DOOM: Damnation (Vanilla Megawad for The Ultimate Doom)

[Ofisil]

Hello fellow Doomers!

 

@P41R47 has already made a post about the following for which I'm eternaly grateful. His positive remarks made me very proud of my humble little project.

(Check it out, and hit the like button)

 

...But I couldn't resist writing a few words of my own about my first major contribution.

 

DOOM: Damnation is a 4-episode Megawad for The Ultimate Doom, whose main purpose is to be a retelling of the original Doom "story."

 

This mapset includes a couple of unique concepts and ideas, but mostlly aims to offer a classic-feeling experience, with a heavier focus in atmosphere, rather than ultra-detailed visuals, and with - mostly - medium sized encounters, instead of endless swarms of demons. The key word here is balance, whether that has to do with the enemy count, the ammo, or the map size... although I occasionally break my own golden rule. Difficulty-wise this is mostly harder than the original game, with less resources per level (still more than doable in UV & Pistol Start), with enemy types introcuded in a similarly slow manner, although you'll fight most of them sooner than expected.

 

Here's an age-old Newstuff Chronicles topic featuring my initial, 3-episode version.

 

WHY VANILLA?

 

It's important for me to explain why I've done all my editing with a vanilla mindset. There are two reasons. The first, and more "silly" one, is the simple fact that I barely have time to work on vanilla maps, let alone something more ambitious. This megawad is a great example, as it took WAY too long. The second reason, is my fascination with limitations, and how they can push you to be as creative as possible with what little resources there are available. DOOM: Damnation put my editing skills to the test, and taught me a lot about what good design is. I hope my lessons are succesfully reflected on my work.

 

So, without any further delay, download ddamn10, and tell me what you think about it.

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom/Ports/megawads/ddamn10

 

SCREENS

Spoiler

 

OST:

 

Want to use my custom soundtrack? Great! Just leave me a PM, so that I can enjoy my tunes with your WAD.

After @Diabolución 's recommendation, I'm posting a seperate PWAD with my music in MIDI form (not MUS). DOOM 2 file names included, so that you can test it with your D2 wads.

 

DDAMN10 MIDI MUSIC.zip

 

DOOM WIKI:

Entry by @P41R47 : https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Doom:_Damnation

 

WALKTHROUGH:

Very thorough playthrough by @RaRu Des2122 : 

 

Edited June 1, 2021 by Ofisil

[P41R47]

Excellent post, pal!

Now its finally up there!

Congratulations! :D

[ketmar]

all "likes" and only one answer looks little... lonely? ;-)

 

thank you for finishing the project (i just found that i have damn09.zip in my "replay" list; which means "i played it, i liked it, i will play it again"), and for uploading midis! now if only somebody will upload some free time...

[Valboom]

Wow! My Crispy Doom is ready for this!

[dei_eldren]

Just played through E1M1, on HNTR - really like your concept in mapping.  Nice original layout, and no-nonsense gung-ho gameplay!  Def will continue playing.

Edited February 19, 2021 by dei_eldren

[Rudolph]

I have started playing it and I am liking it so far. However, I struggle with locating all the secrets. Any chance of some kind of guide?

[Ofisil]

Hey there Rudolph. Thanx for playing my wad.

No, sadly, don't have time for a guide, but u can always pm me for any specific spots if you want.

[P41R47]

42 minutes ago, Ofisil said:

Hey there Rudolph. Thanx for playing my wad.

No, sadly, don't have time for a guide, but u can always pm me for any specific spots if you want.

I will try to ''understand'' how to post on the Doomwiki and create a page for your megawad, pal!

Then, i will try to made a detailed secret listing in there.

I think every new item added needs approval from admins, so it will take a few days.

[Rudolph]

That would be great! I am currently stuck on E1M2 trying to figure out two remaining secrets, namely:

 

Spoiler

inside the checkpoint booth and behind the closed door on the southern side of the octogone (not the nuclear reactor room). I can tell from using am_cheat 2 that they are secret areas, but I have yet to get access to them.

 

Edited March 4, 2021 by Rudolph

[P41R47]

5 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

That would be great! I am currently stuck on E1M2 trying to figure out two remaining secrets, namely:

 

  Hide contents

inside the checkpoint booth and behind the closed door on the southern side of the octogone (not the nuclear reactor room). I can tell from using am_cheat 2 that they are secret areas, but I have yet to get access to them.

 

-near the area where the nuclear reactor is, there is a hidden wall with the yellow key, that let you take the chaingun.

-other one is on the first big room just when you come out after the corridor of the first lift, the room with all the computer terminals, the central one has a switch for one of the doors on the sides, its timed, so run for it.

