MAP33: Hang On To Each Other, Like Pigeons in the Rain
Authors: AnArchaicApparatus, Some Spoony Bard, Isabella_Dio, lilywaves, minimedals, Hebonky, Dusty_Rhodes, GlowyLikesDoom, Demonic Meatball and some cameos
Authors' Comments:

...



                                             This map is cursed.

                                    I hope it brings you many blessings.



                                    -----------------------------------
                                                  FOREWORD:
                                    -----------------------------------

Howdy! AnArchaicApparatus here!

As a not-to-be-taken-lightly warning, this text file is more suited as a deep-dive,
piece-by-piece, over-documentated writing of the history behind what I can remember
behind this map - albeit with the addition of my weird typing quirks often
popping their heads out from when I wrote the original version of this that was shipped with RC1.
I've done my best to make it actually usable, with table-of-contents included for anyone to skip around
to what they might be curious about and so on, but this still ended up being a big dumb beast,
so Idk how much I have nor am able to tame it.

Since nobody else made any read-text this absurdly long, hopefully there's at least nuggets
of context for folks to read into future-wise, if nothing else. I got carried away massively lmao,
both with the map and this text file, though this file honestly has less justification for it.



If you're about to play this map, or otherwise plan to do so, again, do not continue to read nor skim
this text file.  

If you read this before playing the map, it will...:
> ...Waste your own time - and if you're a streamer or otherwise video-person, it will
waste your viewers time as well, which would be better served watching this maps gameplay.
  + If for some reason you wish to do a separate narration, I wouldn't advise it,
    but I also won't stop you, you just can't yell at me for it because that's on you lmfao.
    It'd be more like narrating an exhaustive audiobook at this point.
> ...Pretty much spoil most of the map due to the whole nature of things. It'd be
  better to just play the map to see everything, "in-person." Ya' don't gotta dance about architecture.






If you came here before playing the map, as another reminder, if you haven't read the in-map
disclaimer at the start, it'd be advised that you do so, even if it's semi-lengthy in its own right.

For further inquiries regarding the map or otherwise that aren't just yelling at me, feel free
to contact me on DoomWorld, or through Discord if you happen to share a server with me - whether it's
about the map itself, how certain things were made/done for newer mappers especially, or whatever
the concern may be (within reason.)






As I'm finishing this up, I'm probably only going to skim through things without fully proof-reading,
so things are bound to be somewhat sloppy on top of the longness.
If anything is out-of-date or otherwise a bit wonky, that's probably just gonna be how it is,
though I've checked and re-wrote for a good bit of things, just in kinda disconnected spurts.
Hopefully this is of use or interest to someone at least eventually.



---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blurb from far below; About as close to a concise flavor-text for the map as it probably will ever get:

MAP32 - A screaming feverish mess of guilt and familiar, unfamiliar, and yet-to-be-familiarized with places...
        even the most hardened and internally prepared for sheer terror and incomprehensible evil have their limits.
        What abstractions are a product of hells or otherwise cosmic forces, or are of our protagonists
        mind splitting twain after the un-inevitable horrors that he and others failed to stop soon enough,
        all the countless innocents lost and corrupted, all the way down to the deliberate targeting
        of defenseless creatures by Hells forces... it might never be clear, even if there is a way out...
        and if there is one, then the only way out is through.

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




                                    -----------------------------------
                                    T A B L E    O F    C O N T E N T S:
                                    -----------------------------------


The fact that this thing is such a long document that it requires this is absurd, but it's still here
in case anyone actually wishes to attempt to use this for anything remotely useful or insightful.

As a note, there is indeed a lot of words here, but a not-insignificant portion of the counted lines are
either excess spaces to make parsing things a bit less painful on the overall scale, or manually wrapped text
instead of full paragraphs on a single line.

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


PRELUDE + MISC.:
----
Line 214 - FAQ
Line 330 - BROTMDCNLBi (Post-mortem reflection)


SCALPEL TO A STACK OF HAYBALES (Piece-by-piece notes, history, etc) - Line 478
----

Line 521 - Acknowledgements
Line 582 - Contributor Dev Commentaries

Line 690 - Pre-RC1 note on map-placement
Line 732 - Post-RC3 note on map-placement
Line 770 - Strictly Personal
Line 817 - NOVA IV Development Background Anecdote
Line 867 - Note on RC1-3 delerium and hangups (including a personal timeline from the thread)

--

Line 977 - Strictly about the Goshdurn Map (Section-by-section)
Line 1006 - Collaborative Sections Note

Line 1067 - Starting area
Line 1091 - HUB area
Line 1199 - Razzas Section

Line 1216 - Spoony + AAA Collab Section

Line 1555 - Blue-key Section start (...and Ambient-areas that accompany featured-sections)
Line 1589 - Final blue-key mini-gantlet

Line 1692 - Both-keys final-stretch start

Line 1954 - Final Fight FREAKOUT!!!
            (and the last few map-notes)


COLORMAP YAP
----
Line 2088 - Colormap Tutorial


MUSIC NOTES - Line 2180
----
Line 2183 - Megiddo-Shaped Elephant in the Room

Line 2243 - Friendly Skeleton Bard Doots Deftly
            (It Lives In Your Pocket, Ready To Rock-It)
Line 2288 - Simon Ferocious... (Foreword/Things-Learned)
Line 2384 - Simon Ferocious' Unfortunate Day at the Toothpaste Factory
            (Sally STARTAN and the Wild Fireblu Keycard Caper)
Line 2904 - No End in Sight?
Line 2921 - Facing it All Again + Mind The Gap
            (More Than Just Knee Deep in the Dead) 





































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

                            /\==========================================/\
                    /\==========================================================/\
            /\==========================================================================/\
    /\==========================================================================================/\
<>__________________________________________________________________________________________________<>

                
                                   P R E L U D E    +    M I S C .

<>__________________________________________________________________________________________________<>
    \/==========================================================================================\/
            \/==========================================================================\/
                    \/==========================================================\/
                            \/==========================================\/




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

                                           FAQ!!!!! Hoo boy!:


Turns out, an out-of-left-field arthouse weirdo map that grew in the wall of a relatively normal-ish
WAD like this has a lot of questions and comments, go figure.

Since it covers a lot of things that have been repeatedly noted about the map, here's a direct copy/paste
from what I spammed at Cannonball in the thread. Hopefully these ramblings interest at least someone.




----
[NONSENSICAL STRUCTURE?]
The whole structure of the map (abstraction and disconnected ideas) is a thing I've tried before
in personal-projects, though this is objectively the largest and most extreme case of it all coming together.

It's more aiming for a feverish/dreamlike kind of thing, and inspired by a range of stuff done in WADs
like A.L.T., free-theming 90's maps, the Mario 64 ROM hack Build 3313, Yume Nikki, David Lynchs Erasorhead,
Lilith.pk3, free-improvisational music, and a plethora of different things that go for a similar free-association
abstraction and haziness, either intentionally or not & to varying executions and degrees.

Being slammed with a 2+ hour experience of it, especially versus all the other more overtly conventionally-grounded
maps, doesn't help make it digestible in the slightest, and is almost definitely the largest detriment to this maps
execution, but it didn't become like that out of (at least not entirely) blind ambition or without lineage.


--
[PRIMITIVE LOW-LINEDEF-DETAIL STUFF]

With '94-ish stuff in this map, that's kinda just how I like doing visuals at this point lol.
I've tried more detailed & cleanly-themed elements in different degrees since I started mapping as a
kid back in 2014, then diverged between full-detail and primitivism back around 2017, and ended up
going more towards primitivism w' the linedef-dense clean detailing just not being fun enough to do.

That kinda evolved over-time to be more abstractified and less conventionally themed as my tastes
refined & changed, and that's pretty much how things turned out as they did here.

I do get the fundamentals of stuff like contrast and lighting and so on (including Russian Realism style
angle-cast lighting and so on,) so that's mostly showed up in this maps visuals, but making things
look conventionally attractive or trying to impress with a lot of linedefs is not really in my
tastes/aims anymore, even if I'd get less dunked on if I copied Erik Alm or Skillsaw or Ribbiks
or otherwise went in a similarly conventionally-accepted direction.


I don't think the map would work as well to those who enjoy it either if it was all-pretty-all-the-time anyways
in this case, especially if it was cleanly and conventionally themed.


----
[OBSCURITY]
The obscurity should largely just different degrees of puzzling, mostly in less-layered and more,
"incidental," forms a-la Odessa-era WADs than dedicated The Given style dedicated scaled puzzles.

I've only been really getting interested in puzzling over the past few years (partially thanks to
finding out about The Given through Mt. Pains review, and the Odessa series through Nirvanas
interview with Ribbiks,) and I've experimented first with that kind of thing with my second contribution
to the currently-dead-in-development 30 Sectors community project as a dedicated map.

In this case, it was more me leaning more into the experiments I've been doing before with mixing together
puzzling and more conventional combat and various other bits in a kinda flow-state.


----
[VIRTUAL INSANITY? THIS FREAKOUT IS FREAKING ME OUT!!!]
Again, with the, "messes with your senses and at times sanity, but to what end?" part, that's kinda just one
of the points of this big thing. It comes from an arthouse-ey nerd place that not everyone's gonna enjoy, and
is absolutely not conventionally marketable beyond certain more niche parts of the community in a lot of ways.

Even if it's probably not as good as any of its influences that people might enjoy more on their own,
the kind of feelings that get illicited by various different sources definitely seem to be hitting if nothing else.

Me steering this thing as it went is not that far off of the kinds of reasons why films like Skinamarink,
Erasorhead, or otherwise more psychological-driven disconcerting experiences get made (though I won't claim
to be as original or good at executing said ideas,) and not everyone is gonna like it, and I'm fine with that
as long as people know what they're getting into and don't end up feeling like their time was wasted
(hence the lengthy disclaimer and open invitation to exit early.)


----
[WHO IS THIS FOR ANYWAYS?]
If you want a good sense of who this map seems to appeal to, I'd advise you read NuMetalManiacs early-on review
of this map in its RC1 state, and/or Lord Biscuit The Tossables reviews of RC1s version a few pages back,
or of RC3s launch version on this same page. For a streamed-demonstration of someone also reasonably
somewhat critical of the map (and hating the hell out of the verbose text-file) but ended up enjoying the map,
John Suitepeas stream shows it pretty well as well.

The main thing I'd say ties all the people enjoying the map together is that usually it's not been people
expecting or hoping for slaughter-adjacent/challenging-combat-focal experiences that beat the hell outta
less experienced players & pretty much lock them from moving ahead if they can't crack it instincts/skill-wise. 

MAP32 in a lot of ways is probably easier on-average than a good bit of even Episode 1 of the WAD,
and it's way longer than any other single map, but there's a lot of stuff going on & playstyle, environments,
etc just keeps on changing, and in the best cases it seems to work in a, "spiritual," sense, as I've thought
of it myself & Biscuit has said directly at least once - but if its hypnosis doesn't grab someone,
and if they track the time instead of losing track of it, the experience falls apart.

This map also is pretty much the opposite of a lot of long maps, in that it's a metric shitload
of smaller things instead of a handful of things that take a lot of time to disassemble.
The way that I described/diagnosed it really early on (pre-RC1s drop) is that the divide
also kinda goes along the lines of less assuming and less-skill-driven players who aren't
as tuned into the community, and more experienced players who know how stuff is, "supposed to go,"
and are more prone to diagnose things instead of just letting things flow over them for lack of anything else,
and though my initial wording was different, I'd say that's still kinda apt, even if there's
likely nuances I'm still missing myself.










----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                          BROTMDCNLBi
         (Broadly Reflecting On The Maps Development Cycle Not Long Before iDGames)

To put it blunt, this maps procurement has consumed over a year of my life, brought hardships upon me as well as
the project itself, the resulting map is absolutely not without flaws, and I poke my head out of it at a very
turbulent and nightmarish time, but I still am glad to have been a participant, and for what good parts there are
in this map, I am glad it came together at all, and absolutely thankful for the participants and their
lovely contributions.

--

One big thing I wish this map had in its development that comes to mind immediately is playtesting that is both
more thorough and detailed, and uniformly good faith. What I will say on the other hand with that though
is that I am thankful to all who have played the map and have given critiques, most of which finding their way
into helping make the map a better experience.

To give a picture of how haphazard things were with that respect, here's the general impression of how testng went:
- Pre-RC1s release on 01/May/2025, all it got (at least that I was privy to) was people playing, and leaving a few notes
  or their general impressions. No play-by-plays, nor videos or over-the-shoulder watching for me to actually adjust
  things to. I did not get to show up to a single stream live, and only got to take notes based on how people
  openly reacted in that regard, and I had to, "read between the lines," to consider what the actual issue might be
  in a few cases since I couldn't directly ask in the same way.
- Between that point and mid-November, I got to watch a few streamers play RC1s public version, and I didn't check
  get a chance for anyone to play even RC2s version; At least once or twice someone not-streaming/a fellow mapper
  played through RC1s version even after months of work, and judged things based on that; I at one point got so fed up
  with the situation that I offered one or two streamers the around-RC2-or-so era builds so that they could finish
  playing through that map and everyone elses stuff, as well as give me a lil bit of a better barometer - though
  of course that did not come to pass.
- The early morning of 13/November/2025 was the first time ever that I actually got to watch someone over-the-shoulder
  playtest the map. Ever. It was within just a few days before RC3 got publically released. I was already crunched,
  but had a few things to tweak instead of any non-imbedded glaring issues, so it was better than it could've been
  at least.
- As-of 24/March/2026, not a single person that I'm aware of has played MAP32 on stream in its near final form.
  Every single playthrough on Youtube or that I've seen on Twitch or similar still is the same exact build publically
  released with RC1 nearly a year ago. At this point, almost everything except bug-fixes is locked in for sake of
  timelyness.


The main reason I stress this is given that this map doesn't really operate the exact same as a lot of other maps,
and this is the first time I've had anything I've worked on under this many eyes and much scrutiny, and especially
of this scale or style, and parsing through bad-faith or less-useful critiques or otherwise trying to balance things
really has been a hard knot to parse. Again, it being this unorthodox really doesn't help things.

At this point it still feels like an ankle bracelet not taken off even after parole is over in that regard - Everyone
else is done and I'm still here. It'll be nice to breathe after this thing is out.


----

On a semi-ajacent note, just because I have a lot of yap to say about this map does not mean it's the
best map in this WAD, likely not even on my personal list if I ever have time to play through the whole mapset
myself, nor do I recall doing as such at any point. I'm just far too acquainted with it after it's consumed
much of my time among other things, and I'm too detail-oriented to have a good barometer of when to shut up lol.

Ngl, I wouldn't even say this is the best all-round sizable/adventurous map that I've worked on overall (with this
ofc being collaborative and better for it imo.) If this is just too big to be reasonable, I've done similar
and in many-cases probably some better-executed and definitely shorter things on my end in:
- My 30 Sectors (currently inactive) map from 2023 (Puzzle-focused doodad w' slaughter combat puzzles)
- My Ship of Theseus II map (Map done, WAD in development) from 2025 (still very abstract, but reigned in)
- My TropicHell map from 2025 (Straightforward map with a few puzzly bits, has doomcutey designing, etc;
  most continually proud of this one tbh and would consider this my singularly best map, thanks to Lilywaves.)


Even without factoring in the flaws of this map at many corners (of which I am in good-part at fault,) it is
much more about the experience than the destination, and not everyone is comfortable sitting in that, nor
enjoys that sort of thing in practice, especially in this ones droning excess.

This map doesn't need to be everybodys favorite, let alone a majority of peoples favorite - if this thing
has brought enjoyment, a spiritual or somewhat positive unique experience, etc to a handful of people,
the experiment was not a failure. If not, it was still an experiment, and the results showing what works here
and what doesn't is more than enough. Hopefully someone someday plays this and sees through all the noise
to take what makes it work for that handful and make a much more palletable and generally good experience
for at least a larger amount of people.


Overall, more succinctly I'll say this:
- RC1s version kinda sucked, but had some promise hidden in the underrefinement.
- RC3-iDGames release version is still a bit overambitious, probably more so than RC1s, but overall I'm
  quite satisfied, and think it turned out about as well as it could especially given its rocky dev. history.
- I'd love to do something similar at some point, albeit probably more like half the length, and definitely
  with more focus. The process would need to different regardless.

Hopefully maybe even you yourself reading this find or have found something in this map that made it worthwhile.

Again, this map is cursed, but I hope it brings you blessings.






















































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

                            /\==========================================/\
                    /\==========================================================/\
            /\==========================================================================/\
    /\==========================================================================================/\
<>__________________________________________________________________________________________________<>

                
                  S C A L P E L    T O    A   S T A C K    O F    H A Y B A L E S


          (The original RC1 text file contents, but updated to be up-to-date when applicable,
                 including new history from post. RC1 to around RC3 and pre-iDGames.
                   Many people have found this to be obnoxious to parse, even those
                 who have enjoyed the map itself, so don't say I didn't warn you. :V)

                    [Here's hoping this at least serves for historical purposes for
                   the parts directly regarding the projects history if nothing else.
                 A few bits are written in the present-tense from RC1 and before as well,
                                  but are kept as-is for those reasons.]


