The 2019 Cacowards

[Eurisko]

Happy 26th to DOOM and a very well done and congratulations to all the winners. 

[Philnemba]

Congratulations to all winners & Happy Birthday to Doom!

 

 

[Noiser]

Congratulations to everyone, both winners and runner-ups! I'm very glad to see Hocus Doom, Finely Crafted Fetish Film, Hell-Forged, Lunar Catastrophe and Doom Zero listed and I still need to fully experience Paradise, Lost Civilization, Remnant and of course, Eviternity. I knew SRB2 would be one of the big surprises, but decided to not spoil the fun. =P

I said it before, but I want to reiterate... When I released my project I wasn't expecting all the love and warm reception. You guys rock and I can't be thankful enough! It's silly to say, but as a long time lurker the Cacowards are part of my grown from a teenager to a young adult. So being part of this is a big honor. Take D4V as a humble tribute to this community (and to my childhood playing DOS games with my dad). Thank you and thanks @Linguica for the review!

Edited December 11, 2019 by Noiser

[exl]

Happy 26th Doomsday!

 

There are some real behemoth releases this year, so I'm honored for a Cacoward, thanks! Eviternity and Hurt really caught my eye this year, it's too bad Hurt just missed. Congratulations to all the winners!

[Keyboard_Doomer]

Not sure if this is the right place to bring this up but Lost Civilization surely shouldn't be marked as MBF-compatible. If it's because of the linedefs with type 271 (transfer sky)... well, about every modern multi-level wad marked as "Boom-compatible" has that. PrBoom+ -complevel 9 has been the standard for "Boom-compatible" for probably a decade now and the action works there.

 

Other than that, congratulations to all the winners and runner-ups and certainly a great choice for the Espi award!
 

[Aurelius]

I do believe a large thanks is also owed to the community with their wonderful creative works and ideas that inspired me to start mapping again, and who supported me after release with very insightful feedback. Special shoutout to @elend and the masterpiece that is Hurt, which ultimately sparked the creative drive in me to step out of my comfort zone and push my limits, resulting in a reception that was beyond my wildest dreams.

Thank you so much everyone!

[Doomkid]

Everyone’s saying congratulations to all the winners, so let me just say.. congratulations to all the losers! 

 

Those winners look a whole lot better when you’ve got our stuff to compare them to! So, really, we deserve all the credit!

 

In all seriousness, what a stunning pack of winning projects, good lord. I know it’s overdone as fuck to say this, but Doom really has aged like a fine wine in so many respects - and that’s possibly even more true of the community and modders sucked into it’s gravitational pull. The game only seems to pick up attention the older it gets. It pulled a Fountain of Youth trick on us all. As we get older, Doom manages to become ever more fresh thanks to the talented brains who refuse to stop modding it!

 

Here’s to another 26 years!

 

 

[Miss Bubbles]

Congratulations to all the winners and Happy Birthday to Doom!!!

I'm honored to make it onto the runner-ups :D Doom has a very special place in my heart, and to have left some tiny little dent in the community means so much to me!

[Doom_Dude]

Congrats to all the winners. More stuff added to the playlist....

[fraggle]

Doomworld classifying SIGIL as a "runner up" for a Cacoward feels like the Doom equivalent of the House of Commons symbolically slamming their doors in the face of Black Rod to assert their independence.

 

Other than that there are some well-deserved awards here. Congrats Jimmy on the Espi Award.

[RonLivingston]

So i got to say the Cacowards will be what i call a cool thing this year, I'm surprised there were no heretic or hexen mods that won the cacowards, well there is serpent resurrection, I'm already progressing on my heretic RPG blighted Aura, going to make super complex e1m1 to e5m9

[baja blast rd.]

36 minutes ago, fraggle said:

Doomworld classifying SIGIL as a "runner up" for a Cacoward feels like the Doom equivalent of the House of Commons symbolically slamming their doors in the face of Black Rod to assert their independence.

 

Other than that there are some well-deserved awards here. Congrats Jimmy on the Espi Award.

My personal opinion is handing Romero 11th Cacowards for every major work would ring hollow and patronizing -- less like a celebration, more like a gilded "participation trophy" only one person can win.

 

Romero did stuff objectively well, and an HM in 2019 captures that better than any Romero Award For Being John Romero possibly could.  

[DuckReconMajor]

Has Doomworld paid off the loan for that golden caco?

[Vermil]

Thanks for the great read each year :)

[FrancisT218]

1 hour ago, RonLivingston said:

I'm surprised there were no heretic or hexen mods that won the cacowards

Wayfarer? And 2010/11/16 also had mainline Heretic Cacos. 2014 a Hexen one.

[Mordeth]

Happy birthday, Doom! Congratulations to all the winners and runner-ups of this year's Cacowards, and mad props to our Cacoward team for another terrific write-up.

[Scuba Steve]

2020 the year of Mordeth?

[Mordeth]

7 minutes ago, Scuba Steve said:

2020 the year of Mordeth?

 

At this point, I fear a release might break the universe in some horrible way... :)

[Scuba Steve]

It would be the official retirement of the Mordeth Award.

 

Until Episode 3...

[reflex17]

5 minutes ago, Mordeth said:

 

At this point, I fear a release might break the universe in some horrible way... :)

 

 

Say it ain't so! you gotta destroy to create sometimes *weeps gently*

[Xaser]

Thinking on it, the "Episode 3 Award" would be a weirdly fitting rename in case of a fateful release, since Mordeth would then join the ranks of BTSX, Adventures of Square, and Half-Life.

