DBP29: Morbid Autumn | DBP29.WAD
Doomer Boards
Morbid Autumn is the 29th such project from the Doomer Board folk; hot off Fear and Loathing, their Doom 3-themed project, the DB take a tack on a different kind of horror theme, moving away from the sci-fi Aliens-esque trappings of Doom 3 to gothic horror in the vein of Blood and other classics. Making heavy use of the all-time classic texture set from Gothic Deathmatch and its successors, Morbid Autumn has you assaulting a gloomy series of castles, fortresses, dungeons and manors, surrounded by the dead leaves and bare trees of late autumn.
Morbid Autumn doesn't really have a story. It doesn't even
replace the stock intermission text, though a ZMAPINFO lump does make sure
the map names are correct. Like a great many mapsets we're pretty much
forced to just make one up of our own, or -- given that this is Doom after
all -- just play the maps as they're presented to us, narrative be damned. I
decided to give the mapset a bit of added flavor, and to that end I added
the following mods: HorrorMovieRei's underrated
Gothic Doom
reskin pack, DoomKid's
150 Skins
mod (set to some hooded guy whose mugshot sprites I think are from
Samsara?),
Flashlight++ 8.5
set to "Lantern," and one of my new favorite toys,
Retro FX with Dither. I like to imagine the story as being a monster hunter in the late 19th
century come to clear an old castle of some Satanic bullshit and the cult
that summoned it -- like a different spin on Blood. I dunno, I think it works. (I also use my old autoload standbys, a
lightweight mod that makes enemies bleed the correct color blood -- and it's
still valid for Gothic Doom -- and another one that makes
GZDoom's "you found a secret" message significantly less head-exploding.)
Whether you use all these mods or not -- and I don't blame you if you don't, this is just for my own amusement, but IMO they gel well together -- Morbid Autumn is a fantastic little episode, headed (as usual) by Jon "40oz" Vail. 40oz eases you in at first, but he will definitely pull the rug out from under you before the first map is over, a mean little trick that I think was probably better executed in Ancient Aliens. Towards the middle of the set you'll get a series of maps that are fantastically atmospheric romps, the standout being sonny666's "Norwich Lane," a wonderfully detailed map that in all honesty would have fit snugly into one of the many Blood mods that are out there these days. The final series of maps are more linear affairs that nevertheless are great fun, throwing big hordes at you and occasionally requiring a bit of tactical thinking (Ilya "joe-ilya" Lazarev's level is a good example.)
The Gothic texture set has gotten a lot of use in the quarter century since
its creation; while it is, or at least was, a popular aesthetic for
deathmatch releases (most notably Crucified Dreams) it's also seen use in single player campaigns like
Caverns of Darkness and Sunlust. Morbid Autumn makes heavy use of it in a style that should
be familiar to fans of Gothic Deathmatch; an0n's map (in the 7th map slot) especially feels like a lost
GothicDM level in its detailing and odd layout. The overall
aesthetic leads heavily towards greys and browns, which has the effect of
making Morbid Autumn quite gloomy without a lot of contrast to add pop. Red
highlighting effects don't actually do much in that regard, but some levels
-- I'm thinking of 40oz's "Magma Gorge" in particular -- make excellent use
of lava to add some light and color to this mouldering tomb of a
mapset.
You should play Morbid Autumn. While sometimes the Plutoniousity goes off the scale and into the realm
of slaughter, it's a bit of a mixed bag in that regard, with a good
combination of encounter types to keep you on your toes. It won't punish you
constantly like Sunlust would, but it definitely likes to
throw some intense encounters your way. Well worth a play.
MAP01: Mortis Castille
Jon "40oz" Vail
The episode begins appropriately by starting you off at the end of what
must have been a long journey, and now the only thing between you and a
small fortress is a lonesome cliffside mountain path. From the first shot
you'll hear the roar of a cyberdemon, but he's not much of a threat -- yet.
The initial combat isn't too rough provided you mind the cybie, but when you
step through the teleporter the red key unlocks, you're dropped into a
nightmare zone where that cybie (who previously -- and mysteriously --
disappeared) chases you around a looping arena that also fills up with a lot
of demons and other bullshit. A rough way to set the tone.
MAP02: The Guillotine
40oz
40oz eases you in a little better this time around with a cute little
castle complex surrounding an open courtyard with a cute little guillotine.
He's also nice enough to give you a backpack right in the middle of the
path. The biggest threat is probably going to be the repeated revenant
encounters, though the lost souls flying everywhere in the guillotine yard
are a pain too. I really like the bit where you have to grab a texture-based
key and use it to unlock a nearby door.
