Endless Random /idgames WAD Adventures #077

[LadyMistDragon]

Megadoom.wad(1996) by Chris Wright (Crispy Doom)

 

A deathmatch map that seems to have been converted for single player, though even in deathmatch, it's best to have as many players as possibly, owing the expansive sides of the fields. Each building does contains distinctness though and you can even open/close the window blinds! The monitoring station has an underground pssageway that takes us to the other section of the map, one part with a maze for some reason and the other an exit carefully concealed in an illogical way described in the text file. It would probably be enough to place "EXIT" over an anoymous section of wall, but no matter, the twisting flesh passages with scattered SS lead to a METAL room which of course has a pink-ish swastika symbol in the ceiling. But we need to understand that Chris probably thought nothing of it and wasn't some card-carrying John Birch Society member. Anyway, while this gets a little more difficult more toward the end, there's still too much room for this to be hard, save a chaingunner gets a bead on you in an open field. It's a cool layout but the maze can go die 5/10

 

 

 

 

Barney and Clinton Doom (1994) by Robbie Teagarden 

 

A profoundly complicated patch you'd probably have to install with DOS and probably end up corrupting your copy of Doom as a result but featuring an extremely predictable combination of pop culture icons. But I don't want to have sexual relations with that mod. Also, Barney's involved so it already got disturbing. Good gifs though.

 

XmasDoom (1999) by Justin Madigan and Jeff Lockhart (Nugget Doom)

 

At least one of these people worked on Doom 2099, a conversion which no one remembers but is pretty poorly aged in any case. Not like that's terribly obvious - quite a bit of these layouts were taken from other wads, then given a Christmas-themed makeover which kind of sounds like the other Xmas Doom but no matter. Shotgun guys are replaced by gnomes, zombiemen by tiny presents that turn out to be brains when killed, Lost Souls by flying presents,  ninjas that replaced pinkies and a giant snowman that I think replaces the Barons of Hell. Combat by and large sucks though, since ammo is frightfully limited, even adding in a secret or two. 

 

It's a real shame though because there was obviously lots of effort put into the visuals and the several Doomcute locations. Of course a chaingunner would be in Santa's office and the Imps in the nearby bathroom are just his little helpers! The stores of Map 02 are neat, though the layout is just bland as hell, and not so surprisingly, entirely original as opposed to the other maps that aren't 01, 02, and parts of 03, and 03 is, in addition to featuring a sick-ass tripwire in front of us, has all sorts of shops with some rather negative messages about their products' quality. Exception being the Doomstore, which naturally features contemporary big name wads of the time. I can NOT believe no one in PUSS or DBP has attempted these sorts of cute references because it would be so cool! Didn't play past 03 because I just read the opening sections, but no matter, combat is crap and you should really play continously if you want to at all, not like it'll matter too much in the end 4/10

 

 

 

 

Ichiban.wad (1995) by Engdahl Wm. (Crispy Doom)

 

Combination of 10 different maps that for some reason are largely comprised of a particular city texture overlayed with 2 different versions of flames. The maps themselves are all pretty good (06 and 09 especially) but this decision is headscratching and just make the maps it's used in (like 06 or 07 out of 10) butt ugly.

 

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

Edited January 30, 2024 by LadyMistDragon

[Walter confetti]

Dragonsbrethren's Pandemonium by @Dragonsbrethren - Vaniila Doom, SP, 1 map, 2013, played with DSDA-Doom 0.27.4

Spoiler

Didn't i played this map already? Anyway it's a medium sized map in the style of Pandemonium for a wrecked community project where the aim was to create a map in the style of, well, Pandemonium: abstract and diabolical mashup of every themes from Doom all conjuted in a twisted vision, no doors expect the exit door, maze-like structure all connect into a certain restrained box and a optional secret area with toxic water. This level delivers almost everything i just described plus more changes like the addition of more doors that aren't the exit area and more secrets, including as well some citations to the original E3M3 that is a nice touch. Even the small maze is acceptable. It's a good map, i liked it!

 

SPOON! (Deathmatch) by Vernon Baas - Vanilla Doom, DM, 1 map, 1994, played with zandronum 3.1 and bots

Spoiler

 

Too bad the bots are so dumb to jump immediately in the lower toxic pool because this map looks genuinely pretty neat! Great layout, good flow, not too much a great thing placement since there's only a shotgun and a RL in the middle of the arena and some little nice details for a 1994 map! A wasted opportunity by bots, unluckily.

[LadyMistDragon]

Caesium Rift (2023) by @Sikreci (From Doom with Love)

 

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Another day, another tripped alarm at an old toxic waste dump. It's always just scavvers or idiot kids, but you weren't gonna complain. The corporate types paid top dollar to protect their dirty old secrets and it was real easy to rack up big year-end bonuses when the targets only had zip guns and baseball bats. But now some clown left them a rocket launcher to play with, and the bastards shot up your platoon's ride. Now you're waking up in a puddle that smells worse than a jungle latrine with no gear but your sidearm. But if you wanted to die in a pit of radioactive trash, you could have stayed in Los Angeles. Looks like you'll be earning your next paycheck the hard way.

This is my first Doom level. Requires OTEX 1.1!

 

 

Here's a map I played and completed last year. Basically, this takes place in and around a canyon, facing some rather stiff opposition from a number of largely disadvantageous positions. This time around, the Vesper weapon mod was used which made aggressiveness in largely open areas a more workable strategy. It's certainly not easy by any means but hunting for secrets is kind of fun in a mildly tough sort of way. We decided to stop after failing to find a new path after probably 2 minutes or so. Still, this gets an incredibly strong personal recommendation, with the main caveats probably relating to the navigation issues. I wrote a better description of this in the writeup, sorry. 8/10

 

 

 

I got like 30 seconds here before realizing things looked awfully familiar and after checking my youtube, had that perception confirmed so....

