Post about your favorite stories, narrative events, or bits of world-building within Doom maps.

[baja blast rd.]

Doom maps can handle storytelling in many ways. It can range from being the primary uniting force behind decision choices -- like in Going Down -- to something that reads as more of a pure detour within an otherwise abstract map. A story might be told almost entirely by setting and design elements of a map that hardly change, or it might exist only in changes or in moment from one place to another. Sometimes the connections you make might be the author's intent; sometimes unexpected resonances might lead to wild and personal interpretations. You might naturally think of a wad's story and throughline all at once, on a larger scale, or one map might contain a single zombieman in a boat (named Kevin) whose existence contains all the mysteries of hell. Any given wad might focus on one approach -- or there might be countless active at once, interacting, intertwining. 

 

All of that is a tl;dr intro to explain that if you are doubting something is suitable for this thread, assume it is (within reason) as long as you can describe it!

Edited July 21, 2020 by ‹rd›

[Lucky_Edie]

I'm a sucker for simple blood trails/blood on walls/doors. 

On a more specific note, resurgence map 31 Festering Wicked Helix Sectors, the way the map shows time passing and the world crumbling around you is the reason it's my favourite map. The machines won (the lone cyberdemon) and what was beautiful and alive is now dead. 

[DSC]

CC4's MAP 20 and 21.

[printz]

I like to think that the Spawning Vats are responsible for the temporary creation of the Fortress of Mystery and the gradual one of Tower of Babel. Even more, it uses materials from the crates shipped from the Containment Area, thus explaining the name of E2M2 (containment because it's surely hellish the way the fortress appears, so the materials need to be contained).

 

It's curious how the floating rock depiction of Deimos in the artwork at the end of the episode was only reused in Doom 3 and especially in Doom 2016. None of these games make full use of the island idea (I don't think you're ever in the situation to battle demons coming from other islands, or travel between them).

 

It's interesting that id didn't just choose Mars for Doom 1. Could it have been because Mars-themed movies were overly popular during that time, so id wanted to be different?

 

On Episode 3, notice how the Warrens are a mountain ridge leading back into the Hell Keep. I think that map is just another side of that Keep!

 

In Hell Beneath, blood pools are used as conduits for monster teleportation. Did anyone else adopt that motif in their maps?

 

 

[Nine Inch Heels]

This is the story of a map I once made. It's called "raiding a dildo party":

 

The player starts off on slippery floor with a water texture to boot, and we all know where there's loss of friction, there's moisture, and... You get the idea.

 

Being a bit too love-starved for your own good, you put on your favourite pair of high heels, make it past the slippery slope, and oh no! Just as you're out the door, the horror every discerning high heel owner knows all too well: Loose bricks and cobblestones. After a series of well-measured steps, and something that can only described as a "leap/wide step hybrid", you've finally located the instruments of your salvation. With all due haste you grab as many as your arms can carry and make the quickest getaway known to men and women alike.

 

While dealing with a few more cobblestones on your way home, it dawns on you that you've just stolen somebody else's property, and you don't feel particularly proud about it. "Desperate times call for desperate measures" you mumble to yourself, trying to stave off the already dangerously close, and certainly unpleasant feeling of guilt, that you no doubt won't want to get in the way of your relief.

 

Holding on to your new possessions, you notice these gaps you've passed earlier. It's a shortcut straight to your personal heaven. Desperation turns into determination as you commit to a series of leaps of faith, loosing a few "Dr. Feelgoods" along the way, and nearly breaking your ankles in the process. But you emerge victorious. The evil gaps did not manage to sway you.

 

You run upstairs to your bedroom, finally it is time to satiate this craze inducing hunger. Are you going to ruin it, or will you be able to get all the way there at the expense of a few more toys? Only your mastery over the tools of salvation will tell...
 

 

[rehelekretep]

im a pretty big nerd for 'lore' and 'world-building' (as much as i hate those terms i think they adequately describe what i mean). i cant really do much of this in doom for whatever reason. i think its a combination of the inherent game-ness of the play, the comic nature, and the varied nature of the mapsets dont leave room in my head for any kind of overarching story. the closest two wads have come are Ancient Aliens with its b-movie-esque plot matching the comic feel of the maps/music/gameplay, and Sunlust simply because the architecture and difficulty level are so crushing they invoke (and evoke!) some apparent malevolent entity trying to crush you simply because it can, and this overwhelms and puts to the background or suspends the silliness of some of the wad and doom in general.

