Best GZDoom wads/megawads

[Master O]

11 hours ago, dei_eldren said:

 

You're right...looking at year 2019 (chosen coz i know two wads of it, Eviternity and Shotgun Symphony), there's scarce vanilla to be found among them.  Thank you.

 

You may find a lot more Vanilla wads here:

 

https://www.doomworld.com/10years/bestwads/

https://www.doomworld.com/25years/top-100-memorable-maps/

https://www.doomworld.com/25years/top-25-missed-cacowards/

 

[ChopBlock223]

Alfonzone is one I like a lot, a big pile of short episodes, with fun and varied themes, also making use of GzDoom effects and functionality, like slopes, 3D floors, scripting, etc.

 

With each episode being about four levels or so, and with some pretty varied non-vanilla environments, I found it to be a very appealing set for mod development, do a bunch of tweaks and changes, then try them out until you get them right, play through the minisode and make notes of what needs changing, then move onto the next set of maps and the next point of development.

 

Pirate Doom is one I've enjoyed a lot as well, and I've had a lot of fun with Golden Souls.

[dei_eldren]

3 hours ago, Master O said:

 

You may find a lot more Vanilla wads here

 

 

Thanks!  More really interesting resources as reviews and info are always welcome.

[dei_eldren]

3 hours ago, ChopBlock223 said:

Alfonzone is one I like a lot, a big pile of short episodes, with fun and varied themes, also making use of GzDoom effects and functionality, like slopes, 3D floors, scripting, etc.

 

With each episode being about four levels or so, and with some pretty varied non-vanilla environments, I found it to be a very appealing set for mod development, do a bunch of tweaks and changes, then try them out until you get them right, play through the minisode and make notes of what needs changing, then move onto the next set of maps and the next point of development.

 

Pirate Doom is one I've enjoyed a lot as well, and I've had a lot of fun with Golden Souls.

 

Thank you. :)  Downloaded.

[Pixel Fiend]

What are some more remarkable gzdoom exclusive wads? I'm not a fan of gzdoom and might have missed something cool.

I've got those names so far:

 

Elementalism

The Age Of Hell

Biophilia

Unloved

Mapwich
Refracted Reality

Nameless

Alienated

Honte Remastered

Paradise

Dark Universe

 

rd mentioned a few more but those I don't like:

 

On 1/24/2021 at 3:26 PM, rd. said:

Winter's Fury
The Adventures of Square
Ashes 2063 TC 
Touhou Doom
Blade of Agony
Urban Brawl: Action Doom 2
Hedon
Reelism
Doom: The Golden Souls 2 
Pirate Doom

Zen Dynamics

[baja blast rd.]

Actual context ^

 

On 1/24/2021 at 9:26 AM, rd. said:

The mapsets on the ZDoom community's rankings list are varied and generally left a strong mark among people who primarily play ZDoom mods and maps: 

 

Winter's Fury
The Adventures of Square
Ashes 2063 TC 
Touhou Doom
Blade of Agony
Urban Brawl: Action Doom 2
Hedon
Reelism
Doom: The Golden Souls 2 
Pirate Doom

Zen Dynamics

...

 

I was scratching my head when I saw that quote just now, because I knew it wasn't my own set of personal recommendations. 

 

[Toad]

There is a doom wad with tarot cards that you need to pick at the start of each level. It's technically a GZDoom wad, because it only works with GZDoom. I don't know what it's called, but I saw Coin play it on stream. But yeah I recommend that one, I think it works with every wad.

[Tango]

18 minutes ago, Toad said:

I don't know what it's called, but I saw Coin play it on stream.

 

sounds like Corruption Cards

[Lorenz0]

Seems like this is the right place to advertise this one:

 

 

[Crusader No Regret]

There's Hocus Pocus Doom, if one can even call it Doom-like.  Cacoward winner.  Turns out melee enemies are much more dangerous when they can run through you; they make Doom's demons salivate with jealously.

 

Also there's Mayhem Mansion which is silly and goofy and features a very different different arsenal for battling a wacky batch of foes.  Doesn't seem to get much attention and I don't recall how I even found out about it in the first place.  Link here: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/m-o/mayhemm4

 

I'm hesitant to name Eternal Doom 4: Return from Oblivion among the best of ZDoom requiring wads (though there are things I admire about it) but it does use scripting and other ZDoom features to create setups that wouldn't be possible in a Boom-compatible map.  400 starting monsters on a map can be around 600 or so by the time the exit is reached and that's before archvile resurrections and pain elemental spawns are added to that total.

[ChopBlock223]

EDIT: I must really be tired, because I forgot I once made a post like this in this very thread. :P

 

I quite enjoyed Alfonzone, big stack of colorful minisodes with variety in their themes. The bite sized nature of them made them really good for gameplay mod development and experimentation, and I like that there was some levity in the themes.

 

Pirate Doom is one of the most fun mapsets, and I think that even Vanilla purists oughta check it out. I love how every monster has their own pirate costume, it's so incredibly charming.

 

Zen Dynamics wowed the fuck out of me as a teen, and there's aspects that I still like about it when I reminisce about the mod, but it's been a long while now, and don't recall if the level design itself was actually very good. It was stitched together from a big pile of map stumps and leftovers of Malcolm Sailor's, and in retrospect a lot of it seems very abstract and disjointed as a result. Puzzling chunks together, rather than drawing from scratch, does seem like it'd be interesting to try though.

[leodoom85]

I see the title of the thread and I haven't seen the Joy of Mapping megawads at all, especially from 4 to 6...probably was in one of those links posted but damn...

 

I strongly recommend to try all of them.

[scalliano]

Titan 1, 2 and 1024.

[Pixel Fiend]

 

 

[Egyptian Guardian]

You have to play Ultimate Torment & Torture. It combines beautiful level design and textures, different weapons, and custom enemies while still feeling like a doom game. The final boss is absolutely epic. 15 years old and still going strong.

[kalensar]

UAC Vinur Prime Redux. Great map for Zandronum, Zdoom and gzDoom.

 

Doom Tribute. Great retelling of Doom and Doom 2.

 

Ashes Afterglow, full version or Vaccinated versions(vanillafied maps)

 

Ascent of Titan: excellent episode length mapset by DavidN.

 

Dominus Diabolus now that it has gone more Zdoom than Choco.

 

 

[Barry Burton]

Gonna shamelessly plug my own: https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=61918