Cyberdreams

The greatest thing about making things for Doom is that you have the chance to re-contextualize what exactly "Doom" is, in your own eyes. Sometimes, an author sees fit to eschew the conventional makeup of Doom, and reconstruct it from an entirely different perspective. Cyberdreams is the ancient precursor to your modern gimmick puzzle maps, your shitpost speedrun maps, and your general cases of maps that make you question if you are even playing Doom anymore. The answer to that question is that yes, you are playing Doom, because Doom is a canvas upon which you can paint your E1 techbase map, your macroslaughter limit-testing map, your voidwalking love story, your gimmick-y puzzle map, your monsterless tribute to a long passed friend, or whatever else finds its way out of your brain and into the editor.

Really innovative considering its date (1998!), has a lot of cool concepts that sadly didn't catch on too much. Probably the best aged wad from the 90's, still feels modern. It's short also, give it a shot.

While the idea in and of itself is fine, the resulting WAD is padded with not-so-fun ideas to fill the 32 slots. I appreciate the commitment to the gimmick but in execution I found myself wanting to skip rather than solve a whole lot. I guess it's not too surprising a puzzle WAD is a mixed bag, though.

Good, a lot.

Interesting and original.

puzzle wads tend to have extremely mixed reception, as the execution of puzzles in them can often lead to gameplay people aren't used to, or potential exploits that can skip or perhaps softlock the player. that and most puzzles are usually just switch hunts which tend to be the most overused puzzle aspect of all. throughout the years, these gimmicks and puzzles are seen in spades, but rarely have there ever been entire megawads dedicated to some sort of puzzle concept.

Cyberdreams is surprisingly an old example of one that does this, and it does this well. you don't get a single weapon to use to battle the cyberdemons, heck you're not battling the cyberdemons, but running around them, avoiding their rockets, and killing them in creative ways, such as telefrags, crushers, anything that would get rid of them and can exit the map. innovative for its time and it still holds up, which is why it's one of the best puzzle wads for Doom.

there can be bugs still though, notable when crushing the cyberdemons on the ones that have stair triggers, on ZDoom ports it doesn't crush and kill them but simply immobilizes the cyberdemon. this is a problem with MAP19's cybers, who get stuck and you have to get past them to reach the exit teleporter. also sometimes the cybers are completely immobile on ZDoom ports in some areas, like MAP14 and MAP28.

key maps to note:

MAP11: numerous triggers to deal with while running around a central cyberdemon.

MAP12: one of the harder ones with nothing but a ring and two cybers to deal with, plus shootable switches. tighter than it should be.

MAP31: shoot voodoo doll with pistol, but cyber can interfere.

MAP32: run up, then switches, then back and forth, then Commander Keens should be shot by the cyber. both secret levels modify the imp and zombieman sounds so it looks like a voodoo doll is talking

MAP17: an interesting yet annoying moment with having to deal with a multi-teleporting cyberdemon, then two later on.

MAP23: my favorite, continually dodge fire as platform rises, go use switches and go back, then the platform lowers all the way and you have to dodge again.

MAP25: hardest map, arena is small and the safe zone is in the middle but you want the cyber crushed under the outer ring and you need to make him cooperate.

MAP29: fun track section never gets old.

One of the wads of my childhood. It was pretty interesting and challenging. The level design wasn't bad, especially for the 1998.

This wad does something that very few others do: something different. The only way to know that you like what the authors did is to try it yourself. In my opinion, the concept is very well pulled off. Every level is different and has its own method to solve the puzzles given. Overall, an excellent and creative mapset that everyone should at least try.

My only complaint with the wad is that some of the late levels (Map21 and Map26 most notably) can be pretty luck-based and frustrated.

It's interesting how figuring out the best way to avoid a Cyberdemon's shots can be a puzzle in itself, without the need for complex switch hunts. The difficulty is notably uneven with some easy levels mixed in with truly hard ones.