<>__________________________________________________________________________________________________<>
    \/==========================================================================================\/
            \/==========================================================================\/
                    \/==========================================================\/
                            \/==========================================\/





MAP32 : Hang On To Each Other, Like Pigeons In The Rain

AnArchaicApparatus (yaps for eternity):

THEE MAP32 MANIFESTO COMETH



Hello, it is I, AAA - I led this map, and this map probably has one of if not the longest
ongoing development history of any of the maps in this project, which shouldn't be surprising
given how absurdly giga- this megamap is, regardless of how relatively crude a lot of this map
(especially my parts) can look contrasted to the rest of the WADs map experiences.

(Not that I'm dissatisfied with the results, but I'm glad to... hopefully...
be off of Mr. Bones' wild ride with this one. It's been a long more-than-a-year.)


--

Anyways, Before I begin yapping, many thanks to all the folks who were involved
with the creation of this map! Even if I headed the thing, tweaked stuff around a smidge,
made a good bit of stuff from scratch to help tie stuff together, etc, this map wouldn't
be anywhere near as special without ya'll!


Folks who contributed main segments:
- SomeSpoonyBard
- minimedals
- Isabella Dio
- Hebonky
- Lilywaves
- Dusty_Rhodes
- GlowyLikesDoom

Folks who contributed chunks that got integrated into other segments (crediting's messy here)
- DemonicMeatball (integrated into Glowys section)

Cameos From-This-WAD Map Appearences:
- MyNameIsChair
- Razza

Cameo from beyond this realm:
- The Almighty Egg (map segment from 1 Sector Community Project)


You folks did great, and hopefully ya'll get some recognition and go neat places, etc.

Their statements were originally buried a bit in earlier released versions, which has been ammended here.



Bonus thanks for people not directly involved in the maps creation that provided constructive feedback
and led to betterment of thee-big-weird (TM) - some enjoying, others more critical, but all mentioned
being helpful in the end. 

Streams (pretty much playtesting; RC1-2 players giving a good over-the-shoulder look to tweak from):
- Vortale (RC1)
- John Suitepea (RC2; same as RC1)
- Professor Bloom (Played through RC4 other than MAP31-32 on stream; I'm hoping to see him play through
                   this wacky sidetrack of a map w' 31 as well after we go to iDGames soon-as-of-writng,
                   but if not, at least he obliged the rest of the WAD; 'Gave us all something to look
                   forward to.)

Writeups:
- Arsinikk (RC1)
- FlyingGoner (RC1-2 or so; identical again)
- Lord Biscuit The Tossable (RC1-3)

Playtesting:
- No-Man Baugh (RC3 pre-drop)
- Gera (RC3 post-drop)



...as well as any others not mentioned, or that I've forgotten over the all-consuming '25 especially.



<>________________________________________________________________<>

Note: All of these were done before the swap to MAP32, let alone MAP33, so some of these referred to the map by its
original slot; This has been left as-is, so just remembah dat. :U


--------
Lilywaves (Dark forest area)

"I wanted to do something like Grove but that was obviously too ambitious.
It ended up being just a short thingy in the woods with a small base in between.
I liked working with pure darkness, that's not something I usually do. Have fun :)"


-------- 
minimedals (Segment [Blue Key Gantlet section]):

"This was actually the first map that got submitted for Nova 4! My original slot was taken by someone else due
to a logistical mishap regarding the sheer amount of people who wanted slots when the project was first announced,
but when a space in Map33 opened up, this level just kinda naturally fit in. I'm pretty fine with how it turned out,
albeit the visuals haven't really aged well for my standards. I mean, just look at the tree in the center, for example.
Besides that, though, it was super short. However, I feel like in a map such as this, it slots in better that way.

I'd give a little more info about the development of the map here, but it's been over a year since I worked on it,
so any fun tid-bits are completely lost on my brain. The passage of time has consumed my memories as will it yours,
as the mind is just a fallible block of tofu squishing around inside the skull. (I do not condone squishing
your brain around in your skull, as that would likely be some kind of medical emergency. A brain herniation?)

This map (well, I suppose it's just a section of a map now) is weird, old, and kinda bad, but that what makes
it somewhat charming to me. You're playing Nova 4, you're probably used to weird beginner jank.
Isn't that what you're here for? You didn't come here for Eviternity 3, you're here for that Good kind of weird.
The odd choices made by newbies to the mapping sphere.

Anyways, enjoy the funny curve line tool staircase. Something, something, have fun with Map33."


-------- 
Dusty_Rhodes (Segment [Blue Key Gantlet section]):

I made the large canyon section and outdoor part of the castle. I was shooting for something
dramatic and mean - looking. I'd never made a spooky looking Doom map, but that was the slot,
so I tried to make something imposing. The cave ambush was my idea, but the monster placement,
most of the lighting, and all the small details are Anarchic Apparatus'.

They also did the castle interiors. I'm pretty proud of the sections I did do, and
I think the idea I had was delivered well.


--------   
Hebonky (Segment [Blue Key Gantlet section])

It's a slaughter fight!


--------
Some Spoony Bard  (Basis of the red key area [Is ours, must be a communisms - AAA]):

My section of the map, the large 'Speed'-looking area suspended over a pit of lava,
came to me in a dream. While there were other parts to the map, that was the
only part that survived in my memory when I woke up. However, I only had a rough idea of the layout,
and how it would actually work in a gameplay sense was not something my unconscious mind could
reasonably come up with. ArchaicApparatus deserves the credit for giving it proper shape on this one.
I also contributed to the music a little with a hard left away from where AA was taking it, lol.
(With their encouragement, ofc)


--------
Razza (Cameo lil ambient section):

I initially wanted to make a secret fight that took place in a version of the starting area
that was all dried out or was more of a regular "fire and brimstone" type of hell, but
the map was already much larger than I had originally planned, so I didn't bother making it.

However, now that idea gets to live on thanks to AAA, and I'm really happy with the job they did.


--------
HiMyNameisChair (Cameo lil ambient section):

I donated a small chunk of my map for Map 16 as a little break/light puzzle section.
AnArchaicApparatus transformed it into a timeskipped/ ruined version of the the Yellow key path from my Map08,
and it turned out great!  They really did a great job with it!


--------
The Almighty Egg (Cameo lil ambient section; taken from their map in 1 Sector Community Project):

"Down, down, down the water you go..."



--------
Isabella said she didn't have much to say, and as-of-writing, neither Demonic Meatball nor Glowy have
given responses/comments.















<>________________________________________________________________<>
Note from Pre-RC1, regarding map placement:


As of time of writing this, we made a decision to hurl MAP33 in an extra-secret slot, given the
controversy with some people finding the map to be too taxing, boring, excessive, etc.

We were bantying about for a while as to where the map should go, since it kinda threw a wrench
in the balance for various reasons (including the fact that it was the first map from the selectable
episode until within the last few weeks before public RC.) One idea was to just move this map to the
end of the episode, which would've made Cutmans map not line up with Episode 4s theming if taken to the
super-final slot, and made the, "Magnum opus style maps to the end of the WAD, people!" thing a bit
more overloaded, etc. Another was to just swap places of E2 & E3* and put it in the very last slot,
though that was more due to the streak of harder maps in E2; I was mostly in favor of this one, especially
due to the semi-selfish reason of thinking it'd be cool to have it be like Megiddo III, as a big collab
in the center of the WAD that was a bit less extreme in difficulty than previous secret/end-WAD Megiddos,
though it still had the issue w' Cutmans map, among other things.

After someone really hated playing through it, Novaseer and I quickly decided just to have it in a secret slot,
pretty much at the same time (it seemed almost inevitable, and I don't remember if anyone suggested it before,)
and someone got Reverie in the server to replace the original slot, so absolute win.)

Now the main magnum opus journey of the episode is Alephanys map, which actually fits the episode theming
to a tee, so things look like they're taking a more organic shape anyways.

Major thanks to Chair for picking up the responsibility for having her map warp to this one as a secret,
especially since she was one of the main proponents of the map among the people who've tested it in its
early assembled state.

If I refer to this as MAP16 in the present/future tense in any way, shape, or form, blame me for not fully
proof-reading the lil last-minute changes in the .txt that I wrote this in, and kinda just
doing a half-assed ctrl + f thing.



*As-of now, Thunder And Earth is Episode 2, and The Thousand Echoes is Episode 3.
It is currently 21st of April, and I don't know if that'll still be the case by the end of this.





----
Note from Post-RC3, regarding map placement and surrounding stuff:

Reasonings for the changes aside, I will thank Novaseer for how the new arrangement of MAP08 --> MAP31 --> MAP32
arrangement ended up going. I recall that being due to MAP32s absurd length and length of its absurdity,
etc, but I think other than map-to-map flow and pacing, it also added an excellent opportunity
to expand its story elements and so on.

He also let me rewrite the story texts coming into both MAP31 and MAP32, which I hope helps tie stuff
together further and tell an interesting story.

The main kind of way I see it is:
MAP08 - An elegent place hiding its own secrets, including a gateway to forbidden realms
MAP31 - Largely clear, yet mixed around memories. Familiar, but not quite - somewhat warm but with
        a hard-to-pinpoint feeling that something is wrong.
MAP32 - A screaming feverish mess of guilt and familiar, unfamiliar, and yet-to-be-familiarized with places...
        even the most hardened and internally prepared for sheer terror and incomprehensible evil have their limits.
        What abstractions are a product of hells or otherwise cosmic forces, or are of our protagonists
        mind splitting twain after the un-inevitable horrors that he and others failed to stop soon enough,
        all the countless innocents lost and corrupted, all the way down to the deliberate targeting
        of defenseless creatures by Hells forces... it might never be clear, even if there is a way out...
        and if there is one, then the only way out is through.


SSGMaster was the one that made the DAISY puzzle in MAP31 initially, and I added the visual flares
and the following sequence. I find his contribution there simple, but quite clever.

I've seen reports that it wasn't perfect, since SSGMasters map is not an ultra-tiny doozie,
making it still ABSURDLY-HUGE-map after kinda-long-map after long-map, but  for better of for worse,
that's honestly kinda the NOVA IV experience baybee.








<>________________________________________________________________<>
Strictly Personal:


To start from before the beginning of NOVA IV, just as a personal mapping/Doom background,
I've actually been mapping for a good while, starting around very crudely in 2014, when I was
around 12 or so, not too long after having downloaded GZDoom and getting my hands on the IWADs
thanks to TotalBiscuits video on Brutal Doom (may he rest in peace.)

For all that time, I kept pecking around at making personal WADs that never saw the light
of day, often abandoning them before finishing a map, trying new stuff and learning how
to do stuff, like shoving in blends of custom textures, graphics, etc. The closest exception
is the screenshots of a WAD that I'm still working on that I shoved into the, "I wanna see
your WADs!" thread on two occasions, and plan to still work on even if various parts are
not up to par anymore. :V


The first time I actually got something out in a public WAD was in a thing around 2022,
when the creator of a thingamajig wanted a few folks to fill out some slots since they
didn't have time, etc. I made two maps for it: the first being my first speedmap,
made in under 48 hours, and showcasing a good bit of 90's-isms that I was starting to develop,
namely eclectic texturing, tight hallways, and relatively low detailing, and the second
being something I slacked on a whole bunch.

Since then, I threw a few things at various community projects whenever I felt like it, a good handful
being similar sorts of speedmaps.

Also, as an aside if any of ya'll map but haven't tried doing speedmaps, do it!!!! It's really fun!
Whether it's a similar kind of driveby-mapping thing for random community projects that are a bit
peckish for mappers, or a more formalized speedmapping-focused group/series like PUSS (I made a
PTWID map, it was big fun, and it's a really cool place anyways,) get off to the races when ya
get the time, you'll be glad ya did! It def helps a lot with actually getting maps finished,
even if it's not the speedmaps specifically.



TLDR: I'm technically not a newbie myself, since I've been screwing around with mapping stuff since
just before Valiant came out, so I've probably been mapping for longer than most folks contributing!
What I am still new to is actually intermingling with the community and releasing stuff though, and
am still nowhere near as good as a significant handful of folks in here especially at making glorious
setpieces and stuff like that, among other things. Lots of talent going around with this installment!





<>________________________________________________________________<>

Strictly [NOVA IV (background stuff)]:


On January/10/2024, Obake (thanks to Scotty) showed up with a thread kinda out-of-the-blue
for NOVA IV, and before ya could blink, the place was packed, and not even a day passed
before there were no slots left unclaimed. I got there just in the nick of time to fall
between the dock and the ship, but Obake had the graciousness to let me come aboard
through the MIDI cargo-bay as a stoaway (many thanks once again.)

Since that point, I loitered in the server, offering MIDI junk, being the first playtester
(for a map and a fragment that both didn't make the cut, but were neat-o,) made a prototype of
the status bar within the first few days (which I reworked a good bit months later to the
final version ya see in the WAD,) talking to folka bout whatchamafudgeits, etc, usually kinda
just having spikes of activity for a day or a few, then dipping for a good while.


On the 7th of September, I was floating taking a slot if someone dropped out & I got the time
after playtesting the backlog for maps in 1 Sector Community Project that I'd stumbled
into being the main tester for, to which Spoony mentioned that they had a dream featuring
going through a segment of map with, "aesthetics ... kinda like Sunder MAP12." which
gave me the idea of making whatever map I might be involved with be a collaborative
thing.

Around nine days later, Novaseer bopped me on the head with the news that MAP16 was vacated,
as was to happen with a good handful of maps as people sitting on their slots or were just
a bit overburdened or losing juice elsewise to finish what they started got off the pot.
I started brainstorming a bit more in the direction that stuff would end up going,
as, "ALT-esque kinda blend ...(of)... smaller contributions together into a whole."
to which Obake confirmed the slot the morning after, and okay'ed the whole dealio.

A week later, I made a thread on Doomworld to invite outside mappers in,
and potentially outside MIDI makers to throw some eclectic musics as well (which
barely manifested, with Spooney being the only contributor to the MIDI other than myself.)                                     	
One thing about the collaborative part, to tie it into the start of things, is that a lot of
other folks were in the same missing-the-boat situation, and everybody (wants to be a cat)
wants to join le (admittedly once-much-more-humble) big ole newbie-WAD, innit? Regardless,
again, I hoped & still hope this gives the folks involved an extra lil bump, especially
since everyone cooked some real cool stuff for this.

Also on that note, before going onto the map itself, that's how Lily and Dusty got their own
slots as well, since between the start of this map & the first release candidate, folks
dropped out last-minute as was expected, so the contributors to this map was a fresh
pool of folks already interested in mapping for the project, so I asked everyone
not-already-with-a-slot who was involved (except Isabella, due to computer stuff & other bits,)
and they both obliged, so thanks to both of ya'll for coming in to smooth this last leg of
the project a bit.



----------
RC1 to RC3:

I already noted this whole bit in my apology-post for the hangups I was involved in for the project,
and it's probably as best as I can write it (especially since it's currently late December 2025 as I'm
actually finishing the final/nearly-final writeup, and I can already feel my brain trying to repress stuff.)
Hence, here it all is unabridged and largely unmodified, other than reformatting from Doomworld. 




May/04/2025 to July/10/2025:
I start working on fixing various-sized issues immediately after either I watch Vortales VOD not-live,
or Gothic drops their segment; It seems alright for a bit, and then it just begins to turn into a slog,
I keep changing new things, and my main issue that I've been trying to make everything as good as possible,
take in every little thing into account, and it just piles up and I just start running out of anti-burnout
after having already worked on things for months on end before RC1 and just continuing to go and go without
any break, and it gets to the point where I might just make one relatively small change a night sometimes.
It is a big map, after all, and being relatively low-detail doesn't help when most of the issues
are in mechanics and so on!

Also, topical to the, "Nova = newer mappers," thing, this is the first time I ever had a spotlight
shined this widely on anything I've ever worked on for Doom mapping stuff, and all those criticisms
ranging from constructive to beyond-worthless heckling just added up overtime, especially when this map
straddles a line of being highly experimental in a lot of ways & in some ways overly-traditionally-based
in others, it's been a nightmare to cross all those wires to make the map as legitimately good as possible,
even if it'll never satisfy everyone.

As stuff went into arount mid-June through July, I started saying that I'd get it done soon, It'd be done
in a week, no- next week, n- and then it kept looping like that... and the thing is, I legitimately
thought that! That's what it felt, that's what it looked like given what I had to hand, but I just
kept finding things wrong, or adding new stuff to not necessarily de-bork things with, and then-

--
July/10 to 30/2025:

Mostly dissociating from the project & slamming gears into working on my map for TropicHell;
I thought I could juggle this and still get the map ready, since I had it almost all servicable
other than a few smaller bits... and then RC2 just hit, and I was stuck with an almost ready piece.

-- 
August/01/2025 to October/19/2025:

A slide from burnout, to finishing my stuff for other projects, to doing MAP11s reworks to ease me back into things.

Immediately after RC2 dropped, I was pretty much full of dread and burnout and just kind of crashed.
I don't remember what if anything I even worked at other than TropicHell duties for a bit, and probably
my one PYDD-tex demonstration segment.

