ICID Posted June 10 (edited) (logo by @4MaTC) ICID, what the hell is this now? Endless Random /idgames WAD Adventures is a small project of exploration, interaction, entertainment and reviews where we meet once every two weeks to select random WADs in search of hidden treasures, lost promises, or our worst nightmares! We use the /idgames archive’s special feature that lets us search for random files. Of course, sometimes the results are resources or unplayable stuff, so we focus on looking for WADs. So, what do we do here? Play at least one random WAD in a two-week period of time. WADs are selected using the Random File feature on /idgames or from the list below. Post a review of whatever you play. Always provide the name of the WAD, the name of the author, and a link to the file. Play however you want, on any skill level, and with any source port, as long as you play the WAD as intended/in working shape. Be respectful. It's okay to criticize a map, but remember that many mappers read these review threads and behave accordingly. Also, please don't tag mappers into a negative review of their work. What kind of WADs are we looking for? Any file on /idgames is fair game, but most of us choose to stick to singleplayer Doom or Heretic WADs that work in our sourceport(s) of choice. If you're worried about finding Terrywads or broken files, I also pull at least five random WADs for the event. Feel free to play them with me if you wish, or look for your own! The point of the event is to encourage you to explore this vast, random world. Recommendations for reviewing: Spoiler 1. Please take screenshots or video of your adventures. 2. Commenting the source port and difficulty level is not required, but provides helpful context to your review. 3. Try to stick to no more than 1 WAD per day to avoid burnout, but this part’s all up to you, champ! 4. Reviews of all formats are valid. Both longform and shortform are good as long as you write with integrity. Endless Random /idgames WAD Adventures of this event: Deviled Alpha Map My Soul Trapped in a WIN98 PC Island Equinox Spoiler The Top 10 (out of 74): 1. @Roofi | 9165 2. @LadyMistDragon | 6170 3. @Walter confetti | 2725 4. @Sena | 2685 5. @brick | 2180 6. @ICID | 2170 7. @Endless | 1265 8. @Thelokk | 725 9. @Clippy | 640 10. @smeghammer | 425 Join the Doom Master Wadazine community for more events like this! » https://discord.gg/Q2RKn4J And check the Doom wiki for the full list of past adventures. Edited June 10 by ICID Accidentally messed up LadyMistDragon's score the first time b/c she posted a new review right as I posted this thread. 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
brick Posted June 11 Deviled (2018) by Mysterious Haruko(Misty). 1 SP map for Doom II in GZDoom. There are several nice custom assets here, including a pretty cool palette and several brightmaps. Everything looks different thanks to the modified colours, and the early use of portals adds to the feel of otherness. The map falls quickly into the more familiar Doom gameplay, with large groups of enemies attacking from multiple directions. I found the first segment for the BSK (which now looks more purple) to be ok, though the combat setpieces are not hugely interesting, slowly going through the big group of knights is more more about patience than skill. The YSK with the open sea and islands was more irritating, there's too much happening from too many directions, and the map is incredibly stingy with health and armour. The finale is against a much tougher Cyberdemon variant (not to be confused with the regular Cyberdemon guarding the YSK). I wasn't a big fan overall but it's not a bad map, and it certainly looks interesting. Spoiler 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
Walter confetti Posted June 11 Fun that this time both Megawad Club and Er/IWA have both Equinox this month! Played already "My soul trapped in a Win 98 PC", pretty good map with a unique settings! 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
Endless Posted June 11 EvilDead | A. Gartland | 2008 A simplistic but effective short level that goes quite well with vanilla gameplay in all sense. Designed for Doom 2, it doesn't actually use any of the Doom 2 features and seems to stick to the rudimentary style of the OG; Few enemies, mostly zombies and imps, and a few surprising cacos near the end. It flows well and has a nice design. Marble textures are always going to be a win for me no matter what; they look and feel just downright doomy, and I love that, even if it could have been better detailed, and have more work taken into the lightning, it works good enough. The combat is super easy and there's nothing much to worry about, except perhaps low ammo, but other than that, a good fun of some 3 minutes. Oh, the ending seems to be slightly broken. It seems the intention was to lock you behind bars before you reach the exit, but if you strafe-run, you can bypass this. Hell 77 N°02 | Gillibert Raymond aka (Ramon_Demestre) | 2018 Hot damn, this one is an absolute monstrosity in every sense of the word. Gigantic, brutal in scope, devilish designed, extremely well detailed, and full of awesome combat. I started with UV but had to lower it down, it is quite the challenge but endurable if you have the patience. However, what truly makes it stand out is the awe-inspiring architecture, the great flow of transitions between different areas, and the innate creativity to its satanic presence. It is a powerful level and all aspects. My only problems with, as is usual with a lot of huge maps, is that it is very confusing to play at first; very open areas and multiple paths that seem to lead to even more paths that diverge more and more. While the overall layout is circular, it does take a while to find the right path. Still, the level is so awesome and beautiful to admire, it is worth it. Play it right fucking now. It is awesome. 5 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted June 11 Deployment Base (1996) by Scott Sutherland (Crispy Doom) Quote You've been set down inside an alien base used for housing monster troops before deployment to arenas of combat on Earth. You immediately face an onslaught from Hell, but the worst is yet to come! Your mission is to wreck havoc inside the base, thus depleting the alien menace's ability to wage war. Oh yeah-- you must also escape ALIVE! Can we maybe not have a map where more effort obviously went into the story than the map? Anyways, it's the very cliche of a mediocre map from the 90s: repetitive texturing, 'non-traditional' usage of door textures that largely prompted the placement of a computer map near the beginning, a horribly confusing maze, one instance of BS backtracking, generally limited verticality.....and very close to the end, a Cyberdemon because everyone had to have one. To be fair, it proves entirely completable once we end up near the location of the red key, mentioned above. But monster placement has basically zero thought applied where progression's concerned and the few attempts at breaking from the pea-soup marble color scheme I hated so much when it appeared in OG Doom fall so flat, it's a wonder why they'd even bother. There are also some stabs at lighting, but though one of them is quite effective, the other just feels so random. 2/10 Simply Simple (1999) by Sailor Scout "JC Bengtson" (Crispy Doom) Quote Mindless senseless violence. Plain and simple! A tribute to the classic, with ample ammo and monsters running around. Not nearly as hectic in DM, but a good fragging ground nonetheless. I'm interested in including a cool speedrun or other interesting demo in the next release. If you make one (with the standard Doom2.exe), please let me know. This might be better if this actually had a Super Shotgun. As it is, we've got "Master of Puppets" blazing in the background with a high-pitched harmony representing James Hetfield's vocals, a metric ton of hitscanners and an awkward lack of bullet ammo. The former only grows worst as one exits but there's literally an exit at every linedef of the outer courtyard so you can just be like us, say 'screw it,' and get the hell out of here. Maybe I bitched a little about Rex Claussen's attempt at Dead Simple but it's like....JC had already proven to be a better mapper than this at the time so why bother with this underpowered, if energetic kind of pile? 4/10 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
brick Posted June 13 Brick | 3 wads | 3 maps Adventure | 4 wads | 4 maps Alpha Map (2008) by Maarten Pinxten. 1 SP map for Doom II in ZDoom For something made so long after the game's release, and for a port with so many possibilities, hearing Running From Evil blaring out of the speakers is almost unforgivable. At first glance the map has a nice layout, there's good use of verticality and a good contrast between open outdoors and indoor spaces, but progression has that touch of randomness about it where you go around and push buttons and things happen but there's never a feeling of purposeful structure to it. At one point I spent some time trying to figure out what I was supposed to do in the NW area to keep progressing, then gave up and went elsewhere in the map, and then reached the exit without ever figuring out if I was supposed to do something there. Combat is likewise a bit all over the place, some of the encounters look like they could've been built in an interesting way but the shotgun and chaingun are the main staples (mostly the former due to ammo availability), outside of a secret SSG. I won't go as far as call this bad, it's just such a plainly ok map with nothing remarkable. Spoiler My Soul Trapped in a WIN98 PC (2015) by Lukasxd. 1 SP map for Doom II in Boom. And on the other side of the spectrum, we have something definitely memorable. The title and "story" blurb made me expect something silly, and in some ways it is (how could it not be with those custom assets!) but there's a surprisingly solid use of these textures, they almost intuitively make sense (case in point, I never had trouble finding doors, lifts and switches) even while everything looks completely surreal. For anyone who was around in the late 90s seeing all of the banners for Netscape, Shockwave, Winamp or mIRC is certainly a trip down memory lane (funny to see Yahoo Mail on there too; I still have an address there). There must be a shortcut exit because I reached one with a full third of the map still unexplored, but I was enjoying myself so much that I kept going. I don't know if the map's inherent silliness will be everyone's cup of tea but I love it when an apparent jokewad masks some creative ideas and actually good mapping, progression is really well done and there are some delightful secrets to find. Thank you @lukasxd I had a great time with this. Spoiler Island (1995) by Sean Mathews. 