Megasphere, as though the world was willing me forward through sheer luck and hilarious circumstances. 

 

I was so stressed out about the final encounter that I didn't actually realize I was in that vaunted final walk out of the facility, which I was genuinely looking forward to seeing after hearing y'all say such cool things about it. Instead, I slapped a button on the wall, fully expecting a final closet full of Revenants or something...only to be greeted by the end-of-level percentages screen. 

 

With a sweet little goodbye level that made me more emotional than I expected (again, being the liquor at this point) that reminded me the tiniest bit of Syringe (meant complimentary, top 3 WAD ever for me), I finally knew what it was to be...engorged.

Thanks to all the sickos that made Tetanus, thanks to this forum for giving me the excuse to play it, thanks to all the pals in this thread for discussing it with me, and big shout out to my lucky Third Man Records shot glass.

 

See y'all in November! Happy Halloween!

[Bobby :D]

1 hour ago, PrinceOfBrains said:

I was so stressed out about the final encounter that I didn't actually realize I was in that vaunted final walk out of the facility, which I was genuinely looking forward to seeing after hearing y'all say such cool things about it. Instead, I slapped a button on the wall, fully expecting a final closet full of Revenants or something...only to be greeted by the end-of-level percentages screen. 

Slapped a button to end WTF? That isn’t supposed to happen!!!! Let me know what you did D:

[PrinceOfBrains]

6 minutes ago, Bobby :D said:

Slapped a button to end WTF? That isn’t supposed to happen!!!! Let me know what you did D:

 

KEX HAS RUINED MY LIFE AGAIN, CLEARLY 

Whenever I got a second today, lemme load up whatever my closest-to-the-end save file is and see if I can reproduce it. 

[PrinceOfBrains]

Good news, everyone! @Bobby :D was right - the level indeed continues onward for a bit after that, I clearly just totally blanked it out in my state of inebriated post-Cyberdemon fury. Not that I checked this while at work or anything.

 

I will leave my initial post up as a hopeful warning to future generations - don't drink and Doom.

 

(Side note, the aforementioned Kex error is now bad enough that it won't load vanilla Doom at all, so hopefully I can grab a screenshot of the Kex Assertion next time and post it up.)

[Celestin]

MAP11: Thank You

 

Part of MAP01 (the bridge right before the exit), repurposed for the epilogue with no exit.

 

Conclusions

 

Tetanus is one of the handful of wads I've revisited together with the Club and, just like the first time I've played, it was an absolute blast. It's a set of gorgeous maps and explosive combat that I love. The one aspect I'm most impressed by is the consistency of the project. Not only there are no bad maps here, all 9 mappers seem to converge on a similiar aesthetic and gameplay style. Again, I don't know to what extend this was enforced, but the final product feels coherent.

 

A bit to a fault, though. After my first playthrough I've complained many maps here feel and play the same. This was before I started making write-ups about the wads I was playing, so I was usually binging through a set without much deeper thoughts. When I stopped after every map to write something, I started to notice different approaches to combat and changes in environment. 

 

There are obvious standouts, such as Salvage with its creative underwater sections or the action-heavy Circulate and Engorge, but even more mundane entries move the wad along and rarely make me bored. This was one of the best episodes I've played in a while and it's an easy recommendation to everyone, especially since its release as an official add-on.