Endless Random /idgames WAD Adventures #027

[ICID]

^{(logo by @4MaTC)}

 

ICID, what the hell is this now?

Endless Random /idgames WAD Adventures is a small project of exploration, interaction, entertainment and reviews where we meet once every two weeks to select random WADs in search of hidden treasures, lost promises, or our worst nightmares! We use the /idgames archive’s special feature that lets us search for random files. Of course, sometimes the results are resources or unplayable stuff, so we focus on looking for WADs.

 

So, what do we do here?

1. Play at least one random WAD in a two-week period of time. WADs are selected using the Random File feature on /idgames or from the list below.
2. Post a review of whatever you play. There’s no required pacing, but most of us post a review once every 1-2 days.
3. Always provide the name of the WAD, the name of the author, and a link to the file.
4. Play however you want, on any skill level, and with any source port, as long as you play the WAD as intended/in working shape.
5. Be respectful. Good rule of thumb: making fun of a map is okay, making fun of the mapper is not.

 

What kind of WADs are we looking for?

Any file on /idgames is fair game, but most of us choose to stick to singleplayer Doom or Heretic WADs that work in our sourceport(s) of choice. I also pull at least 5 random WADs for the event and add them here. Feel free to play them with me if you wish, or look for your own! The point of the event is to encourage you to explore this vast, random world.  

 

Recommendations for reviewing:

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1. Please take screenshots or video of your adventures.
2. Commenting the source port and skill-level is not required, but provides helpful context to your review.
3. Try to stick to no more than 1 WAD per day to avoid burnout, but this part’s all up to you, champ!
4. As mentioned above, screenshots or videos are awesome. 
5. Reviews of all formats are valid. Both longform and shortform are good as long as you write with integrity. 

 

Endless Random /idgames WAD Adventures of this event:

1. Miskatonic Trip
2. Wonderland
3. DemoniZed
4. The Unholy Keep
5. RJG Blast

 

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The Top 15 (out of 36):

1. @Roofi | 3230
2. @Sena | 1510
3. @Walter confetti | 770
4. @LadyMistDragon | 580
5. @ICID | 530
6. @Endless | 405
7. @smeghammer | 290
8. @LUISDooM | 235
9. @Maribo | 145
10. @Biodegradable | 105
11. @thiccyosh | 90
12. @Rujasu | 85
13. @Teo Slayer | 80
14. @Clippy | 65
15. @leodoom85 | 60

 

Join the Doom Master Wadazine community for more events like this! » https://discord.gg/Q2RKn4J

[Walter confetti]

I wonder what is a "Miskatonic Trip"....

[LadyMistDragon]

OMFG (2002) by Zarcyb (Eternity)

 

So....do you want to know what true laziness is? A jokewad with absolutely no monsters, lots of weapons and an incredibly tiny room that somehow took 10 minutes to make. The messages are comprised of the most annoying braindead nonsense the Internet could produce in the early 2000s. The "notice me senpai" message was particularly grating. Maybe Britain didn't deserve mass Internet if this is the shit that gets produced. This Terrywad I refused to talk about here where Nic Cage earrapes you (yeah, it's that kind of shoit) was better than this. 0/10

 

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[Roofi]

Thanks for the new thread !

 

Month 8 Day 5

 

I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I died/stopped.

 

Sludge Plant (SLUDGE.WAD) by Andrew "Dman" Orman (1998)

 

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A sludge-reclamation plant (who would want to reclaim sludge???). Deathmatch, SIngle and Co-Op play. This is a very tight, mean little level, with a wide open space near the end (which just means there's no cover :)

 

 

A fairly traditional slime-filled base that replaces slot 08.

The difficulty is not very high but the author's decision to force the player to walk on toxic liquid is a bit controversial. Nevertheless, these phases remain fortunately very short and asoanecdotal, even if at the beginning, the player must be a bit strategic in the way of using the medkits.

 

Visually, the map does not bring any novelty. The mix of brown and green has been seen over and over again, but I liked the fact that most areas are connected by a ventilation duct. On the other hand, there is also a small cavernous section that I liked. In general, it's not too bad, either in terms of choice of textures or alignment of the latter.

 

The fights were quite fun and the little traps helped keeping the attention.

 

A good map.

 

Grade : B

 

[2] LA27 by Jason "Hellbent/Grotug/Jacobi" Root @Hellbent (2002)

 

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A DM map with an outdoor area and a medium sized room connected by passageways and a hidden lift.
 

 

A DM map that has nothing special aesthetically speaking. On the other hand, these curves drawn with armor bonuses are quite cute. I like it.

 

Apart from that, there are plenty of SSGs to fight with.

 

I stupidly rocketed myself in NOVA II: New Dawn map 13

 

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[Sena]

Day 1: Miskatonic Trip https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/m-o/misktrip

 

I happen to know that Miskatonic University is a setting in some Lovecraft story or another, and Blood players may recall that the first level of that game has a section that takes place at Miskatonic Station in reference to that, and so does this WAD. Apart from that little easter egg, there isn't actually a great deal to say about this one, just a fairly simple E1-style collection of 5 maps. And by that, I mean it takes both the good and bad parts of E1. To start off with the good part, it's got some solid atmosphere and level design, and while there were one or two areas in which I felt like the correct way forward wasn't entirely clear, it was a minor annoyance, at worst. However, they also borrow the bad part of E1, which is its limited enemy design, anything that isn't a shotgunner, imp or a pinky is an exception. They give you a fair bit of rocket and plasma ammo, but very few targets to use it against, as they really don't like to experiment from those three enemies, which towards the end especially, can make it feel a bit stagnant. But really, I can't level any legitimate complaints about the WAD, it might be a bit basic in its design, but by extension that means it makes for an easygoing experience. 7/10.

