[Aleks]

What's this thing?
We play through a set of maps/mods during the month, and use this thread to discuss it as we're still all fresh with our comments/opinions/feelings about the maps.

What's the purpose?
Basically, there are 4 purposes:

• Showcasing some of the older mods/maps to wider public - they definitely deserve the attention!
• Getting more people to actually enjoy and appreciate the user content - because let's be honest, over the past 25 years this was really what kept Duke alive after all.
• ...and while we're at it - keeping Duke alive by still enjoying it, as there's no new games in the franchise on the horizon (and let's be honest, they wouldn't be as good as some of this stuff!).
• Having a more structurized discussion on maps than what's going in "Last map you played" thread - which is great, but it's basically a monologue most of the time.

Can I join?
Sure, as long as you find some spare time during the month to play the stuff that's on the table!

Why a month?
Because people have lives, jobs or other stuff to do (like mapping). For smaller maps, this could be shorter time - it's all up to debate in the future!

What port should I use? Are mods allowed? Where to get the maps?
It's entirely up to you how you play the game, so you can use whatever port or mod allowed - it would be cool to state in your posts what you're using too, as there might be some slight differences between the ports! As for the maps, they should be always linked within the first post.

How should I play the maps or post about them?
Again, it's up to you. You can finish them all in one go or play them one by one whenever you feel like. On Doom forums, there's a rule that you should keep the pace by not posting about a map that has a higher number than the day of the month, so e.g. on 6th you shouldn't post about map 7 etc. I think that might be a good practice if there's a large interest in this, but first let's see how active the thread is for a start - so if there's nothing going on, feel free to post about whatever map you want to.

Previous edition:
September 2021 - Duke Hard episode


For this month, maps by Taivo Maripuu have been chosen, after appearing numerous times in the votings before!

Taivo has made quite a handful of levels, as well as being involved in a bunch of community projects (including Duke Hard from last month). Most famously, he made the Dark Place series and a bunch of heavily Roch-inspired city maps, particularly Dogville, it's 2012 remix (which actually basically adds a 2nd half to the map) and contributing in Roch Island. Needless to say, his style makes frequent use of palettes and original use of textures/creative texture combinations. And lots of monsters. Below are the levels with some download links provided:

• Dark Place - scored 83 on MSDN, 88 on CGS;
• Dark Place 2 - scored 86 on MSDN, 84 on CGS;
• Dark Place 3 - scored 92 on MSDN, 92 on CGS;
• Dark Place 4 - scored 93 on MSDN, 91 on CGS;
• Dark Place 5 - scored 95 on MSDN, 85 on CGS;
• Dogville - scored 96 on CGS;
• Dogville 2012 - scored 97 on MSDN, 97 on CGS;
• Just Another Christmas - scored 93 on MSDN, 91 on CGS;
• Babes Reloaded - scored 90 on MSDN, 86 on CGS;
• Babes (2009 remix) - scored 86 on MSDN, 75 on CGS;
• City full of alien scum! - scored 93 on MSDN, 78 on CGS;
• Taivo Deathcity - scored 81 on MSDN, 84 on CGS;
• Spiegul Contest maps - maps made for a contest by Taivo, MRCK and Devastator;
• Roch Island - made with Merlijn, Maarten and MRCK; scored 95 on MSDN, 90 on CGS.

Bonus - DM maps:

• Seven - scored 73 on CGS and apparently has a few enemies around;
• Napalm Death - no score, but from the screens it looks really nice!

Enjoy!

[jkas789]

Aight, I'm joining this one! Hopefully I will be able to finish this month. Fingers crossed!

[Merlijn]

I didn't have much spare time last month so unfortunately didn't find the time to play Duke Hard again. It's nice to see Tiavo finally getting his spot! I don't know if I will be able to play alll his maps, but we'll see.

I just played City full of alien Scum! on CGS, a map I actually never played before.

Anyway, this map reminds me a lot of Tiavo's parts in Roch Island. The Roch influence is certainly there (especially with the inclusion of the overpass) but Tiavo still brings his own flavour to them (especially indoors).
I like how each indoor section seems to have its own color scheme, pretty neat touch. Texturing and design is top notch all the way through, I especially liked the bank and the hotel.
The outdoor area also reminds me of Roch Island, it's quite large and feels like part of a bigger city. A lot of nifty little details, like the various sprite based balconies and the previously mentioned overpass.

The map has 2 notable flaws: first of all the environment feels quite static. There's no dramatic shading, no explosions or scripted events, no secret areas and a notable lack of ambient sounds.
Second the gameplay loop is a bit repetitive. Like the later Roch maps, it has several buildings which are all locked by a blue keycard so the player can decide the order in which to visit them.
Then inside each buildings there's a new blue keycard and a button to press.
However, Tiavo stretched this concept to 9 locations all over the city, which feels overdone. As Forge mentions in the GCS review, it starts to wear on you after a while. And for some reason the buttons don't directly open the final door. Instead they open up panels all through the city, which just unveal more buttons which you all need to shoot to unlock the final door. I'm not sure why that extra step is included, it didn't seem to add anything.
I feel like the entire map could have used some fine tuning, perhaps some of the indoor sections could have been optional or even a secret area.

Despite those flaws it's still an enjoyable ride, gameplay also feels similar to Roch in the sense that the beginning is the most challenging. Once you collected enough ammo and goodies, the fights become a lot easier. There's a little rooftop fight in the hotel section, which was the highlight for me in terms of combat. The final battle was somewhat disappointing though. Overall I wouldn't call this Tiavo's best work, but it's still a solid entry.

[Forge]

90s = excellent
80s = very good
70s = good
60s = okay
50s= meh. take it or leave it
anything 40s and below, expect serious problems with aesthetics and/or game play

people still get weird about my harsh scoring. A map in the 70's is still a good map and worth playing. But I did have a time when I was taking a cocktail of pain pills and mood altering medication; I acted erratic and did a lot of weird things, so take my scores with a grain of salt. Sometimes I was accurate, other times I was way off.

[Aleks]

Forge, on 02 October 2021 - 07:34 AM, said:

90s = excellent
80s = very good
70s = good
60s = okay
50s= meh. take it or leave it
anything 40s and below, expect serious problems with aesthetics and/or game play

people still get weird about my harsh scoring. A map in the 70's is still a good map and worth playing. But I did have a time when I was taking a cocktail of pain pills and mood altering medication; I acted erratic and did a lot of weird things, so take my scores with a grain of salt. Sometimes I was accurate, other times I was way off.

I don't think it's harsh, in fact I've been discussing this with someone few months ago and we both thought the ratings for Duke maps are usually on the lenient side, or probably there should be some log scale applied to really compare them, as the difference between e.g. 92 and 94 sometimes feels a lot larger than e.g. 60 and 70. But it's not a problem only considering Duke maps, but the ratings in general, i.e. how movie ratings on sites like IMDB work - most movies will typically average around 6-7 and even I find that often while rating films, the criteria I apply for a difference between 9 and 10 are much wider than the difference between let's say 2 and 4.

And besides that observation, there's always a personal thing with reviewing, not even the fact that reviews are always subjective and correspond to the reviewer's personal taste, but also for example after having a more satisfactory day overall people feel like rating a movie/map higher than after a bad day, or having watched better/worse movies (or playing better/worse maps) beforehand also affects the impression of the reviewed map.

I've only indicated the ratings of each maps for a general idea, but it's usually better described within the review itself than the score alone, even if the score is based on such precise criteria like Forge usually applied in his CGS reviews (giving points for different aspects of the map).

Anyway, thanks for input, Merlijn!

[ck3D]

Merlijn, on 02 October 2021 - 05:17 AM, said:

Tiavo

Always had a special form of appreciation for this typo heard around the Netherlands since the AMC epoch. I think it's great to see it persist at living on to this very day!

[Aleks]

Since Merlijn started with the city maps, I'll tackle the list from the Dark Place series. I think I've only played the first 2 or 3 of these before when they were released, so I vaguely remember them anyway. Played the first one in the series last night, here's the impressions:

Dark Place definitely sells the Red 3 spooky mood very well - with consistent texture choices, rain and thunderstorm and enemy rooster consisting mostly of new beasts and octabrains. I particularly like the "pirate ship" texture used on some of the swing doors at the beginning and all the alien animated textures protruding from different holes of the building/rocks. According to the txt file, this map apparently takes place on an alien planet, but the surroundings are actually very much like on Earth. The most memorable part, which instantly brought back memories, is the mouth-shaped freezing chamber at the cemetery. The design is still a bit rough here and there and sometimes lacks shadings, also the indoor areas are incredibly cramped with doors getting in the way, though the biggest offender is the squishing, too tight sloped sector in the icy caves, which killed me twice (played in EDuke r7395, before the clipping changes).

The gameplay itself is also quite challenging - not due to difficult monster encounters, but due to super scarce and a bit unbalanced ammo supply (to the point I've had to let sentry drones just explode on me not to waste any ammo on them). There's been few times where the only weapons I've had with ammo would be pistol with a single clip and 10 or so shrinker ammo, which is useless against new beasts or stayput monsters on inaccessible ledges. The progression is mostly button/keycard hunting, which doesn't seem too obvious, but also not unfair at all. There's some cheap traps like walking on a long, tight ledge or random holes in the ground where you may fall. The 2 Battlelord encounters were quite challenging mostly due to the fact I pretty much only had to rely on shrinker at least in the 1st one.

Overall, the map is worth playing mostly due to its atmosphere that felt quite unique back then. It's not as good as e.g. Legends maps by Mike Beaulieu, but still quite original, but the gameplay might get annoying after a bit.

