DBP32: Tomatomania!

Long overdue but it's time, prboom+ fdas: Attachment Deleted

Compiling everything right and the dehacked work took its time but it was worth it and it deserves some appreciation because otherwise we couldn't have a cool wad like this one. Thinking about the previous projects made me regret a little that I didn't find the energy to contribute more to these, but I'm very happy with the maps I made. Not sure why I'm saying this that sounds like we are all going to disappear any minute now.

Be it also the blue sky but sometimes the mixture of themes reminded me of those strange parts of Eternal Doom where bricks and medieval get mixed with tech and futuristic. Now, onto the maps:

MAP01: It reminded me a bit of Sacrament opening level by starting in your home and going out in the oddly deserted neighbourhood and feeling like you are in a bad dream. It sets the right tone to start the quest to hunt the Tomatomen.
MAP02: The bus morphed into a boat I guess, and it was a good way to keep the surreal mood going on. Arriving in a small but otherwise nice beach on a small island. There's no pirates' treasure to find , but a nazi bunker. You'll also get back to your home that is completely twisted now. Even if it isn't something I find truly outstanding this is a very good showcase Billy's talent to put narrative (and often humoristic) bits in his maps.
MAP03: You sure improved since the last, and only, map you made for the DBPs. Probably a bit unrefined here and there but the transformation of the starting room was pretty cool. Gameplay is a bit "naive", like it's very easy to cheese the traps but it has its nice moves like at the BSK and the red evil egyptian room.
MAP04: Here we have another mapper that grew up a lot. Visually is fantastic, I loved this abstract and almost otherworldly theme, and the melancholic music was fitting perfectly. While I would have liked to be able to explore and visit some of the structures around, like the tower with the imps, I think that this things that can only be see gave and additional sense of mistery. Sometimes building stuff like that just for the atmosphere is really worth it.
MAP05: We don't often see new faces, and it's a bigger surprise when you get something competent like this one. There's already a good idea on the detail and type of gameplay that the mapper wants to make. I think that the look is very steroetypical of this genre of maps that go for challenging gameplay, even if it doesn't make sense and anyway I don't mean this as a bad thing. Think of Speed of Doom or DD-styled maps, that's the rough idea I got here. Favourite part: the YK fight with the avs. It didn't have a strong showing of the themes to me tho.
MAP06: This one mixed the themes in a very interesting way. What most of the other maps did was for example to have the Egypt area, and the Space area separated. That isn't a bad approach per se but this map is more striking with how it did it. It's actually Christmas in the old west village with snow and Christmas decorations over the buildings. The village is very simple but the mapper was able to pull off a 3 keys quest here. I must say that I liked the very tall ASHWALL roofs because we can't have truly 3d buildings, and it adds to the wacky 90's feelings I got from this map. Tomatoman's lair inside the pyramid was cool, things got more crazy with medieval and tech fused too and I liked how it's implying that Tomatoman is the cause of the odd Christmas presence in the place. Wrapping up the Tomatoman to defeat it was the icing on the cake. I think that the gameplay wasn't really remarkable, but apart that this map did everything right.
MAP07: Cool medley of themes, similarly to the previous level where they "play" together instead of being separated parts. Neat idea the system of teleport that gives some non-linearity. Even if Tomatoman killed me I killed him too so I won the map and I won't accept otherwise
MAP08: It's interesting to compare this map to your contibution to DBP33. I think that here you were more focused on the layout and traps and it's a way better map, even visually is nice enough. Liked the contrast between the medieval part and the industrial area inspired from DBP26.
MAP09: I was glad to see again the green and purple pillars from DBP18. I think it's the level that shows more your deep appreciation for Skillsaw. Fast and hyping action, fights that are over the top at first glance but nothing too overwhelming. The main area with the building raising from the ground is something I find to be rather imaginative, not only it does build well the theme of tech+vegetation but it's something actually very simple yet it works so well. Only thing is that some monster may get caught on the rising pillars.
MAP10: All in all it's fun but it's very "padded". Not bad the idea of the city-esque island, then you go to battle into some actual city streets. If anything the mix of textures and a lack of a strong thematic presence tells me that this level didn't know what it wanted to be. Compared to the other maps and in the scope of the projects is something that feels way too anonymous.

The Promised Land Hotel is the real gem, loved the sea that opens and the puzzle-esque progression (a reference to Monster Mansion? ). Imo the whole level should have been all based on that, with a small introduction. The plasmagun was a bit too cheap to me, the second demo is where i finished the map.

MAP11: I have some mixed feelings on this one. The gameplay was good, funny fights and nice usage of monster closets. The layout wasn't so interesting imo. I liked the idea to homage Wolf3D but the area was too basic and bland. The last was very silly and not a bad way to end the map.

MAP12: Back to where it started, and something definetely not right now. I enjoyed the sequence of revisiting area with themes from the previous projects, a bit reminescent of Scythe 2 MAP30 (iconic level in pwads imo), though the hub is more dynamic and it changes a little. Tough final battle, it was worth to save the invuln. for that. The last area needed to be something more impressive looking, it's just a room. The crushers and the sector machinery for the tricks are perfect for the fight but the area takes the second place after the main area and so being a little anticlimatic.

DBK 4 life