Bobby :D

Back when I was baby lurker, dead.air was one of the wads that got me back into Doom modding. It also whooped my ass, I was not ready for anything remotely close to "slaughter", let alone a map of that magnitude. I could barely beat Doom 2 on UV. That, combined with Scythe 2 and Sunlust gave me huge challenges for a few years.

Oh fuck I forgot

Fuck it, I'm bringin this back. Check later today for Day, 4, I guess.

None of these games are particularly obscure, but whatever :P Rain World Not the most obscure game, but one of the best I've played relative to it's popularity and impact. It's a gem of a survival platformer (hell of a genre fusion), and it streamlines and iterates so many aspects of both formats into one of the most effective and provocative experiences I've played to date. You'll hear people describe it's vibe as "being a small creature in a bigger, dangerous, and sometimes beautiful ecosystem", and they are selling it short. Lovers In A Dangerous Spacetime Fun-as-hell couch co-op game where you pilot a space ship with other equally space-flying-incompetent friends and try to save some goofy little creatures from the deadly vacuum of space (and robots, lots of asshole robots). You could play it solo, but good luck, it's already pretty tense with other people. Metro 2033 Slav Jank, the "survival" shooter for people who enjoy dying every 2 seconds. The thing that this game goes for mostly is atmosphere, crawling derelict tunnels and cities post nuclear-ruin is depicted as a persistently nerve-wracking experience, every level you wonder if you are going to be put down by the monsters, the people, the radiation, the broken buildings, or even the specters of the war itself. Of course, because it's Slav Jank, it's also unintentionally hilarious, especially with the English dub and the "stealth" gameplay. Ok now for the kind of obscure games Last Blade 2 SNK are the GOAT, and this is one of my favorite fighting games of all time. If there was a game that fits the word "anime fighter" while being the complete opposite of what an "actual anime fighter" is, this must be it. Taking place in an alternate fantasy feudal eastern asia, you fight each battle with an ebb and flow that can be as cautious as Samurai Showdown, or that can erupt as fast as any modern fighter, but it's done with the grace and presentation of theater; music swells and anchors the vibe, the backgrounds burst with life depicting scenes of moonlit cities, radiant outdoors, and burning villages, grounding every fight in the perilous and emotional. The roster is one of my favorite in any fighter; sword fighters, club smashers, hand-to-hand (or leg-to-leg) fighters, magic wielders, asshole pompadour guy, and my favorite, turtle fishing guy, and so many more, comprise this colorful set of fighters. The games most interesting mechanics are the Type Select and Deflect system, Type select lets you pick between power - stronger hits and combos with less chaining potential, and speed - lowered power for the benefit of excellent combo chaining, letting you pick the tempo of your character. The Deflect system lets you parry away sword/primary attacks but gets beaten by the off hand attacks, universal charged attacks, and grapples; sounds pretty modern, but this game came out in 1998. Also, it's damn beautiful, probably the best looking Neo-Geo/SNK game, and that's a console that has KoF and Metal Slug. Dungeons and Dragons: Tower of Doom and Shadow of Mystara My favorite Beat'em'up right next to Streets of Rage 2/3 and Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. Capcom did an incredible job representing the magical world of DnD and also managed to make an incredible game out of it to. Like DnD, you play a wide variety of classes, expect instead of an 1:1 RPG you play with beat'em'up systems modulated by the class system; you can cast spells, use items, equip rings, and have class specific attacks and combos (in the case of Mystara) that make everyone both have a role to play while being able to mosh the mobs like any other game. The world locals and the enemies are filled with lots of classic DnD archetypes, there's even a red dragon to find that will murder you so bad the game had to put like 3 warnings before you try to fight it cause you're quarters would just disappear before you eyes. Despite never really getting into DnD, this game really does it's best to make me want to make some character sheets.

Grungo Gang stay Grung-Ho for life

REAL ONES ONLY!!!! ST ANGER IS THE PISS AND THE SHIT

Hmm, maybe it's as if they want to KILL THE PLAYER

Grungo no use many speeds, will bad the play feel

Bro told me he knew a spot, where the hell did he take me

Cool WAD! Gotta admit, I didn't figure out the complete solution to the puzzle so I brute forced what I couldn't figure out, but great idea anyway! If I was more explorative and less tired, I'm sure I'd figure out the full password. Either way, some of these level concepts are really dope, and I can't wait to see E2! (also, thanks for being a future inspiration for packaging more meta game stuff with Doom WADs!)

Super Shotgunning killed my Grandma!

Unironically trying to insert his original failed project idea into it's revival, classy.

Here's two WADs that blow me away that are NOT UDMF/ZDoom Reconstruction/Decomposition It's a WAD that strikes such an immaculate balance between an amazing depiction of a spacecraft and an actual playable level with some memorable beats and rooms that create a pacing so tight everything stays fresh in my head even after a dozen playthroughs of a relatively short map. Every detail entices me to ponder about the way of life in this facility, it's so startlingly realized that if you upscaled everything you could almost mistake it for concept art. It's not wasted either, there's an emotional and narrative curve to the progression between the lit and still "active" areas to the cramped and dimly lit abandoned ones, and further on into REDACTED. It might not be the gargantuan structural monstrosities you see in alot of GZDoom wads or technical implementations of absurd concepts in super conceptual wads, but it strikes such a subtle, professional sense of narrative and environmental storytelling that I never ever see in any other WAD, let alone one that's now 10 years old. Comatose: A survival horror map that floors me in two ways. In terms of technical specs, this map is an insane CPU hog. The map is massive and littered with details of many magnitudes of scale, like individual cigarette buds, stocked but vacant storefronts or police stations, or an inaccessible detailed village that takes up a third of this tens of thousands units wide level. The way that this map organizes it's structures like a real city but still makes it fun to explore and navigate is an absolute wonder to me. As for it's concept, the map is the real deal when it comes to its subject matter. You navigate a ruined town besieged by industry, the occult, and other fringe factions, yet all that remains of anybody or any presence are merely specters of the past ;). Compared to RC/DC, there's absolutely no sense of direction and the map is designed for you to wander about it's dilapidated municipal and industrial districts, and it balances these more elaborately choreographed interior/exterior areas with the always-changing looming presence of what things have appeared in areas you cleared before. From my perspective, the WAD is a metaphor for the fallout of the Soviet era and how the specters of it and other things of the past will continue to haunt us if we are powerless to change anything. I'll be sure to share more WADs when I can!

I'm screwed :O

We can't even release the projects we have been working on for a while now, a sequel to either of those is so far down the pipeline it might come up the other end. Maybe in a few years we'll do some sort of spiritual successor or something, but we want to do some of the original wad concepts we've been working on and off for many years first, so sit tight :D