The DWmegawad Club plays: TNT: Revilution

[Spectre01]

Suitepee said:

I'm curious to see if the Doom community can make a better overall megawad than Evilution as a sequel.

Jesus, I hope so! The bar was not set very high by Evilution.

MAP02 - “Geothermal” by AD_79

More dank brown techbase with evident (and hot) volcanic activity happening in the mountains. The focus is still very much on low-tier combat with a bit of rocket use towards the end. I also liked the Soulsphere fight, despite being against trapping health/armour, as well as the Vile that shows up behind you in the exit hallway. Pretty good.

[rehelekretep]

not to sound like 'i told you so' but this is why i never play wads in cl2 any more; its just impossible that community wads can be confirmed as cl2 before a whole lot of playtesting by the wider community.

thanks for taking the bullet DotW :p

[Jaws In Space]

rehelekretep said:

not to sound like 'i told you so' but this is why i never play wads in cl2 any more; its just impossible that community wads can be confirmed as cl2 before a whole lot of playtesting by the wider community.

thanks for taking the bullet DotW :p

No shit, when it's just me & Dobu Gabu Maru testing 32 maps for vanilla compatibility mistakes are going to be made.

Demon of the Well said:

Bug report: I've been playing ahead a bit, and have found that map 05 is broken and uncompletable in -cl 2: after you use the blue switch and walk into the room next to it, the southwest wall which is supposed to lower and grant access to the passage connecting to the similar room across the way fails to activate (it makes a motion sound indefinitely but doesn't actually move), leaving you stuck. Note that it functions as intended in -cl 9, and of course in ZDoom.

Okay so this one has me a bit stumped. I checked for open sectors, changed the action, moved the trigger line, combined sectors to try and remove extra variables. And nothing changed. Can anyone point out what's going wrong here?

[dobu gabu maru]

rehelekretep said:

not to sound like 'i told you so' but this is why i never play wads in cl2 any more; its just impossible that community wads can be confirmed as cl2 before a whole lot of playtesting by the wider community.

Fair point; in my defense I ran through that map twice in Choco Doom with -nomonsters and the trigger worked fine, leaving me to assume it was a problem with the trigger being W1 instead of WR. But the real problem is that this dingus needs to be moved diagonally southwest 4 pixels in order to get the wall across from him to lower properly. It's a somewhat unintuitive solution that we should've nevertheless caught--apologies.

[Jaws In Space]

Map 2 is Geothermal by Ad_79, it was accepted into Revilution near the end of December 2015 by Eris Falling. Eris had brought AD, along with Demon of the Well, onto the project as testers to help us pick only the best of the Revilution maps that we had at the time. AD was inspired by the texture pack & decided to do a quick speed map for us. By this time in the project history I was trying to get the consistent theme going for maps 1 through 7 based on SFoZ911's map 1. Cannonball, Chris Hansen, & Steve D had already completed their maps so I gave AD the same instructions. Around the same time I had also sent out PM's to Breezeep, Jmiclke, & An_Mutt to fill in maps 5 & 6, I felt that these mappers had a style that would complement SFoZ911, AD_79, & the others, though for various reasons they were unable to provide maps.

This map marks the first appearance of a Jeremy Doyle midi, I was ecstatic when Jeremy showed up to Doomworld & released some old 1996 midi's. I really wanted to see if he was willing to help flesh out the soundtrack for Revilution, nothing like actually having a member of Team TNT on your TNT sequel project :D I sent him a quick PM & he replied with a bunch of WIP midi's for us to choose from. Jeremy Doyle wasn't the only Team TNT member I asked to join Revilution either, Soundblock actually made 3 maps for Revilution, though all of them ended up being rejected. One of these rejected maps ended up as map 22 of ECHELON, while I recommended that Soundblock submit the other 2 maps for Final Doom the Way ID Did.

[Steve D]

Playing on GZDoom, UV, pistol starts, keyboard-only, savescumming like the craven little coward I am.

Map01 - Uprising by SFoZ911
Maxed, 1 Death

This is a fabulous map. It's the first map I saw when I considered joining the team, and it won me over right away. I love it just as much now as the first time I played it.

