Egg Boy Posted December 11, 2022 (edited) Thank you for reading the first annual Squonkawards. This thread will serve as containment for any and all bad opinions presented below. Before we begin, I'd like to get a little serious, 2022 was a rough year, if not for the world (and when isn't it?), then for me personally. Despite the turbulent nature of the world and our individual lives, there are three constants to hold onto: death, taxes, and the Doom community. Considering the other two options, I prefer the latter. If you're reading this, you probably do too, so I'd like to thank you, reader, and everyone who contributes passion and positivity to Doomworld, and the greater community at large. I'd especially like to thank every member of Squonker: @AD_79, @Bobby "J, @DCG Retrowave, @Juza, @myolden, @Skronkidonk, @T.Will, @uber, @Yugiboy85, and @ZeMystic (whew, that list gets longer every time I look at it) along with every guest mapper. Not sure how I would have made it through this year without you guys. With that out of the way lets hand out a few awards! -Egg Boy Nostalgia by @myolden (I swear to god this was not a conflict of interest when I chose it) Myolden's Nostalgia was perhaps the most surprising release I played in 2022. In a year where Mouldy reclaimed his reign over doomcute, a year where Esselfortium made me appreciate Knee Deep in ZDoom, the wad that most surprised me was the Doom equivalent of comfort food. Nostalgia channels the wads of yesteryear through the lens of the densest of rose-tinted glasses. The brevity of each map creating the atmosphere of an early 2000s mapper's mix-tape. From Almian starports, to Kama-Sutresque cities, to straight up Romero homages. Myolden's ability to curate specific influnces is what makes Nostalgia more than a vague homage to wad history, though, I doubt I would be singing its praises if that's all it did. The combat and layouts of Nostalgia are often deceptively modern. Finely tuned combat set pieces and tight, interconnected layouts were not a standard in Doom modding's early years. So, Nostalgia's most impressive trick is the balancing act between early 2000s eccentricity and modern collective knowledge. Like any great trapezist, Myolden makes it look easy. -Egg Boy Overboard by @mouldy Overboard was my first experience with a Mouldy wad. I had not played Going Down yet, and only had a slight idea about what I was getting into when I booted the WAD up. I was greeted by six, short, beautifully detailed maps filled with humor, doomcute, and demons who want to chew on your teeth. Each map had something that was memorable and made me say “holy shit that was awesome.” Mouldy has a brilliant command over the Boom engine, using the features to implement beautifully designed encounters, stunning set-pieces, and humorous scenes. Overboard is also accompanied by a soundtrack that could have only been scored by a mad man, making each level feel like a small slapstick film. It’s not a soundtrack I would listen to in the car, but I couldn’t imagine Overboard with anything but the iconic chromatic riffs and free jazz. Overboard includes a unique feature that I had not seen in a Doom WAD before: New Game+. This souls-like/metroidvania staple is included and accessed after you beat the first six levels. Each map in NG+ is remixed with its monster placement, increased difficulty, and a bloody sign that lets you know what you’re getting into. As someone who has not played a Mouldy wad before, Overboard was a fantastic introduction to their work. This WAD is a masterclass in balancing aesthetics, combat, and humor. If I was thrown overboard, I’d fucking drown. When my stiff, bloated body washes up on shore, you can be sure to find this WAD in a USB stick in my pocket. -ZeMystic Occula by @bemused & @tourniquet I admit my voracious dooming tendencies have died down this year, but one of the wads I was eating well on was the out-of-nowhere double team partita of Occula. A mapset budging at the intersection of a grimoire filled with 1000 ways to stab a man, brain stabbing architecture, and cosmically unfathomable gothic gigaplexes, Occula is a release comprised of scraps from the co-leads previous adventures and extra murder machines to tantalize only the most diehard key masher. Even with that, the core 4 maps offered are more than accessible on ITTYD, even the brunt of encounters is with a mechanical degree that few wads before really made me feel without getting burnt. Occula’s design philosophy is Sunder+; vertical chromatic effigies litter the landscape, surrounded by tapestries of rust and blood, some yours too. The progressions have you make leaps and bounds across the tarnished buildings and cliffs into certainly devious encounters, some of which kept me at the boundaries of what I could do for their entirety. Despite that, I feel that not only has Bemused earned an extra layer of brevity since his Abandon days, but tourniquet has somehow made their economic style of encounter design even more economic. Even with that, I have to commend the 3rd maps gargantuan scale, and it’s boggling efficacy with balancing the scale of ascending and absconding a twisted tech castle with a flow of gameplay so smooth it almost makes you forget how deviously hard it can be. Even if I haven’t played a whole lot of wads this year, Occula is a wad I’m sure to revisit for the next part of my life. I won’t mention even past the 3rd maps because the ending and the secret maps are for