Captain Keen

This was great. Really terrific. Love these sorts of WADs. Thank you for sharing!

Looks great! Hope to play it soon!

Okay, I played the first 6 levels [UPDATE: I've now played everything]. Only one dud in the bunch in my opinion, which is the second level. Overall I think this is some of Romero's best Doom work. I liked SIGIL 1 but I think this is a significant step up. In many ways this feels like a true sequel to Knee-Deep in the Dead, because so much of it is corrupted tech bases and there's some really nice open ended design here. I'm playing on HMP and it's definitely challenging. I can imagine UV is very, very difficult for a first playthrough. It is dark but I think purposely designed that way. It works for me since it's not alllll just shadows and he does lots of interesting stuff with backlighting of dark figures against bright red. Overall I have no complaints playing in software rendering in GZDoom. I think these are very visually appealing maps and I like all the new textures (except for the sky which needs some finessing). My first impressions: E6M1: A-, great opening, though quite difficult on the first try E6M2: C, small, dull and tedious map, the only one I don't really like E6M3: B+, kinda feels like his take on Mt. Erebus, love the dark room with the barons E6M4: A-, great corrupted tech base level E6M5: A-, fantastic map, like descending into Hell, that hallway with all the red cracks is one of my favorite areas of the entire wad E6M6: A, one of the best maps Romero has ever made, just fantastic... and that imp teleported in right in front of me at the start and was a great jump scare. I did notice some weirdness with that Cybie walkway at the end though, some visual jank with the torches and an invisible wall that I don't think really needs to be there. It was cool though that the Cybie can end up in the exit room. E6M7: A, fantastic level, probably the most ambitious of the bunch, the Hell city here reminded me a little bit of some of the later levels in Hellbound, might be my favorite of this episode E6M8: B+, really fun finish, though I kinda wish the very end arena had a little more of a surprise in it. Maybe a new monster since this is Episode 6 the final final final last stop before going back to Earth. Could have been really cool to have a surprise appearance by an Arch-Vile or something. E6M9: A, like E6M4 a great corrupted tech base, watched him map this one and it was so much fun to play, also one of my favorites here along with 6 and 7 Overall: A-, I probably would give the first SIGIL a solid B or B+ There's some visual jank, like with the sky (which already has a fix above, hopefully Romero adds that into the next bug fixed version), but overall the look and feel of these levels is fantastic. They are sometimes cramped but that's kind of his style, and there's lots of open areas too. Very, very atmospheric and theatrical. It always impresses me what old school Doom can still achieve compared to modern games (I'm sure Eviternity 2 is going to be a whole different type of impressive).

Just downloaded from my order link. A new link was sent out with an update, FYI for anyone who bought the box edition. From what I saw he was testing it in software rendering, not hardware? I haven't played yet but wondering about the darkness. I have no problem with UV being very difficult. I will play HMP for my first playthrough. UV is supposed to be punishing and to me the best maps require you to already know them a bit before you try UV. My two cents.

Wow, this and Sigil II? It truly is a DoomMas-30-Spectacular. I've downloaded the latest DSDA just for this since it was built for it. Quick question, are we good to use either OpenGL or Software or is one preferred? I'm using OpenGL. Also quick question for the community: I don't use DSDA a lot, is there a way to change the way the spectres look?

Yep. I guess you could say Doomguy goes from Hell to Earth in E4, then gets sucked back into Hell for the Sigils before finally making it back to Earth again in Doom II, and this time reaching the cities. But as you say, they never thought any of this out that much. It doesn’t really have to make sense. I mean the skybox makes no sense for Knee-Deep. That looks like Earth, if anything. And it’s completely great anyway!

I gotta say, from what I’ve seen of Romero mapping Sigil II and the recent interview with Apogee, this looks like his best collection of maps this century. The visual design is interesting, it’s got some cool stuff in it like graves, and he isn’t just copying the first Sigil in aesthetics. The maps look very open and engaging. I think he really seems to enjoy doing this beyond just a way to make some easy nostalgia money. You can still see that Knee-Deep ethos in the design but it’s still got some interesting modern sensibilities. Doom really is just a fantastic game with timeless and adaptable mechanics. Anyway, in a year that has given us some incredible AAA releases like Phantom Liberty (or Zelda/BG3 if you’re into those), Sigil II is still one of my most anticipated gaming events for 2023. I’ll probably pick up a physical copy if it’s not sold out already. And yes, poor Doom guy just can’t seem to get back home to Earth. That’s what happens when you use Ticketmaster to get out of Hell.

Many congrats! Can’t wait to play the finished version.

@Crunchynut44 The link is dead, can you please re-upload?

