Doom Wadarcheology - To dig, rediscover and enjoy the classics.

[thestarrover]

@Endless Good review! I played this wad three days ago and I liked it. I like the wads full of secrets and where you have to explore to find your way out.

Edited August 12, 2021 by thestarrover

[Arrowhead]

The Lucid - 03/18/1996 - played via LZDOOM local-splitscreen deathmatch

 

This map is by Jeremiah Bean, a rather unknown deathmatch author who published a handful of maps in March 1996. The map consists of a large rectangular area connected to a smaller rectangular area, a large staircase separates the two disparate rooms. The map is mostly monotextured, w/ crates and the occasional hell texture to add accent. Surrounding the rectangular areas are a 'raised track' that you can see into the main rectangular room from. This is where a lot of the 'flow' of this map lies - it is fun flying around the upper raised area and then jumping down the many paths that lead to the central rectangle room.

 

There is a secret elevator that lowers to a chaingun in the wood room - once you find this, that room stops having a dead end, and starts being fun again. There are two blurspheres in this map, which seems a little overkill, considering the darkness of the smaller rectangular 'wood' room - could be rife for abuse by campers. I didn't encounter this, when I was playing this map last night w/ my brother and some bots, but I could see how the blurspheres could be abused.

 

Chokepoints are not very plentiful due to the large centralized design, and the map really flows quite nicely considering its age. I don't think this map would be very good in duel - its too large in the middle; it definitely works for 3-4 player FFA, though. Unfortunately, deathmatch spawns are not on top of weapons, but they are close enough that the spawns aren't particularly offensive to a modern player.

 

Overall, a fun multiplayer map that has a couple tiny flaws! Could be even better w/ some slight tweaking - namely better identifying the elevator in the wood room, and putting the spawns on weapons.

 

Check it out for some oldschool frags!

 

Spoiler

 

Download link: https://bit.ly/37Dh0FA

[Arrowhead]

e2gc.wad - 05/17/94 - played via GZDOOM 4.1.2

 

E2gc.wad is an interesting and very early 2 pack of maps created by Greg Clark. You explore a large nonlinear techbase type location, populated w/ small rooms filled w/ computer servers and crates. The first map has standard room-clearing gameplay, while the second map has more exploratory fun. The first map comes in at just over 70 monsters, and the second pushes 150.

 

The first map, while not bad - is definitely not as fun as the second, I really liked the second map's progression, w/ its cleverly set up 'shootable' switches. This map has good use of shootable switches, as the player can see that there is no other way to access them, other than shooting. I thought that was cool to see from such an early WAD.

 

The second map features an interesting section where subsequently lowering platforms unleash a new fight each time - this felt quite cool for an early '94 WAD. The secrets in the second map are pretty cool - and show some clever thinking for the time - especially the one w/ the sneaky ambush! Detailing and overall design are pretty competent in this too. I could have done without the grid shaped room at the end of map02, but I can excuse that, as the rest of the map looks pretty dang good for the time.

 

Two very fun maps that are worth a second look! This author really had some major potential - its a shame this is the only project they've ever made. Definitely worth checking out, if you're a fan of oldschool maps.

 

PS - The readme that comes w/ this file is curiously just a story about the two maps - it contains no other information - the readme shown on the /idgames page is different from the one included w/ the file.

 

These two maps take up slots E2M1 and E2M2. :)
 

Spoiler

 

Download link: https://bit.ly/3iH2cMl

[roadworx]

first of all - i love this concept and i love op for making this thread. thank you, i love older doom mapping so i'll try to contribute if i get enough motivation to write.

 

secondly:

On 8/11/2021 at 4:04 PM, Arrowhead said:

Bilbo's Smegging WAD - 07/27/1994 - played via GZDOOM 4.1.2

 

This is an absolutely amazing level made by Brad Spencer, aka 'Bilbo'. This map really feels ahead of its time, and its hard to believe that it only came out within the first few months of WAD editing.