After a bit, I got back to work entirely on my Ship of Theseus II map, which I was still running at a crawl
with almost the whole time, then got a quick bunch of it done suddenly in a short time, and let this direct
copy/paste from 25/August of what I said in the SoTII project channel right after my first run-through
that map do the talking:

	[Quote]
	"First attempt finished, to-fix list compiled.

	Given that I'm probably gonna have a presentable build by the
	next day or so if things keep up, I'm gonna have to use this
	quote way too many fucking times to go along with how my progress
	on a lot of things has been all-encompassingly hellish for various
	things over the past few months in general:"

    		[pic] "There are decades where nothing happens;
		and there are weeks where decades happen." 
	
	I shoulda been done within the first week of this month tops,
	but a few scattered nights have been hella productive, and with
	tonights kick-in-the-ass, the goalposts are in sight. Development here
	has been a slump outside of my gross-tardiness, but my apologies regardless.

and thxn I did an extra segment for PYDD-tex, then MAP11, and I was starting to get back into it.

--
October/19/2025 to 12/November/2025:

I was finally back to working at MAP32, got back to full-time working at the Glowy-retool section first,
and stuff was actually going pretty good surprisingly enough.

On the 25th of October, Novaseer announced the due date for RC3 to be 14/November.

I then went into overdrive, accentuating the already-long-habitual staying up until 4:00 AM
drinking multiple sups of coffee each night until I pass out, and got pretty much everything done
in somewhat good time by the 12th... and in the whole of this journey, I think I only
playtested the map front-to-back TWICE the whole time myself! TWICE!!!! Sweet lord!

Thankfully, I then got to have my first in-Discord-call playtester on the night of the 12th...
out of the entire development of this map! I never got sufficient playtesting for the map
in an optimal fashion literally after RC1 was dropped, and streamers did their thing! Good god!

The rest of that time was addressing what few issues were found so far, and cramming CWILVs,
re-assembling MIDI-Giddo (thanks to Spoony for last-minute technical help,) and other resource duties,
all into the previous two days.

Anyways, this reaches right now.





(The above excerpt was written 15/November/2025)








<>________________________________________________________________<>

Strictly [THE GOSH DURN MAP ALREADY!!!!!]:


Since my original files that I was working with around the start of working on stuff were
on a flash-drive that started to shart itself, so I transfered it into its own directory
called, "Flash Drive Jankery," in my on-desktop Zandronum folder, I'm gonna be basing some
early info on searching through Discord DMs for reference point for some stuff, especially
since my brain has been fried from working on this almost exclusively for a few months straight.*

Also, for the sake of being a bit less confusing, this'll all be one section at a time in-detail
instead of linearly-with-when-stuff-was-worked-on.



*Update: As-of the end of working on it for RC2, oh my god it's mid-July, I've been working
on tweaks for the RC2 version for around two and a half months, and it's soon gonna be
a year of involvement with this map in general - much sooner than I even thought.

Oh my fucking god.

I'm so tired.


a



----

Quick note from AAA regarding collaborative bits:


I was gonna do some play-by-plays for everyones stuff in its own section(s), but
I done yapped enough, and most that I got is semantic when-this-or-that-was-done
kinds of stuff, cos Idfk anyones thought process other than notes in DMs and stuff,
and only so much is reasonable to share.

The main gist of stuff is that pretty much everyone took longer than the original
deadline (other than minimedals; whos segment was snatched from an early map submission,)
but it was a kinda stupidly short one if I remember correctly. Since then,
everyone turned their stuff in to some degree or another, I tweaked and worked with
whatever either could use a smidgen to aid what's already good or needed a good bit
of handiwork and/or additions due to certain mappers not having time or otherwise,
and everything turned out well, especially with the kinda inevitable extension for
the project as a whole given all the dropouts piling up.


One of the things I kinda regretted in communicating (among other bits of me being
stupid or naggy or whatever) is that maybe I shouldn't have even stated the
episode theme.

The main thing I was aiming for with this map was a pure, kinda free-flowing
grab-bag trip of a map in terms of themes, aesthetics, gameplay styles, and overall
flavors of stuff, with everyone just doing whatever they want (within reason,
as-in not making something impenitrable for players.) If that were to have happened
the way I was kinda crossing my fingers for a little more, I still prolly would have
done some of the psychological-horror spookyness that wound up in the final result,
but yeah.

Regardless, there was still a good bit of variety, just not any really experimental
stuff, but assuming that there would be even a single example of such was kinda jank.
There's a few slaughter bits, kinda different but not really contradictory themes
(Dusty and Gothic technically made two variations of castle! Both very different
flavors/executions, but it's still kinda funny,) and so on. Hopefully my madness
added some freak to the mix that wasn't too much or too little.

Anyways, excellent contributions from everyone involved, very good experience
all-in-all, everyone was as cooporative as they needed to be, and it seems like
everything kinda fit together nice and snugly, and everyones stuff not being
too freaky probably helped make that the case in the end, especially when fit in
with other maps in the set. 

(Note from RC1 feedback: At least one person that I asked in the process
confirmed that having some less-abstract segments helped keep things palletable,
so yippee for that.)

Maybe I'll try to redo this general collab concept in the future, and try to really
hammer in the crazy eclecticism/exquisite corpse idea, but that's to be seen, and
it prolly won't be too soon.






As a general rule, if there's no credit on something, or have implied credit like the
various uses of Isabellas section in different permutations, it was probably done by me.


<>________________________________________________________________<>
Starting area:

The lower section was the first thing I ever made for this map, inspired a bit by
the start of MAP04 from Momento Mori II, with four pillars coming down for coop starts.
Also, orthogonal 64-wide stuff, so kinda still in the spirit regardless. The lil hard-to-see
door lit by a candle was def an Odessa thing, kinda to subtly signal that the map ahead is gonna
be a little less on-kilter than what you've been through.

During development around RC2s drop, I recall starting up the section going down
into the music changer area, initialy to just swap between Simon Ferocious and Skeleton Bard
to have the, "unbridled wackadoo," versus, "less crazy," MIDI options, and to have the early exit.
It began to develop further, and I added the disclaimer and all that kind of thing, made it
mandatory to take a look down for a moment and check said disclaimer before going through the map,
etc.

Idk what inspired the way-up specifically other than playing with the editor, and finding out
that ya can actually go through 48-wide spaces through the more absurdly-tight spaces of various
maps from Obituary, and just stacking stuff for funzies, then adding layers of interactive junk
and a pinch of voodoo, etc. For the longest time, the Sigil-eye secret wasn't given an actual
reward, and it was just the mechanism to get over there, and the non-secret enemies weren't there
either.


----
HUB area:

Not much to explain w' the next layer. Combat puzzles are cool. Also, I wanted cacos flying over
fences, that too.


The 64-wide maze was pretty much just what I defaulted to after scribbling the previous area,
and the upper area before adding weird floor-height forms to it, to contrast from the
less-compact'ness of the overall space. At some point, I wanted to have the wall come down &
jumpscare the player with a baron or some low-tiers appear from said wall, w' the current
Revenant placement having a Baron, etc.

--
Originally the maze also had a few different optional areas to go to, a few added and remove throughout dev.:
- "First map lol," section with two barely-tweaked first-maps from participants,
  being myself and another contributor.
- An area inspired by part of a Laura Beyers Doom map, with hurtfloor on a stairway being
  weirdly marked with torches. There was a period where it was attached to the Cacos + Hell Nobles
  combat puzzle now mandatory and hooked up to the Lost Episodes tribute thing, and was still
  not mandatory,
- The Lost Episodes tribute thing itself on its own, albeit with a teleporter hidden in the skull pillar
- A series of very simple and compact 1-2 sector rooms with different texture palettes, one after the other,
  all conforming to the contours of various now-blank areas in-between different parts branching from the
  north of the hub

Some of these swapped where they were, or were in different places of the hub as things went on, but eventually
given stuff like Suitepea not coming into contact with all the original areas & missing a good bit of enemies
as a result, plus the map already being absurdly expansive, I just removed them all. Pretty much the same reason
as I eventually replaced the conventional secrets with, "It's a secret to everyone," signs.
--

The first bit I did branching out from the main part of the HUB was the red-key-section entry area,
since I got Spoonys drawn template and info first, and built off towards the weird liminal'ized version
of their thing as soon as I built stuff up to there, with the paper sketch as stated before.

The first optional area made was the Archvile + Delinquent red-key fakeout. This was originally 
gonna go along with enemies teleporting in after exiting the maze, so that they'd resurrect said enemies,
but for the longest time they just teleported to the exit of the maze instead. That whole thing was gonna
tie in with the teleporters as a, "back-and-forth," lil fight gimmick, but that's still pretty much just
a little ornimental weirdness. Only recently-ish (~RC2-3) did I add that one of them went down to resurrect
cacos and so on, and that they're replaced by Pain Elementals (more annoying, less harmful,) on HMP.



--
The blue key route was added after I actually got the applicable submissions, just like how I slacked
off and just pecked at me and Spoonys section until then, cos I didn't wanna just do random stuff
and have it not compliment everyones stuff as well as I could, plus I didn't know where
which submissions were gonna fit best. 

As mentioned before, the simple, "different wall lol," puzzle thing was very-much a lower-level Odessa
puzzle, though here is a pretty straight-forward demonstration of a thing that I've been doing
throughout this map & various other maps: lock-in puzzles.
Something I especially learned with one little moment playing through Odessa 6 is that if a map is pretty 
open-ended and allows roaming around, it can be very easy to accidentally miss a single thing, then
bumblefuck around the whole map for a good while and not figure something out, even if it's really simple. 
In my case, it was a lift puzzle to get a yellow key, where I was wondering if it was a Hexen moment
where there was a switch to lower the key platform somewhere else in the map, meanwhile it was just
a case of, "go through this thing, and keep your ears out for the platform lowering as a lift." 
Ever since then, I've made every mandatory puzzle a lock-in situation kinda like lock-in combat puzzles,
even if it's kinda stupid or simple, cos leaving a combat puzzle area often results in being able 
to cheese it with infighting & go back in for stragglers, meanwhile doing the same with a puzzle
can easily result in the kinds of much-less-desirable scenario mentioned above.

As mentioned before, this teleport-gantlet is very much inspired by that from Recall by Maddzi from ALT.
In this case though, all the teleporters are able to be done in whatever order the player wants before
the teleporter that goes to the fusion/shooting gallery, the blue key itself, etc, as well as each
segment being accompanied by its own little no-monsters break/atmospheric thing.

Again, pretty much this whole map has a lot of ALT inspiration in it, with the surrealism and eclecticism
being the main obvious element. With the, "Russian Realism," lighting stuff though, where shadows are
cast from a consistent angle on a whole section of map, it is shown in some cool spots in that Maddzi
map of course, though the first thing that made me go, "holy crap, that's cool," regarding that was
the lunar episode of Valiant, which I never played through cos I've always sucked at finishing playing WADs,
so I just warped to those levels to see the visuals and hear the music of when I was a kid.

The three-bunnies thing was added a good bit later in dev probably after RC2 dropped.

--


The medkit room was just more fill-the-space-with-something-interesting stuff, with an easy way to grab
health instead of scavanging, and an easy way to get another variation of mini-puzzle in there.


One area that I removed was a little techbase-ish area where the player could:
- Hit a switch to go through two opposite wall-doors in the hall leading up to the blue key section
  and access two teleporters, both initially intended to showcase spots that I thought were cool but
  otherwise had little way to let the player really explore:
  > The optional area in Lilys section that's now past the open gate, with the soulsphere and a bit of combat
  > The spot that the player teleports to near the end of Dustys section, which I instead made mandatory
    as part of the section
- Access either a red or blue door in order to get a bit of extra ammo, adding to the secret tally
  if they remembered to come back later


What I really wanted to do in an earlier idea was have the place teleporting from there to use
scrolling purple-marble-face textures, and mainly be a lil gantlet with a scrolling-floor puzzle,
which would reveal the path on a platforming section that'd maybe go to a sub-section with larger
platforms and light combat, then go to the original end fight section. That light-combat-on-platforming
idea was reused for the shooting-gallary-out-of-bounds thing, and it's probably for the better that
this section of the map turned out this way instead of going extra-full-hog.





<>________________________________________________________________<>
Razzas section:

This was an excerpt of their suggestion when I was working on the red key section (details later.)
I had to reduce the vertex count a lot to fit in the map snugly, and that I listened to a good bit of
Forgotten Weapons vids related to WWI auto-loader gun prototypes while working on part of it.
The dried-out/abandoned thing was already Razzas idea, as noted in their short commentary in this file.

Later on, I of course changed it to be after Lilys section and before revealing the main hub w' a light combat puzzle.
The main reasoning at the time was probably a mix of making the red section less absurdly long, to get the player a
bit more used to the dreamlike warp-from-place-to-place flow, etc. The puzzle was around the same time, since I was
still in a puzzling mood and felt the map could use more variety and depth in that regard, so that also added,
"give the player a slight warning for mild obscurity before going too far," to the list of functions.

Notes on the other cameo-ish sections in this vein are left in the red key section below.


<>________________________________________________________________<>
Spoony + AAA collab thing:

...Right after getting the slot, I asked Spoony if he had a reference for the
thing he saw in his dreams, to which he provided a visual sketch. I didn't ask what the
specific bits that weren't clarified were for, cos I didn't wanna bug em.
He said in his dream it looked kinda like MAP12 of Sunder or Speed from Plutonia visuals-wise.

I don't remember if I had the idea around that time, or as I pecked at the HUB area,
but at some time before getting Spoonys mapped-out re-sketch of it, I realized whatever
I did in transferring it from paper to map, not seeing what Spoony saw in his dream directly,
there would inevitably be some degree of incongruence with what he would recreate, and
how I'd interpret the lines and markings, so I did the crude recreation that leads to
our section, and just textured it & interpreted it very loosely, and pretty much stopped
just before the lil hazard-puzzle maze, which was made relatively early on.

Since I was kinda dickinoffski with other stuff & waiting until other folks finished their sections
to proceed, it was a month later that I asked Spoony if he did the sketch in WAD form, to which
he provided, and I started fiddling around with soon-after, making the whole thing taller, adding
some details, carving out a space and thinking of how stuff would flow, etc, and one of the first
ideas was that it'd loop around & back to the building, with the lava being a hazard for a good
while, though at that time I had absolutely no clue how far our segment would be added to.



The main thing with this whole section as a whole is that... well, why is it so stupidly long on its own?

The answer is I had no self control, and kept adding stuff while waiting for segments to come in,
pretty much to keep myself busy.



I kept adding more and more stuff whenever an idea popped into my head, and this thingamafudgeit
is the result. Certain small details like the Arachnos right near the end of the section, the Baron up
the lift, some sort of monster cluster (Imps originally on all skills instead of Hell Knights on UV)
above the main area, etc, stayed faithful, but for the most part the main stuff that remained are
the overall general architecture of what Spoony did (made more vertical & with a few added details,)
and stuff kept mutating out of the walls and the floors and everwhere until it became this thing.

Since it also got to be such a straight-line linear backalley experience exclusively though,
the only things I've played just a bit before then that might've contributed to me not going,
"STOP!!! This is gonna be a big ole' trudger!" are The Ana's Dream and some maps from The Darkening 2-
the former turning into a, "run for the switch!," fest over-and-over, and the latter almost turning
into having a proto-Scythe-X fast b-line flow with said maps.





Here's all the section-portion-specific bits in-order-of-play, also mostly in-order of creation:

- The fleshy maze was originally made as an archvile maze back in late November of 2024, as a mutation
  of Spoonys idea/dream recollection, where it was originally just straight-up inside the kinda building area,
  and too big for what the space would actually be suitable for/allow because dream logic, hence the non-euclidean
  connector workaround. With this, the form was pretty much just done by throwing a bunch of shapes together
  indiscriminantly with that monotexture look, and fiddling with sector brightnesses and heights
  until it looked good nuff. Also, the three-switches thing with their markers right beforehand was to
  make it a bit more interesting on replays, and the markers to let any potential speedrunners see what spot
  they need to run to.
  > With a few criticisms being aligned at this though, including one along the lines of, "it's Hunted but worse,"
    instead of removing the maze entirely, I reworked it to be a loose collection of various different monsters
    thrown around instead of a bajillion archies, and added lots of barrels to add both a different hazard,
    and make grinding through there to find the switch a lot more tolerable. Maybe not the best way, but
    I think it works alright enough.
  > On 24/March/2026, I fiddled with the visuals to be a bit less monotonous, namely adding more detail and
    variation to the lighting, having the sky in the open-up spots, and the green coloring in the switch cubbies
    to make things more legible.

- The teleport at the door to the hint-area here was a last-minute workaround to the fact that
  people were getting confused with the patterned-floor-and-health/armor-bonuses puzzle thing,
  and this was all I could think of.
  > At this point I was kinda riding off the, "Hmmm yes, doomy puzzles are cool,,," high of making a map for
    30 Sectors focused on environmental & combat puzzles, and was kinda just trying whatever, of course
    with mixed results like this - in this case kinda being more just a lil gimmick than anything

- The following room was done w'out the non-euclidean connector thing early on, including the
  stairs. The lift puzzle thing was supposed to be the demonstration of the, "health bonus orange
  floor good," thing, but that wasn't good enough, so the crusher was added in the room to demonstrate
  the principle just shown off.
  The tight-hall thing had a hell knight popup instead, which was nerfed later, later-still given the gargoyle
  thing, etc.

