The 2022 Cacowards

[Bri]

A great year. Much to my misfortune, I still haven't had time to play everything, but a big congrats to everyone! Doom is the greatest game of all time!

[Shepardus]

Congratulations to all those honored this year! Many great picks and mentions, including some I hadn't heard of!

 

A couple minor corrections:

• I believe The Magenta Spire is for MBF, not MBF21.
• Likewise, 2022ADO is for Boom, not MBF21.
• Infection has 7 maps, not 16.

[Meowgi]

Excellent work by those who put this together, and congratulations to everyone mentioned! I was surprised to see Poogers got a mention, considering its absurdity, and especially happy to see the extensive column given to all of the notable speed demos of this year. Excellent job by @Vile for putting that together!

[Omniarch]

Once again, it has been an honour to contribute to this event. Congratulations to all the year's numerous and varied winners!

Edited December 10, 2022 by Omniarch

[KeaganDunn]

Just now, Meowgi said:

Excellent work by those who put this together, and congratulations to everyone mentioned! I was surprised to see Poogers got a mention, considering its absurdity, and especially happy to see the extensive column given to all of the notable speed demos of this year. Excellent job by @Vile for putting that together!

 

I want to second this! It's a pleasure to see stxvile and @Terminus on the team! Both are hard-working and skilled players, are fun to watch, and are always dedicated to playing whatever comes up on DW.

[Daytime Waitress]

Congrats to all the winners, and a big thank you to the team for putting together another lovely annual read. I especially liked the gameplay mod features, because those are the one thing I never bother searching for myself, so getting a huge stack of them like that is like Christmas coming two weeks early. And while there were some real obvious awards overall, seeing smaller gems by @The Royal We and @LerxstInWonderland get highlighted put a big dumb grin on my face.

 

I think the awards also gave me closure on @Trashbang's output, too: all year through, I didn't want to accept that someone could come in and drop a debut of that calibre and then just up and leave for Quake mapping and general level design. But seeing DTYBotC pick up its deserved plaudits just made me glad that it exists in the first place, and I hope that the author can go on to produce stuff just as good for other communities.

 

57 minutes ago, Egg Boy said:

Happy to see Pagodia here, everyone on the team did a fantastic job.

 

Pagodia introduced me to the squonk and so it might very well be my favourite thing released all year. A very much deserved award, there.

 

57 minutes ago, Egg Boy said:

I'm always surprised when these roll around and there is, without fail, things that completely slipped my radar.

 

This legitimately shocked me. This year I bothered to sign up to Doomworld and actually made a point of playing a new release at least once a fortnight (or month where time didn't permit), and I still looked over the winners like, "Yep... I've played three of those." Same as every year. The amount of quality you lot put out is truly overwhelming.

 

Edited December 10, 2022 by Daytime Waitress

[Xenaero]

Congratulations to all the winners! Even more projects to me to slot into my ever growing backlog. This community is not at all short of talent. Mind-boggling stuff, as usual.

 

Love that Bo got the honors for the header graphic this year, phenomenal pixel artist!

 

I'm honored to receive the kind words about Hordamex, and pass them on to all the talented, enthusiastic mappers that helped make it a reality! I sincerely hope it inspires more projects for such a fun game mode. Extra congratulations to the Oda team for their role in spearheading Horde!

[Horus]

Congrats to everyone featured in the Cacowards, and huge congrats to the writers too for putting it all together - can’t imagine how long it must’ve taken not to just to write, but also to play - one panelist mentioned on Discord they’d played just shy of 150 wads this year!

[Roofi]

Happy my d2all on 180 minutes pour vivre got mentioned.

Congrats to all :)

[WH-Wilou84]

2022 sure was a stacked year !
Haven't played half of the golden Cacoward recipients yet, but I see a lot of well-deserved mentions all around. Congrats to all involved, particularly to Deadwing and Xymph for their constant dedication to the craft.

Here's to 2023 :)

[Kinsie]

24 minutes ago, Daytime Waitress said:

I especially liked the gameplay mod features, because those are the one thing I never bother searching for myself, so getting a huge stack of them like that is like Christmas coming two weeks early.

That’s why they’re there! There’s a bit of a culture gap between Doomworld and the ZDoom Forums for boring historical reasons, and I find it important, probably to a bit of a silly degree, to try and bridge the gap a bit. Maybe a good mapper will see a cool gameplay mod and be all “Damn, I should make a map for this!”? It happened for Supercharged, and I’m sincerely cheerleading for it to happen for other mods too.

 

Also: there were lots of other cool gameplay mods this year too! Picking just the two or so we like the most is always agonising. Go check out the ZDF Gameplay Mods subforum and see what weird paths they pull you down! You might not ever see Doom quite the same way again, but that might not necessarily be a bad thing…

Edited December 10, 2022 by Kinsie

[Mordeth]

Congratulations to all the Cacoward winners and runner-ups, and yet again a huge thanks to the Cacoward team for all their efforts!

[ViolentBeetle]

Yay, another silver caco for me.

^{How many do I need to collect before I can turn them in for a golden one?}

 

It saddens me that DIY didn't earn anything. It was one of the most creative endevours this year, but because I was the one to make final compilation I probably wasn't allowed to nominate it.