MAP03: Hate Tectonics
Peerdolius
I hope you like shitty metal MIDI, because a bad rendition of Joy
Division's "Shadowplay" (the
real thing
is pretty good though) is gonna be on loop for a while, and I'm not gonna
lie, it kinda ruins the atmosphere. Nevertheless, Peerdolius is a relatively
recent comer to the Doom community, mostly active on the Doomer Boards, but
if this is the kind of stuff he can crank out this early in his career I
have high hopes for him indeed. There are some amateur mistakes here and
there -- there's a spot where you can jump down to get some health, but
there's no way back up -- and a wall that should have lowered didn't, which
may actually be something on my end involving GZDoom 4.11.1 as something
similar happened with No Rest For the Living's secret level
the last time I played it. Regardless, this is a gloriously gloomy journey
into the dark, a cave system beneath a crumbling castle. If you decide to
jump down into the left-hand pit by the red door you'll get taken on a
journey through a dark tunnel system culminating in a hitscanner ambush and
yet another Arch-vile. Very cool, atmospheric level.
MAP04: Norwich Lane
sonny666
A beautifully atmospheric survival horror chiller set around a ghostly
manor of sorts and the nearby grounds. It starts off with a few spooks
before throwing a couple tough fights at you in the caves. The moment with
the Arch-viles when you grab the blue key isn't normally much to sweat about
but down there in the dark it can be pretty nerve-wracking. The custom midi
composed by sonny666 actually really drives the atmosphere to a high point.
It's a fun spook ride from the Cacodemon in the barn when you grab the
chainsaw to the surprise moshpit at the end. Easily my favorite map.
MAP05: Magma Gorge
40oz
40oz sends us on a cave tour that opens into a massive magma chamber.
Generally this is a pretty easy ride compared to the likes of "Hate
Tectonics" or 40oz's own "Mortis Castille" and is therefore a pretty welcome
respite. The overall aesthetic reminds me heavily of maps I used to play
20-plus years ago, like The Darkening and most especially
QDoom. The fight in the final room will definitely be much easier if you find
the hidden invulnerability sphere near the red key door, but even after you
take down the Cybie and his imp pals you've still got the baby spiders to
deal with.
MAP06: Deathwistle
SuperCupcakeTactics
SuperCupcakeTactics drops us into a cramped, gothic graveyard and tomb
complex that throws an enormous amount of hitscanners at you. The level is a
bit of a slog at first with lots of roaming enemies and open lines of sight
even from areas you won't get to yet, but once you find your way into the
tombs -- and the clandestine meetings taking place within them -- the action
calms down a little bit, though Cupcake sure likes big hordes. The final
fight with a pair of Barons guarding a hallway is more tedious -- but safer
-- if you jump back out of the hole in the wall you climbed in through.
MAP07: Der Galgen
an0n
With a name that means "The Gallows" in English (and indeed there is one,
right of the start point) this one definitely feels a bit like a throwback
to the aesthetics of Gothic Deathmatch, a small castle complex with some cool ambushes. Both the red key and blue
key are immediately available at opposite ends of the map, left and right of
the starting point, and you'll need them both to first enter a large hall
and then reach the yellow key, respectively. The red key fight in the cave
(the one really naturalistic area of the map) is relatively sedate, but the
press of Barons and an Arch-vile in the blue key room may pose a serious
roadblock unless you can safely open the gate and get out.
MAP08: The Fallen Towers
Ilya "joe-ilya" Lazarev
A fun, brief adventure map across a series of broken pieces of castle wall.
You'll be treated to some wide vistas as you journey across a toxic swamp.
Ilya throws a few surprises at you on the walls, and sometimes it's safer to
just take a dive into the swamp and run for the nearest teleporter, which
will take you back to the start of the map at which point you can traverse
the jumps again and deal with the bullshit from relative safety. But then he
switches things up on you with the teleports close to the far shore of the
swamp just dumping you right back in the spider garden you were trying to
get away from. Survive all that and you get to deal with dozens upon dozens
of Imps just pouring out of a throne room. Cool map.
MAP09: Call of the Canyon
Morpheus Kitami
In a mapset full of detailed, "modernist" maps, Morpheus Kitami drops
something that feels a little older on us, a sparsely-detailed canyon crawl
that slowly winds around a central peak. You'll be dealing with Imp snipers
and Manc artillery in addition to large crowds of zombies and pinkies, but
the finale is a little underwhelming with a lone Arch-vile you can take out
from a distance before triggering a cageful of Revenants that are easily
dispatched by circle-strafing. Not a bad map, but it feels a little out of
place in this set.
MAP10: Dusk Ache
40oz & SuperCupcakeTactics
Morbid Autumn reaches its climax with a sprawling, but linear castle adventure. You'll be dealing with some easily-managed groups of beasties at first, but the Mancubus chamber can get a bit frantic. The real fight, however, is the huge mixed horde at the very end, though 40oz and SuperCupcakeTactics are kind enough to dump plenty of rocket ammo on you as well as a megahealth for the Archie ambush (which, if you've opened the gate beforehand you can completely ignore.) All in all, a good way to end the mapset.
-June <3
In the shadowplay, acting out your own death
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