 

I don't know much about the author, other than that they joined up quite a few years later w/ Karthik Abhiram, to create a project known as 'Metamorphism'. I haven't played it, but w/ two talented WAD authors at the helm, its probably pretty decent.

oshit, @Vorpal, was this your first map?

[Arrowhead]

11 minutes ago, roadworx said:

first of all - i love this concept and i love op for making this thread. thank you, i love older doom mapping so i'll try to contribute if i get enough motivation to write.

 

secondly:

oshit, @Vorpal, was this your first map?

We would love for you to join us on this venture! Lots of fun to be had w/ this! :)

 

I wasn't aware they were still in the community, that's quite cool actually...

Edited August 13, 2021 by Arrowhead

[Vorpal]

17 minutes ago, roadworx said:

first of all - i love this concept and i love op for making this thread. thank you, i love older doom mapping so i'll try to contribute if i get enough motivation to write.

 

secondly:

oshit, @Vorpal, was this your first map?

 

nah different guy, my first maps were not until ~96/97 although they have not survived the ebb and flow of the internet or my storage devices (chold.wad a crappy e2m2 cargo hold, and ambusha.wad a crappy deathmatch arena)

[Arrowhead]

Toxic Waste Bunker - 02/26/1997 - played via GZDOOM 4.1.2

 

'Toxic Waste Bunker' is an above average detailed concrete base map by William Drummond. The map consists of a small, cramped concrete base filled w/ chutes and ducts. The map can get downright claustrophobic at times, w/ enemies right on top of you in a lot of cases.

 

The map is textured adequately, w/ not many noticeable issues - I did see the occasional misalignment, though. There aren't too many monsters in this map - but the combat still feels properly risky. It can be fun to fight cacos in small rooms at times. The base is easy to get around in, w/ my only issue being the fact that the red and yellow small doors aren't marked. I especially like the look of the concrete being 'braced' by metal girders in my first screenshot - I think its a nice look.

 

Also, the map inexplicable has a few Wolfenstein SS at the end. Felt oddly out of place and slightly anticlimatic for an ending fight.

 

This is an above average map for early '97, and the secrets can be really fun to obtain. Lots of fun!  :)

 

Spoiler

 

 

Download link: https://bit.ly/3lVtPn7

Edited August 13, 2021 by Arrowhead

[Endless]

Stalker2

^{By Chuck Jordan}

¹⁹⁹⁴

 

 

Found this one thanks to ER/iWA #13.

 

A bit of random exploration ended up throwing me into a DM WAD, and usually I don't play them because I'm like: ''Fuck, I don't have anyone to play them with'', but this time I decided to give it a shot, as I was struck by the fact that it was from 1994. And I'm not disappointed. While I'm not a technical expert on the qualities that make a good DM map, I can say that this doesn't look bad at all and seems to be a fun map for its time. The design is solid, peaceful and has some attractive visuals that work quite well to create that gothic-infernal atmosphere. Quite fun even if it's just to have duke it out with a few friends.

 

The design is quite reminiscent of Dead Simple; a square arena with different layers. Players have more than enough space to run around without major restrictions, although the item positioning is a bit tight, but I can see that this would create certain cheese tactics like camping, which I imagine would be a laughable dunk with some friends in the 90s. I think the design is quite successful in emanating that charismatic idea, that of creating a simple map, small and modest, but more than enough to give you some good duels with friends. It doesn't look bad at all for 1994 and the design delivers.

 

I'm not very knowledgeable about DM WADs from the 90s, but I know that most of them used to be simplistic in style, seeking to create more of an arena that offered solid encounters between 2-4 players. This WAD seems to fulfill the requirements without much problem. I think @Doomkid would be interested in it. It has monsters in SP, something I wasn't expecting, so it's also slightly fun if we just try it out quickly. I can imagine that more than one of us got to play this WAD with a few friends back in the day; it's 11 AM, the pizza has just arrived, cheese permeates the room. The CRT monitors vibrate to the sound of static while your eyes burn with radiation. The boys insult each other as they tear each other apart in DM and it's all night long. It's a good day.