So this Fozmap purports to be a techbase, but it really looks more like an industrial complex with military overtones in the Quake2 style, which for me is great since I love the Quake2 look.

In a nice homage to the original game, you're invited to grab a Zerk and start punching-out every jagoff that gets in your face. This was a cool section which put a strain on my Shaolin Temple keyboarding skills when I had to go against Imps and zombieboys -- always leery of boxing with hitscanners! It proved to be good practice, and I eliminated all but 1 Pinky and at least 70% of the Imps with some joyous bare-knuckle brutality. And soon after that, I get the shotgun. Life is good.

There's a lot of tasty features in this map, such as fenced overlooks to areas you'll soon visit, and sight-lines that give a sense of depth and place to the facility. A nice job is also done on overhead support beams which again add a sense of reality to this abstract design. Detail use of the great metal textures in this pack further enhanced the clean appearance. Foz also makes excellent use of the wonderful Brown14U and V textures along with the Brown12 rock texture. His terraced rock areas with lava falls are a real highlight of the map. All in all this is a superb open design, and he does it all with only 271 sectors. Now that's efficient!

Aside from the fun opening, there were a couple of nasty encounters with Chaingunners, and then came the big brawl against Revvies, a Hell Knight, some Chaingunners and Pinkies. This is where I suffered my only death, and I'm so pissed at myself. It was a really easy open-field fight where all you had to do was take out the Revvies and then mop up the riff-raff. Had no trouble whatever avoiding the homing rockets, but I over-dodged one time trying to draw a rocket into the Hell Knight, got too close to the wall, and wouldn't you know the Pinkies were on me and there I was, pinned, with RL in hand, and a Chaingunner looking at me, grinning like an assassin. So it goes. On my second try I didn't even suffer a hit.

After that, it was time to hunt Archie. He got a little piece of me, and I was able to exit the map at 179% health.

I'm fully satisfied with this map.

Of the negatives brought up by other commentators, the one I sympathize with is the useless Chainsaw. I'm guessing it exists in order to provide architectural balance with the Green Armor, and he had to pick something that wasn't overpowered for a Map01 slot, so here's your Chainsaw, which borks the order of melee weapons. I grabbed it at the end, after I'd already killed everything, simply to complete my item count. Any other player could ignore it just as easily during the period when it gets in the way of things. It could be switched out for the Backpack, though. This map has ample but not excessive ammo, so a Backpack would have essentially no impact on gameplay, would not do anything annoying, and would still be a nice reward for continuers.

[Demon of the Well]

Alright, time to take a look at the current form of Revilution. Quite a few of these maps I've seen before in one form or another (including the rather conspicuously omitted map 30), though cursory browsing shows that relatively little of the content from its previous incarnation, which contained a great deal of Kyka's work, has been retained--presumably most of it has ended up in Convilution or elsewhere, and as a result the mapset we have before us is quite a bit more varied in pace and style than said previous incarnation, which if I might be so bold has had the effect of making the experience seem a little truer to the original game. That said, as a general observation I would say that Revilution escalates in intensity at a dramatically faster rate than Evilution itself does (sign of the times, really), so don't be thinking it's going to be a Sunday stroll, and keep your eyes peeled for secrets.

Map 01 -- Uprising - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
It feels like it's been quite a while since I've seen anything by SFoZ911--must be over a year, at least--though the style is instantly recognizable. He specializes in compact, stacked base/outpost scenarios, and true to form, "Uprising" is a quick but decisively violent multi-tiered romp set in a waste disposal station nestled in some hills in a volcanic region of the moon's surface, centered around a humble nukage-settling pool to which there's a little more than immediately meets the eye. The lava-ridden hills looming uncomfortably close over the station, the many scattered and defiled corpses, flaming barrels, and the bold, supernaturally-themed skybox occasionally visible around and through them give the level more of a hazardous mid-arc look than one normally expects to see so early in the game in a traditional megaWAD, but otherwise the aesthetic's fairly standard map 01 fare of brown composite and rusty metal chambers, bays, and and sieves arranged in a loose industrial gridwork pattern, albeit presented with the author's usual flare for subtle visual interconnectivity and classic Dr. Sleep-style lighting. The project's original cinematic vision of beginning the quest by having the player walk into and through the ruined skull and splayed corpse of the Demon-spitter from "Last Call" fell by the wayside at some prior point, but in broad form much of the same core idea in diegetic theming remains (i.e. having Revilution pick up where Evilution left off); this map, and indeed the majority of the others in the first episode, have the same unwelcoming dirty, dingy brown/red theming that characterized the source material's decidedly non-standard approach to E3 aesthetic, which in its turn probably helps to underscore the impression that the mapset hits its cruising speed in fairly short order, rather than dallying with a long 'classic' slow-burn buildup.