Also, I've recently played the Roch Island and Dogville 2012 (also the "original" Dogville, which is basically like 1/3-1/2 of 2012 version), the write-ups can be found in the Roch topic from June:
Roch Island impressions

Dogville 2012 impressions

[ck3D]

Oh man, if you've never played Dark Place 4 and 5 before (pretty sure you might have told me before but then I forgot) then you're in for a treat, maybe two. Those are peak Taivo design-wise, Dark Place 5 in general is a visual and atmospheric mindfuck with some very unique texture picks; only downside about both being the relatively obscure navigation maybe (but it should be right up your alley). I also always really liked Just Another Christmas from that same time period.

[Merlijn]

ck3D, on 03 October 2021 - 10:11 AM, said:

Always had a special form of appreciation for this typo heard around the Netherlands since the AMC epoch. I think it's great to see it persist at living on to this very day!

Oh man, for some reason I keep misspelling Taivo's name like that. XD My bad!

[quakis]

Call me crazy, but I there was a Taivo map I cannot find anymore based on what I remember from playing it many years ago, that or it's a different author/map entirely. All I can recall is starting inside a shack or basement, finding an exit leading out onto an open, grey environment with a storm in a very similar visual style to Dark Place 4 - except that version isn't the level I recall playing at the time. Then again maybe I'm fudging up memories and it very well might be DP4. This was back when I was still playing levels on the old dos executable afterall, even have a memory of it crashing to desktop after stepping foot outside. I am curious if anyone else has any insight on this should it be another Dogville situation, and another Dark Place version existed at one point?

[Aleks]

I have a lot of similar memories like that, Quakis, especially from AMC times. I still have my old Duke files from that time, recently found my "beta report" from something called Royal Rumble, absolutely no idea who's map/project would that be (I'd actually assume it would be either Quakis or Arzca, but can't remember what that was for the sake of it!).

Anyway, tackled DP2 and DP3 last night.

Dark Place 2

Right after the start, I instantly remembered playing this one a few years ago and how annoying it was. The maze at the beginning was something I especially hated to be honest. This time, Taivo went for a more Heretic/Hexen kind of design for most part, but the map doesn't look as good as the first one in the series, also the problem with very little ammo still prevails in this one. After the maze, it gets significantly better, but then I'm not really a fan of how the "camping" at the end is made. There's some clever enemy encounters which I definitely enjoyed (and I don't mean the invisible commanders here). Overall, this is a strong letdown from the first map, seems like something that was done quite hastily.

Dark Place 3

I'm pretty sure I somehow didn't play this one before, as it is very recognisable. Being built just months after the 2 previous ones, the improvement in both design, gameplay and originality is enormous! There's a lot of Pascal/Kuffi/van Oostrum inspiration in here, but Taivo really gets his own style going from here on I think. The map has a snowy theme with some great use of pal 17, from the very beginning it looks all really good. It keeps quite an abstract theme with flying sharks and "casual" earthly buildings in some abstract/alien, snowy environment, which is really cool (no pun intended).

The ammo is still pretty scarce, but the gameplay seems fair, also the encounters seem a lot more balanced with more respawns - there's no more tedious backtracking through empty level, which was a plague in DP2. I especially liked how the way to the ski jumping got populated with monsters after obtaining the keycard. Also the final Battlelord encounter was pretty challenging due to his waking distance.

The map mostly takes place around 2 locations, which are art gallery (Roch 5 anyone?) and ski jump. There's some really fancy paintings in the art gallery and I did spent some time just wandering around and staring at them. I also love little details like some paintings being ditched in the frozen pool. As for the ski jump, I must confess that I was once tinkering with an idea of creating one in Duke, very early when I was just getting to really learn Build, back when ski jumping being super popular in Poland due to Adam Małysz having a glorious streak of victories spanning over few years (early 2000s), I even made a little test map which I have somewhere that would spawn different items depending on how far you'd jump. Anyway, back to the map - the ski jump is quite majestic and adds a great deal of verticality to the level! Also it's a bit tricky to kill a Battlelord waiting at the end of it - especially due to having no RPG beforehand. I personally made two jumps, first one just to trigger him, then went back up and killed the Battlelord before actually jumping to precise locations. However, there's also quite a large bug left there, as it's possible to just directly jump towards the final area and go inside through an unblocked window. I actually went there before tackling the Battlelord, but since I didn't notice quite a small switch opening the final forcefield, I just left thinking this is a place I should return to later on

Overall, this was a really fun and very creative map and quite a showcase of Taivo's very unique style, finally developing past being heavily inspired by other mappers.

Also, a bit outside of the main topic, but since Taivo's Dark Place maps lack any additional soundtrack of their own, I've decided to try fitting the more spooky songs from Lee Jackson's latest record for my gameplay. So far used Abandonement for DP1, Black Beans for DP2 and Electricity for DP3. I'm especially satisfied with how Abandonement complimented the atmosphere of the first map.

[Aleks]

Dark Place 4

Played alien version of Red 3 Dark Place 4, which once again I don't remember ever trying out before. This map once again goes back to being super in the style of van Oostrums, in particular and aside from Red 3, it reminds me of their part/parts in one of the CBP's (the one with cemetery - I think it was Merlijn's part while Maarten did sewer?).

The design looks very good - this time it finally really feels like an alien planet, despite having regular kind of buildings like factory etc. The txt file especially mentions some of the map's extra "mechanics" and not being a regular button hunt, but it turns out quite otherwise.

The design is great - I particularly liked all the original use of textures of sprites (dormant new beasts used as bats/birds was a cool idea). Also the factory itself, with all the sloped railings and details looked super convincing. Then we enter the open, sandbox like city, which is neatly planned and makes very good use of parallaxed skies to have some variety on vertical axis.

The combat is rather humble this time - once again, there are annoying pitch black monsters lurking around some corners, which is especially annoying at the beginning due to ammo scarcity and cramped factory corridors. Overall, there's about 50 monsters and most encounters aren't especially engaging, but still gives enough action to keep the map entertaining in this aspect.

Now what I didn't like about the map - if Dark Place 2 was obscure and cryptic, this one brought confusing navigation and completely random buttons to a whole new level. I admit I've had to check in Mapster a couple of times to see where is some super dark, random button or what just got opened from a switch. In the city part, it seems I could have skipped two buildings by jumping over a tree and through a window into one of the further buildings, which didn't help me at all - as next building had possibly the most cryptic "button hunt" ever, with completely unmarked (?) touchplate opening something at the other part of the map. Another part that wasn't quite clear was in the factory - jumping from a large acid barrel. Seems the wrong part of the railing around got unblocked, so the jump is quite counter intuitive here.

This map could probably be passed in about 10-15 minutes, but took me around 30 due to all that cryptic weirdness. While exploring the city itself was fun, trying to solve obscure button puzzles wasn't that much fun. I definitely preferred Dark Place 3 over this one.

Side note: this time, the music playing was Inner Space, once again from Lee's latest record.

Dark Place 5

Wow, definitely the best one of the series and probably my favourite Taivo's map overall, at least from the ones I've played!

I didn't expect his style to dig into such originality like here. While DP4 already had some very creative stuff, I still have a lot of stuff to nitpick about it, maybe the fact not everything went well with the rest. Now here the design/look is complete - the map doesn't resemble absolutely anything else I've played, there's plenty of stuff that looks like new textures and the horror theme is sold incredibly well in an alien (?) city with super strong atmosphere, very original, beautiful design and where everything apparently clicks together.

Besides a lot of MRCKish fun with textures (e.g. the "WOW" sign with commander in place of the O), some spriteworks like the spiral stairs at the beginning or "Chinatown" lanterns are simply marvelous. So are all the plants, especially the little vegetation within the cave sections with brilliant use of the lava bubble sprites. In case of this map, I didn't even mind how dark it was - the whole mood it tried to sell worked perfectly in this kind of brightness level, while all the textures still looked absolutely distinguishable. Setting everything in gloomy browns, greys and greens with lots of reds for contrast was a great idea. Another thing that requires extra praise is the layout - there's a lot of interconnections and little holes that allow us to peak into other parts of the city and take shortcuts, also with some stairs, the level gains a bit of verticality despite in the end being still quite "flat". The shark boat at the end is also a nice addition.

The gameplay is essentially a button hunt and playing memory with different shapes and colours of the octabrain blast sprites marking the buttons and doors which they open, which felt a bit confusing at times. There's 2 cleverly placed secrets, but then the whole city just begs to be thoroughly explored (I can't believe this is still done with the "old" Build limits!). The map is quite challenging, especially at the beginning due to super sparse health supplies and few quite unfair enemy encounters (pal 4 pitch black enemies on a black background etc...). Further down the road, there's plenty of explosive ammo and a couple of places we can have some fun with it. Also there's a new "kind" of enemy, that is a stationary turret made of a bunch of stayput troopers stacked on top of eachother, which makes for a great opportunity to use the expander. On the other hand, the boss fight is a joke with all the cover we're given and the enemy being stayput on some rock.

I did have some problems with navigation in this one and can understand this might be annoying/frustrating to some people - the city is quite large and it's not always obvious where to go next. I personally didn't mind, mostly due to how beautiful the design was and passing the same areas over and over always led to discovering some new gems and eye-candies along the way, so I've grown to appreciate that aspect. The map took me about 50 minutes, but probably half of that time was spent just staring at the designs.

This time I used Night Storm 2 as the music and it fits more than I would expect actually.

Finally, some screenshots just showing some of my favourite little details and the general beauty of DP5, it was well worth a photo session!




EDIT: Just read Mikko's review and looked inside the txt file, it seems there's quite some atomic healths hidden behind statues, of which I found exactly none

[Forge]

Yeah. If I had control over my work at cgs, Dark Place 5 would have gotten an updated review. I was bitter after jumping through all the hoops to finish the map just to get killed by a random map bug which was probably caused by the version of eduke32 I was using at the time. I played through it several times and kept getting killed in the same spot for no obvious reason.
Good ambience score, but I totally ripped on the game play because of it.