1 map for vanilla Doom II. And we're back to Running From Evil blaring out of the speakers, Sean's only wad on the archives, this is a relatively large map that could have been pretty good in an era with more advanced tools. There are glimmers of ideas in here, such as those columns at the beginning or the way various sections seem to have some purpose (the library is evoked well with very little detail). Unfortunately the map's also mostly flat, completely blocky, very brown, almost entirely in full bright. There are hundreds of enemies, mostly hitscan hell, and for a large part the only usable weapon is the regular shotgun. Not one that I can recommend. Spoiler 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted June 13 SImpleDM (2001) by Cast Draling (Crispy Doom) Quote A very simple, clean cut map, took about 2 hours to make. Reason for making it? I just felt like taking a break from the extremely detailed mapping Id been doing, and to just make a fun, "classic" doom2 type deathmatch. It's designed so there is no focal point, but the battles are still close up. I almost didn't download this but looked up their other idgames maps and apparently, there was a little bit more effort in some other maps. Anyway, it's exactly what it says, but unlike, say, David Davidson or some other TiC guys, it doesn't feel quite so bland and it's hard to explain why. The occasional light bits of detail like particular shelves helps but idk. It's fine though 5/10 Spoiler Spoiler Grind (2001) by Kara "Nanami" Rader (Crispy Doom) Quote A rather small deathmatch level for Doom II. A little more detail than the previous wads. Guns: Shotgun, Double Barrel Shotgun, Chaingun, Rocket Launcher. Does not require advanced ports, though jumping can get you through the window in the book room if you so choose to use, say, Legacy or ZDoom. Don't ask why it's called Grind. I have no idea. Oh but I think you do have an idea, oh relative of B....anyways, I recognized the name of someone who'd contributed to Mock 2 but otherwise is someone whose work I'm not really familiar with, unlike someone like Agent Spork. Interestingly, this map tries it's hardest to avoid symmetry. While there are plenty of side rooms, they're not necessarily placed where one might think and as the text file also says, there's a decent variety of admittedly plain environments. One thing highlighted below is a moving piston in one window for some reason. Good job 5.5/10 Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler LVNGHEL2.WAd (1994) by Bill "thermo" Waugh (Crispy Doom) Quote Well i finally finished my sequal to lvnghell.wad this should be about 10x better than lvnghell.wad so have fun and look forward to my next in the lvnghel.wad series He gave it the old college try. Starting room is reminiscent of a simplified ledges, then there's another darkened room with a curved platform through a lake of slime. Then, at some point, the author's sig shows up. 4/10, sector connection here is weird Spoiler Spoiler Disraeli (1999) by @Steve D (Crispy Doom) IIRC, this was remade later in another mapset. But anyway, here we have a large exploration map, containing a few clever and grand uses of Doom's vanilla textures to make some impressive sector structures, featuring some characteristically cryptic secrets (just ask if I could locate the secret map of Shotgun Symphony in a quick run!) and combat that quite oddly, is rather slowly-paced for at least the first half. The first two Doom II enemies to show up are chaingunners and Revenants and it isn't really until some of the tighter spaces a little later that the map reveals some teeth. That said, it's all perfectly manageable, despite a high degree of clever monster placement and a stupid Revenant/chaingunner trap that killed me a few times toward the end. Also, the one courtyard before that is arguably too large, but to be fair, the threat of that area increases gradually upon hitting other spots. Too bad the secret Supercharge shown at one point could not have its access located but then, it doesn't really seem opposition was quite non-existent either. Also, I wandered around for 10 minutes because I was too dumb to see that a certain walkway had raised in the large slime room. To be fair, the backtracking from the first key is a pretty odd aberration in ungainly navigation. A teleport might have been nice. But I have no real serious complaints otherwise. Steve's mixture of unlike textures is odd but doesn't detract from the map and the modified Icon of Sin painting is at least some attempt at visual storytelling. Easy 7.5/10 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
Andromeda Posted June 13 1 hour ago, LadyMistDragon said: Disraeli (1999) by @Steve D (Crispy Doom) IIRC, this was remade later in another mapset. Yeah, Steve reworked it along with some other early levels of his in Abcess. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post
brick Posted June 16 Brick | 1 wad | 13 maps Adventure | 5 wads | 17 maps Equinox (2001) by B.P.R.D. 13 maps for Doom II in limit-removing port. My opinions on BPRD's work is very polarized. There's the jokewads, which I consider among the laziest and a low point for low-effort (and I'm not even talking about Nuts). Then there's The Mucus Flow, which I find visually magnificent but whose gameplay wows me and makes me want to format my drive to wipe all traces of it in almost equal proportions. I hadn't played Equinox before but knew to expect a serious work, but even then the first impression was overwhelming. There are lots of neat little touches (the pistol sprites, the status bar, the music) that give it a lot of personality, but that grand architecture greeting us as soon as the map opens makes such a a strong first impression. As I went on there were other neat ideas that I appreciated. MAP02 gets repeated (with some changes each time) every few maps to simulate a hub structure, I always thought The Singularity Complex was the first wad to use this "fake hub" approach but this was a few years earlier. The final map reprises the opening vista, with changes to colours and lighting to give it an incredibly ominous appearance. MAP04 was my favourite, there's a very hectic start, more grand architecture, such a fine ammo balance, and a great cinematic ending where we expose a lab with hundreds of demons being cloned then blow it all up (clever use of multiple Romero heads). Unfortunately, at the halfway point I ran into a severe problem with the way the wad is balanced for HNTR, namely that the monster count is almost the same but ammo is halved. I don't know if this was just a lack of playtesting or if BPRD did this on purpose (it's hard to tell with him) but it made the later maps such a slog. Infighting works in some cases, MAP09 is very good with this and was the most fun in that half, but on MAP07 and MAP10 particularly I just found some parts impossible to get through. It's a shame because some of the ideas there are very cool, such as MAP10's entire premise with the alien ship (and the "aliens") but greedily counting every cell and shell that I use and still having to chainsaw archviles (on continuous play too) was too much for me. In many ways my impressions are the same as for The Mucus Flow: amazing in some ways, top-notch architecture and level design, but some incredibly frustrating gameplay decisions. 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
ICID Posted June 16 Equinox (2001) by B.P.R.D. Play Settings Source Port: Woof! Difficulty: Ultra-Violence, continuous One of my many personal failings is that I find it very easy to write about things I hate but very hard to write about things I love. But I'll try. As I've stated in past ER/iWAs, B.P.R.D. is one of my favorite mappers and this is probably my favorite of his WADs. It's the most accessible and "normal" of his works in many regards - it basically plays out like a regular megawad where you are indeed supposed to kill all (or most) of the monsters, get the secrets, and find the exit. Its "story" is clearly communicated in dozens of wonderful little moments - entering the Equinox research facility, blowing up the genetic experiments, traveling up to the mothership and ending the alien invasion. One of these special narrative beats that stuck out to me this time is how you find a dead cacodemon several rooms before you actually fight one. B.P.R.D. didn't have to bother building anticipation for a monster we've all seen, but Equinox is made as though Doom never existed, as though this was the original standalone game all these creatures came from. The WAD takes place over 13 maps and each and every one of them is a banger. After the jaw-dropping intro you find yourself in the teleporter hub, play a mini-adventure over 2-3 maps, come back to the hub and do the same thing, watching as everything gets more and more ruined each time. Combat is fun and in my opinion well-balanced, provided you play it as it was meant to be played. In the 90s/00s getting 100% kills wasn't a given and most people were playing continuously, and played in this fashion Equinox is tense and exciting, forcing you to decide which combats to take and which ones to run past (especially in the epic, terrifying final slaughtermap) but still letting you fight more often than not. It drives me nuts when people (mostly parroting a certain YouTuber) complain that the set is poorly balanced because the first maps give you too much ammo and the last ones give you too little - because yeah, you're supposed to carry that with you. Ultimately, though, the combat is not what has brought me back to Equinox so many times, even though I do find it quite fun. It's the experience. The powerful bass-boosted THUD of the new pistol and chaingun; the pounding, heroic music; the sense of dread of the later maps (particularly the incredible plasma-centric riff on Plutonia's "Hunted"); the wordless storytelling; that memorable, ever-collapsing hub; the sense of a 90s mapper trying to push against the technical and artistic limitations of the medium at the time. After this, B.P.R.D. started pushing more and more against the limits of what Doom is supposed to be, with more avant-garde work like Grove and Mucus Flow or goofy provocations like Nuts 2 and Boring Doom. I always feel a sense of artistic frustration in his work, though frustration with what I'm not quite sure. At any rate, this bizarre, beautiful adventure is the closest you're gonna get to regular Doom from one of our community's first true artists and you owe it to yourself to play it all the way through. Not with pistol starts, though. 4 Quote Share this post Link to post
