Voyage to Deimos map02 (VODEIMO2.WAD)

VOYAGE TO DEIMOS
MAP02
by "Memfis"

VtD has an interesting history that partially resembles Sam Woodman's aborted Testament of Judgement project. Memfis only ever released / finished two of its levels - the other VODEIM21 -and the existing material is split between the original Doom and its sequel. VODEIMO2 was actually one of the first levels that the author ever made, back in 2007. It was only uploaded in 2014 as part of Memfis's epic archive dump after an approximately year-long period where he had effectively boycotted /idgames. True to its name, this leg of the Voyage is a MAP02 replacement for Doom II. The .TXT specifically cites it as being tested in prBoom+ using -complevel 2 but it should work in any limit-removing port.

A provided story is nonexistent but we can infer from the title that the action either encompasses a journey to the doomed Deimos moon or takes place after reaching it. The presence of twisted techbase features witnessed in the level's second half or - more blatantly - the marble courtyards and Satanic chapel finale implies the latter. The player character's motivation is obscured so the reason for the Voyage is up to your imagination. I kind of enjoy the plotlines where the UAC sends people to one of their disused strongholds in an attempt to secure potentially lucrative experiments or data. It fits just as smoothly, though, into the endless campaign against evil.

I like VODEIMO2 because of how deliciously amateur it is when compared to his typically clean and highly-informed style. It's a simple and orthogonal arrangement of rooms and wide corridors detailed with big border sectors along the walls and tons of hyper-aligned "battle damage" like missing bricks and floor tiles. There isn't a lot of height variation but you get some complication from the well / pool yard's upper imp tier and the goofy staircase switch to the southeast. It's interesting how it seems to be optimized for uv-max speedrunning as far as it's preferential to climb in through the obvious window and work your way back to the start from the computer / control room.

The combat is pretty fun. The front half is weighted toward OG Doom-style shotgun and chaingun action. You have the option of sticking it out against several Hell nobles or just waiting until the combat shotgun comes up to go back and clear them. Your limited toolkit does a good job of upping the panic during one of the several standout encounters. I really enjoyed the claustrophobic chaos in the octagon-shaped atrium behind the yellow key door. It's a dangerous fight since monsters are everywhere including a couple of space-hogging cacodemons. This limited range of movement gives the sole revenant a bit of an edge.

The Hell knight storage room is another favorite because it successfully snuck up on me. It's not that dangerous as you enter but when you step deeper inside it feels like the nobles just come out of nowhere. They do a pretty good job of hiding behind the various crates; the chamber feels as though it's laid out to keep them from approaching until the player exposes him or herself. The rest of the action is pretty benign though it's difficult to see in the chapel's unfinished basement, giving its various denizens a decent chance of cheap-shotting you. I like the look, though. Nice atmosphere, even if it's kind of at odds with the boppin' music track.

Voyage to Deimos map02 is plain in some regards but Memfis shows a pretty good eye for combat. There's also neat story here of the author before he presumably fed his idea of what a Doom WAD ought to look like with recording now hundreds of demos on mapsets both classic and otherwise. It's not a bad little level; I'd even go so far as to call it DoomCute.