[jkas789]

Map: Dark Place
Difficulty: Come Get Some
Time: 40 minutes aprox. (I wasted a lot of time just faffing around, looking at stuff and generally backtracking looking for secrets even though the secret counter said there were clearly no secrets)

This was a nice horror themed map. Artistically I really liked it. I liked the weird ass alien ripoffs mobs with different color palettes (they look good in red), the pulsing green tentacle/corruption like textures creeping around the map, the dark/red lighting in certain areas like the cavern were you have to traverse a very thin bridge. The corpses on chains were a nice touch. I however did not like how freaking cramped the level feels at times. Yeah I guess the author was going for a claustrophobic feel to make the player feel tension but fuck me the starting area was a bother to navigate.

On the gameplay side of things I did not like the lack of ammo. To the point of being unfair. I get the feeling that this map was supposed to play like a survival horror (?) experience but the lack of ammo was an exaggeration IMO. At the very least, the author should have left some pistol ammo lying around to give the player a fighting chance. Other wise I though it was fine, the invisible enemies were a nice surprise.

Overall I give it a 7, borderline 8/10. Leaning towards 7. Really what carries this map for me is the aesthetics.

[FistMarine]

Alright, last week I've played a couple of maps so far and it's time to make a post about it. This time I used JFDuke3D (09 October 2005) to play most of the maps. And yes I realize there's been a newer JFDuke3D release from January of this year (which I haven't seen anyone mentioning anywhere) but it's only for 64-bit systems and I didn't like it from the tests I've done on my win 10 laptop (it didn't even run correctly in fullscreen mode), so I still stick with the latest JFDuke3D 2005 release even if I have to play in windowed mode due to incompatibilities with modern OSes. This includes on my old Windows 7 PC as well.
There are a few reasons why I chose JFDuke3D for playing most maps (besides Dogville 2012 which requires EDuke32):

1. Most maps have longer names than the usual 8 characters allowed for DOS and I don't know if DOS Duke3D handles maps with longer names just fine, I decided to be on the safe side and use JFDuke3D, so far it worked wonderfully.
2. There may be maps that have higher limits, which may crash original Duke3D v1.5 and I wouldn't want to end up in a situation where the map becomes unplayable.

I will still be going through 5 of maps in Atomic v1.5 in DOSBox, those being: Babes, Dark Place 2 (due to filename being DARK_PLA.MAP), Dogville, Jac and Seven. This will happen after I finish the rest maps in JFDuke3D and doing Dogville 2012 in EDuke32 (latest 2015 build) and I will see if maps work just fine in the DOS version. Most of them should work just fine, not sure if Dogville will work, I think it's worth trying anyway.

Oh and I almost forgot! I already played through Roch Island (when the Roch series were chosen back in June) and Spiegul Contest (shortly after Roch Island) both in JFDuke3D, so I will be short when comes to talking about them. In fact, I already talked about Roch Island previously, so I will just quote my own text from that topic, when the time comes.
Let's start! As usual, CGS skill. Keyboard controls (except in case of EDuke32 where I play with mouse + keyboard).

Taivo Deathcity
What do we have here? A rather bland/oversized city map with 80 aliens and EVEN an Alien Queen placed next to a nuke button!
When you start the level, you will see Taivo's words at beginning (that part possibly inspired by Roch, as I remember seeing ROCH written in same style), an alien trooper and some weapons.
I personally found the Alien Queen to be a bit unnecessary because she can see you and then infinitely spawn the protector drones. I actually had bad luck when I first played the map as I was going to find the last enemies and secret (a chaingun hidden in main city area, I found the other two Holoduke secrets myself) and I didn't notice she already woke up, neither the fact I overwrote all my 4 saves (oops!) after she has already spawned them. I had no option but to simply press the nuke button and then restart the map. Yes, I realize pressing on the nuke button will restart the map (I guess the nuke button was assigned a different pal value than 0) with your inventory intact but I preferred to restart from the User Map menu, so I started the level from scratch over and made sure she didn't wake up until very end when I was done with the map.
Once I did that, the map felt better, plus I was already a bit familiar with most of the map. Which means that in most cases, maps tend to be more enjoyable the second time around, when you are already familiar and know what to expect, so you can complete the map faster and also find any remaining secrets you may have missed the first time around (though for the missing secret, I took a look in Mapster to see where exactly it was).
Also had one random crash when I was at 30 health and a pig cop was shooting me, maybe for the better it crashed, so I didn't die at all.
Overall, it was an ok map but nothing really amazing. It feels closer to a DM map than a SP map.
I would suggest to first get through the map without waking up the queen and then kill her (rather than just choosing the easy way out) to get the full experience of the map after you manage to stock yourself with supplies. Doing so will also end the "episode" (or in this case, the map properly).

Babes
A somewhat short map that also suffers from some oversizing issues. The map isn't actually too difficult, there are some slightly challenging parts towards end but there still isn't anything too threatening (at least when compared to Taivo Deathcity, which was fairly challenging overall). The mini battlelord at end can be easily killed by standing on top of the cactus, as Duke will not take any damage upon standing on it and you will have a better view to take out the Mini Battlelord with your RPG/Devastator.
I don't have much to say about this one, it was just ok and I know it spawned a mini series. Other than the sequel Babes Reloaded, there's also a 2009 remix of this map, which may or may not be better. Find out soon when I play through it!
Also, like in Taivo Deathcity, the nuke button has a different palette, which causes it to restart the map upon finishing it.

Babes Reloaded
The sequel to Babes, this one is a LOT better! I actually enjoyed this one a lot, I also liked the shrinker puzzle (shrinker is obviously guarded by aliens, though their placement isn't very threatening) in middle of the street in order to access the other side. Though note that once you do that, there is no way back! So make sure you grab everything before doing that! There is another point of no return near the end of the map, in case you are wondering about that.
The only part I found a bit confusing was the part with the elevator near end. You have to activate a switch and then run to the slowly raising elevator. If you don't get in time, you need to press the switch again to lower it and then press it again and try again getting on the elevator. This made the map feel a bit boring. This is also the part where you are about to get teleported to the last room, so once again grab all goodies before leaving!
Once you get to the last part, there are a few troopers/protectors and it's not hard to take them out if you pay attention to what you are doing, mostly at the protectors to avoid getting shrunk. Once you are done, approach the nuke button with the two ladies (don't ask why they are missing in my screenshot) and the level should end by itself. I don't understand why there is an ending sector placed right here, it seems strange to have both a nuke button and ending sector at same time. Would have been a bit better if just the nuke button was present. Though the only difference is if the map ends in an ending sector, then you get sent to Hollywood Holocaust, otherwise it would either advance to next map or just restart it, depending on what palette was assigned to the nuke button.
Interestingly, the nuke button is placed on mirror, meaning you can shrink yourself here for fun and end the level while small. (something that was possible in original game only in E2L11: Lunatic Fringe, considering how that level ended, though in that case you had to use the jetpack to reach the button while small or just wait until returning to normal size and then end the level)
Overall, one of the author's better looking maps, if a bit flawed (slow elevator, abrupt ending) at times.

Seven
A fun short green themed deathmatch map that contains 16 enemies. There is no exit to be found but the map is still worth exploring just to take a look at the visuals. There is a hidden area (with a commander, the last enemy in the level) that can be reached by pressing on one of doors (that says OUT OF ORDER), it should trigger an earthquake and the wall gets blown up, allowing you to access it.
I also found funny how there were troopers standing below crushers, only to get squished upon seeing you. I think it might have been intentional for a quick laugh.
I guess this map was the inspiration for MRCK/ck3D's Siebenpolis map which I played once back when it came out. I really need to revisit ck3D's maps, mostly the ones released from late 2000s to present since I already played through most (if not all?) old maps made by ck3D.

Napalm Death
Another short DM map, this one has no enemies and once again no exit. Worth taking a look until collecting all weapons/items.

Just Another Christmas
Probably my favorite of Taivo's maps so far. A Christmas themed map done with stock Duke3D assets! It looks wonderful and plays wonderful, it can get a bit challenging at times as well. While there is a fire hydrant present in map, it is inaccessible due to being placed behind invisible wall, so you can't drink water sadly, though who would want to drink cold/frozen water that could get you sick?
I would also highly suggest getting to that hidden area (should have been a secret place) at beginning that gives you shotgun, shells, armor AND medkit! You will absolutely need them! I don't know if I found this room before but I remember when I played the map a decade or so ago, I was struggling because I kept running short on ammo and health. If you manage to find this hidden room, it should balance things mostly in your favor, which was the case this time around. I also no longer found the map confusing, which was a problem back then, though I could say back then I was a bit inexperienced when came to unusual ways to progress and this time around I have no problem finding my way through the level most of the time.

I also made use of both the medkit and armor (they eventually ran out) before I was given new ones near end, though to my disappointment, I already grabbed all small/large medkits earlier and couldn't find another large medkit to restore the lost 30 health points, so I sacrificed my new medkit (which is why you will see 70% medkit in my inventory). But then again, you are also given TWO atomic health at that point. It's just that I preferred to end up with an unused medkit in inventory but at same time I wanted to have maximum health, so I had to use it in the end instead of grabbing the two atomic health directly at 70 health. You can't win them all, I guess... At least the last fights aren't difficult at all, since you are given more than enough to handle the TWO Mini Battlelords and other aliens that spawned. Oh and since the map ends in an ending sector (inside the house), you get sent to Hollywood Holocaust!
Overall, it was a COOL map and perhaps my favorite of Taivo's maps so far! Of course, Dogville might be better overall but regardless of which one is better, you can't argue with a short Christmas themed map like this one! Considering the rarity of Christmas themed maps for Duke3D, it is always welcomed and this one might even come a bit as a surprise. I wonder if this December we will get to play a bunch of Christmas themed maps/mods.