Roofi Posted June 16 Year 2 Month 12 Day 02 I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I died/stopped. [1] Frozen Time by Alexander "Eternal" S. (2012) Quote Quote You need an OpenGL port with support of ZDoom extended nodes, hi-res textures and tall patches. GLBoom-Plus with gamma 1 is recommended. Command line: glboom-plus FrozenT.wad -complevel 9 WARNING! You need a powerful computer to play this wad. Currently it's playable only with the GLBoom-Plus and more or less acceptable with the GZDoom. Even do not try to run it in software mode. Sorry for that. Music: MM2.wad, tnt.wad. Textures: Gunman Chronicles, gothictx.wad, American McGee's Alice, Deus Vult II, Eternal III, Hexen2, Requiem. Statusbar: boomtown.wad + woodgfx.wad. Additional Credits to: id Software, The authors of DoomBuilder and DeePsea. A legendary map I already played in Day 7 (24th march 2021). Here's my first review : "Well, I fell on a true classic ! Frozen time consists of exploring a large castle lost on the huge ice floe. Like many Russian wads, ice is the central gimmick here. Eternal does not lie when it says that a good PC is necessary. My PC was pretty laggy even though it's not even 20 years old. I had already played this map last year. It's very nice to play again. However, it's far from my favourite wad in Eternal. I think this map has aged rather badly compared to other works such as Epic 2, Gravity or Hell Ground. I find the choice of textures a bit random, or rather that there are too many different textures, which breaks the harmony a bit for my taste. As for the fights, they're not very exciting and are made less pleasant by the FPS drops. Anyway I really like the alien base at the end. I would have liked this part to be more developed." I was a bit too rude in my first review. While Frozen Time still stands below other Eternal releases such as Hell Grounds and Epic 2, it's still an epic large-scaled map that Eternal built in only three weeks ! Frozen Time is also an example that Mark Klem's discography hasn't aged a bit . His music fits so well with old and new releases ! Replaying this map also reminded me that Eternal is a master at transporting us to exotic places we'd love to discover. Grade : A (17/20) [2] Doom 2's Consumed earth by Various (2015) Quote Quote A continuation epidode for doom2, there were supposed to be 10 maps, but contributers were few, so there are 7 maps instead. In this mapset you're going through earth's ruins to get home on the computer to call the rescue marines to get you out of this wasted zone, to get on a helicopter and land in a place where the rest of the human population takes place. "Doom 2 Consumed earth" is what it might have looked like if ID Software had done an "Episode 4" for Doom 2 like they did with Ultimate Doom. Everything from this wad comes from DOOM2.WAD except an added orange sky depicting a devastated city. This combined with a ramped up difficulty and extra details give "E4 vibes" to this vanilla compatible episode of 7 maps. This episode was made by 4 mappers : 40oz, Walter Confetti, NxGangrel and joe-ilya. All of them have a penchant for classic-oriented Doom but "Consumed Earth" still manages to keep a consistent style , except for map 01 and map 04 that actually are giant junkyards. I guess those were made by joe-ilya... Anyway, you'll quickly notice how spicy this mapset gets at the the very first map. Most of the maps contain at least one cyberdemon and more generally the layout are more densily filled with small armies of foes. After playing hundred wads, maps like these fail to scare them but ammo and health tend to get scarced, specifically in map 04 where I was about to die. Moreover, be clever by how you use the green armors because it's rather rare commodity. In any case, the maps are of reasonable size and you'll never really have time to get bored. I'll make an exception for map 04, which is the only one I really didn't like. It's too long, incoherent and has a sandbox progression that makes me feel like I'm in a junkyard. I'm really happy by the decision to respect the vanilla limits. Moreover, those didn't prevent the authors to add more details. The cities in this wad therefore look more convincing and I'm a fan of the brown color. Looking at beautifully decorated brown places is good for my eyes. My favourites maps are the two last ones : Wicked City and Home . The latter are more realistic. Wicked City takes place in a devastated city and Home in a totally invaded neighborhood. Another aspect that I like in this wad resides in the music selection. It looks like some author deliberately decided to use the most unpopular midis from Doom 2. Seriously, this must be one of the only times I've heard the intermission music (when you finish a level) in a map. It's not music I like, but I get to hear it in its entirety... Another exemple is the last map that uses the music from "Barrel's of Fun" Unless I'm wrong, it's also not very appreciated for its very gimmicky side. All in all, Consumed Earth was a great find. I didn't always agree with the level design choices, but a vanilla episode for Doom 2, using only the resources of the Iwad? I'll sign it! Grade : B+ (15/20) The next file is The Journey ver. 1.1 , a Doom II megawad by hervoheebo. I'm lucky but I don't have the time to play this, so I stop here for today. 4 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted June 16 Hellhold (1996) by Jason Morris and George Fiffy (Crispy Doom) Quote After defeating the Baron in KNEE DEEP IN DEAD, Satan greeted you with a new challenge. He put you on a detour to his personnal playhouse. OH, did I mention, it was in HELL? And the rules aren't fair? You just look, grin, and chuckle. You make the first step toward the playhouse, and you are teleported into the center of it. So now inside of the heart of all that makes evil fun, all you can think about is knocking the crap out of Satan's little hench men. Playhouse in HELL was fun, but now you're moving past that chaos. You hit the switch to stop this nightmare and continue blowing up all of HELL.. But after you flip the switch, did you leave the Playhouse? You turn and re-open the door. It must've been the Playhouse last trick. You find yourself right at HELL's Mansion. Home of Satan and his creatures. What does one make of this......A MESS that's what. Time to grab up your weapons, move on and continue the trail of blood (and mess Satan's nice floors, hehehe)! After such a HELLISH night, you decide to return to a nice (yeah right) little hotel you know, The Under Arms. The security and staff of Satan's hotel come out to greet you (and you have a shotgun for them to meet). The creatures around the entrance decide they want a piece of you too! So it would appear that you're going to have one more big confrentation before you can catch your Zzzzzzs! So what are you waiting for, go to it! I hadn't rolled a George Fiffy map up to this point, and even here, only one here is his work. Instead, much of the attention is taken up by the maps of Jason Morris, a possible protege who seems to have no other /idgames submissions. Perhaps the mapping thing just didn't work out because King Re0l did occasionally help people out. But in any case, these first two maps are pretty bad. Too many lengthy corridors stuffed with too many monsters and while the combat is competent at the beginning, despite the supreme ugliness, a really tall lift (another King Re0l trademark) along with a stupid joke death room unlocked by a nearby blue key and the general sense that space was merely being filled, it's not really the most engaging map out there. Occasionally, certain rooms (the Wolfenstein dining room in E2M1 or the toilet in E2M2 will shine as areas where more effort was put into the detailing. But in general, Jason seems determined to emulate the style of Re0l with the vast amounts of monsters generally plopped down. One particular closet in particular in E2M1 was incompetently implemented enough that it opens before you reach it and will likely close a few second later unless you double back. Unfortunately, there's no way out of either of these closets before plunging in. I can just see George throwing up his hands after attempting to get Jason to implement the right linedef action and finding it just broke something else. I made zero effort to finish E2M2 because Jason doubled down on everything but the tall-ass lifts, making it a complete chore to play. Hardly less of a chore is E2M3 because as well all know shotgunningBaronsisthemostfunyoucouldpossiblyhaveinDoom and despite containing enough ammo and health it's a little hard not to survive, the refusal to provide any stronger weapons turns the whole thing into a massive, massive slog that eases up too much when the opening courtyard gets cleared out. While the map itself is an actually good representation of a hotel King R***0l must have thought it ought to be kept to the same difficulty as his other maps since every single room is stuffed to the gills with monsters. The cafe and hotel desk were kind of nice but placing the yellow key behind a random wall is BS and the trigger that opens the exit is at the very least, unclear. Now I'm told there's maps where George did a good job but those also controlled the ammo a little bit more and perhaps didn't need to stuff every square inch with monsters, although you might see things that list him as an early purveyor of slaughter. For parts of E2M1 and a just below passable mediocrity of Hell Hotel, this then gets a 3.5/10 1 Quote Share this post Link to post
