30/12/2006 @14:05:12 ^14:54:24

I'm only making this post because it's two weeks since the last one and that's probably too long. Not much worth writing down here has happened, unless you want to hear about how I split the automap code in rboom into three different files and tidied it up.

I'd be surprised if anybody can* even read this, because my connection is acting up. Of course due to my chronic fear of the telephone and their bad reputation for customer service, I am reluctant to call ntl about it. I don't know what to do.

I did the usual family visit on Boxing Day which wasn't as bad as I was expecting, I guess the cousinishes are getting a bit older and are slightly less annoying. Plus this year I wasn't horribly sleep-deprived which helped. They've acquired this enormous fluffy tomcat from somewhere, which I tried and somewhat succeeded to make friends with.

I haven't played any new wads recently, instead I tried to do both the Memento Mori megawads again, each level from scratch. MM was successful but there are a few maps in MM2 that I haven't done yet and probably won't for one reason or another. For instance, MM2 19, which has a couple of bits near the end that always kill me (the descending platform is a bitch) and it takes 30 minutes or more of careful play to even get that far. Good recipe to give up from loss of patience.

Oh yes I'll just mention there was a new version of blofeldx.wad released a month or two ago. It fixes many of the problems I had with it a year ago - the monsters in the floors have gone, the trooper in the air duct on map05 can be shot from the side now without having to use rocket splash damage, and the author has done a new skill level with a more normal monster distribution which I think improves the gameplay. I couldn't fathom the cyberdemon at the start of map02 though. You don't have to kill it, it gets teleported off somewhere else, where you can see it, but it's stuck! I don't know. Also there's a manual door on map02 (sector 427) which is repeatable on one side but not the other and you can get into all sorts of strife with it having two thinkers running on it at once, one trying to open it, the other trying to close it. This is really an engine bug but it is pretty daft to have one side of a door repeatable and the other not as you can get stuck.

* I'd be surprised if anybody chooses to read this, but that's a different matter