 

there you go: if you want to put some world-building in doom, make it tongue-in-cheek, or crush the player physically and mentally!

[Not Jabba]

My favorite story-driven wad is A.L.T., which captures a lot of interesting feelings that @ella guro wrote about here and also here, and which I tried taking a small stab at in the Missed Cacowards. I'd like to write about it in more detail someday (probably as an Anatomy of a Megawad essay, since that worked well for capturing the less tangible story elements I loved about Whispers of Satan, another great arc-driven/lore-heavy megawad).

 

Another great narrative mapset is Exomoon. Some of the story is actual text -- episode intermissions and big plaques that appear in-game -- but most of it is implied via map construction/setting, music, boss usage, and other in-game elements. The mapset is permeated with this weird grief, but it's an alien grief, not a human one, and the people who felt it are now mindless monstrosities trying to kill you. So the overall effect is that there's a distance between you and whatever happened, but there are these powerful emotions trying to claw their way up to the surface and enter your consciousness, like a much less peaceful and resigned version of The Inner Light. And all of that is an additional layer that's laid over the simple map-to-map narrative that explores a variety of settings that belonged to a ruined civilization and lets you piece together what might have gone down when it collapsed.

 

Armadosia has this one really neat moment where you look through a window at a rainy outdoor alcove of sorts with a single grave (iirc the name on it is David Rivette, which I've always assumed to be the name of Armadosia's creator, but who knows?). The megawad also has this odd monorail transit system that's a recurring element throughout many of the maps, tying together what would otherwise be a lot of totally disparate oddball map design into a long-term progression.

 

Definitely the hub/monsterless cutscene maps throughout both episodes of BTSX.

 

The museum map in Rekkr, E2M7. There's another map in the final episode, I think it's E3M6, that feels strangely parallel to the museum, but with objects suspended in time in a twisted hellish otherworld (probably an afterlife/land of the dead) rather than being arranged by human hands. The two of them are my favorite maps in the game.

 

All of Saturnine Chapel is basically a novella's worth of narrative somehow packed into a two-page short story. The Given, on the other hand, feels like a full novel.

 

The progression of Dragon Hunter's three maps in Whitemare 2 (15, 31, and 32), from huge post-apocalyptic frozen city to graveyards at the foot of the pillars of creation to jade-and-emerald void otherworld. 

 

Finally, I think it's impossible to talk about silent Doom-engine game narrative without mentioning Lainos and the many people who have followed in his footsteps, including Jaska's Lost Civilization, which isn't Russian but is consummately Russian-realist. The details packed into these maps always seem to tell the stories of things left behind, which I've written about elsewhere as well. Comatose, Doxylamine Moon, and especially 5till are among my favorite maps I've ever played.

 

In maps like these, you can't make a distinction between the narrative and the gameplay; the narrative is the gameplay. With some exceptions, I find stuff like this vastly more interesting than combat, and it's what keeps me coming back to Doom mods and video games in general.

[Final Verdict]

3 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

-snip-

 

 

Ye gods, what fresh insanity have I stumbled into this time?

 

And I thought I was unhinged. Gave me a good laugh though, thumbs up.

[AD_79]

This guy:

 

[Alper002]

I haven't played through all of three is a crowd yet, but it tells a story decently well throughout the maps so far. However, one map from the set that stands out for me is MAP18:Nowhere Fast, but mostly for the sort of self-contained story going on there.

 

Essentially, you have an exit door, which some hidden force is trying to prevent you from going through. It tries everything! Changing the required key, moving the door away from you, and something even more dastardly...

 

When you finally have all the keys, it seems like it panics for a moment before letting you win. Then you open the door, only to discover bricks on the other side! There's nothing behind those bricks either, and so you have to find the real exit elsewhere.

 

It adds personality to an otherwise simple progression scheme, and I love it for that.

 

I also like the little "side story" of the secret maps, where the character going "nope" to the place they tried going to is signified by MAP31 starting, and then promptly ending after about a second or two lol

[nostalgia]

My favorite story driven wad was definitely Going Down. I loved the maps, the intermissions screens where doomguy talks to his mom are hilarious and in the secrets levels you actually go up looking for signal and you can see parts of earlier levels, that was nice and funny. At the level 29 you finally destroy that god damn building, and in level 30 you're in your house when suddenly monsters invades them! You go switch hunting until you reach the elevator, the screen slowly goes to black and you reach the end of the wad. I still remember that moment where the screen goes slowly black in the elevator, it was memorable and holds a special part in my heart. <3.

