Doom Core Trilogy: An Overlooked Classic

[DSC]

Not too long ago there was this thread where someone was criticizing some modern self-described "90's inspired" maps for not feeling very much like actual levels from the early days of Doom. And you know what? I can definitely see why they would say that. I too enjoy some gameplay quirks and oddities that are all too absent in modern "retro" maps, and it kinda bothers me some mappers don't seem to fully grasp these qualities (something I hope to fix myself by improving my mapping abilities and one day build a decent wad of mine).

 

And it's in this context that I would like to mention @valkiriforce's Doom Core Trilogy. Comprised of Doom Core Delta, Reverie and Eternally Yours (haven't actually played through this one yet, but I'm pretty sure it's as good as the others), it offers a lot of content made in (relatively) recent times that still contains a lot of that sweet magic of the beginnings of the modding scene. It features an huge variety of very different maps to play, of all shapes and sizes, bringing fresh new ideas all the way through all the while still feeling very cohesive and coherent by virtue of all of it being made by the same man. Even though it's old-school inspired, and the levels aren't too over-detailed, they still look nice enough and play very well too, something that gives it a big edge over the jank of some of the material it is inspired by. Doom Core Delta is my favorite one so far, but I've just finished Reverie and I can see why it won a Cacoaward all the way back, specially the ending. Very unusually for Doom, instead of an epic atmosphere you had this very soothing, peaceful and hopeful ambience. If you only want to try a single map from those sets, this one is definitely a big contender (Reverie MAP 30).

 

So yeah, just wanted to bring some extra attention to, IMO, this pretty rock-solid trilogy and potentially make some people aware of it's existence. Hope it was a decent read!

[Auron]

These are indeed great WADS. I discovered about it after playing Anomaly Report and I had a Blast, still need to play Eternally Yours tho.

 

There's also QoL patch for Doom Core Trilogy by @Devalaous that allows players to use source ports other than (g)zdoom.

 

 

Edited June 6 by Auron

[Devalaous]

9 minutes ago, Auron said:

These are indeed great WADS. I discovered about these after playing Anomaly Report and I had a Blast, still need to play Eternally Yours tho.

 

There's also QoL patch for Doom Core Trilogy by @Devalaous that allows players to use source ports other than (g)zdoom.

 

Im a big fan of Valkiriforce's classic vanilla-style work, so ive got patches for pretty much all his early megawads there. Doom Core as a whole is really expansive; youve got the original Doom Core, its remaster/release Doom Core Delta, which cuts a few maps and replaces them with new exclusive ones, alongside general touchups and even a new E3 sky, Reverie, the middle megawad, Eternally Yours, the epilogue episode-length mapset full of oddities, Pulse, the collection of outtakes and scrap maps that had nowhere else to go (Which also contains cut maps from Doom Core and Reverie), Terrace View, a one-off map, and Doom Core Trilogy, which combines DCD, Reverie, Eternally Yours and Terrace View into one package.

 

If everything works as intended, you should be able to get through all of it with just Doom Core Trilogy and Pulse when using my patch, as I restored the cut levels from the original Doom Core to Doom Core Delta (You can also play those rejected levels alongside Gutterway in his Rejects.wad, so thats another Doom Core-related wad!)

[Helton342]

I have it in the "Neo-Vanilla" Collection/Catalogue if that is any worth while. Imma be honest. These old-school type Wads have their nice charm that is not easy to replicate

[valkiriforce]

Hey, thanks for the write-up DSC! I'm happy to see there are people out there still getting into these classic-style wads. Part of what made Doom Core interesting for me besides being one of my first major releases is being made under the umbrella of inspiration based around the original Doom games (DOOM, DOOM II and DOOM 64 were the only Doom games I had played at the time - besides renting Final DOOM for the PS1 many years ago). So there was no major community input or influence that I had early on except for my love of the original games - although it would see that influence the more I expanded my catalog of fan content I would play over the years following, so it carried over to a few maps here and there. It was honestly intimidating seeing how detailed Doom maps had become over time, and I felt like with limit-removing capabilities I didn't really have an excuse not to make my maps look pretty, so I hid behind the safety of vanilla mapping to hide my inexperience, heh.

 

I actually do have a soft spot for the last few maps of Reverie, since they were the ones that began the journey to creating that project. I really liked the idea of something calm and peaceful similar to Pharaoh from TNT while ironically having some Caribbean influence in the starting area. It's one of my favorite maps in the set (besides MAP 31) and I really enjoy those kind of settings that feel contrary to what Doom is. Originally I wanted Reverie to be a community project, but I felt too protective over what I wanted the experience to be, and I found it hard to communicate what I wanted to do with the project, so it became another solo-project somewhat accidentally; although I am grateful for what became of it.

 

Last of all Eternally Yours felt like it had its own objective in not becoming a huge project like the previous two, and I honestly felt it was my most refined effort personally. I still hold it as one of my favorite efforts besides a few other projects (Oceanside, Sargasso and Anomaly Report) and I also like that the maps weren't overly huge or too small; it really felt like the appropriate length for what it is. It was dark and moody and overall Doomy according to my own needs, and I really appreciate the identity of each map having something different to offer the player. It was my original farewell effort as well, since I was getting pretty burned out on Doom after years of playing countless maps, episodes and megawads.