Walter confetti Posted June 17 12 hours ago, Roofi said: Doom 2 Consumed earth Thanks for the review! And yes, MAP01 it's by Joe but i don't remember now who made MAP04.... 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
brick Posted June 18 Brick | 2 wads | 2 maps Adventure | 7 wads | 19 maps Hell 77 N°02 (2018) by Gillibert Raymond ak (Ramon_Demestre). 1 SP map for Doom II in limit-removing port. After @Endless gave such a superlative review I felt compelled to try it out. I'm glad I did, because this is indeed an awesome map. I didn't even bother with difficulties and started straight at HNTR; even there the combat is not what I'd call easy, but it's manageable with some patience and reloading while learning the layout. And more importantly by learning that there are very few safe spots at first. What's masterful is that Gillibert doesn't go for the easy way by just having everything be open so that projectiles come from all directions. There are offshoot passages and plenty of things to hide behind, but openings are positioned and passages bend so that there's always a little bit that's exposed, enough for the occasional fireball or pellet to hit when least expected. And speaking of open, the architecture is beautiful, the marble cavern with red rock and lava and blood is a marvel to behold, everything is interconnected and windows open the side passages onto the cavernous main rooms. Gillibert doesn't have a lot of wads on the archives but this has made me want to check them out. Spoiler Europa 3 - The Dark Side of Vrack (2002) by Erik Alm. 1 SP/coop map for Doom II in Boom. This is the last in a loose trilogy that Erik released before he hit it big with Scythe. I admit I'm not a huge fan of the previous Europas, they are large and expansive maps with confusing layouts, way too much backtracking, and large and completely empty open spaces that quickly fill up with projectiles travelling from miles away (as mentioned in my Hell 77 comments that this isn't my favourite design). Europa 3 retains some of the design philosophies but refines them into a much better map. As you can guess from the subtitle it draws inspiration from the famous Vrack trilogy, most obviously by using its textures, but it still carries Erik's gameplay at its core. The outdoors are a large open space and indeed many projectiles will fly, but there's enough cover to make rushing from one section to the other very fun (this must be a blast in coop). There are two obvious arenas indoors, neither is very hard, the trickier combat parts are actually outside, as several progression points trigger a new wave of enemies and many opportunities for infighting. Some of the setpieces are trivial but are entertainingly cinematic, such as the windows opening on the distant archvile that can then be sniped with rockets. Visually the map is gorgeous, detailing is incredibly high but manages to remain uncluttered, much of it is ceiling eye candy and so doesn't interfere with gameplay or movement at all. Despite its size it's not a very long map, I was surprised when I realized I had killed everything and already opened up the exit, but it feels like it has excellent pacing with very little filler. It's probably the best of Erik's early maps. Spoiler On 6/16/2024 at 1:58 PM, ICID said: Combat is fun and in my opinion well-balanced, provided you play it as it was meant to be played. In the 90s/00s getting 100% kills wasn't a given and most people were playing continuously, and played in this fashion Equinox is tense and exciting, forcing you to decide which combats to take and which ones to run past (especially in the epic, terrifying final slaughtermap) but still letting you fight more often than not. It drives me nuts when people (mostly parroting a certain YouTuber) complain that the set is poorly balanced because the first maps give you too much ammo and the last ones give you too little - because yeah, you're supposed to carry that with you. I'm pretty sure this isn't aimed at me, but just in case I wasn't clear I wanted to point out that I was playing on HNTR and continuous, as I always do unless the wad explicitly claims pistol-start is the only way to play (and most of those end up enforcing it through death exits or mapinfo). I think my problem with balancing stems from a darker version of "the way it's meant to be played", namely when UV is the intended difficulty and is the only one that is balanced for and tested, resulting in HNTR being more ammo-deprived and effectively harder than UV. I just realized that I could have remedied this, GZDoom now allows switching skill difficulty even during continuous play (it switches at the next map) so I could've confirmed this myself, but it didn't occur to me while I played. I'd like to come back to the wad in the future and try it out again on UV. I really enjoyed your review even though we have different opinions on some aspects of the wad (and the mapper in general). You also made me realize that I didn't focus on the visual storytelling as much as I should have, many wads try their hands at it (and there was some of it all the way back in E1) but Equinox has some of the best and most consistent I've seen, and all without a single typed word. Thanks for a great write-up. 4 Quote Share this post Link to post
ICID Posted June 18 13 hours ago, brick said: I'm pretty sure this isn't aimed at me, Just wanted to confirm that it was absolutely not. I always enjoy reading our reviews of the same WADs because we bring very different perspectives to the same work. I have never played Equinox on HNTR and I assume your review is correct about the limitations there. I enjoyed reading it and was glad you enjoyed reading mine :) 1 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted June 18 episilone.wad or episilone eridani wad (1995) by Doug Ryerson (Crispy Doom) Quote : Check out the frazzled titlepic graphic replacement! While a planet in the epsilon eridani system was very earth-like, its inhabitants were not that friendly to earthlings. So you were to find out when you discovered it. The story makes literally zero sense but the TITLEPIC is at least funny to look at. I do find myself wondering why Doug would make a map for Doom when Doom II had been out for five months but this doesn't feel like a map where challenge was a central goal since there are few monsters from E2. Not to mention I think he just liked the E1 texturing a lot All bollocks aside, this actually is among Doug Ryerson's best maps, in part because of the admittedly easy but still rather startling ambushes at a few points throughout the map. This, despite the many technical problems, including a particularly egregious set of misalignments at one stairway, the silly direction one is facing when they start. Well, that might be it for technical problems, but the layout is pretty weird and hard to describe. While a linear map when all is said and done, there's a lot of crisscrossing through a series of rather cramped and indistinct passageways through. These passageways connect such locales as a sort of monitoring station where a particularly well-timed ambush will lower a lift that you can also lower if you're standing next to a switch over it, as well as some admittedly non-descript sewer tunnels that are ironically easy to navigate when compared to the rest of the map. But the lighting would have to be one of the best parts of this map. Doug really seemed to be playing with lighting levels here, with a lot of areas being incredibly dark, yet still containing more lit sections placed strategically throughout. While things quickly start to get weird if you match the layout too much to a real-world location, the atmosphere's still there. Although perhaps Doug could've been less generous with the supplies. I think that if you're bad at finding secrets, you might have a hard time without the plasma rifle in one or two spots but the fact remains that there's a fair bit more ammo than they needs to be. Regardless, there's really little to complain about here. It may not be particularly good-looking but is still worth looking into 7.5/10 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
Roofi Posted June 18 Year 2 Month 12 Day 03 I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I died/stopped. [1] Blood World by Ivar @jallamann Remøy (2004) Quote Quote I wanted to see if I could pull myself together and make a gothic-style map. Guess I did. Somewhat quake-ish, I'd say... Even as a vanilla maniac, I have to recognize that gzdoom's features can push Doom's level design to eleven. This modest blood-filled crypt or wine cellar shows an elegant usage of 3D floors and other effects. The first part of the level consists to build a real 3D bridge in order to obtain a blue key. I like how this kind of progression emphasizes the pools, which are now transparent and swimmable. "Blood World" exploits well the zdoom features because they don't exclusively serve comestic purposes , but create a 3D environment, as if you're playing a map from Quake. If I put the features aside, "Blood World" keeps a "classic" appearence as it exclusively uses the resources from the IWAD. It's not extremly detailed but the consistency is here about the theme. Nothing really remarkable to note about the combats. They stay tame all along as most of the enemies are just imps. The yellow key's trap lock you in a fight against several teleporting cacodemons but average dodging skills suffice to survive. This map is interesting for its use of gzdoom features, which haven't aged too much as they are parsimonious and blend well with the map's theme. Grade : B (13/20) [2] Full-on Deathmatch Chubbie by Shadoe (Level Design); Shade (aka James Wilson) (Construction and input) (2005) Quote Quote This is a Deathmatch level (duh). It is designed as three major rooms, each with a different design concept and look based on a color. The rooms are only accessible via teleporters. A good size level for modem DM. Have fun killin'. This primitive deathmatch map designed in 1994 delivers several hectic encounters in case you play alone. You start in the green