[Walter confetti]

Miskatonic Trip by Dalvi Dandy - Vanilla Doom 2, 2017, played with Eternity forseti 4.0.2

 

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This is a short, easygoing and interesting mapset made by this mysterious Dalvi Dandy and based upon Blood and Doom 2, it almost uses stock assets with the exception of some signs and unused music tracks from Blood made by the legendary @leejacksonaudio plus a simple starry sky as a sky replacement, some lovely doomcute is used here too and some charming room designs, as well of some simple but effective detailing. Thanks to Sena to make me get that Miskatonic Trip reference! Levels are simple but challenging, each map takes from 8 to 12 minutes with almost 100\150 monsters in every map, with some expectation like MAP03. Layouts are not really intricate, it even fells kinda linear, but their still pretty good and every part of the maps are connected with each other section and the flow is prefect, the maps are also connected each other due to the continuous nature of the maps. Now a short summary of the maps:

 

MAP01: A gloomy introductory map sets in a small, dark city illuminated by the few lights in the maps, the interior of the small city are well represented in their simple but effective design, some techbases are into the city and the main mission of the map is to open the gates to the Miskatonic Station, take the train and go to... Miskatonic city? However, a pretty solid start map.

 

MAP02: Looks like your train doesn't take the destination to Miskatonic City or whatever it is your original destination, but you have crashed onto some mysterious caves that you'll discover later having also some sort of ancient temple made by mysterious forces as well of UAC doing experiments with yellow crackle rocks and everybody knows what happens when UAC experimenting on stuff they found randomly... 

There's also some neat deep water effects, good looking caverns designs, some small hellish location where the red key is and at last more destruction awaits you when you'll emerge from the caves. Another pretty great map.

 

MAP03: Not a bad map per se, but nothing exceptional like the previous maps. Sets in a small techbase that will supposedly works as a lab like the small ones you found in the previous maps, it looks almost immaculate without any form of strong attack from the demonic forces, got as well some TNT fells playing this. Storm the base, raise some bridges and get out of there the faster you can for reaching the next level, what you'll found on the other side?

 

MAP04: You descend deeper in the techbase entering into a lower section where damage and destruction are more visible in this place that looks like some kind of mining shaft, recalls me of The Wate Tunnels but more detailed. Lots of interconnectivity and interesting places to visit, there's a point where you can lock yourself. Check every corner for useful stuff! Also i like the music in this map, make me think of Wolfestein 3D

 

MAP05: The most complex map in the mapset, includes a lots of locations, starting into a heavily damaged section of the techbase you've been storming during the previous 3 maps, then you reach a "spooky" woods area that includes a demonic church and a nice looking cabin with a "charming" interior design and then reaching a mountainous area that will lead you to the exit. Even more interconnected layout design and cool rooms structures with some lovely simple but effective detailing and even a simple sector truck a la TNT, as well as more new textures used in the map. I've got the impression that there was a MAP06 in the mapset, but for some reason it wasn't added, making it looking unfinished.

 

In short, a pretty solid mapset with the only lower grade level been MAP03 but overall a pretty good mapset!

Edited February 22, 2022 by Walter confetti

[Sena]

Day 2: Wonderland https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/v-z/wl_1_0

 

Presumptively, this one took cues from American McGee's Alice, and from my understanding that's a game that adds a psychological and surreal angle to the 3D platformer genre. Did it work for McGee? I don't know, I didn't play his game, but I can say that it doesn't really work for Doom. This WAD is just an example of one that doesn't make sense, walking into rooms will just deplete you of a huge chunk of your health for what appears to be no reason at all, there is nothing to prepare you for it, just "this is the room that kills you if you don't know the right route, and you won't know the first route unless you've died here already". I don't think I ever encountered one door that I could open (i.e. the one thing doors are meant to do), and a good chunk of the time you will walk to the end of a hallway, and be teleported elsewhere, and even if they give you an automap very early on, that really doesn't help in making it feel coherent. I did only play the first map, so I didn't see much, and this type of gameplay style doesn't really allow me to talk about individual setpieces as I usually do, but it just comes across as random design choices that don't have any rhyme or reason to them, things do not work as they are meant to, I'm almost surprised they didn't decide to make the key cards correspond to the wrong colours. If they actually pushed for the surrealism, I might have actually been willing to see it through, I thought lilith.pk3 was great, and the same can be said of Postal, whose surrealism isn't even in the game itself, it's in the loading screens. Maybe my image of McGee's Alice is completely wrong and I'm looking for something that isn't there, but in any case, this cryptic design isn't in support of anything, it's just random shit, and it detracts from the experience. Maybe if you enjoy point and click adventures where you have to study your surroundings for 20 minutes just to figure out where to go, you'll have a good time with this one, but I just want to get through the level and kill things, and this WAD doesn't do a very good job of providing either of those. 3/10.

