Get Phobo

A lot was a concession to the slow speeds most PCs had to offer at that time. A 486 was new and expensive, so the game was essentially meant to run on a 386, even a 286 with some restrictions (and people even managed to port it to the 8086/8088; it will run sluggishly in the smallest possible window, but it will run). Ports for faster platforms included floor and ceiling textures as well as higher resolution graphics, the engine generally allowed for that and was vastly expanded for Rise of the Triad. The only things that were really unnecessary were the lack of dedicated strafe keys and a regular, official automap function (instead of a cheat), perhaps even with secret areas getting visible via a pickup item, like in Doom.

It is in the Windows SDL version of Doom: Legions of Hell. It would be great if someone else could confirm this and also for other OSes.

This is why I came up with the 'fake strafe keys' concept as described above. By using reverse turn keys and working a lot via the mouse's Y-axis movement, and, with Wolf4SDL-based games, enabling run mode by setting it to Caps Lock and then hitting that key four (!) times, it is possible to gain some enjoyment with a lot less time needed to get used to it.

Essentially, the "kill fast, or be killed fast" aspect of Wolf 3D and SOD is quite similar to modern multiplayer shooters (the likes of CS:GO), so it's pretty much 'timeless' indeed. Other than that, one thing that's always bogged me about the Wolf 3D engine is the complete lack of momentum. You can experience the difference when playing a GZDoom or Zandronum-based TC which looks all the same but 'feels' a lot more advanced due to the Doom engine's momentum. You can even use plugins like Real Aim to further improve realism. Another thing is the lack of dedicated strafe keys even with many Wolf 3D source ports (except ECWolf). Even the authors of Wolf4SDL and the 'Legions of Hell' Doom TC based on it didn't care about including that tiny bit of code for dedicated strafe keys. While you can effectively fake strafe keys by using reverse turn keys in a similar fashion (by that I mean you put Turn Left on D and Turn Right on W), it's still a lot nicer to have actual strafe left/right keys. In order to be able play LoH beyond its first map, what I did was to recompile the whole source code, putting in some strafe key code I found on an old Wolfy forum.

Generally, over the course of the past months, I've come to the conclusion that I've been extremely behind regarding vanilla Doom's undocumented quirks and features. For many years, I had attributed advanced features to source ports only to find out they were (undocumented) vanilla features. Think multi-level fake bridges (see my previous post here), or destructible walls. Are there any other undocumented features in vanilla everyone should know about?

I have a 1981 Mattel Intellivision.

Thanks. I've read about it in the Doom wiki after posting. I'm currently examining that map and also Requiem's map 13 that stacked two bridges in a similar fashion I did. Quite impressive technique, although that quad-stack doesn't look very good without a floor texture of some kind.

It's possible to have functional bridges in vanilla where you can walk under or over, though not both at the same time, and the monsters will only walk under them, but not over. Now, that's been known and built before (Scythe 2 map 17 being a good example). However, what I've managed to do is to stack two bridges across on top of each other, maintaining the possibility to walk under or over either bridge. While it looks perfect in graphically advanced ports (like Crispy Doom, GZDoom, GLBoom+), vanilla and Chocolate Doom, for some reason I still have to figure out, show HOM effects of varying degree and location around the bridges.

I don't know. Which part of my answer are you referring to?

Play with the "-fast" and "-turbo 200" command line options. That will make the monsters and your movement a lot faster. It won't make your shooting faster, though. You'll need a Dehacked patch for that. Alternatively, some ports support setting the ticrate higher or lower, so you can speed up the whole game (but really everything, including all animations).

I can imagine the intro text: Oh, well. Looks like 2020 found its next victim. Proceed with care, and you might be the first one to get a vaccine.

Your assumption is correct. I just sneak upstairs alongside the inner wall until a revenant can see and starts following me. At this point, I retreat and keep waiting downstairs to shot some rockets at him. There's no need to bait him into the tower's center, just walk downstairs and wait for him to come down the stairs.

Unless you're trying a pistol start -- no, because you used a massive amount of sound-blocking lines on that map. I could tell very early on, even without having inspected the map in Doom Builder. That makes it easy to take out the revenants, cacos, and cyberdemons one by one once you're finished with the tower's inside arena since they only wake up when they see you. And the spider masterminds can be fought (also one by one, BTW) from a distance, standing in the staircase and firing your rocket launcher. I found map 30 relatively easy for these reasons.

Doom 95's slider goes to 15.

You will have to take a look in Doom Builder to figure that out. Phobus has made use of many single-use linedefs for the secrets which means that some secret areas will only open once. If you don't manage to get there immediately, you never will. Also, a few secrets do not open at all but close right after map start. So you need to run in order to secure them.

Nah, I just played the whole campaign on HMP. I didn't bother testing UV. I remember choosing HNTR for your 6-map demo, and that seemed fine to me.

I've finished the whole campaign now, all 32 maps. I agree that HMP is way too tough.

What mod is that?

Doom 2 map 27?

The linedefs on either side allow you to open the door if you have the red key. So it must have been some kind of bug. EDIT: I checked this in vanilla. It's an example of bad mapping. The inner-side linedef is, for no apparent reason, a single-use one that will leave the door opened once you hit it. But you have to wait for it to close first because if you try to open the door while it is closing, it will just stop instantly and stay that way forever. You would then have to reopen it from the outside to reset it.

Interesting. Playing on HMP, I felt like there's always enormous amounts of ammo laying around just about everywhere.

Yes, and it looks like you had planned to put a monster (or, perhaps, an invuln sphere) in that closet since it opens together with many other monster-hiding areas after the player crosses a trigger line.

The backpack only appears in map 31 (if you manage to get there), or in map 23 (if you don't).

Modern ports can be limited in various ways: Framerate limit, video sync, rendering interpolation.

You can open the WAD in SLADE3 and delete all Audio entries starting with D_. That will restore the default Doom 2 soundtrack. Or, you can load a music WAD of your choice after Phobus' WAD.