4star on Strat

cyberpunx

Mon, 25 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

01: button that doesn’t do anything, that’s the kind of thing I’m expecting from Monti. Wacky shit
02: dayum, this music track, lounge music? wild choice
A lot of the textures being used, I’ve never seen them used this way but they feel consistent with each other. I think this is one of Monti’s signature moves. It makes his work (so far) feel different yet consistent and not ugly.
no rocket launchers so far (unless they’re hidden), makes me sad. But maybe when I get it eventually it’ll be great, delayed gratification in Doom lol

random thoughts: Doom custom maps 30 years in, it’s inherently meta, it’s its own thing and universe, the mappers through their maps are speaking to each other, speaking to the maps in the original games…

Otherworldly Ossuary

Sat, 23 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

looks good and plays amazing, this is a big gameplay levelup for AshtralFiend
really short though

Venom Vendetta

Sat, 23 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Habitat Complex

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

amazing detailing, Ashtral Fiend is an artist and their levels have impeccable vibes
amazing doomcute
OK combat but everything else is firing on all cylinders![alt text]

Head Trauma

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

doomcute!
amazing use of textures and sectors, I’ve never seen Doom levels that look like this.
great secrets, I never care about finding secrets in maps but here they’re just hidden enough to make you feel smart to find but not too secret that you won’t find them.
map01: jumping into the movie screen, feels like the whole premise of Ashtral Fiend coming from an arty/movie background (?) and creating Doom maps from that frame of reference…
map02: amazing use of the Doom tools in creative ways to sell the fantasy of the space that’s being presented here, including extensive use of doomcute
I need to take a look how these items are being put on conveyor belts (choosing between getting the rocket launcher or plasma gun and grabbing it off the conveyor is so cool)
blue key on the belt… wtf, how?
very cool teleporter that teleports you into a different (hellish) version of the location you’re in, very cool.
inspired by mouldy’s work (Going Down) or coming from a similar creative place
enemy counts feel super low after playing Rush (Slaughter for babies)
a runner up to the 2023 cacoawards, makes sense, this is amazing
map03:
- doomcute bathroom stall start, wild
- cooking with gas now boyz
map04: “feeling sick feet under” direct reference to mouldy?
a lot of random chaingunners, gives off plutonia vibes (I think that’s the one?)
great lighting, especially completely black sectors making enemies look like shadow puppets in front of animated blood / fireblu

Rush

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Set of 12 (?) levels that acts as a Primer on the genre of Doom maps filled with enemies called slaughter maps, AKA Baby’s First Slaughter

map06: interesting elevator with columns that all move at the same time and can be reset… Need to look at this in UDB
very cool gameplay
switches aren’t always spotlighted very well so they can be easy to miss and you’ll be forced to load up the map in UDB to find the switches necessarily for completion
map10: really cool descent, hit a switch then ascent into a big fuck off slaughter arena. Open up UDB for this, must be a teleporter? (yes, it is… very cool)
ya I’m opening almost every map in the 2nd half because what I’m supposed to do next isn’t clear. Minimal foreshadowing of what you’re supposed to do what you’re supposed to activate
amazing combat encounters universally across all the maps
map12: secret (blood pit) leading to a shortcut through the map? that’s really cool
- crazy map: amazing way to end the wad, big fuck off map

