Gredna (GREDNA.WAD)

Doomworld Forum superstar Memfis has made a bunch of small, individual releases. They span a variety of genres from relatively easy opening-map-to-megaWAD works to difficult, challenge-oriented levels. He covers a variety of themes but his favorite consists of tributes to community classic works like the Memento Mori series and 2002: A Doom Odyssey. There's some overlap between these and the MAP01 constructions because, well, many of these WADs exist because Memfis sat down to build a '96-'97 inspired megaWAD and then lost focus early on. Gredna, originally published on the Doomworld forums on July of 2013, is one such aborted project. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that this is the work that the previously-released Silent Halls was cut from. Gredna replaces MAP01 and MAP02 and should be good for play in any limit-removing source port.

The author did not include a plot but it appears that the player character has arrived at some variety of Hell-corrupted base, perhaps an inviting target due to some sort of large-scale teleport technology. There's no telling how the whole thing would have played out; maybe Memfis would have used the larger, walk-through portals in order to facilitate episodic / texture-scheme changes. As far as the title goes, Gredna is Memfis at his most inscrutable. He is more than welcome to chime in but I doubt whether it is an anagram for an English word like "danger" or "ranged". The release thread - which is difficult to find because the title does not appear on its own in any of the posts - makes a reference to a magical girl with a drill on her head. If this is a reference to a particular manga then, well, it's more esoteric than my admittedly myopic (and classically-oriented) ouevre.

Memfis has ideas about how he wants to accomplish difficulty in the opening of mapsets vs. something like Sticky Blood or Love You With Poison that just goes right for the throat. This MAP01-oriented difficulty limits its monsters to Doom trash enemies - zombies, shotgun guys, imps, and demons - and implements resource scarcity to drive the player to make every shot count. There's an element of difficulty resulting from the player's metagame, here, as you will open yourself up to more RNG pops from hitscanners if you measure out their existence with the pistol vs. the shotgun. Health is just as precious a resource in this style, so the effect of conserving one capacity results in the other's dwindling.

These are slightly more than a couple of short, pretty maps, if only by so much. "Intrusion" (MAP01) has a couple of significant teleporter ambushes to weather, the first being the most dangerous. It's also party to a neat interactive bit where you turn on a larger vertical gateway to move on to the next location. I really like MAP02. The opening sequence with the imp at your back spurring you forward to a shotgun that leaps out of reach a la Tantalus is great. I also enjoy the ordered collapsing of walls toward the beginning and end of the map, creating a tunnel to the next area as well as making for a cool visual. 

It would have been great to see Gredna build to the sort of epics that occupied the mid-to-late portions of Memento Mori, MM2, and Requiem, but such was not its fate. We still get a couple of fun dalliances, though, so if you're up for a little light cleaning then you ought to give them a play.

GREDNA

by "Memfis"

Intrusion

MAP01

A wicked cool MAP01 for a megaWAD with a classic mid-'90s feel, I guess because stepping through the gate feels like the start of a massive campaign. The setting is a corrupted techbase whose walls are predominantly green, whether it's tech plating, giant bricks, or dingy tiles. Combat is limited to Doom trash monsters and most of the difficulty is through a relatively restricted health supply. Memfis does have a few surprise ambushes that are sure to land a shotgun guy sucker punch or two. The big brawl with the teleporter booth is probably about as frantic as the combat feels as the warping monsters misdirect you from their origin. The outdoor gate and transition to Gothic brick Hell zone makes for a nice coda.

MAP02

Underhalls

A brick dungeon that intersects some natural caverns and kicks off with a handful of classically dickish design decisions. The player starts with an imp at his or her back - which you won't know until it tears your ass up - and there's a shotgun dead ahead. Run toward the shotgun and it shoots up into the air on a pedestal. While it doesn't continually yank the player around a la S.T.R.A.I.N.'s MAP10 ("Entryway") it does have a cool payoff. Lowering the pedestal also causes a tunnel to form, leading the way to the rest of the level proper. Combat is again mostly influenced by authorial austerity. Memfis generally sticks to Doom trash enemies but you may have to swat a cacodemon or two over the course of the level. There's a little bit of Darkwave0000-style scene setting glimpsed through a window in the northwestern area, always appreciated.

CODE GREDNA