A crosspost from Doomworld, but here's a sentence or two from me about each map.
MAP01: "Orientation" by 40oz
---Solid opener. Standard 40 stuff. "Hey bartender, I'd like a techbase on the rocks". Opening shot showcases the main theme well: indigo/browns sprinkled with a saturated color-spectrum of magenta-cyan-lime bits.
MAP02: "Twinkling Spires" by @glikkzy ---Very basic and orthogonal in structure. But is decent, well detailed, comfy, and plays well. I don't think I've played many Glikkzy maps but seems talented. Good job.
MAP03: "Unkind Reverie" by kvsari ---Wacky cool donut megastructure. We now start to see the "abstract dreamy" interpretation that some mappers took, even with a bed in the exit room.
MAP04: "Elon's Pheromone Musk Factory for Thirsty Catgirls" by nnnvork ---I could've opened this up more into a more connected "sandbox city map", but went with lazy waterfall trickledown progression instead. Players so far that i've watched seem to find where to go by teleporting to the top and going where they haven't gone yet; success? There's a hit-or-miss vile fight that can be tricky, but I was aiming for the map to mostly be easy-going. I shoved this map onto the project a day before release, but I think it worked out. I think
matador picked the music for this one.
MAP05: "Imposter" by a2rob ---Back to brown-rock mixed with tech-terraces. A lot fancier than I'd expect from a usual A2Rob map, but I can see it. Gameplay starts heating up with this map.
MAP06: "Notice Me Senpai" by lunchlunch ---First of four maps by the connoisseur of fine slaughter cuisine. The starting area is beautiful, especially with those layered, concave pillars. The inner techbase fun and stylish too. It's mostly non-iconic tech fluff except for the double-key door. Not sure how much if it is trying to directly rip off one of the slaughtermap gods, like Ribbiks, Tourniquet, etc.
MAP07: "Crashlands" by 40oz ---I would've thought this was a Lunchlunch or An0n map, but it's 40oz. A good bunch of maps in this pack fall into the "brown rock + tech-basey elements" sub-theme, and this one is another one. It's a sprawling, spacious canyon. We also continue our descent down the slaughter-spectrum of this mapset.
MAP08: "Hypnagoge" by @segfault ---With this map, we do another flip back into the more "dreamy" cluster of maps. Though more dreamy, this map is mostly a basic 4-pronged hub structure, with setpiece side areas you go into one by one. A decent and playable map. Good job.
MAP09: "Intoxicating Dreams" by matador ---This is my favorite map in the pack. Given the theme, I didn't expect a well done sandbox city map out of it, but here it is. It's open and exploratory enough without being too large to chew on, and it has funny-but-modest use of doomcute sprinkled around. (On a side note, I saw some people express grievances over the bumpy nature of its architecture and how that interacts with combat and gameplay, in their eyes, in a "negative" way... NO! Pls no. Bumps and stairs are a part of Doom just like damaging sectors; and they are satisfying to manage mentally and fun in many contexts: like navigating casually through a map under low pressure; or even when juggling monsters in a slaughter setpiece. I've even seen good slaughter arenas, in the past, have their character neutered because of things like "stairs that make combat awkward; all Doom fights has to be on a flat plane", etc. NO please stop.) Anyways, *cough*, Despite my praise of this map, it isn't necessarily one my top favorites of all time. But! it is my favorite in the context of this mapset, and is also my favorite map by matador so far, to this date.
MAP10: "Colorblind" by joe-ilya ---A really comfy filler map that pads things out very well, especially after last map and before the next one. This map is short, and you mostly just hold W with a plasma gun, with the last fight having some actual bite. The titular gimmick is kinda corny, but I didn't hate it
MAP11: "Lucid Nightmare" by DannT ---Hypnagoge, but on extreme roids.
MAP12: "Star Gate" by chrismoyer ---Now we're back to the "brown-rock with tech-basey elements" side of things, except this isn't disjoint tech-basey elements, it's one big base with chunky tech-furnishings everywhere. Good mood.
MAP13: "Meager Windy Areas" by SilverMiner ---Really fun romp! The layout is chaotic and melted, but somehow flows really well.
MAP14: "Drowning Abyss" by an0n ---Another for the rock-and-techbase cluster. It's like a Valiant map, but without much health. Only some stimpacks lying about. Well made, but hardest map in the pack imo.
MAP15: "Fish Tank" by joe-ilya ---This map felt fishy to, and a bit tacky compared to the rest (I wonder if it'd be better in the secret slot, but this is a DBP). I was playing continuous though and had the resources to ssg the cybers down. I realize now that this is supposed to play more like a Cyberdreams map... oh maybe that's the pun... Hah.
MAP16: "Tread Carefully" by lunchlunch ---Small map with high-impact monsters popping in here and there as you "tread carefully" through an indigo honeycomb hex-stair loop. Fun addition to the set.
MAP17: "RAM Haunting" by MegaPancakeStrategist ---Standard issue Cuppy base: Barrels, check. Health trinkets, check. A billion details and linedef triggers densly packed into a mostly orthoganal framework, check. Good stuff.
MAP18: "Mescaline" by lunchlunch ---A very iconic, well-framed landmark structure of a map, and one that I originally throught should've been the last map due to that fact (but seeing people struggle on Map19 makes me understand this decision). In terms of difficulty, this is more like "comfort food" slaughter, as apposed to the next map...
MAP19: "Thrashing in the Web" by lunchlunch ---Spicy, packed techbase. I don't actually know what a "slaughtermap" is to this day, and even consider stuff like Vanguard "slaughter", but this is definitely a slaughtermap.
MAP20: "Dreamcatcher Apparatus" by 40oz & @segfault ---Cool fuckin' credits map. Wow! Apparently my nametag gets "green door" as it's backing texture and I don't get a cool texture like
lunchlunch 's fireblu. Figures, that's what I get for shoving my map into this last moment instead of 4 polished quality maps done earlier.
joe-ilya getting ZIMMER is fitting.
MAP21: "Nirvana but with Blacked-Out Textures" by sandypetersen---Neat, I never hated this map in the IWAD, per se, but I guess this techincally could be considered an improvement on the original.
Additional Graphics, like titlepic etc---These were really cool graphics. If
pixelfiend was the one responsible for them, then nice!
Music Choices---Music choices were exceptional. I feel like mentioning that.
Plot---Wait, this wad has a plot? I like the nebulous, non-descript, "dream like" nature of the text. Heh. And I'm glad everyone had a different take on the theme. I guess @segfault is the one responsible for this