[thestarrover]

EPIC (EPIC.WAD) By Matt Williams 01/16/1995 Original version GZDOOM 4.6.1

 

If you like wads full of secrets and where you have to explore to find your way out, Epic by Matt Williams is made for you. Although aesthetically the design is typical of the ’90s , with long corridors, square rooms full of libraries and tech labs, and a mazy section (and I have to say that all these elements are well mix together), the main goal of the author are the secrets , the traps and the tricks. It is a kind of nightmare. The way to the exit is absolutely not linear and almost all the time you have to backtrack. Find (almost) all the secrets and the hidden passages is mandatory to progress in the map: you can find doors with multiple switches to press in a certain order (to reveal a door/passage or … a trap), hidden switches,  timed doors or doors that you might have to shoot at. And, almost always, pushing a switch does not unlock a nearby door, but one somewhere else.The combat sequences are not very hard, with some exceptions, but at the end of the road… the chessboard awaits you. If you find an empty room, I suggest you check it carefully…

In my opinion, the map is enjoyable and unlocking all secrets in the end is truly satisfying!

The review is based on the original version I already have on my pc.

On idgames EPIC.WAD doesn't have a standalone release, but it is available, in a revised/enhanced form, together with the sequel (Epic2.wad) in a single wad.

Map01 slot for Epic.wad, Map02 slot for Epic2.wad.

 

Screenshots

 

Download HERE

Edited August 13, 2021 by thestarrover

[Somniac]

The Deimos Subway

Neal Ziring

July 23rd, 1994

GZDoom

 

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom/s-u/subway21

 

A fun map and one of the earliest PWADs I remember playing. I think it may have been on one of the Maximum Doom discs. This is an E2M1 replacement.

 

As the name states, this is a subway station. It looks remarkably well like what it was trying to be, especially for the time. I imagine making a map like this on the editors of the day would have been a pretty serious undertaking. Of course it looks somewhat crude and empty by todays standards, but all the features are there: a subway carriage, a ticket office, and seperate stations that lead off into different areas all connected by a track. There are a few custom textures as well. By the standards of the time, its quite impressive. There's just enough lighting variation at work to give it an atmosphere. A fun level and one I enjoyed revisiting. Bonus points for the hilariously out of place (but strangely somehow fitting) "Taking the A Train" MIDI. This is a map I'd really like to see a modern remake of one day.

 

 

 

Edited August 13, 2021 by VisionThing

[Omniarch]

Castle of Evil

¹⁹⁹⁴

^{by Stanley Stasiak}

^{Played with Woof!}

  

 

There are few things I love more in a Doom map than a pervasive sense of mystery, and the feeling of alienation that so often accompanies such. A great deal of '90s mapping could be described as 'mysterious', certainly, and 'alienating' without a doubt, though not neccessarily in a good way. Full disclosure: the first time I ever played Doom was in the spring of 2020, just as the pandemic was kicking into high gear. Before then I was aware of the franchise only as a pop-culture icon, and as something my dad played back in the '90s, a half decade before I was born.

 

Thus, the nostalgia that many feel for that bygone age of mapping has no hold over me. Despite this, there is something about the wildly experimental, personal and frankly naive style of many maps from the era that appeals even to a newcomer like myself. 'twas an age before any sort of centralized community existed, or even could exist, an age without standards save those set by the original IWADs, allowing for unlimited experimentation, uninhibited by tradition.

 

That said, there is a price to be paid for such naive optimism, or rather, for the conditions that allowed it to arise in the first place. A lack of standards may be liberating in a way, but tradition is typically held as such for a reason, thus most maps from the era suffer from a profound lack of what today would be considered basic quality control or even common couretesy. Additionally, the tools of the trade were incredibly basic back then, devoid of the innumerable QoL features that modern mappers enjoy, and the machines on which the game ran were less powerful by orders of magnitude than even today's most basic smartphone.

