The Thing you can’t Defeat - Ultimate Doom WAD for GZDOOM - [8 maps]

[boomershooter1983]

I had to register solely to compliment YourOpinionsAreWRONG. Bravo.

 

I think everything has already been said here, I don't care, these are my feelings. And forgive me for not knowing how I put a spoiler alert here. Consider this your spoiler alert, not sure what this is going to contain as I write this off the cuff.

 

I've played Doom since its release and I still play it, on occasion, on my dedicated DOS computer. I usually can't be bothered with the modern source ports and don't even have any modern source port of Doom installed on a modern system. Lately I've seen this WAD in my Youtube feed and found it intriguing. Watching just a little quickly revealed that this is something I should rather be playing myself to get the proper experience.

 

The notion of hell in Doom is an interesting one. Treating Doom like a form of art if something I've been pondering over the years. I'm aware it wasn't consciously intended as one (to my knowledge), although, subconscious inspirations can be a tricky thing in authorship as well as in art, so why not in computer games?

 

Doomguy is "too tough for hell to contain", this might seem like a joke to some, but it can also be interpreted as art in the sense that, no matter what life throws at you, there is a way. Maybe there is only a small chance in hell, but there is a way, through sheer determination, cleverness, or sometimes, brute force. To me Doom depicts some of these notions. You can find similar inspiration in inspirational speakers or certain others who have achieved greatness.

 

I could mention that I have dementia in my family too, and I've seen what it does to people. Although even without dementia, old age comes with memory loss and a severe drop in intellectual faculties for everyone, dementia or no dementia. Dementia just greatly accelerates the process.

 

There are many disturbing and sad things with this WAD, to me the most disturbing is that no matter how tough you are, this gets you in the end. This, either death from old age, fading memories, or full on dementia.

 

It gets you, and everyone else, in the end.

 

Eventually.

 

Doomguy is too tough for hell to contain, but he isn't tough enough to deal with this. It sounds like a joke, but when you think about it, it brings you to tears.

 

I think you touched many more people than you realize, YourOpinionsAreWRONG. A shame not everyone intimately familiar with Doom (and this is indeed a requirement to get the proper experience) will go through the effort of installing gzdoom, downloading the WAD, setting parameters, getting it to work. Many people are too lazy, and they will miss this gem in favor of some AAA garbage, like Call of Duty 11, or whatever the latest incarnation happens to be.

 

There are many movies and books that talk about dementia, e.g. "The Father" (2020) is excellent. However, it doesn't touch you personally, it is about someone else's family after all. The thing that makes this work so effectively is that it utilizes the investment people intimately familiar with the original Doom already have. No movie talking about someone else's life can provoke the same feelings, there is a categorical difference.

[Khorn champion]

Am Hi I've just played Ur wad and it's great starts innocently and progresses rapidly.....one question why there is no player start in Phobos anomaly is that a end of wad ??? Kindly thank you for your work and being able to play it ..... I'll be closely watching you so I will not miss any additional work you will be posting. Cheers once more!!!

@YourOpinionsAreWRONG

[brick]

1 hour ago, Khorn champion said:

one question why there is no player start in Phobos anomaly is that a end of wad ???

It's intentional, to end the wad on this note (if you look in an editor E1M8 is just a rectangle with nothing in it). I saw it as symbolic of Doomguy having lost any sense of identity and succumbed to dementia. It's IMO quite fitting considering the theme that permeates the wad.

[NecrumWarrior]

Played this last night. It's legitimately unsettling. Very nice, bravo! 

[Suitepee]

https://youtu.be/669jGMVM9wU

 

An interesting enough concept, but I felt the ending was a bit anti-climactic. Might have been interesting if you actually had to ADD a player 1 start on E1M8 via UDB (or another Doom map editor) onto some kind of complex & jumbled map, but I got the point it was trying to make.

Edited October 17, 2023 by Suitepee

[watermelon eater gaming]

I had no idea this was about dementia at first, but still this mod gave me nightmares. Like- holy sh*t, the music, the loneliness and especially E1M6 just makes me feel like I'm a 9 year old kid at a quiet museum on Saturday who wants to go home, but knows he's stuck here to look at bikes and crates at 4:49PM. Bravo, you really captured the feeling of loneliness, confusion and despair, let alone dementia.