The coolest thing about the map is that while its compact layout, mainline population of doddering dross monsters, and traditional spread of starter weaponry (complete with the all-but-requisite free berserk pack to kick off the game in visceral style) cast it as an obvious slot 01 sort of map, it also bucks some of the traditional first map strictures by using its pair of secrets to conceal some spicier optional engagements (with commensurate rewards), including an m01 arch-vile ambush and a brief rocket-pounding brawl which breaks out in the drained nukage pool at the station's center, provided you can figure out how to drain it in the first place. Even on a full clear the map's still very short, but the sense of intrigue at play (many of the hidden areas are visually teased if you're paying enough attention) dovetailed to some surprisingly heated early combat lends it a feeling of conceptual completeness and depth that many megaWAD m01s, old and new, sorely lack (and indeed, in many cases seem to actively try to avoid in the interest of preserving a perceived tradition). The fist-driven gameplay is a nice bonus, and despite the prominence of hitscanners the nature of the station's architecture, which is laden with incidental cover, allows for scrappy ripping and tearing even as some of the traps begin to unfold and even by players not normally accustomed to using the fist as the primary weapon, in contrast to the original Evilution's m01, where using the fist without catching a hide full of buckshot in exchange was a little more of a to-do. Plenty of ballistic ammo rolls out soon enough for those that prefer a more reserved playstyle, however, and the presence of a few barrel clusters in strategically convenient places allows for a few gut-showers regardless of one's approach. I don't begrudge the chainsaw having the gall to exist here, myself--I used it on the pinkies bouncing out of the storage bay on the east side in the name of inclusivity--though I also shared the experience of some others in exiting the level before intending to on my first run, as the exit switch just doesn't seem to look or feel like one somehow (probably because it's not sequestered in an enclosed space, I suspect). No real harm done, though, and the joie de vivre of the optional/hidden RL battle is worth the price of another quick fist-flailing run through the rest of the map.

An auspicious beginning.

[Memfis]

02 - demo. Better than the previous map in terms of gameplay, music, and structure. The color scheme is rather wacky though: red rocks, asphalt mountains, green base... The texturing just doesn't seem attractive at all to me. And I gotta say I don't feel the TNT magic so far, I just see modern maps like you can find in any other wad. Well, there are still 29 levels to play.

[rehelekretep]

Jaws In Space said:

No shit, when it's just me & Dobu Gabu Maru testing 32 maps for vanilla compatibility mistakes are going to be made.

dobu gabu maru said:

Fair point; in my defense I ran through that map twice in Choco Doom with -nomonsters and the trigger worked fine, leaving me to assume it was a problem with the trigger being W1 instead of WR. But the real problem is that this dingus needs to be moved diagonally southwest 4 pixels in order to get the wall across from him to lower properly. It's a somewhat unintuitive solution that we should've nevertheless caught--apologies.

this is not meant to be a criticism of anyone personally! the same thing happened with the JPCP; its inevitable not a fault of the mappers :)

[TheOrganGrinder]

All right, time to get back on the wagon. ZDoom, Hurt Me Plenty, continuous play.

MAP01: Uprising

We open with a compact and fun techbase map, some kind of sludge processing plant embedded in a volcanic landscape, which, thanks to drops and teleporters, has a deceptively meandering path of progression, though not precisely a complex one; there's seldom a lack of clarity over where to go, but the way that path jumps around helps to create a feeling of uncertainty and vulnerability that allows the map's modest monster population to make the most of its potential threat. The early presentation of a berserk pack encourages a reckless, rush-in-and-splatter-them approach that can only carry the player so far in an environment that puts at least some of the early enemies up on ledges, but it's both fun in useful in a map that's initially a big stingy with the ammunition. The action peaks with a double door that unleashes a horde (relative to the size of the map and its early slot) of demons right in the player's face, then gradually settles into a more gently rhythm until the exit is reached.

