Mr. Chris's E2 series
Three maps so far, quickly-made and inspired by the release of Doom Builder 2. I mentioned the first two briefly a couple of weeks ago. The unnamed base is also by the same author.
Stoned An E2M1 clone, more or less. Actually rather good. Looks decent but not too showy, uses light and dark well, and is not too hard (although there was one trap that seemed noticably nastier, but it caught me off-guard - I got past easily when I was expecting it)
Iconic This is a trek through a base, loosely based on E2M2 although I can't see it much. Was all right, fun enough, but somehow not as good as the previous one. Can't really say why. The "corridor of traps" was pretty entertaining. Charge and let out everything at once, it's more fun that way!
Abyssus The author put a lot more time into this one, it is significantly larger and more well-made. This is a really nice level. Author makes good use of light and dark contrast again, although somehow I feel it needs more sourced lighting. Difficulty is pitched just right for me, except for being a bit short of ammunition occasionally (but I survived, somehow)
Some traps need tightening up - if you lock the player in a room, do it before you open the walls and let the monsters out, and put the monsters where the player can't hide from them without waking them up until the door opens again - and I thought there was a bit too much backtracking, like you get the blue key and have to run all the way across an empty level and almost back to where you started from. Lots of secrets, most were fairly easy to find if you press on absolutely everything and keep your ears open.
Author obviously used a GL port to test as there are floating middle textures sunk halfway into the floor, but oh well. It only ruins the look of one place in the map.
Site is back up again, obviously.
Congestion 384 This is, I think, what Congestion 1024 could have been. The idea is the same, make maps whose area accessible to the player is restricted to a given size, in this case a 384x384 square.*
A 384 square is a lot smaller than a 1024 square. It is impossible to miniaturise an entire "normal-sized" map into this size - there simply isn't the room to do anything other than one room with a few monsters in. So 1024's problem of masses of filigree detail and cramped, annoying gameplay is avoided. It's just a set of 20 tiny maps that can all be played in under a minute.
I really like this wad and recommend it.
* following 1024 and 64, some might point out 384 is not a power of two. However perhaps the pattern is not powers of two, but numbers that end in 4! The most important thing is to be a multiple of the flat size (64) or perhaps the common texture widths (64, 128) for ease of alignment. Right?