-The last secrets are near the exit, one is right before the lift, there is a bit off wall that hides a secret switch that let you take a soulsphere.

-The other one is throught the acid pool, just at the side of the exit switch.

Edited March 4, 2021 by P41R47

[Rudolph]

Thanks!

 

1 hour ago, P41R47 said:

-other one is on the first big room just when you come out after the corridor of the first lift, the room with all the computer terminals, the central one has a switch for one of the doors on the sides, its timed, so run for it.

That one could use a sound cue when interacting with the computer to let you know that something has been activated.

Edited March 4, 2021 by Rudolph

[Rudolph]

3 hours ago, P41R47 said:

Then, i will try to make a detailed secret listing in there.

In the meantime, could you post your findings here? Now I am in E1M3 and I am once again struggling with finding the secrets.

 

I got the secret infrared visor, but I have no clue how to get the second, which I presume is behind the door near the rotating pillar in the slime pool.

[Ofisil]

This is a tough and cryptic one :) It's about the secret level after all.

Spoiler

 

Inside the room where u found the red key there's a secret wall. The switch opens a door on the Chaingun area in the begining, but you need to run to get it.

I leave the rest to you as it is easy from there...

 

 

Edited March 4, 2021 by Ofisil

[Rudolph]

Thanks!

[Diabolución]

On 3/3/2021 at 9:41 PM, Rudolph said:

Any chance of some kind of guide?

 

NuMetalManiak / Getsu Fune is documenting them all for the (real) Doom Wiki.

[Csucskos]

OHKEY! Sooooo! My first impression was: Oh my God, this WAD sucks! And then had to realize... it's not the WAD, it's Doom. I got so used to Doom II, I forgot how many things it added. I thought it was only the SSG, Hell Knights and Pain Elementals... But no. Also added Revenants, Mancubi, Archviles and Chaingunners. It was a painful realization. So overall it would have been an OK WAD, if not for the boring enemies. Like shotgunning Zombies and Imps and Barons and Cacos gets old... pretty fast. But aside from the circumstances I want to evaluate the WAD.

 

The visuals are amazing. The locations are readable, make sense and really diverse. I also like the fact that one map's end is the next one's beginning, giving the feeling that the whole episode is one giant map. Love it! Sometimes you can't backtrack which was annoying but at least it was only once or twice.

 

As I said the fights would be great with many different situations but always the same old enemies. :( And there are so many ambushes. They were not unfair but I was getting to expect a door opening every time I picked up something. They are not ambushes anymore if I expect them.

 

I could summarize it as a great WAD for a bad game, but there's one thing I can't leave out. The secrets. Calling them criptic would be an understatement. They are extremely hard to locate and even with maphacking (meanign IDDT) I wasn't able to get all of them. First problem is most of the time you have no way to know there is a secret there (should at least give some kind of lead) and secondly even if the texture is different there is no way to know what you have to do to open it. I was running around like crazy, humping walls, shooting ornaments and so on, because sometime you have to do something on one side of the map just to open a door on the complete other side... And sometime the door is timed so you better hurry.

 

So I would have enjoyed the WAD, if not for Doom's limitations. But then the secrets killed the rest of my enjoyment. Sorry.

[Ofisil]

@Csucskos hey there man, thanx for taking the time to play my wad, and leaving a comment (did u play it all, btw)

 

#1 Yes, Doom has less stuff than DII, but that's the challenge here. I tried to make this as fun as possible DESPITE its limitations.

#2 Lots of ambushes? Can't say I agree, especially for the first two episodes.

#3 When it comes to secrets I usually have a three-Tier system for each map: One super easy (suspicious textures and so on), something more challenging (indicated by a weird choice of decoration or whatever), and very, very cryptic, but still just a matter of paying attention to your surroundings. There are some secrets that, like you say, are beyond cryptic, of course, I'll give u that. I don't want people to 100% my wad in one sitting :D

[Faceman2000]

36 minutes ago, Csucskos said:

a bad game

:O

[Csucskos]

10 minutes ago, Ofisil said:

did u play it all, btw

Yes, all 4 episodes, every map, even the secret levels

Quote

#1 Yes, Doom has less stuff than DII, but that's the challenge here. I tried to make this as fun as possible DESPITE its limitations.

OK, I understand but this does not make it any better. I see the fun side of working out how to make it work, but it would have been improved in Doom 2 imo.

Quote

#2 Lots of ambushes? Can't say I agree, especially for the first two episodes.

Maybe I mix it up with your other WAD I played. My bad then.

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#3 When it comes to secrets I usually have a three-Tier system for each map

Understandable, but still, it's too too damn hard for my taste.