MAP02: Geothermal

The pace and intensity step up relatively quickly here, with the player charting a largely ascending path through the innards of the power plant, weaving around lava pools and skirting along catwalks en route to the elevated exit switch. The challenge feels like it depends perhaps a bit overmuch on walls dropping to unleash hordes of enemies upon the player, but it's still a lot of fun, and multi-level main space and its various unfolding interconnections present a fulfilling sense of gradually solving a 3D puzzle as the player progresses and opens up the path to the secret soulsphere and its guardian horde.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP02 Geothermal

Hey look the textures finally loaded this time. Funny enough, I played a beta of Revilution before, and had a sporadic bug report across a few maps, so I'm actually familiar with some of these maps. This one certainly because of the lost textures and such. But it still plays fine. Layout works well and combat isn't bad at all. The traps are there for the excitement rather than cruel punishment. Glad to see no visual problems with this now.

[grommile]

MAP02 Geothermal

Another "I like this map structurally, but the only things that are really sticking in my head are the negatives" incident for me, with the negatives being "revenants without SSG or PG again" and "forced hurtfloor damage when collecting the red key".

[Grain of Salt]

What's so unpleasant about fighting revenants without SSG or PG? Can you only stand fighting them if they're constantly flinching and unable to fire?

[Tarnsman]

Jaws In Space said:

No shit, when it's just me & Dobu Gabu Maru testing 32 maps for vanilla compatibility mistakes are going to be made.

I'm just going to throw this out there but the original authors of the maps should be testing their own fucking maps for vanilla compatibility.

[baja blast rd.]

Most fun ways to fight revs:

1. In clustered hordes with the rocket launcher
2. In hordes with the BFG
3. In clusters with the SSG in tight spaces
4. In clusters with the PR in tight spaces
5. In small numbers with the 'zerk

Least fun:

1. Wandering around on high ledges and stuff when you're supposed to hit them with the rocket launcher
2. Without armor when the fight balance is tuned hard enough to where getting hit by a rocket is possible, because screw 60%+ damage rockets

There's something kinetically off about fighting them with the shotgun/chaingun to me. It just feels wrong. Something about the pellet range being so small and the revenant being so skinny, like the mere fact that it's taking damage doesn't make sense. But I've warmed up to it recently.

[Grain of Salt]

Chaingun feels kinda wrong to me, but shotgun is great. You have to get in close to make the shots count, so it's almost like berserk punching them.

[Demtor]

Jaws In Space said:

This map marks the first appearance of a Jeremy Doyle midi, I was ecstatic when Jeremy showed up to Doomworld & released some old 1996 midi's. I really wanted to see if he was willing to help flesh out the soundtrack for Revilution, nothing like actually having a member of Team TNT on your TNT sequel project :D I sent him a quick PM & he replied with a bunch of WIP midi's for us to choose from. Jeremy Doyle wasn't the only Team TNT member I asked to join Revilution either, Soundblock actually made 3 maps for Revilution, though all of them ended up being rejected. One of these rejected maps ended up as map 22 of ECHELON, while I recommended that Soundblock submit the other 2 maps for Final Doom the Way ID Did.

Huh, very interesting and very cool. Is the soundtrack listing from the OP on the TNT:Revilution thread not current? It shows...

Assigned tracks
MAP01: TiN Toker - Bucket (fusion of TNT.wad D_DDTBLU and another BucketMIDI)
MAP02: TiNTinnabulation - Bucket

If not, is there an updated list somewhere we can get?

[Demtor]

MAP02 - “Geothermal” by AD_79
gzDoom - UV – pistol start/no saves



A small base nestled in a cavernous rock setting with a few heated stone damage floors set to a slick music track. I really love the slow build to the percussions.

The contrasting looks between the inside and out were nice. I see there is some debate about it, but I always love a good lone Rev to shock the system early in a map. No matter the weapon options. I did not expect one to be able to even fit in where he was hiding. He can really make things go from bad to worse with all of the shotguns guys hanging out on far off cliff corners pot shotting you and imps above and below tossing fireballs at you. There's just enough ammo to clear out those would be snipers, so it's a good move to do so.

