International Doom: Must-play WADs from around the world

[Lane Powell]

Today I took some time to clean out and organize my PWADs folder and take stock of what classics I haven't tried yet (so many)... and admire the sheer size of the community (-ies) that have kept this game alive. And a thought occurred to me: one way to find new projects to check out would be to emphasize the international scope of the Doom scene, so I ask you to name any notable WADs from Doomers outside the USA and the Anglosphere more generally.

 

- the works of the Clan B0S crew (Russia/Ukraine)

- Kama Sutra (Czech)

- Bloodstain (Czech)

- Japanese Community Project

- Water Spirit (Japan)

 

... and there are probably others I'm forgetting or whose authors I didn't make note of.

 

Recommend away!

[LadyMistDragon]

French Doom community always makes good CPs. franckFRAG released a highly regarded megawad called.... something I don't remember. But Heures d agonie and 180 MPV are excellent (I can't exactly say the same about Short Maps for Short People but that's a little different)

Masayan in the JCP made this speedy little thing called Elegy.

Ozonia, and Moonblood are a cool Latin-developed wads

Struggle: the Interesting Legacy was made by a Korean

Lost Civilization was made by someone from Finland I think, and if not that one, than 1 or 2 others (they are not necessarily known for it like the Czechs but are still fine wad crafters).

Perpetual Powers was made by a Pole

Nicolas Monti (Latin) made some stuff but I think he might be better described as idiosyncratic 

 

 

[brick]

This would be a VERY long list if comprehensive, so many great contributions by so many different people and communities from all over the world, Doom really is very international. I'll list a few of my favourites that haven't already been mentioned, but this is not even remotely comprehensive. Apologies if I flip back and forth between real names and nicknames, I sometimes only remember one of them.

 

Enjay from Scotland, very prolific wad author who was already there in 1994 and still active, the long list includes the NJ and BGPA series. Winner of multiple cacowards. Early adopter of ZDoom and of showing what it was capable of.

 

Yashar Garibzadeh from Iran, well-known speedrunner from the early 2000s, also had a hand in many famous releases from that period.

 

Doomkid and (I think) Pcorf are both from Australia, and I'm not even going to try and list the huge number of high quality and influential wads they have each released in the past 25 or so years.

 

Christian Hansen from Denmark, another prolific long-timer whose impressive resume includes Flay The Obscene, CH Retro, High/Low, and many many others.

 

Kristus from Sweden, almost every wad with his name on it is mentioned in the cacowards/top100, perhaps most famously Phobia and Ni'mrod, and having recently completed a replay of Curse of D'Sparil I want to mention it again because it's quite possibly my single favourite Heretic episode (yes, including the IWAD).

 

Karthik Abhirama Krishna from India, quite prolific during the 2000s, highlights include the Out of Phase, Congestion Control and Dark Fate series. His brother Varun also has a few wads to his name, The Outer Darkness is quite cool IMO.

 

Matthias Worch and Tormentor667, both from Germany. The first hails back to MM and Requiem, contrasting with Tormentor's push for advanced (G)Zdoom features in City of the Damned, KDIZD and Blade of Agony.

 

Espi was from Finland or Norway, can't remember which one (sorry). Often cited as an inspiration by later mappers. Many contributions, many of them award-winning, showing incredible versatility in style, just compare Back to Basics to The Shrine to the multitude of speedmaps. Sadly left us far too soon.

 

Ola Bjorling IIRC from Sweden (lots of Scandinavian representation it seems!). Not a very large number of maps, but HUGELY influential due to many texture sets including both Darkenings, Gothic 2, and the tremendously impressive OTEX.

 

I'll leave it at this, but like I said earlier this barely scratches the surface. In many ways Doom truly brings us all together.

[Azure_Horror]

French mappers are very skilled and creative.

My favorite french WADs are

- Tangerine Nightmare - this is a "Top 100 Lost Cacowards" material, in my book. The visuals can compete with Ancient Aliens, Lost Civilization, and Dimensions of the Boomed. The gameplay is also pretty memorable. And map 07 is crazy.