 

A.L.T was like watching a Doom movie. I played it because of @Not Jabba entry in the Missed Caco awards and, well, other people could explain it better and more interestingly. That part in the last level where you are in the plane in grey with invisible enemies... you know, I knew exactly what was coming next after seeing that, and I didn't feel cheated in that moment, I was expectant to actually see it. That was a really good way to tell me that, really well planned by their part. It was an expert piece of work from map01.

 

Something that i remember that i loved too was Z1M8 in Knee deep in ZDoom. In the last level in certain sections the environment changes and enemies appears. You pick the keys, and hell is going loose: Hell is coming to phobos and it shows. The red fog is filled with cacos, and a horde of demons welcomes you. When you find all the keys and finally go to the bruiser brothers you go to hell, you fight in a hellish arena and then you come back to face the brothers. Then the silence... You walk down a valley and face the real boss (underwhelming or whatever, it was still a cool story driven ending). Then you cross the portal, lose all your weapons, and face the ending.

The slideshow appears with some screenshots, and then it ends. "The only way out is through" that was my wallpaper for years. I never understood why people hate it, except for the map with the caverns (Z1M3 I think it was? I can't remember). The entire wad was a 10/10 piece of good story telling and tedious key hunting.

 

Also, I love how in that map in Scythe 2, "Mr. X", the marine shows in some parts, shoots at you and then dissapears. You hear some Imps dying and adds to that eerie feeling. Cool.

 

By the way, I love this thread, thanks for making it.

[Doomkid]

Some of my favorites would definitely be Going Down, and the recently released Three is a Crowd. Story telling, either in subtle or overt ways, has always been something I like. Even mood setters like that opening shot for Earth.wad where the player starts looking out over the crashing waves - it gives the impression that you maybe took a break to rest or something before painfully entering the fray. Similarly, I love how you can really feel the age of the base you're wandering through in The Mucus Flow. Love that kind of stuff.

 

Anyone who likes my wads should know I value story, though. A good chunk of my wads at least have some sort of overt storyline and there is most definitely conceptual continuity from wad to wad. The UAC Rebellion, Doomed in Space, Rowdy Rudy (and the WIP sequel) and Ray Mohawk all provide the player with some kind of reason for the journey, not just "well hey, it's more Doom maps and the Doomguy is bored so he decided to kill some imps, now have at it".

 

It should be no surprise that Scypek2 created something awesome like that with TiaC, really. He left a little review on one of my wads quite a few years ago that said something like "instead of being the 999th predictable hellspawn invasion, this wad tried to be something a little different and unique, so 5 stars". That really reinforced the way I do my wadding and modding, it's one of the reviews I've received that really stuck in my mind throughout the years and I'm thankful for it.

 

Another series that does almost unbelievably well in this regard despite the tiny development time for each installment would be the DBPs most definitely.

 

EDIT: Tried to add a tiny joke about wow.wad, DRE and Doomguy's Pimp Ventures being the greatest stories ever told in Doom but this software totally buttfucks spoilers lol

 

EDIT again: Jeez, how did I forget to mention Area51? The start of map01, coupled with that iconic Mission Impossible MIDI and the custom human voices for all the enemies really made me feel like I was storming a hidden military compound. All it takes is a few well made details to lend a huge narrative element to a wad!

Edited July 22, 2020 by Doomkid

[D4NUK1]

Just want to add that the extermination day campaign it's really well done and inmersive, mostly the city levels and last part of hell. 

 

But for vainilla wads, to no say more that was told before, dimensión of the boomed and air. Are also excepcionaly good

[Scypek2]

17 hours ago, Alper002 said:

There's nothing behind those bricks either, and so you have to find the real exit elsewhere.

 

How do you know? Did you try breaking them? ;)

Anyway, it's really great to see my megawad making waves. And I hope you enjoy the story bits still remaining! Despite the wad's story being its main premise, most of the levels are pretty much filler in that regard... but there's another self-contained story on MAP26, and from the end of MAP28 onward the main storyline really picks up the pace.