Eviternity II

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I loved the first Eviternity, let’s see how this holds up
nice palette
map01
- crazy intro teleporter thing, let’s check this in doombuilder
- also revisiting levels from the first megawad but altered due to doomguy’s efforts
- jump pads still kind of wild, although a little glitchy
map02
- first button you hit, you see exactly what it activates in LOS
- cool rain effect
map03
- leaves falling effect, cool…
making the pistol fire faster is a classic great way of fixing the pistol feeling awful to use
each map’s exit allow you to see the start of the next map is brilliant
- a lot of “high budget” choices like this bring this wad above and beyond others
- the detailing in every room is just insane
having a switch bring up some stairs with a switch on them allowing the player to “unlock” being able to activate these stairs up and down to access new areas seems key (not something new but something I was having trouble coming up with on my own during my most recent mapping session)
- also, having really big stairs have a dedicated button next to them instead of on them
map05 track is cool but doesn’t fit…
breadcrumb rocket ammo, encourages keeping your eyes peeled and makes the movement funner than it would be otherwise (like coins in Mario)
map07: big open space with monsters all around, open this one up in UDB and take a look at how this works.
- two SSG spawns on both ends of the map to increases the chances of the player picking it up sooner rather than later. Especially once the pinkies are start showing up.
- every enemy set to ambush probably. Ample use of cacos that can fly over obstacles and threaten the player. A lot of weak monsters out of reach that the player can ping with the chaingun, big bads are very rarely out of reach. Arachnotron used as a turret though
- hit a switch and different monster comps teleported into the arena you just fought in
- switches / combined with walk over linedef actions to force player to walk back and forth while fighting enemies
- masterful use of colours to guide the player towards buttons they can press or should press based on the keys they have (map06 does this too)
- grey arachnos are deadly but their shots can be avoided with movement so they encourage you to keep moving
- giving an extra rocket launcher as well, just in case…
- a lot of sector manipulation to create arenas where fights happen then eventually the arena opens back up again. Check how this is done in UDB…
map09: nice
map11: constantly expanding arena with new monsters
map12: another map with an expanding arena, a bunch of imps teleporting in, seems like the imp is the go to spammable enemy
map14: wild puzzles
map16: callback to eviternity map01?
map17: cool shifting stage and teleporting probably
map20: another map ending on a locked in arena fight
map21: skidding on ice? ya… not sure I like this gimmick
map22: a “gauntlet” style map where you run through all of it, triggering a bunch of enemies and picking up weapons along the way
map23: another “gauntlet”
- where are the keys?
map24: another gauntlet, is this very skillsaw-inspired?
- wild arena fight after you get all the keys, tight room
- oh ok, we’re doing 3 big arena fight for each of the skull keys
- coolest map combat-wise
- god-tier doomcute battleship at the end
map25: epic boss fight
- fantastic track
map26: like map01, more of an atmospheric level, something like ALT
- spooky AF track
- map acts like a transition from one setting to another, emphasing the transition
- shivers inducing
- BIG reveal
- OK this map is not what I’m into, I need to play more slaughter maps and understand what make them tick for something like this to hit for me.
- The laggyness despite playing on the best performance source port (DSDA-Doom) is rough
- OOHHHHHHH OK I get it now, beating puzzley sub-maps to make the main big fight easier wasn’t foreshadowed much and so I bulldozed my way into an actually absurd fight. Probably beatable but not fun playing the map that way. But this is a really cool premise
- but that’s a really cool concept now that I know WTF is going on here
- haunting…
cringe compilation

closing thoughts:

Whispers Of Satan

Thu, 14 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

collab between pcorf and Aro
fantastic original midi soundtrack, with both pcorf and Aro being talented musicians
map9: the school, a no russian-esque map, an explicit reference to columbine? That massacre directly led to Doom coming up in the news and being villified and being accused of “causing” it. Now here’s a Doom map that’s explicitly about going into a “school” and blasting through hordes of “demons”. The music hits here, it’s melancholic and it feels like it represents the loss of innocence.
very tight ammo setup (tightest I’ve played recently, every bullet is essential, waste is lethal)
a lot of time spent with the shotgun, smashing your head against bullet sponges. Enemy composition choices are questionable at times, it seems like the mappers were more interested in creating a hopeless vibe instead of purely “fun” gameplay
maps get super long past the 1/2 mark
map25: sneaky cyberdemon teleporting around ominously, very cool
ubiquitous crosses, inverted, normal, orthodox, but just generally there’s a lot of indented decoration in walls. It’s used a little too much maybe but it does provide the dozen maps of the wad with a unique look/feel
map26: organ music at start, great vibes for the evil cathedral setting of the map
too long, overstays its welcome because the combat isn’t “fun” enough to hold the rest of it up?
this has some really iconic set pieces / scenes (map30: hell-levator) but they’re spread a little because the maps are so long
ammo counts a little sus, even when making full use of chainsaw / berserk punching, you just don’t have enough. Although I can get a little better at punching demons

Zone 400

Thu, 07 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

After 12,000 linedefs of action, you have won this battle and have destroyed the source of this demonic civilization. Condemnation is no more and the mystery of this pandemic has finally been solved. As you hop onto the derelict imperial space station Ondor (sic) for the long journey back home you destroy the rest of these beasts with ease blasting them to oblivion.

400 line defs each megawad by one mapper (pcorf)
mostly consistent map length feels good
economy of design, reusing the same spaces over and over again. A little bit of difficulty in differentiating the levels. There’s an intentional use of different textures-sets throughout but it’s not enough to really make these maps feel really different.
gradual expansion of arenas and combination of them as more monster closets are revealed.
… I like this more than I would have expected.
a lot of random TPs used to move enemies around the arenas… interesting but hard to parse. Makes the maps feel a little random. It feels like a bandaid to solve the problem of wanting to have these maps be tiny but re-use the existing spaces a bunch… it doesn’t fully work.
map11: great example of this idea of opening an arena gradually
timed buttons keep the pace up but sometimes slow you down when you miss the timing.
singular/low rocket ammo drops, forces tactical rocket use more than usual
maps separated into mostly thematic episodes with different map design ethos/pillars in each it feels like… it’s good
2020 pandemic-inspired story line

Machete

Mon, 04 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Those scum ridden sacks of shit didn’t even have the empathy to honorably discharge me. I was just told to shut up and get out. I cleared a tech base of those nightmares and I bet they’d still rather see me dead than holding a place in the marines again. I don’t need help, I just need to wipe out the rest of these terrors and get rid of that awful noise. Onward to Sunveil Starport.