 

 

PIT6.WAD (1994) by mic@nando.net (Crispy Doom)

 

Wow, the instant one sees the pea-soup green walls they start facing right into as if they're being punished by mom and dad would have a suitable impression of the quality. But despite the odd teleportation of the pit at the beginning, it's actually quite a solid run-and-gun map that only seems to use E1 monsters largely for some reason. The final room having an outdoors view, a la the end of Wolfenstein's E1 was quite funny though 5/10, action is constant.

 

 

 

 

Blood Pit V1.0 (1996) by XPON THE IMORTAL (Crispy Doom)

 

Jesus christ, learn to spell dude. And we start in an large  empty cavern with tons of Spectres on the bloody floor facing a Romero head? This is really gonna suck.

 

Well au contraire, my Padawan. See, despite the fact that the enemy placement is sloppy to the point of laughability and that health pickups are plentiful enough that even terrible people are going to finish it in around 10 minutes, there is a certain amusing mindlessness to blowing things up that I can't really hate it. Maybe you can even kill those stupid chaingunners with a little luck. The last stairway is going to be tricky though, if Crispy Doom hadn't just paused those enemies there for basically no reason. 4/10

 

 

 

 

The pit, crossroads, and hell keeper (1995) by Owen (Crispy Doom)

 

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See for youe self.

 

More like "Owen my fucking money back, AMIRITE, AHAHAHAH".....but no, maybe put a touch more effort into your description if you want people to play your damn map. This basically feels like someone who just opened Doomcad and spent a few hours farting around in it while they tried to put something together. Exactly what that is, I couldn't tell you because EVERY SINGLE DOOR is unmarked and the inescapable pit at the very start of map 01 is but a forerunner of bad things to come. I can't say I found the trap in E3M2, and E3M3 can be finished in maybe 3 and a half seconds 2/10, you will suffer from playing this, even if it's quite completable.

 

 

 

 

 

World of Anarchy (2015) by MCFreak (GZ Doom)

 

Well, at least this seems to work in GZDoom, but like the author says, it's not going to render many objects or weapons. Too bad, I'm sure there was at least some ridiculous stuff that could be found. Basically two seperate rooms, with one under twilight sky because.....there's plenty of effort put into the detailing, but it's probably best as a 1v1 owing to the rather small size. For some reason, this is listed as a Terrywad which isn't exactly obvious when not playing with Skulltag, Be glad those days are gone. 5/10

 

 

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

Edited January 31, 2024 by LadyMistDragon

[Sikreci]

Oh hey thanks for playing, again! Always nice to see some Vesper action too. I definitely learned a lot from making that map, especially about how a secret that feels slightly too obvious to the mapper can end up being impossibly cryptic to everyone else. Hopefully you'll get a chance to try some of my later work someday and see what I've learned since then.

[LadyMistDragon]

Starshine (2022) by @EANB (From Doom with Love)

 

Well, I've played this before and I tried another difficulty but I don't think the first release had difficulty settings because it felt just as hard as I remembered. I played with Antaresian Reliquary mod which sort of breaks the rocket launcher in small groups of enemies. Typical sort of EANB techbase/nighttime outdoor combo in the designs. After a rather humiliating death from a distant Revenant, it was decided to stop. Still a solid 8/10 though. I recorded a video but due to a couple of avoidable blunders, it wont' be uploaded.

 

Spoiler

 

 

Special Operations Force (1994) by Gabriel Basco Guimaraens (Crispy Doom)

 

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You are Sgt. Kebo Ludo. Member of the elite Special Operation Force left alone in a strange world.

You have to solve how to get to end without being killed. Not only by defending yourself against all the lovely monsters who want you visit them at HELL. Solve the problem of the Bounty, or the Atztec pryramid & the Phanton of the Opera.

I rely on the Shotgun, I think its the best all around weapon, besides Sgt. Ludo is too macho to carry a Rocket Launcher or a BFG. Those are girly-weapons. Besides solving how to get to the end of each level is sometimes not as easy.

Do NOT attempt to get 100% kills in all levels, if you do it means you cheated!!! If you like it, ket me know. This my second one, and do not know if I am doing ok.

 

An entire episode replacement's worth for Ultimate Doom, exploring some rather fascinating sorts of concepts as detailed above in the vanilla Doom textures. Unfortunately, there are too many cramped and bland rooms. More critical is the sheer lack of signposting. For no reason at all, several walls are behind unmarked doors. Sometimes, it's easy to spot a misalignment but at other times, it's about hitting random ones. Not to mention there's a number of times it'll be necessary to enter a particular place in order to open something else up. Even collecting all three keys won't always help! It's not important, but also all water hates you.

 

On the plus side, progression does feel good at spots, there are some decent puzzles, and the boat in the outdoors of the first map is really well-done. There's even a mast on one! It's not enough to make this one worth playing though 4/10

 

PS: you can get 100 percent according to someone else but as usual, whatevs

 

PPS I'd skipped the secret map (that I couldn't access from E1M3 because that map is...profoundly bugged though maybe if I took the background noise out..) but I checked it out - and it's actually kind of nice! Thematical switching is still quite rapid but we're basically escaping from a mound of sorts then infiltrating another nest filled with shotgunners and Imps. Some other enemies too, I guess Gabriel thought having a wholly 2-enemy map was weird but it's really too bad, this forerunner of modern community projects! Better yet, it's completable without any serious progression issues! Although again, there are fake walls to rub. No chaingun, but you only need 1 key. Yay! Also, E1M5 is still probably the best map here and E1M7 is quite decent as well, though it's pretty long. But there's still not much being missed if this isn't played.