- 180 minutes pour vivre - IMHO, this 32 map megawad has the best difficulty progression ever. It harmonically goes from Doom2 level of difficulty to pretty crazy slaughter and challenge maps. And the difficulty does not feel too jarring! On top of that, there a lot of crazy concepts and subtle visual changes, which fit together extremely well.

 

Among prominent French mappers, Roofi is especially notable. His maps are insanely inventive! He is the author of Tangerine Nightmare map 07. He also made 6* completely different maps for 180 minutes pour vivre. Six! How crazy is that?

 

(* ok, ok someone may say that map 32 and map 27 are not completely different. And they both share a common inspiration source. But they are still clearly distinct in both visuals and gameplay.)

 

 

Antares031 is from South Korea. His attention to deatail is legendary, and his specific brand of gameplay can be described as "getting lost in a huge, ominous, beautiful world". Even his small maps feel this way. Antares created too cacoward winners - Struggle from 2018 and Antaresian Reliquary from 2020 - and contributed to countless other projects.

[Master O]

11 hours ago, Lane Powell said:

Today I took some time to clean out and organize my PWADs folder and take stock of what classics I haven't tried yet (so many)... and admire the sheer size of the community (-ies) that have kept this game alive. And a thought occurred to me: one way to find new projects to check out would be to emphasize the international scope of the Doom scene, so I ask you to name any notable WADs from Doomers outside the USA and the Anglosphere more generally.

 

- the works of the Clan B0S crew (Russia/Ukraine)

- Kama Sutra (Czech)

- Bloodstain (Czech)

- Japanese Community Project

- Water Spirit (Japan)

 

... and there are probably others I'm forgetting or whose authors I didn't make note of.

 

Recommend away!

 

Any of Eternal's (Russia) maps, especially all of the Epic wads with Egyptian themes.

[Thelokk]

Chiming in for Italy, @Remmirath and @Walter confetti are two very well known figures in the scene, way too many contributions to list. 

 

A few faces from the italian Doom community released a megawad quite a few years ago, have to admit the national scene has all but died in recent years (which I blame for taking me so long to return to Doom after almost 15 years of hiatus) and pretty much depends on international forums like DW. 

[Walter confetti]

Yeah, talking about the guys beyond that wad, I'd like to mention Ismaele and UltimateLorenzo as worthy mappers to check out. Actually is the mapper that mostly inspired to make maps back in 2005, together with Virgil TheDoomPoet.

Also @Batandy is a really talented and well know Doom mapper from Italy

[MattFright]

Gonna recommend some really phenomenal wads by some very talented fellow Brazilians in the community:

 

• Ozonia
• Unhallowed
• Atmospheric Extinction

[Dreemurr Deceevurr]

Hellbound was developed by a Hungarian mapper, Z86.

Yonatan Donner and Haggay Niv, best known for the original Hell Revealed, were based in Israel. Donner was also a prominent speedrunner active in the Doom and Quake scenes.

There used to be a clan from Taiwan and Hong Kong called "DOOM Barracks" that made the DBZone mapset that used to be popular on Skulltag/Zandronum and ZDaemon a while back.

 

[Pegleg]

Here are some options from some other countries, a few of which haven't been mentioned yet on the list. These should not be considered complete lists of maps by these individual mappers, nor should they be considered the only mappers from those respective countries. These are just the ones I happen to know about, with some of their leading individual works.

 

Australia

Sunder by @Insane_Gazebo (wiki: Insane_Gazebo)

 

Brazil

Unhallowed by @CyanoBlugron (wiki: Cyano)

 

Finland

Remnant and Ar Luminae by @Aurelius (wiki: Aurelius)

Espi was mentioned earlier, but he was also from Finland.

 

Germany

Hurt by @elend (wiki: elend)

 

Mexico

Arceon by @DMPhobos (wiki: DMPhobos)

 

New Zealand

The Slaughter Spectrum and Bastion of Chaos by @Bridgeburner56 (wiki: Bridgeburner)

 

Sweden

Combat Shock (1 and 2) by @dannebubinga (wiki: dannebubinga) (he co-authored Sunlust, as well)

[LadyMistDragon]

Some other thoughts.While I can think of many important German mappers (Denis Moeller and Daniel Gimmer), it seems there has never been a specific German community project, which isn't that surprising in retrospect so they weren't mentioned.

