Mr. Alexander

SoBad's map Subverter has a lot of good joke level design: Stairs that don't rise "right," hordes of arch-viles that don't attack you, a room that would be a difficult platforming fight if the floor weren't fake and perfectly flat, etc. Good punchline, too.

All that's to be learned from a poll is "opinions differ." But it's fine. I like playing FDA-style for a few runs at first, recording a demo, but that's me speaking for myself. If you play casually, of course you would use them, and if you play seriously, you need to use them to find optimal strategies for discrete fights, stages within fights, etc., so that you can then play the whole thing through.

Love a good meat and potatoes, ordinary map. They don't make them like this anymore! FDA: subverter01fda-mralexander.zip

I wanted to make a map for the project, but ultimately the search for a new job, the new job, and other priorities got in the way. I don't think it's likely I'll make anything for this one, unfortunately. Good luck and good time management to all those still making maps for this!

Even if you restrict your scope to the Early Modern period, this is plainly untrue.

Scorn is really good, if you haven't already played it.

I enjoyed recording an FDA for this. You can really see the D2ISO influence in the brown texturing and the chaingunner trap on the spiral staircase leading to the blue skull. I didn't play with an extended HUD, so I don't know whether I had gotten close to the end of the map, but I like the pace of the weapon progression. I got eaten alive by the soulsphere/megaarmor trap by the bloodfalls, and that's where I cut it short. Looking forward to playing it in more of a practiced style. vilamuerte_v101fda-mralexander.zip

I'm interested, but I would be coming in as a totally new mapper. I've only messed around a little in UDB without actually finishing anything. This would at least give me a deadline to finish something by, though.

I think the Dean of Doom bit was a joke about the natural frustrations of playing difficult games. Managing your mental reaction to loss and misfortune is an important skill to learn, and not just for playing hard Doom levels. That said, if I started throwing around objects near at hand out of frustration at a game, like my temperamental brother did when he was a small child, I would hope I would take a deep breath, count to 10, make sure nothing was actually damaged, and take a long walk around the neighborhood to think about my priorities and think about doing something else with my time.

@Tangra666, that makes a lot of sense. I probably would have adopted that strategy if I'd made another attempt, but I wanted to get up and relax a bit rather than try again. You can't win them all, unless you're very dedicated. Looking forward to beating it now that I can play it properly, with practice & saves. Nice work!

Gave this level a whirl and enjoyed it a lot. The midi selection rocks, even if it's a bit repetitive at the pokey pace at which I tend to play FDAs. The level itself is a well made techbase tuned to a good "Let's just play some Doom" difficulty. I didn't get a clear, but that was because I let the surprise of a near arch-vile during the big trap after the red door drive me backwards into the line of sight of an arch-vile that had already begun its attack. I probably missed some secrets, too, and thinking it over, I could have solved the low health I was suffering by the time I reached the red door by taking the berserk pack I'd left behind earlier. FDA played on DSDA-Doom 0.26.2 on complevel 2 without any advanced HUD features. anist01fda-mralexander.zip

Fun level! The MIDI selection is great, and I like the pacing. I would have gone on, but I had already taken a bathroom break during the recording, hence the long pause at one point, and I just wasn't feeling it after getting smoked so far into the last attempt, which had already benefited from an arch-vile failing to teleport in for the blue key ambush. I like the looping structure - or at least the looping way you're allowed to backtrack - and the moody lighting. Really looking forward to recording a proper finished demo, which feels well within my grasp unless this level is actually monstrously huge. FDA recorded in DSDA-Doom 0.26.2 at complevel 2 without any advanced HUD or automap features. intrusion01fda-mralexander.zip

If it's good enough to publish, then there's no reason to do such a strong self-deprecation routine, even if you're publishing it just as an example to encourage others. I cut this FDA short because I have to sleep soon and I spent some time earlier tonight recording a different FDA. The texturing is pretty gnarly, particularly the wooden doors in the interior sections, which blend into the wooden walls beside them and extend way up into the ceiling. The MIDI selection is great, though. It sounds like Touhou, or at least something Japanese, but I don't know what tune in particular. I had fun with it, and I would have pressed on if I didn't have to wrap it up for the night. FDA recorded on DSDA-Doom 0.26.2 on complevel 2, no advanced HUD or automap used. voile01fda-mralexander.zip

Anomaly Report, the first wad in the section celebrating great Ultimate Doom wads, is vanilla compatible, but the vanilla exe it targets is Doom 2's, not Ultimate Doom's.

At risk of offering the big, obvious suggestions, tourniquet's maps Mutabor, Altitude, and Miasma, two of which won Cacowards, would probably fit the bill.