- With the floors-coming-out-of-lava thing, Idk what inspired it other than maybe trying to do one of
  them fancy platforming things, but more dynamic & Voodoo-fun infused, though the ultra-linear,
  "smack a buncha switches, have a thing happen" aspect (again) was probably inspired by playing The Ana's Dream -
  a weird 90's thing where that's pretty much the whole map - and had a lot of surreal, cool custom graphics.
  The lil non-euclidean side area was done much later to add some optional'ness and replayability that
  the whole section was sorely lacking with what I did to it - and it still could really use more of.

- Idk what the switch puzzle thing was inspired by, though the right-answer stuff is supposed to be RGB.
  Over-time I also had to make it more obvious with more signifiers and such.


- The end of the lava was originally not shut off by bars, and I shoved a bunch of radsuits everywhere
  on HNTR to the point that ya could barely see the lava as a half-joke. This was a bit jank for progression
  & still easy to cheese if ya had health, so I added bars.
  > After a few versions, I added the circling-back part so that the player is garenteed to see & kill the
    chaingunners in their cubby, and because the lava-turns-to-water idea felt a need to exist, and I replaced
    the bars with raising blood and tar.

- The tunnel was originally just the same on both sides of the teleport, but the illusion was broken
  by enemy projectiles + the lil, "jump," that silent teleports often have, so I changed one side a bit.

- The weirdly-linked doors was something I reused from my puzzle-map contribution to 30 Sectors
  Community Project, where there it came from circumstance, and here it just happened for funzies.
  Also, extra optional stuff for the ammo room & fight, cos stuff was already feeling very linear
  at the time this was being made, and I wanted something less mandatory.

- The Hell knight blockade thing was something I've wanted to do for a while, similar to a few fights
  from MAP10 of Sunder where the player gets chased through previously-played area by hoards of
  a single enemy, instead of more standard slaughter-ish things where the player can cause infighting
  or find some other thing. Here, it's kinda just bastardized, and they kinda stay in their lil area,
  so I made those extra enemy teleports to keep it from being just a dynamicless grind.
  > Later, the teleporter hint + the fire-wall were also added.


- These lil areas that sample from other folks' maps was based on a suggestion by HiMyNameisChair
  after she tested the map in late January, and pointed out how tiring it was to just play through
  this segment front-to-back, and how it pretty much a, "gauntlet," that went on forever, to which
  she suggested more ambient no-monsters sections like I implimented in the blue key area & in various
  other parts of the map:

  > Chairs section was an excerpt of her suggestion, for having relatively few linedefs and so on.
    I'm not really much of an Eviternity fan (I was nagging about OTEX a good bit in the server
    like a jackass lol,) the torch thing was definitely inspired by a section from MAP01 of Eviternity II,
    it's such a simple (albeit tag-heavy) trick (at least with the torches,) but it's just so cool,
    so I snagged it. I gotta get back on watching Specteres playthrough of Evi-II (I this wrote down
    a year ago and haven't returned to it yet still).
    	+ The double-sided ripped-up flag texture is definitely a blink-and-miss-it lil detail, and kinda shows
    	both the upside & downside to shoving in a new texture mid-working-on-a-thing instead of beforehand:
    	Ya can have a lil cool thing to add an intimate detail somewhere special, but it's gone in a blink and
    	unless ya find a way to integrate it naturally elsewhere, that's extra file space taken up for something
    	so small, though it doesn't really matter much for modern computers and more, "AAA," WADs anyways.
    	Same thing with the shootable switch texture, though that specific part was inspired by an
    	almost-identical puzzle in Odessa 7, unintentionally even down to the yellow skull key (keycard in the
    	Odessa map,) except with light platforming here.

  > As mentioned, Razzas section was in here for a good long while, then got shifted to where it is now in the order.

  > With the previous two (including Razzas) cameo sections, the idea was to have kinda a timeskip, "in-canon,"
    sort of thing that tied everything together a bit. With The Almighty Eggs cameo though, it's not even related
    to the NOVA series at all, but I thought it'd be cool as a, "running gag," since I was gonna add stuff to one
    of my maps in 1 Sector, showed a lil .txt list, and he said, "add reference to hydro ossuary..."
    as a joke, and I did a crude approximation of his map as a lil secret in my map for da funni. When coming
    back to this, I asked if I could use it again but as a cut/paste cameo, and he obliged.

    	+ Also, since this is the third non-sequitor ambient section in the gantlet, rule-of-threes applies I guess.
    	Topical thing, topical thing, curveball. Ofc that part changed when I took Razzas out of the red-section order.
   	Pretty much the only things I changed are swap/remove various textures that are a bit unneeded and otherwise
    	would bloat what I had texture-wise a bit further, and add that fog effect (visible on DSDA and ZDoom-port
    	software.) I was gonna make everything out of multiple sectors, but it would've been tedious as hell,
    	was already causing some issues, would've made the flickering effect not work the same, and would've
    	made it much less special, cos it's one of the best examples of detailing in the WAD (Lots of other cool
    	examples, and really cool maps that arent as impressive with their visual workarounds, but holy hell
    	is Stochastics example excellent, if the WAD is out by the time you're reading this, if ya don't mind
    	spoilers, I advise checking that out if nothing else for what can be done visually with mostly midtexture
    	screwery.)

  > With the techbase thing, I pretty much wanted to make something especially, "suspiciously-normal,"
    to contrast with all the experimental, abstract, and more atmospheric stuff in this map & section,
    so all Doom 2 textures in a Doom 1 style techbase it is!
    Also, one of the first times I actually used colormaps in the development of this maparino.
    The greyscale-to-color thing is kinda obvious as a, "remember these things" kinda thing, which
    ended up compounding with different aspects being added, half-intentionally-half-naturally,
    to the kinda psychological aspects this map ended up having. Same general principle with the
    deep-dark-red spot in the nukage tunnel.
    Also, the abstract area w' the Wolf 3D textures was kinda just me losing ideas and being bored,
    so nonsense it is! Also, I had just done my D!Zone community project entry with a similar abstract
    no-grid kind of idea, and kinda reprised/recontextualized it for here. I was gonna add colormap
    effects here too, but I was lazy, nothing looked as good as I wanted, and I kinda had to
    restrain myself from cheapening the effect too much (then proceeded with the red effect
    months later.)
    Originally this section had no monsters for the same, "break section," appeal, but decided to
    kinda make it more of a, "break," in the sense that it's a more straightforward low-tier/hitscanner
    affair on UV, and have the monsters be undeafened and meander around a bit to contrast the more
    coreographed/tight affairs of most of thee-big-red-key-meander-TM otherwise.


- With the barrels + the monsters on conveyors, I kinda wanted the players to be able to take
  out the enemies real quick as a reward for not goofing up earlier, and as kinda a behind-the-curtain
  thing with the conveyor thing especially, since teleport traps like that are usually done with
  out-of-sight monster closets hovering in a void or connected w' a sound tunnel, and making things
  more tactile in that way feels more rewarding if done well enough imo.

- The rocky cave sort of area is another example of less'linearizing the section slightly.
  This one was initially gonna be just one sector and/or floor height, and be intentionally
  ultra-minimal and crude, but it ended up just being kinda normal. The combat was fun to do though,
  since it's a little break from the more calculated modern-fights & is just a lil low-tier slugfest
  for the most part, with all of em waking up and coming your way instead of ambushing from
  fixed positions as I've gotten in the bad habit of during the development of this map overall.
    
- Chasm-light - not as enriching, but it's something.
  Anyways, I was planning on having a spot to look over and return to real soon after, and this happened.
  Just a different scenario and not much to say.

- I like 64 wide hallways, I like 64 wid

- Chair gave a list of different spots that felt the most, "c'mon, this is still going?"
  and this area was one of them. Originally, the teleport switch did the door itself
  as Spoony did it, but:
  > Initially, I added a meat room full of 64x64 blocky things before Chairs suggested break-addition
    (ended up being Eggs in the final version) just cos there was space in-between the wall
     and the upper long-hall, and Tom Hall gave my brain a call.
  > At FlyingGoners suggestion, I removed that room (deemed obnoxious/off by others as well,)
    and built an entirely different room that was more of a coreographed and engaging combat scenario.

- Originally the door at the top of the lift worked like a door, so I made it a remote lift puzzle
  to add a bit of interest. Also, combat puzzle with the baron and 'Souls, that too.

- More platform and health potion stuff, plus monsters. Not much to say there other than setting up
  the circling-back aspect of things with the bars coming down later, which is probably one of the few,
  "Doom-ish," design aspects ironically enough.

- My original idea for the telepory-ey hallway thing was to have a long hall to go through,
  that teleported into different mazelike permutations, fully going into, "backrooms dimension,"
  then went back to the spot where the stairs go up*, but I instead went for a less subtle and
  more barely-on-the-rails type of trippy option.
  The second one with the scrolling sky weirdness was originally just kinda flat and used fireblu
  in the sky, with a familiar, "primitivist," intent, which was made more viable with enemies on
  UV, height/light variation, etc.
  Also, the light sequence stuff happened pretty early on in development, when I just went,
  "y'know what these gradual pillars need? Light screwery!" and I finally looked in MAP02 of Sunlust**
  and the solution was pretty easy for its result, after having tried to get that kinda effect
  without looking at sources in at least one another personal map before.
  *I wrote this before RC1s release, and it's been over a year, so I assume that was to the
   stairs that go up next to the bars, and not the 64-wide hall-stair, but I'm not sure.
  **(since that's one of the few, "big beater," modern WADs that I had really played
  a pinch of [barely MAP03-04] in high school and had in my direct memory)
 
- Originally the end of the hallway just led straight into the first optional mini-platforming
  thing on the left, and the stairway to the right, but to oblige with Chairs suggestion
  while not being as clunky as it coulda been, I made the lil base-themed area w' the trees
  to have a more formal teleporter spot, and make it generally more interesting. Originally
  I was considering having the Techbase area be the teleport spot, so I was considering
  adding a projector thing in the grassy area pointing at a wall to go with the grey
  colormap and, "ye olde," stuffs, which was moved back to when stuff circled back in favor
  of circling back around w' Razza and Chairs cameos (later right to the tech base,)
  and I'd prolly have not done it anyways due to laziness and/or texture-space reasons.
  Later, that projecter idea was at least slightly spiritually done through adding the
  David Lynch, "go dreamy," bit of encouragement.

- The lil mini area above is a dense mini-gantlet of its own. Originally the stairs were gonna just
  drop down to a similar setup to the switch dropdown after the main teleporter puzzle, but I
  started adding side-areas, switches, etc.

- The imp-and-hitscanner hoard was a fun lil crazy thing to do, a very tight, "oh shit," slaughter
  combat puzzle moment with the only solution being blasting plasma and praying while trying to
  get some meat shielding going.

- The lil teleport puzzle here was inspired by something Spectere covered on D!Zone'd, with
  a similar 64-wide hallway with a buncha teleporters, but no hints or much of a twist,
  just, "go the correct direction lol." Instead, I think this might be a bit shorter, it
  has them arrows, and adds a lil twist with the interactable wall.

- The main teleport puzzle was kinda inspired by the previous one, except meant a bit more
  involved of one, and definitely larger in scale and with different hints.

- With the little pinkie teleport and so on, this is just another example of me being mean
  and trying to use a monster type as effectively as possible, and blocking all movement
  on hurtfloor, etc.

- The walls going up originally had no monsters inside was def meant as a lil troll/jump, instead of
  just being a big ole dick and unleashing a buncha guys and going, "surprise!!!!"
  That's retained in HMP and below, but I was indeed the big ole dick (...thanks 2025 me :/)
  and put a handful of those party cacos to actually make sure they got used a bit more.


- With this last lil leg before the main slaughter fight, that lil teleporter by the stairs
  is meant as a potential combat puzzle thing as an alternative to just shooting rockets from
  below and wasting more ammo w' missed shots, so the hell knights can go towards ya when in
  the lil cubby, then ya can run up the stairs and blast em directly real quick. That's how
  I've done it almost every time I playtest the map, though shooting from below
  is definitely also a option.

- Various ramblings on the slaughter fight!!!!

  > The mechanism here for opening the slaughter arena has given me so much grief honestly,
    cos the one thing I really wanted to do was have the player walk over the red card, be
    able to look around and see nothing happening, then get halfway back the walkway, and
    be jumped by the wall instantly raising & the closets opening. How I had that done for
    a good while was - instead of just using doors or lifts - I had a weird instant-raise/lowering
    rig basd on just normal floor ker-chunk kinda actions, to perform everything faster than
    a lift or door could w' the set times in-between opening and closing/lowering and raising
    to wait on, and it used to prime it when ya get the red key, and only do the full action when
    ya go across the action line in the middle again, since it wasn't fully open first time
    ya walk over it.
    The main thing here is that in early versions, it broke pretty easily, and for a while it seemed
    to be remedied, but it happened one last time in the first playtest while trying the
    almost-release-candidate version of the map, and I had to reload another save to finish the map,
    then just replaced the mechanism with a simpler one in the final version. If ya wanna see how it
    worked initially, the mechanism is mostly intact in the level, just as the only voodoo rigs in the
    section to not have player-dolls, with a simplified version of 1/2 the rig active instead,
    so hopefully there's no issues with that.

  > The slaughter fight was made before Hebonky presented their section, and I was assuming there'd
    be less slaughter, but in the end I think the map has a decent balance of those sorts of fights.
    This one was kinda just meant as an obvious, "it's the end of the section, do a climactic
    fight!!! Raahhhh, rahhh!!!!" sort of thing, and I think it turned out gud.
    Not too long ago, I used to have a kinda visceral-ish reaction to slaughter stuff, thinking it
    was kinda, "Decino-bait*," and often just dumb, "throw a buncha guys," stuff. I'm sure there's
    a lotta stuff out there in that vein, and learns the worst lessons from stuff like Okupluk,
    Nuts, Hell Revealed I/II, etc, but there's a lot more nuance to especially better slaughter,
    which is something I learned while dicking around in MAP03 of Sunder for funzies to test an
    ultra-long MIDI, and witnessed first-hand that good slaughter can be much more about strategy
    like infighting and monster prioritization, maybe finding a place to camp occasionally (my first
    instinct w' the Baron + Revenant fight,) and so on. Good slaughter is often combat puzzles,
    not just Russian Overkill sillyness, though there's nothing wrong with loading up a joke-slaughter
    or even a good-slaughter WAD with an absurd weapons mod, going on godmode, and just having
    a dumb fun time.
    Usually now though, I still like to have fights like this used as dynamic points. Luv me
    Doom 1 style low-tier fights, luv me incidental combat, luv me popcorn, simple as.
 
      *Clarification from early 2026: I'm keeping this here, but just for clarification, by this I mean
       a general notion of trying to make stuff less for for people playing to have unique experiences
       but to be more based around immediate spectacle, and be primarily consumed by people watching
       Youtubers and so on play it and be amazed by their raw prowess - because actually playing it
       might be tedious or borderline feel a waste of time to most people, and easily become a barrier
       to actually wanting to exploring more creative/out-of-the-box experiences that aren't already
       lucky smash-hits like MyHouse or something.

       Decino's a cool dude like a good handful of peeps, this was/still is kinda a poke at a potentially
       dumb/obnoxious aspect of culture around these types of things - not a jab at Decino himself
       nor other Doomtubers/famous figures init of itself.  


- Originally, the full Red TM section kinda just ended with the end of the teleporters & hall down below
  leading to a final teleporter, but given the extreme length of the red section, and the increase of
  slaughter-ish elements ramping up in the map at the time I was working on it, I thought it'd be fun
  to add a big dumb ~300 enemy hitscanner gibfest jumpscare to ta-ta for the player before going back
  to the hub.









<>________________________________________________________________<>
Blue-key Section - (ambient-areas that accompany featured-sections):

For the blue-key-gantlet additions to other folks' segments, the lil outdoor dining area + snow area both
came from dreams within a few day span.

The outdoor dining area was tweaked a good bit from my dream. In the dream, the overall setup w' the
lil shed/building was there, the tables were there, etc. In the dream though, it was a mutation of a
place that I was somewhat familiar with, there was a car or two, people were partying/eating, and
instead of the enveloping darkness, was the sun glaring brightly and making it hard to see beyond.
Right after that, like a lot of my dreams, the area mutated into a dining room/kitchen of a tall house,
off to the side inside was a very-vertical room with a likewise long ladder. There's a few other details
that may have been in another dream with a similar location, like looking around and seeing peoples rooms,
but otherwise I don't remember anything after that, or before the dining spot, just like a lot of my dreams.