[LadyMistDragon]

The Last Sanctuary (2015)  by @cybermind or mistranger  (From Doom With Love)

 

This map was created for the First Try Demo Contest #16 and my god, it certainly seems like Cybermind made a map practically impossible to demo, though certainly far from impossible. A grand-scale adventure map pushing the absolute limits of the Boom format by using a total of 63549 linedefs, this one is definitely not consumed easily within a couple of hours. There's just so much here, it's hard to know where to begin. I find it incredibly interesting that the song used here "Beyond the Network was used in Bejewled 2, a game far too crappy to deserve such a profound sort of electronic/New Age track that might be loosely described as a Vangelis outtake. It certainly fits the vibe of an adventure map where you explore a land standing outside time, a land where something incredibly tragic has obviously taken place but also produced some incredibly remarkable civilizational achievements. Sort of anyway. The map is more of an abstractness-by-way-of realism experiment if truth be told.

 

The environmental storytelling is on-point though. You start by getting off a train at a base where experiments of various sorts were being conducted, along slime and various other kinds of processing, because you really need slime here for some reason. There are many little power chargers, monitoring and operating stations. energy barriers in certain locations, and most impressive of all, a large warehouse where the Supercharge here will taunt you forever until you find the hidden switch that grants you access.

 

This opening section is quite east despite there being plenty of enemies. The elevator was a little bit confusing though, because you can easily miss the hallway leading to the blue keycard if you're too busy exploring downstairs.

 

Eventually though, you emerge into a massive outdoor canyon, with water pools reminiscent of a canyon not too far from where I live and a complete bullet hell of an opposition, Chaingunners firing from many raised ledges with Cacodemons coming from one end and Pain Elementals emerging from whoknowswhere. I suppose you could thin the ranks out a little more if you were better at finding secrets but no matter. From here, I went into a cave with a Supercharge and an Arch-vile that removed that health boost then left that and went into another and seriously massive cave that had one room filled with corpses and gazing out over a massive lake of lava surrounding what's essentially a collection of temple-like environs featuring a cool tan texture much better than the default bollocks. It's a little bit confusing and doesn't make a whole lot of sense to someone used to the map's fairly self-explanatory progression so far. Fascinatingly though, this one has elevators where you can visit different floors, some of them blatantly leading outside to the cave and gazing out at some beautiful flowing lava falls. The temple near the beginning is also showing serious signs of cave in and ruin at certain points. 

 

It also puts in a serious difficulty spike. The red SK trap is designed to trap unaware players though thankfullly there are no Arch-viles. The area beyond the blue key door comes off like frantic monster spam with Pain Elementals descending from above you and something like a half a dozen Arch-viles at one end you're intended to avoid. Basically get to the other end, hit the switch raising some pillars to the red card key, BFG and a computer map.

 

The trip back was long and sucked therefore, leading yet to another part of the base, including the teleporter to......who knows but this doesn't feel like a sanctuary, gotta say.

 

In the end, like many maps of its kind, it gets a touch long-in-the-tooth, mainly due to the long trek back to the red card door, and the area where you grab it just feels obbnxious. All the same, this is a fantastic little piece of something that probably has more reputation than I'm aware of (only Cacoward winner I know from 2015 is sunlust) 9/10
 

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Edited February 23, 2022 by LadyMistDragon

[Sena]

Day 3: DemoniZed.WAD a BOOM only PWAD https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/d-f/demonizd

One of the first Boom WADs, and perhaps more critically, one of the first ones to test out its new features. So it's somewhat interesting as a historical curiosity, because it does have some pretty snazzy features and decent architecture. As a level, I wasn't really on board. Apart from the fact they have chaingunners absolutely everywhere, it largely felt repetitive to me, probably because so much of my time was spent just trying to find ammo, and because they all seemed so insistent in deploying enemies in clusters - despite its colossal size, everything is partitioned. Despite being out and out slaughter, if you're capable of dealing with the chaingunners and archviles, then you're fine, nothing else in the 300 or so enemies I fought really stood out to me, the only other aspect that did stand out was just how confusing it was, which is the one thing slaughtermaps are not meant to do. This one got into the Top 25 Missed Cacowards, so clearly it's got some fans, or at least one fan who wrote that article all those years ago, but I didn't really care for it. It might look interesting, but that's probably where its problems lie, it was made to take advantage of Boom features, which they implemented first, and the gameplay consequently feels a bit like an afterthought. 3/10. 

[Walter confetti]

The Unholy Keep by Aaron M. Fisher - Vanilla Doom 2, 1996, played with Eternity "forseti" 4.0.2

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A simple map with raw design sets in this sort of weird brick \ hell place where a real big number of soulspheres are scattered around the map, and this makes the map kinda more easy to beaten, but the map is being made more unfair by adding the things that people dislike in unfair maps: no way out pits, backtrack and clueless puzzles. Not bad as you can think, but it becomes pretty annoying fast.

 

KS7 .zip by Cory Banket - Legacy (or Zdoom compatible ports), 2003 but uploaded in 2007, played with Eternity "forseti" 4.0.2

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Another map heavily based upon brown brick design like the previous one, but with a more mundane techbase feel, this is a pretty nice map with good usage of layout, puzzle items, monster placement, map flow and (simple) detailing and even a small special sector effect with a instant raising lift giving you a shotgun at the start, gameplay is challenging as the author promised but it will be annoying if not played with a music pack (i'm using midi the way ID did for playing maps btw) since you'll going to hear "Running from Evil" over and over and the puzzle room after the blue key is kind of boring. But overall, a nice map.

