Valiant Map 14 Implosion: No Damage Completion, with Live Commentary & Outtakes
90:00 Intro
0:20 Attempt #40: Meet The New Imps
3:30 Birth & Brrrr
6:30 Careful in the cave
9:30 Yellow key trap
10:20 Attempt #41
10:40 Attempt #124
14:00 Rapid red key trap
16:45 Myster-Yee
18:50 Pyro-technics
22:15 Nerves and new bombers
25:00 Outro
#Implosion #Reality #Valiant
This video comprises one successful demo and several outtakes for the challenge of scoring all monsters, items and secrets on Valiant's Map 14 'Implosion' while sustaining no damage whatsoever, from a pistol start. There is commentary throughout, almost all of it recorded live as I played.
Valiant is the popular 2015 MBF-compatible megawad made by Paul 'Skillsaw' DeBruyne and can be downloaded for free from:
https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/megawads/valiant
Thanks to Skillsaw for making this masterpiece and Decino for making me aware of its awesomeness.
This map not only features explosive barrels by the lorryload but also showcases many of the modifications made by Skillsaw to the weapons and monsters for Valiant. For no damage play, the imps must be given plenty of respect, as I often discovered to my cost while attempting this challenge. Although there are several traps in which monsters teleport into the playing area, hiding in the cave section works pretty well. However, it's nerve-wracking tension all the way because the hitscanners keep on coming.
The biggest breakthrough in developing my tactics was when I found that if the chaingunners and mancubus near the arachnotron are not too aggressive, I can make that area safe for me to snipe the imps. Indeed, the barrels in that area would often explode sooner than shown in the video.
The blue key trap was infuriating because the timing for my forward run after the monsters begin to enter depends on me not being a nervous wreck --- it was my fault for making silly mistakes in the earlier stages so often and putting myself under extra pressure. However, with a little more luck, I would have succeeded in far fewer tries.
When loading this map in PrBoom+, be sure to use Complevel 11 and have the default compatibility settings. 'Dead players can exit levels' should be 'Yes' with the 26 other options set to 'No'.
I had messed around with my settings a long time ago and forgot all about it. Other complevels are unaffected, but on Valiant I kept finding the high wall near the blue key wouldn't lower when the trap was triggered.
My gratitude is to Da Werecat and Shepardus in particular, and everyone else from whom I sought help with this puzzling issue, which threatened to derail my plans for Valiant no damage demos.
There will be more to come from Valiant, so watch this space!