The snowy area is almost just a straight-up clear translation of what was in my dream. It was a Doom map
very-much like what I ended up making here, though without the animated snow that I added quite late on,
had a sky texture of snowy mountains, and was around 1.5x to 2x taller. After that in the dream though,
it was a more realistic scene, going off through the side like in the map, but instead of a blank road,
it was a good bit more of a snowy, non-Doom road with snowdrifts to the side, telephone poles, etc,
and something probably happened there, but if it did, I do not recall. Also, this part worked out perfectly
with Gothics section, given the searing fire exit going straight into the frigid snow with no teleport fog
or anything, just a hard cut, and I am quite proud of how that turned out specifically.

With the deep trench section connected to Hebonkys section, I was binging a whole bunch of Brandon F. videos
at the time, including a lot on World War I logistics, tactics, etc, so it seemed natural to make a surrealist
shellshocked version reflecting the no-room-to-walk-without-stepping-on-bodies aspect, then tweaking it to go out
in a full hellish version afterwards. I remember watching one of Brandons earlier videos on a Soviet propaganda
film that ends in a dance scene and Stalin landing in Berlin while making this lil bit, and he definitely
improved so much since that video, it's kinda a pain to watch regardless of his salient points lmfao.




<>________________________________________________________________<>
Final blue-key mini-gantlet:

Since the main multi-segment gantlet of Mini-Medals, Hebonky, and Dusty were all different themes, I
decided to blend their visual themes all together in a multi-way blast of trippiness, kinda taking
influence from a bit I saw in a Lost Civ. map via Mt. Pains review with all those skies and Boom wizardry.

Originally, this was built on the fact that someone elses section was in Mini-Medals' place, which was
a castle section of a different and darker flavor than Dustys, so I thought it was a cool compare-and-contrast
between castle flavors.
Sadly, Hebonkys stuff didn't get as much focus, even if it's still there in the center green-and-brown
thing with the tree, and the lil stepway going up with some boxy Gazibo/Ribbiks-ish orthogonal'ness
bouncing off Hebonkys more curve-edged structures of similar texture-flavor.

The shooting gallery idea was pretty much me going, "y'know what's cool? Shootable switches!"
then turning it into a puzzle. The, "red-marble switch means harm," thing is something that I tried in
at lear another community projects speedmap, but didn't really convey much, and in that case it was
more of a, "fuck around and find out," thing that was necessary for 100%'ing the map, but not for
completion. That drawing with the hunters shooting carrier pigeons w' the text came about to tie in with
that, since I remembered watching a youtube video that had a segment talking about their extinction, and
I think also having a quote about it, but I looked and couldn't find it, so the text was a paraphrase
of what I remembered maybe-or-maybe-not being in that video. The only guess as to where it came from
was maybe an Atun-Shei video, but, again, idk.


--

To break from chronological play-order, a note for the later reuse of the above mentioned areas:

I thought the outskirts were really cool looking when noclipping around, so I just went, "welp, I otta
integrate them spots later," and so it happened later indeed. It did manifest very different for
certain parts though:
- Dustys tribute is the only one that remains mostly the same as its original incarnation; Out-of-bounds
  area made first, and level progression added into it.
  > Also, as a note, the, "Russian Realism lighting," with all the cast shadows took a good bit of fiddling
    to get, especially with how it changes after stuff starts appearing out from the sky below later on.
    I love doing low-linedef-detail stuff most of the time, but some things like whenever I do this type
    of lighting just call to me to actually put the time in versus making smaller curves and nuances in
    geometry or gradient lights or whatever it may be.
- The area that I made in reference to the person who decided to leaves area is still there, except
  I removed the castle stuff, and had fun with a bunch of different skies and abstractness. Functionality
  is honestly not that different than RC1, other than how it's accessed/viewed & that the shooting gallary
  was moved to Mini Medals' tribute.
- Mini Medals' tribute was made expressly to replace the scrapped sections tribute after I already had
  the general progression done, so the whole area was built from the ground up to have the crushers and
  all that, instead of trying to build something around the setpiece.

Further info on this stuff is covered far below in its proper chronological placement.

--



With the train thing, I just think Boom-exploiting train levels are very fun, so I just made a lil bit
for extra variety. Originally exiting the train car went straight to the red-keycard-hub-ripoff part. 

The weird area that the player jumps off into was based directly on an area in a dream, just like
other dream areas from earlier.
What I saw in this dream was a very primitive GMOD/Source Engine map with no real cast lighting/shadows
applied, with a big chunk of cheese, a crude house w'out doors nor glass panes the player could enter,
a crooked bent catwalk suspended mid-air, and gore props suspended nearby it, all suspended in skybox
from all angles but the flat tile of grass everything was on top of.
When I woke up, I immediately started making it in-game. Liberties were taken as I jammed around on it
of course, like surrounding all but the floor and one sky side in pitch black instead of open skybox,
actually having lighting, all the stuff coming out from it, etc.
I think the combat was kinda designed to be be a bit inspired by 90's map edits where the mapper slaps
in a bunch of THINGs for maximal fun, hence all the medkits and barrel-clusters strewn about especially.
I considered where to put it in the maps order for a while, including considering for a moment putting it
right after Lilys section, until I concluded to slap stuff together for a Blue-gantlet ending.
Also, similar to the red gantlet having David Lynch, the illustration here is Sly Stone.
Of course, he's not as much influential to this maps surreality, but he died in 2025 as well but to
barely anyone talking about it, in comparison to for example Brian Wilson being widely recognised
at the time, and both persons being widely influential in their own rights, so it's one of
those things that felt right to put in regardless.
Go listen to There's A Riot Goin' On if you haven't already. Stand is also excellent.

The middle part (the black-marble-gold-inlay thing) was a bit weird-ish, in that 
the visual of it just appeared in my head, not as a dream, but when I was still awake, pretty much
fully formed in its original version, and the indoor section is pretty much reflective of that.
The main thing that I changed was add extra rocks and details outside, and originally added a blue/red
color scheme with water and blood, for when the little area was used after Lilys section to just add
some ambient flavor and kinda push the player a bit more into half-understanding that things were
gonna be a lil free-associating.
For a good while, as noted, it wasn't for the blue connected-stuff gantlet, until sometime mid-June
when I kinda just mixed the three chunks into one stream. At that point, you'd walk on the skull key
activator, then the waterfall lift came down immediately.
The color + THING matching puzzle thing was made sometime in September because it was kinda boring
and empty as-is (a common issue with a lot of the map anyways,) and was pretty much the best I could
think of on a whim. The hurtfloor bit (similar to the one in the red section) was added in April '26
given a critique of how it's very easy to just go in each teleporter indiscriminantly before even
thinking about what might be the solution.

That last lil section was just me snatching a bit from the entryway to the red side in the hub,
retexturing it, then building off of that reused chunk. It only felt right to have that spot be
where it circled back to the shooting-gallery monsters, though if I do that sort of, "do the puzzle wrong,
get punished," set up again it'd probably better to just have the whole scenario in one spot w' the monsters
behind a non-shoot-through glass/cage to leave things a bit clearer.






<>________________________________________________________________<>
Both-keys final-stretch:


Before I get into the actual sections, around RC2s drop I added a version of the setup where the monsters
all start spawning in at the middle red/blue area in the hub after getting both keys. For months though,
I barely even tested it, so when I got back to it probably around like september or october or whenever
in '25, it became obvious that it probably was better that I didn't push out the near-RC2 version (at least
from a playing-the-map standpoint,) because good lord it was painful - way too many cacos and not enough ammo
for the player to fend them off with, expecially in such a wonky environment. Just thought I'd mention that
since it's one of the big, "oh god oh fuck," moments that I recall while balancing the map.

Anyways, back to the rest of the areas. 


--

Glowys parts were kinda a lucky thing to stumble into as a base. I don't recall if they were showing it
on its own or otherwise prompted, but they had some old OTEX-using maps sitting around (one from a
community project that Idk what it was,) but around the time I was really needing to rework and replace stuff,
I asked if I could use the unfinished maps, and they obliged.

The overall form of the base itself was barely touched, though some things were reshaped and placed
a bit differently, but otherwise I treated it more like a sandbox kinda like with Spoonys section nearly
a year earlier, albeit with a lot more focus. At this point I was really starving for linedefs in the main map,
so i had to be as linedef-minimalistic as possible without removing visual interest.
The wall textures (namely the techbase wall with the blue/red patterning) was a happy biproduct of me already
having gotten a lot of confidence in making more and more patch-based textures to add visual detail without
adding more linedefs (as would otherwise be the best way to make stuff look conventionally attractive with OTEX,)
and a few (such as the skulls-behind-grates weird thing) were textures I already did a good while before but
really didn't want to just leave go to waste, so I had to find some way to toy with them.
The puzzles are kinda mixed-quality here like in other parts of the map. The first puzzle to get to switches
to raise the stairs is personally more notable for the voodoo screwery to get the stairs to go half-height
then full-height imo. The three-switch one over the hump though is kinda just variation of timing puzzles
that I've made before, albeit probably one of my better variants.

The outside area was a really fun mix to do. It's mainly a combination of two contributed map chunks:
- Little isolated grassy area by GlowyLikesDoom (years old)
  > Largely kept as-is as a base, including the organic many-linedefs hill in the middle, the bridge,
    cottages, etc
  > Most new stuff is stuff growing out of and around it like shadows, the water pillars, rock formations,
    etc.
  > The color pallette that suddenly appears here is also inspired by the original palette provided
    with Glowys map. I'm not sure if they made it or if it was from said project.
- DemonicMeatballs scrapped map for NOVA IV from around late 2024 or so
  > The original was a vast sketch of a castle, with room-over-room already built into the design, a moat
    with a functional drawbridge, surrounded by a rock formation cycling through 3-4 sidedef textures,
    with the player starting in a little area in the rocks.
  > On my end, the rock formation was crudely re-done to transition from the base to the grassy area above.
  > The gatehouse with a switch to lower the drawbridge was copy/pasted from the original map and squeezed down,
    then fiddled with to be less awkward in the slimmed state.
  > The drawbridge I recall being a technical copy of how DemonicMeatball did it originally, with the same textures
    as well, though the stone pillars on each side were made anew.

The castle at the end of the DM bridge was entirely new, w' another bespoke patch-base texture to give a richness
where the lack of linedefs could only do so much for, and me spamming the weird old patch-based textures
on the inside so that it didn't feel like they were wasted.
Commander Keen stuff was added a bit before RC4s drop to go along with the motif from SSGMasters map.



--


The abstract hellish section with the twirling sky has has been tossed about a whole bunch. For a good while
it was an optional area accessible from the hub in some way or another, then eventually was made mandatory
at some point after RC2s drop, in large part for reasons mentioned in the section about the hub way above
about how people were missing a good bit of the monster count in playthroughs that I've seen.
The twisting sky part was originally just an OTEX space sky since that's about as close as I could get to
the sky from Xasers Lost Episode sky (which this section was inspired by & directly references,) but
I went dreamy after RC3As drop and made yet another abstraction for the sky.

The following combat scenario part of the section was storied similarly, except more in changes to itself
instead of when/how the player encounters it.


Originally it basically didn't exist at all, but what made it into RC1 was a crude boxy room of all
blocky stairs going up on either side with some lava steps w' torches, inspired by part of a Laura Beyers'
Doom map where it had random-ish steps that hurt the player with relatively few indicators; This section
was also accessible from the hub. At the point I made it, I was still very obsessed with making certian things
hyper-primitivist in that general sort of way.
Some time between RC1-2s releases, at some point I wanted to make it a more interesting thing given how crude
it was on its own, so I turned a teleporter that was on one side into a pressure plate that opens the tunnel
(which now is an outgrowth from the Lost-Episode tribute section,) and made a combat ring that went around
the base of the original LBDoom tribute here. The original version kinda sucked and was largely a spam of
different monster types (an idea which I reused for the abstract fleshy maze at the start of the red section)
in a donut, and otherwise wasn't that compelling even if it was kinda a nice rush, so I turned it into
a tribute to Fortress of Mystery (Cacos + Hell Nobles,) which around RC2s drop was pretty much as it is now,
including the vast outside area, albeit with direct symbols from Fortress of Mystery on the ground outside,
and a lot of stuff that later had to be stretched and moved around to accomidate the Lost Episode inspired area.




--

The following section has a bit of extra history and details with it, so here's a lot of extra personal context
from when I originally splurge-wrote before RC1:

Originally this section had less detail, and a light-floor maze puzzle that I removed for being tedious to people,
and no monsters, but that's about it for the section itself.



The main yap here is about its tribute - A.L.T. by the Russo-Ukrainian mapping clan B0S.

As a kinda personal note, I legit found A.L.T. through just searching something like,
"experimental doom wads," as a teenager.

When I was a kid, I rarely actively seeked out art or music, though, again, I found Doom through
TotalBiscuit while watching whatever was getting fed to me through Youtubes algorithm at the time.
Through Doom though I found Quake, and through Quake I found Nine Inch Nails through Trent Reznors
soundtracking of the game, as well as bands like Alice In Chains and Soundgarden through Doom itself.
That took me town plenty of Youtube-recomendations and more active rabbit holes, largely around
music, be it 80's Synth Pop of Depeche Mode, more underground interplays like Ministrys Electro-Industrial
era and before, Skinny Puppy, Cabaret Voltaire, to deeper experimentalism like Throbbing Gristle,
Captain Beefheart, Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, Whitehouse- it all kinda just hit like a train as I went
into high school, watched a few more experimental films like Erasorhead and Pink Floyds The Wall through
Youtube uploads, and just absorbed so much more variously experimental and otherwise art stuff from there.

In that time, the Google-search that led me to A.L.T. happened, and it's still one of my favorite WADs,
even after only having played up to MAP12-MAP13 back then, and having recently gone back there from the
start on a new computer up to MAP12, and not having experienced all the creation in its delves.

Anyways, it was this Vice article, which still has some surprisingly good & honestly aged-like-a-fine-wine
insights that've only gotten more potent over the years, and certain overarching bits have came into
my mind while working on MAP32 (initially MAP16, then MAP33) of this project.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/alt-doom-mod-stalker/

Hell Ground, as mentioned in the article, has also kinda seared into my influence, even if less
obviously cos I don't do many representational environments like the library of MAP01 or similar,
but I have less specific to say cos I had a bit limited playtime comparatively, as well as the fact
that A.L.T. is a bit more freewheeling and improvisational in its experimentation in a way that
impacted me much more directly, and especially led to me putting this map together.

Anyways, go play A.L.T., do it now, it goes big hard.



A lot to say about a relatively inconsiquential section of the map gameplay wise, but it meant a lot to me
around RC1 (when I wrote this shpeel) and still does today (as I'm working on the text file as the WAD is
publically in RC4, and probably less than a week before the WAD goes to iDGames.)

--


I already went over this general area in the part way above going over the blue keycard gantlet, but
for a few further notes:
- The crushers here were kinda a result of both me really thinking MiniMedals' honeycomb thing was cool,
  and wanting to make something to add more depth to the gameplay here, since I do think certain gameplay  
  stuff still ended up being kinda repetitive even if there's a lot of visual differences going on and
  various little changes and puzzles and so on, so I kinda just grabbed from MAP04 of Sunder and/or
  my own 30 Sectors map to add a little crusher puzzle-ish-thing to add some life.
- The transition from the MiniMedals tribute to the upside-down multi-sky area was kinda just envisioned
  as kinda creeping over from a spot that the player's not supposed to see (out on the edge of a skybox
  that's otherwise inaccessible to not give away the illusion,) hence the super-crude geometry tying these
  two sections together.
- Again, the rocky area originally just derived its surrealism from being upside-down and having
  tangible structures (some removed,) but given its placement in the order of the progression,
  sometime before RC2 when stuff was almost done around this spot, I turned each chunk of skybox
  into a different texture to really sell the trippiness and gravitas as the player went through,
  inspired largely by a part of a map from (I think) Lost Civilization that I saw part of through
  a Mt. Pain video but didn't get to play.
- For the Dusty tribute, as mentioned earlier (I think,) the large-easy-platforms mixed with semi-light combat
  was snatched from an earlier idea, and going with this is way more interesting than what I was considering 
  doing, but dang was this so much more time consuming to do in practice. I had to do all the extra
  Russian Realism shadows that plop down when the pillars come out (including the little teleporters,)
  fiddle with a whole load of little dummy sectors, voodoo rigs, etc. Most of the techniques going into this
  aren't really that hard if ya know voodoo rigging, dummy sector shennanigans, etc, but it took maybe over a week
  with few breaks in order to get it all done, and having the original shadows to work with probably didn't
  help much.

The red/blue themed cave at the end of this section with the tall-ass room with the scrolling animated
rock textures was another bit of the FIREBLU + Red & Blue keycard motif, and kinda fulfilling an idea
that I had early on to have a big ole imposing area before the original end fight section, which was potentially
gonna be a huge-ass simple Mt. Pain reference, though this is probably better even if
it's not as imposing by any stretch of the imagination vs. the scale that I was considering. Originally,
it was also gonna be a little fakeout, where the player scale the boxy aproximation of the mountain through
a series of teleporters, or a tall lift, and it looks like there's gonna be a big fight either inside or on
top of it, only for the player to be teleported into a tight slaughter-ish fight section instead.
Regardless, this plus the other no-monsters stuff in-between adds enough suspense imo.