[watermelon eater gaming]

On 9/29/2023 at 7:03 AM, Khorn champion said:

Am Hi I've just played Ur wad and it's great starts innocently and progresses rapidly.....one question why there is no player start in Phobos anomaly is that a end of wad ??? Kindly thank you for your work and being able to play it ..... I'll be closely watching you so I will not miss any additional work you will be posting. Cheers once more!!!

@YourOpinionsAreWRONG

 

The message is that Doomguy died in E1M8 due to dementia restricting even his ability to make his other organs function, or something like that. Hence there is no player start, because there is no Doomguy anymore.

[Sammy2]

The picture below is how a dementia patient would perceive a hall way in an apartment complex. 

 

[Chameeleoh]

Wondering if you have a NON compressed version of those wad with the songs you originally did. this is amazing. Just finished it. Hopefully you will continue making wads like this. Loved it. 

 

Edited February 7 by Chameeleoh

[normalifelias]

Appears this mod can also show the Placebo effect and not just demonstrate Dementia. :)

 

I just played through the first three stages of the mod and kept noticing small differences left and right, but nothing too mindblowing. That was until I checked back on the YouTube video I got here from and faintly noticed "Wait, the folder with the map isn't open?"

Turns out I've been playing regular Ultimate Doom all the time.

Edited April 3 by normalifelias

[ultra_kek]

On 1/13/2024 at 4:17 AM, Sammy2 said:

The picture below is how a dementia patient would perceive a hall way in an apartment complex. 

 

 

On 7/21/2023 at 7:57 PM, Sammy said:

The creator exaggerated the symptoms of dementia to add to the games theatrics. The distorted picture of a man walking through a tunnel depicts more accurately how a patient in the later stages of dementia sees the world.

 

...is this just someone making multiple accounts just to make the same post or joke?

[kuirivito]

this is by far one of the most haunting maps i've ever played
in no small part aided by my own schizophrenic diagnoses, 10/10 lmao

unironically i was jumpscared by a few things and definitely will add it to my "absolute classics" list alongside great WADs like moonlight.wad

[entropy122]

Started off pretty normal, E1M1 was ok, E1M2 and onward devolved into what could only be described (as many have said already), a journey of forgetting, parts of maps are gone, doors, items, textures. Further on, it all disintegrates, becoming a chaotic mess of random textures. 

 

Then.

 

Nothing. A void of grey, black and white. 

 

Boom! E1M1... but something is off. No enemies, no pickups. Empty.

[Dinoaur]

@YourOpinionsAreWRONG 

In your original post, you mention possibly making this WAD compatible with other ports like PrBoom+/DSDA-Doom.

Is this something you are still considering?

Thanks!

Edited May 5 by Dinoaur

[YourOpinionsAreWRONG]

3 hours ago, Dinoaur said:

@YourOpinionsAreWRONG 

In your original post, you mention possibly making this WAD compatible with other ports like PrBoom+/DSDA-Doom.

Is this something you are still considering?

Thanks!

Oh yeah, I forgot I said that haha.

 

Honestly, I don't think I'm going to do that anymore, It's just too much work.

 

The main reason (I think) it's only compatable with GZDoom is because I use wall textures on the floor, and viseversa.

 

The big reason that's difficult to convert is because floor textures can only be 64x64 and the big door textures (which I use at the end) are 128x128, so I'd need to convert the door textures into 4 seperate textures and I'd basically have to make a large grid using the line tool If I were to really convert it all, which, if I'm being honest, I don't think I'm prepaired to do.

 

(Keep in mind, I'm a complete novice when it comes to codding/ systems, so there's a chance everything I just said is complete bollocks, so keep that in mind haha)

 

And to be fair, the reach I've had with this WAD already has been pretty insane to say the least, so I personally don't think it's worth it to make it compatible with PrBoom+ or the others.

[LegendaryEevee]

29 minutes ago, YourOpinionsAreWRONG said:

And to be fair, the reach I've had with this WAD already has been pretty insane to say the least, so I personally don't think it's worth it to make it compatible with PrBoom+ or the others.