 

All that's to say, I like the spirit of '90s mapping, but not so much the practical results thereof. Usually, anyway. There are exceptions, and by far the most exceptional of these exceptions is the subject of today's Omnidump...

 

Castle of Evil by Stanley Stasiak, released in the last quarter of 1994, is legitimately one of the most interesting and engaging maps I have ever played, and amusingly one of the first PWADs I was ever exposed to. It was back before I purchased Doom 2, in that (in)glorious May of Year Zero when I had only Ultimate Doom and its more limited selection of PWADs, that I first downloaded CASTEVIL. I was intrigued by it, for sure, but at that stage I lacked the experience to fully unravel the map. I was too new to the game, too unfamiliar with its subtleties to appreciate the map.

 

It was only yesterday that I finally decided to give the map a proper go, and go at it I did, for 1.5 hours to be precise, and it was the best time I've had with the game since I played Roofi's Ventose some months back.

 

The level of quality on display in Castle of Evil is downright astonishing for the era. Apart from an admittedly ubiquitous texture-misalignment problem (typical for the era, mind), the map is remarkably functional, with nary a broken door, soft-lock or misplaced inescapbable pit in sight. The lighting is damn impressive as well, along with the choice of textures and the non-orthogonality of the geometry.

 

Above all else, though, it is the map's sheer scale that baffles me: ~4400 lines and nearly 500 monsters in a 1994 map! That's not even getting into the forty-seven secrets, the vast majority of which are totally legit, not the result of mistagging sectors or anything of the sort. This is possibly the first ever instance of a what I like to call a megamap, which is basically any map that a) takes over an hour to explore and b) is spatially expansive not just in absolute terms but also in playspace.

 

Thematically, Castle of Evil has a bit of everything to offer with regards to the original trilogy's aesthetic themes. You've got E2-style grey techbase, E1-style slade and BRNGRN techbase and E3-style marble hell all rolled into one experience. Personally, I quite like this sort of jumbled hybrid aesthetic, since it adds to the sense of mystery and provides a bit of visual variety.

 

While each style exists manifests largely in isolation (save the occasional viewport), in contrast to more modern D1 hybrid maps (ala Ventose and many NEIS maps) which tend to blend disparate themes together into an all-together more interesting sigular aesthetic, there is nevertheless a sense in which all belong to the same space.

 

In terms of difficulty, Castle of Evil must have been quite the challenge back in '94, mostly due to its (for the time) extreme length and resource scarcity. The combat is an even mix of incidental and encounter-based fare, crude by modern standards but by no means poorly done. The simplicty of the D1 bestiary is less noticeable in relatively claustrophobic, resource-scarce maps like this, since both of those factors play to the strengths of that game's heavyweights (Cacos and Barons) while similarly enhancing the threat-level low-tier demons like Pinkies and Imps.

 

In terms of progression, the map is fairly cryptic by modern standards, though by no means unreasonable. I was never frustrated by the layout, despite its immense complexity, mostly due to the large number of helpful two-way teleporters seemingly designed to make backtracking and secret-hunting more pleasant. The progression is almost entirely non-linear, to an almost daunting extent initially, though it does become a more clear-cut as one starts to encounter more and more locked doors and dead-ends, which eventually pushes you down one of the right paths.

 

Speaking of secrets, I generally found Castle of Evil's many little enigmas to be reasonable, neither trivial nor cryptic. I did not find all of them, mind, only about 90%, but that was due more to my mastery of the space reducing the drive to unravel them rather than anything intrinsic to the secrets themselves. Most were not immensely substantial or beneficial, but I was never strictly let down.

 

Overall, I found Castle of Evil to be a rewarding experience. The map has a strong atmosphere and sense of place, a product of its layout, its lighting and its vast complexity. A must play for any would-be adventurers!

 

 

Well, that turned out longer than expected. I hope I didn't exceed some sort of limit, heh.