room and a handful of cacodemons and barons of hells are ready to chase you while you have just a shotgun and few shells in your pocket. You'll especially meet a lot of demons, notably a Spider Momma and a Cyberdemon in the large lava-filled battlezone. This map is made of disjointed arenas of different colors, linked together by teleporters. The green room serves a bit as a hub as you can find a rocket launcher and enter in an extra area containing all the ammo you need and a green armor. I really doubt this level plays well against real people but the presence of monsters help making this map a bit worth visiting on singleplayer mode. [3] Lost Cities by Michael Wheeler (1996) Quote Quote After you destroy the John Romero Doll (Level 30) You go home. Only to find that a long lost city in the jungle has been settled by what is left of the evil minions. It's your job to find them and destroy all of them by flipping the final switch on the second floor to destroy the evil city. "Lost Cities" contain two maps that could have been a lot more interesting if it didn't suffer from stupid decisions from its author. The first map takes place in a sort of underground lost "city" (i.e several buildings) and the second one in a large circular canyon. First of all, I'm in the camp of those who think that custom sounds contribute to the charm of old wads but in that case, they harm the overall experience. The new sound for your pistol and chaingun will make your ears bleed because it sounds like a laser sound from the Atari 2600 and I'm perhaps too gentle when I affirm that. The teleportation's sound is now replaced by the noise of a flushing water closet.... Classy. These sound choices prevent us from taking this wad seriously. There's nothing well thought-out about the combats. The author contented to arbitrary place mostly zombiemen, mancubus and ... pain elementals. I guess this mapset is a pain in the ass to play in modern ports because they break the cap of 19 lost souls present at the same. The meatballs will not cause a lot of trouble if you play in cl2 or on the original EXE as they quickly become inoffensive. The visuals are very rudimentary, although the canyon in map 02 remains convincing. Nevertheless, progress is occasionally obscured for no valid reason. Most of the time, it's a matter of finding an elevator that doesn't look like an elevator. I like the idea of exploring places abandoned by humankind, a bit like "Lost Civilization", no matter if the execution isn't up to scratch. Nevertheless, the author has decided to make a mess of things by making some dubious choices. It's still playable, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Grade : D (6/20) [4] Mappy's Inside Story by @RottKing (2016) Quote Quote This is Mappy's latent, deep-rooted seething hatred for everyone that isn't him. This level of malice was never meant to be made manifest... but the forces of hell have utilized it as a weapon, and now you have to GET OUT ALIVE! I partially agree with the comment published by Demonologist on idgames : "Mappy's Inside Story" seems to be a tribute to gggmork's style as it's a very boxy, ugly on purpose and, above all, extremely disorganized so as to create an indigestible monster salad! However, while it manages to keep the player constantly under pressure, specifically because of the roaming cyberdemon and viles, the combat design isn't as dynamic as ggg's maps. I didn't play all his maps, but I particularly remember the walls lowering everywhere, constantly revealing hordes of enemies and a copious usage of stairs. The combat zone presented here remains fairly flat, and the map is inert when monsters are removed. However, all the sectors lower towards the end, creating a gigantic lava lake, which is quite spectacular! Fun map overall that I'm not really sure to want replaying, but still a welcomed several minutes adrenaline. Grade : C+ (11/20) I stop here for today. 4 Quote Share this post Link to post
Walter confetti Posted June 19 (edited) Skipped a pair of maps that have 200+ monsters, didn't want to do them now, sorry. bcs01 by Brian and Craig Sparks - Vanilla Doom 2, SP, 1 map, 1995, played with DSDA-Doom on UV difficulty Spoiler A small level made by two brothers with some cute small sector art and detailing, pretty squarish looking layout but the level is clean and nicely realized and with balanced fights. Unluckily, this map misses of pretty important things like the yellow skull key for the exit door and inescapable pits. How charming. Days of Xornox The Earth Place by Frank Laing - Vanilla Doom 2, SP, 4 maps, 1998, played with DSDA-Doom on UV difficulty Spoiler The second "Xornox" mapset I've encountered in these series, this time sets in the fabulous lands of Cheese Phobos where mountainous areas that tries to be the outdoor lands of Roger Ritenour "Earth", but failing on it. The levels are kinda easy despite big amount of monsters but the heavy usage of megaspheres and invuln spheres with big cell packs made me think of a older version of Junkfood,but more easier and less fun. I don't get the shooting walls gimmick of final MAP04. Edited June 19 by Walter confetti 4 Quote Share this post Link to post
Roofi Posted June 19 Year 2 Month 12 Day 04 I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I died/stopped. [1] YOUR MOM by @gggmork, @TimeOfDeath666 (Chris Balch) (2010) Quote Quote gggmork posted a drawing in this thread: and I made a map based on the drawing. No offence intended, honest! Only the wisest of the mankind will be able to understand this refine form of humor and map design. Joke aside, "YOUR MOM" is a shitpost in the shape of a slaughtermap. Your mission will be to eliminate 1800-1900 enemies pullating inside a network of caverns displaying "YOUR MOM" on the map and training your 2-shots-BFG skills inside the giant penis made of flesh. As other janky slaughtermaps built by those two mappers, especially TimeOfDeath, cells ammo are so abundant that you can kill whole humanity twice and still not lacking of cells. And of course, medkits and stimpacks suck. Take a megasphere if you get a little scratch instead! I like this map because it shows that the ultimate goal of a slaughtermap is not necessarily to be a series of hyper-difficult battles requiring precise strategy or gigantic, over-detailed scenery, but just kick the shit out of a ton of enemies with big guns. It is as if I had in front of me a punching ball and that I took a pleasure to give big punchs in it, except that I throw balls of BFG in abundance here until I see tons of corpses littering the ground. Still, ToD/ggg's maps are really intimidating if you're not a bit used to slaughtermaps , but I guarantee that "YOUR MOM" figures as one of their easier works. Your worst opponents will be the gang of arch-viles that you will frequently meet but I repeat : ammo and health are so ridiculously prolific that camping becomes a reliable strategy, no matter how many monsters the viles had ressurected, except when it concerns barons of hells. Is YOUR MOM a good map? Objectively I'd say no, but from my point of view it's a fun hobby. I've got a penchant for this kind of crappy slaughtermaps, as long it's unbalanced in favor of the player. I stop here for today. Grade : B (14/20) 6 Quote Share this post Link to post
ICID Posted June 19 Deviled (2018) by Mysterious Haruko (Misty) Play Settings Difficulty: Ultra-Violence Source Port: GZDoom Very nifty little GZDoom map that takes place in three major areas with different music. The first is a standard "techbase" shootout in what looks like an ancient temple, the second is a large outdoor area where it's very easy to cheese fights, the third is a boss battle with an extra-tough cyberdemon with two rocket arms. The Ancient-Aliens-y blue and purple palette looks nice, the music is good, and while the combat doesn't really have any ideas you haven't seen elsewhere it's fun enough to hold your interest. The GZDoom additions like doors that only open when you kill certain monsters are cute without getting in the way. Solid little gem. Alpha Map (2008) by Maarten Pinxten Play Settings Difficulty: Ultra-Violence Source Port: GZDoom This is a ZDoom map from 2008 but it feels more like a vanilla map from the 90s - it's dark, cramped, confusing, and poorly-balanced for UV. It even forces you to shotgun a hell knight with zero cover right after eating a blur sphere. I think of this sort of thing as basically the default flavor of the ER/iWA. I'll have forgotten it exists ten minutes after I hit send on this post. My Soul Trapped in a WIN98 PC (2015) by Lukasxd Play Settings Difficulty: Ultra-Violence Source Port: GZDoom Visually this is impeccable, and a great little nostalgia clip for anyone else who, like me, had their first Doom experiences with Doom95. You're trapped inside the representation of an old computer that appears to be rotting with demonic corruption as you go deeper and deeper into it - it's a consistently creative and exciting visual/narrative idea. But the heavy use of custom textures often left me very confused about where to go next (brick said the opposite, so this may well be a Me Problem.) Furthermore the combat is kind of a slog on UV - it takes way too long to fight an SSG and the mapmaker seems to have a crippling addiction to hell knights and lost souls, so you're going to watch the combat shotgun animation a lot. With some small improvements to combat and readability I'd be arguing for this deserving a lost Cacoward; as it is, it's still pretty neat and worth playing. Island (1995) by Sean Mathews Play Settings Difficulty: Ultra-Violence Source Port: Crispy Doom And bringing us crashing back to earth is "Island", an almost entirely brown, almost entirely FULLBRIGHT eyesore with an unconscionable 298 monsters and exactly zero SSGs. The gameplay appears to have been inspired by the worst parts of Doom II's "Downtown", even going so far as to include the same imp cubbyholes. The kind of map where halfway through you start thinking about things like the fact that we all only have one life, and the living well thereof. Did not finish. keys (1996) by Jonathan DeValentine Play Settings Difficulty: Ultra-Violence Source Port: Crispy Doom "Oh, I grabbed a Deathmatch map without noticing", I thought as