 

 

Anyhow, grats to all the winnerfolk, particularly Jimmy n' ukiro for friggin' killing it.

[termrork]

giving Romero an award because it is Romero is wrong, not giving him an award because it is Romero is wrong too!

[Demon of the Well]

30 minutes ago, Mordeth said:

 

At this point, I fear a release might break the universe in some horrible way... :)

Like it's not broken already? Do it up, man!

[Pegleg]

Congratulations to all the winners and to the runners up! As always, great work all of you, and a great job to the selection team.

 

So, out of respect, do we wait a day before starting to speculate on 2020?

 

 

41 minutes ago, Scuba Steve said:

2020 the year of Mordeth?

 

OK. In all fairness, that's probably going to be a question until it actually gets released.

 

 

14 hours ago, FrancisT18 said:

Finely Crafted Fetish Film was a release I totally forgot about...how could I let myself! After all Ribbiks snatched Cacowards in 2013. Then again in 2015. Then again in 2017....so the conclusion ought to have been obvious...right...?

 

dew actually wrote about that in the write-up for "Stardate 20x7" back in 2017: "Oh, look! It's a year ending with an odd numeral, that means it's time to hand Ribbiks another Cacoward or two!"

 

Ribbiks could try to push it in 2021 and release something that was complete garbage, just to see if the trend would continue, but I don't think he'll do that.

 

 

Quote

Honorable snubs (released by end of October), aka 'I wish I saw this but not because what I did see doesn't deserve it too': SPECTRUM by @Capellan, Sinergy by @Crunchynut44 (plenty of UD this year!), Mapwich by @Bridgeburner56  @Insane_Gazebo et al. (and the special article - what a great surprise BTW - even has a community project feature that omits it...), Hurt by @elend, Mass Extinction by @nicolas monti. To name a few.

 

There are 10 winners and 10 runner-ups, so the team has to pick 20 selections out of thousands that are submitted each year. Of course, there will be end up being a few snubs. I am somewhat surprised that The Hatehammer was a runner-up and not a winner and that Hurt wasn't a runner-up, even though it did get mentioned in the Promising Newcomer section.

 

As for Mapwich, Bridgeburner already had a selection for The Slaughter Spectrum. If you had to choose between the two, The Slaughter Spectrum is more of a cohesive product, which seems to be one of the things that really appeals to the Cacoward selection team. Don't get me wrong, The Mapwich was a great concept (true, I do speak as one of the contributors--call me biased if you want), and it produced a number of rather good maps, but if you had to select between the two, TSS strikes me as the stronger, more traditional, Cacoward candidate.

 

 

12 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

Although I am surprised that Sigil didn't get the 11th cacoward like "Tech gone bad" did in 2016.

 

You can only go to the well so often. Honestly, the only reason to give Sigil an "11th Cacoward" would be to ensure that there could still be 10 runner up awards.

[esselfortium]

Congrats to all the winners and thanks to all who put forth the immense amount of work to make the awards happen once again! I'm looking forward to digging into the evolution of Doom level design article.

[Count651]

Thanks for the runner up status and congrats to all other winners and runners up! Lunar 2 will be even better, I promise!

[FrancisT218]

@PeglegI recall that in 2017...and a fourth straight odd year strike proved all too real! In the meantime 2018's Mangolia was mentioned...but 'only' as a runner...

 

I think of the 'megamaps', Verdant/Hurt/and Remnant play better than Hatehammer, so the snub on Hurt was my only surprise there.

 

TSS certainly is a more cohesive product and a better highlight of @Bridgeburner56's OWN work, but Mapwich had so many more authors behind it. Almost a spiritual follow up to Mutiny, which did win in 2016. Just in general team effort maps are rarer so I think a set of them ought to have at least a runner up unless they are surprisingly low quality.

 

A few more honorable snubs to me: 1K Lines by @Liberation et al, Alien Bastards by @Big Ol Billy et al (though clearly snubbed in favor of Colonoscopy), Ozonia by @Deadwing

Edited December 11, 2019 by FrancisT18

[P41R47]

Congrats to all! Winners, Runners, and not winners!
And Not Jabba... That article was amazing! I love it!

I wish i had played lottery! four of the five works i aimed for winning, won!
Incredible year for Doom!
Ahh all this happines and love is giving me the urge to try mappig myself.
Maybe some time, when i finnished with my other hobbies.

Edited December 10, 2019 by P41R47

[durian]

Nice one guys! I'm somewhat estranged from DOOM these days, with pressures of work and parenting leaving me with zero time for games. But as always these awards were a delight to read, and left me feeling excited for the time when I can sit down and play some of these great projects. Of course, congrats to all the winners and runners up, thanks to the team for putting this together, and Happy Birthday DOOM!!!

[Zakken]

Congratulations to all the winners! Particularly happy (but by no means surprised) about Eviternity and Lost Civilization winning awards!

 

Also, thank you for the mention in the competitive news section! Although I'd be remiss not to point out that my tournaments and leagues have been organised under the helm of the Zandronum Competition Alliance (ZCA) brand since the start of the year, and while I'm responsible for most of the managing work, I am assisted by a talented and dependable team of staff members and moderators to keep the ZCA community afloat, and they deserve recognition as well. ZCA events aren't fully independent projects!

 

2019 was a packed year for Doom competition without a doubt. 2020's looking very promising.