 

 

Edited February 1, 2024 by LadyMistDragon

[LadyMistDragon]

Spook sounds and music version 1.1 (1995) by Tom Turner (Crispy Doom)

 

Series of sounds from some cheesy horror movies that other than their tendency to overlay in large groups of enemies really aren't that bad. The usage would only make sense in spooky maps, otherwise it's just all stupid noises, evil laughter and if one has the plasma rifle, a never-ending screech. Definitely not an improvement. There's also a soundtrack but I didn't load that, perhaps mercifully.

 

 

Painful Evil (2000) by Tomi Rajala (Crispy Doom) 

 

Here we have a map very similar to that of the 2007 Cacoward winner Outer Darkness, with a strong element of The Inmost Dens when related to the progression. There are lots of square-shaped sectors and a really nice combat flow that demand constant engagement. It's largely rather cramped though. Which I guess is where the Malcolm Sailor comparison came from, but this is a little too generous with supplies to be mistaken for a Chord outtake. It's also quite backtrack-heavy which would be fine if I wasn't fighting distraction but still, progress is not terribly obvious and I basically just stumbled into the blue key room on accident after deciding that perhaps it would be prudent to head toward the opposite end of the map. Challenge definitely sees a drop-off toward the end, but the fight scale still feels like ending map stuff, with a Cacocloud and Cyberdemon across a bridge ready to greet those who've reached it. Although heading into the sewers to lower some bars blocking the exit switch just felt totally unnecessary. Still, this is the sort of gem I think more people should play 8/10

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ICID]

  

 

DBP11: Lilywhite Lilith (2019) by The Doomer Boards Community

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Difficulty: Ultra-Violence, continuous}

^{Source Port: PRBoom+ via Delta Touch, complevel 9}

 

This is my first time playing a Doomer Board Project - I mostly know them for the ongoing controversy about which I have my own opinions which I am not stupid enough to share here. Other than that I just knew them as "better than average community projects", so I was not ready for the level of care and craft shown in "Lilywhite Lilith."

 

Apparently inspired in several places by the band Genesis - which I confess I have only a casual knowledge of - Lilywhite is an absolutely gorgeous mapset, the best I've seen in awhile - textured with marble, stained glass, and roses. Each new level inspires awe whether it's the statuesque hub of MAP05, the massive palace of MAP07, or the hanging gardens of MAP02. Combined with a really smartly-chosen soundtrack, it's a beautiful experience even playing it handheld on my RP3.

 

Combat-wise, the mapset is pretty challenging and at times rather trollish. If you're one of those people who gets apoplectic whenever mappers put enemies outside your autoaim range, this map will cause you to have a stroke - I'm not someone who gets angry at tha by nature, and even I got tired of the trick while playing this. The plasma troopers are an unnecessary addition to the bestiary (as all variations of "plasma zombie" are, and yes I include Skillsaw's) that regularly blend into the background and have too much health for their role.

 

The most memorable map is definitely joe-ilya's "Five Minutes Afloat", in which you are stuck in a sector boat and must indeed survive for 5 minutes until the exit switch becomes available. It has all the best and worst of Lilywhite's combat - it's great fun blasting monsters to smithereens with your hundreds of rockets, but the boat and mast's annoying collision fights you every step of the way, there's too much space between waves, and some of the monster compositions are just downright cruel, so despite my admiration for the gimmick I got fed up quickly. That's the set in a nutshell - you're never quite sure when it's trying to be transcendent and when it's just having a laugh at your expense.

All that said, this is the best WAD I've personally played in awhile, in or out of the ER/iWA, and I would highly recommend it to anyone. It inspired me to immediately download last year's Cacoward-winning DBK03, which has many of the same contributors. That's about the highest honor I can bestow - when a random WAD is so good it makes me immediately want to start exploring the mappers' whole catalog to see what else I've been missing.

  

Edited February 1, 2024 by ICID

[brick]

Brick | 1 wad | 15 maps
Adventure | 10 wads | 83 maps

 

Netherworld (2021) by NaMcO. 15 SP maps for Doom II in GZDoom.
Rolling a GZDoom-intended pwad on idgames has not happened often, but although the wad needs the port (and is meant to be played with hardware rendering) and the maps are in UDMF, the gameplay is surprisingly classic oritented (or maybe more accurately "modern classic"). Sure there are some scripts, but there's no mouselook, no jumping, no crouching, forced pistol starts... all this is enforced in ZMAPINFO and gives the wad an unusual feel. There are also a bunch of custom enemies, including a dark imp that shoots caco fireballs (I'm sure I've seen these somewhere before), and several cacodemon variants including a ghostly one in the cemetary (very appropriate)... and those baby cacos are so cute! There are other minor changes: pistol and chaingun are faster (it makes the chaingun really shine in some situations), lost souls have less health, also minor aesthetic changes like the plasma gun sound replacement that's a lot less painful to the ears. There's good variety in maps, some are large and expansive with lots of open outdoors, others are more linear and claustrophobic, but they do tend towards the longer side most of the time. I admit gameplay in some was not really my thing, they tend to throw hundreds of enemies (though rarely in lock-in arenas, I was thankful to have more space to move), and I am not the biggest fan of pistol-starting every single map. The final map is a variant on the IOS, it spawns monsters of course but also has a variety of other attacks, and instead of timing rockets it has a health bar to slowly (veeeeeeery slowly) whittle at. It was still very nice to see NaMcO growing as a mapper, the early levels are ok but there's a clear trend towards more complex and interesting architecture and setpieces, and there were some fun memorable bits like the wave of demons at the beginning of MAP06, or the power plant towers in MAP07. I think my favourite was MAP08 with all the open spaces, beautiful scenery, cozy colours with all the water and vegetation, and the combat was more accessible and very fun.