the brave, not in the eye of the beholder, for Occula will decide how brave you are to scale it’s desolate towers -Bobby Anomaly Report by @valkiriforce Out of the maybe 3 megawads that I've played that came out this year, Imma have to dedicate this write up to Anomaly Report. I'm a sucker for old school style megawads and this wad is no exception. The first 8 maps really had me drawn into the wad when I played it because they have this open style sort of exploration element to the maps that kept me interested and wanting more, but didn't ruin the progression making them confusing. Map05's huge circle room makes the player feel like you are in this huge abandoned toxin refinery but due to old age the walls got rusted and the slime turned into sludge (idk just my imagination). The combat in this mapset is at a really nice sweet spot which is one of my favorite things about the wad. As I played I never felt bored or uninterested because Valkiriforce placed the monsters in a way where each monster feels like they have a place in the map and they actually belong there. It's not too hard to where it will make you rage and never come back but it will throw in a few slaughter bits to keep things interesting and spicy. A good example of this exciting yet tame monster placement is Map31. Your in a twisted techbase that has the architecture of an Insane_Gazebo map and the gameplay of Speed of Doom. Heavy Chaingunners, Cacos, Boney Boys, Archviles, and a little splash of Cyberdemons. Before I finish this up I'm gonna include some of my favorites in the mapset: Map09: A big city map that weirdly reminds me of The Varginha incident. Map11: Has a really epic vibe surrounding the map. The music, the scale, the ending. Perfect way to close off an episode Map17: Just holds a really big plutonia vibe around it which I love. Small but packs a punch. Map21: A cool little city map that kicks ass. Gives me KSutra energy. Introduces the new blue gloomy sky to the episode which I absolutely love. Map29: An epic penultimate techbase map that feels like you are at the heart of the demonic invasion. Has a mean opening and booming music that really gets your blood pumping and ready for Map30. So that's my choice for the Squonkawards. Anomaly Report is a fantastic megawad I recommend you to play if you haven't already. Its got good looks throughout the entire mapset, fun gameplay that will test your skills and keep you interested, and was made by someone who is extremely talented and clearly loves doom. -Skronkidonk Hydrosphere by @Bri Hydrosphere is an episode that is filled to the brim with compact techbases, lush greenery, and flowing water. (duh.) Each map is beautifully hand-crafted with an excellent eye for detail, as well as impressive layouts that feed into each other. The WAD also features an improved color palette with a beautiful shade of blue. The visuals alone are very impressive and are definitely not something to ignore. I could only imagine how much time and care the detailing took. This WAD is jam-packed with monsters, primarily crowds of low tier imps and former humans that feed you small doses of dopamine when killed. Each combat encounter is beautifully designed and uses the map’s limited space incredibly. Helping (or hindering) you with the saturated monster count is a high population of explosive barrels. If you compiled every WAD in existence and looked at the distribution of barrels, Hydrosphere would account for a third of them. This is an exaggeration of course, but there is a shit ton of barrels to make the demons go splat. Speaking of splat, the audio department of Hydrosphere isn’t lacking either. Hydrosphere features a number of sound replacements to give the WAD its own unique vibe. Most notable are the door open sounds, the gib sounds, and thankfully the plasma rifle firing noise. The accompanying soundtrack was comprised of tracks borrowed from @Dragonfly’s magnificent discography, meaning that each map has a banger. Hydrosphere is a bite-sized joy that I had a blast running through. The WAD can easily be beaten in under an hour, and I highly recommend giving yourself the time to play through it. Do it. Do it before they get you. -ZeMystic Knee Deep in Knee Deep in Knee Deep in etc. by @esselfortium et al. Since WOW.wad's infamous "illusio-pit," (and likely before) WAD authors have sought to use every exploit at their disposal to achieve seemingly impossible feats in our favorite engine. Vanilla Doom is an unwieldly beast, but no one has quite the handle on it as Esselfortium. KDIKDIZD is a true "mapper's mapset," where each level is just as interesting in-editor as it is in game. Trying to figure out how the hell the slopes and transluscent floors are done (the answer is ALWAYS mid-textures) reminding me of hours spent staring at the 3D bridge in Scythe 2's first map. The wad effectively becomes a "who's who" of forgotten tricks, and advantageous engine quirks. KDIKDIKDIZD is the sort of wad you can admire for its technical achievements alone. But what it does with its source material is the real trick. Esselfortium appears to have taken great care in modernizing detail and opening up level design. Each choice feels deliberate in improving the overall quality of the experience. Each level is better interconnected, cutting out uneccesary downtime, improving map-flow, and sometimes introducing entirely new setpieces and encounters. Its truly difficult to keep the word-count of this particular review low, I feel I've rattled on about the wad enough, and I haven't even mentioned the wonderful midis, composed by Mancuso herself as well as Jimmy Paddock, or the wacky story line, which is sure to delight fans of doomcute and puns alike. Its a deep wad, its goofy premise hides its true mastery of an "antiquated" game engine, like a cyberdemon, waiting for the unsuspecting space marine to fall into its trap. What I'm trying to say is, KDIKDIKDIKDIZD is the ULTIMATE Illusio-pit. -Egg Boy Edited January 6 by Egg Boy 79 Share this post Link to post