 

9 hours ago, Doomkid said:

He left a little review on one of my wads quite a few years ago that said something like "instead of being the 999th predictable hellspawn invasion, this wad tried to be something a little different and unique, so 5 stars". That really reinforced the way I do my wadding and modding, it's one of the reviews I've received that really stuck in my mind throughout the years and I'm thankful for it.

 

Huh. I never would've expected it making such an impact! Pretty sure it was one of the first wad reviews I ever posted, too. Recently I downloaded a bundle of your works, booted up "UAC Rebellion" after the name caught my attention, and my reaction was basically, "So YOU are the guy who made THAT memorable wad!". So I guess it stuck in my mind as well :) One of the main things I remembered was the beginning of MAP01 with the guy on the train facing away from you. At the beginning of Doom, your fate is already sealed by the shiny metal door behind you, but here, you're not a traitor of the UAC until you press that left mouse button. Now that's intense.

 

9 hours ago, Doomkid said:

EDIT: Tried to add a tiny joke about wow.wad, DRE and Doomguy's Pimp Ventures being the greatest stories ever told in Doom but this software totally buttfucks spoilers lol

 

 

Seriously though! Interesting storylines seem particularly abundant in jokewads... or wads that weren't meant to be laughable but still ended up being. So it's either people who gave up on trying to be good and serious, or people too inexperienced to know better. The Sky May Be has you trapped inside Windows 3.1... map20 of WOOO2 has you infiltrate a pizza place and you can talk to all the patrons... and Gamarra's Soul Story is all about the storyline. In sucks in pretty much every way, with basic gameplay, basic visuals and a childish story, but it has you visit all kinds of varied locations and contains all those recurring elements, including the headquarters where you collect trophies from every mission you embark on. I would really love to see a wad (or a series!) with a similar premise but actually good.

 

I just remembered... Mandrill's Ass Project. that one's not much of a jokewad, really. Damn, that was a trip. The very first level shrinks you down and has you fight inside computer hardware, and then craziness and variety just keeps going. I need to replay this sometime.

 

People have already mentioned a lot of good ones, so I'll just mention my own stuff once more: Three Is A Crowd is good, but I don't think it's as dense with storyline as MAP12 of Doomworld Mega Project 2018 cl9. That one starts you off being carted away to an execution in some kind of colossal Nazi death machine, and then the worldbuilding keeps going.

[Grain of Salt]

Sunlust map14 has a boat.

[rehelekretep]

jokes aside, the midi on that map coupled with the YK(?) secret makes it one of my favourite Sunlust maps from an atmosphere perspective

[Archanhell]

Alright, this does not fill the "favorite" part of the title, but rather the "world-building" one, and it's not from another WAD but from the current project I have with I and my team, TCTOA - Why? Because I ABSOLUTELY waited for a thread like this, I love writing and telling stories, and thought someone would like to know a bit of lore from there, I will not extend much thus just saying one point, if someone likes the thing then I will proceed with something else.

 

Later on I may make a similar story/worldbuilding thread on its respective forum too, but maybe not today

 

Alright, so TCTOA is really story-driven and lore is abundant on it - Enemies, weaponry, maps and overall everything, but for now I will share some lore of the first thing I wrote about: The Island's Rangers.

 

----

They were once humans whose hearts emanated purity and a willpower strong enough to protect their Island against anything hostile that stumbled upon it.

Like brave soldiers from a prosperous kingdom, they fought every day against every problem they could find - Pests, storms, things that could interfere with the Island's ecosystem, and even made structures to protect themselves, and others, from those dangers that inevitably lurked on the Island.

 

Their leader was Hans "Crow" Drachenseele, a strong, brave and capable man whose nickname came from his enigmatic skill to "communicate" and coexist with the ravens.

Crow was an incredible leader, who lead their men towards an ideal paraise within their beloved island, never faltering to the neverending dangers.

 

Until that horrible day arrived, like death at a dying man's doorstep.

 

The day was clear and strangely quiet, there were no clouds nor birds on the sky, there was no wind nor animals running around.

They could hear it - Voices that came from nowhere, whose voices sounded like a mix between male and female, androgynous and incomprehensible entities swirling on the eden unperceivable to the mortal mind.

 

Who were they, if not the call of condemnation?

What were them, if not the cause for the end of everything?

 

Crow knew it.

Crow knew since the start, that their belowed Island was something that no human would have liked to protect - But not because it was inhospitable to man, but because something roamed in the middle of nowhere.