 

Update: I misremembered, I only got honorable mention last year, so it's my first silver caco.

Edited December 10, 2022 by ViolentBeetle

[boris]

Congratulations to all winners!

 

Winning a Cacoward was unexpected, but a pleasant surprise!

[taufan99]

4 minutes ago, Mordeth said:

Congratulations to all the Cacoward winners and runner-ups, and yet again a huge thanks to the Cacoward team for all their efforts!

Mordeth E2 wen

[Cheesewheel]

Thank you for the Cacoward, it's the ultimate Christmas gift. Congratulations to all other winners and runner-ups and a big thank you to the Cacoward team for taking the time to write such wonderful stuff for everyone.

[adamastor]

Congratulations all around! To the winners, runner-ups, and to the awards team as well.

[Shawny]

I am incredibly grateful to be given a place in runner-ups, this was quite unexpected, which makes it even more precious to me.
Congratulations to fellow mappers/modders and big thanks to cacoward team.

Edit:
Now that all that initial excitement slowly faded, I am ashamed I have never thanked/mentioned the most important people...
My testers who have gave invaluable feedback to make the wad better and gave me ideas for future maps/projects and helped
me to be a better in general.
So thank you FrancisT218, dei_eldren, Terminus, Jimmy and stxVile who played the initial test release.

Edited December 10, 2022 by Shawny
Crediting playtesters

[D0M0]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the cacowards for this year (even though I only started getting involved this year).

Congrats to all the contributions and cacoward winners of this year and hopefully next year will be even bigger in terms of accomplishments!

 

[Dubium]

Congratulations for all the winner! Looking forward to see the 2023 cacowards as well.

[Terminus]

Congratulations to all the winners! Another wonderful year full of wonderful WADs made by a community that many other games wishes it had.

 

It's been an honor joining the team of writers, almost a childhood-dream come true, heh. We've all worked very hard on the reviews, and I hope everyone enjoys the read and the rest of today!

 

4 hours ago, ZeMystic said:

Congrats everyone! I'm honored to see that the Dai-Katana Dog Dojo was hand selected for the Pagodia image.

It was my personal pick. I couldn't not do it. The dog is too powerful.

 

2 hours ago, Horus said:

Congrats to everyone featured in the Cacowards, and huge congrats to the writers too for putting it all together - can’t imagine how long it must’ve taken not to just to write, but also to play - one panelist mentioned on Discord they’d played just shy of 150 wads this year!

It's me. Hi. Currently at 147, and I still haven't played everything on the Gold/Silver board! :P

[PRIMEVAL]

Congratulations to everyone! Amazing work to all the winners as well as the fine folks behind the Cacowards itself. 

 

And Deadwing, you are just Prime!

[Thelokk]

No Circumcision.wad. Clearly rigged, what a shameful display.

[Firedust]

Congrats to all the winners!

 

Absolutely loving the more extensive nature of the cacowards (for the second year in a row), and I can only imagine how much time writers actually spent dooming in 2022 to cover this many wads.

 

Here's to many more years of quality dooming!

[Peccatum Mihzamiz]

Congratulations everybody! A happy birthday to Doom and by extension all of us! Great to see so many fantastic projects get mentioned, and I loved the write-ups about Xymph, KDiKDiZD etc.!

 

I'm honored to have mapped for Silver Caco winner Solar Struggle, as well as 22 in 22 mentions Poogers and Warpspeed, and special features Jamal Jones and RAMP! <)

 

Onwards to the big 30 next year, can't wait to see what we'll all create together!

[yakfak]

great write-ups! looks like a lot of people have been doing wonderful work
i've only played jumpwad kdizdikzdidkzi and some of tehlokk's stuff, I need to do some insane catch-up. don't turn yr back on teh city looks amazing

[Redneckerz]

The most wonderful time of the year has come to visit us!

Some words and thoughts:

• @Xymph getting the Espi Award is a recognition so incredibly deserved. Through the Wiki i have worked with Xymph several times and discussed several matters and its clear by night and by day how much of an architect Frans is. Meticulous scripting and research tell me Xymph loves statistics, and has provided the wiki with an array of tools that makes editing for the wiki a transformative slice of time. On top of that is Xymph also a nice person :P When it comes to the Wiki, and all his credits in the remote past, Xymph is the pillar of a community that if it weren't for his efforts, their works would likely see far less official coverage through it.
• @esselfortium and crew (Mikolah!) getting recognition for KDIKDIZD means the editors aren't shying away from late entries. Also fully deserved that this got awarded - I may sound like an evangelist for this work (And most of what Essel produces) but it really is that good. As someone technical minded, Essel's contraptions trigger the imagination (or a voodoo doll). And that's what KDIKDIZD is: A love letter to technical perfection.
  • The fact that KDIKDIZD didn't recieve one but two awards, including the Mordeth Award is a heartfelt thank you to the entire team mentioned in the article, but in particular @Nine Inch Heels@Linguicaand @Mikolah. Without their work (Which became the basis for The Linguica Archive) vanilla mapping would be in a different place altogether. To me it represents the finest community spirit: To push even further beyond one ever imagined would be doing. Just picture KDIKDIZD getting released in 1994/1995 for the stock Doom2.exe on DOS. Not only is this actually possible, it also would have melted PC's at the time :P That this work can go back in time and be playable on original hardware is what @Scuba Steve mentioned perfectly: It is 30 years of technical research and progression condensed into one all-encompassing set of maps that take Doom2.exe as far as possible. I can't say that this is the end, because who knows what is left in the tank? But KDIKDIZD in my eyes sets the standard for Vanilla trickery, and it will be difficult to topple that.
• Dance on the Water is great to see exposed. For testing with @hobomaster22's Helion, DotW impressed me through its visual density. It absolutely slaughters Helion in a surprise upset (Because a plethora of other rigs do relatively fine) but it also looks grand. It looks frightening. When you see your framerate slowly drop as you progress into the landscape, you know that this there is some deeper workings going on.
• @Arsinikk getting recognized for 100 line Massacre is a positive yet expected surprise. A relative newcomer, Arsinikk impresses with his technical approach to Dooming, trying to push every standard to the limits. And when i say every standard, i mean that: Arsinikk goes out of his way to support most ports under the sun, even those who arrive at entry point a little differently, such as ZDaemon. Such a dedication tells me there is a lot more to come from a rather exceptional individual.
• @AlexMax and @Xenaero getting their recognition for Odamex's Horde and Hordamex is a given. Taking a classic concept known as the Horde to Odamex pulled off fantastically, and it ensures there is yet another way of fun MP dooming. Zandronum may have Invasion, ZDaemon may have TNS and all their custom additions, but this right here is only on Odamex. A port, i must add, has managed to outgrow its original intentions and is becoming both a poster child for multiplayer dooming with new standards aswell as technical souplesse. Their dedication is inspiring.
• @Cheello getting the points for Voxel Doom is well and truly a good choice. The amount of work that went into this has been nothing but significant, to the point that only now - in 2022! - there is finally an actual Voxel replacement for Doom. Many over the years attempted, ZDoom even gained voxel support as a result - But it is now that it is finally here. Hard work pays off, and Voxel Doom will be a staple for years to come.
• @dew a thank you for making a little entry on ZDaemon. Whereas the port's outlines may remain controversial, it is commendable that they too get recognized, even when they do things a little differently.
• @MTrop getting recognized for DoomTools is fantastic. The amount of stuff possibly through this framework ensures mappers and modders alike can create ever fascinating hellscapes with even more complex behavior layered on top. I believe the full potential of DoomTools has yet to fully be realized. And i can kick myself with a bucket that this (still!) isn't on DoomWiki. Remind me next year that this deserves to be on there - It is a unique suite that envigorates the spirit of community like no other.
• Also well surprised by the relative unknown entries that managed to score, which to me is a sign of the skill the compilers had. Not just highlighting obvious winners, but giving way to those that are hiding in the shadows. Even being a daily visitor, this positively surprised me.
• Many more words can be dedicated to everyone else, but then i would be writing my own awards :P What is left to say is happy congratulations to every winner and runner-up in this year's Cacoawards. It is through you that we (players, researchers, idiots and fans) continue to play, test, enjoy Doom every single year.
• I also want to put out a heartfelt shout to the editors: @Dynamo, @baja blast rd., @Demon of the Well, @Kinsie, dew, Scuba Steve, @Alfonzo, Omniarch, @Vile, @Terminus for their writing efforts and the difficult decisionmaking this inevitably had to be. You people rock. Also a thank you and goodbye to @Major Arlene from the writing staff for all your contributions.
• @Omniarch @Not Jabba There is a typo: Mapping at Warpspeed is written as Mapping at Warpseed, which is a unintentional yet funny typo.

[Nirvana]

Really glad to see Jumpwad get a much-deserved award and excited to play some of the other wads on the list. Didn't expect the shoutout for the podcast but very much appreciated — been a super fun experience talking to all of the talented guests I've had on.

[Doom_Dude]

Congrats to all the fine winners and thanks to those who take the time to put the work into putting together the cacowards!

[Major Arlene]

Congrats to all the winners! I'm so glad to see boris getting the recognition he deserves for his work on UDB, as well as Matt for Doom Tools, both are so important to mappers! And Xymph- thank you for all of your contributions as well, I don't think we would ever be the same without your efforts.

Excited for Foxhead as well! I'd been watching his texture set growing through Discord so it's great to see him mentioned.

The Doom map by someone who's traditionally Quake mapper (iirc) was a mention that is really refreshing to see!

 

I was worried I'd have to come back and straighten yall up if Elementalism didn't get something!

 

I thank the Cacowards team for their continued efforts and I know Vile and Term will do a great job for you in the future, you all are in good hands.

It's a little strange to have my name mentioned in an MP project as I've always been an SP kind of gal, but nonetheless I'm happy to have gotten to work in such a cool project, which wouldn't have been possible without the hard work of Xenaero and the Odamex Team. Thank you guys for creating a great space for us to work in.

 

We have quite a celebration next year it seems... good luck to all and happy mapping!