My personal favourite single-map wads

[T-Rex]

I have a solid collection of Doom wads and megawads, but among them are a set of 36 single map wads (vanilla compatible) that I have which are my personal favourites. I like to nickname them "Master Levels 2" because it has some by authors who contributed to Master Levels, and I have them in a different folder from the other collection of wads/megawads on my computer.

John "Dr. Sleep" Anderson
- Crossing Acheron (ACHERON2.WAD)
- Dante's Gate (DANTE25.WAD)

T. Elliot "Myscha" Cannon
- Diabolos (DIABOLOS.WAD)
- Pazuzu: Wings of Possession (PAZUZU.WAD)

Bob "Odessa" Evans
- Odessa 13: Anaxis Courtyard (ODESS_13.WAD)
- Odessa (ODESSA_1.WAD)
- Odessa 2: Oasis (ODESSA_2.WAD)
- Odessa 3: Fade to Gray (ODESSA_3.WAD)
- Odessa 6: Kastle Baron (ODESSA_6.WAD)
- Odessa 7: 6 Keys of the Asmod Monks (ODESSA_7.WAD)
- Odessa 9: Landing Zone (ODESSA_9.WAD)
- Odessa 11: Sojourn (ODESSA11.WAD)
- Odessa 12: Chambers (ODESSA12.WAD)
- Odessa 14: Savage Morals (ODESSA14.WAD)

Jim Flynn
- The Titan Anomaly (ANOMALY.WAD)
- The Farside of Titan (FARSIDE.WAD)
- The Interdiction Zone (INTZONE.WAD)
- Mines of Titan (MINES.WAD)
- Trouble on Titan (TROUBLE.WAD)

Ty Halderman (with Robert Taylor)
- Argus (ARGUS.WAD)

Christen David Klie
- The Fury (CDK_FURY.WAD)
- The C.P.U (CPU.WAD)
- Device One (DEVICE_1.WAD)
- The D.M.Z. (DMZ.WAD)
- The Enemy Inside (E_INSIDE.WAD)
- The Hive (HIVE.WAD)

Sverre Andre Kvernmo
- We Who Are About to Die (ARENA.WAD)
- Derelict Station (DERELICT.WAD)
- Bloodflood (FLOOD.WAD)
- Eye of the Storm (STORM.WAD)
- The Image of Evil (THE_EVIL.WAD)
- Temple of Death (TODEATH.WAD)
- The Watchtower (WATCHTWR.WAD)

Alex Mayberry
- Temple of Insanity (TEMPL2_0.WAD)

Lisa "MadPup" Moore
- Soldier of Fortune (FORTUNE.WAD)

Tommie "Fatal" Quick
- Flood Mines (TQMAP1.WAD)

What are your personal favourite single-map wads?

[Never_Again]

Bad title pick: "Master Levels" was taken 20 years ago. You need to come up with something on your own.

[T-Rex]

It's not really an official title for them. Just what I nickname those maps.

[Never_Again]

Of course, it's not an official title - this is an unofficial list. You missed my point: it is wrong and misleading to use the official title of a classic to name arbitrarily something you made up.

[T-Rex]

I would have liked to come up with a better name, but I guess I called them "Master Levels" since the collection of my personal favourite single-map vanilla wads has maps by Dr. Sleep, Jim Flynn, Chris Klie, and Sverre Kvernmo, who contributed to the original Master Levels. It was for the fun of it, though, and a rather dumb idea.

[Never_Again]

This is a good selection, no doubt, you just need a new name. How 'bout something like "Past Masters"?

Going by your list, this thread may be of interest to you.

[T-Rex]

Hmmmm, Past Masters does sound like a good title.

Ah, interesting. Thanks for sharing this with me.

[Olroda]

I looked through your list, T-Rex, and found out that the only map I have any recollection of playing is one of the Odessa ones. Can't remember which one, though. Does it make me a bad person?

Seems like I have to get busy trying these out...

[levir]

erm... Plutonia 2. Non-official.

[SuperCupcakeTactics]

Well to name some...

Heroes (love 90s wads and this is my favorite compilation)
Icarus (most of it anyway)
Zen Dynamics (Super cool)
G-B-ARCH (More 90s fun maps)
Mock2 (I liked it :s)
Unloved (Spooky goodness)
FSR HQ, SMMP, and others (RIP Skulltag HQ fun times)
Super Sonic Doom (Awesome adventure)
KamaSutra (Atleast until it got too slaughtery, I don't really like slaughter)
Action Doom 2 (Awesome adventure, the farm house spooked me too much to play it fully until a year or so later I think >.>)
Most of my own maps (I make maps that are made to have stuff I think is fun/could be fun :P)

[T-Rex]

Olroda said:

I looked through your list, T-Rex, and found out that the only map I have any recollection of playing is one of the Odessa ones. Can't remember which one, though. Does it make me a bad person?

Seems like I have to get busy trying these out...

