LVENdead

This is a cute and clever map and I recommend people play it.

I've kind of slipped into this interesting space where, as a mapper, I play way less Doom than I'd like because I spend a lot of my free time making maps for Doom. Is that a bit ironic? I don't know. But I bring this up to say that I spend a lot of my playing time following the major releases (as opposed to digging through everything that comes and goes) and starting (but not finishing) a ton of WADs, through no fault of quality on the part of the mappers. On that note, Abscission is one of the megawads I DID finish this year and I was a little surprised to not see it get at least a silver. This year was absolutely stacked so I realize that my "played" catalog isn't nearly extensive enough to have considered everything worthy of an award, but personally speaking, Abscission ticks all the requisite boxes of something worthy of greater recognition. It cleverly reinvents the wheel with all the stock assets, and very quickly outgrows its "Doom 2 but the dark evil version" premise to something far more enthralling and sinister. I think it's also very cohesive in terms of execution, and the synthesis of Snaxalotl's fairly unique visual style and gameplay design with the completely bespoke soundtrack creates this feeling that I find hard to match in other Doom content. Often times smothering (where many WADs would interpret that descriptor to mean "choke the player with 450 monsters in one fight"), other times fear-inducing, Abscission is arguably as harrowing during its downbeat moments as it is during its action packed ones due in no small part to its fairly excellent pacing. You often walk away from completing a map feeling not like you've beaten it, but that you've survived it. It was profound enough to me that it's had a lasting impact on my own mapping, and served as a huge inspiration to the types of moods and setups I invoke in my maps. There's some bias present because Snaxalotl is a friend, but I also don't go out of my way to indiscriminately recommend content to people, and I basically can't recommend Abscission to enough people.

Personally speaking I'd love to put a poster of that up on my wall.

I need to buy a print of this art like YESTERDAY.

Oh snap, I thought this was the 32nd megawad ever, but I misread and NOW I get it. A 30 SECOND megawad!!!

Not sure if this has been noted yet but regarding the first secret level:

I wish you all good luck getting this project to the finish line. Seems like it's now in capable hands and has a good chance to live up to its promise!

I'll take an Episode 2 slot!

Doom Shareware back before we even had Windows installed on our family computer. I remember gradually working through KDITD with my dad and getting to the Bruiser Brothers and being absolutely floored and having no idea what to do. I came home from school the next day and he told me he had beaten the last level and I wanted to know how he did it since it seemed impossible to a little kid. I was absolutely obsessed with Doom for a couple years after that...and now I am all over again nearly 30 years later. Huh.

For me personally, a crutch comes into play when you have one consistent solution to a problem you've possibly become too complacent to solve in any other way. I would say complacency is the operative quality here. Maybe an example would be if you always use SUPPORT3 as a border/highlight texture ALL THE TIME. I mean, that appears to be what it's primarily intended for, but can you say that it should be used for every border with every possible map aesthetic? Style is highly subjective, yet I would say that SUPPORT3 probably SHOULDN'T be used every time you need to separate different textures of highlight a window or door frame, and instead it might be a good idea to reevaluate how you've constructed the visuals of that map. Another example might be consistently using Barons or AVs on the other side of a door to slow down or trap a player you don't want to bypass a fight. There's "I like using it a lot because it works" and then there's "I like using it a lot because I haven't really bothered to consider an alternative." Maybe a bit of a semantic argument, but those are situations I'd start talking about the difference between a crutch and core design tenant, fwiw.

I definitely think 05 is the hardest as well. After it hit such a peak I intentionally tried to make map 06 a little easier. I feel like the end of 05 is a bit cheeseable and debated redesigning the fight a little, but maybe it's okay to leave it the way it is since the lead up is pretty intense overall. Regarding the BFG: If you do feel free to share, I always enjoy watching playthroughs!

So in my experience, I'm not sure how much easier HMP and lower are "supposed" to be for people since I primarily play Doom on UV. I try my best to look at what makes something difficult on UV and adjust it - is it because you don't get much health (and therefor, I add some extra medkits), or is it that AV that should be replaced with something else? I can try my own maps out but I don't personally get much feedback about the balance of the other difficulties from players, so I just kind of have to go with "I guess it's good enough and hopefully playable".

This is how I map too and in fact I've gotten to the point where I need to write the MIDI before I can make much headway on my maps. I don't know what it is, but I'll spend 30 minutes or more skimming through the various MIDIs I've accumulated and then decide I don't like any of them so I open Sekaiju and start with that. Up until recently it was music, booze, and bud for me. Get nice and toasted and find my flow state. Recently it's just been music and bud.

We've all got them. What are your old reliables, your crutches, your safety nets when it comes to creativity (I'll say specifically with Doom content just to keep this reasonably on topic)? Do you ever strive to break these molds or do you have good reason for sticking to your guns? How many more turns of phrase can I fit in this question? If you see someone else mentioning something similar to one of your current or old habits that maybe you've managed to eject from your routine, do you have any tips for that person? I have many, but off the top of my head: PIPEWAL2 is my "I don't know what else to put here texture." It's great for detailing, breaking up continuity, it tiles well horizontally and doesn't care about linedef length. I love everything about it. (I'd like to profess my undying love for PIPEWAL2) Musically, I have a penchant for arpeggios to write my melodies and using slow strings to fill in the sound and make it more full. I write a lot of loops and then stack them on top of each other. Some day I hope to challenge this habit, but typically I just take the easy way out. I showed you mine now show me yours!