With all that said, I will play Dark Place series next, then the remaining maps (Babes 2009 remix, City full of alien scum, Dogville). I will save both versions of Dogville for last, so that I can compare them both while I have the original version fresh in memory. As mentioned above, I will also play five maps in DOSBox (those with short filenames) and see if they work/play fine.

For now, enjoy six JFDuke3D shots! Had to crop them out (since I played in windowed mode, due to compatibility issues and took screenshot of the whole desktop) and there is one pixel extra, because the shots are at 801x600 resolution rather than 800x600. I couldn't figure out that extra pixel without screwing up part of screenshot, so I left it like that. It shouldn't be noticeable at all.

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

[Aleks]

Played Taivo Deathcity, which seems to be Taivo's first map. The quality is lower than in Dark Place series, it has a lot of "beginner's mistakes", especially the map being "all over the place" - it doesn't seem this one took much planning to make, looks more like Taivo just built whatever he felt like at the moment and wherever he would feel to put it.

The map starts very "Roch 1ish", the resemblance is mostly because of the floating logo saying "Taivo" right at the start. The level is in theory primarily a dukematch map, which should explain why there's really not much sense of progression and technically you can just approach the Queen/nukebutton right at the start (although the guns/ammo can be a bit of a problem at that time).

In fact, the gameplay is a bit hectic as soon as you teleport out from the roof into the city - you are instantly swarmed by a street full of troopers, enforcers and a bunch of octabrains. Especially the sniping enforcers on an open street felt kinda dickish At this part, both the health and ammo is pretty scarce and wherever I ran to get some cover, I seemed to be triggering more and more enemies, but managed to survive it.

The map takes us across varying locations - hotel, stripclub, adult video/book store, an open-air cinema and few apartments. The main challenge is actually not triggering the Queen before we're ready to take her on, or otherwise she would be spamming the electro-attacks. There's some thoughtful enemy encounters (mostly commanders and octabrains that actually do pose some danger). The locations look quite chaotic and a bit oversized/empty, especially the lack of shadows is a bit striking. Despite all these design flaws, there's a lot of Taivo's trademarks that can already be observed in here, such as the creative use of palettes (palette 24 is already all over some places, especially the strip club) and rich transparent sprite decors ornamented onto the walls.

I've played the map in EDuke r7395 and not sure if this is the cause, but I've noticed some glitches: it seems Taivo used few textures from Duke DC (?) in the video/book store, as a bunch of the books were missing their covers and went HOM due to it. Also, the "Star Trek door" leading to the stripclub didn't work and I had to jetpack in through one of the windows.

The secrets were quite easy to find, although they weren't worth much considering 2 of 3 rewarded me with just a lousy Holoduke. The fight with the Queen was very simple, as she was stuch in her room, so I could just spam her with rockets from the outside - probably the easiest The Queen encounter I've had so far.

Overall, the map is a 15 minute romp with average design, but some interesting locations and ideas.

[FistMarine]

Before I start talking about the maps I played last Friday and Monday, I will mention that I also noticed those missing textures on those books in Taivo Deathcity, I just forgot to mention that last time. Now I took a screenshot of those books in question. I'm pretty sure they were meant to use regular Duke3D art, though I won't be surprised if some art from other TC or DukeDC (like Aleks said) was used when the map was made. I guess if the map was included in the Addon Compilation, the missing textures were most likely fixed, so go play that version!

Babes 2009 Remix
A somewhat unnecessary "remix" of the previous Babes map from 2003-2004. The map plays pretty much identical to the original release, just this time around it looks slightly better. Other than some changed visuals and minor differences, the map is pretty much the same. Still ok but nothing really standing out for me. I still think Babes Reloaded was the best of the Babes series.

City Full of Alien Scum
Quite an interesting Roch styled map that released back in 2008, the point of this map is to visit various buildings requiring the blue card (as is the tradition of the Roch Series) and press on those tiny buttons. Each of those buttons will spawn a couple monsters, as well as reveal a large button you have to shoot with your pistol. Once you unlock all the buttons and shoot them, you will unlock the exit that contains THREE Mini Battlelords! The Mini Battlelords were quite challenging and managed to do some good damage to me, I survived their attacks with 73% health remaining (and my entire armor and medkit were gone too), then I went to grab the new portable medkit that was spawned earlier and refill the remaining health with a large medkit, as well as collect that atomic health on roof that for some reason I wanted to save for the end.
Other than a random crash I had halfway in the map (thank God for saves) and noticing an enforcer randomly got out of bounds (though I killed him with shotgun and the kill count showed full anyway, due to those slimer eggs, won't be surprised if there were other monsters that randomly disappeared too), I really liked this one.
The only thing I consider a bit unecessary may be the extra step required to unlock the exit door, considering one or two of those shootable buttons can be easy to miss but I think this was done due to limitations of the engine, I don't think you can have each button spawning monsters and also open exit when they are all activated, thus the inclusion of the extra step with the buttons you had to shoot at end. Still a damn fine map, I enjoyed it.

Dark Place
The beginning of a rather interesting creepy series (possibly inspired by Red series), Dark Place includes scarce ammo at the beginning until halfway in the map, random lightning strikes (yes I took some damage from them and had to refill health from the toilet), some confusing parts (the part where you had to jump down on a bridge to progress because at first I thought it was a pit) and even a glitchy sector that can squish you in the icy caves (had one random death by getting squished, that was the only death so far and once again I thank saving often to not lose much progress).
The confusing parts were solved by checking in Mapster but besides that part with the pit, I was able to progress normally in the rest of the map, so I don't think it was as confusing. The platforming part was interesting and I even noticed those "sleeping" protectors somehow were able to get killed in a single shotgun shot. Now I don't know if it's a feature of game that wasn't explained before but I know for sure that the most times I saw "sleeping" protector drones, they still required 4 shotgun blasts to kill. But in this case they took only one and gibbed? Can anyone explain to me here since I'm a bit at a loss?
Another weird thing is there were 2 enemies missing at the end of level, so I don't know what happened to those two enemies. I guess they either fell down in that pit or they got outside the map or whatever. Pretty disappointed I didn't get all kills. It's not the only map in the Dark Place series where I ended up with missing enemies.
Other than the issues mentioned, this was just an ok map. The later maps in the series are better.

Dark Place 2
I decided to skip this one for now and play it straight in DOSBox, so when time comes to play the 5 maps I mentioned earlier in DOSBox, I will talk about this map. For now, let's move on to Dark Place 3.

Dark Place 3
Now that's a better Dark Place map. I liked the overall icy theme and the fact you had to use steroids to make the long jump near end (you are given multiple steroids pickups to make the jump, thankfully). It's not often you see a map requiring steroids to progress. I think even LR&WB had a map that required steroids jump to progress?
Even better is I managed to get all the kills in the map. And I also found that teleporter at end quite interesting while you traveled to the last area. If I'm not mistaken this teleporter is inspired by the one in Daikarin episode? Because I know for sure I have seen a similar one before, the same shape and the pink acid texture used for it.
Overall, I liked this one.

Dark Place 4
I will say that the map was good for the most part, there's only three things I found quite annoying:
1) The map was quite confusing at times (especially in the town area)
2) Those cubes were difficult to place where you are supposed to place them (I have no idea how I managed to place them but it took multiple attempts until Duke placed the damn cube)
3) One enemy was missing at the end of map (where the fuck did that enemy disappeared?)
Overall, the map was good as I don't want to sound harsh because I liked how detailed was the map and the combat was good, just wish the progression was better and the other two issues didn't happen.
And also liked that traveling with the "boat" over that toxic acid to the final area with TWO Mini Battlelords and I guess an Octabrain that was lost in the middle of the acid pit. Won't be surprised if there was another enemy lost in the acid pit, which is impossible to travel due to eating through your health and boots aren't even provided, so don't try to explore the toxic area, you will die quickly. Even during the trips between the islands with getting in/out of the boat will cause a few health points lost due to the very tiny space exposed. Not gonna lie, this type of acid is quite overpowered considering it can even hurt you in air...

Dark Place 5
The finale of the series, this one is even longer and slightly less confusing. Compared to most of Taivo's maps that have no secrets in them, this one even includes 2 secret areas that I found with help of Mapster, I admit. One of them (press on a different wall in one of the rooms later in map, probably close to the house that contains a toilet) which will give you Freezethrower and also have the octa blast texture that unlocks the secret at beginning of map (contains portable medkit and armor!)
Oh yeah, I haven't talked about the concept of the map. Aside from the fact you are provided the Shrinker from the beginning along with a lot of Expander ammo (this is one of the maps where the Expander gets more use than usual), there are various Octabrain Blasts symbols on the walls that when pressed, will unlock one of the other locked rooms similarly marked by octa blasts or simply turning off the forcefield. It will take a while to get used to this map since you will end up running in circles at some points.
Aside from that, the map has quite scarce health supplies in the beginning, not only the fact that there is a major lack of health supplies but also no water source until halfway through the map, though after you get through that part and kill those few mini battlelords, you should be fine as health is more commonly distributed.
Another thing I liked was the part with shooting galleries, you are provided chaingun and 2-3 boxes of ammo and you have to shoot the protectors and then the 3 targets, once you do that, the forcefield nearby should disappear.
Another highlights include blowing up that building and the part of exploded building with those many hanging/sleeping protectors over that fire, most of them are killed in just one hit as in first Dark Place map but some of them are as healthy as a normal protector drone, so be careful!
I also liked that boat that looked like a Sentry Drone, it was pretty clever. There is an active one (I don't think contained anything inside) and an inactive one that must have contained something inside.
Once you will make your way to the end, you will get to fight THREE Mini Battlelords again and once you get teleported to Hell, you will face the Battlelord boss who is quite easy to take down with the devastator (and seemed difficult to hit me while standing in the water, thus I barely took any damage). And that was without exploring the arena further that gives you even more goodies to fight him!
The only complaint? Where are those 18 missing enemies?