--

The whole, "Happy birthday, Daisy!" part was one of those ideas that came about while I was really trying to
add more clear (albeit still loose) story elements after RC1s drop, especially with trying to make the
Party Cacos have more of a reason to exist story/function-wise instead of just kinda being there as a
biproduct of Obakes original, "Party!" idea that only really showed up in SSGMasters map with the Club Doom
tribute discoteque. Two-and-two story intentions collided, and the demons-taunt-doomguys-humanity ambush
came to pass - which I'm still very satisfied with how surprisingly well it works imo.

--


Instead of covering each variation of Isabellas section as first seen above/before Lilys section,
here's all the variants in one spot:


With the various repetitions of Isabellas section, the original she gave me had no monsters, and it's so
small and cosey that I wanted to kinda do that idea early on. The original variant that I had though
was that it was gonna be the touched-up original of her section, then either some-time before or after
RC1s final-fight section would be the fire-sky version, except it'd be extended a lot into a hazard puzzle, with
some sort of spots to hide in to avoid burning in the incinerating landscape, and potentially have a similar
thing to E3M4: House Of Pain from Doom 1, with health packs around instead of a radsuit, but I kinda just
didn't do that, and went, "nah." I might redo the idea somewhere else in the future though.

With the fire version that actually came about, the Daisy-gore wall just came into my head as the real
horror-nightmare thing to see over the fractured version of what was the edge into Lilys section,
so I did eet.
Soon before RC3s public release, as mentioned with the party caco thing, I wanted to add more implicit story
to things, and this hellish version of the area got a lot of stuff added in compared to the sparse version
that lasted for a good long while, so lots of buildings and gore and so on along with the text.
I'm honestly not sure if I prefer it this way or not in retrospect, since the original versions sparseness
honestly makes it feel a bit more creepy imo, especially in the version from around RC2s drop where it had
the same selectively-orange colormap as well as the same music dropout, though I do think the overwealming
gore room works well. Maybe it' better as-is now, or would be more effective as an in-between of both versions
at least for horrors sake, but now it's final, any fiddling around would do more harm than good ngl.


With the snowy version at the end of the map, I thought I'd add a more tied-together ending by reprising Daisy,
but sleeping on the bed of the cabin. The end-the-map-with-the-bed idea was kinda half-consciously inspired by
Oniria 1 and 2 (go check them out, quite wonderful, though 2 is a bit grindy & weirdly low on ammo
at points, early ZDoom-isms abound,) which do the same, which I think is quite a fitting end to this map.

Is it a dream?
Is hell trying to find new ways to try and break your mind?
What the hell is all this? 

That's up to your interpretaton-


-because you're probably thinking about it more than I am, honestly...


...I say on the 1926th line of this text file that I'm writing this on.



--

Before getting to the final fight (especially since the one that wound up in the map didn't manifest
at all until RC3,) one last few notes with the weird abstractiony area in-between:

The art before entering the area was made in an expressive spur to the general feeling around February of 2025,
done as one of the occasional little expressionistic doodles where I let nonsense flow out and sometimes stab the
paper (as done for this one) or rub loose graphite around, and it felt resonant to put it in even if the
tiny details already hard to tell in the noise are entirely illegible at this size.

The main abstract room is definitely where my personal influence from Lilith and other dissonant glitchy stuff
shows fully. Of course the Doom-2-patches-only-based animated weirdness isn''t 1-to-1 with the simulated glitch
textures from that WAD, but it gets the point across enough without making fully new textures, especially with
the colormap that I made to be as a bit glitched out + made darker to eliminate risking epilepsy/similar.
Around RC2-3 or so when I made the room have an actual gameplay purpose beyond being a bit creepy via adding
the BFG and ammo and stuff, I added the fully inverted blue colormap (also darkened) that was kinda inspired by
either the person on the album cover for Chromes Half Machine Lip Moves, or an upload of In A Dream by Helios Creed
himself with the cover inverted.





<>________________________________________________________________<>
Final Fight FREAKOUT!!!:

Before anything else, major thanks to FlyingGoner for the suggestion of giving the player the BFG
for the end fight. It really turned out nicely especially in this configuration, even if I'm
personally more of a rocket/plasma slaughter enjoyer for the most part. 


At the point I made the whole general ending section around here, I was solid that the final fight would be best
kept as a ~100-200 monster combat puzzle sort of thing inspired by Sunder MAP06s final fight in terms of requiring
that the player use invulns to reasonably beat it. I think the ~800 monster junkfood-ish part was probably
also at least solid-ish given that I was already planning on utilizing some of the cool little quirks of
Glowys original map (namely barrel spam and the opening-trap that releases a cyberdemon on UV in the final version
for example.)
The main thing though was that I was already burned out on things for the past months to a year, and honestly
really driving on empty for months and months without getting much of a break from Doom, let alone the map,
and the fact that I was already ready to pack up and move on to other art stuff back at the start of May
will probably not stop lingering even after things hopefully get released to iDGames soon (as-of April/13/2026.)

I already had the idea to do a Hazmat Hazama sort of clash of different themes and locales into an abstract arena
(which is something I've been experimenting with a few ways for years, including doing direct segmented chops
 to make almost a strobe between two different themes.) The main thing is that after I made a few simple small bits,
and retooled stuff like the castle side from Demonic Meatballs map & the techbase side from Glowys, I was getting
really stumped and started losing inspiration.
Then I ended up hopping in one of Specteres Sunlust streams (I remember it was around him playing MAP08,
so this should probably still be visible in chat replay if you go back to that stream from around late-2025,)
and I ended up asking people for suggestions of themes for micro-areas for me to do, without giving much
context to the question probably until after getting a few responses. I think of it kinda as one final layer
of collaborative mucking about, in this case being more of a direct request pool instead of a handful of different
mappers doing stuff independently like with most of the credited collaborators on the map.

Here's the checklist that I jotted down, with each persons Youtube (sometimes same as Doomworld) channel names
along with their respective request:

Suggested visual themes:
✓ - Flesh and machinery (Claire) [Outside of Specteres chat]
    > Note from later: I asked in a Discord server sometime later of the same question,
      and she was the only person to actually suggest anything, so I just tacked her in the same list.
✓ - D!Zone (Spectere)
✓ - Haunted Mansion (DotComGaming)
✓ - NYC Subway (Adam Pagano)
✓ - Spooky Scary Skeletons (worldoffood)
✓ - Corporate Backrooms (Adam Pagano)
✓ - acropolis (LifeSeemsDead)
✓ - evil hospital (Adam Pagano)
✓ - Pinky Slaughterhouse (prostar + worldoffood)
    > Note from later: I think one of them suggested a slaughterhouse or some similar thing, then
      the other bounced off that into specifically being a Pinkie slaughterhouse.

X - Arch/details over different themed chunks simultaniously
    > Note from later: This was just a note to myself to do some tighter more nuanced hand-detailing;
      Nobody asked for this specifically, and I ended up not doing this, probably out of time constraints,
      sector limits, and general laziness.

These requests definitely helped make stuff a bit more interesting, and honestly tied the abstraction down
a bit to the point that this area is probably less dissonant than a lot of my more freakish texture choice
spots in the map (such as a lot of the red key section,) and ,"FREAKOUT," is almost an overstatement
in that regard ironically enough.

Many thanks to everyone who contributed ideas here.
Even if it was a few simple ideas, it really helped, especially given how fried my brain was at that point
(and still kinda is ngl,) so again, thank you all as well.



Before I move on though, one last note is that for the Corperate Backrooms chunk, the custom patch-based
wall texture, the other texture and form choices, etc, are a reference to the revised MAP01 from
Clippy and StupidBunny led Tele-Direct Atlantic Doom project, which is a wonderful, mad WAD.
As a sidenote, two MIDIs I had lying around (Big Booper McGee... as a scrap from D2IRO and Doomed 2 Try...
being a jam scribble, both credited by my music name Enimapod) ended up in Episode 2 maps, both being
speedmaps by Andrea Rovenski - pretty much just as a result of being in the right place at the right time,
and Andrea just not having designated any particular MIDIs since they were speedmaps.

All must bow to Telly.

--


The final 800~ or so junkfoody encounter at the end connected to Glowys section was also built off of
their original map from years ago, except I fiddled with stuff like the landscape, placement of the teleporter,
various details, made stuff use fewer linedefs, etc - otherwise it's pretty much original-ish-Glowtastic
at least compared to the part the player sees first & re-enters.
Here I pretty much just wanted to give a big quick blast-em dumb-slaughter bit of tension-release/fun,
just like the hitscanner-rocketing encounter right at the end of the red section except at a larger scale
and exploiting the BFG-ism.


--

At the end here:

For a good amount of time while working on this, I've wanted to do the highlighting-everyones-contributions
no-monsters walk, with the silent teleports from area to area, kinda similar to what I've been planning
for a map from my main personal WAD, and kinda in the spirit of walking around the end of a Sunder map
after vanquishing every beast, with a calm after the storm has subsided, and seeing how far you've come
and all you've been through, in peace at last. Here, it also is to highlight all the work from everyone
involved, with everyones segment highlighted one last time.


For the more direct credit wall, the main purpose of it is obvious, but another personal aspect is that
I've honestly had problems feeling like I've sufficiently been able to thank people for stuff, and have
had issues accepting gifts for probably a decade or more. Actually doing some acknowledgement drawings
absolutely helped alleviate that a bit extra.


Now you meet Daisy-buny (TM) once more and come to terms with things, and that's the end of the Big Map Davis.

Hopes to ya'll at least finding stuff worthwhile in it in spite of its droning length.

























               <>________________________________________________________________<>

                                    C O L O R M A P      Y A P:

                                   Lil mini tutorial and comment
                                on the use of colormaps in this map


As a final note on something before the big chunk on the music, here's a bit on the colormaps:

I've experimented with the same sorts of variations of colormap screwery in the same personal WAD
that I think I've alluded to a few times, but here it's very-much a more a tour-de-force of every
variation I can think of (that mostly doesn't go full-Lilith... for now..., and also doesn't blind
the player on GZDoom-style Hardware Rendering.) One of the big reasons other than, "it's cool,"
for doing this is that colormap-transfers are kinda under-utilized for such an old Boom feature.

Even though there've been a few isolated examples (NiGHTS shared an example of the same invert-light being
applied as a gradient of palettes in an experimental WAD that I know not the name of*,) I've not seen anyone
do what I've done here once... and I wish there were more examples dearly! It's legitimately quite easy to
do, and even more advanced stuff was being done by Inkworks back in the 90's, using software rendering
to have certain light levels work as full-on PSX style isolated bits of colored lighting (albeit very limited,
especially with it being baked into the whole WAD back then given a lack of Boom colormap swapping)!

Here's a quick tutorial on how to make your own colormaps, btw:

1. Export the original colormap from one of the IWADs or otherwise as a PNG via Slade
2. Edit that however you want. Just have fun, though be cautious if you have epilepsy and want to freewheel
   certain stuff, cos it can easily cause flashing with some more brute-force experimentalism
3. Import it back into SLADE, and:
  > Make sure the file name for the colormap ends with MAP
  > Put it in-between two blank entries named C_START and C_END respectively, like with sprites, patches,
    or flats
  > Make sure the applicable palette is in the WAD/PK3 file
  > Convert the image to Doom Flat (Paletted)
4. In a Boom format map, to use it:
  > Use a dummy sector with a wall with the action of 242
  > At least in Doom Builder 2, it still counts the colormaps as flats, so it'll be in the All
    section of textures instead of where the other textures from your source WAD is
  > apply the colormap to the upper/middle (idk, I do both) of the tagged wall
  > Make sure the sector you want to affect is the same tag as the wall
  > Usually I join the sectors
  > For multiple sectors with the same colormap, I slap a whole bunch of triangles in a dummy
    chain, and join them all in a chain.
  > To make the colormap effect work naturally, ya gotta find a way to either hide the transition
    (such as a hall that isn't affected by the colormap stuff, like fullbright for something that
    fiddles with brightness in the dark bits of the colormap, or pitch-black if it fiddles
    with colors only,) or do the gradient trick between the normal/otherwise-used colormap,
    to the new colormap. I usually use four or more.

In the WAD, I've instructed Novaseer to not discount a single colormap, even if completely unused.
There's probably a few spare unused textures from MAP32 as well, but some such as
Daisy loafing around not-sleeping found uses during post-RC1 reworkings.

Feel free to use any and all of them, the only ones that aren't original are AAARDMAP, AAABLMAP,
and the similarly labelled ones (other than AAAORMAP, since there was no orange colormap for some reason,)
which I've snatched from the BoomEDIT demonstration map, and there's even a few colormap gradient
series' that haven't been used in the map either, so go absolutely ham, and if ya use these specifically,
just give proper credit.

*EDIT: Apparently it's still in development, but will be out soon, so this is apparently
right-on-the-curve if some of these things haven't been done before! Maybe 2025 will be the year of
weird colormap screwery in community projects, who knows.



(Hello, 2026-me here. 2025 probably wasn't Colormap-o'clock, waow. I don't pay attention to Doomworld
or any other community stuff though, but that's just me.)

























               <>________________________________________________________________<>

                                     M U S I C     N O T E S:


                               MEGIDDO-SHAPED ELEPHENT IN THE ROOM


Something people who've been around between RC1s and RC3s drops and experienced this map and/or
Megiddos maps music might recall that less than half an hour into Megiddis MIDI, everything
just started melting into this freakout abomination... and that's almost all gone now? Where
is that mal-fitting freakfest?

Yeah, that's my fault. Sorry.

DemonicMeatball and [???] were the the originators of the MIDI-Giddo thing, but since I didn't see much
actual working on it happening at the time (life is slow ofc,) I helped wrangle it into starting, including
adding a B and C section to the Head/Chorus that Meatball made, and going, "GITTER WORKING," while also
throwing out a dumb list of rules that were spurred by my naievetae, namely saying to not use
program changes... just because I didn't know how they worked.



Anyways, that long freakout section was entirely my doing/fault, as a result of just being too
over-eager to jam, so it pretty much forced itself into existance in the same way that now-MAP32
and its music did. Obvious issue though was that uhhh, it sucked... in context of the map and overall.
composition.

I still think the contents of that big-ole-section itself was good, and I hope to find more uses for
the scraps left over from its creation, but good lord does that arthouse fever-dream haze not work for
an installment of The Challengee Finale Mappe 9000 (tm) - and with it being at the cost of everyone
elses much more befitting contributions, good lord that sucked, and I'm largely/primarily to blame.

Honestly it kinda just slid its way in there like a barge into an icecap in spite of its obvious-in-retrospect
issues because of beuracracy and, "who gives a shit, get it done,"-ism, which I am by no means innocent for.

Also, I did the assembly, so... I am indeed that dipshit beurocrat. Do'h.



Alongside that were a few other sections that weren't, "my main section, including a percussion jam before the
main section, and a collage of bits from earlier and the current Megiddos in a free-form abstraction.

What did stay from the resulting jammery other than my main section though was the other collage that
formed more as a mashup though, which is still at the end of the composition, using the same
sources, but in a much more normal and in-time way.

The way it is now is honestly just a perfect blend of everyones work imho, and it's no longer a weird
monument of my personal nonsense.




Why is that as a note for MAP32s development though?

Even though I don't think the main Megiddo was fully updated for a while, I recall having a WIP chop-out of
Megiddos MIDI posted in the server around July or so, and in the meantime I ended up syphoning some of my
less-palletable-tonewise contributions into the rework that ya hear in Simon Ferocious now. I both really
didn't wanna waste the stuff I did, and ironically a lot of it seemed a perfect way to kinda mellow-down
the most inaccessible parts of Simon Ferocious through sheer diluation throughout the whole MIDI,
which also ended up mixing with making some of the more offending sections be dampened down, etc.



----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                               FRIENDLY SKELETON BARD DOOTS DEFTLY
                          (It Lives In Your Pocket, Ready To Rock-It)

For the most part, this ones story of creation isn't as worth yapping as much about.

The main reason this piece was composed was because of how extreme and unrestrained the original version
of Simon Ferocious was. The original intention (which was partially present in the RC3 original drop)
was that the player would be able to put on whichever tune they wanted, with the player being introduced
to the map with the drone that ended up being the intro to Simon Ferocious starting the map,
and the player getting to choose between the original 45 minute version of Simon Ferocious & this one,
depending on the vibe (unhinged freakout vs. melancholic dreamlike haze.) The piece ended up being
composed by 11/July/2025, and I don't recall it really taking that long when I got to it, though
it looks like I started a lil piece a month earlier. At the time, they were marked as the spicy and mild
songs respectively, hence the bottle of hotsauce and teacup on the graphics.

As things progressed, with Simon Ferocious' changes, the new music changer for the ending music, etc,
that original idea kinda started to contradict how stuff was shaping up to be. That whole, "choose
either song at any time," thing entirely collapsed when a playtester noted that playing with
this mild replacement felt more mournful. As a result, I made a compromise, and instead made it so that
each real musical wash would be triggered in the level once through a rig for each (with each
only triggering once, so things didn't get messier in co-op,) and each subsiquent track got,
"unlocked," instead of most of the tracks being already accessible. Now it's more of a little jukebox
for the player as a reward for finishing the map, or a co-op thing in case the players wanna go,
"Hey, I liked that other one better, lemme swap it." 



