Origins of the Afrit custom enemy?

[natashanightmare]

The Afrit seems to be a pretty popular custom enemy in Doom wads, i allways assumed it was just a cool demon til today when i started playing the Doom 3: ressurection of evil expansion, and noticed a visually simmilar enemy that also has simmilar attacks to what the Afrit (atleast the Afrit in scythe 2) has, in the way that they can fire a swarm of homing projectiles. And in my opinion this Doom 3 monster looks simmilar to the Doom 3 hell knights/barons while the Afrit looks simmilar to Doom 2 hell knights/barons so they also have that in common, so could/is the Afrit be based on this Doom 3 enemy? ...But i don't know which of them that predates the other. Does anyone know more about the Afrits origin?

 

Clearer image on why i think the Doom 3 enemy looks simmilar to the Doom 3 hell knights/barons:

Spoiler

 

[Dynamo]

The Afrit originates from the Monster Resource WAD for ZDoom, where it has different attacks than what is seen in Scythe 2. The resource came out in 2004, so it predates Resurrection of Evil. Furthermore, there already was a similar looking enemy (albeit with a green flame) in All Hell is Breaking Loose, so one could argue that even then the concept was not brand new.

[natashanightmare]

19 minutes ago, Dynamo said:

The Afrit originates from the Monster Resource WAD for ZDoom, where it has different attacks than what is seen in Scythe 2. The resource came out in 2004, so it predates Resurrection of Evil. Furthermore, there already was a similar looking enemy (albeit with a green flame) in All Hell is Breaking Loose, so one could argue that even then the concept was not brand new.

Okay so since the Afrit predates Ressurection there obviously is no connection (unless someone at id saw the afrit and decided to add a simmilar enemy, but that probably is pretty unlikely) either way it is a interesting coincidence if nothing else. Thanks for the info :) . I had no idea, and i thought i had researched it haha. The Doom rabbithole goes deep :)

Edited December 20, 2023 by natashanightmare

[Not Jabba]

I remember that when Resurrection of Evil came out, people thought of the monster as being a nod to (or a ripoff of) the Doom community's Afrit, like maybe the developers of the game had played some community wads and gotten ideas from them. Besides the Monster Resource WAD, the Afrit is also in ZDoom Community Map Project 1, which came out in 2004.

 

That said, Realm667 has several monsters that were "demakes" of monsters from Doom 3 and Resurrection of Evil, including the guy with the computer screen for a face.

[natashanightmare]

16 minutes ago, Not Jabba said:

I remember that when Resurrection of Evil came out, people thought of the monster as being a nod to (or a ripoff of) the Doom community's Afrit, like maybe the developers of the game had played some community wads and gotten ideas from them.

So more people had a simmilar theory as me, i wonder who at id would be best to ask about this if given the chance, if they even remember. 

[Dynamo]

Another fun piece of trivia is that the Evil Marine from Scythe 2 also (roughly) appears in All Hell is Breaking Loose, but I don't know if that is merely a coincidence or if Erik Alm was inspired by that particular mod.

[Devalaous]

Ive only fought an Afrit once, in Deadwing's early work, and I hated the damn thing.

[Dynamo]

I'm actually not sure whether I've fought the Scythe 2 variant (and its offspring that typically have reduced health, thank god) or the ZDoom variant with its flame effect more often by this point... I can't say I've found it a particularly riveting enemy in either situation, though :P

[Deadwing]

On 12/20/2023 at 7:27 PM, Devalaous said:

Ive only fought an Afrit once, in Deadwing's early work, and I hated the damn thing.

 

Lol, I forgot I used the sprites once.

I deeply apologize anyone who had to go through that boss level, because it is that bad >.<

[Devalaous]

12 minutes ago, Deadwing said:

 

Lol, I forgot I used the sprites once.

I deeply apologize anyone who had to go through that boss level, because it is that bad >.<

 

Clearly you should do what you did with Eclipse and give it the remaster/remake treatment :D I liked the levels well enough though, the UV fast stuff took some getting used to though. The third one in the series (I THINK its part of the series) doesn't work properly in modern ports though, the hud is all broken :(

(I actually downloaded that series alongside Eclipse because of the Moonblood/Exomoon/Ozonia trilogy, and wanted to see your earlier works and how Eclipse turned into Moonblood)