Gameplay focused PWADs

[duh]

Before you ask: no weapons/monster replacements mods. It's vanilla oriented single-player maps, (limit-removing included, but remember that limit-removing != Boom/ZDoom).

Well my inner guts often tells me people around here are too much focused in map beauty on single-player maps. I don't mean that map beauty is a bad thing, it's definitely part of what makes a good map.

Simply put: list maps where you have had pleasurable experience and gave you room for some cool tricks fighting monsters or interesting monster combos. I have grown bored of sunder.wad, where you fight hordes of monsters through out the whole map (it's not a bad thing, too, but that becomes repetitive).

Just a vanilla styled PWADs that is refreshing, gameplay-wise. As example, I did spent an entire night just downloading and playing very simple and early PWADs by Lee Wallis, from the Team Hellspawn site. Architecture is simple, but it was fun.

Gameplay is probably a subjective matter, so treat it that way.

[scifista42]

So you basically mean: Any vanilla or limit-removing wads that are not extreme slaughtermaps, that are fun to play, and visuals don't matter? Here are my tips:

Reverie
Doom 2 Reloaded
Needs More Detail
Interception
DTWID
D2TWID
BTSX E1
BTSX E2
And any single map by Memfis - he mostly makes vanilla/limit-removing maps, minimum of them are Boom-compatible.

[cq75]

I think Scientist 2 falls into that category

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/?file=levels/doom2/megawads/sci2.zip

I think the hell revealed and mm series might kind of fall into this category too.

Also, you might like my wad, I don't have a ton of sp mapping experience but it's something different at least

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/64625-wip-hardweps/

[Shadow Hog]

Does 2002: A Doom Odyssey count? Seemed pretty vanilla going by at least Episode 1.

[gggmork]

This map has the best gameplay ever:
http://www.filedropper.com/lcp2-final-withfaildemo
You can tell it is the highest quality because it did not receive a cacoward. No mortal has successfully beaten it yet, good luck.

[duh]

Anything that tries to take advantage (or give an option for) of Doom's tricks, any PWAD that attempts to mesh the monsters differently than the "conventional" way (e.g. often when you shoot at monsters, you are close to them).

cq75's map may be taken as an example, it's a change of pace when you start with a high power weapon such as rocket launcher, that weirdly makes your life more complicated than expected (I always feel like wasting ammo taking one enemy only with rockets). Anything that makes something cool, gameplay-wise, with lifts, should count too.

Even cyberdreams.

[Zed]

XCOPY said:

Anything that tries to take advantage (or give an option for) of Doom's tricks, any PWAD that attempts to mesh the monsters differently than the "conventional" way (e.g. often when you shoot at monsters, you are close to them).

cq75's map may be taken as an example, it's a change of pace when you start with a high power weapon such as rocket launcher, that weirdly makes your life more complicated than expected (I always feel like wasting ammo taking one enemy only with rockets). Anything that makes something cool, gameplay-wise, with lifts, should count too.

Even cyberdreams.

OK, try Project X. Maps are not detailed (by far), instead, they focus on gamepelay (for example, MAP14 is about ghost monsters, there's another map relying in rocket jumps, etc.).

And about Cyberdreams, try Arch-Vile Jump.

Also, I know I'm biased, 'cause I'm a big, big fan, but you should really try out Eternal Doom.

[Memfis]

Eternal Doom is anything but gameplay focused. :DD "Uhhh, where are the monsters? Where to go???"

[cq75]

Zed said:

OK, try Project X. Maps are not detailed (by far), instead, they focus on gamepelay (for example, MAP14 is about ghost monsters, there's another map relying in rocket jumps, etc.).

While some of these maps were really funny (lime green wolf3d with round hole in the wall, wow!) some of them were extremely lazy too, most of them I wouldn't consider gameplay experiments but I enjoyed some of these maps just for the pure 1990s weirdness; some of them reminded me of tnt.wad.

[Urthar]

I'm having a lot of fun playing through D2TWID at the moment, it seems to successfully capture the sense of playful sadism of the original.

[TimeOfDeath]

Just one of many: Lego Base

[duh]

slayer.wad's map02 illustrates a bit of what im trying to describe, only "issue" is that it filled way too many cacos in the start, but playing on lower difficulty feels like the monsters themselves are the puzzle (ignore the cacos and you will be punished, ignore the imps and you will be cornered), not the keys or buttons. the chaingunners are placed as snipers and the arch-viles are used to give cover to the rest of the monsters. The author used some logic when placing them, not just meatbags placed randomly around the map.

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?file=levels/doom2/s-u/slayer.zip

(also sorry for my general disability to describe the "gameplay" factor)

played lego map but felt that monster setups there seemed to fail a bit to predict where the player "would be" at the end. But tower revenants surely doesn't give peace to the player if one attempts to speedrun, hehe.