Spoiler

 

[ICID]

9 hours ago, brick said:

Rolling a GZDoom-intended pwad on idgames has not happened often

 

This is because the Random File feature is sentient and it actively hates everyone who uses it. I, America's #1 GZDoom Hater, get these type of wads every friggin' week. You actually play on GZDoom, so you get sentenced to the 90s vanilla garbage pits.

[Roofi]

Year 2 Month 10 Day 12

 

I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I died/stopped.

 

[1] DBM Random Map by Demmon Break Master (2011)

 

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Another single map, but for Doom II. (Short - 10 minutes)

 

Behind this random map hides an anxiety-inducing and detailed vanilla-compatible bunkers, mostly populated by zombies but not only. It uses the music "Suspense" from Doom 1 and it matches with the suspenseful atmosphere caused by the moody lighting and the cramped environnements. After reading the idgames' comments, I expected a really ruder experience but it's eventually the kind of map which accomodates with my gameplay style because a steady approach is way more rewarded than actuall skill. Those zombies and more specifically chaingunners can deal a lot of damage if run and gun but they prove to be inefficient if you go step by step.

 

The second aspect which captivated me were the visuals, which are elaborated regarding vanilla limits. The occasional doom cutes such as bedrooms and dining room strenghtens the feeling to explore a haunted place. Needless to say that the music from E1M5 is always a banger in those types of maps. I really love the cloud red sky by the way, but as the screens witness, most of the map takes place underground.

 

Overall, this type of horror-oriented map with very moderate difficulty was really addictive, although I would have liked it to have been longer.

 

Grade : A- (16/20)

 

[2] InHell.WAD by Peter J. Gizzi (1994)

 

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EErie music (Satriani) in a HEELLish environment

 

A small (and crappy) Ultimate Doom map I already played in Month 9 Day 05 (3 April 2022). Here's what I said :

 

"This map doesn't look like anything tangible except that the layout forms the word "DEU" which may stand for Doom Editing Utilities. It's hideous by the way, we're dealing with a pure 1994 map.

 

Despite its 30 monsters, this map took me at least 5 minutes because of its unnecessarily obscure progression where you have to shoot on a wall to discover a passage, where you have to press on a precise texture to lower a sector or press on a switch in a large featureless dark room.

 

The author has integrated a music composed by Satriani, but it only confirms the idea of a weird and clumsy map.

 

This map has no artistic value, even as a shovelware.

 

Grade : D-"

 

I played Prboom+ this time in order to kill the 33 enemies and find the 2 secrets. This level managed to confuse me again despite its tiny size.  I still confirm the old review. The music is the only map's "strong point". 

 

Grade : D- (4/20)

 

I tried to take a soulsphere in a large cage from Pent-A-Gon but the floor lowered and and left me at the mercy of 7 cyberdemons.

 

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[LadyMistDragon]

The Ship level: yeah I know it's boring (2003) by Paul D. Disney (From Doom with Love)

 

2 underrated classics in a row? I must be getting lucky here. Anyway, this guy who's probably a distant relative of Walt Disney at best picked a rather self-effacing subtitle that carefully cloaks a map far better designed than it has any right to! There are consoles in places (the front and back) where you'd expect, an office that can be entered by crawling through a panel, a bar of sorts and some sort of (broken) equipment that appears to be powered by slime because of course. One of the most outstanding aspects are the many holes in the hull, showcasing a vessel that has clearly been damaged.

 

The combat can kind of take a backseat with how impressive this all is for 2003: the Lost Souls surrounding the yellow key are lame, but things are quite claustrophobic despite the low enemy count and it might be wise to search around for secrets but you don't really need to: it just makes dispatching the occasional Lost Soul mobs less tedious. I certainly didn't. Play this with the TNT wad because the detailing makes a little more sense there 7.5/10

 

 

 

Nova (1994) by Bob Lange (Crispy Doom)

 

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Nova started out as a test platform to experiment with cut'n'paste ops and rotation in DEU 5.1, and somehow grew into a deathmatch level. Dark and ominous. And no STARTAN3!

 

That last sentence is funny and I doubt I have to explain why. Hexagonal-shaped although this really isn't much of a map and most of the lifts leading up the ledges are invisible. There's also monsters in single-player but they are as why bother as they come 3/10

 

Spoiler

 

Death Beckons (2008) by Kenny "KennyJC" Coughlan (GZ Doom)

 

Basically, we have a GZDoom map that uses Quake textures and a couple of Hexen enemies and that's kind of it for uniqueness. It's probably due to my dislike of how ZDoom engines affect movement, but combat felt rather rote and obligatory. Combine this with constantly stingy ammo and you get a map that is both tedious and mildly unbalanced in its difficulty. It might look nice but it's not like there's cool visual tricks, just views of the skyline in one particular lava pit we return to a few times. I didn't expect to prevail against the boss with the low amount of health I had, but that was all because the mass Imp mob released toward the end was stupid and basically just provides chaingun ammo because Kenny was insane. Supposedly, he went on to make Quake maps but I'll have to check Quaddicted later because it didn't come up as Quake mapper in a google search 6.5/10 I guess.

 

 

 

 

[Roofi]

Year 2 Month 10 Day 13

 

I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I died/stopped.

 

[1] DarkBase Texture Wad (dgdbtxtr.wad) by David Gevert (1998)

 

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About 12 textures and 7 flats suitable for dark-brown base levels similar to Quake 1. All are mods of Doom2 textures, with the exception of one by Paul Fleschute.

