bad doom engine games

Corridor 7 as mentioned before... I see it as a clone of doom, a really bad one. Even though it's using the wolf engine. I haven't played it since 1995. It's horrible, if I can recall correctly. I compared it to Doom back in those days and found it inferior. I was like 9 years old. 

Another game I felt was a doom clone was Cyclones. Actually pretty good, was my opinion back in 1996. I played it at a friends house. We both played - one of us controlled movement and the other one controlled aiming and shooting. Take a look: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CyClones

All games using the unmodified (so RoTT doesn't count) Wolf3D engine, after Wolf3D (and arguably SoD) suck. The engine is really limiting, so all the games are just boring repetitive mazes. Wolf3D and SoD are also like this, but somehow they at least look good. The rest tend to have blurry unclear sprites and everything looks like it was drawn by a 7-year old that was given a palette of colors but was only allowed to use them in random order.

The worst game using the Doom engine is that racing game. It was the first game by the guy who made the Raw Thrills arcade machine franchise, maybe aldo the first in a series of racing games he made. I'll see if I can find it. It's really terrible and difficult to believe it was released as a commercial product.

9 hours ago, DharmaForOne said:

The worst game using the Doom engine is that racing game. It was the first game by the guy who made the Raw Thrills arcade machine franchise, maybe aldo the first in a series of racing games he made. I'll see if I can find it. It's really terrible and difficult to believe it was released as a commercial product.

You mean Cruis'n Velocity for GameBoy Advance, using the Dark Arena Engine?

AFAIK it was never conclusively determined that Dark Arena uses the Doom Engine. Rather, its a custom engine that looks very similar to Doom, putting it in the same field as Amulets & Armor, A.D: Cop, Quiver and Mars 3D.

There was a mid 1990s go-kart racing game which used an engine that looked suspiciously similar to Doom's, to the point that reviews often stated that "the tracks look too much like Doom levels".

That was probably Super Karts:

But by looking at it, there seem to be no height variations, plus there's an interesting "leaning" effect when cornering.

33 minutes ago, Maes said:

There was a mid 1990s go-kart racing game which used an engine that looked suspiciously similar to Doom's, to the point that reviews often stated that "the tracks look too much like Doom levels".

 

That was probably Super Karts:

 

 

But by looking at it, there seem to be no height variations, plus there's an interesting "leaning" effect when cornering.

Interesting find, Maes! That looks very peculiar. It reminds me of Radix: Beyond the Void.

1 hour ago, Maes said:

But by looking at it, there seem to be no height variations, plus there's an interesting "leaning" effect when cornering.

The flickering in the menus is awful.

Super Karts does indeed seem to flow like Doom and the skybox tech looks similar, but I would have thought there would be a record of it were it actually using the codebase. Strange.

Edit: is it just me or are the walls all 90 degrees? That would be an odd choice to make for a racing game if you had Doom tech at your disposal. That would seem to imply then that the engine's pedigree may lie more with Shadowcaster perhaps? Very little information on the developers themselves seems to have survived. The same outfit apparently released Manic Karts and it is clear the same engine was used - Doom like skybox, texture mapped floors, but 90 degree level geometry a la Wolf3D. Interesting to note the rudimentary physics code on some of the items surrounding the track.

I should make a doom engine game that's just one big fat fucking shitpost

5 hours ago, hypoactive said:

I should make a doom engine game that's just one big fat fucking shitpost

I've been told that this is what Doomworld had been, before the forum software upgrade.

On 5/11/2020 at 4:40 PM, Murdoch said:

the skybox tech looks similar

It doesn't warp as the viewpoint rotates the way Doom's does, which is another point against it directly using the Doom engine.

2 hours ago, dr_st said:

I've been told that this is what Doomworld had been, before the forum software upgrade.

Hypothetically it could be an interesting exercise if one could implement Doom using forum software code.

Seeing as we had Excel attempts as easter eggs and a rather convincing non-Doom game Dave Vs Ziggy exists as a tribute to Doom:

... It might be an interesting thing to do.

I didnt go beyond Hexen.

Even Hexen wasn't so good, except for its soundtracks.

Heretic was fantastic. It was as good as Doom if not better.

I finished all 5 episodes of Heretic on the 5th difficulty but...

I can't play Doom and Doom 2 on Nightmare.

Can't play on Nightmare.

Heretic's 5 difficulty is reasonable because enemies dont come back to life after they are killed.

What is the point of Doom's Nightmare difficulty? Who is playing this game on Nigtmare?

3 hours ago, plums said:

It doesn't warp as the viewpoint rotates the way Doom's does, which is another point against it directly using the Doom engine.

It's definitely not the doom engine, that much is clear. You do make a good observation though. It would be interesting to compare it to shadowcaster if comparable footage can be found. But then it just might be the programmers fixed that rendering quirk. I am just struggling to believe the similarities to shadowcaster are a coincidence.

@Murdoch I thought of Shadowcaster too. There's definitely a similar look, and the sky doesn't warp in it. There's some kind of draw-distance limiter in Shadowcaster though. Also I wonder what the licensing path for the Shadowcaster engine was; it seems unlikely to be used in a game where neither Softdisk, EA/Origin, or id were involved. Unless they found it after it fell off the back of a truck or something...

1 hour ago, plums said:

I thought of Shadowcaster too. There's definitely a similar look, and the sky doesn't warp in it. There's some kind of draw-distance limiter in Shadowcaster though. Also I wonder what the licensing path for the Shadowcaster engine was; it seems unlikely to be used in a game where neither Softdisk, EA/Origin, or id were involved. Unless they found it after it fell off the back of a truck or something...

