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Rob Hodge

a wad from the past

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Just started playing DOOM using zandronium with my 13 year old son. digging up my old copy of doom2.wad on an old archive drive, i stumbled across something i thought i'd lost. 

A copy of the doom level I made back in 1997.

to rewind a little bit and explain the level, this was the year after me and a few of my friends graduated high school.
We all were active in a local smaller mega-church, as leaders in the youth program, and most of us also worked as janitors there.

As a result, we had keys and security codes to the building, as well as the full schedule of activities going on.
Of course, we used this a few times in hich school to set up Lazer tag matches, Running thru the whole building a few times. as i said, thsi was a decent sized church. recently constructed, on flat land in the outer suburbs of chicago. As a result, this building was on one level, with the exception of the auditorium lofts in the gymnasium and the auditorium. This was a large building. something like 15-20 classrooms, a gymnasium big enough to hold two oversize basketball court, a bookstore, two sets of restrooms, a handicapped lift at the set of stairs in the main hallway. 

One day, after one of these illicit Lazer tag nights, we got to talking and the thought of a doom level came up. i remarked it'd be pretty easy to do, as the full set of blueprints for the church hung on the wall in the janitor's room, next to the gymnasium. after a round of "that'd be cool" from all, we played another round of lazer tag, then packed everythign up and went home. 

The idea stuck with me, and a day or two later, I downloaded Wadauther and started learning it. 

after about a month or so, We had a few lan parties, and it was a riot.  

I refined the level a little, and created a webpage, archived athttps://web.archive.org/web/20030626093537/http://www.elnet.com/~drealbob/rw/doom2/

 

i just uploaded the last version i had to:

http://doomshack.org/uploads/ccc1-1.wad

just to stress, this is a REAL building, modeled as best as possible in Doom2 textures and sprites. includes exterior grounds, two portable classrooms, the retention pond, the dumpsters, backstage areas, locker rooms, etc. 
it has had significant additions in the years since, but it is viewable on google maps at :
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Christ+Community+Church/@41.9625619,-88.3400308,125a,35y,268.04h,45t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x880f1cdd3297f805:0xc60f69fcad3553ce!8m2!3d41.9629824!4d-88.3416253

if you look close you can recognize the original building and first addition that this map covers almost totally encased in the newer additions.

So, i've put it out there, mostly so i don't lose it in the future, but i'd also get a kick out of it if somone out side of my old circle of friends played it and commented on it. 

 

anyway, enjoy! 

 

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Thanks man!


here's some screen shots. 

this is in the auditorium- the stage's curtain opens and closes, and the controls are where they were in the actual building- in the halway to stage right, and back in the room in the oposite corner. i actually went as far as to key the doors in the buildign to the groups of keys they had in real life, Media key, All access key, and exterior door key, but that never comes out in death match. 
 

Screenshot_Doom_20190526_180632.png.72da59c406b25e32898b718ae61212b9.png

 

Here we have the portible classrooms, and the dumpster enclosure. 

 

Screenshot_Doom_20190526_180604.png.2984c252db09bb2be0cc7f54502f821b.png

 

one interestign thing about this building is it was designed to be added onto- there are a few rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows that are heavily tinted. in the WAD, these can be seen out of, and not into. and you can shoot out of them at anyone outside.  here's an inside shot. 

 

Screenshot_Doom_20190526_180556.png.b7bb1f0323aabe6326a274691e956c75.png

 

and a shot outside that room, lookign back at the building. 

 

Screenshot_Doom_20190526_180548.png.6b2330d00c41e40b5f05977373d680a7.png

 

here's the gymnasium, setup with a stage at one end. unfortunatly, no level-on-level prevented me from making the AV loft over the entrance into a snipernest. 

 

Screenshot_Doom_20190526_180541.png.cf4499d3f815a7452abcdb102616d321.png

 

here's the stairway in the hallway- and the working handicapped lift the building had. 

 

Screenshot_Doom_20190526_180528.png.03ac6f355d834efa4659415d611c3fc5.png

 

here's a shot of the exterior- all those windows are able to be shot in and out of, but only can be seen out of.  you can also see how i dealt with the elevation change in the land the building was built in that shows up in the stairway above. 

 

Screenshot_Doom_20190526_180653.png.45dedcb4791ccb1c66738eb8a7d27ff1.png

 

Playing it is an interesting mix of a warren of offices, classrooms but with mid-size spaces in the gym and auditorium, and the exterior for wide open rocket fights. running thru the hallway that loops around the auditorium while being chased lets you pick up health on the fly. 

 

Here's the floor plan. 

Screenshot_Doom_20190526_182753.png.122a6e72c44ebe0ff031dd792c6135be.png

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On 5/28/2019 at 3:39 PM, Suitepee said:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/431244378

 

I play this at 23:00 into this playtest livestream. I found this kind of map to be a nostalgic novelty.



just got a chance to watch that- 

to answer a few questions; 

The one-sided textures were intentional; the church had heavily tinted windows that looked black from outside but could be seen out of from inside. that was an attempt to replicate that, with the added bonus you could shoot out of them at other players. it's also the reason the lighting is generally dark inside, as it seemed weird unless i dimmed it.

similarly, some of the areas you could see thru and couldn't walk thru were floor-to-ceiling windows in the building. 

this map was definitely intended for deathmatch. As it is just a physical building there isn't really much of a progression to follow. there is an exit, hidden behind a shower stall in one of the offices ( the head pastor's old office) but it's more there as a reset button than a goal to reach. 

i did have a version that had various monsters; large ones inside the gym and auditorium was interesting, but they tended to more get in the way than add to death match. the easily kilable nazis worked well when on respawn for deathmatch, more as just something to prevent camping. 

there is also a hall of mirrors effect with undefined line textures in three or four places. these were placed where actual mirrors were in the building, most notably in the bathrooms and in one or two classrooms. 

the pond outside that was a pain floor was an in-joke. it was actually a retaining pond/wetland spot at the church and once one kid tired to walk across it and got in mud up to his knees. simiarly, the stretch of pavement on the edge of the map is a major highway, so it got put in as a pain floor. 

never heard if any of the higher-ups in the church saw it; but i know a few of the middle school students heard about it, but i don't know if they ever got a copy. 

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Hey Rob,

 

It's flippin awesome that you found this and posted it. This has that 90s wholesomeness that I crave so much. It's quite a feat to go and accurately model a real world location. I really liked the clear windows and the mirrors - very inventive. I didn't read much of the post before playing but could intuitevely understand the blocking linedefs were big windows although I though the HOMs were unintentional. I chucked a video of it up on my youtube channel - running in Chocolate Doom for the most authentic experience.

 

Spoiler

 

 

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