 

For The Frags by Warlock from Cosmic Chaos - Vanilla Doom 2, 1998 but released in 1999, played with eternity forseti 4.0.2 and Zandronum 3.1 with bots

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A really cheap remake of MAP01 and not even that fun or "so bad it's good" fun, layout is kinda ok but nothing too amazing, exit is weird and i don't get where it is. A fake exit opens a alcove where you get the berserk pack, but you can get that easily by hitting the switch that hides it. Another secret alcove with a BFG appears only in DM. Nothing extraordinary.

Edited February 24, 2022 by Walter confetti

[Roofi]

Month 8 Day 6

 

I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I died/stopped.

 

[1] 4CORNERS.WAD by Robert M. Leavitt (1996)

 

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A file made just for deathmatches. It is kinda like ledges but larger, and I like it much more.

 

A versatile map according to the author which is as much playable in singleplayer as in deathmatch. This DM map for Ultimate Doom reminds me of "Ledges" which was quite famous at the time, especially because of the large height differences with big lifts.

 

Although released in 1996, the level has almost all the characteristics of a map created in 1994. The only reason for the "Yes" next to Singleplayer is the presence of monsters and the existence of an exit.

 

There is way too much ammo and bonuses to make it any kind of challenge, but I still had fun. The computer-map also helps to find the small rewarding secret areas.

 

Grade : B-

 

I pressed the wrong switch , the ceiling crushed me in The Hidden Warehouse

 

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[LadyMistDragon]

Heretic Un (1995) by Dave Bolin (Eternity)

 

This map doesn't work in DSDA Doom for some reason. Anyway, the text file says "My first map. Hope this isn't too bad." Well, it's not any worst than Doom maps of the same period, with the trouble being that most people making good maps didn't even bother with Heretic. The opening room is huge and ugly, while some of the following outdoor areas have some pretty and rather inventive sort of structures, but are otherwise quite unremarkable. I guess this deep red color you see on some fountains has been used before but in probably more subtle ways because I basically have no memory of it outside this wad. Combat could be difficult, I guess, but you're massively overloaded in the boring opening hallway so not so much. There is a Maulotaur in the middle of a waterfall-textured courtyard though. And I really like the massive indoor area with the fence and blood fountain. But I don't really care for it. 3/10

 

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[Sena]

Day 4: The Unholy Keep https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/s-u/unholykp

 

This one's just all around bad. First of all, you're going to want to make sure you have jumping enabled, not because it's required for you to actually play the level, but rather, because it's got so much bullshit first person platforming that without it you'll be doubling your time spent here, and unless you're some nutter who enjoys playing random dogshit levels from the 90s, there's no reason you'd want to spend any more time than 30 seconds in this level. You go from one narrow corridor to the next, each of them putting it more first person platforming, which, as always, isn't fun, or even difficult, it's just a pain in the arse, especially when messing up means a softlock. And then it ends with an Icon of Sin fight, which is bad, because it's not a bad level without an Icon of Sin fight, and that's all there is to it. Bad, followed by bad, with more bad, with an extra large side dish of bad. I didn't like this map very much. 2/10.

 

[Roofi]

Month 8 Day 7

 

I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I died/stopped.

 

[1] KILL'HEM ALL! by Michel PERIE a.k.a NEMESIS. (1996)

 

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Deathmatch level ONLY! I tried to keep the same Doom ambience! (Little level for VERY FAST action!) There is an EXIT.

 

A mediocre Deathmatch map for Heretic with narrow sections of different colors and small corridors. There is an EXIT at least, fortunately.

 

I got instantly raped in a robotic mess in Doom Must Fall (Single Player Version)

 

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[LadyMistDragon]

LAZ-HD21(1995) by William "Lazarus" Bingham

 

A very simple deathmatch map replacing E2M1 of Heretic. There's monster opposition (a Maulotaur I don't believe you've got the ammo for) but that's really not the point of this entirely square map surrounded by hallways. There's one side hallway with a teleporter taking you to the central room again and another one that's cearly an exit, but they seems somewhat pointless. I do like how the floor and ceiling are both a deep blue though. Walls seems a little bland though. 5/10

 

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After getting GoldenHog's CRASH yet again, I got another Heretic deathmatch map

 

Bill2H(1995) by Bill Reynolds (Eternity)

 

Another Heretic deathmatch map, this one by a DWANGO moderator! Layout is quite unremarkable, and is kind of a texture hodgepodge, but that's much less of a weakness in Heretic than in Doom. It's supposedly designed for close-quarters combat and maybe it is. It does feel like Bill's underselling the map to some extent (i don't know how to explain, it's one of those 'feel' things). Only area I really didn't like was the far north darkened room. Very good, if not legendary (I assume, no Heretic deathmatch maps are legendary unless I just haven't paid any attentions). 7/10

 

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[Sena]

Day 5: RJG Blast, Version 1.0 https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/p-r/rjgblast

 

Well, problem number one, this WAD doesn't work. It launches, it loads the textures properly and the rest of it, but the levels themselves aren't actually functional. I only played 2 of the 7 maps, (3, if we count the first one which had zero enemies and took me less than 10 seconds to complete), and both of them resulted in a softlock, forcing me to leave the map early, and according to the author, he put some new weapons and enemies in, and maybe if I got further I'd see what that was like, but you pull that shite in your first 2 maps, I'm not really going to be motivated to see what else is on offer. 