The main real thing I consider interesting was that the melody that starts the piece off was something
that I stumbled upon while improvising on my banjo for somebodys entertainment, and I immediately
rushed to go jot it down in Sekaiju.


Otherwise, between around-RC2 and RC4, I kept having definitely kept bouncing around how I wanted to handle
things further, and at one point I had Simon Ferocious be the main MIDI, then this track started after the
player went through the double-key portal. Eventually I made it to the current order for a better tone,
and made No End in Sight? to take this ones place.
I was considering fixing stuff up further a few days ago as-of-writing to have this + Simon Ferocious
be in a single MIDI, but it's time to release stuff, I gotta stop tweaking things, and Sekaiju gave me
the, "perpetually thinking/loading," omen when I tried to put the two MIDIs together.





----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                SIMON FEROCIOUS' UNFORTUNATE DAY AT THE TOOTHPASTE FACTORY
                    (Sally STARTAN and the Wild Fireblu Keycard Caper)

                          General Notes + Things Learned, first!



Regarding the main MIDI, the overall gist of it is that it's pretty much me doing what I
almost always default to with MIDI-making and making music live-or-protracted:
jam! Jam until I'm bored, and it took a good while for that to happen in this case,
and it went on to an absurd length and degree.

With this MIDI specifically though, I prolly stumbled into more new tricks than I have
with any other Doom MIDI that I've done so far, including:

- Out-of-sync layered songs via Midi2Mus
  > I lied, I've done this before exactly once lmao, though this is definitely the first time
    in a public MIDI I'de done. Whenever different things are playing out-of-sync rhythmically
    with each other, it was done via iDs in-house converter to their compressed MIDI format via
    DOS-Box, then using SLADE to de-convert it back to MIDI, then it's at 120 BPM MIDI-wise
    with the notes all desynced from the grid, synced to whatever tempo it was set at
    before conversion.

- Simulated sine-wave tremolo
  > I've done tremolo-ish effects a few times before, just kinda carving small bits
    of volume out of stuff in weird shapes, but this is the first time I've actually
    done it as a consistent shape extended over a good chunk of time, for a more,
    "realistic" use of the effect. For this specifically, I'm pretty sure I was
    inspired by the guitar licks on on Isaac Hayes' version of Walk On By (go listen
    to Hot Buttered Soul right now, the whole album, it really whups the llamas ass.)

- Improvising something live, then transcribing the results
  > All three (the first guitar solo being interrupted by the cleaner, chiller jam)
    lengthy guitar bits were done this way! Surprisingly enough, all of them were
    single-takes as well!

    + The first crunchy one was sharted out without any backing at all in spite of being
      supposed to be more-locked-into-a-beat, and it was a bit more of a pain to
      work with because of that. It's pretty much just going more for a straight-forward
      hard-rocking jam that just keeps going. Of course, a lot of it gets buried in
      the layers of noise lmao.

    + The second, "solo," being the clean jam, was also done without a backing track,
      though on my more less-soloing/power-chords focused guitar, and was much more
      of a free-improvisation. I kinda just meander through chordy repetitions, somber lil
      chord-ish things, lil small jazzy solos, yadda yadda, just whatever felt right
      in the moment... except one part around 18:50 (I think) where I was just tired of
      transcribing note-for-note, and just threw notes at the wall, though that also worked,
      so whatevah. Surprisingly enough, this was less taxing to transcribe than the first
      solo, in spite of the tempo changes and stuff! Anyways, this is pretty much just its 
      own little song shoved in the middle of another solo, which I think is kinda funny.

    + Oh god this fucking solo, I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. After doing
      the first two solos, even though I was happy with the fact that the whole section 
      they were used in was very abstract, chaotic, and throw-shit-at-the-wall, I was
      kinda dissapointed in a way that especially the distortion-solo was almost background
      noise to all the craziness going on, though more importantly that it was a jammy
      rocking sort of thing, but not accompanied by a grooving rhythm section. After receiving
      Lilywaves' earliest shared-build of her section though, she included a MIDI version of
      Bloodhail by Have A Nice Life, and that inspired me to add a lil bit more to the
      collaborative part of the MIDI, and jam over the original version of the song,
      interplaying with the melodies and vibes and so on of the original, instead of kinda
      aimlessly noodling like the first solo kinda is.

- Transcribing anything pitched, including talking/chatter
  > The most obvious part is probably the early part with the Wonka thingy (more info below)
    which was made for the redux of the MIDI back in July, but that kind of thing happens in
    a lot of spots in the MIDI, and I'll mention below when I remember to note as such.


Spoonys contributions to the midi were kinda small in terms of time/quantity, but they
really helped add an extra grounding to what I ran with for a good bit of what came after,
and is definitely more grounded on its own. The bit they did on their own was the strings
+ timpini parts of the transition from around 4:00-4:30, all the way through to around 7:36,
and a few of the main melodic bits found their way throughout the rest of what I did
as a kinda motif/refrain without going to a whole new section and needing to do a
psychedelic-mood-swing move like my lil whimsical chorus that pops up twice.


Just in general, my fixation on making MIDIs like this pretty much comes from not really
having an aversion to long jams and compositions in general, especially from enjoying a lot
of old live Jazz recordings, experimental Industrial-adjacent stuff that just kinda lingers
for a while, etc, it's just kinda what I've been bathed in. A lot of the time I've put that
stuff on while playing longer maps already, with a recent example in my memory being putting on
a Modal/Free Jazz kinda transitional era John Coltrane performance and Nurse With Wounds Spiral Insana
on while playing MAP11 of Sunder.

It's always just seemed the way to go for longer maps, especially when an often-taken-road has been
just putting on a more normal 3-7 minute track on tops into a map because it kinda needs a song
in there, which to me always gets boring or grating.

In other words, these MIDIs are long to keep the players ears interested while floating around
in a map such as this more than anything.

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

                          SIMON FEROCIOUS... Composition Section-By-Section notes:

0:00 - Intro drone

From here until the melodic-disorienting-whatever'majig section, all of this stuff was created
and added after RC1s drop, mostly between June and mid-July for the craziness-dilution.

This part specifically was originally made to be its own MIDI, just to introduce the player
to the music changer, and then they go with whichever one they want. When I got irritated
with DSDA going back to the beginning of it every time I pressed the use key to reload
from the start (muscle memory from using ZDoom ports and loading last-saves that way,)
so at the time I just gave up and made Simon Ferocious the main MIDI in UMAPINFO, and
slapped this onto what I had already done, which started at the previous section.

The lil twinkly bit is Spoonys lil melody.


--------
1:50 - Movie Score Kinda Thing, Idk.

Here was where I kinda wanted to just establish a bit of a mysterious semi-contradiction
lightly, hence a little semi-playful bit coming in and getting interrupted by a wall of sound,
then a shifting forebodingness.


--------
4:37 - Tiny Abstract

A good lil handful of these sorts of things made their way into the post-RC1 rework of the MIDI,
whether it's just little melodic repetitions from what once was used for Megiddo, or new
loose and sparse abstractions like this. Again, for diluting the wackier bits.

Here it's mainly just a transition from the two other sections it's floating between.


--------
5:30 - Wonka Tunnel Scene

This part was built around a hand-transcription of the uncanny talk-sing performance that
Gene Wilder did in the 1971 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory film. I felt it encapsulated
the, "Welcome to this surreal journey," sort of thing better than anything else could.

Around it are a mix of stuff that I thought sounded cool, as well as text-painting based on
the original lyrics, including:
- References to rowing being accompanied by rowing of waves,
- The, "is it snowing," line having sleigh bells
- "Are the fires of hell a'glowing?" having the Opening To Hell whistle
- "Is the grisly reaper mowing?" having the dies ire,
- "Yes, the danger must be growing..." having a siren tone fade in

There's a few more examples, but those are probably the most deliberate/interesting.
I'm quite proud with this part turned out honestly.


--------
7:00 - Rocking Thingy

This one was a result of my brain mixing stuff around and going, "What if that?" Anyways, have the sources

- Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love by Van Halen
- Space Oddity by David Bowie
- Reticula MAP01 music by Nicolás Monti (mainly the intro drum stuff)
- Pretty much any of the more tape-chopped tracks on Chromes Half Machine Lip Moves

This part I guess was kinda meant to be the peak of all the introductory stuff I guess.
Honestly I don't really know how to properly describe stuff in a structural sense, my way of doing stuff
is generally more, "felt/vibes-based," than written in a, "this is a verse, this is the chorus, this is-"
sort of thing. It's all a flow, and more for the resulting feel than being one genera or other qualifier
than another.

--------
13:38 - Another tiny abstract

This one was meant to simulate a synchronized series of tape loops of what would be misc. recordings.

--------
14:47 - melodic-disorienting-whatever'majig:

Here we have the spot where the original RC1 version of the composition started! Note the clever slate:

"This song is long as hell and the map it inhabits has gulped my year near-whole with minor chewing."

Told you!


Anyways, this is pretty much just two MIDIs that I had lying around slammed on top of each other,
with the addition of pitch-bending on the one panning maniacally to make it less repetitive
& more trippy.

This being initially the starting section is kinda a symptom of my improvisational
front-to-back composition style, since I was planning on having the MIDI kinda just be
a mass of whoever wanted to throw a random thing in, and it got a bit less random as soon
as I figured out I'd be the main composer of the majig (though, again, Spoonys contributions
are great- speaking of-)


--------
18:34 - Spoony section:

AAA note:
The manipulation of that melody that was in the steel drums was done by me, Spoony
did the rest.

As soon as the timpini start rolling into the previous section, that's Spoonys part he
overlayed with my own initial bit of the weirdness, and that horror-strings bit is all his.

The main section is also all Spoony composition-wise, and it's far more melodic-development-driven
and focused than I tend to go for, it's great. Pretty much all I did was move instruments around,
add more pitch screwery on the bird-sample layer, and do other smaller arrangement bits like that.

--------
21:45 - Stuff repeats a lot:

Stuff repeats a lot!

This was pretty much just meant as a droning, more introspective, floating sort of thing,
repeating a simple ascending figure as more layers pile up, and occasional chords
come and sweep through.

Also, just as a note, a lot of the time that I'm doing chords like that, I literally just
throw notes on top of each other until they sound good. The overall impression and
spiciness/bite is more important to me than anything, especially since I never did
nor will I ever care about approaching stuff from a functional perspective beyond
I, IV, and V pointing clearly, and just going, "this thing sounds cool, I'm gonna
shove it in here," for pretty much everything else.
I know a good bit of theory for modes and time signatures and stuff, but it's always
just been more fun to think in a free-modal and sound/rhythmic space instead of
functionality or pointing in a specific direction with chord changes.

--------
~24:10 - Groovy section thing:

Speaking of I, IV, and V, I do that a bit in here, because Bobby Prince and yadda
yadda, also blues, funk, y'know the thing. Pretty much just fiddling with
arranging and repeating a groove for a bit w' some tasty harmonic strings and
stuff. Nothing that crazy.

Also, first instance of repeating a Spoony melody (in the old version of the MIDI at least!)

To keep in an old note, originally, my idea with the voice sample/sound layer was to kinda
do very organic things w'out many/any repeating melodic figures, inspired by
how Scott Walker sings on Bisch Bosh. Obviously it has a more up-front focused and more
normal role in the chorus, but yeag.

--------
27:04 - Chorus:

I rarely ever do choruses with stuff, and I really gotta fix that tbh, cos even though
I always do free-flowing abstract structures, they're just satisfying! It's that simple!

Anyways, this is prolly the most straight-forwardly concisely lead-melody thing that
wasn't written by Spoony in this whole composition, and probably that I'll be able
to muster writing for a while, just cos I am too addicted to throwing stuff at the wall.

Also, whimsy!!! This is prolly the most straight-in-your-face whimsical bits of joy
in the whole composition too. Even if I revel in crazy noises and abstractions and
dissonant tone-clusters a lot of the time, I kinda just settle more into the
psychedelic-ish camp of blending whimsy and crazy shit freely, and just having fun with
things instead of trying to be make something mind-numbingly bleak or technical,
or going the opposite direction and making the mind-numbingness be from just being
just benal and, "fits the bill, whatever."

Idk what I'm talking about, it's 5:43 AM, yabba dabba doo, Barney ate your shorts. 

Fun and joy is kinda epic, actually. Be silly today, forever.



--------
27:43 - Funk again, then interrupted guitar solo

This one is probably the already-existing section that's received the most changes.

Initially, this section was the guitar without percussive/stable rhythmic backing, and was cut
roughly in half with the latter half piling on all the weird desynced dissonant layers.
As a result, it was one of the more disorienting and abrasive sections, so in the process of
making the overall music'ing less obnoxious, this actually got reworked instead of just relying
on the same, "dilute through throwing a bunch more milder sections throughout the piece,"
technique. 

--

I was considering having my once-main MIDI-Giddo section be mostly a jam with a bunch of solos
going on, jammed then transcribed just like this, and I recorded at least a keyboard part that
I could've just had directly as MIDI if I had the right external equipment, but went,
"nah," and that just turned into a digital jam instead with distinct portions, which is
probably better in that case. That transcribed-solos idea instead wound up in this composition
instead, and the times where a solo (or multiple) happens in my parts of MIDI-Giddo, that's
just thrown together as manually-inputted notes.
 
Anyways, initially I was gonna have the solo that starts here just be uninterrupted, and jam around
with some motorik funk and/or punk-ish grooving and noises going around it to add interest,
kinda like how it turned out here.

Since I just copy/pasted the guitar solo from a separate file specifically for transcribing
that recording, for at least a time or so when I was listening back to the resulting MIDI
in OPL (via Zandronum, DSDAs OPL is abysmal at this point for long MIDIs,) the drums & bass
weren't constantly copy/pasted the whole solo, so it was a long stretch of just the solo,
which sounded kinda interesting in that pre-construction deconstructed form, so instead,
I added a few sweeping chords, weird rhythms, etc, to add interest as it kept going,
and was gonna keep going along with stuff like that for a while, then add drums and bass
around a-third-of-the-way to halfway through, but then I recorded the more clean solo-guitar
jam and thought it'd be cool to be in the middle of the split parts of the electric solo.

Of course, it's quite different now, but it was interesting while it lasted.

--

Also, weird desynced stuff appear!!! In many places.

I don't know where specifically I first wanted to do stuff like this with contradictory rhythms
and parts just clashing together, but I've definitely heard examples over the years, and probably
didn't think as much of that sort of thing in the past enough to remember them. The first specific
example I remember is both a Poupee Fabrik and Die Krupps track respectively that both do the same
thing of having a different bonus track hard-panned to each stereo channel, kinda as a weird way
to have two bits of bonus material for the space of one on whatever medium it's printed on.

I think the main examples that made me go, "Oh, this is a thing that ya can do, actually," at time of
initial composition was both Leiyla and In The Arena by West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band (a group
with really fucked up history given the guy heading the operation,) with the former track having an
abstract middle-section with some wild panning and noise guitar, then an overdubbed acoustic guitar
playing a mellow bit with no tempo relation to the rest of the grooving of the song, and the latter
more playing a polyrhythmic vocal chorus hard-panned to the opposite to the guitar, bass, and
drums doing a simple repetition.

Anyways, I've done this specific technique of using MIDI2MUS to desync MIDIs before, though with
fewer layers of desynced stuff able to be played simultaniously, since there it was done overtop of
a groove of bass & drum (with my usual layering of both kick and snare samples for a slightly fuller
sound,) so here I went, "what if I threw as many sounds on top of a largely mono-or-biphonic guitar
solo as possible?" and then had the fun.

Ofc, I ended up keeping a lot of it cos I still think it's quite interesting, but especially given
the MIDI instruments limit, I distributed the parts all around the place, and some probably didn't
show up.

A few notes on the influences/backgrounds for various of those layers:

- The first thing that shows up, clean guitar w' the voice, was inspired by the MIDI for MAP04 of
  Down The Drain, which is a slightly odd version of the acoustic/clean-guitar-based early versions
  of True Love Waits by Radiohead, which kinda affected me when I played that map.

- Another bit later on is the Guitar + timpini (?) + steel drum + whatever thing, which was supposed to be a
  Punk/hard-rock thing with another MIDI channel turned to guitar as well, which kinda just screwed
  up the whistle channel instead until I actually learned program changes from Spoony (I can't thank him
  enough in general).

- The kinda military march thing w' the whistle and timpini was inspired by Alan Lomax recordings of
  Napoleon Strickland playing fife and leading a drum band of kids during preparation for a picnic
  or otherwise. Drum & Fife blues ftw.
  > Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bks9sFNvGVo

- (SCRAPPED) There was originally a noisy thing at the end of the section is pretty much just a
  creaking rhythm copied to various parts of the drum kit + pitch shifting and so on, with a
  droning noise added. No specific influence, just playing around.