The secret cave was a small but fun find. The crate full of rockets that are very useful later on and the berzerk pack is always a good find.

I expected an ambush for the YK pick up. I was wrong. Three secret steps later and wow. LoL! Just brutal with no SSG. It all drops and opens up so quickly, don't blink! You'll get a split second to retreat before the pinkies teleport in to block your exit and keep you pinned in. Good stuff.

The RK pickup ambush was really good. If you somehow screw up the platform switch timing you'll be stuck down below in a damage area as shotgun guys start destroying you. Cacos from up top flush you out as lost souls peck at you as imps and a rev hunt you down. Don't get stuck below! Getting up and out of there ASAP is vitally important. Couple of sneaky hitscanners ported inside the red key cage to greet you on your return trip so if you didn't make it through all of that unscathed, they will finish the job and cut you down.

The final hallway area before the exit was tricky. Very glad to have saved rocket ammo for the AV and his pair of chaingun escorts. The mixed mob of zombies and imps was really fun to mow down after that. Finally the Rev with his two imps provided the last angry gasp this map has left. Whew. A very fun map 2.

[Jaws In Space]

Demtor said:

Huh, very interesting and very cool. Is the soundtrack listing from the OP on the TNT:Revilution thread not current? It shows...

Assigned tracks
MAP01: TiN Toker - Bucket (fusion of TNT.wad D_DDTBLU and another BucketMIDI)
MAP02: TiNTinnabulation - Bucket

If not, is there an updated list somewhere we can get?

Current development thread.
https://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/85791-tnt-revilution-ready-for-testing/

[Demtor]

Ahhh, thanks much. I found the older thread by accident somehow.

So with 28 days only this month and this having 31 maps, when should we jump ahead? Would we do 4 maps on one day? Or 2 on one and two on another and another?

[Devalaous]

Some notes on Map 1's cut plans that have been mentioned above:

From day 1, Map 1 was going to have a very small intro sequence before the map properly started. The original story carried on from the EXACT point Evilution left off, with the IoS reactivated with blue eyes, with the player "fighting" off enemies in the cast call.

Down to 50 bullets, the fighting stops at last, and Doomguy turns back to escape from the demon spitter, before another wave. The Evilution ending mentioned a rumbling in the distance, we used that to travel back to the previous Last Call hallway, where the player would find it collapsed and revealing a portal that would take the player to the proper beginning of Map 1, where the real gameplay starts. It would be maybe 10 seconds or less to your average IDGAF speedy player, so not exactly taking focus away from the "real" map

Basically the idea was to give Evilution players an "oh wow" opening tieing it to the previous mapset, as a direct sequel. Yes, Devilution did this also, in a different way, but thats just the thing, it was intentional divergence, showing both were originally the same project, before eventually splitting off in two different directions. This is actually the reason for the MIDI being Last Call's theme at first, it was a carryover midi from Devilution that I requested for Map 1, which unexpectedly came with us. Guess the Devilution guys didn't like it? In both Devilution's earlier development, and in Revilution's plans, Map 1 was to start with the player staring at the Icon of Sin from Last Call, with the opening notes of Into the Beast's Belly playing, and every single time I tested Map 1 of Devilution with that midi playing, it got my blood pumping right from the get go. A great opener track.

(Also, apparantly there was some miscommunication about the IoS graphics, Devilution already had a destroyed IoS graphic, several of them, Revilution only required a blue-eyed IoS jut like the one in Evilution's BOSSBACK graphic. Getting one would have been easy, I am VERY well connected with artists that could have made me one, thre just wasnt enough communication at that point thanks to my QA job straining things)

As for Map 1 itself; I never got to play it. By the time it was submitted and open for testing, I was too entrenched in my new job to have time to test TWO games at once. Unfortunate.