It's one of those WADs in which they decided they just had to replace every single sound effect and voice line in the game, so shotgunners are now Scorpion from Mortal Kombat, Doomguy is now speaking with a shitty accent, and they managed to make the lost souls sound even more annoying than they normally do; an issue compounded by the fact both of the maps I played started with you being swarmed by 10 of them with no weapons to actually kill them with.

 

Apart from a few questionable decisions, like them putting in precisely 300% more crushers than any level should reasonably have, and them deciding to make some doors open the second before you reach them, which means that your muscle memory of opening them once you actually reach them results in them closing, the levels aren't that good, characterised above all else by repetition. Ultimately, Doom levels are made up of ideas, but RJG has very few ideas, and so it repeats them on end - they could just make a hallway with 4-5 imps in it, as is commonplace, but they decide instead to copy-paste that same hallway several times over so it's far longer than it needs to be. Making rooms this long doesn't feel very engaging when you have to go through them once, and it's even less interesting to backtrack through a completely empty hallway that's so long it could be its own map. Just a thoroughly unpleasant experience, and not worth your time. 2/10.

[Roofi]

Month 8 Day 8

 

I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I died/stopped.

 

Monochromatic Nightmare by @Phendrena (2013)

 

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A single player level designed for the Monochrome Mapping Project on the Doomworld Forums - http://tinyurl.com/bp2od5n.

This is a Monochromatic Black & White experience that will test your perception. The idea was to design a clean map devoid of detail but retaining character. The WAD is designed exclusively with Zdoom in mind as it does make use of Slopes, Stacked 3D sectors and ACS scripts.

As well as making heavy use of Da Werecat's textures I have also added my own black and white door, lift, floor and brick textures.

Screenshots can be found here: http://sdrv.ms/QnkSyG

Enjoy,

Dave

 

I remember this project! I had played it in 2016 and rather liked it, even if a lot of maps had a quite controversial gameplay.

 

As well as the original wad, this level was designed for gzdoom and uses the concept of creating almost entirely black and white environnments. Monochromatic Nightmare takes place in a kind of city with buildings featuring a  BAUHAUS architecture. You have to collect 3 keys successively in order to fight in the arena of your choice at the end of the level.

 

I admired the use of 3D floors to create height variations. You can climb small structures and the explorating each  building was more immersive. Aesthetically, you still have to accept the concept in order to enjoy this map. Nevertheless, I really felt in a modern and surrealist work. 

 

The map doesn't contain anything crazy in terms of combats scenrarios. Most of the time you kill small enemies, namely zombies and imps simply placed in the map, without really posing any threat. Some traps involve teleporting enemies but the shotgun and chaingun stay more than adequate to get the 3 keys.

 

Nevertheless, I would have liked to have a more powerful arsenal for the final arena, because killing a cyberdemon with the shotgun and chaingun was not the funniest experience I had on this level. In fact, considering the rocket boxes visible at the end, I missed a RL that was either hidden in a secret or simply placed in an optional area.

 

In any case, the moment when you have to choose your fate by entering in the blue, yellow or red arena in which you want to face the remaining monsters is one of the most striking moments of the map.

 

The music of R-type brings a certain pleasant dose of oldschool to this map. I chose the yellow arena but if by chance I land on this level, again  I will try the blue or the red one.

 

A very good map overall.

 

Grade : A-

 

I fell down the ravine in The Red Skull Key

 

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[Biodegradable]

Hey kids, it's been a pretty long time since I participated in this shindig. I'm surprised I wasn't removed from the scoreboard! :^P Anyways, I took a look at Miskatonic Trip since it was the one out of Endless's selection I thought was the most interesting. I found this map set to be very quaint and charming. Despite being made in 2017, it's got this neo-classic, old-school vibe to it that 90s Doom WAD connoisseurs like my man @Doomkid would revel in as the nostalgia-riddled synapses pop in his brain. The maps are short and punchy with breezy combat and some neat layouts with simple progression as you make your way through mainly techbases and brick/mortar structures. My only small quibble is some of the areas can feel a little too small. It's the kind of map set you can unwind with after enduring some more challenging WADs and decompress. Most experienced Doomers will breeze through it, especially on continuous, but it looks like its very much balanced for pistol-starting as well. I quite enjoyed it and recommend it to anyone looking for a nice, easy-going set to chill out with for an hour or so.

 

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[Walter confetti]

RJG Blast, Version 1.0 by Ricardo Gonzalez - Vanilla Doom 2, 1998, played with Eternity "forseti" 4.0.2 and GZDoom 4.7.2

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A episode with a abstract and interesting theme, even if pretty cryptic in some maps like MAP03, the new sounds and the music adds more weirdness to the pack. This place is set in some sort of tech castle of sorts, the maps from MAP02 to MAP05 are all joined together thematically, with some more weird \ abstract places here and there, making it look like a big continuous adventure in the unknown. The dehacked patch doesn't work on both ports i've played this (Eternity and GZDoom), making this map looking half broken in some parts like the keen replacements spiriting. I found also the same broken parts in the levels as well like @Sena did, making me to noclip to pass some parts. A pair of  the new midis (most probably done by the author of the map) are cool but for the others are pretty lame. The new sky is pretty neat, if the author leave the other people use the WAD sources to other people i really like to take it...

 

MAP01 (Enigma Town): Really short introduction map set in this... tech mausoleum? Get to the "tomb" in the middle of the room to been killed in a "death room" a la Phobos Anomaly ending room.