[Arrowhead]

5 minutes ago, Omniarch said:

Well, that turned out longer than expected. I hope I didn't exceed some sort of limit, heh.

Very well thought out review - makes me want to give this a run, despite me not being such a huge fan of 'huge, exploratory' maps! :)

 

I wonder how many other 'megamaps' exist this early...

[Endless]

@Omniarch Fantastic review, mate! Loved it, made me want to play that WAD right now. I have a thing for ''castle'' WADs. It was one of those trends back in the 90s when fantasy was a big inspiration for mappers, and it offers such diversity that it makes me think that next to tech-base, castle-inspired WADs are just in the right place for Doom, part of its essence. The whole idea is precious to me.

Edited August 13, 2021 by Endless

[thestarrover]

34 minutes ago, Omniarch said:

500 monsters in a 1994 map! That's not even getting into the forty-seven secrets

Beautiful review @Omniarch! I'll try it. I like fantasy/castle wads. 500 monsters and  49 secrets it is truly impressive! :)

[Arrowhead]

Corpsehaven - 08/01/97 - played via GZDOOM 4.1.2

 

Corpsehaven is a small haunted graveyard type map by Jon Janssen- there is a large graveyard location, as well as a crypt-like location - the crypt location is where most of the action happens in this one. Some cool effects are employed in this map - namely the zombies 'rising' from the graves - I thought I was very clever when I included this effect in one of my own maps, but I guess it has been used for many many years!

 

Combat is not especially difficult and there are only about 60 monsters in this map. You won't encounter much more than imps and former humans in this map. Detailing is superb for the time, w/ the crypt location being genuinely nice to look at - geometry is also good, w/ some nice arch-work and very believable graveyard areas.

 

There is one room w/ 3 teleporters in it - I was unable to find out what they are used for, as it seems like they all just send you to each other's locations w/ no progress being made - regardless, I was able to complete the map without using them. I think they're used to get the medikits in that room, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to use them.

 

This is a very quick romp, and not very difficult - but the detailing for the time looks really nice, and there is a really good sense of place in this map - definitely worth quickly checking out - takes maybe 5 minutes to UVMAX! :)
 

Spoiler

 

 

Download link: https://bit.ly/3g1sJSQ

Edited August 13, 2021 by Arrowhead

[thestarrover]

Hi @Endless! Right now I found the, probably, original doom 1 version of Opost21. It is called Phrantik and the timestamps of Phrantik.wad is 11/3/1994. if you want, you can take a look at it! :)

 

PHRANTIK.ZIP

 

Edited August 13, 2021 by thestarrover

[thestarrover]

9 minutes ago, Arrowhead said:

namely the zombies 'rising' from the graves

Zombies? This wad is for me! Absolutely! :D

[Endless]

@VisionThing Thanks for joining us, hope you have a good time uncovering the lost treasures of the 90s and early 2000s. I do remind you to not forget the DOWNLOAD LINK when posting your reviews/comments, please!

 

@thestarrover Awesome. Thanks mate!

[thestarrover]

1 minute ago, Endless said:

Awesome. Thanks mate!

You're welcome! :)

[Vorpal]

this project kinda warrants a website

[thestarrover]

54 minutes ago, thestarrover said:

Right now I found the, probably, original doom 1 version of Opost21. It is called Phrantik and the timestamps of Phrantik.wad is 11/3/1994. if you want, you can take a look at it! :)

I am wrong. I checked on idgames and the doom I version has the same name. I wonder what kind of wad Phrantik.wad is....

[Arrowhead]

Iconoclast - 04/13/96 - played via GZDOOM 4.1.2

 

Iconoclast is a really fun 5 map pack released in 1996 by Anthony Ennas. This is another unfortunate case where a very talented author only made one project - I cannot find any other works from this author, which is a shame, because what's here in this 5 map pack, is really great.