[Tristan]

MAP02: Geothermal - AD_79
Time: 4:40 (6:48) | Deaths: 0

Weird, I don't remember any of that history of this map that Jaws mentioned xD
Another solid map to follow MAP01, with a neat volcanic theme. Of course, both this first episode and the original Evilution were set on Io, a moon famed for its volcanoes, but Evilution did little to portray that except for like one lava pit on MAP07, so it's cool to see a more realistic kind of visual design being worked into the TNT theme here. Great music from Jeremy too, as Jaws mentioned he joined in much later into development - long after the soundtrack was supposedly finished, but in the end he made some of my favourite midis in the WAD.

Mid-tiers make their way into the main progression, having been only optional extras in the first map, and there's even an archvile at the end who promptly falls victim to some fun rocket barraging. Revenants here are mostly encountered on their own, so I have no problem being restricted to shotgun or chaingun in dealing with them, and using rocket launcher on any number of revenants is rarely far from fun. I only found the soulsphere for the first time on this playthrough, so that was new to me and pretty cool.

Quite an easy and very fun map, though some fights may prove a tad tense for blind players. I'm still comfortable on UV for now.

9/10

[Steve D]

Map02 - Geothermal by AD_79
Maxed, 1 Death

I've heard about AD_79 but this is the first time I've played an AD map and . . . wow! If this is a speedmap, I can't help wondering what AD does when he takes his time. I'll come right out and say it, to my eyes, this is basically pro-quality work in the Quake2 vein, as in, if some developer released a modern Doom-engine commercial game, I'd expect the maps therein to look a lot like this. And it's all the more impressive because it was done quickly and within vanilla limits. I checked the first 3 maps in CRL because they all impressed me with their architecture and detail, and Geothermal only came close to the seg limit along one sight-line, whereas Chris Hansen somehow got away with numerous seg violations and even a VPO, which did not produce HOMs when I ran his map in Chocolate Doom to give it an extra check. The Doom Gods were smiling on Chris. ;)

Back to Geothermal. I really like the organic shaping and the metal-green color scheme, and the way AD layered the overhead sectors. This map shows the value of ceiling detail achieved through varying the ceiling height along a path. There's a psychological effect when the ceiling is high at one moment and then seemingly right on top of you the the next. Like SFoZ911, AD made excellent use of the texture scheme, except, as Memfis noted, with some of the weird rock textures that are kind of ugly and look like badly-poured concrete. I also like the mix of indoor and outdoor areas and the progression through them. Each and every area was nicely staged.

Jeremy Doyle's MIDI is fantastic, and thanks Jaws for giving us the story behind Jeremy's participation. Jeremy, of course, did the soundtrack for 1996's uber-masterpiece Osiris. I was watching video of Osiris on YouTube the other day and was blown away all over again by the music, the atmospheric lighting, and the remarkable amount of organic shaping for maps of that period. We MUST play this on an episode month in the DWMC. 8 maps of awesomeness. On a side note, I consider myself fortunate to have made Map14 to Jeremy's "Crawl." Nowadays, I like mapping to the music rather than making a map and looking for music that fits, which for me is much less satisfying.

Back to Geothermal. Starts out with some mild action including distant Imp ledge snipers before you get a Revvie surprise. Concerning the conversation about what weapons to fight Revvies with, back in the '90s I always preferred the Chaingun. Indeed, the Chaingun was my primary weapon against Revvies, Mancs, Cacos and Arachnotrons, because you could stun-lock them, and it was fun to watch them dance "the chaingun cha-cha." It was also good against Pinkies and Spectres, though I preferred the SSG against them and the nobles. I hated the single-shotty. Nowadays, going against Revvies with single-shotty is fun as hell. It's exciting because you have to dodge like crazy and it's a good way to hone my Chuck Norris keyboarding skills. So yeah, bring it on! Rockets are still my favorite for Revvies, though, assuming enough distance.

The Yellow-key trap was a nice jump-scare, easily escaped, though if you slip on a banana peel, you're done for. The Red Key trap is the one that got me. I made the wrong call and engaged the Caco behind me when I should have rocketed the Sergeants and assorted riff-raff covering the lift. I weakened myself with a "Good at Doom!" rocket shot against a Lost Soul and was finally put away by a Sergeant one instant before I reached the lift. On the second try, I almost died again because of another "Good at Doom!" encounter with a Lost Soul. Those little jagoffs had it in for me. ;D I was at 15% health when I finally got out of there. I'd like to thank AD for putting that Zerk in a secret area, which tanked me up for the final fights.