This is a cool topic. Hell Knight for me, though if I could, I’d add three… Hell Knights, Chaingunners and Arachnotrons. And as some posters have suggested, replace all Barons in E2-4 with Hell Knights, leaving the Barons as bosses for E1M8 only. The chaingunners I’d use sparingly, and the Arachnotrons would be a nice build up to the final boss, and I could see how they’d be effective in a map like Mt. Erebus. One of the few flaws with the first Doom is it’s missing a greater variety of mid tier enemies. How hard would it be to create an alternate version of the Ultimate Doom that adds a few Doom II enemies into it but otherwise leaves everything else the same?

I know this seems like a super silly topic, and it is. But I actually have a copy of the “original” Doom when it only had 3 episodes. Mainly for nostalgia purposes, but there are some small cosmetic differences with E1M1 and some of the art. I also have multiple copies of the Shareware release including the early 1.1 and 1.2 releases. I pretty much only use Ultimate Doom for wads, but sometimes when I just want to play the original game I do the 3 episode version. That’s what is great about Doom. Choice!

I have lived in California. I lived in California during BLM and COVID and saw some of this stuff firsthand. Not on the news, with my own eyes. Police beating on protesters. Stores being robbed. The aftermath of riots with smashed glass everywhere and burned down stores. I've personally seen three different car chases in action and multiple hit and run accidents. I also had neighbors who complained about increasing crime and homeless populations and blah blah blah for YEARS. Since the day I moved, honestly. Also for 99% of my time in California my neighborhood was an idyllic Americana suburbia filled with a variety of cultures and both locals and immigrants. I'd take my dog for walks and hummingbirds would fly over us and we had owl and peacock visitors and I'd often leave my front door unlocked. I could drive up into the mountains or the forests whenever I wanted. I never had any serious personal issues with crime, even though Nextdoor would have had me believe I was living in Somalia. In fact in almost 15 years in California I had one incident where a homeless person was sleeping under my balcony (she was harmless) and one Amazon package stolen (it was a harddrive, I think it was actually never delivered and I got a full refund). That's it. I did not live in a particularly wealthy area either (well comparatively, almost everywhere in that city was "wealthy" by Midwest property standards.) My biggest concern living there was the earthquakes and climate change, which gave us some pretty horrific forest fires where ash rained down from the sky and everything was bright orange. I also lived in downtown Chicago. The worst crime I ever personally saw in public was at a rural bar in the Midwest. Cities of course will have higher rates of crime because there are more people in them. All of my original points stand, and to avoid getting specifically political, I am going to leave it there. EDIT: Oh, and the opioid crisis is affecting the entire country. We are talking about states. Any issue that is present at the federal state is irrelevant when discussing "good" or "bad" states. The United States as a whole has some DIRE and SEVERE issues but that's a topic for a different day!

I've lived in four states, 3 in the Midwest and one on the west coast. They've all had pros and cons. I see a lot of political commentary here and I'm just gonna be blunt, most of that is BS. It's especially amusing seeing that stuff spewed by people who admit they've never even visited, let alone lived in those areas. All cities have issues, as do rural areas. I've lived in both and there are perks and cons to each. Don't believe everything you see on the news. The myth of "crime ridden hellhole cities" is pushed by the politicians here in America who have a very deliberate agenda. Not all cities are equal, too, in their living standards. California has major wealth inequality issues, for example, that go beyond simple political talking points. With that said, to me the worst states are the ones that have uninteresting geographical features and/or are really getting hammered by climate change. The south is the worst area in this regard, while also having some insane politics on top of it (far beyond anything you see elsewhere). The Midwest—though I don't live there anymore—has great lakes and fresh water and if anything the weather there has become more mild. They're probably some of the best states. They're also not all purely "red" or "blue" and I do think that's a good thing, to have a little bit of variety. I've always liked New England (think Vermont), though it also has its issues, and I've never lived there only visited. The west coast is such a diverse area that almost all of the typical BS that people spew about it is nonsense or at best half true. The southern states are the only ones I've visited where I think "damn this is bad." Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, etc. Georgia however is actually pretty cool, Atlanta is great. There is diversity everywhere, nowhere is just "one" thing. With allllll of that said... I do have to agree about Indiana. The motto is "crossroads of America" and ain't that the truth, you only go there to get somewhere better. But I half jest. Like I said, the Midwest has a loooottttt of perks you won't find elsewhere. Indiana is the worst of that bunch, though, and maybe the most boring state. It's all flat, lacking the variety of other states or the pure beauty of somewhere like Montana.

Two quick things: 1) add me as another vote for Boomer, great stuff! 2) temporarily derailed or not, I actually have to say that’s the most polite debate I think I’ve ever seen online about gun violence. Probably helps that not all the posters here are American. I have not played that wad because I hadn’t heard of it until now, but it does look interesting. With that said, I get how weird tonal shifts can sometimes steal your enjoyment of something.

That's actually really cool to know! Would you say that it's a noticeable difference when you upgrade your pilot skills, or in other words, it "feels" right when you've maxed our your piloting skills? Sometimes I feel like when games hide a feature that important behind stats it's sometimes half-baked, but it sounds like you're really happy with it?