LouigiVerona

Software renderer only. When I switched to gzdoom, at first I knew nothing about renderers, only noticed that everything became murky and dark. After a while I decided to research this, because I really hated how everything looked. I then tried for a long time to make hardware renderer look as close to software renderer as possible, but the best thing I could get was still giving me muddier colors and everything being darker and just less exciting visually. I then switched to software renderer and never looked back. I am on a powerful laptop, so performance is rarely an issue for me, if ever.

Auger;Zenith for sure. MAP01 after work is excellent escapism

I have always been a fan of Downtown. Such an awesome map.

I personally love the thread and I don't think that the OP deserves the reaction. If you folks feel so strongly about AI, good for you, but raise this with the people training the models. The tool is available and criticizing people who are using it so harshly, especially posting some fun Doomguy pics on a forum - I don't see what the big deal is. And yes, I am an artist too, I mostly do music, and I support AI models being trained on my music, and I support them doing so without asking me for my permission. Meanwhile, I went and did these with Midjourney. The prompt was "doom 2 levels". This is what I got 😂

I was considering taking a stab at making a Doom Incremental :D

This is the correct answer

I would say that a large part of what I like Doom for is the atmosphere. Examples are numerous, I remember my first big crush was The Darkening, Outpost Mortem map. Music from that map I use in most of my own maps to this day. If you just wander around the map without monsters, it's a fascinating memorable place. And it looks real, like it could really exist. 5 rooms is a megawad that has some incredibly memorable maps, some of them really cozy. While I could provide many-many examples of maps that I just love for their atmosphere, probably nothing comes even close to Auger Zenith. This is just a world that sucks you in. Starting from map 1, it's an art masterpiece.

Yay! Glad you liked it! Yep, I composed the song :)

You know, I am not sure how to put it exactly, but everything seems thin. I was wondering about it for years. But whenever I play Duke Nukem or Redneck's Rampage or some of those other titles, all the doors and walls seem very thin and fidgety. It's like it's all held together with glue. I guess it's just my subjective perception and the way my brain translates my experiences into how I perceive things on screen. But basically, the world in Build doesn't feel solid, feels very unsteady.

To me the Build engine has always felt a bit on the amateurish side. Everything looks like it's made out of cardboard. Reading everyone's responses, I think that the overall jankiness of the engine contributes to this. And while game designers did wonders with Build anyway, I think many of those games have aged poorly because of the tech behind them. Carmack's solid programming work makes the Doom engine feel solid, robust and fast. And maybe it also has to do with the limitations that Carmack decided to embrace.

@stewboy Very interesting thoughts. I definitely agree with this. In fact, I think one can agree with you in some cases, for some maps and decide to mark some secrets for others. But I think your main point, or at least my takeaway, is what is the function of the counter? And is it important to get all the secrets? I think Doom was created back in the time when counters were just standard things people did, whether they were needed or not. Like those games with useless scoreboards. In fact, I would perhaps say that map designers should ask themselves whether their map requires secrets to begin with. Not all maps need secrets, in my opinion.

I actually found myself agreeing with that quite a bit. I think Duke definitely looks quite timeless in that sense - it's well drawn and has a comics book feel to it. Original Doom wads do look bare and blocky compared to Duke. As I'm writing this, I'd say that actually Doom 1 looks very convincing when lunar base levels are concerned - they actually look somewhat realistic or rather somewhat filled with stuff. You can also argue that it is a planet's moon and so the more hellish levels are supposed to be emptier and blockier, but I think the point stands - original IWADs have aged quite a bit.

I actually like Nuts and play it from time to time. In fact, I even created some maps of similar nature for myself. It's fun to sometimes just face the monster crowd.