Dogville
Here it is! The best of Taivo's maps and also the most popular one! This is pretty much Roch 9, as people have stated before. It is 100% a Roch styled map and a VERY GOOD one. I enjoyed it. Many well done fights, THREE secret places to find (more on that later)
To progress through the map, you have to visit the various buildings requiring YELLOW card this time around and also press ONCE on the dog sprite (if pressed multiple times on one location, check to press on it again if nothing seems to happen after you pressed on all dogs) near the monitor every time you visit a building. When you do that, a blue card will eventually spawn on the main street (along with commanders) and then unlock your way to the building that leads to the second part of the map.
Funnily enough, at one point I even managed to get shrunk by a protector drone (after I used the red card to unlock the next part in the market area) which is a rare thing to happen to me but thankfully he was stationary, so I could just go back and wait to get back to normal size and then finish him off, considering he needed a few more bullets to die.
There were two weird things with the map:
-when using the card to unlock one of the gates in one of the buildings, I got a message SOUND FAN.VOC NOT FOUND or something like that. I'm not sure if it's because Taivo tried to use a non-existent sound for the gate opening OR the map got glitched at that point, considering the map is quite large and had the tendency to crash/freeze original Duke3D v1.5 (according to some comments I read years ago on AMC web forums where the map was released, I think), though I used JFDuke3D and worked fine, I will check later if it works fine in Duke3D v1.5 in DOSBox.
-13 missing enemies at the end of level (no idea what happened to them, I guess they disappeared off the map or something)
Secrets:
1) Near one of the buildings requiring yellow key, jump on the balcony to reach and collect Portable Medkit
2) Jump on those trees until you will eventually get to a room containing a Shrinker
3) Inside the building containing a pool, press on a small switch (on a white panel) that will unlock a nearby bathroom door containing a Freezethrower
Other than those two issues and the minor issue with the different colored nuke button that restarts the map upon finishing it (most of the Dark place series also ended in sectors that sent you to Hollywood Holocaust), this map is EXCELLENT and definitely worth playing! If you have to decide between playing a single map from Taivo, make it this one, with Babes Reloaded, City Full of Alien Scum and Just Another Christmas being the other excellent maps highly recommended!

I haven't played Dogville 2012 version since many years ago and I will gladly revisit it in the next couple of days. I just want first to play the 5 maps in DOSBox and once I do that, then I will look into playing Dogville 2012.

In meantime in past two days, I started playing those 5 maps in DOSBox. Babes is finished and worked perfectly, currently I'm halfway through Dark Place 2 and is quite annoying, won't spoil yet. I might also talk about Roch Island and Spiegul Contest in the next post.

EDIT: Typo fixes.

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

[Aleks]

FistMarine, on 21 October 2021 - 02:26 AM, said:

I even noticed those "sleeping" protectors somehow were able to get killed in a single shotgun shot. Now I don't know if it's a feature of game that wasn't explained before but I know for sure that the most times I saw "sleeping" protector drones, they still required 4 shotgun blasts to kill. But in this case they took only one and gibbed? Can anyone explain to me here since I'm a bit at a loss?

Protector drone code is generally a bit messed up, so I assume Taivo used another frame of the drone that is coded to act like a regular jibbed actor, not sure if purposely or not. He used these in Dark Place 4 as well, probably for some extra confusion. Didn't check in Mapster if it's a different sprite or lotag/palette/size messing it up.

Anyway, thanks for reviving this thread a bit, seems Taivo's maps didn't get that much interest And personally, I'd argue that Dark Place series is more flagship for Taivo's style than Dogville (especially since, as I've mentioned, it always felt a bit like a "poor man's Roch" to me).

Also, played the "Babes" series, which in total took me about 30 minutes, as the maps are really short...

Original Babes

The map takes about 5-8 minutes being just a bunch of corridors hastily scrapped together with very linear gameplay and quite scarce ammo for the most time. There are 2 switches which would probably be a bit obscure to find, if it wasn't for the fact the map is really so linear there's nowhere else to look for progression. There's also no respawning monsters and the design is similar to Taivo Deathcity, very basic and a bit reminiscent of a generic 1996 map, also using the wild creative ideas in similar vein.

Babes (2009 remix)

Taivo just pimped up the design of the original map by quite a lot, using all the tricks from up his sleeve - and it indeed looks much better and more professional. There seems to be a bit more ammo and one instance of respawning commanders, but other than that, the gameplay feels the same. The placement of Battlelord at the end of both maps is kinda tight, especially in Babes the area is ridiculous with a spot that actually squished me. I've also had some fun reading ck3D's review of this map for CGS website, which is almost ridiculously bitter, nevertheless does make a point. On the other hand, I find it pretty neat for authors to actually go back and rework their early maps like this.

Babes Reloaded

This one is a bit longer (takes around 10-15 minutes) and the design looks pretty sweet in fact. The gameplay is still very linear and straightforward, with some cramped areas and a really abrupt ending (after collecting all the heavy guns towards the end, I was really expecting some tougher battle to ensue). Another think that bothered me (and this goes for most Taivo's maps really, but here was striking more than usual) are the paletted floors that change player/enemy colours. There's some of the Taivo/Pascal trademark design elements, but it doesn't look so much "Roch inspired" like e.g. Dogville, but more genuine and authentic - especially like the initial area with dildo shop and a small boat in the distance.

Since the month is nearing an end already, I'd appreciate suggestions for next month's edition!

[Merlijn]

Quote

Anyway, thanks for reviving this thread a bit, seems Taivo's maps didn't get that much interest

Activity in general seems to be down a bit, guess most people are too busy to play through all these maps at the moment.
Speaking for myself, my band will be back on stage next month (finally!). Which is awesome but leaves less spare time for Duke.
And most of my Duke time goes to finishing my episode.

Anyway I played Dogville - extended 2012 version

It was fun revisiting this one, it feels a lot more well rounded than City full of alien scum. The first part (the original map) suffers a bit from bad enemy placement (as Aleks also noted).
Swarms of liztroops and commanders spawn very close to each other which renders them mostly harmless. They get in each others way, hit each other etc, and are easily taken out by a well placed rocket.
Same goes for the stayput battlelords. Now a well placed stationary battlelord can function very well as a pressure unit, especially if he's combined with other types of enemies.
But these stayputs were never dangerous and it was easy to cheese them.
Also, even though the most striking similarities to the Roch series are toned down, I still get a sense of deja vu from time to time. It doesn't help that we recently replayed the entire Roch series.

Having said that, I do think Taivo does a great job with his indoor locations. I especially like the pool center near the beginning, with its striking combo of blues and pal 7. Look a place I would like to visit in real life!
The second part, which is basically a whole new map, is a lot more engaging in my opinion. The design gets more experimental and less European, a standout is the luxurous appartment (which has a yard with cactusses on the walls?) It's a strange place but I like how it looks.
Also the fights and respawns feel more well thought out. I especially like the battle in the court room, which felt like a breath of fresh air after the more cramped indoor sections of the first part. Progression is also more interesting as it stops relying on the "find the next yellow keycard in this building and hit another switch" shtick. So overall I had a blast.

The map nicely loops back to the starting area at the end and has a suitably explosive finale. Overall I'd say this is his best 'Roch styled' map and a large improvement over the original version.
I don't think it quite reaches the heights of the best Roch maps though, which just feel a tad more polished overall. But overall it's a good time and well recommended!

[Forge]

Aleks, on 21 October 2021 - 08:07 AM, said:

Since the month is nearing an end already, I'd appreciate suggestions for next month's edition!

pardon if some of these are repeats

gambini
ck3d
community build projects
devastator
duke64nukem (or whatever his name is now)
fernando marquez
puritan
kaiser
kevin cools
maarten v. oostrum
merlijn v. oostrum
mikko sandt
mister sinister
paul bolduc
peter kucera
quakis
Loke
william Gee
Zykov Eddy

there are more quality authors, but most of these on the list have a lot of available individual maps and content

[Aleks]

@Forge, thanks for the suggestions, I'll add some of them into the poll. William Gee, Merlijn, Maarten and ck3D are still very popular, releasing lots of new maps, so I think it's better to keep this for less known/a bit forgotten authors for a time being before going with bigger names.

Anyway, played the last 2 maps from Taivo:

Just Another Christmas

I remember playing it almost 18 years ago when it came out, but to be honest, I barely remembered anything about the map at all. And this is strange, because the level has quite a unique design! Well, "unique" as in, it's once again Taivo at his finest. It looks/feels more Roch-inspired than Dogville TBH, in a way - as in, this is Taivo being actually inspired by Roch, but going with his own style, rather than Taivo trying to directly and blatantly "copy" Roch.

Taivo goes wild with palettes as usual (and once again my main issue is the floor-coloured monsters changing like cameleons everywhere), also nicely applying that Kuffi Xmas style with blue palettes on plants. The locations are quite original here, with comedy club, art gallery or small grocery shop along the way. The progression is pretty straightforward and clear, despite the map being a typical button hunt - in fact most indoor locations are fairly small and contain hardly anything else than the button/keycard to unlock the next one. The gameplay is spiced by some respawning monsters on the street, ambushes and dickish placement of insta-blasting, prone pig cops behind the corners.