 

The first three maps have fairly low monster counts considering the large flowing sizes of the maps. The penultimate and final map have much more monsters, and offer a bit of a tougher challenge to the modern doomer, although anyone who's played Doom for any length of time shouldn't have too much of an issue playing on UV. The maps are not that challenging - although there is some devious hitscanner placement - you'll often be getting nailed from odd angles, so accurate single-shotty usage is a must.

 

The author really understand's Doom1's enemy roster - and uses it to great effect. There is hardly any baron-shotgunning, or other tedium in these maps - they are a quick blast to play, all 5 in a row should take you about 35-45 minutes to beat, w/ the first three maps being shorter than the latter two.

 

Architecture is a strongpoint in these maps - I tried to include some of the architecture that I believe show off 'scale' best. Many of the areas you'll be fighting in are large and expansive. Texturing is pretty average for the time, w/ the usual misalignments around staircases, and the like. There isn't anything particularly visually offensive, and I think the looks have held up pretty well considering the age of these maps.

 

The maps are chockful of secrets - and you'll occasionally encounter surprise fights in these many areas. Another neat thing in these WADs, is that you can still see part of the map you were last in. The author includes geometry from the previous map to better transition to the next map - I don't know if I'm explaining this adequately, its best experienced.

 

I liked E1M4 the best of the bunch, but there's really no 'sore spot' in this WAD for me, I enjoyed the entire thing through from beginning to end - hopefully some more people check it out, as I have never once heard anybody mention it. :)
 

Spoiler

 

Download link: https://bit.ly/3jXtMEN

[LUISDooM]

I'm loving this thread, had fun playing through these maps.

 

I got this map from 1995 called "Breeze" by Brad Kiefer, on my idgames random adventuring (I commented it on the thread too). Maybe it classifies for this project.

 

@Endless what do you think?

[Arrowhead]

9 minutes ago, LUISDooM said:

I got this map from 1995 called "Breeze" by Brad Kiefer, on my idgames random adventuring (I commented it on the thread too). Maybe it classifies for this project.

I would say its obscure enough - author only appears to have made one project, its old enough, I've never heard of it - and the fact that its a heretic WAD that was ported makes this even cooler.

 

Plus, its only had 3 reviews on /idgames in 17 years... Personally, I think its a good candidate! :)

[Endless]

12 minutes ago, Arrowhead said:

I would say its obscure enough - author only appears to have made one project, its old enough, I've never heard of it - and the fact that its a heretic WAD that was ported makes this even cooler.

 

Plus, its only had 3 reviews on /idgames in 17 years... Personally, I think its a good candidate! :)

Agree! I really like Heretic, but I'm a not a big fan of the textures and tanky enemies, tho I still find it quite fun during my first time playthrough.

 

Would be awesome to have an Heretic expert here helping us out with these even rarer gems. I might try one Heretic WAD from time to time to help the effort!

[LUISDooM]

Glad to hear that guys.

I forgot to say it is a Doom 2 map that started as an Heretic map. XD

Edited August 14, 2021 by LUISDooM

[Endless]

1 minute ago, LUISDooM said:

Glad to hear that guys.

I forgot to say it is a Doom 2 map that started as an Heretic map. XD

 

/s

[LadyMistDragon]

Alpha 1 Trilogy - 1997

by Rob Schweiner

 

Played on ZDoom.

 

Doom mapping during the period of '97-01 or so went through a period of early adolescence. The pimples were just starting to come in and along with them, awkward feelings. The desire to start conforming to some arbitrary standard became more evident, and more ambitious products such as S.T.R.A.I.N and the maps of Roger Ritenour would prove to preclude the detail-heavy, mid-adolescence period of Doom mapping, perhaps best capped off by Daniel "Tormentor667" Dimmer's epic 4-episode saga The Ultimate Torment and Torture(there's more, but that's among the first custom wads i found outside Wolfendoom, so it sticks in my head the best.