 

A collection of dark and/or rusty textures I actually saw in lot of modern wads. I didn't know they were so old.

 

[2] Containment Area by Rui Sergio Costa (1995)

 

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This map replaces the 15th slot and I don't know why the author put a secret exit as it's a one-map wad. Anyway, this map has two exits and I took the secret one because I managed to find the hidden yellow key.

 

If E2M2 figures among your favourite Ultimate Doom maps, you"ll be served here because Rui Sergio sends you in a warehouse full of crates and enemies. Your mission will consist to climb on the crates and sneak between them in order to find ammo to clean the rooms and the keys to progress further among the different crate mazes.

 

Contrary to E2M2, "Containment Area" centers exclusively on the "Crate Maze" tropes. However, the environnements are emptier and less diverse than what you can find in the IWAD. But like many Doomers, I really love this trope and that one gets never old. It was a relaxing map to play and the several Doom 2 monsters slightly increase the challenge.

 

Grade : B (12,5/20)

 

[3] Jump for it by Daniel Huff (1996)

 

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DeathMatch. You'll need to play this one to believe it. Don't pass it up, or you,ll really be missing out! - Easy to identify exit. Fast paced layout for high frag counts! All weapons above a shotgun are harder to get, with considerable risk involved. No mis-aligned textures anywhere, and no bugs!

 

An ordinary old Deathmatch map I already visited in Year 2 Month 06 Day 03 (13th July 2023)

 

"Sorry, I forgot to take screens. Anyway. This deathmatch takes place in a fort and its complexity make it look like it could have been a decent smallish level. There are few imps too but they just act as food for your shotgun. I like the extensive use of grey and beige CRATOP textures for the courtyards."

 

Nothing else to add but damn, this abnormal and extensive use of beige and grey crattop textures hypnotises my mind. It's so smooth.

 

[4] Mini-Gun!  by Don Tello (1999)

 

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Ever notice that the Shadow Warrior shotgun looks more like a chaingun? I did. And here it is. This weapon is one mean S.O.B.! Please note that I did modify the frames slightly.

 

This small mod shows you what is really a minigun contrary to the weak original one. It has an increased fire rate and looks more badass. It's a lot more fun to use but it chews up your bullets faster !

 

[5] THE MONSTER MASH by Bryan Cady (1996)

 

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This wad has a combination of wide open areas and narrow hallways with several traps throughout. I tried to leave plenty of ammo a few gifts here and there. I tried to make it satisfy several tastes and tried to make it fairly difficult.

 

A map I already played in Month 10 Day 29 (4th July 2022). Here's what I said :

 

"

I didn't forgot taking screens but Dosbox didn't work as expect , so it resulted to totally black captures. Anyway, you're once again trapped in a ugly and totally abstract base. As many 90's maps , the author used a lot of different textures in an inconsistent way. Fortunately, aesthetics don't represent the main point of interest of this map.

 

Indeed, this map has a comical amount of monster closets and saying there are "plenty of ammo a few gifts here and there" is more than an understatement. Bryand Cady flooded you with ammo so you can shoot every wall if you desire. In order to kill the cyberdemon, he gave you two invulnerability spheres.

 

I found this level very fun because you can smash a lot of monsters without difficulty. Also, the map features a lot of exploration. Even when it's ugly and bland, I like discovering a wide variety of places. Expect a rather confusing progression though. You have to collect 3 keys and do a lot of backtracking in order to reach the exit.

 

Grade : B-"

 

I switched to prboom+ this time in order to kill the 200 enemies and find the 8 secrets,which were unnecessary regarding how much you're loaded with health and ammo. Perhaps giving a B- to this map was a bit too much , notably in terms of visuals which are rudimentary to stay gentle. Nevertheless, I maintain my analysis on the fact that this card is simple and fun. That symptomatic overgenerosity in some old maps still lends a certain charm. You can go nuts with all your arsenal without fearing about consequences !

 

Grade : B- (11,5/20)

 

I was walking in an ordinary room from 1000 Unheard Screams and got teleported by surprise in a small Startan filled with toxic liquid. Not really a Terry trap but the concept is somewhat similar.

 

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[ICID]

 

Fort Doom (2016) by FlightPhoenix

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Difficulty: Ultra-Violence}

^{Source Port: GZDoom}

 

The most shocking thing about this WAD is that the author admits "this is my first map, sorry for any mistakes" in the text file and all of the /idgames reviews are actually being nice instead of calling the uploader various slurs. Maybe there's hope for the community yet.

 

Anyway, in the spirit of those kind reviewers - yeah, this actually is really good for a first-time map! It's short, looks nice, and has one really great combat where you face down an arch-vile while you only have the combat shotgun, forcing you to open more and more monster-filled areas of the arena to collect weaponry. If FlightPhoenix is reading this I'd encourage the following constructive improvements:

1. You have a great sense of texturing, but you should do more with lighting - you can see in the screenshots above how giving everything the same lighting looks kinda flat. You can make your detailing pop more by using multiple types of lights in the same area.
2. The opening sections are a bit cramped, and not in a way I find particularly productive - Doom's player collision is wacky and bad, so ideally you want the player to not have to bump into walls while they're just walking down a monster-less hallway.
3. This was pretty easy for UV - once I got the plasma gun I pretty much just held that down for the rest of the map, didn't even need the BFG. I think you just gave me too much ammo - maybe reduce that if you're looking to provide more of a challenge.