 

MAP02 (Mistery): Real beginning of our adventures and one of the least appealing map in the pack imo, is just a mishmash of various themes like techbase \ city \ theatre \ cave all merged into this map that looks like some random cool ideas the author got some ideas to implement into his map but unluckily plays boringly.

 

MAP03 (The Deadly Cave): A abstract castle maze with weird choices for mapping progression and way too many crushers in linear order, but it have some nice room building and a pretty organic layout.

 

MAP04 (Military Base): A large techbase \ castle structure with some neat effects, the layout is intricate and somewhat fun, the tech castle is pretty cool and have a charming design, reminds me a lot of TNT Evilution. The Duke Nukem puppets are a funny touch.

 

MAP05 (A Strange Combat): You escaped out from the tech castle to enter into this huge cavern \ big base \ temple structure where two keys are needed to go further but i didn't find them, making me noclipping trough them to see what shows beyond the door, some really neat stuff like some pretty boring are here mixed in a uncanny fashion, taking you to the best room in the mapset sets in a giant clock room in the void with a very weird puzzle involving MARBFACE and mancubuses and a elevator from hell working as exit. Ok...

 

MAP06 (To Live is To Die): The "Hellevator" *laughing track* ends its run in a maze structure in a glowing rectangular place that leads to another puzzle-y giant structure sets in this moody place where strange things happens like finding a bizarre teleport structure where you revisit previous levels "best" rooms and the return in a mirrored version of the structure you just visited before. Ah yes, you also find the Icon of Sin but it will spit monsters on you, but a lots of spectre teleports in when you reach the exit spot guarding the icon from been rocketed by you. OK...

 

MAP07 (RJGBLAST): A icon of sin style map where the icon of sin has been destroyed and you have to fight trough various weird and abstract places, it's the best usage of MAP07 gimmick i've seen so far, really interesting map overall.

 

MAP08 (...): This map works as a episode ender. Starts in a cursed version of Tricks and Traps starting room but with marine voodoo dolls looking at you and instead of doors you'll see hellfire. Walk to the marines and you teleport in this... lobby room? Where a blue-tinted ugly compressed picture of the author greets you as a broken icon of sin that spawn random monsters into a hidden crusher. Ok cool bye!

 

Overall, this is a pretty weird and artsy episode, a thing you can't really see that much in Doom mapping, now that i thinking of. At least not in this deliberate way. But for how much abstract and artsy this mapset is, the episode it wasn't that fun to play, with some boring stuff on gameplay department, weird progression and some head scratching weird puzzles to solve, making this mapset a mixed bag of cool concepts glued all together with some boring mechanics.

 

The Art of the Rocket - Level 1 by Blazer - Vanilla Doom 2, 1997, played with zandronum 3.1 and bots

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A small and slightly anonymous little fun map for deathmatch made by this blazer guy centered about frenetic combats and fun play and the author said it right! It's a pretty fun small arena that have a swell midi as well, there's not many other information on the text file and there's not other review for this map over than this one. A charming little surprise in the random sea of idgames!

 

pentigio.wad by Ryan Giordano - Vanilla Doom 2, 1995, played with zandronum 3.1 and bots

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Another unreviewed deathmatch map with a better text file, but the level itself is too large and have too less ammo to be appreciable, at least with bots playing. Nothing special.

Edited February 26, 2022 by Walter confetti

[Clippy]

Here we go - part 10 on my series of adventures 

 

First pick got lucky! 

 

Best designed and hardest map yet - finally! Lol had a rough go too 

 

Link to file https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/d-f/egregor1

 

 

 

@Egregor btw I didn't know you were on doomworld buddy - your map was cool and gave me a go!

Edited March 6, 2022 by Clippy : tag

[Sena]

Day 6: Funhouse https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/d-f/fun666

 

Played this one back in September, and it is just one level, so my opinion on it hasn't changed much. On the whole, it's a good level, it's certainly competently made, with a fairly consistent level of difficulty, as the level makes good use of a fair bit of down time, which works in its favour for the most part, not always, namely, with the lost soul maze that is a pain to backtrack through when you're done with it, and one specific area which has probably at least two doors in sight at all given times. In general, there is a lot of backtracking, so you had best be prepared for that, and I had to quit when I was about 80% done because I was hopelessly lost. To be exact, I had to quit right after the trap with 8 revenants in a room with no cover that everyone on the archive complained about, in particular, they complained it was RNG bullshit, and seeing as I got out on 1% health, I can see the argument in that, so maybe I actually got lucky and finished just as it started getting bad. In any case, it's a mostly alright map, got a couple sub-par areas, but if you're better at navigation than I am, you'll also have a better time than I did. 6/10.

[Roofi]

Month 8 Day 9

 

I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I died/stopped.

 

[1] Hangar 27 by @Dutch Doomer (2005)

 

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An small but decent detailed tech map, some ideas in design ripped from E1M1. Thrown a bit hell into it also to give this map an weird feeling when playing. Overall its an shiteasy map to play, playing time should be somewhere arround 5 minutes. Just a quick little fun map by me this time, my next one will be alot bigger and more detailed. Have fun...

 

A small tribute to E1M1 as we like it but Dutch Devil decided to make a more gloomy version by including a red sky, new darker textures and the terrifying music of the map 28 of Doom 2.

 

The author successfully made a small fun map that lasts 5 minutes. I actually had a lot of fun. The fights were as simple as in the original game. Some cacodemons came to support the other monsters, but they didn't pose a lot more threat.

