Ways to make Doom harder without changing anything about the level/monsters/weapons

Donce said:
Yes. There was a COMPET-N contest IIRC, forbidding the use of forward movements. I can't connect to the page right now, I'll check it later (or someone else will).

Strange, I couldn't find any mention of such a contest at the COMPET-N contest archive, nor do I recall having seen it. Are you certain?

Kristian Ronge said:

Are you certain?

No, I'm not. So it wasn't COMPET-N then, but I surely remember watching some map (methinks E1M1) done this way. It was very impressive, if I find the demo I'll post the link.

Yeah, sure, I'd like to see it. Was circle strafing accepted BTW?

I made a quick runthrough of all the Doom 2 maps and I managed to finish these maps Stroller style:

• Map 1 (0:16), just the usual route. The only really easy map.
  
• Map 18 (1:09), needed to use an invulnerability sphere to survive the blue key room. Tried to do it with the green armour and no invuln, but it was much harder. A better player might do it and then the time should be at least 15 seconds quicker.
  
• Map 31 (1:08), usual route, easy until the invisibility wears off. I exited with 1% health left. :-)
  
• Map 32 (1:47), grabbed megasphere and invulnerability and let the Cyber finish off the Keens. Not that hard, but I got only so/so cooperation during my attempt. Could be much quicker, you probably don't need the invuln either.
  

I was pretty close on maps 8 (died in red key room) and 27 (didn't get Arch-Vile trick to work fast enough), they are both possible. The rest are very tough/impossible.

Play with ear muffs on.

Ear muffs? You might as well just turn the sound off! :Þ

Play with the monitor off. :)

Heh, I remember there was a guy who could play Galaxian with the screen covered.

I wouldn't be too surprised if AdamW could do some of the E1 maps without seeing the screen.

Sedlo could probably do Doom 2 map 24 (old route) with his eyes closed...

Kristian Ronge said:

Yeah, sure, I'd like to see it. Was circle strafing accepted BTW?

I failed to find that demo on the net but - yikes! - I found it on my HDD. That's an E1M1 max done without forward and strafe movements. Time is 1:11. Unfortunately, didn't find the textfile (if there was any), so I have no clue about who recorded this. Here are some LMPC stats:

# Statistics for player 0
# 1463 * GB50
# 302 * TL1, 110 * TL2, 58 * TL3
# 313 * TR1, 125 * TR2, 66 * TR3
# This player plays without STRAFE. Show him the README.
# 119 * WT in 2527 tics (4.7%)

I liked the 'show him the readme' part :)

Oh yes, the demo. Here it is.

Grazza: nothing in E1, they're too long and too variable...maybe E1M1 with a little practice, but nothing else. I could get all the way to the room full o' pinkies in P2M1 with the monitor off when I was playing that one, though.

Donce said:
Oh yes, the demo. Here it is.

Mighty impressive, I must say. Thanks a lot!

Bashe said:

Ear muffs? You might as well just turn the sound off! :Þ

Beleive it or not, I have to do that most of the time since my family don't appereciate the sound of barbequed zombie.

So you're playing outside in the cold or you mean headphones?

I used to use my dad's old-school early '70s amp and big headphones to play Doom quite a lot. It's kinda fun. I'm buying some good headphones now (got 'em on order) so I might have to try it again.

footman said:

Play with the monitor off. :)

Heh, I used to know this guy from some forums who apparently could do Quake E1M1 with the keyboard and his back facing the monitor. Unfortunately I never got to see that.

Not sure anyone mentioned it, but perhaps play only with the mouse?

But it's not that hard :)

Deus Vult on Nightmare. Or you might as well play blindfolded, they'd both be equally hard.

I just thought of another category, seldom mentioned: "Maniac". The rules are:

• You must always keep the fire button pressed. That is, the player is continuosly firing, even if only with the fist.
  
• You must always keep moving. The player is not allowed to stand still (IIRC, you even always had to move forward, but I could be wrong).
  
• You must never switch weapons actively (that is, by pressing a button to do so). Running over weapons, or running out of ammo, and thereby effecting a change of weponry is okay.
  

Playing like that would make maps with tight corridors and rocket launchers a nightmare.

Oh, and I recorded some demos of Doom 2 maps, "strolling" style (see above), found in this thread.

when i first got doom, shareware, it was on CD. it came with no instructions so other than movement i didn't know how to play. I didn't even know how to strafe, or that i even could. I didnt even know how to change weapons. so i played with whatever it gave me.

try playing like that! However i then tried different keys and soon discoverd strafeing and weapons.

A couple more ideas, both based on ones discussed in this thread:

• Crab-style. No forwards or backwards movement - only strafing and turning.
  
  
• Speed-strolling. No running, but you can strafe, and there is no pacifist requirement (i.e. you can kill stuff). And you set the game speed to 200%. (This is possible in Prboom, MBF and ports based on MBF, such as Eternity. Maybe some other ports have this option too - I don't know.) Thus your movement speed feels similar to normal, but everything else in the game seems twice as fast.

Note that in both these cases, your movement speed is sufficient to cross gaps that are intended to require running.