It stands to reason the draw distance limit was implemented to ease performance burdens on the earlier computers in Shadowcaster, and the programmers of the Kart games could have optimised the code some. I do agree the licensing path is bloody strange, and is the one real sticking point in this hypothesis. But the tech came from somewhere and I am struggling to believe the visual similarities were sheer coincidence. The developer was British based and so insignificant they do not even have a wiki page. All of their games were driving related. Other than the Karts games mentioned, one uses an early full 3D engine that vaguely resembles an even glitchier and worse looking Daytona USA one (and the game was published by Sega). The other was such a flop I cannot even find YouTube footage of it. It seems unlikely they had the inhouse talent to develop their own engines.

So unless we can find evidence of a similar game engine to Shadowcaster's quirky mix of Wolf3D level geometry with some Doom-like bits bolted on that was in use between 1993 - 1995ish, as unlikely as it is, there must be a connection.

1 hour ago, plums said:

@Murdoch I thought of Shadowcaster too. There's definitely a similar look, and the sky doesn't warp in it. There's some kind of draw-distance limiter in Shadowcaster though. Also I wonder what the licensing path for the Shadowcaster engine was; it seems unlikely to be used in a game where neither Softdisk, EA/Origin, or id were involved. Unless they found it after it fell off the back of a truck or something...

 

 

The Shadowcaster tech was initially created for Raven Software and was also provided to Softdisk and is called the Raven Engine. As Raven is primary a renderer like the Build engine of the era was, several games are unique to it. In Pursuit of Greed used it. Cyclones uses a significantly modified version of it, called STEAM. - DoomWiki coverage.

2 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

So unless we can find evidence of a similar game engine to Shadowcaster's quirky mix of Wolf3D level geometry with some Doom-like bits bolted on that was in use between 1993 - 1995ish, as unlikely as it is, there must be a connection.

I could provide a list of Doom clones of that time, if needed.

4 minutes ago, Redneckerz said:

I could provide a list of Doom clones of that time, if needed.

That could be a hell of a long list lol

3 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

 

That could be a hell of a long list lol

True, but if most of the work is already done, then its not so bad, does it?

True, most of them we can probably eliminate quickly as their origins will be well known.

Also, I just realised the melee attack in Shadowcaster looks like a straight up pimp slap. This deeply amuses for reasons I do not quite understand.

9 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

True, most of them we can probably eliminate quickly as their origins will be well known.

 

Also, I just realised the melee attack in Shadowcaster looks like a straight up pimp slap. This deeply amuses for reasons I do not quite understand.

Indeed, given the time variable is 1993-1995, this cancels out a whole heap of games that essentially are more in line with Doom in terms of tech than Wolfenstein 3D with Doom bits bolted on. Perhaps you need to include the very old DOS tech demos that often featured Wolfenstein/Doom like engines. and you could find on FTP's of the time. Those are practically forgotten (because well, they are engine demo's, not games).

"Alien Cabal" is a steaming hot bowl of dog shit. Late 90s release with bad controls, bad graphics, bad layouts, just all around bad. Has a weird Men in Black vibe although I'm pretty sure it was developed before the movie was out.

It's too damn easy to softlock in Strife

Yeah, Alien Cabal is pretty garbage, but it is based upon Doom engine? Not build or something similar?

Also, another FPS I don't quite like (but it's not based on Doom engine) is Witchhaven.

1 hour ago, Walter confetti said:

Yeah, Alien Cabal is pretty garbage, but it is based upon Doom engine? Not build or something similar?

The Wiki for it claims it uses the Doom engine, although it appears to have upgrades like high res textures, decals and vertical aim.

TNT: Evilution

(I kid, I kid)

1 hour ago, Walter confetti said:

Yeah, Alien Cabal is pretty garbage, but it is based upon Doom engine? Not build or something similar?

 

Also, another FPS I don't quite like (but it's not based on Doom engine) is Witchhaven.

41 minutes ago, GoatLord said:

The Wiki for it claims it uses the Doom engine, although it appears to have upgrades like high res textures, decals and vertical aim.

I hate linking to it, but the Doom Fandom has a cite from the original author mentioning its a custom engine.

Quote

''It pains me to say that since I wrote "Alien Cabal" and I'm proud of it. It was inspired by Doom but uses nothing from it. I wrote the 3D engine myself. The core texture mapper was actually written in highly optimized x86 assembly code. It was fun stuff back in the day. If you have any questions just e-mail me. Greg Taylor, former owner of QASoft and author of "Alien Cabal".''

12 hours ago, Can't play on Nightmare said:

 

What is the point of Doom's Nightmare difficulty? Who is playing this game on Nigtmare?

It didn't exist in the first release of Doom.  As I understand it, some people complained that the game was too easy so the devs put in Nightmare mode as a joke at their expense.  It was meant to be unbeatable but people managed anyway.

I remember a rather late-era PS1 RPG called Shadow Madness had, as a minigame, a decently-competent Doom-like. Actually, looking at it, I'm getting more than a few Powerslave vibes...

44 minutes ago, Dark Pulse said:

I remember a rather late-era PS1 RPG called Shadow Madness had, as a minigame, a decently-competent Doom-like. Actually, looking at it, I'm getting more than a few Powerslave vibes...

 

 

 

 

I would rather play Rise of the Triad.