If you haven't played any of those wads other than the Odessa series, then yeah, go ahead and check them out. Most of them are worth a try. So, no, you're not a bad person for missing out on them.

[Surreily]

Some of my favorites are those by Karthik Abhiram. Most (if not all) of them are vanilla compatible, and they are awesome. Here are my personal favorites from him:

Congestion Control
Out of Phase 3: One Cloudy Afternoon
Dark Fate
Metamorphism

Also, I like The Core.

[uhbooh]

My favorites are..

MegaWADs
DTWID - Excellent old-school maps.
Scythe - Short but sweet maps with nice challenge.
Memento Mori - Great textures and architecture.
Icarus: Alien Vanguard - Lots of cool engine tricks.

Single map
Doomsday of UAC - An undeniably classic WAD. It uses a lot of engine tricks for such an early level.
tg.wad & pol.wad - Levels from 4chans /vr/ board.

[T-Rex]

Surreily said:

Some of my favorites are those by Karthik Abhiram. Most (if not all) of them are vanilla compatible, and they are awesome. Here are my personal favorites from him:

Congestion Control
Out of Phase 3: One Cloudy Afternoon
Dark Fate
Metamorphism

Also, I like The Core.

Ah, yes, the Karthik maps are one of my favourites, and since some here mentioned favourite megawads, I feel I could share which are my favourites.

- Icarus: Alien Vanguard
- Hell Revealed 1 and 2
- Memento Mori 1 and 2
- Requiem
- Eternal Doom
- Alien Vendetta
- Kama Sutra
- Plutonia 2 and Plutonia Revisited

Speaking of Karthik has anyone tried any of the maps by his brother Varun. He did a couple of neat wads, I fondly remember playing Short n Quick and The Outer Darkness.

[Doohnibor]

I have a list of favorite wads. But almost all of them are not single wads but part of a megawad or collection.

I would actually love to pick these megawads apart, seperate my favorite maps and mix them back together in a new "personal favorites" megawad for my personal playing pleasure.

well... I guess that won't work, since some maps have custom textures etc.. it probably would be a nightmare to pull it off the way I imagine it.
... actually I wouldn't care if there was another way to play all my favorite maps from different megawads in a row - as long as I don't have to quit the game for each new map.

[scifista42]

90's wads don't enchant me with nostalgia, because I've only been playing wads since a few years ago. My favourite single map wad might be this one: http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/?file=levels/doom2/m-o/muskadet.zip (one of favourites, at least, that I can remember right now) :)

[Doohnibor]

scifista42 said:

90's wads don't enchant me with nostalgia, because I've only been playing wads since a few years ago.

Does that mean you haven't touched 90's Megawads either? Stuff like Alien Vendetta, Hell Revealed II, Memento Mori.
If your answer is yes, then you probably missed some of the best releases ever imho ; )

[glenzinho]

The Eye by the guy with the videos is a fantastic single map wad from recent years. Another recent one a little under the radar that I liked was Botanic Biosphere. Uneven gameplay at times but a nice experience overall. Memfis wads are usually single map and always a fun play, but I would prefer them more if he could get over whatever it is that's holding him back from stringing an episode or two together.

[Capellan]

Doohnibor said:
Does that mean you haven't touched 90's Megawads either? Stuff like Alien Vendetta, Hell Revealed II, Memento Mori.
If your answer is yes, then you probably missed some of the best releases ever imho ; )

I don't know about the specific WADs you mention, but I know Scifista has played Requiem and doesn't like it much (for pretty valid reasons, IMO).

[Memfis]

I can feel nostalgia while playing 90's wads even though I started playing pwads in, I don't know, 2007 maybe? Same with old films, music, etc. I guess I'm just one of these people that tend to idealise the past, like "my life doesn't suck because I'm a lazy and spineless loser, it's just that I was born in the wrong time". So maybe it's not exactly nostalgia but something different.

[DeathevokatioN]

Memfis said:

I can feel nostalgia while playing 90's wads even though I started playing pwads in, I don't know, 2007 maybe? Same with old films, music, etc. I guess I'm just one of these people that tend to idealise the past, like "my life doesn't suck because I'm a lazy and spineless loser, it's just that I was born in the wrong time". So maybe it's not exactly nostalgia but something different.

Same, I got the 'nostalgia goggles' treatment when I spoke about a charm that the 90's megawads had... yet my earliest experience with pwads was actually Curse of D'sparil, my second was Speed of Doom and it was only after playing WoS and getting suffocated by it THEN playing Serenity and various 90's megawads just felt like a breath of fresh air for me and eventually I played Requiem and Adel's style made me change over to DooM mapping.

[Never_Again]

Doohnibor said:

Does that mean you haven't touched 90's Megawads either? Stuff like Alien Vendetta, Hell Revealed II, Memento Mori.

Two of these are from 2000s and HR2 especially bears little resemblance to a 90s WAD.

[Rez]

Command Control from 1994, which killed me about a million times when I was green:

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?file=levels/doom/a-c/comcon.zip

Still love this map.