The design is the strongest bit here - use of textures is very clever, there's some neat spriteworks, especially the comedy club looks wonderful. Few areas did feel a bit cramped, but nothing really hampering the overall gameplay experience. Invisible walls are present to limit the player area and can be a bit counterintuitive sometimes, there's a lot of extra unreachable areas which look nice, but the map feels very classic Duke 3D, so still quite restricted. There's more guns than usually in Taivo's maps, also we get the bigger guns early on. Funnily enough, despite this being a snowy map, it seems the freezer is nowhere to be found.

There's a few minor glitches with SOS in the first building around the stairs, also you can pass through a blocked wall and visit the christmas tree near the blue key door, but then there's no way back. These little bugs and the coloured floors are basically my only complaints. Overall, it's definitely one of the best Taivo's maps.

Since this one also didn't come with a dedicated music, I used Antarctica by Vangelis, which fit nicely with the snowy/Christmas theme.

City Full of Alien Scum!

Never played this one before and it felt even more like Roch than Dogville, all the way to actually having lots of elements I remembered back from playing Pascal's maps few months ago (briefcase for example looked almost copypasted, not to even mention the highway pass - although that's always cool to see). Also, despite the map being quite open and having the "pseudo non-linear" gameplay, it felt pretty straightforward, as the city wasn't really that interconnected and felt more like a single street most of the time. This helped with navigation though, and with the fast paced gameplay, the map felt quite like a romp in a Roch scenery.

Nevertheless, I must say I really liked it. It felt very smooth, I pretty much just visited the next location after I've cleared somewhere not to lose track of where I should go next. There's all the usual stuff like bar, cinema, hotel, Duke-Burger or generic apartment buildings, but also an auction house and furniture house. Design-wise, my favourite place must have been the bank/office towards the dead-end of the street, with some very nice use of Duke Atomic wood textures. Also the furniture shop looked well with some nicely designed cupboards and all the carpets hanging there.

I pretty much can just double what Merlijn pointed out about this map. The problem with too many locations is that they also all feel very small, 2 of these are basically just corridors of generic buildings. The city kinda just begs for some more ways to explore it, even adding some extra secrets in some of the windows - this is my issue with more Taivo's maps, that there's some very welcoming windowsills and balconies you'd like to platform around, but they're all blocked. Instead, all the supplies are basically just handed to you (also probably depending on the order in which you visit the locations, the gameplay might feel more or less challenging, I got the devastator pretty early on, so it was a lot of help later on. The toughest fight for me was in the furniture shop, where a lot of enforcers/troopers backspawned behind me and basically just pinned me in a corner at the entrance.

As for the extra step with switches in outside locations, I am also not sure what's the purpose here. The respawns are triggered with touchplates in each location anyway, I assume this is just for length padding or to force some extra exploration of the city - but they didn't bother me, at least they made me take a closer look at the surroundings.

Played with Lee's Ike2 as a soundtrack - it's very dynamic and metal, so went very well with how the map is fast paced and additionally compensated for the lack of ambient sounds.

And for the sake of tradition, my personal rating of Taivo's maps:

14) Dark Place 2
13) Babes
12) Babes (2009 remix)
11) Taivo Deathcity
10) Dark Place 4
9) Dogville
8) Babes Reloaded
7) Dark Place
6) City Full of Alien Scum!
5) Dark Place 3
4) Dogville 2012
3) Just Another Christmas
2) Cinema Lounge
1) Dark Place 5

[FistMarine]

Dark Place 2
Well, this map was slightly annoying at times, especially at the beginning when you have to navigate those mazes and don't have enough ammo or just barely enough to take down enemies.
Once you make it past the beginning and drop down into hole to get into second part of the map, things get better.
Of course I got stuck at one point and had one bullshit death by trying to crouch into a sector that squished me (see picture) and then I realized the way to progress was where you find Shrinker and Jetpack, to just activate jetpack and fly into that hole in the ceiling. While I tried this method before, somehow while flying, I couldn't fit through the whole, so I ended up stuck for minutes until I looked in Mapster to see how to progress.

After that, I was able to progress just fine and eventually make it carefully through whatever waited me in the second part of the map. It was quite creepy with those dark rooms and invisible monsters (including an invisible MINI BATTLELORD as the level's boss) and once you killed the boss and destroyed the crack, you found the exit!
The whole thing took me almost an hour to complete and found all 3 secrets (the one requiring jetpack in the place I got stuck initially and the other two that are both located behind a crack you have to destroy, near end of level).

What I found weird is in the maze area at beginning of map, there was a room teasing you with THREE atomic healths and a RPG but then you got trapped with no way out. In this case I either loaded game (when it first happened) or killed myself with RPG (after I had finished with the map and wanted to backtrack to try getting into this room with jetpack). Then I realized the author was smart to put a fence that is ONE SIDE ONLY and invisible from outside. I thought that you can trick by using jetpack and flying over the sector but then realized the fence is there since whole time, so I felt disappointed that it's an actual trap that is impossible to escape from.

Overall, the map was one of the weaker entries from Taivo (possibly the weakest) and the beginning maze area was just terrible to navigate. At least I managed to get all kills in this one, so it's only Dark Place 1, 4 and 5 where I have enemies missing. I guess I will reload my saves from those maps and search with cheats or something.

And now to talk about the maps I already played before, in past couple of months! Just quoting myself from one of PMs with Aleks (regarding Spiegul) and from one of earlier topics (regarding Roch Island). No screenshots for these maps.

Spiegul Contest

Quote

Few days ago I played Spiegul Contest (3 maps from 2004 for a contest, one map was actually done by our MRCK/CK3D) in JFDuke3D and I will continue playing some oldies from 2004 or so these days. I will say that Spiegul DEV map was buggy because one green sector (slime sector) you had to swim (and required for progression) was buggy and sometimes it came back the water sector, so I got stuck and had to restart map almost from beginning because for some reason if you stepped into sector that contained blue card (required to get goodies like scuba gear and Devastator, essential for completing the map), then the touchplate caused the water sector to come back and make me stuck. Why did this happen? In video I watched, that guy uses EDuke32 and he doesn't get stuck at all, for me I used JFDuke3D and it was buggier, even if map was created for jfduke3d? Why? When I played the map in past in eduke32, it was fine. So it doesn't make sense how in JFD3D it breaks but in eduke32 it works??? I've told ck3D about this before, maybe he will explain when he gets to reply back, as I talked to him last week.
Oh yeah and in Taivo Spiegul map, I also once died for no reason, all I did was simply jump to kick a vase on top of a shelf. Didn't even enter the sector or something. I simply jumped and randomly died for no reason. I had 84 health and shotgun in hand. Then instant death??? WTF? Other than that, the map went smooth. Only map I completed without dying was MRCK's spiegul map and it was the hardest with many mini battlelords and pig tanks, I had to drink water at least 5 times but I still made it without dying in the end.

Roch Island

Quote

The tribute to Roch series. A fairly large map that can take you up to TWO hours to complete! It is also very action packed. I unfortunately don't have time to make a walkthrough, so I will let others write a walkthrough and the highlights of the map (Aleks already did that in meantime while I'm editing and finalizing the message). I finished it a few weeks ago as I happened to have it installed at that time.

I will say that I highly enjoyed this map due to its open ended nature but I also have two major issues that felt they could have been fixed before:
First, there is no jetpack in this map at all! I even searched with Mapster and there was none, unless it's supposed to spawn somewhere from something. One of the secrets early required a jetpack to reach it as it was too high for Duke to reach it (the one with the hidden bathroom and an enforcer inside), unless I wasn't supposed to break the fire hydrant and jump on it? The way I reached it was luring a trooper and jumping on its head, which was a bit tricky to do. Then I could reach the secret. I don't know, I feel a jetpack somewhere in a secret area would have been very useful to navigate the map due to high verticality. (Note added that I got a confirmation from Aleks in last PM that you were supposed to reach that secret by jumping on fire hydrant, I just happened to break it before I thought about using it and regretted it but then I saved anyway since I was using multiple slots and eventually I lured a trooper to reach it, at least that way I'm not using cheats)

Second, there were a couple of monsters that were missed at end of level, despite visiting everything and finding every secret. I don't know if they spawned outside the map or whatever. Besides searching in Mapster for anything hidden, in-game I only searched with cheats DNKROZ & DNCLIP (after I finished the map without cheats, obviously) and I was only able to see two mini battlelords that never noticed me in last area on rooftops and I couldn't get them notice me at all (due to lack of jetpack in normal gameplay), plus shooting with rockets at them results in wasted ammo, as they won't react at all until they see you for first time.

The Battlelord boss isn't too bad since you are given a shit-ton of ammo (RPG/Devastator pickups) and atomic health. It's more about surviving that horde you fight when you enter last part of the level, before cleaning the mess and fighting Battlelord that doesn't notice you immediately. This last part of map (and parts of some ck3D/MRCK's older maps) are slightly modified and featured in the last boss level of Metropolitan Mayhem. I think I may remember few missing monsters in that map as well or I was able to get all kills? I don't remember well (though I remember other boss map had a problem with the missing enemies) and I still don't know where I could have missed those 6 enemies, other than those Mini Battlelords on buildings.

And to not make another separate response, I will talk about the rest maps (besides Dark Place 2) that I played in DOSBox:

Babes worked perfectly fine.

