Phobus

The three that I’ve made repeated attempts at over the years, but never seen through, are as follows: ”Bug Hunt” - a MAP07 where you go around an open, non-linear techbase in search of Arachnotrons to kill them all and open the exit. The Arachnos are normally in some kind of turreted setup, and the rest of the level plays out normally, with hitscanners and the like keeping you busy on your search. This idea fails because it never quite holds my interest, and/or the wider project stalls and I end up binning everything. Various Cyberdreams style encounters, or Cyberdemon arenas - I tend not to enjoy making these in isolation, but keep starting them anyway. A few have survived, like the first map Persephone vol. 2 (I think), which is a Tyson map dominated by a Cybie that you ultimately telefrag, or the one that keeps you on your toes in ph_quik1 Puzzle encounters with Spiderdemon Masterminds are another thing I often start and don’t finish, as they’re an enemy I feel is underused, and I like the idea of the challenge of making them interesting, but rarely like the idea enough to follow through. I’ve got a long history of deleted projects, abortive attempts at NaNoWADMo and stalled episodes and community project contributions, so there’s probably plenty of others, but the repeat offenders up there came to mind straight away. I’m not done with Doom, but I don’t make much time for it, either, and my ideas tend towards the ambitious, these days, so I’ll be lucky to finish much of anything. Adulthood is a fair obstacle to hobbyist pursuits…

It definitely doesn’t have Boom actions - the whole point was to use just (all of) the vanilla actions! Still, seems like it’d be way more work than it’s worth, so thanks for having a look!

I seem to remember trying a few WADs on this port, including my own 25 Years on Earth and mostly not meeting with success. I’m guessing it’s crashing out as soon as it sees a lump that it doesn’t like, although I’d be interested in dissecting your work here and seeing if I can persuade at least 25yoe to work. Obviously the soundtrack would stop it being official, as would the fact that they seem to have stopped adding WADs, but it feels like it should work…

I think my gimmick is that each map and project has it’s own gimmicks. I can’t get enough of them…

Apparently I’m up to 184 released, having put out another 58 since participating in this thread, which is a lot more productive than I was expecting! I have another six maps tied up in two barely-started megaWAD projects, one of which is so vanilla you’ll be very hyped for it, whenever I get round to a release.

Call me "Slim Shady", because I'm Back. We'll ignore White Light (either edition) and Justice: Infernal Mechanics (or indeed the compiled version of all of them!) as they're very ZDoom-y and use custom weapons and/or enemies to achieve the experience. I will say that the juxtaposition between the DMC/Zen Dynamics-style Sword/Scythe weapon and the Rocket Launcher definitely makes Infernal Mechanics an interesting idea, although my inexperience may have played against me a bit there with the actual level design. Likewise, I'll skip out on the more "MAP01"-style maps that only give a shotgun, chaingun, chainsaw and/or berserk and don't do anything more interesting with the idea than not be too hard, and any tyson maps I've made over the years... Scars of the Wounded Prey (latest version is in Persephone [/idgames link to vol. 2]) is a ZDoom map which uses the Chaingun and Rocket Launcher as primary weapons, deliberately omitting the shotguns to keep the player juggling between the two weapons to keep on top of the situations they're thrown into. The secret Plasma Rifle can be used to defuse one or two of the hairier situations, if you find it, but is certainly not necessary thanks to an abundance of rockets and bullets. Two difficulties are implemented in this version, as opposed to the original (with just one), giving either a mid-2000s slaughter flavour or something a bit easier. Escalation I: The Breach (/idgames link) is a plasma rifle map after a high-pressure pistol start. Working within the constraints of 50 monsters, it gives you a couple of combat scenarios, including a pretty heavy arena battle. Blood Red (/idgames link) is a Chaingun map that has a berserk pack as a backup weapon, although ammo is plentiful enough that you should be fine. It uses one "combat area" to house a few waves of varied battles and a couple of objectives to keep you moving. There's plenty of cover in the lower area, which you'll appreciate later! MAP22: Power Trip (from Doom II: 25 Years on Earth [/idgames link]) gives you a plasma rifle, a ton of ammo and encourages you to blast your way through massed hordes of fodder. There are chaingunners and shotgun guys, and you can pick up their weapons, but this is so heavily intended as a plasma rifle map that I'd almost say you're doing it wrong if you use anything else! For multiplayer versions of this idea, MAP25: Rooneytech of 32in24-11: Occupy Doomworld is a Rocket Launcher Deathmatch map, and MAP16: Summoning Temple from Ten Community Project is a ZDoom WAD that deliberately splits up the players, giving half of the an elevated view and the chaingun, whilst the other half are down in the trenches with a shotgun. One of the Persephone volumes has a fully-realised single-player version of this map that takes that choice away, but isn't relevant here. I often experiment with restricted weapons, particularly when there's a pistol start or multiple map progression, but those are the examples that most stand out in my memory.

