24/11/2008-25/11/2008 @01:16:01 ^04:13:44
32in24 single player
The deathmatch angle meant most of the releases had no interest for me, but 32in24-2 was supposed to be single player and I was quite looking forward to it. However it never materialised and I couldn't find it anywhere until a chance visit to the wiki page turned up a link.
Now there was the proviso that it was considered a failure, and unfinished, which explains the lack of upload to /idgames. However I don't believe it's completely without merit. Some of the maps are worth playing. Let's go through them.
- Fist Gone Wild: Uncensored Version Tan brick factory, lots of punching (obviously), has height variation and windows. Pretty good. One broken monster teleporter.
- Waste Treatment E1-style map. Slightly messy texturing but the layout is excellent and it has everything you'd want from an E1 map. Recommended.
- NABISCO Small Doom2-style techbase, looks good but suffers from corridor syndrome a little. Sadly ruined by ZDoomisms (tagless locked doors)
- Sorta Tight Quarters A small techbase with a vaguely E1 theme. Three separate rooms. Quite plain, not much detail. Decent, but unmemorable.
- Tricks and Traps II: The Empire Strikes Back Couple of simple rooms, the main deal here is a crushing ceiling. Pretty annoying. Exit door needs a tag, doesn't open.
- Rock Lobster Brick, stone and water. Three separate sections around a central lowering well. Just work your way through them. Nicely detailed but the layout isn't so interesting. Still, not bad.
- I made this in 2 hours and I have a huge headache Another small techbase. Layout is vaguely similar to map03. Again, decent but unmemorable.
- Small Dark and Cramped Just as the name says really. Simply a few rooms of obstacles and mass-lights-off effects, one after the other. Annoying.
- HEH! A miniature clone of Alien Vendetta map06. Excellently done and recommended. I don't think the author can have looked behind him much while testing, though. Also the token archvile was expected, but in a strange place: sat on a mostly useless box of rockets hidden in an easily-overlooked cove.
- CEREBRAL HAEMORRHAGE Bricks and metal map, decently made and quite fun. Counterintuitive start, if you just run forwards like you'd expect you won't get a weapon. You have to jump to the ledge to your left. And don't waste your ammo in the final room, it's a telefrag.
- Agonizer Part cave, part hellish mansion. Nicely detailed and a challenge, it throws a lot of monsters at you, but without really being a slaughter map. Kind of odd progression but you get plenty of choice at the start. My advice is to take the western teleporter (to your right, initially) to get backpack and shotgun, then teleport back and go in the eastern one for a super shotgun and more shells. Recommended. Style is distinctive enough that the author was obvious without having read the credits.
- Tlaloc Another one with an obvious author, I thought. A trek through some caves leads to a slime river which opens out into a cavern where the slime lake is criss-crossed by bridges. It's hard, the monster density is high, and I didn't get very far. I suspect there's some strategy or trick to use, but I haven't found it yet. It's probably worth playing more than I have.
- For Petersen's Sake Miniature clone of Doom2 map13. Not many monsters but still pretty hard. I suspect it's very top-heavy - if you could get the plasma gun without those arachnotrons in the way the three pain elementals would be a lot less annoying. As it is, the lack of health and a weapon better than the shotgun annoyed me into giving up.
- Mt. DEBT In two parts. First a winding valley through a canyon. Plenty of ammo but next to no health and a high monster density led to frustration. I cheated a bit and made it to the second part, which was an earthy maze, rather spoilt by having all the walls parallel to the axes. I got crowded out by monsters, died again, and gave up. I think this one should have ended at the first teleporter.
- Not Titled Disjoint corridors and rooms connected by teleporters. Looks like something either (a) from 1994 or (b) made in 15 minutes, whichever you prefer. Not good, don't bother.
- Follow the Rotting Corpses Clone of Plutonia map11 (yes, the one with the maze full of archviles) Easily beatable if you can keep quiet and not wake up the teleporters; the automap gives the game away by letting you see the maze layout. You don't even have to type IDDT! I've no idea what it would be like to play "properly" and get 100% kills; I wouldn't bother.
- I Came Here For an Argument: Oh, this is ABUSE! A large rectangular room and a few side corridors, all in one cracked brick texture. Better than a couple of the others, but still poor. Gameplay is obviously not meant for 100% kills. Also the door leading to the blue key has a walk trigger in front of it so can't be opened.
- You Got Fucked Over You start in an enormous hall whose floor slowly lowers to reveal 50-odd cyberdemons and spiderdemons. Actually it's not as bad as it sounds; the rest of the map, if you can get to it, has a curiously enticing layout. However there's a door that doesn't open high enough for you to get through, a stepping stone puzzle I could have done without, and all the cyberdemons will crowd around the hole you need to jump down to get to the exit. One of those really frustrating maps that shows inexplicable promise but is fatally flawed.
- NEEDS MORE IMPS: The Concrete Techbase Similar to the previous map; despite an obviously "quick", not-serious design it has a surprisingly decent layout and fun gameplay with hordes of monsters to shoot at, but fatal flaws like a teleporter of sufficient size the stragglers get stuck in it for ages.
- For the sake of completeness there is a twentieth map that is merely a square box with a wall texture explaining why there aren't 32 maps in the wad.
So in summary, yes it is obviously unfinished (some skill levels would be good, some of the maps have no reject lump, various ZDoomisms as I noted) but I think "considered a failure" is a little strong. There are at least half a dozen good maps here and most others would make the grade with a little work. Only a few obvious lost causes to throw away.
Coming up: Diet 32 in 24 (at some future point, if I can be bothered)