Dogville worked just fine for the most part (still got that FAN.VOC not found message when activated one of gates), although one time when I played pool, I got a weird-ass glitch that after one of the balls glitched into the hole, then I started seeing stuff that happened earlier with an octabrain getting hit by a RPG blast which is what I did when I cleared the room first time. This is a really weird bug that I never had it happen before, so I just reloaded an earlier save and things went back to normal. I recall something similar happening when I played 2000 TC a few months ago and played pool and then saved on a slot, then when I reloaded the save later, Duke3D v1.5 froze DOSBox, meaning my save was fucked up. I learned my lesson by having a slightly earlier save game (so not much progress was lost), so I have to be careful this time around by not playing too much pool, in this case not sending the last ball into the hole. This glitch didn't exist at all in JFDuke3D. If someone knows better what happened, please let me know! I never encountered this glitch before with pool table, it certainly didn't happen in the original levels. One of the screenshots should show the glitch in action.
Also I still couldn't get all the kills, this time I ended up with 9 enemies remaining, so it's a small progress but still wonder where the heck those monsters disappeared?

Just Another Christmas worked perfectly fine.

Seven worked perfectly fine, although it has no exit.

I will come back in a week with playing and reviewing Dogville 2012 and in meantime, I don't know exactly what to vote for next month. I would wait until Aleks randomly picks up one of the authors. Considering he wanted to randomly choose 10 maps by the community, how about randomly choosing one of the authors from the list that Forge provided?

Also I pretty much agree with Aleks' ranking of Taivo maps, though personally I would place Dogville higher on the list, at least I enjoyed more than Dark Place series.

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

[Aleks]

I'll carry on with the voting, hopefully we do get some votes until Monday. I will add some authors mentioned by Forge, although the "10 maps" are not random - they're hand picked

Voting for November:

• Last Reaction and Waterbases
• 10 "surprise" maps by less known authors selected by Aleks +
• Maps by Kevin Cools
• Maps by Mikko Sandt

[Merlijn]

Played 'Just another Christmas', this is my favorite of the 3 maps I've played. The theme probably helps a lot, but this map feels less like Roch and more like its own thing.
After playing the Roch series, Roch Island and 2 Roch-styled Taivo maps I was getting kinda sick of seing the same blue sky again and again. So the starry night was a welcome change.

I pretty much agree with the things Aleks said, I like how the outdoor is mostly white and blue while the indoor locations use a lot of browns, spiced up with some colored lights.
Really nails the aesthetic of the Christmas theme. Especially the appartment at the start and the comedy club look great.
Also loved the repurposed 'hot hot hot' poster, changing it into a sign for a coffee shop was pretty neat.

Last Reaction and Waterbases
10 "surprise" maps by less known authors selected by Aleks + +
Maps by Kevin Cools
Maps by Mikko Sandt

[jkas789]

I'm gonna try and speedrun the challenge today kek. Wish me luck frens


Dark Places 2
Difficulty: Come Get Some
Time: 37 fucking miserable minutes with 20 seconds
Pistol Start

I hate this level. I absolutely freaking hate it.



It started pretty cool, what with the entrace of the level being a monster's mouth. Things were going great until I cam across the entrance to the labyrinth and lo and behold. My dissapointment is unmeasurable and my day is ruined.

Labyrinth maps are the worst thing a mapper can do IMO. They are filler maps created to fuck over the player and confuse him. And lo and behold it is true. After making my way through the corridors killing enemies with a combination of weapon fire and kicks. I come across this:



Mother. Fucker. So the quest for the blue key begins. I make my way around come across a statue of a Battlelord that scares the shit out of me. Which is admittedly a smart idea to make a player get immediately more alert and probably waste ammo. Using the different pallete colors on enemies kind of trains your brain to fire at anything no matter the color.



Anyways at this point I had come across a lot of enemies that were transparent. And I hate it but fuck it it's fine there are not that many and I can manage it. But then I come across this:



A invisible flying missile launching fat ass. Fuck off.

Anyways and moving on I kill the mini boss with one shot in the house after freaking out about not having enough ammo, get the blue key go back to the blue gate only to be met with a real Battle lord monster.

I totally skip it while grabbing the devastator and went down the rabbit hole. And Jesus fucking Christ I don't know if the map is just that obtuse or I'm fucking retarded. I make my way without wasting ammo to the shrinker and the jetpack. And then I waste a shit ton of time jsut trying to find out what to do next. i went back up to the starting are, killed the battlelord scoured through the labyrith trying to find were the fuck I go next. Turns out that I have to go up through the ceiling were I got the jet pack. There is a place on the floor that is bright green that is supposed to mark were the opening on the ceiling is.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-



Whatever, I can deal with it. I go up the ceiling and get to the third area which is MUCH BETTER than the first area. There is really nothing of note here. Except the final battle with the FUCKING INVISIBLE BATTLELORD. BECAUSE OF COURSE. I didn't even take a screen shot because i was absolutely done with this shit.

Seriously. Fuck this level. I don't know if I'm just a retarded mexican porch monke or what the fuck is going on, but not even fucking Hexen or Heretic maps make me wish to make a backflip off my roof.

4/10. IMO this is a barely mediocre map that is saved by the few cool artistic set pieces and the later parts of the map. Do yourself a favor and just skip it.

I'll edit this post when I play another level (or make another post if I can't). I need a break from this.

[NNC]

I nominate the czech duo, Lukas Cerovsky and Peter Kucera for next. Aside from Lost Highway, their maps are still somewhat obscure to the community.

[jkas789]

I'm still missing 3 maps, however I have to do doctor stuff so I'm gonna dump the ones I have already finished here. I'm gonna have to apologize for the lack of screenshots, but I'm still getting used to linux and I have no idea why they were not taken when I played the maps.


----------------------------------------------------------


Dark Place 3
Time: 20:05 mins
Difficulty: Come get some
Pistol Start

Right out of the bat this one is like 10 times better than the map prior to this one. The first section with the bloody paw prints and the mob corpses on inside the sushi kitchen sets the tone really well.

Theeeeen it gets goofy really quickly. Like come on. There are RED SHARKS swimming in the sky. I know this is supposed to be some surreal experience but honestly the last braincell in my head was laughing because "menopause sharknado".


Anyways there is not much to this one. I think that althought he idea of getting the blue key via using the ice weapon on the blue fire is creative, it is not well telegraphed to the player. I accidently discovered it when I started firing everywhere with ice thingy out of frustration. Otherwise the map is pretty straight forward. Pro tip, don't waste ammo on the pig cop tanks at the end, just run past them.

Now I know a lot of people here like to play map series continuously and create grps to do so (which, out of curiosity, is the Dark Place series of maps in the collection thingy by NightFright?). You can completely sequence break this map and skip getting the yellow key and therefore the blue key and opening the hotel by using a jetpack and going over wall here beside the yellow door. You can also use the jetpack to just fly directly to were the big blue ad thingy that says ski (pardon my sleep deprived mind) and skip like a lot. So don't use the jetpack if you want to play the author intended you to do. That sterioid jump is pretty fun.

Overall I give this map a 7/10. It is not the best map, it could have used some more color IMO but it's a hell of a cahnge from Dark Place 2. Totally reccomend this one.


----------------------------------------------------------


Dark Place 4
Time: 15:57 mins
Difficulty: Come get some
Pistol Start

I don't know what it is with some map makers that they like putting discount Xenomorphs at the start of a map. Stop it. For an experienced player it is annoying and frankly a waste of ammo. For a newbie it is a death sentence.

Anyways after a judicious use of the kick pistol combo to take care of the dirty Xeno (long live the emperor!) I took a look around. First off, do yourself a favor, don't go near the "water" pond. That thing is fucking toxic and it will chew through your health faster than a thread goes to hell on the Outhouse. Also don't jump on the stones adjacent to the pond. They also for whatever reason (I want to think it is Build Engine Jank TM and not because Taivo is a dick) cause damage.

It fact, don't touch anything that looks like water. Period. It's toxic.

First impressions is that there are some neat details like the sleeping Xenos sprites used on the electrical cables as stand ins for electrocuted birds,

Then i come across "The Facility" and oh God it is gonna be one of those maps huh. As soon as you get through the tunnel you get the invisible enemies and I got the sinking feeling in my stomach that yes. It is gonna be one of those.

To be honest I absolutely love the atmosphere of the Facility. it's great, it's terrifying and it is just a joy to play. What I don't like about it is the fucking "invisible" enemies. Yes there are only 3. They are still annoying and i died an unnecessary amount of times to that 3rd pig cop.

Once you are done and get the spooky cube thing and gain entrance to the village it gets better. My computer took a performance hit in the are though.

Anyways I really liked this one. The starting are is not that great, and I don't know what the map author has against normal non damaging water, but this gets a solid 8/10 from me.

Don't try this with with the ERP unless your PC can handle it though. My first playthorugh was with it and the town was chugging like a mexican drunk going home after drinking a 2 tequila bottles.


----------------------------------------------------------


Dark Place 5
Time: 48:39
Difficulty: Come get some
Pistol Start

This one I really enjoyed, easily the highlight of the series. I'm not a fan of the press a switch and see what unlocks thing going on in this map but otherwise it is not as confusing as some of the earlier maps in the series.

Following the theme of previous maps if you are considering pistol starting this map you are gonna have to do a lot of kick/pistol comboing if you want to conserve ammo. The map gives you a shrinker and expander ammo at the start and very liberally throughout the map but IMO you don't want to use it until much later on. This map is not gonna give you that much ammo/health so you better get smart killing enemies.

If you are ever hurting from low health you can get two atomic health from the Xeno morph statue at the entrance and the terminator statue beside the "dock". Just press "E" on the base of the statue and you will be gifted with atomic goodness. Admittedly I only discovered this because I was playing with the voxel pack and the switches stuck out. Still it is a good thing to know if you are in dire need of health.


Also I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, but I found a group of enemies stacked vertically on each other. It was fun blowing all this enemies up with the expander kek.