Either Bear, which is Birdemic levels of bad, without the charm, or the Mike Myers Cat in the Hat film, which was abject shite with high production values.

As is often the way, I’ve done a fair bit of this in the past, so I might be back with some links in the “here’s something I prepared earlier” vein, if that’s alright!

I can draw from three different eras quite happily here: Yakworld E1M1, by Spackle Limited, from YAKWORLD.WAD (1994) A classic example of how the little things can make all the difference, even back in the first wave of over-enthusiastic, under-experienced Doom mapping. From the start, where you're confronted with a horde of Demons in a wide open space featuring the eponymous sign, to the Barons reimagined as gruff Sergeants to the demonic foot soldiers (and just with a replacement to their "see" sound file!) and most definitely the Cyberdemon "see" sound replacement being an announcer excitedly setting up the showdown between "Goat Man" and "Mister Green" for an audience of impaled spectators, the barrel of ideas of runneth over. The high octane classic Doom game play and wide exploration of the map won't be to everybody's taste, but to somebody who sees nostalgia in stuff that they played pretty near it's original release date and has a lot of fun with it, I've come back to this a lot of times over the years. Of course, the explosion sound is a minor fly in the ointment, leaving all of the barrels and rockets chattering away at you after they've blown up, but not all good ideas work in practice! ZDoom Community Map Project Take #1, by ZDoom forums members circa 2004 (zdcmp1.pk3, these days, although it used to be .wad) This will be driven for nostalgia for that period where I rediscovered Doom via ZDoom, but I strongly maintain (and continually bring up) that this is one of my favourite WADs of all time. An hour run-time through a wide variety of locales, mapping styles and game play scenarios, all brought together by some classic T667 polish, great music (particularly the first, main track) and the monster resource pack of enemies. Part of the joy of this is the sheer excitement of the mappers, which spills through in all sorts of ways, such as the various comments on the automap, the scripted messages and just the sheer scope of the map. It's like playing a whole episode in one map, with a wealth of variety and yet an overarching sense of consistency and interconnectedness that makes it a joy to play. I'll miss the "nucking futs" megasphere that went a bit wild on the original slope physics, but the continued development of (G)ZDoom is always welcome progress. The fact that it ends on a scripted cutscene fly-through of the map is particularly fun, with all of the credits, comments and editor choices (the last bit was very helpful for me, back in 2004). Such a great adventure... I'm looking forward to going back and giving it another play, now that I've finished writing about it! MAP03: Virgin Alarm, by vertigo, from DBP24: Spaceballs: The Sequel: The Search for More DBP Maps (2020) Honestly, picking a single map from the "Tomatoman" era of DBPs is extremely difficult. Big Ol' Billy, glenzinho, supercupcaketactics, Scrangus McBrickdad, vertigo, gaspe and the others were on fire for a good year or more, making increasingly creative and wacky projects, pushing limit-removing maps further and further and fairly consistently dropping gold on a monthly basis. I made some of my best maps ever in this period too, which meant resisting the urge to pimp one of my own wares. However, what it came down to in the end was a relatively simple choice: which project was the most fun, and then which map most embodied that fun? Spaceballs is the project, and MAP03 does it very well indeed. We've got plenty of frantic blasting action against the lower tier enemies, fun features such as the utterly pointless teleport from one side of a door to another (as inspired by the movie, naturally), secrets that are fun to find and a good escalation through the range of enemies, culminating in some Arch-Viles being unleashed on some conspicuously dead Barons. I could just as easily have picked glen's map or Billy's here, but this one is just a little easier than glen's and a fair bit shorter and easier to navigate than Billy's, pitching closer to the apex of frictionless action fun. That last one was a difficult choice, and I was actually halfway through writing up a different map from a different DBP before I reconsidered the choice between "fun" and "memorable", and how being fun to play and conceptually fun are slightly different. It was pretty tough ignoring how much of a fun of my own work I am, too :P