I booted up "keys" and saw that it consisted entirely of huge, mostly empty rooms. Nope. That's just Jonathan DeValentine's artistic vision. By virtue of occasionally looking interesting and being more or less a straight line to the exit, this is better than Island, but that's all I can say for it. 10 monsters (2021) by Ilya "joe-ilya" Lazarev Play Settings Difficulty: Ultra-Violence, continuous Source Port: Crispy Doom A series of 15 vanilla maps (actually 14 maps and a "THE END") that all have, as the name implies, ten monsters. Most of the early maps are forgettably easy and small, but difficulty starts ramping up around the awful Dead Simple riff (where you have to lure all the mancubi into a crusher in a tiny room full of columns for them to constantly get stuck on and confused by). Of course the only way to really make a map with ten monsters difficult is to hammer the Arch-Vile button, and once joe-ilya starts doing that he's out of ideas, so the last few maps are just about getting good stun rolls with the SSG. An interesting mapping exercise but not much fun to play or look at. Conway's Game of Life (2022) by Piotr Wieczorek Play Settings Difficulty: Ultra-Violence Source Port: GZDoom A Boom-compatible implementation of Conway's Game of Life, which is some kind of cellular simulation that I skimmed the Wikipedia page for and don't really understand. You step on blocks and hit a switch and then the blocks start moving on their own to represent 0 and 1 inputs while a bunch of barrels and mancubi go crazy behind you. I'm not smart enough to tell you if it actually does what it's supposed to or not and it's not in any meaningful sense "Doom" but it's sorta interesting, I guess. 4 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted June 19 joker1.zip (1994) by Montanuy (Oliver?) It adds an Akira flying platform to...something, your avatar or does it replace a gun? Either way, this was probably incredibly clunky to use. Planet x 1.0 (1996) by Rick Troppman (DSDA Doom) Oddly enough, Oliver Montanuy gets mentioned in the credits. But anyways, here's a map seemingly more suited in DM but can be played just as well in single-player. Although the layout oddities are a little hard to get behind, combat is actually not half-bad at all if a little on the easy side, even though putting Disciples in closets is just....a choice. Even the Maulotaur in the last room isn't too bad with a Tome of Power that you've hopefully located. Speaking of, the little fancy symbols on the floor are actually quite well done. Only the last room really stands out though and I'm still not sure what the green key was supposed to open or if the blue key room was accessed by something else. 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
Endless Posted June 19 recycled.wad | 2014 | reality 2.0 Extremely simplistic and dull. A 90s map made in the 2010s, which is a shame. Not a lot of detail, or rather, no detail at all. Extremely simple in pretty much everything and the only really good thing I have to say about it is that at least it works, and it's not a troll WAD. Other than that, well, that is it really. Three big rooms joined by corridors and separated by locked doors, find the keys, kill enemies with little ammo and just two weapons, and enjoy. Hellpost | 1995 | Owen Already better than the previous one. Hellpost is a WAD from 1995, the era when people were starting to get some sense into their brains for logical level design. While this one does prove to have the basics down in terms of layout, with a cohesive and easy-to-follow design, it still lacks a lot in the visual department. Pretty apparent since the start of the level, it has some nice little ideas that are well-executed for the time, but lack a lot of polish. Texturing is pretty dull and while some areas have some weight to it, I can't help but feel the mapper was still a little stuck on its Wolf3D era. Still, more acceptable. We are slowly getting there, boys. 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
Endless Posted June 20 PIK (Please, it kills!) | Cosmic Wraith | 2001 Can't sleep so I decided to play some Doom. Got lucky (or not so lucky) and landed on a 7-level episode WAD for Doom 2, from the era of the decline, 2001, this little piece of crap has some interesting and not so interesting qualities. For one, by this point it had already been proven that you could made quality WADs despite the still rudimentary tools from the era if you took some time and had some patience, and for two, by this point it was generally understood what made a good Doom WAD, or at least what made it work. PIK is more or less a very amateurish attempt at trying to create an episode, but it fails due to its very poor execution despite some interesting ideas. There's a very noticeable lack of detail, terrible texturing, very rare layout design, and odd choices of floor/walls that at times make it feel more like a fever dream. It does seem to have an idea of proper mapping, but doesn't really follow through and fails at it. You can even tell that the mapper was getting better and more experienced with each map, as the last maps start sporting more interesting gameplay and neat tricks (such as instant-floor monster ambush or monster-closets), but still, doesn't quite land the mark and we end up with a, sadly, forgettable episode. OUT OF PHASE 3: ONE CLOUDY AFTERNOON | Karthik Abhiram | 2002 Only one year later and we already can see a staggering difference in quality and style; as the saying goes: less is more! Out of Phase 3 is a superbly small and compact single-level WAD designed around close-quarters combat and a tight layout. As it is apparent from the get-got, you are welcomed to a flooded demon-infested techbase in the middle of a cloudy afternoon. Despite its rather simplistic design and usage of stock-textures, it manages to convey a palpable atmosphere thanks to how well it balances the realistic appearance of its level with the gameplay philosophy. Not only is it small in terms of geometry/size, but it is also very low on enemy numbers, with only 26 monsters on HMP. Yet despite that, as a /idgames reviewer rightfully said: "a compact watery techbase that feels larger than it is, because the design is very intricate." Intricate is a good way to put it. There's plenty of detail without feeling overwhelming. This is the kind of level I really enjoy. Short but challenging, enjoyable, atmospheric, and fast-paced. I also tend to enjoy very tight maps, it gives the game a sense of urgency, however, if there's a minor complain I have with this particular map is the over-usage of elevators. It adds some depth, yes, but it does get a little annoying having to press E and wait and wait and wait for every lift to come down. Still, an enjoyable and very good experience that I wouldn't mind playing in larger format, such as an episode full of maps like these. Simple Map 1 | @ARMCoder | 2022 Very simple yet very good. A Simple Map 1 is, despite the rather unassuming title, an enjoyable vanilla experience that takes around 10 minutes of good fun from your time. Starts in a very closed and dull room, but soon opens up to reveal a satisfying chainsaw-massacre corridor, and starts expanding more and more with rooms to explore that develop the level with a proper style. Rooms are connected smartly through intertwined corridors that allow for fast backtracking, with a very easy layout to follow that entices fast gameplay. And while it is small in size, this one has a respectable number of enemies, rocking more than 100 demons in HMP, yet it is very well-balanced and understand the thin line between challenge and enjoyment. Plenty of ammo and weapons to go around for the basic doom rooster. I really enjoyed the way it also evolves visual styles with a certain degree of subtlety, like the dungeon-like basement with a flesh-corrupted room, and the rusty and brown exterior filled with mancubi paying tribute to Dead Simple. A solid effort right here and a savory meal for any Doom fan out there, particularly vanilla enthusiasts. Go take a bite. The Crush | Matthew Parrish | 1995 Welp, my good luck ran out and now I have to play a 90s deathmatch map. Well, here it is, The Crush. A single-level WAD designed for multiplayer fun. Frag the fuck out of your friends in an extremely dark map with a circular layout that resembles a surprised face. As usual back then, most DM maps didn't even come close to being balanced, lacked a proper understanding of gameplay and flow differences between SP and MP, and well, looked rather ugly. The Crush is no stranger to such idealizations from the 90s, and suffer from the archetypal mistakes every other map does. This one is more of a curiosity, and wouldn't recommend to anyone. An interesting thing is that most vintage DM maps, despite being made explicitly for multiplayer, were still balanced for SP. I don't know if it was just because of the way mappers thought back then, but the majority of maps from the 90s made for DM have monsters and an exit, and this one even has keys and an attempt at progression. Still sucks though. 4 Quote Share this post Link to post