 

@YourOpinionsAreWRONG I believe the opinion will be right about this one I learned about your wad from Midnight on YouTube. He got me excited to try it out so I downloaded doom on the work computer specifically to try this wad and myhouse.pk3 I must thank you my friend not for just raising awareness to a serious real life topic many people end up struggling with, but creating one of the most unnerving Doom wads online right now; mixing the idea of something people go through and forcing people to come face to face with their own mortality it turns the game into something so much more.  This is an absolute masterclass my friend thank you for your hard work it is one of my instant classics.

Edited May 5 by LegendaryEevee

[Devalaous]

Would be interesting to see a Doom 2 take, or the other episodes. Sure, a lot of the magic is gone since you would now know what to expect, but I have a lot more memories of Doom 2 than Doom 1 so it would have impacted me harder

[Serene Sierra]

Bad vibes, I recommend playing it while tired

[old robot 90]

On 7/25/2022 at 5:55 PM, YourOpinionsAreWRONG said:

The Thing you can't defeat.

 

***WAD IS NOW UNDER 15MB***

 

Big thanks to @RastaManGames who was AWESOME enough to recompress those massive MP3 files for me!!!

 

 

This is an experimental WAD for Ultimate Doom that I’ve been working on for the last couple of months. I would say it’s quite unconventional so if you’re wanting the classic Doom experience this may not be the WAD for you.

 

I’m being quite vague because I think this WAD is best experienced by knowing as little about it as possible, however, I’m aware this may not be enough to convince some of you so I have written a little bit more about this WAD in the box below.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

The Doomguy has dementia. The Thing you can’t Defeat lets you replay the first episode of Ultimate Doom as it slowly morphs into a confusing and demented nightmare. 

This WAD was HEAVILY inspired by the WAD “Doom but somethings not right” and the album “Everywhere at the end of time” by The Caretaker.

 

 

A few important notes before playing.

 

• This WAD is for the first episode Knee Deep in the Dead and will start off nearly identically to how Knee Deep normally starts, so if you think you might be playing the wrong episode, you’re not, this is intentional.
• This WAD is only compatible with GZDOOM! I may look into ways to make it compatible with other source ports like PRBOOM+ in the future, but for now, it’s only available on GZDOOM.
• I would recommend playing as vanilla as possible (aside from the fact that it’s GZDOOM of course), basically no mods like Brutal Doom and not using mouselook, jumping, crouching ect...

 

A huge thanks to William Dinsdale for providing the music!

 

The Thing you can't defeat.

 

IWAD - Ultimate Doom

Tested on GZDOOM

Starts at E1M1

Does NOT require Freelook, Jumping, or Crouching

Map difficulty implemented!

Looks like a fun wad

[Busko]

I saw this advertised on youtube and gave it a try, didn't play doom since maybe 1994 or so.

Downloaded gzdoom, ultimated doom wad and this wad.

Dragged this wad over gzdoom.exe and picked ultimate doom wad from popup.

Picked "knee deep in the dead" and went form there.

I should be honest, I wasn't that impressed, level design seems very basic, walls almost all identical, low ceiling, long corridors all the same, keys and doors placed randomly.

Played up to level 4 if I'm not wrong, before continuing I'm asking if I did all right or I'm playing something else??

[lavaimp]

I honestly love this map. It gives me a feeling of dread that I couldn't shake when I saw the dark halls to the point i kinda got scared and noclipped a bit at a point. But I'm easily scared and  kinda have a fear of long hallways and enclosed spaces with no way to tell where there could be monsters. The anticipation of things scared me most along with the excellent use of teleports to make it seem like the map was changing around me. I really just wish there were more doom wads that executed this type of horror.

I know it was meant to be a representation of dementia, however it sort of did make me feel like it could apply to someone with general memory issues to the point some things just cant be remembered about stages- 

I know it won't happen, but seeing something like this for DOOM II which I have more experience with and remember even more clearly would be amazing.

[alopecia_assassin]

I played this with head phones on and the lights turned off. Short and to the point. I do not want to say too much but, wow. Its not often a game makes me feel this uncomfortable. Well done. Thanks for sharing!