The exit trap was really sweet. Good thing I still had a nice stash of rockets to melt through the meat wall Archie kept rezzing around him. I was out of rockets for the final Revvie encounter and I managed to survive a rocket hit to end the festivities.

All in all, this map looks great and is super-fun to play. Great stuff!

[Tompig]

Map 2 Geothermal
by Ad_79

Visually this map keeps up the theme laid out by map 01, it once again hits the nail on the head and strikes a perfect tone between DooM and Quake, also a plethora of bonus points needs to be awarded for that gorgeous heavy-metal sky.

Gameplay on this map has the feeling of moving at a million miles-per-hour whilst not running away with the player, every second of this map is spent gunning down a challenging yet manageable amount of monsters.
Imps and shot-gunners are given decent vantage points from the get-go to pelt the player, all the while groups of pinkies and zombie men are pushing your position.

Fantastic use of traps yet again, and without giving too much away for the sake of spoilers a very good, and unexpected reason to bust out the rocket launcher at the end of the level.

Much like map 01, a very entertaining and action packed experience.

[dobu gabu maru]

Demtor said:

So with 28 days only this month and this having 31 maps, when should we jump ahead? Would we do 4 maps on one day? Or 2 on one and two on another and another?

We usually do 3 maps on the 15th, but since it still leaves us with an extra map, I'm totally cool if you guys want to jump one map ahead.

--------

MAP02: AD is an excellent mapper; whenever I see his name pop up in a list I always get excited. He's adroit at blending simple form and function together to make interesting layouts with plenty of baddies around to harass you, clearly demonstrating that he's learned from the best mappers on this site. And "Geothermal" is no different: a fiery start with some fun SG combat (particularly against revs--Grain of Salt has the right idea), and a red key trap I always die to :P Thankfully this time I was playing on HMP so I survived by the skin of my teeth with 4% health! If a map must be quick and fun, AD shows us how to get it done.

(only error I caught was that the exit door switch--linedef 1454--doesn't properly animate because it has upper and lower textures)

SteveD said:

I've heard about AD_79 but this is the first time I've played an AD map and . . . wow!

Stop what you're doing and play Violence. Seriously. It's one of my favorite releases from 2015.

[dpstatic]

Here's my thoughts on the first two maps.

MAP01: fun map that definitely feels like an homage to System Control, but simultaneously has a unique feel to it, and definitely a higher difficulty curve. The beginning was rough since I was relying on melee and pistol, but the shotgun is found early enough in the level for that not to ruin it. I was able to find all the secrets, and found my self completely taken off-guard by the Arch-Vile, I wasn't expecting it given the difficulty of the level, but also I don't think I've ever encountered an Arch-Vile in any wad without an SSG on hand or at least accessible. Overall a fun little level, that gives the wad a great start.

Map02: Another fun one. The ambushes were fun, not absolutely brutal, but still a threat. Having to take out Cacodemons with a shotgun instead of the SSG brought me back into Doom, which made it fun. I really enjoyed the ambush at the end of the map, the Arch-Vile and chaingunner combo can be irritating, and all the other hitscanners, this ambush fun and challenging, especially since I was still without the SSG.

Both maps were great and having not played though this wad, I hope that trend continues.

[baja blast rd.]

Map 03: "Access Denied" by Chris Hansen

Aesthetically this map holds a lot more intrigue than the preceding two, with lots of moving parts and quirky oldschool areas in contrast to the anonymous minimalist polish. But I'm not really a fan of the gameplay, for three reasons. First, the abundance of lifts and perpetual floors impede flow at every other turn. On top of that, there are a number of places where infinite height will create annoyance. At the switch near the blue armor secret, trying to get the secret immediately after hitting the switch can get you scratched by imps below, and making another pass around for it is worse, because that is boring. More egregiously, the blind drop on the other side has two alert imps that can wander over and block it. Lastly, the action feels decidedly undercooked, even considering that it's supposed to be an easy map. My least favorite encounter was the one in the nukage pool, where turret mancubi and hell knights appear mostly to act as momentary annoyances in a completionist run. Then after hitting the switch, there is a revenant and ... two cacos? The red key path leading up to it has a number of teleporters and lock-ins that just make navigation a bit more start-stop, and I don't really understand the purpose of the lock-ins to begin with. Anyway, I wouldn't object to action pitched at this pace if the layout flowed more smoothly, but it doesn't. Ammo is skewed towards shells and bullets, and I kept encountering boxes of one or the other while already topped off, so a backpack secret would have been nice, or simply more rocket boxes in place of some of the lower-tier munitions.

