What is your thoughts on "The Lost Episodes of Doom?"

[Grungo]

 

It was some weird bootleg unlicensed level pack made by Christen Kile and Bob Carter back in neighteen ninety five, level set have 3 8 level episodes (no secret levels) and came with scripture of 246 page disclosing levels.

 

wad runs on old demos such as 1.666 and wasn't compatible with newer updated version (although, grungo know some people already made enhancements and remasters of said wad)

 

the story is about a marine in cyrosleep waking up to find phobos and jupiter's moons have been invaded. you must go to jupiter to fight "anomalies"

 

 

me only played few levels, but despite how jank and questionable, they seem alright

 

what is your thoughts?

[Trar]

Well, they're not so lost now, are they?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They're somewhere near the top of my (very long) wads-to-play list.

Edited February 3, 2024 by Trar

[Wadmodder Shalton]

I'd say we make a limit-removing, Boom or MBF remake of all the levels included and maybe remake a few extra maps from both Chris Klye and Bob Carter.

[Pegleg]

The Lost Episodes of Doom was the first mapset I played that wasn't the iwad. I got it from a friend of mine who wasn't interested in it, so he gave it to me. The book is still on a bookshelf at my parents' house, and I flipped through it a couple year ago, looking at the map layouts and reading their discussions about each map.

 

I don't remember a lot about the maps (it has been 28 years), but it did have some interesting parts. The part where you telefrag a series of unsuspecting sergeants in rapid succession (they're on platforms and you teleport from one platform to the next), the nukage pit that "drains" as you walk down the steps into it, and an area that's meant to be a stone monolith on a plain at night were things that stick out in my mind. I also recall a large tower (in their discussion in the book, they talk about drawing the surrounding area so that it gave the illusion of a tower that was much higher than everything around it) and a walkway with pits with multiple cyberdemons on either side. I didn't particularly like the last map, but that's just because I don't personally enjoy the 

Spoiler

"visit a place you went to before, but now it's a little different" gimmick (like E3M9).

 

Sure, the maps may not be complex or long by today's "standards," but I remember them being fun. And even today, not everything has to be long and complex (or even made with custom textures) to be well-made and fun. I wouldn't call the maps "janky," and I would recommend trying out the Lost Episodes sometime.

[Devalaous]

The better half of the levels were made by the same guy that later made 6 of the Master Levels, kind of like a preview of what was to come in a way. A lot of the levels of his from Lost Episodes also ended up in his Doom 2 megawad, BF Thud, and they stick out like a sore thumb, since most of his original levels in BF Thud resemble the original Doom 2 level names. I like Lost Episodes in a way, its very primitive at times but fun enough if you don't mind '94 stuff. It does take a nosedive once Bob takes over, and the final level is a slap in the face. Klie is on record saying that Lost Episodes is pretty much free to share and post these days, hopefully it ends up on the archives someday for a permanent home

 

From what I understand, the commercial release was thanks to a loophole, you were buying the book which had the levels attached as a bonus, instead of buying an unlicensed game. As such, it isn't actually an add-on with id's blessing, unlike its 'cousins' Hell to Pay and Perdition's Gate. I'm guessing it got id's attention though, given Klie was brought into the Master Levels project, where he made 12 maps for it, his last Doom content before moving on to newer games.

 

I made a QoL patch for the original here, and also ported it to the Unity port

 

On 2/10/2024 at 7:27 AM, Wadmodder Shalton said:

I'd say we make a limit-removing, Boom or MBF remake of all the levels included and maybe remake a few extra maps from both Chris Klye and Bob Carter.

 

A community remaster of Lost Episodes would be neat. Klie is reachable, and has an account on DW. If it ever happened, I'd like to see the Klie portion touched up to more closely resemble his Master Levels output, with stuff like the silly cyberdemon pit changed, secret levels added by either mimicking his style or backporting BF Thud levels to Doom 1, and for the Bob Carter portion to be brought up to Klie's level of visuals, with that one missing level from his works added as the E3 secret level. Some new graphics based on the book cover would also be great.

 

 

[Li'l devil]

I haven't played them, but I watched a review by someone on YT. There was one moment that really stuck out to me, quoting from the review:

Quote

They give you an invincibility powerup, which is basically a distraction. Your natural reaction to get the invincibility and drop down, which is where you'll encounter 6 fucking cyberdemons, and you're trapped. There's no way to get out of this pit, and when the invincibility runs out, you're fucked. There's nothing you can do, but die from the damaging floor that's down there.

lol

[joepallai]

IIRC, this was the first megawad I played after completing the Ultimate Doom and Doom2.   It was pre-internet for me and I saw the book in Lechmere's and bought it.

 

I found the levels slightly easy but overall fun.   Think I beat the whole thing over a weekend.

[mattjoes]

On 2/13/2024 at 1:09 AM, Li'l devil said:

I haven't played them, but I watched a review by someone on YT. There was one moment that really stuck out to me, quoting from the review:

Quote

They give you an invincibility powerup, which is basically a distraction. Your natural reaction to get the invincibility and drop down, which is where you'll encounter 6 fucking cyberdemons, and you're trapped. There's no way to get out of this pit, and when the invincibility runs out, you're fucked. There's nothing you can do, but die from the damaging floor that's down there.

lol

 

Really? Wow.

 

 

 

dot wad.

[mattjoes]

I played the first couple of levels of this many years ago, but didn't care for it very much. I remember thinking it was okay, but the layouts were fairly basic.

 

I wouldn't mind giving it another try, especially to see that pit (illusio-pit?) with the Cyberdemons that was mentioned before, and which sounds like it reaches Machiavellian levels of trollishness. Unfortunately, I seem to have lost my copy (lol).

[brick]

On 2/12/2024 at 11:09 PM, Li'l devil said:

I haven't played them, but I watched a review by someone on YT. There was one moment that really stuck out to me, quoting from the review:

Quote

They give you an invincibility powerup, which is basically a distraction. Your natural reaction to get the invincibility and drop down, which is where you'll encounter 6 fucking cyberdemons, and you're trapped. There's no way to get out of this pit, and when the invincibility runs out, you're fucked. There's nothing you can do, but die from the damaging floor that's down there.

lol

The quote is very misleading. The invulnerability is not a distraction at all, it's extremely helpful in trying to cross the bridge over the pit where the cyberdemons are, since there are a bunch of imps and cacos that'll be shooting from both ahead and behind and the bridge is pretty narrow. I don't know why the "natural" reaction would be to drop down into an obvious death trap instead (I don't even think you have the weapons and ammo needed to deal with a half dozen cyberdemons at this point anyway, invulnerability or not).

 

I've always liked Chris Klie and never understood the hate, I don't think these are his best maps (I think the highlights are in BF_Thud and even moreso in his Master Levels submissions both accepted and rejected) but they're still a fun bunch. I think his earliest ones are weaker but the E2 ones are pretty good and have some interesting non-linearity going. I played ChrisK not long ago with ER/IWA and posted my impressions, it covers pretty much all his half of the Lost Episodes. I don't remember the Bob Carter ones as much, though the E3M1 Stonehenge really stuck. I'm not a fan of the E3M8 setup, I don't mind the "revisit older map with a surprise" concept, I just don't think it's done that well here, and I think Klie's own Spider fight in E1M7 would've made for a better boss map. Otherwise I pretty much agree with everything Pegleg said above, they may seem primitive today (and they are, it's easy to forget how much more difficult the early tools were, especially the nodebuilders) and they're not even the best of 1994, but I still enjoyed replaying them.