It also has an "interlude" MAP07 before the Warrens reinterpretation where you revisit the very start of MAP01 from a different angle, giving you story context for why you'd go through the same area a second time. The final version of the WAD beefs up the enemy count and composition even before the "Warrens" reveal, because they know that you're coming this time. I'll chuck in some examples from my own work briefly, as I'm something of an expert in those map sets: Tiny Pack 1 features the arena exterior from TINY0 in the skybox backdrop to TINY3, and also has said arena and the tower that TINY3 takes place in as parts of the backdrop for TINY4 Coils of the Twisted Tale (ph_quik2.zip/Quicky2.wad) ends in a hell tower piercing heaven, and out of the windows of this tower are various views with flesh pillars in them, including a room from Entryway (Doom II), a part of Warpzone and parts from MAP13 and MAP20 from Scourge, although you'd probably need to be me to recognise those latter references MAP03 (Urban Renewal) of 25 Years on Earth takes place entirely in the backdrop of the exterior section of my birthday map for wildweasal (Urban Escape) E2M1 of ZPack is MAP03, MAP02 and MAP01 of Scourge remade in high detail (for 2007-2008 standards) with extra features, progressed through backwards (regressed through?) and sort-of taking place after the events of the original maps, so this is probably more partial credit, but an Easter Egg and the ending of the map hint that the protagonist of Scourge wasn't entirely blameless in his fate Along a similar line, E1M2 from ZPack is partially built from various memorable (as in, my vague memories) locations from the failed attempt at ZDCMP2, which was ultimately unrelated from the one we did get to see in public - this was more to just to preserve some of it in some way. My little-known failed (or stalled? I suppose, like with Virus, I can always go back to it in theory) ZDoom Episode "Phobus Doom Episode 1: Base Invaders", which is in my pre-2013 compilation made very strong use of continuity across three of the four maps (MAP02 is sort of the odd one out there), where you can see part of MAP03 from MAP04, and you revisit a section of MAP04 in MAP01 as well, but from the other side of a nukage pit Various maps of mine have been recycled or remade for other projects, too, but I won't list those as they don't have the story continuity of the ZPack example

Final bump from me now: it’s landed in the archive! Here’s the link for posterity: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/g-i/irkalla

Bumping this to let you know that RC1 has been released. This addresses a bug that snuck into beta 2 with MAP06, and has a range of other fixes, gameplay tweaks and visual polish applications! If you've not already checked it out, this is definitely a good time to. If you have already, the changes may be substantial enough to warrant another go. Either way, here's the latest download link. I imagine an /idgames upload won't be too far off now, unless any bugs are found that need a fix.

Thanks for the great response and feedback so far! A lot of it has been taken on board and some early changes have been made for a quick update. There’s probably still more to do, but I’m sure there’s more feedback due yet! Here’s the link: Download Irkalla (Beta 2)

/idgames archive link to Irkalla Created by Stormwalker (of Flashback to Hell fame!), with maps by @SuperCupcakeTactics, @Peerdolius and myself, this 11-map set is a pseudo-reimagining of Doom I Episode 3: Inferno, except in Doom II and using Boom features and expanded limits. It should work in anything that can handle the equivalent of complevel-9. Expectations may be subverted, and there should be some surprises along the way! Here's a map list... Map 01: Dark Fortress - Stormwalker Map 02: Valley of Sorrow - Stormwalker Map 03: Chaos - Phobus Map 04: Den of Suffering - SuperCupcakeTactics Map 05: Temple of Blasphemies - peerdolius Map 06: Tartarian Depths - Stormwalker Map 07: Ascension From Acheron - Stormwalker Map 08: Hypogean Enigma - Stormwalker Map 09: Fields of Asphodel - peerdolius Map 10: Agony's Embrace - Stormwalker Map 11: Sheol - Stormwalker ... and some screenshots! Enjoy!

I've played the original version of this through in Crispy Doom and just wanted to let you know that I had a blast! Probably your best megaWAD to date and potentially your best work full stop. The majority of the maps are enjoyable for my preferences and I experienced no bugs or anything. MAP33 is very disposable, and I can see why you moved that to an "extra" slot. If I had to mention some drawbacks (which I don't!), MAP29 felt ball-bustingly difficult compared to the set overall, MAP30 is an IoS (not a bad one, mind, but still an IoS) and there's multiple traps where you're effectively surrounded by Demons or Spectres in immediate damage range with no manoeuvring room... Which is a bit of a bugger if you don't have the plasma rifle or BFG to hand. Saying that, I did tend to survive those traps first time on UV, so they're probably more fair than they look, but they certainly nudged my "bullshit-ometer". Thanks for sharing this megaWAD! It's good to have something nice to play every now and then :)