Walter confetti Posted June 20 (edited) Deviled by MysteriousHaruko - GZDoom, Doom 2, 1 map, SP, 2018, played with GZDoom 4.11.3 on UV Spoiler Didn't i have already played a cruder versions of this map as two different speedmaps? Some layout parts reminds me something i already played in a Abyssal session or some other place. Otherwise, this is very nifty map made for the popular Vinesauce Mapping Contest held back by Joel in 2017/8 with a new awesome palette (it's from... Stardate i think?) where a hub of 3 different worlds with new music from TNT and by Mark Klem. Difficulty is stimulating but overall pretty fun and not that grindy. Very fun map overall. DOOM Music Editor by Bill Nelsius - Sound Editor, DOS, 1994 A ancient command line for replacing and extracting the music files made by the same guy who made Dehacked, this software works only with the Doom main wad or PWAD files, i remember to have found this long ago in some Shovelware disk i own and to have used this during the make of this, then abandoned because i found it too clunky to use. BCDM2 by BC Clan - Skulltag, Doom 2, 10 maps, DM and CTF, 2008, played with Zandronum 3.1 and bots + skulltag-content beta 3.pk3 Spoiler Another thing i played years ago and well, this is something unusual. A 10 map DM jokewad with a concept i wanted to do once in my life, a good layout maps with crazy texturing and this thing is that and even more stuff to annoy and destroy you emotionally, visually and physically. Weird effects on each sectors? Yes. Annoying blinking lights all around same looking hallways? Check. Weird progressions and game breaking bugs? Absolutely. Insane texturing and music choices? You Betcha! But overall it is... a interesting experience, like playing UDM and The Sky May Be together at once. It's crazy but sometimes fun, some maps are REALLY annoying to the level you want to give up in life. The Hexen Lighthouse by Your name here - Vanilla Hexen, 1 map, DM, 1996, played with zandronum 3.1 and bots Spoiler Last map of the day, it's a medium sized DM map that looks to have nothing to do with decent DM play but the SP experience was kinda of cool. The level is set in the titlar lighthouse that uses a interesting sector lighting effect, search the different areas with the "bots" here interpreted by the miniboss monsters that replaces the different players in their different stages (the mage in a Stonehenge like arena, the cleric in a church and the barbarian fighter in a kitchen. Oooook....), beath them to get key, throw down the lighthouse and exit the map. A ok map overall. Edited June 20 by Walter confetti 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
ICID Posted June 20 Happy Birthday Mike Reiner (2010) by 40oz Play Settings Difficulty: Ultra-Violence Source Port: Crispy Doom Extremely solid little vanilla techbase with indoor and outdoor areas that actually make interesting use of the brown textures. The MIDI doesn't loop correctly and the final fight is really easy to cheese but other than that, extremely solid. I have no idea who Mike Reiner is. Bronze (1996) by Kevin Waugh and Jake Wershler Play Settings Difficulty: Ultra-Violence Source Port: Crispy Doom Five rectangular brown rooms with four monsters apiece. Pointless, but I'm not gonna make too much fun of it because both authors were 11 in 1996. go to kill (1996) by Michael Krause Play Settings Difficulty: Ultra-Violence Source Port: Crispy Doom I was intrigued by the text file's promise of "excessive attention given to the appearance of the level" and sure enough, this has a lot of sectors for 1996. The attention to detail is undeniable but it's the duty of the reviewer to ask what that attention was put in service of, and in this case it's a super dark Quake-inspired colorless castle, extremely cramped and deeply annoying on UV (get ready to sit there and poke mancubi with the default shotgun for several minutes). I say "Quake-inspired" not only because of the architecture but because most of the monster sounds have been replaced with the sounds from Quake, so get ready to hear a lot of that awful congested zombie snorting. This has a lot of very positive reviews on /idgames so it clearly found its audience, but personally, I hated it. PRISON OF TERROR (1996) by Walter D. Sanz Play Settings Difficulty: Ultra-Violence Source Port: Crispy Doom Bad on its own terms as a series of huge, mostly grey rooms packed with utterly random assortments of monsters. I found a BFG and all the cells I could ever want in the second room and that was pretty much the end of the challenge, though the areas are so big that you can also just run past most monsters without engaging at all if you like. None of that matters, though, because the more important thing about PRISON OF TERROR is that it replaces every single sound effect and all the replacements are horrible and the variety of monsters in every room screaming at you is actually physically torturous. Some of them are "funny" (they mostly just seem to be a white guy doing an impression of a "black voice"), some of them are meant to be taken seriously like the ear-splitting plasma ray gun, a lot of them are oddly mechanical like the strange whirring noises pinkies now make constantly while running around, all of them are way too loud and I'm walking away with this from an actual headache. Avoid at all costs. As Roofi would say, "I stop here for today." 4 Quote Share this post Link to post
Endless Posted June 20 Warcade4 | Sam Ketner | 1999 Well this is a very interesting and nice surprise. Warcade4 is a single-map WAD for Doom 2, designed by Sam Ketner who seems to have created a greater series of small maps, this one being the fourth and last entry according to /idgames. From the start you can tell the mapper already has some experience with design; it looks and feels good, and while it does have some typical 90s quirks, like random damaging floors in the shape of stars made out of blood, it still plays quite nicely thanks to its fast-paced layout and very tight combat that goes room-by-room until you reach the final end. Surprisingly, it seems there's only one main weapon: the chaingun (unless I missed the others) and yet it works well, although it does get a little bit annoying with tankier enemies, such as the Hell Knights, most of the map is filled by low tiers which can be easily killed, and on HMP, it wasn't a major problem. The first area of the map does feel a little cheap do the copy-paste sections at each side, but it allows for ease when navigating and makes it feel more like a circuit rather than a linear, go-straight kind of map, which is an interesting choice. I particularly enjoyed the design work with this one. It mixes brown brick structures with lovely hellish landscapes made out of marble and wood, with some sprinkles of techbase textures here and there. The author tries its best to make an eye-candy from it and I would agree that he made a good job. The oddest part about the map, though, is the starting area. A single room with four doors in all directions, but there's way too many doors for some reason, some of which are not opened intuitively and some of which close right in you face and you end up confused as to watch switch does what. It makes it feel claustrophobic and just for a tiny bit discouraged me about finishing the rest of the map, yet once you are out, it gets much more fun. Area 51 | Keith Hickman, Garth Donovan | 1997 It's 1997, you just got back from school. You left your PC early in the morning downloading a curious Doom WAD called Area 51. You love The X Files and UFOs so you know this is going to be your jam. You boot up your PC, you start Doom, and then the Mission Impossible theme welcomes you. Life is good. Area 51, to me, encapsulates the greatness of the 90s era. Janky, unpretentious, full of personality, whimsical at times, and extra fun. This level is a great reminder that sometimes the past is worth remembering. Ok, leaving melodramatic shit aside, I loved this small set of 2 maps for Doom 2. Themed around a secret base, you'll feel right at home if you are one of those gov conspiracy, black project, UFOs, etc, kind of nerds that loves that shit, because I do and this one felt like a ring to my finger. Simple in terms of what it tries to do, but it does so extremely well and full of charm thanks to its sincere and unique usage of custom textures, sprites, new sounds, and music choices. It is a fun journey back in time to what I feel was an era of exploration and discovery. I loved how the maps were filled with these neat little details that while not exactly Doomcute, felt very charming due to the simplicity of it and how great they look on low res. If there's a comparison I can make to a better-known level that would probably be the Invasion... levels, which are also quite detailed, sci-fi themed, and make heavy use of custom assets. On the other hand, Area 51 goes for a more simplistic, almost minimalist kind of approach. The layout of the maps are very easy to navigate, linear at times, and force to keep moving constantly. Gameplay feels intense yet simple, with plenty of enemies but also more than enough ammo and weapons, all carefully positioned, that it feels rewarding. On HMP, I had no major troubles but could also feel the intensity thanks to clever enemy positioning and good level design that goes hand-in-hand with the gameplay; you can expect monster-closets, ambushes, teleporter traps, sniper nests, and more. There are no puzzles to solve, no secret doors to find, or hidden keys, it is all laid out right in front of you and it is up to you to decide the pace. You can take a few minutes to enjoy the scenery, explore through tight and dark tunnels, and look at the cute custom textures that shine with charisma. Both maps took me around 20 minutes to finish, and I thoroughly enjoyed them. Some things could have been done better, sure, I think some areas needed more polish particularly the way the geometry feels too flat at times, and some rooms too large and empty, but I didn't mind, that didn't affect my enjoyment of the WAD at all. By the end of it, I was smilin. This is a must for any old-school lover out there, and still a fun WAD to play even with modern standards. I am actually quite surprised to have discovered just now, and personally, I think it should have earned a spot in Doomworlds Top 100 of 1997. 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted June 20 (edited) So How is Hell (1997) by Daniel McGann (Crispy Doom) Quote Same wad as my Dumb Wad except this version has more Monsters in it and it has less Weapons. By less weapons, he means precisely FUCKING ZIP. There are multiple Romero heads, including one right in front of the beginning that you can blow up with some blocking barrels. Safe to say that would be a far better use of your time than spending any addition time in this highly rectangular, poorly-drawn sector pile. Avoid Spoiler Fragtime Marine (1995) by @markklem (Crispy Doom) The sort of mid 90s treasure with tons of square rooms and notable lack of ceiling height variation. Yet, there's a certain snugness to these MM family maps that probably comes in large part from many of the TIC contributors spending much of their time in the DM sphere before making a splash with Memento Mori. In a way, it shares a little bit more in common with the average Eric Sambach or Jens Nielsen (at a stretch) map with it's layout, only with more creative uses of textures at certain locations and at times, an utterly unapologetic brutality. At the same time, things become more manageable as weapons are acquired and indeed, the amount of SS shells you'll have towards the end is ridiculous. Making one particular room with several Hell Knights and Super shotgun almost too easy. Although grabbing the SS does trigger an ambush of nobles in the nearby hallway. Another note, I guess Mark really likes the Inmost Dens because this is the second map of his I've come across using a room inspired by that (there's one in his multiplayer collection called "Big Wad" I rolled at an earlier point) There's also a nice outdoor area with a cliff containing an Invulnerbility (might actually be necessary for the fight here depending on the angle you come into this place from) and some curious triple pillars in the middle of slime but they're just differing locations and don't really support the thesis of this map having an unfocused layout. If anything, it might sprawl around a little too much for the average deathmatch map but it's still well-made regardless. About the only thing here is Mark carrying over his little Dehacked edits from Cringe! in a manner that...doesn't really change anything I guess. Besides, what's wrong with green-hued Mancubi? Also, "Slipper" is one of my top Mark Klem midis, which can't exactly hurt 7/10 Edited June 21 by LadyMistDragon 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