 

He also knew that if they wanted to avoid them from escaping that nature's bed and harm Humanity, he and his friends had to make a offer, a sacrifice.

And thus, they formed a contract with Those who shalt not be named offering their own souls on exchange of the power and strength to protect the Island, without directly saying they were going to fight against those abominations.

 

Yet, as expected - They fell one by one, their bodies being gnawed by The Great Old Ones's influence, their souls burnt out by the Flames of Cthugha, their minds broken apart by The Crawling Chaos.

 

Crow was of the last few to fall, running away from his team and hiding to avoid harming them.

One day before his last members found him, he wrote various notes on a paper, each having information about the Great Old Ones, and one of them was a note to his self.

 

"No one shall ever come here despite all our distress signals, as they must warn of the threat we could not stop - The threats against Humanity which will not be sealed for long enough.

 

I do not believe on fairytales nor in prophecies, and I highly doubt someone will come save us or even be able to stop them for much more.

But at least, I hope those people from the UEMC can hear my last words on the shape of those signals, and hopefully a brave man can take us out of this suffering, and be able to stop this threat - But not alone, as is this not a fight for oneself, but a fight for the entire Humanity's collectiveness.

 

Those tides.. Are starting to become more chaotic.

May my dear ravens become the guide for the brave."

 

 

 

 

[Chip]

I like the fact that everything is nuts in Nuts.wad. It gives a sense of realism. 

[Catpho]

dw pls dont ban me for 2 year bump (e: goddamit it's 4 years)

Anyways, everyone knows that Comatose is one of those wads that's just rich with this stuff. Here's another to the pile I noticed on replay: there's a spiffy looking house in a corner, with an expansive garden that's well-trimmed and everything. In there, right at a bench near the entrance, there's a single sector cigarette butt sitting neatly on and well inside an ash tray, the rest is spick and span. Comatose is littered with cigarettes (and sometimes their packaging as well), often densely clumped with each other near trash bins, or, more often than not, thrown with abandon around the parks and playgrounds. I mean, it's not deep in a general sense, considering you'll already "get it" with the surrounding poverty contrasting the fancy house, but this weird extra mile feels like a crossing the line twice moment, where it loops back into being memorable.

Images:
 

Spoiler

 

Edited March 30 by Catpho

[Stupid Bunny]

Oh no Stupid Bunny is rambling about Equinox again

 

I was just thinking about this the other night, specifically in terms of map sets that thread their maps and ideas together really well into a coherent narrative. Going Down is of course exemplary of this, but Equinox has always been incredible to me because of how well it tells its story with basically nothing said outright.

 

At the outset, B.P.R.D. tells us this much about the wad and what is about to happen:

 

Quote

'Equinox' is a 13 level wad. I mainly did it for the new graphics, sound and music. Go nuts.

And that’s it. There is exactly nothing about what Equinox is, where we are, why we’re there, what we’re about to discover or any of it. The levels, so far as I know, are nameless; there is no flavor text between maps 11 and 12. I guess there is enough (literal) signposting to know:

• Equinox is an international space association
• MAP03-4 are the Genome Labs
• MAP06-7 are the storage facility
• MAP09 is a hangar

Everything else is told, or at least hinted at, through textures, design, and architecture. We discover some freaky genetic experiments going on; we hitch a ride on a really terrifying UFO; and we end up on a forbidding and truly inhospitable alien world.

 

The fact that nothing is explained anywhere makes the entire experience so much more alienating, in the best possible way, like we’ve been sent in blind and will never fully understand the nature of the threat we’re up against or what happened. The fact that the final map looks exactly like the entrance to the Equinox facility raises so many horrifying questions that are never addressed; did the aliens model it after the Equinox base? Was Equinox in league with alien invaders, or experimenting on them? Did Equinox create the monsters in their genome lab?—are the monsters still demons from hell?—were the aliens ALSO destroyed by the same beasts?

 

Nothing else in Doom has been so effective for me at making me feel so beautifully alone against something so terrifying and unknown. That’s why it’s still probably the most moving experience I’ve had playing a mapset from start to finish. I’ve taken a journey from some shiny island laboratory to do a little bit of investigating, and have ended on a horrible, dark, impossibly remote planet where, even if I am victorious against nigh impossible odds, I will probably die the only human alive there.