NOTE: This is a Tool-assisted demo

Memento Mori
Map 12 "Kinetics" UV Tyson Reality!

Recorded using Andrey Budko's modified PrBoom 2.2.4
-playdemo with PrBoom 2.x.y
Even though the demo was recorded with -complevel 0 
(doom2.exe compatibility) it crashes doom2.exe. :-(

Kills:   100%
(Items:  100%)
Secrets: 100%

and Time: 4:06.34
          =======

Description:
------------
"[...]unfortunately due to the ugly map design, I don't 
think there will ever be a "good" demo from this map...
it's just that horribly designed. [...] I'm sure that 
only a crazy person would want to actually spend time 
doing ANY demo for this map..."

--Excerpts from Casey "Altima Mantoid" Alvis' mm12-733.txt


Well, call me crazy, Casey, but I like this map. And I 
wanted to do a good demo for it, cheated or not. It's 
Tyson style, yet to be done unassisted, and also Reality 
style! Since there are no secrets here, it's also an 
"inefficient" UV max run, heheh.

I know a lot of people, most people probably, consider 
this map to be the worst map out of all the maps in the 
6 COMPET-N PWADs (MM, MM2, Requiem, HR, AV, Classic Ep).
That's 169 maps to choose from. :-P 

Now, I'd be the first to admit the architecture is 
amateurish at best. It's hard to describe this map, so 
I'll use the authors' own words:

"A complex level with lots of moving parts, such as the 
mother of all building staircases. Permeated by lots of 
green marble and good texture alignment."

I hate to burst his bubble right away, but this is about 
as unaligned as you can get... ;-) It's also completely 
dark some of the time... so you can't see the alignments. 
He was right about the level being "complex" though, if 
by "complex" he means that the player is constantly lost, 
wondering where to go.

The big question then: Is this really that bad? NO!!! It's 
a very atmospheric and fun map to play. In fact, I've never 
quite played anything like it, ever. So I appreciate its'
uniqueness. Though it certainly is hard on UV -- there's 
no armour at all, and there are some ammo problems. This 
demo shows how to get around having no armour, and the 
ammo problems... ;-D

About the demo ->
Reality style is alive and kicking! Adrian "RamboBones" 
Danis significantly improved his full Doom 2 reality run, 
and watching that awesome demo inspired me to get off my 
lazy arse and record more reality... Thanks, Adrian!

The demo is standard TAS stuff. No strafe50 at all, between 
30% and 50% slow motion, 24 saves. The time is good, but I 
would have liked to go below 4:00. The route is my own 
invention; I think it's close to optimal. It *is* possible 
to go through the dark marble hall with the jumps in only 
one go, taking out the chaingunners on the ground with the 
pistol. That was my original plan, but it turned out to be 
much harder than I'd expected. Implementing this would save 
a bundle of time. The start is very difficult to do reality 
style. There are other ways of dealing with it; an idea for 
an unassisted run would be to jump in by the imps, and 
activate the crusher there. I stumbled upon a hilarious 
way of taking care of the chaingunner (it was a failed 
attempt at activating his crusher); I kept it in for 
entertainment.

The rest of the run was not very hard, though getting that 
first Mancubus (at the lift) to "cooperate" took quite a 
few tries.

The Arachnotron section is usually madness, but I found 
out that infighting is your friend. :-) Considering I can't 
punch Arachnos properly (not like Xit Vono, anyway) I was 
a bit nervous about that part, until I realised that the 
most daring thing to do (release all the monsters at the 
same time) was also the smartest!

If you have any comments about this demo, I would be 
delighted to hear from you. This demo wasn't made with 
time as a main priority, I tried to make it look fun -- I 
enjoyed recording this immensely; maybe it shows? I should 
point out that because of the slowmo used the movements of 
the player isn't that smooth, in fact it's sometimes awful. 
If that bothers you, you probably don't want to watch this.

Those of you with low gamma correction levels might want 
to look into the IDBEHOLDL cheat (light amplification) 
for the darker parts of this demo.. Just to check out the 
action better.

MM map 12 UV Tyson is in fact feasible unassisted. The 
start will be very tough (not missing a monster), as will 
the Arachnotron part (surviving!), but the rest isn't 
overwhelming. I estimate the difficulty will be quite a 
bit higher than ty07, though, so unless a real Tyson expert 
decides to take this on, it will remain undone. Xit, are 
you reading this? ;-)

Trivia about the map author ->
The author of "Kinetics" is Fairfax Sheild "Mackey" 
McCandlish, a.k.a. "Avatar". At the time of MM's release 
he was very active in the DooM IRC and Deathmatch scenes, 
and authored several DM maps for Doom 2 (known as the 
"Avatar Collection"s, look them up in the /idgames 
archive), as well as the "One Must Fall" Total Conversion, 
called "DooM Must Fall" -- his perhaps greatest 
contribution to the DooM Community. There is also a DM 
demo of him getting slaughtered by the late DooM God 
NoSkill in a game on Doom 2 map 1 (IIRC, the NoSkill 
memorial site maintains this demo). Believe it or not, 
Mackey later went on to work as a professional level 
designer... His work can be found in e.g. "Medal Of 
Honor: Allied Assault".


Kristian Ronge
Zuckuss@bigfoot.com