taufan99 Posted December 11, 2022 (edited) Enjoyed reading this. The title made me assume this was just one of those troll threads where someone just goes to say "I disagree with the current Cacowards and here's my own version!!!11111oneoneonehax0r," while giving out random no-name WADs with unmemorable stuff, failed attempts at a jokewad, or, even worse, Terry traps. I'm glad I got proven wrong a lot, even if the essence isn't all too wrong (...perhaps? Other than KDiKDiZD, that is. In a sense that it got a Cacoward but is also included here.) 2 Share this post Link to post
Gez Posted December 11, 2022 2 minutes ago, taufan99 said: Other than KDiKDiZD, that is. In a sense that it got a Cacoward but is also included here. Overboard and Anomaly Report, too. 4 Share this post Link to post
Egg Boy Posted December 11, 2022 (edited) On 12/11/2022 at 9:11 AM, taufan99 said: Enjoyed reading this. The title made me assume this was just one of those troll threads where someone just goes to say "I disagree with the current Cacowards and here's my own version!!!11111oneoneonehax0r," while giving out random no-name WADs with unmemorable stuff, failed attempts at a jokewad, or, even worse, Terry traps. I'm glad I got proven wrong a lot, even if the essence isn't all too wrong (...perhaps? Other than KDiKDiZD, that is. In a sense that it got a Cacoward but is also included here.) Don't think too hard about it, we just wanted to write about our favorite wads this year, its not a grand statement against the cacowards (in fact, the Squonkawards are mentioned in an article, and rd was already aware of its existence). Edited January 6 by Egg Boy 6 Share this post Link to post
Omniarch Posted December 11, 2022 (edited) I love this, heh. It is always interesting to see different angles on the same material, and this sort of x-award event is a fantastic avenue for such. And that's not even getting into the value of highlighting a potentially greater range of content in a variety of styles. 2 Share this post Link to post
nickxcom Posted December 11, 2022 Great writeup! I somehow missed Hydrosphere but loved @Bri's Fallen Leaves, so I will have to play the back catalog here ASAP. Also appreciate the Viper the Rapper, didn't expect to see him on Doomworld this morning lol 2 Share this post Link to post
Endless Posted December 11, 2022 Well this is a nice surprise! It's a breath of fresh air. I was honestly expecting something more akin to trolling with such a dumbass title lol but the reviews are pretty nice, always a joy to read awards-write ups. Hopefully it is a sign of even more ceremonies to come in the future. ;) 2 Share this post Link to post
Noiser Posted December 11, 2022 This is amazing, thank you very much :-) 2 Share this post Link to post
mouldy Posted December 11, 2022 thank you for my crackoward, i will cherish it 14 Share this post Link to post
Zaratul Posted December 11, 2022 Cool awards. Nostalgia and Anomaly Reborn are great! :) 2 Share this post Link to post
Redneckerz Posted December 11, 2022 This deserves its own page at the Cacowards of 2022 because i really do not want this to fall off the page. Amazing write up and a unexpected addition to the Cacowards :) 2 Share this post Link to post
Wyrmwood Posted December 11, 2022 Great reviews, I'd actually played most of these but somehow missed Nostalgia and not tried Knee Deep yet though I have downloaded it. All worthy awards, hopefully you make this a tradition. 3 Share this post Link to post
phoo Posted December 12, 2022 (edited) The Cacowards along with threads like these serve as a reminder for me to crawl out from under my rock once and a while and play more new wads. I spent today playing through Nostalgia; time well spent! Great thread! 5 Share this post Link to post
Daytime Waitress Posted December 12, 2022 The only thing that can ease the dull ache of a lack of new squonker maps, is a squonker review thread. You lot have put out an obscene amount of classy stuff this year, and it was a delight to read up on what has inspired and motivated you all individually. Here's to a better 2023, for all of you. Spoiler Or, if you made absolute bangers while having a terrible year, maybe we should establish a GoFundMe to make you absolutely miserable next year, too? Spoiler Target goal of $2000 will pay for a random Doomworld member to come and kick EggBoy in the nads once a month. Spoiler Stretch goal of $6000 will ensure that someone slips arsenic into his cup of tea on the reg. 5 Share this post Link to post
Somniac Posted December 12, 2022 I have not yet checked out Nostalgia or Hydrosphere but this writeup really sells them to me. 2 Share this post Link to post
ZeMystic Posted December 13, 2022 14 hours ago, Daytime Waitress said: Hide contents Target goal of $2000 will pay for a random Doomworld member to come and kick EggBoy in the nads once a month. I already do that for free. 5 Share this post Link to post