 

 

DOOMED to Run Amok (2004*) by David L. Davis

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Difficulty: Ultra-Violence}

^{Source Port: dsda-doom, complevel 2}

 

*the actual release date for this is unknown - it was pulled off of a DooMania! CD and uploaded in '04 by the archive maintainer.

 

Another amateurish but nice-looking WAD packed with custom sound effects, altered textures, and a groovy MIDI. I like that the plasma gun sound here - which you'll be hearing a lot, because this is another one where you are overloaded with cells and just hold down M1 for the rest of the map - is actually louder than the default in blatant defiance of modern mapping preferences.

 

Unfortunately for the sin of including confusing teleporter puzzles and Wolfenstein mazes while also making it impossible to backtrack the short way by constantly locking doors behind you, I must pass on recommending this otherwise entertaining WAD.

Edited February 3, 2024 by ICID

[LadyMistDragon]

Lethal Weapon for Doom II (1997) by Sidearm Joe and D. Ziggy Gnarly (Crispy Doom)

 

There's not really lots to say. Teh titlepic and portrait are both replaced, along with the difficulty names and a small collection of sounds are replaced. Mel Gibson's inaudible commentary can be heard when firing certain weapons and performing certain actions and the pistol/chaingun sounds much better. That's about it.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

Red to Silver (2014)  by Omegalore 

 

Turns the red key silver, along with some special hackery called LOCKDEF that also recolors the door markings too!

 

Pleasant Vibes from the Party Garage (2023) by Clippy's Chilled Chicken Discord (From Doom with Love)

 

Is this Clippy's second community project? I don't feel like checking and it isn't terribly important. What's important is that there's 32 maps, all somewhat taking off of Clippy's quirky and gimmicky map design, featuring many members of his Discord community. There so many little gimmicks! Like in the first map, you drop from a STARTAN hall into a pit with a message saying "LOL" in the background, then the music changes and we're now in a techbase in a field, all whilst chickens run around! Map 02 has an Arch-vile you can crush and masses of zombies towards what I believes the end, along with an Invulnerbility Sphere. I didn't grab it, not like that would normally matter, but we also got a rocket launcher at this time, and seeing how I've got little time, ended up facerocketing about as soon as I could. Really wish I had more time for this though!

 

https://youtu.be/BXmIbBZCmLw

Edited February 3, 2024 by LadyMistDragon

[ICID]

 

Desert Paradise (2012) by Doomguy 2000

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Difficulty: Ultra-Violence}

^{Source Port: GZDoom}

 

A borderline terrywad from infamous troll and Mock 2 inspiration Doomguy 2000, covered in random images of pornography. You walk around the sort-of shopping mall-shaped area fighting "Tourettes Demons", "Gay Rapists", "Shotgun Pimps", succubi, and Beavis and Butt-Head while collecting all six keys. Then you shoot an 8000-health jpeg of some Miss Country contestants and shoot your girlfriend, Doomgirl, in the head to win. Offensive, yes, but more importantly very, very stupid.

 

 

Doomers.wad (2012*) by Dave Kernen

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Difficulty: Ultra-Violence}

^{Source Port: GZDoom}

 

*As with "Doomed to Run Amok", the actual release date here is unknown - it was uploaded to /idgames in 2012 but found on compuserv.

A myhouse.wad in the traditional sense, in that it's actually some guy making his friend's house in the Doom engine in the 90s. No exit, because it's supposed to be a Deathmatch map, although there are a few monsters. Nothing to write home about, absolutely cram-packed with health powerups.

 

 

Hiding to Nothing (1994) by Stuart Greig

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Difficulty: Ultra-Violence}

^{Source Port: dsda-doom, complevel 3}

A brown, flat, almost entirely FULLBRIGHT maze where you hit switches and hope that they've done something somewhere else in the map. The only monsters are shotgunners and imps. Some anonymous /idgames reviewer wrote that this is "never for one second dull." I must respectfully disagree.

 

Descent 2 (1999) by Mike "Cybderdemon" Watson

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Difficulty: Ultra-Violence}

^{Source Port: dsda-doom, complevel 9}

A small, square deathmatch map from the legendary Mike Watson, using the GothicDM texture pack. No health, no room to maneuver, lots of weapons.

 

 

A Truckers Nightmare! version 3.1111111 (1996) by Sam Dickie

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Difficulty: Ultra-Violence}

^{Source Port: dsda-doom, complevel 2}

Love the start here - you leave an ordinary truck stop complete with a wonderful little sector truck, watch as the ground before you descends into a hellish landscape, and jump in. Unfortunately, the actual gameplay of >90% of this WAD is walking through a dark, ugly maze getting lost and collecting keys. No wonder the actual filename is "uac_cave". There's a couple sound and graphic replacements (the status bar being the most obvious), and possibly as a result of said sound replacements, most sound effects are doubled so that they play twice? Don't know what that's about, but it adds toe the annoying-ness of playing this WAD.

 

 

Tang's Hideaway v2.4 (1998) by Sparkle Tom

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Difficulty: Ultra-Violence}

^{Source Port: dsda-doom, complevel 2}

Takes place almost entirely in a single arena with a lightning-bolt shaped pool of hurtfloor. Some of the progression is confusing and it's obviously not the most technically accomplished map around but unlike a lot of other '98 mappers, Tom isn't afraid to hit you with high-tier monsters, including a repeated trick of quietly letting arch-viles run around cleared areas. Because of this, combat is generally exciting and memorable even when the layout isn't. The MIDI of Chris Rea's Road To Hell doesn't loop right and gets annoying quickly, though.

 

The map is dedicated to "Tang, who I'll always love and remember. This level is in memory of her, she was a very good girl."