 

Aesthetically, it's a good job, the details and the subtle effects created with the slopes managed to create a little atmosphere. Being made in the middle of the 2000's, expect to see a lot of tropes from that period: borders, less abstract architecture, copy-pasted details...

 

In any case, the rendering has not aged too badly, that's the most important thing.

 

Grade : B+

 

A flame-throwing monster burned me in a small hallway in ECHELON

 

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[Walter confetti]

GooberMan's DeathMatch series Map 1: Abandoned Asteroid Mine Cave by Ethan Watson aka @GooberMan - Zdoom, 2002, played with zandronum 3.1 and bots

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A technically neat map for Zdoom by one of the first names in Zdoom modding togheter with Randy and some few others, including high level scripting, slopes and moving skybox with "3D" secor asteroids (also... holy crap, is Zdoom 23 years old already from it's first release? This is really impressive, i didn't expected that zdoom was around from so long!), but unluckily it's not counterbalanced with a good gameplay for DM: level is too dark, doors are too slow and the level itself feels or too empty or with too many stuff happening, not a great dm map, unluckily.

 

Baro3.wad by Baron (irc=Baroban) - Vanilla Doom 2, 1995, played with zandronum 3.1 and bots

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Short and frantic deathmatch arena sets in MAP04 instead of MAP13 as the text file says, the level plays really fun and frantic, neat but simple design in the layout department. Fun stuff!

[smeghammer]

So once again, I hit the random button.

 

I got Utopia 2, a deathmatch map with single player start and monsters. Oddly, the readme is dated 07/04/21, but I am fairly sure I played a very similar version of this map a LOOOONG time ago... I suspect it's actually a Doom 1 map converted, despite the D2 enemies.

 

It is an easy map even at UV (I guess SP id not it's main aim). It is most certainly '90's design (fullbright, very little detail, few monsters) but the verticality is actually not too bad. 

 

Here is my playthrough (GZDoom, UV, no saves):
 

 

[Sena]

Day 7: Spasm https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/s-u/spasm

 

A fairly standard techbase. Its most remarkable feature is its music, which is one of the better midis I've heard in a long time, and I suppose, by ER/IWA standards, this is also one of the better levels I've played in a while as well. You've played Doom, so you know what to expect, there's not really any major gameplay points or architectural areas that stand out, this is basically the WAD equivalent of one of the mass produced crime thrillers they have at the airport. It's not badly designed by any means, but it also lacks any distinctive traits of its own. The only real thing I have to say about it is that I thought it was a bit boring having close to half the enemy count come at me in two separate instances of having a full 30 seconds or so of waiting for enemies to slowly spawn in and die immediately, but it didn't detract from my experience either. Granted, this was only made in a day, and the level's a decent length, so you might want to give this one a try if you haven't had your daily intake of techbase. 7/10.

[LadyMistDragon]

Hordes of Chaos III (2004) Christopher "udderdude Emirzian (GZDoom)

 

A short, 5-map, slaugter-ish set for Heretic, this is an utterly enthralling brew of, yes, chaos, throwing Heretic, Hexen and Doom enemies all into a blender admidst some cool setpiece battles. Layouts are quite simplistic, leaving you to concentrate on killing, but work without heading into the bloatedness of something like Curse of d"Sparil. Weapons (but not inventory) are reset after finishing each map. Given the lack of slaughter-focused Heretic wads, this is incredibly good, though quite hard if playing on Skill 5. 9/10

 

 

Spoiler

https://i.imgur.com/7PsvXda.png

 

[Roofi]

Month 8 Day 10

 

I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I died/stopped.

 

[1] bcs04.wad by Brian and Craig Sparks (1995)

 

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bcs04.wad is a medium sized level. My favorite level! The level looks like a house. It is complete with bedrooms, bathrooms, showers, toilets, sinks, a billiard room, a pool complete with patio furniture, a library, etc. It even has some secret closets and passages and of course a dungeon basement.

I have played this level many times in four player Deathmatch and it is continuously a blast. Hint look for secret stuff in the billiard room. All skill levels are supported and Ultra Violence can get a bit tough at times.

 

This time we enter in a rather ominous mansion where darkness reigns in the surroundings. As described by the two mappers, we can find some quite realistic furniture or rather "doomcute" to use the Doomworld terminology.

 

The size of the level is indeed quite standard, nevertheless the puzzle aspect marked by the deliberate obscure progression requires some patience to complete it without solution. Actually, finding the blue key could also be the main blocking point for any player.

 

Nevertheless, I enjoyed it. It fits well with the rather sinister atmosphere that emerges. You explore parts of a cave located behind a fireplace for example. I liked the switch hidden in the pool even if I could find it by pure chance.

 

Aesthetically, I would say that it is above average compared to a standard 1995 wad. The furniture is pretty well built. Nothing really transcendent, but it's still a myhouse.wad with more mysteries. 

 

Also , you can find many SSG in this level.

 

Grade : A-

 

[2] Magic Man by Jose Mancia (1998)

 

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great deathmatch level

 

A versatile level that can be played as a singleplayer and deathmatch as well where the action takes place in a kind of quirky brown monochrome fort.

 

The beginning proves to be slightly rough since some chaingunners are =ready to shoot at us as soon as you start. Nevertheless, being a DM oriented map, you quickly find the adequate weaponry.

 

Despite the particularly dull aesthetics, I appreciate the rather wacky layout, with its long narrow corridors, the curved stairs or the weapon placement. For example, you have to shoot a switch to open bars blocking access to the plasmagun.