dobu gabu maru said:

We usually do 3 maps on the 15th, but since it still leaves us with an extra map, I'm totally cool if you guys want to jump one map ahead.

Alright, I'll do two today, since I operate according to Australian time. :)

[Demtor]

dobu gabu maru said:

Stop what you're doing and play Violence. Seriously. It's one of my favorite releases from 2015.

WOW! This is impressive. Great recommendation. Thanks!





MAP03 - “Access Denied” by Chris Hansen
gzDoom - UV – pistol start/no saves


The music track had a fun little marching beat to it that kind of fit with a factory pumping station of sorts but the main chorus repeats itself a few too many times to be enjoyable. Even changing notes to replay it again just in a little higher pitch. That was really grating after awhile. Especially when I got stuck.

Arrrgh, this map had me lost for at least 10 confused minutes. I knew what I had to do, but it took me a really long time to figure out how to get on the left path for that RK. Finding the BK was straightforward enough but but for whatever reason I didn't think I could make that jump to the elevating cylinder in the toxic green sludge.

Anyways, lots of great looking stuff in a much larger base map with a central goal of connecting the walkway to the exit. The secret shotgun behind the barrel in the crate was kind of funny but very useful. The front lobby area was well done. I liked that the RL was avaialable on each side of the map so you really could go either way and not miss too much after getting the SSG in the little shipping area with boxes where the path starts to split.

The RK path had the toxic waste outdoor area which had the switch to open up the locked down lift to the key. I laughed at the hitscanners hiding below and behind you. They just look so silly, like they are stuck in sewer hole or something. Rising stairs are always a nice touch. I always appreciate the extra effort to spice things up. Gonna have to work for that rad suit. Same with the RL later on the rising platform. Funny how the BK side just more or less hands it to you.

Speaking of, the BK path had the see through tease, the open reveal, then a rug pull ambush followed by the large column with it's own up/down switcheroo trick (very cool) to open access to the key. The Aerial attack as pinkies come up from behind was a cool move. I liked the secret door that hugs the texture design. A small detail but it looks so much unlike anything else in the map, that it stands out and screams secret! at me. Thumbs up.

I liked the lone baron at the end of the map right before the exit room. Like he was the bossman in charge of this whole operation or something.

Overall a fun big map with lots of places to explore and plenty of enemies to keep you busy along the way.

[JDoyle]

SteveD said:

Jeremy Doyle's MIDI is fantastic, and thanks Jaws for giving us the story behind Jeremy's participation. Jeremy, of course, did the soundtrack for 1996's uber-masterpiece Osiris. I was watching video of Osiris on YouTube the other day and was blown away all over again by the music, the atmospheric lighting, and the remarkable amount of organic shaping for maps of that period. We MUST play this on an episode month in the DWMC. 8 maps of awesomeness. On a side note, I consider myself fortunate to have made Map14 to Jeremy's "Crawl." Nowadays, I like mapping to the music rather than making a map and looking for music that fits, which for me is much less satisfying.

Dude, I have no words. I can't thank those who have said kind words about my music enough. When Jaws contacted me about contributing to this project I didn't even need to think about it. I hadn't worked with GM in probably 17 years but it's been really fun revisiting some of the ideas I'd started back then. I have to apologize in advance for MAP11's music, I didn't find out until last night that it was being used at all, so it's totally incomplete in this beta.

[cannonball]

MAP02 - “Geothermal” by AD_79
Fair to say that like the last map the author plays to their strengths here and produces a short, compact and well laid out map with a modest level of difficulty which is really fun to play. There are some similar tropes between the two maps here, mostly being optional nasty surprises.
I must also add that the music is fantastic.