- (REPURPOSED) Something that didn't make this cut was a decent chunk based on a MIDI that someone
  used in their sections submission temporarily. I forget what it's called, but it's a well known MIDI
  that I've heard used in at least one hard/prominant map, and the only in-MIDI note is:
  > midi by Simone Mularoni
  > simul@libero.it
  Anyways, I made a thing loosely based on the structure and a few aspects, went wherever I wanted
  from there, including a weird Godflesh-meets-proggy-time-signatures thing, then had it return to
  the start section, and was gonna just have it fade out.
    + I didn't use it even in the old version, cos it also used guitar & fell into the same issue
      as the punkish thing mentioned earlier, plus the facts that it was a bit too long & was too many layers,
      but it did find its way at first into my original long-ass MIDI-Giddo bit after the more minimalized
      reiteration of the Chorus/Head, and just before it went into crazy noisy jam mode. It was largely
      scrapped afterwards other than a guitar solo at the end, which made its way into Mind The Gap (see below.)



--------
34:03 - Clean Guitar Jam

More detail in the, "stuff I discovered making this thing," section, but I kinda just picked
up the more-chordy guitar, and jammed this out in one take, cos I was probably jamming &
thought it'd be good to record, and that it'd go good in the MIDI somewhere.

Not much to note here specifically, though there is similarly some droning stuff and
low timpini added in to add more of a dynamic just like last section, even if it's less
necessary here, cos it helps add dynamics and emotion anyways.

The little voice thing at the end was originally overlayed with the electric guitar solos fade-in.

--------
40:12 - Counterpuntal-ish/Classical-ish Thingymajig?

I wanted to reuse both Spoonys Melody/motif again, and some of the otherwise-unrepeated bits from the early
hard-rocking section from earlier at least once, so this pretty much came into existance out of that
desire for a pinch of cohesion.

I've never really been that much of a classical listener, but a lot of concepts I've learned about
have intrigued me. This section particularly was largely inspired by canonic/fugal elements,
so I tried to make the few instruments kinda bounce off each other in a similar sense - at least for
the beginning.

--------
42:04 - Riffage and stuff I guess

This general section kinda just happened, outgrowing from one note from the end of the electric solo
along the lines of, "do some Black Sabbath'ey riffage." It's still not really Sabbath-ish anyways,
but definitely more straight-forwardly rocking/Metal-ish than most stuff in this or that I lean towards
usually, since I tend to go more for layers of different rhythms and parts instead of
chunky riffs as the individual main attraction. It definitely doesn't help with the
kinda call/response stuff, though the whistle/voice/whatever almost doubling the guitar
is a bit Sabbath'ey I guess. Also, out-of-tune strings are there because spooky.

Then it kinda just goes into a simple contrasting riffage section, and a tonal key/chord change trip.

The repeating percussion + droning stuff section probably had a slight bit of Swans inspiration
with the drums, idk.

Also, Bobby Prince 12-bar-blues-aspects kinda stuff, then chorus again.

--------
44:52 - Chorus again

Again, it's the chorus, and it repeats as choruses do.

Main change is that it repeats again but w' a lil key change, and guitar doubling the vocal melody,
but with some ad-libs and so on.

--------
46:09 - Bootleg Bladerunner

Around the time of making the second chorus bit, I was bored and wanted to know the source of one MIDI
used in Serenity/Eternity/Infinity was, since I thought it reminded me of a track from Duke 3D in spite
of that game coming even after the last installment, and it was the End Titles theme from Bladerunner.

Obviously, I know what Bladerunner is lmao. However, I am big stupid, and don't actually watch many films
as of late, even already tried-and-true old ones (I haven't even watched Fritz The Cat in spite of
watching American Pop off a DVD lying around, and loving it a good while back,) so I didn't hear any
of Vangelis' soundtracking from the film until then. I kinda semi-obsessed over it for a smidge, listened
to an upload of the first part of the fan-made Esper edition. It's so goooooooood!!!!!!

I still haven't watched the movie, because:
1. I'm busy
2. I'm lazy & complacent & just keep watching Youtube stuff instead usually. Am dumb.

The main influence on this part was the Blush Response music, with its cascading twinkling 16th note
melody & particular drum beat, especially starting at 28:55. I've already loved occasionally putting
similar stuff in my MIDIs more in reference to chugging basslines of EBM & adjacent Electro-Industrial,
but this was more specifically kinda a half-pastiche I guess.

The weird kinda timpini rhythm was inspired by the beat of Aethereal CCCP by Severed Heads, apparently
as part of a bonus disk that came with City Slab Horrors 2004 Sevcom rerelease according to Wikipedia,
which also according to the same source, was done mainly by Paul Deering. Anyways, I made a similar
sort of 4-bar percussive pattern & did chaotic pitch stuff to it. 

I think the starting part at the timestamp was originally gonna be bridged by another transition, but
I just slapped it in there, and the already more mellow section worked like a dream.

The guitar coming in to repeat the Spoony motif is probably the most prominant & my fave use of it,
especially since I actually thought about it & added embellishments instead of just shoving it in &
going, "Yup, that's a wrap," without even quantizing it (there is/was an issue w' the MIDI that
puts notes at a slight offset when inputting them) or anything.

--------
48:04 - Guitar Solo

YEEAAAAHHH YEEEEEAAAHHHHH YEEEAAHHHHHH

This is probably still gonna be my favorite guitar solo that I've done in MIDI for a good while.
More stuff on the source of this was noted in the, "first time I did certain things," section, but overall,
I did the guitar solo transcribing first, then built the whole section around the solo, starting
at the 100 BPM of the previous section & chorus, then slowly jamming its way to the ~75 BPM of which
I recorded the solo, since it was a kinda-Xenochrony of adding something largely-complimentary to
Bloodhail by HANL.

The main thing with this sort of section is to have the guitar just go do its own thing, but the
underlying music is already interesting enough to stand on its own, so almost whatever is improvised
on top could work, it could work with another instrument, mood, whatever, especially since the
interest in said underlying music is mostly derived from arrangement, any chord changes aren't really
for functional purposes, etc. I've done this before definitely, though usually do the backing, then
jam over it, and if ya work with electronic music & play an instrument, I advise trying it if ya haven't,
it's quite fun.

As a note from roughly a year later, honestly I could almost hum every note of this solo.
Somehow my soup brain found a nice cubby to keep its results in rent-free. :V

--------
53:55 - Yet another abstract nonsense

Thee waves motif returns!

Not much to say yet again. Yet another section to diffuse the more unhinged parts of the composition.
There's more attempts to do bird-calls, some sound effects, etc.

Another tape loop simulator majig caps out the section, yadda yadda.


--------
57:46 - Wackadoo returns

Same idea as the desyncs in the first guitar solo/jam, though with the guitar solo replaced by the drone
that started with the Vangelis-bootleg section, which originally came right before this point w'out
the mild-abstraction. Unlike the previous desync bit though, this is largely unmodified from RC1s version.
Anyways, onto the influences again! 

- The clean guitar thing was from a thing that I checked out that someone mentioned in a discussion
  in the server, regarding Slaughterfest 2012 & the music from Degrassi, to which I downloaded
  the WAD and skipped around to see what maps had what music & a quick glance at the craziness, and
  I hung around MAP24 and MAP25 for a moment, especially for the MIDI from the latter map by elmle:
  The Infinite Sky by Zach Siegel. This lil part was inspired by the start of that track, though with
  a longer melody repeating & so on. Also, that MIDI goes absolutely crazy anyways

- The electric piano thing is kinda just supposed to be like a tape loop of some jazzy piano noodling.
  It repeats in a higher register a pinch after

- The overdriven guitar riff is also kinda just a punk riff, also as a tape loop of a cleaner thing.

- That weird voice noise was an idea I've prolly wanted to try for a bit, where it's pretty much
  the pitch of voices/people talking transcribed & used as a melody. For this specifically,
  I took some random voice clips and put them in a pattern in Audacity, then put it into MIDI
  form as accurately as I could. Same thing for both instances of this kinda thing.

- The lil bassy + steel drum chunk was supposed to be kinda a lil jovial bop, in a similar vein to a lot
  of DOS games or similar.

- The punky rocking thing w' drums and guitar and whatever was pretty much taking advantage of the fact that
  there wasn't already a bunch of layering in this section as there was in the first desync-dogpile section
  at the time, along with the guitar solo already taking up the guitar channel.

- The weird thing w' the chaotic plinking, timpini, etc, was also made as a separate thing, and I think it was
  also supposed to be kinda tape-loop'ey with some of the hyper-specific accidental-sounding bits repeating.

Then, it just goes to strings and other droning instruments as a little ambient section, which was
to transition into the next, and last main section of the time - the ASMZ thing -, but RC2-era changes
had their own plans.

--------
1:01:08 - MIDI-Giddo Repurposed stuff commence

Megiddo-scraps Cometh finally!

This lil bit here (and its duplicate played later) are parts from the freakout parts of the RC1 version
of Terminus Est.

--------
1:02:30 - SpoonyWaltzy

This section is legitimately one of the parts of all of this that I'm most proud of.

The originator for this section was that for the end of my craziness in the MIDI-Giddo, I wanted to
do something like Pink Lady Lemonade by Acid Mothers Temple, and wanted to connect it musically
to the integral/repeated melodic themes of NOVA IV, so I grabbed Spoonys main title melody that he also
used for the start of his section - though whether he did his section-start before I came up with
this premise, I do not recall.

I pretty just fiddled around with it and changed the key, and put it in a slightly-off waltz cadence,
then aimed to make things simultaniously both aetherial and dreamy, as well as nightmarish and collapsing.
That kind of mood and theming has always felt resonant to me, and is imbedded especially in MAP32s result,
and especially getting to have things meet up in this way just feels right.

--------
1:10:08 Repeat Stuff

Transposed Thingy

--------
1:11:50 - Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra but it's a bootleg approximation

For probably almost all of the time pecking on this, I wanted the end to be pretty much as it turned out,
as a mournful pastiche of the general style of ASMZ, though mainly their song Hang On To Each Other
(Like Pigeons In The Rain,) for which the map was named after somewhat early on (with the Mini-Giddo sub-name
kept for a while.) It's prolly not specifically like that song so much, but it still expresses what it
was meant to emotionally & spiritually, even if it isn't literally a collaborative part of the MIDI.

The, "use the chords from the thing that happens at the start," thing was kinda just done in the moment cos
I wanted to getter done, but it also works as a tie-stuff-together majig.

All that wobbly pitching on the vox layer is meant to kinda imitate someones voice too overcome with emotion
to sing cleanly and clearly, similar to Efrim Menucks singing.

Circa RC1, it then went into the drone of low, oppressive noise, and it all just keeps on going ad-infinitum.


One way I keep thinking of this section is that it's a cry of hope and resiliance in spite of all suffering and
hardships. Maybe it's not as well expressing of togetherness due to having a single leading melody voice.

Another way I keep thinking of it is also a last gasp of hope out of the pain and suffering before death
or otherwise, kinda like (sorry for spoilers) the end of Everywhere At The End Of Time expressing last
moments of sudden lucidity before a dementia afflicted persons death.

I'd hope it's more the former, and I'd say it is definitely much more the former in this maps spirit and process,
but both have their merits I think, and there's probably more interesting and deep interpretations that
other folks might make of it.


In retrospect though, frankly I wouldn't consider it to be as emotive as I wanted to at the time,
so hopefuly Friendly Skeleton Bard fills that role better, and this still works well enough.

--------

1:20:00 - Doom 2 in NOVA IV Only (Outro repetitions)

Originally, this remaining loopy section was made as part of a piece that I made for the inter-text
which made it to RC1.

It started with a twinkly reprise of Spoonys motif for the MIDI, then into a driving chugging thing
inspired by the end titles theme from Bladerunner, then into this looping and droning stuff.
I ended up removing that entirely, because:

1. I doubt that many people playing via DSDA or otherwise would hear the whole thing organically,
   mainly given DSDAs particulars with text screens while opening the main menu and so on.
2. I wanted them loops. :U
3. Before RC2s drop, I had an intended replacement that I called Kid Named Pubert, which was inspired by
   the one Happy Hardcore song used in Walter Confettis Episode 1 ending map from Tele-Electric Doom earlier
   in the year. I started it from some chords that I strummed on my flatly-tuned banjo, then made
   a silly lil ditty from it. It didn't make the final cut largely because I didn't think it conveyed
   a vibe that fit well enough. I do quite like how that one turned out though, so hopefully
   it winds up in something.

Later on between RC2 and RC3s drops, I thought it'd be better to just not have any new MIDI during the main
outro text at all, as to give at least some sort of transition from the sheer unkempt madness of this map
back into the rest of the set.




----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                        No End in Sight?

This one is a kinda similar case to Friendly Skeleton Bard in terms of composing/not-much-to-note'ism,
and was pretty much just made to replace it in the blue/red keys back-end, so that I could have Skeleton Bard
be at the start of the map.
It also starts with a kinda subdued similar flavor to Skeleton Bard, meant to be kinda a kinda haunted,
"bad future," version.

Overall it reuses a lot of the same melodies & parts both from the secret-exit parts to MAP31 & of Skeleton Bard,
both the ones based on Bobby Princes works and original stuff, to kinda signal that the player is nearing the end
of their lengthy journey. Leitmotifs for the win.




----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                               FACING IT ALL AGAIN + MIND THE GAP
                             (More Than Just Knee Deep in the Dead)

The start of this is roughly a reiteration of the beginning of Bobbys Fighting The Spider, followed by
a lil Industrial Metal sort of thing...

...and now we groove!


When I wanted to make a track to accompany the end of the map, at the time I was really getting more
full-swing into my Funk kick, and was listening to a good bit of There's A Riot Goin' On,
Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome, and Gap Band IV especially. I also wanted to not fall into the
obvious, "trap," of making a super-banger heavy metal or techno or whatever banger. As a result,
I got jamming, added parts with the main motif of Simon Feriocious that Spoony made as well as 
solos and jamming from the noise-punk freakout jam part of my old MIDI-Giddo section, and this
groovy beast came to pass. 

That one guitar riff that can also be heard in Spoonys MIDI-Giddo section was originally in mine, to which he added
it to his as an extra motif, though it kinda lost that initial purpose after I ripped out my giga-section.
Instead, it kept the Spoony-home, and nestled into this thing as well - though the dance/general similarities
between this track and Spoonys section were an unintentional - albeit cool - coincidence. I will grant that Spoonys
section that still remains in that composition is probably better than this track, but definitely excellent regardless.

Between RC3 and RC3a, I made it a bit longer and jammier, largely because I wanted the music to be less likely
to loop back to the start and screw with the pacing & overall theming. If I could impliment the music
more like a modern game engine or what tracker files might be able to do, and loop starting at the main beat
kicking in at 120 BPM, I absolutely would - not much to the rest of the music for the map, just that ngl.

The Mind The Gap part is a reference to The Gap Band, and More Than Just Knee Deep... is a reference to
the Parliament track.


Ngl, Funk and, "R&B," gets so deeply shoved to the side in, "classic rock/oldies," stuff especially ngl.
I'm pretty sure I know why, but if you know, you know.

We need to get more funked up.

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




















These next three paragraphs reference an easter egg, so feel free to skip if ya don't like spoilers.
I've shoved it all the way down here to kinda isolate it from the main map stuff given that fact.
It's also left with the original text from the RC1 version of the text referencing the actual section
the easter egg is in.

.txt files only have so many ways to work about with them, so this'll have to do:


SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|With the section with the sky-floor and trippy hell stuff, this one was done as a reference to Xasers      |
| Lost Episode WAD (w' Wills for one map) from back in 2009, which has definitely helped feed & spark       |
| my love of mutated-IWAD/iD stuff, and surreal stuff in the Doom engine especially. It's especially        |
| a reference to the start of E5M1 of that WAD, and...                                                      |
|                                                                                                           |
| ...if ya kinda wall-hump over in the northeast side of the room, like in both the map Xaser based E5M1 on |
| and the resulting thing he did, it shows a much more direct reference to what Xaser did with the room,    |
| and leads off to a reference to the first room of Xen Dynamics, also primarily by Xaser, though built     |
| on the back of Malcom Sailors unfinished maps instead. If you shoot the image with the Xaser fish,        |
| a series of crushers initiates, which ya kinda just can't get out of without cheats, or somehow           |
| having a megasphere maaaayyybbbe.                                                                         |
|                                                                                                           |
| The whole easter egg bit was in reference to Xaser hopping in the threads of various projects             |
| on Doomworld, singing the praises of UMAPINFO and how it could be used for cool stuff, and                |
| a lot of times he seems to get people being a lil rude to my memory. Glancing back in the NOVA IV thread, |
| it seems mostly warm reception to what he notes, including that Dehacked changes shoulda been before      |
| the announcement and so on, but I thought it'd add a lil tribute, cus' uhhhh, Xaser is a cool fella.      |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER


Anyways, spoilers over.

























If you've read this far, whether front-to-back, skimming, or even just skipping to the bottom here, thank you
for taking the time out of your day/night.

I hope you enjoy all of our work with this.

Everyone present and mentioned was a good sport, and made this collective playable arthouse weirdness of a map possible,
and left inspirations for a lot of the cooler parts, or more cleanly made them.

- AAA