 

There's also Alien Vendetta and Scythe, done by Norwegians and Swedish respectively but they're known enough that it seemed trivial

 

1 hour ago, Dreemurr Deceevurr said:

Hellbound was developed by a Hungarian mapper, Z86.

 

 

 

I knew the mapper was Eastern European but I'd forgotten the country. But it's cool to see hellbound mentioned!

 

 

I forgot Jazzmaster! He's Filipino and probably is best known for the Abysm series

Edited July 6, 2022 by LadyMistDragon

[Lane Powell]

Thanks for all the replies so far. As expected, plenty of stuff to chew through, and some WADs I recognize but whose origins I didn't take note of. Cheers!

[Horus]

Danlex is a very talented mapper from El Salvador, best known for Lullaby: 

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/119819-lullaby-single-level-for-gzdoom/

 

Ronnie James Diner from Canada who has contributed to many community projects (and his maps always seem to be one of the highlights of their respective sets imo) and has a few solo releases, most notably Tartarus.

Edited July 6, 2022 by Horus

[Berubaretto]

antares031,who has created and contributed to various cacoward-winning projects,is from South Korea.He's best known for Struggle - Antaresian Legacy and Antaresian Reliquary.

Edited July 6, 2022 by Berubaretto

[Doomkid]

Seriously, no one has mentioned The Ultimate Czech Level, GALAXIA?

[antares031]

Captain J is a South Korean artist & modder who contributed to various Doom community projects, such as The Adventures of Square. His gameplay mod Netronian Chaos received one of gameplay mod awards in Cacowards 2018.

 

GreenL3gacy is also a South Korean artist & modder who designed the third person shooter gameplay mod Black Warrior. He's currently developing a standalone indie game, called Operation Echo; a 2D graphic side scroller shooter on GZDoom engine.

 

 

6 hours ago, Berubaretto said:

She's best known for Struggle - Antaresian Legacy and Antaresian Reliquary.

 

Thanks for the mention. :) Here's a little bit of correction to avoid confusion: She -> He. I should've mentioned about it somewhere.

[Berubaretto]

30 minutes ago, antares031 said:

Captain J is a South Korean artist & modder who contributed to various Doom community projects, such as The Adventures of Square. His gameplay mod Netronian Chaos received one of gameplay mod awards in Cacowards 2018.

 

GreenL3gacy is also a South Korean artist & modder who designed the third person shooter gameplay mod Black Warrior. He's currently developing a standalone indie game, called Operation Echo; a 2D graphic side scroller shooter on GZDoom engine.

 

 

 

Thanks for the mention. :) Here's a little bit of correction to avoid confusion: She -> He. I should've mentioned about it somewhere.

Oops!Sorry for that.I'll correct it soon.

[pcorf]

On 7/5/2022 at 3:21 PM, brick said:

Doomkid and (I think) Pcorf are both from Australia.

 

Australia, Correct.

[Albertoni]

Thanks for the suggestions, there are quite a few maps I want to play in here, see if cultural changes translate to map design and all.

 

Personally, I've always had a soft spot for Remmirath / Morpheus, who is Italian.

 

Also, Batman Doom was made by a team from Chile.

[Roofi]

For my country (France), I usually see the 3HA trilogy, 180 minutes pour vivre and Tangerine Nightmare mentioned.

 

The French Doom Community also made :

 

- 20 ans d'Ultimate Doom (Ultimate Doom episode)

- And the bloodshed began (Doom 2 megawad)

- Endless Torture (Ultiimate Doom megawad)

- Survive in Hell (Doom 2 Megawad)

- Swift Death (Doom 2 Megawad)

- Fast and 4 Doom (Doom 2 minisode)

 

and others I forgot the name.

[kalensar]

I have one to offer. Requires Zdoom, zandro or GZD. Fun one map wad but utter hades to beat.

 

DoomCube-- https://www.moddb.com/games/doom-ii/addons/doomcube

Texas

 

Please note that this is not like the movie series, but is definitely a Doom style homage inspired them.