brick Posted June 20 Brick | 1 wad | 9 maps Adventure | 8 wads | 28 maps Infernos (2013) by ReX Claussen. 9 maps for vanilla Doom. This is the last in a trilogy where @ReX took each of the IWAD episodes and embellished the maps, adding detail, increasing combat difficulty (while still limiting enemies to their respective episode, eg no cacos in E1) and changing the map progression to create new surprises. In terms of the latter Rex doesn't go overboard, think Wonderful Doom and small rearrangements of familiar architecture, rather than KDIZ. I'm not a huge fan of some of the design decisions, Rex has a tendency to take more open-ended maps and make them much more linear, it's very noticeable with Pandemonium and I think the remake is a lesser map. I was also a bit irked by a bug in Mt Erebus, the BSK is not properly tagged and doesn't appear on all difficulties, making the map impossible to complete (it is needed for both exits). Elsewhere though the changes work really well, Unholy Cathedral is an unpopular map but the streamlining here has done wonders to make it more fun and less of a chore, and all while preserving almost every sub-section that makes the original so recognizable. Warrens follows a very similar concept to the original E3M9 but the map is much more dynamic than a simple there-and-back now and the Cyberdemon surprise is both more challenging and more fun. Dis is now a medley of familiar pieces that then lead to a final fight in several stages, the Spiders are still easy to defeat (the huge caco cloud helps more than it hinders), but it's a lot more substantial than the original E3M8. I was impressed with the aesthetics, E3 can be frankly more ugly than the other episodes but Rex has managed to improve it tremendously, sometimes with added detailing but often simply with better texturing choices, even Hell Keep looks nice now. Phobos Revisited is still my favourite (maybe because I love E1 so much) but I think Infernos is better than Slight Return, the whole trilogy is great fun though. Spoiler 5 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted June 21 MANIC WAD FILE (1994) by Andrew Harbour (Crispy Doom) Quote This picture was created using 3d Studio V3. It used 27 procedural textures and took 28 weeks to render on a Pentium 100 PC with 640k. It has over 200000000 faces and 30000000000000 vertices. It was scaled down from 100000 by 2000000 pixels to 50 by 40 in 45 days by Paint Shop Pro V2 ....... Ooops sorry wrong file .... got a little bit carried away there. Anyway back to the right file .... Dear Mrs Smith, The estimate for the work carried out on the downstairs bathroom is 24 million pounds and 2p + VAT and p&p. Sorry we couldn't do it cheaper but second hand solid gold baths from the Cleopatra era are hard to find. Ooops - sorry again (gettin to be a bit of a habit this!?) Where was I, oh yes. This Doom wad was created by me, only me and me alone and no one else (not even my dog Sparky helped). By the way me is Andrew Harbour (not that I am a harbour thats my surname - talk about unfortunate named after a place with lots of big boats.) The level itself is pretty large, to be quite honest I think it's huge! There's absolutely loads of monsters, if you like killing lots and also enjoy a bit of a puzzle element to levels then you should love this level. Multi Player (coperative) playing is supported on this level but due to the large size it was decided deathmatch would be exceptionally boring and is therefore not implemented. In my continuing goal to get a wad with a stupidly long description that can be summed up with just a few sentences, this already seems fit to run away with the prize! Random-ass connected sectors, a certain sense of maziness despite not really being difficult to navigate, unmarked doors, key doors with basically no indications but misaligned walls and barrels in at least one case, zero sense of combat flow despite containing 300-plus monsters and incredibly odd and unintutive progression. For instance, to enter a particular lava maze, one has to grab a rad suit from a nearby room unlocked by pushing a timed switch in an adjacent hallway. Confusing? It should be. And the lift toward the end is very bad at marking the ultimate path to the exit. I was lucky to get it on my second try. Incidentally, the exit was placed at the end of a secret tunnel near the beginning you should probably have spotted through a yellow line on the map 3/10 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
ICID Posted June 22 Hellcrap (2017) by Michael "Optimus" Kargas Play Settings Difficulty: Ultra-Violence, continuous Source Port: GZDoom Originally designed as the beginning of a megawad by frequent community contributor Optimus, these are a couple of blocky Inferno riffs with extremely tight ammo balancing. I wouldn't want a full 32 maps of this; rooms are a little too rectangular and combat is just straightforward and incidental. But the areas mostly look nice enough and as a two-map sampler I had a decent amount of enjoyment. Final thought: "Hellcrap" would be a perfectly fitting name for Doom's actual third episode. The Fall of Hell (2015) by Nambona890 Play Settings Difficulty: Ultra-Violence Source Port: GZDoom Setting a WAD after the death of the Final Boss is an interesting concept (just look at how Eviternity II starts to see a similar idea executed well) but there isn't much done with it here. This is a 22-monster map taking place in a single room - clear all the baddies, kill the cyberdemon, enjoy your victory text. Pretty fun for what it is! Water Works (2016) by mrthejoshmon Play Settings Difficulty: Ultra-Violence Source Port: GZDoom It's annoying that this WAD only says it's for "Final Doom" so for anyone reading this in the future: he meant Evilution specifically. In fact, Water Works makes pretty heavy use of the TNT-branded textures, which I find a little weird to do if you're not actually a member of TNT, but whatever. Leaving that aside, it's impressive to make a map that's both choked with hitscanners and feels ammo-starved but Water Works achieves it, mostly by denying you the SSG (maybe it's in a secret somewhere, idk.) Having 50+ shells, as I did towards the end of the map, doesn't mean much when all you have is the combat shotgun and there are a dozen revenants converging on your position at once. Mostly you're going to rely on the chaingun, which you never have enough for - by the end I was running past barons and pain elementals and barely made it to the exit. Phew! Maybe it's better balanced on lower difficulties. That aside, it looks really nice - you definitely get the "water" theme without the map having to lean on it too hard and TNTs aside the Evilution textures are definitely used well. White Light (2006) by James "Phobus" Cresswell Play Settings Difficulty: Ultra-Violence Source Port: GZDoom Oh hey, it's Phobus! Phobus is a name I was vaguely aware of but didn't pay much attention to until the ER/iWA, where he became one of my favorite mappers. Almost every time I've run into some work of his I've loved it. This, sadly, is not such a case. The map is simple: you run around a blindingly white map picking up keys. Each time you pick up a key, you have to kill an "aeon", a transparent circular custom monster with a high health pool and ear-splittingly high-pitched attacks. They're not fun to fight (particularly because you get no feedback when you shoot them) but they're pretty easy to dodge so it's not too hard until the map turns red and you have to do the final fight on a small pillar - fall off and you'll softlock yourself. It's at this point that I encourage you to avail yourself of our old friend iddqd to finish the level. It's not fun, but it's sort of an interesting idea and there's some clever scripting in here - if this kind of weird experimentation is the thing you need to use as practice in order to create masterpieces, then I suppose I'm for it. Defiled Waters (2019) by Carlos Lastra Play Settings Difficulty: Ultra-Violence Source Port: GZDoom Sorry if you're reading this, Carlos, but I didn't like this at all. A mazey switch hunt that uses the UDMF format but no UDMF features (as far as I can tell). Uses a recurring motif of water with bloody cracks in it that looks kind of cool the first time but just makes an already convoluted map that much more confusing - the two screenshots I took above are completely different areas on opposite sides of the map, believe it or not. As far as combat goes, we are once again deprived of the SSG through several fights with cacos, revs, an absolute flood of pinkies etc. and after the other maps I've played tonight I am just absolutely sick of peekaboo shooting with the combat shotgun. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post
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