Otherwise I have no complaints about it. It was I think a really solid map with some impressive visuals that gives the series a good ending. I give it a 9/10. If you are gonna play one map of the Dark Place series, play this one.


----------------------------------------------------------


Dogville
Time: 28:12 mins (mostly because I was having fun getting mobs to kill each other)
Difficulty: Come get some
Pistol Start

First Dogville! This one is a fun one. Starting off there are a lot of enemies to clear off. got left at first to get the missile launcher. A flying fatass is guarding it but you can get it to commit alahu akhbar if you stand directly below it and bait him to fire missiles at the piece of wall that covers you.

Perhaps the most annoying part was finding a group of flying fatasses vertically stacked over each other (Huh, so it is Build Engine Jank TM). Don't waste ammo and do the smart thing. Circle around and bait the fatasses to fire missiles, getting them to damage each other. It will take time but you will be able to kill most of them this way. After 1 or 2 are left you can kill them normally if you so wish.

Also I gotta say using the doggos as barriers was a nice idea.

Anyways I liked the interiors, although They felt a little cramped. This is a ROCH style. Get colored key, choose your building, press switch, get another of same key, repeat. The stationary battlelord are almost not worth the effort wasting your ammo on them. Just run.

It's relatively short (you can easily beat this in 15 minutes less if you hurry up) it has a lot of action and it doesn't waste your time that much. It's gud.

8/10


----------------------------------------------------------



Dogville 2012
Time: 1 hour and 25 minutes
Difficulty: Come get some
Pistol Start

I'm gonna be honest. While in theory this one should be better than the original, I'm not a fan of it. Don't get me wrong, it's good. I'm just not that much of a fan of big user maps that take a long time to clear. I don't have much to say about this one. It's a expansion of original dogville. The added areas IMO make the map feel a lot more bloated then the original, which was short, decently action pack and you could finish it sub 15 minutes if you want.


It's a 8/10 for me. The aesthetics carry this over for me from a 7 to a 8.


----------------------------------------------------------


Just Another Christmas
Time: 19:44 (I died a lot, also I was faffing around looking for secrets)
Difficulty: Come get some
Pistol Start

This one is a fun (-ish) one. Feels very slaughter map-ish at times. As Fist Marine wrote (thanks for the heads up dude) the hidden near the start is absolutely essential to your survival. Otherwise try and conserve ammo by getting the enemies to kill themselves.

7/10. A competent map that is nothing to write home about if I'm being honest.

----------------------------------------------------------


Babes Reloaded
Time: 12:32
Difficulty: Come get some
Pistol Start

This one is just painfully average. There is really nothing to say about this one. It's pretty linear and has babes. 6/10

----------------------------------------------------------


Babes (2009 Remix)
Time: 16: 54
Difficulty: Come get some
Pistol Start

Being very (actually, is it me or is it the same as the previous map) similar to Babes reloaded it is pretty straight forward. Grab the keys and use the babes as meatshields when necessary. I think it has more enemies then Babes R? At the very least it felt a bit more difficult than the last one . It is not necessarily a bad map, but it is average IMO. 6/10, try it out after you finish playing your backlog of must play maps.


----------------------------------------------------------


City full of alien scum!
Time: 21:03
Difficulty: Come get some
Pistol Start

As other people have noted, this map plays a lot like some Roch maps.

It's big, the performance tanks a lot at times and frankly the map feels like a absolute grind till the end. Aesthetically it looks good though. For me this was a 7/10. Looks great, it has it's challenging moments but switch hunt is pretty meh. If you are gonna make me backtrack and circle around like a retard, at least make it worth my time.


----------------------------------------------------------


And that is all for now. As soon as i finish my doctor related stuff I'll finish writing my thoughts about the other 3 final maps.

[jkas789]

Here are my final thoughts on the last 3 maps. This will be a lot shorter mainly because in contrast to Spiegul, Deathcity did not left that much of an impression or was as enjoyable.

I like Spiegul for two main reasons:

• It was under 20 minutes (I clocked 15 + minutes) on Come Get Some difficulty pistol start
  
• I liked the overall flow of the map

I think it flows really well and you don't have to faff around looking what to do. Yes, that means the map is pretty linear. but I appreciate when a mapper doesn't waste my time and make me switch hunt for something that was activated somewhere. Doing that is just pointless filler IMO. There was just enough ammo to always kill the mobs and aside from the section near the end were you go against 3 flying fatasses, 2 enforcers and a mini battlelord (try and take them all one by one from a distance) it was a pretty fair map. 8/10

Deathcity on the other hand I did not enjoy. Deathcity gives you armor and a shotgun and then just drops you in a city map which is shock full of mobs. Like, I would say an unfairly amount of mobs in comparison to the ammo you posses. I found that it is better to run, collect all the ammo weapons you can and proceed with completing the map instead of killing the mobs. Because, honestly, who got time for that shit? 5/10. It was mediocre IMO.

Roch Island I must admit I rushed to complete. I liked it however I have just finished it after staying up all night replacing a fat guy's knee and I have to admit it jumbles a bit together in my head. I can say that it did look at time like a patchwork artistically and design wise. You can tell more than one person had their finger in this pie. But otherwise from what I remember it was fine. A tentative 8/10 till I replay it again with more time and more awareness.

[FistMarine]

Dogville 2012

Sorry for being so late but I finally got through Dogville 2012 (EDuke32 r5498, CGS difficulty) and at same time, discovered the missing enemies in original Dogville map (they were those slimers inside the marketplace, which I didn't notice somehow). I haven't looked yet into the missing monsters in some of the Dark Place maps but I guess it isn't that important for now, I will find them later.

I will talk about Dogville 2012. IMO, it was very good, although a bit too long at times and wanted to end it already while I was in the second part of the map. It didn't help I got stuck at two different points in same area (which is why the map took me almost 80 minutes to finish), one of which was running in circles while figuring out where to go next (considering I had no access cards to open any of the three doors) and then second time I got stuck in that room I just opened earlier where I had to jump on top of that little chair and get into vent to get the yellow key behind the door that I kept asking how to open. Looking in mapster for a few times finally made me realize what I had to do and after that, the map progressed smoothly.
I really liked the fights and the design was really good. I just wish it wasn't that long and confusing at times, which is what plagued the original version a bit when I played it back then (2009-2010) for first time. But once I got past pressing on those dogs next to monitors, the map flowed nicely. Since then, I always knew what I had to do when replaying Dogville and the new version still has those dog switches if you're wondering.

And while you eventually get back to the beginning part of the map (where exit is located) after you get through the train area, there is no way to go back to the second part of the map. I went with the intention of backtracking to check if there was any missing enemy left (despite getting all kills) and indeed I found a lone slimer just before dropping down into the sewer hole. But once I dropped into sewers (which is the last part of the original Dogville map), there was no way back. Because that elevator couldn't be activated again and there was no jetpack to go back. At this point you just reload the saved game which was made just before dropping down, so there wasn't anything lost (I always save often and have backup saves).
Thankfully I had all secrets found (with help of Mapster, looking in advance, just to avoid the situation mentioned above where it is impossible to backtrack and you can't get the missed secrets), since two were same from original version, one was in different location (that bathroom no longer counts as a secret since it is opened by default) and two others were located in the second part of the map, exclusive to this version.

Overall, the map was great and it was nice to revisit Dogville in a modern way, considering there's some changed or new areas in the map, although I wouldn't have minded if it was released as second part of the original, just having the part that starts after you took the elevator. The map would have worked that way too, as sequel to original Dogville, potentially turning into a series. I actually wouldn't mind if Taivo reworks his city maps into an episode.

Taivo series overall: A couple maps were great and worth playing but others (such as some of Dark Place series) were nothing more than a mixed bag but still worth checking out once at least, just to see what they're about.
To me the standouts were: Babes Reloaded, City Full of Alien Scum, Dogville (2004 and 2012) and Just Another Christmas. Dark Place maps 3-5 were also good, with the first one being rather forgettable and second one being the weakest with that annoying maze area. Babes (both versions) and Taivo Deathcity were just ok (though the latter felt more like a DM map) and the two DM levels are worth checking just for taking a look in them (and killing those aliens present in Seven).

This was also the rare case where I had to use multiple executables to play the maps, just because of the long filenames in most maps (what's up with that anyway? Dogville 2012 should have been simply named Dogville2012.map) to make sure the maps play fine and after doing that, I decided to play 5 of the maps with short filenames in DOSBox and they worked fine.
The only map that requires EDuke32 is Dogville 2012 (I used r5498 which worked fine), the rest of the maps can be played in JFDuke3D if you prefer a more classical approach.

Oh and unlike Aleks, I don't use custom music while I play user maps in general (except when the maps actually come with their own music), so all I heard in the background the whole time was Dethtoll.

Finally, here's the places where I personally downloaded and played the maps:

https://dukeworld.co...rrent/maps/a-e/
Most Taivo maps are found over here, including the Dark Place series.

https://dukeworld.co...rrent/maps/f-j/
Just Another Christmas

https://dukeworld.co...rrent/maps/k-o/
Napalm Death

https://dukeworld.co...rrent/maps/p-t/
Roch Island, Seven, Spiegul Final, Taivo Deathcity

https://dukeworld.co...rrent/unsorted/
Babes 2009 Remix, Dogville

Dogville 2012: https://msdn.duke4.n...ogville2012.php

As well as four random screenshots of Dogville 2012!

See you in the November 2021 topic!

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 
• 
• 
• 

[taivo30]

I think I took part in a couple of CBP back in the day but I can't remember which ones. They were rather short and nothing special.
One was like a 1 hour CBP I think and other one had lot of green rooms or something.

BTW cool reviews. If I would rank my maps then maybe 1) Dogville 2012 2) Dark Place 5 3) JAC