 

But back in late 97, exploration-based, if largely unattractive maps like the Polygon Base were still in vogue to a certain degree. Out of this came the Alpha trilogy, made by Rob Schweiner, and definitely utilizing a highly explorative form of gameplay and for at least the first two maps, a rather primitive and limited use of textures.

 

Anyways, Schweiner was someone who was enamored with the idea of creating realistic spaces as revealed in a comment on the OneManDoom blog, strangely precluding the next mapping era. Trouble was, he found the mapping tools of the time clunky to use and thusly failed to release anything else.

 

Anyways, on to Map 01! This map has an incredibly basic, largely-white outside techbase use of textures, along with a number of secrets I would've had to wall-hump had I not have secrets showing up feature on automap enabled. Amusingly, Rob has placed an automap at the end of every map in case you've missed any secrets which feels a little redundant to say the least. Progression in Map 01 specifically, is quite open-ended and you can collect the first two keys in any order before you go into the base and have to collect a third one. Even here though, you have lots of freedom to explore around.

 

Map 02 takes a turn into sewers of sorts. Not much less bland, though there are some cool, creepy, electric structures in a large room near where you exit that you can eventually enter and find some Revenants.

 

Map 03 is where things really get interesting. While the boring, long, pseudo-mine tunnel you start out in has that self-indulgently long feel of the early Doom maps, things soon change, and you find yourself in a very well-made cave with sludge at the bottom. You even find yourself in some hellish areas later on, and this is apparently also the map where Rob used a custim texture. It also ends up being the hardest later.

 

Combat, as Rob said in the OneManDoom comment, is very much a sort of spin-duck-fire affair that you definitely don't find in modern Doom wads very much where the emphasis might be more "pick up these items and kill a billion monsters!" It's not necessarily easy though, definitely harder than Doom II, though not too difficult if you tread carefully.

 

This is kind of a mixed bag. I will say that I really liked the last map, but the visuals in the rest date this one as badly as anything. It's a hard set to seriously complain about if you like exploring to any degree. Just don't go in expecting easy navigation or anything like that and it should be fine.

 

Spoiler

 

 

Spoiler

 

Edited August 14, 2021 by LadyMistDragon

[Arrowhead]

@LadyMistDragon I think I've played one of those three maps before, as 'RS_OOZI.WAD'. I haven't played the Alpha Trilogy, so I'm not sure if its the same WAD or not. Great review, though! :)

[Endless]

Fort 5: Navrat na pevnost

^{By Martin Mirejovsky alias Duke}

²⁰⁰³

 

 

This is an interesting WAD, different and quite attractive in its simplicity and novelty.  Fort 5: Navrat na pevnost (I have no idea what language that is) is a mini-episode of 7 maps set in a cool arctic base. The structure of the episode reminds me quite a bit of BtSX, it features a sort of Hub style progress and you go back to the middle map and then switch gates/roads and go to the next map. The WAD feels like a sort of megamap split into parts, and this is due to the excellent narrative progression that maintains an excellent sense of advancement in the game. Each map starts where the previous one ends, and sometimes we revisit old maps, as I said above, to continue with the WAD. This makes it really mini, in the sense that despite having 7 maps, it doesn't last more than 15 or 20 minutes in total. Some maps only serve as intermissions where there are not even enemies. This gives it a realistic appeal where the beauty lies in the visuals and sense of cohesion. Everything is connected in a way that the game can be played seamlessly. No pauses and no detractors. Not only is the progress and layout of the maps great, but the visuals are quite attractive and simple. The snow theme is one that we don't usually see independently, it's usually common but in the form of Xmas WADs with comedic overtones, whereas these 7 maps feel like a sort of short horror film. The visuals are fantastic, the new textures work excellently in recreating that tech-base style amidst the snow. The colors are well matched and I didn't find any noticeable graphical errors. This is a WAD that certainly seems to have slipped under the radar of many doomers, possibly because of its simplicity, but it's one that I highly recommend. It's a sweet spectacle, and those who prefer snow maps, this one is a must play.

Edited August 14, 2021 by Endless