 

 

Trick or Treat Madness (2012) by Unholypimpin

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Difficulty: Ultra-Violence}

^{Source Port: GZDoom}

A weird little ZDoom map where you run up to houses trick-or-treating. There are several dozen houses all populated by the same MS Paint sprite and they'll all give you candy if you don't vandalize them first. But if you vandalize after you get the candy it increases your "Halloween rating". As you can see the text overlapped on my screen which may well be a fault of my own GZDoom settings but I wasn't going to change it up for this one boring, repetitive and ultimately pointless map.

[Roofi]

Year 2 Month 10 Day 14

 

I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I died/stopped.

 

[1] GIGAKIL2 by STEALTH (1995)

 

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The first incarnation of Gigakill, was in the form of 5 consec- utive deathmatch suitable levels. These I titled PALADIUM. After testing them thouroughly and revamping existing levels (and even adding 2 new ones) it has reached it's present and final form, the awesome GIGAKIL2!

 

Five levels designed for Deathmatch which have the common point to contain a lot of grey and brown textures so that they look very "earthy". The architecture is clean for a 1995 wad, between the large circular arenas and the detailing inside the castle-themed maps. Special mention for the dining room. Nothing to say about the potential playability of this wad, it seems adequately balanced.

 

[2] The Black Crown by Spook City (2018)

 

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this is my first set of levels, four in total. took me about a year or so messing around with doom builder 2 to figure out how most things work, and this is the result of that. i'm not quite done with these maps yet, they may be included in another mapset later on, but i thought i'd put them somewhere for now.

 

I know that's very unethical to judge a newbie experimenting and discovering new things in his new hobby but "The Black Crown" was a deeply flawed experience as a mapset. Each map acts like a junkyard of random ideas so that I feel like I went back to the 1994-1995 era.

 

The title of this wad misleaded me because I expected a sort of medieval-themed wad but those 4 levels consist to randomly shaped tech-bases with no sense of proportion and logic. Seriously, in some maps, you enter in empty huge rooms populated by a handful of zombiemen ! Or, in map 02, obtaining the yellow key opens a closet with four cyberdemons inside ! Each map isn't really challenging but most of the encounters turn out to be clumsy and unengaging. Overall, map 03 is probably my favourite map because you can spectacte several hundred of zombiemen infighting each other in giant courtyard, for no particular reason.

 

I can appreciate this sort of old-school junkiness but unfortunately "The Black Crown" suffers of mapping decisions that seem to have the sole purpose of trolling, like hiding really important weapons in secrets or just activating silent slow crushers in irrelevant places.

 

Moreover, the levels suffer of blatant mapping errors such as the absence of lower-unpegged textures for the doors or missing textures , and the poorly rendered midis of metal songs ended up attacking my ears.

 

So, I don't want to be too rude but I suspect that Spook City didn't really put the efforts to do something really convincing. Even for a novice wad, The Black Crown seems to me to be very sloppy and you don't need to know a lot about Doom or videogames in general to notice there's something not right here. The maps are still playable, but I don't think it was a good idea to upload them to idgames as they were.

 

Grade : D+ (6,5/20)

 

[3] Unholy Church by Treyeon Cuber (2014)

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Ever wanted to wreck havoc in one of those Satanic churches? Well, this wad is for you!

 

This is a Terry wad. I reviewed that one because the trap doesn't kill you but our marine is more than fed up with this crap. Let's give 0,5 points for the churche at least.

 

Grade : F (0,5/20)

 

I stop here for today.

[LadyMistDragon]

casa (1997) by Jose Luis Gallardo (Crispy Doom)

 

The one review trashes it and....it's not really all that bad! It's easy to identify bedrooms, closet, laundry rooms, living rooms, porches, a nearby cafe. But of course, there are ASHWALL walls everywhere, perhaps a manifestation of the Latin tendency of earthiness. But the way the marine transforms into a Baron in that one room where all the corpses were hung, drawn, and quartered was quite nice! Too bad the map degenerates into a maze in the last third and for some reason, you're forced to visit at least a couple of different locations if you want to access visible keys. It also took time to realize we should jump out a window. On some positive notes, the cursor is changed to a needle for some reason and the title in the level end screen gets changed to a lime-green color. Overall, 5.5/10

 

 

 

 

 

The Cave Anomaly (1994) by Steven Katz (Crispy Doom)

 

A Doom II map in constant search for its true identity, this constantly and illogically changes textural themes, twists around itself, climbs and descends and contains a few mazes just to 'spice things up.' On the plus side, it's kind of hard to get bored and thankfully, the lava doesn't damage you either. But backtracking from the blue key really, really stinks, and it's actually a good thing that you can drop down a gap to shorten the trip down in one location. And enemy placement is incredibly random, although at least numbers never get overwhelming 5/10

 

 

 

Edited February 5, 2024 by LadyMistDragon

[Roofi]

Year 2 Month 10 Day 15

 

I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I died/stopped.

 

[1] melee10.zip by Jeremy Statz (1996)

 

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A fairly small DM level for Doom2 that started out as an experiment with lighting. The entire level is lit only by "spotlights" in the walls, complete with moderately realistic shadows (at least, as realistic as you can get with Doom 2). There's no Combat Shotgun. Sorry, kids.

 

A small and cramped deathmatch map which perhaps turn into a chaotic mess if there are more than 2 opponents in it but the delicate work on shadows is first and foremost what catched my attention the most. Strong light contrasts improve the ambiance and the aesthetics of this map by a lot.

 

[2] Fast and for Doom (2017)

 

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Some speedmaps.

 

5 small but challenging maps for Doom II. All of them run under vanilla limits except map 04 which require a boom-compatible port. That one is called "Plutinya" and I suppose its author originally designed it for another project.