 

A fun little map and the music adds a little comical touch.

 

Grade : B

 

[3] Raiders Of The Lost Phallus by My name here? (2005)

 

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Kinda like Indiana Jones: Raiders Of The Lost Arc... Nazis...

 

Great! A jokewad released before the crappy era of Terry wads!

 

If you love guts and hate Nazis, this wad is tailor made for you. Use your SSG and RL to kill the 245 Nazis doing a funny alien noise blocking your way.

 

Well, my grade will going to be quite high for a wad of this scope, but a map with fun fights is still a good map, jokewad or not.

 

World War II had never been so much fun.

 

Grade : C-

 

[4] The Apocalypse Part 2 by Rick Clark (2000)

 

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This is an old-style Doom 1 map.

 

A map that shares some resemblance with the 02 map of Doom II at the very beginning, because we start in a kind of underground water tunnel.

 

The layout aims to be particularly narrow as it is one of the best techniques to add challenge to Ultimate Doom. In the same way, the author made use of barons in closed places to increase their threatness. However, in return, there is more than enough ammunition to kill them progressively. In addition, some secrets that should not be too difficult to find greatly gratify the player, especially the soulsphere.

 

In any case, the different zones are surely too small to become really remembered.  the gameplay still remains well developed and the author varied the textures enough to make the small corridors at least a bit interesting to investigate.

 

A good classic map.

 

Grade : B+

 

I stop here for today.

 

[Jacek Nowak (jacnowak)]

The random button gave me this thing:
https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/m-o/nessy
Nessy.WAD, issue 1
by Richard Wiles

 

Unusually this WAD requires Plutonia IWAD so you need to have Final Doom to play it. It contains two maps (in unusual slots - map09 and map10). The text file says that they have been made in 1998, that the author intended to do a mini episode but stopped the project and quit doom mapping.

I didn't know what to expect so I just fired up GZDoom, started Plutonia on UV skill level and warped to the first map.

 

I didn't expect I will have that much fun!

 

Now, the maps are VERY different from each other, but both are very good.

 

MAP09 is an arena-style map. There is a large amount of monsters coming to you from every direction. As you find more keys, the arena gets repopulated with more and more powerful monsters and you also get more powerful weapons. Initially the difficulty was lack of ammo but then I had more powerful weapons and enough ammo and the difficulty shifted towards making sure you don't get cornered as the gameplay was evolving towards something a bit more slaughter-like. The formula worked, I had fun, the difficulty was just about right for me.

 

MAP10 is a very nice classic level. I liked the layout, I liked the progression. I really like that early on you can see places you will get to very late in the map. I played it from pistol start, I find it easier and less intense than MAP09 (although there were some moments and it wasn't too easy). A very good map if you want to enjoy some classic Doom in a more relaxed way. I enjoyed it very much.

 

Both maps are vanilla compatible and while the visuals aren't stunning they are solid and very classic in a positive sense of that word.

 

After playing the map I found out that Richard Wiles is a known mapper (at least he has an entry on doomwiki). And that, contrary to what he wrote in the text file, he made many more maps in the following years. I think I might check them out at some point. Overall, I'm very happy for finding this WAD, this proves that you can actually come across some solid content when pressing the random button :)

[Sena]

Day 8: Facility H https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom/d-f/facilityh 

 

This is one of those maps that feels like it'd make for a decent slow opener to a megawad, but was just released independently. On its own, it's fine, got a bunch of big open spaces, which are probably this map's one selling point, it looks pretty interesting from an architectural standpoint, though it's slightly dampened by the fairly frequent usage of STARTAN and whatever the green version of STARTAN is called. I have no memory of them using anything that wasn't a zombieman, shotgunner, or pinky, and by extension, I also don't have any memory of any specific combat encounters they utilised, because really, you reach a certain point in Doom where you know exactly how long it takes for an enemy to attack, meaning you can get right in their face when they're used this sparingly. I've said it plenty of times before, but while this level isn't bad by any means, it also doesn't do anything interesting that would really make it worth your time. 5/10.

[LadyMistDragon]

Square (1999) by Tobias Munch (Eternity)

 

Tobias Munch is actually a name I recognize from a small map set he did with Pablo Dictter titled Yomi that was one of the very first PWADs that I played (and the last before the both disappeared at it turns out. This series of two maps was uploaded by someone else around 2005.

 

It's hard to say very much about E2M1 as it comes across as an incredibly lazy redesign of E2M1. In all honestly, Toby was probably still learning how to map at this point, so having secrets marked by incredibly obvious green walls is certainly excusable. There is some sort of vague attempt at keeping combat at 'more modern' standards with the greater density of enemies, but it's all hitscanners.

 

E2M2 largely feels like an original map at least, even if the first couple of rooms feel like a reskinned copypasta from....somewhere. On the other hand, the layout is generic enough that may not mean very much. At least secrets feel somewhat clever, in the sense that you're looking for misaligned rather than discolored walls. Placing the switch in a somewhat hidden location in a monster closet and putting green walls at weird angles in the last map felt cleverer though. Every so often in the second map though, Munch will insert an interesting room, like the window in the hallway with the Cacodemons or else a room with an altar at the end containing a red key along with some other structures. I do want to know why there are Barons in the middle for no reason at all when they present no threat. One flew over the Caco's Nest indeed. 5/10

 

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