 

Each map features purified visuals and architecture involving a small selection of textures. For instance, map 03 "Bloodbath" almost exclusively uses two beige and grey metal textures. However, I would say that simplicity rhymes with efficiency as those speedmaps remain nice to look at.

 

In spite of the short lenght of the maps and the low monster counts, "Fast and For Doom" still succeeds at putting us in tough situations. You're likely to die in the last maps. For instance, the last map includes a duel against a cyberdemon in a cramped room, the third map puts you in severe ammo famine at the beginning, and above all, the fourth Plutonia-inspired  map could be a map you can find in the megawad "Obzen". Some traps, specifically in map 02, release some little horde of ennemies which allows for a few pseudo-slaughter scenarios.

 

Overall, Fast and 4 Doom is engaging for a mapset of that caliber. It might just energize you as much as a cup of coffee. Also, Cyber-Rainforce is a very underrated midi composer, you should listen more midis of him. The fourth map is the low point of the map for me but as I said before, it seems like it was initially made for another project.

 

Grade : B (14/20)

 

[3] EARTH SCUM A Doom II PWAD Adventure by Guy Stockie Everett, WA (2004)

 

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A new DOOM II PWAD adventure by Guy Stockie. Good quality game. Works best with a 486-66 or better. Nevertheless, be prepaird to die, Earth Scum....

 

"Earth Scum" is a very early Doom 2 map released in 1994 and, in spite of its age, it achieves at matching the same level of quality than Doom 2. "Earth Scum" captures perfectly the "rustic" theme from the Iwad. It takes place in a sort of a dilapidated town as you can find in the second episode. There's notably a street you can cross, reminding me a bit of "Downtown" and large grassy courtyard near the end which seems to be inspired by "The Courtyard". 

 

The author seems to warn us about the potential difficulty of this map with his ominous phrase "Nevertheless be prepared to die, Earth Scum..." but the level ended up being really straightforward for my part. You obtain the SSG early in the map and it proves to be weapon of choice during the whole game. I didn't want specific challenge so I really liked Earth Scum for being a relaxing and fun adventure-oriented map.

 

In the end, Earth Scum could easily have been included in Iwad, especially in the second episode. If it had, it might have been one of my favorite maps. A very solid piece of work for 1994.

 

Grade : B+ (14,5/20)

 

[4] The Hel Caves by @Ruba (2007)

 

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You are Rulose, you are on a mission to find your husband who was kidnaped bu bad guys. As the Sweat pours out from your head, feet and buttcrack The hotter than thailand heat is getting intense. You must adventure into the hel cave and defeat enemy, upon enemy and rescue your husband, I hope he ok!. I mean I hope he alive. TingTong to him for me. Onse you find husband, you go to hel sinckie!, where its cold and soothing!

 

It's rarely a proof of good taste when a mapper put nazis and other references to the Third Reich in non-secret areas but coming from Ruba, it's more a running gag than else afterall !

 

"The Hel Caves" is a brief (joke)map , populated by 30 enemies and taking place in a hellish cavern annexed by Nazi Germany. You start among completly dark areas, which is irritating but Ruba placed so much megaspheres and ammo that dying depends of your good will. There's a cybie roaming in the large lava pool but take a BFG , an invulnerability sphere  and you're done with him. In case you doubt it's a jokemap, you have to kill a Romero head in order to end the level.

 

So, I've seen worse. The map is too short and nothing extraordinary, but Ruba was a quality jokemapper before Terry wads arrived.

 

Grade : C (9/20)

 

[5] Dead Base 2.0 by Owen "Sarge Baldy" Lloyd @sargebaldy (2003)

 

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A big trashed up complex. An updated version of the first map in the "Wasteland" series of maps by Alberto Barsella (circa May '94).

 

Playing a gzdoom-compatible map for Ultimate Doom is uncommon. However, Dead Base is a remaster of a map I've never played and I probably will in future Er/iwa sessions. Still, the zdoom effects implemented are cosmetic and anecdotal so that the map keeps its old-fashioned look and gameplay. 

 

"Dead Base" sends you in a sort of ghost town composed of scattered concrete buildings. You want to access to the "Prometeus Base" but unfortunately for you , everything is screwed here ! The zdoom assets allowed Sarge Baldy to simulate a broken radio or broken panels for instance. Blood particles come from the fountain of blood, pillows are now modelized with slopes inside the bedrooms... It's funny how modernity embraces tradition here. Remasters of Doom maps/wads tend to really transform the original product, like Kdizd for example with Ultimate Doom, but here the changes are so minor that it's as if zdoom had been released in 1994 and the mappers were trying to use its features without really being able to improve the level design.

 

The map itself is good if you like classic exploration-oriented city-themed maps like "Doom City" by Shamus Young with a low difficulty and sandbox-y progression but the rating I'm going to give is more for the Barsella map than for the updated version of sargebaldy. The visual changes add a bit of strangeness that I like, but it doesn't change the experience substantially.

 

I still prefer the second opus from the Wasteland's series "Mountain of Fire" from him.

 

Grade : B- (12/20)

 

[6] Return to the Omen by @FraGMarE (Ian McPherson) (1998)

 

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Map1 deathmatch only replacement for DOOM ][

 

Circular arena with a top-notch ceiling pentagram at its centre. Now, can I have it in single-player please?

 

I stop here for today.

[ICID]

Thanks for playing, everyone! I especially want to shoutout @stephyesterday, who's been hanging out the last few adventures and jumped nearly halfway up the leaderboard (#39 out of 70). I hope you'll stick around - I enjoy reading your reviews, and it's nice to see a fresh face amidst us old-timers :)

 

The new adventure is here: