Doom is a game that keeps calling back to us with its old-school values. You don't have to waste your time levelling up, stashing virtual money away to buy decent weaponry, acquiring skills or otherwise working up to the real gameplay. Your virtual character doesn't run too fast, nor walk too slow. The game doesn't center on attaining a minimum number of items, or specific items. The game isn't about overpowering or undercutting your enemies; it's about battling, crushing, grinding, slaying and destroying them.
Doom doesn't rely on your virtue comparison skills and introduce so many factors that there is little reason to want to master it; Doom relies on testosterone and true gaming spirit, and follows the golden rule of the classics: easy to learn, but hard to master. (There's also the argument of realism which applies to all games of the Doom genre; we are more likely to battle demons on Mars in the coming centuries than telepathically watch and control ourselves from a third-person perspective.)
Doom was first in a number of areas. Although in my opinion irrelevant, it was the first 3D (3D perspective) game with textures on every surface, varied floor and ceiling heights, as well as weapon bobbing to stifle motion sickness. As well as being one of the most universally-enjoyed games and being ported to so many different devices (including such mythical tools as the great white iPod), it is responsible for two very important developments in modern gaming:
- The "LAN party": Doom hoisted multiplayer gaming on local-area networks (LANs) into the mainstream.
- Game modding: By intentionally designing Doom's game "engine" so that new resources and game files could be loaded externally, id Software incubated the subculture of modifying games and creating expansions.
I first played Doom in May 1994, when I was six years old. That was the shareware version, on an old 486 with no Internet capability, which I was stuck with until 1999. I loved it, and played through it many times... too many times. The day I got my first Internet-ready PC in November 1999 was the coolest ever. I could access the Internet and run all sorts of new, weird and wonderful things (the Quake III, Unreal Tournament and Half-Life demos stand out vividly in my mind.) But I never believed there would still be people playing Doom. Not only were there thousands still playing Doom, there was a community, news sites, forums, talk channels, elaborate expansion and modification projects, and "sourceports" - projects to improve the Doom engine and keep it modern, adding advanced graphics support, dynamic lighting, 3D models and other goodies.
Between 1999 and 2003, my fascination with the game rejuvenated. I joined various communities and learned a few more things about the game and how it worked, and defended the game when my insavant friends dismissed it on account of its age. I played deathmatch Doom online in an Internet-oriented Doom sourceport called CSDoom, and its successor project ZDaemon, which I did development testing for during its re-development. I competed in a few tournaments, and even had a month running a four-man clan. I wrote a handful of remixes of music from the game; you can find these on the Music page.
Some time after 2003 I lost interest in Doom (and began to lose interest in gaming), so I didn't pursue Doom mapmaking. Still I am keeping this page of my experiments running (a) in case there's a time I return to the game and (b) as a shrine to this game that continues to show what 3D gaming should be about.
Pathways
Created: October 2000
Made for: Doom 1: any PC version
Download: pathways.zip
I made this map one Sunday, one of those passing days of the holidays, just raining enough outside to make one feel bored and slightly depressed. My friend Sean was making the hour-long journey bound north to visit me and stay for a couple of days. All I had was a 500mhz P3 box with Internet access and my old 50mhz 486 Doom box next to it with a serial cable between the two for entertainment (there wasn't much else to do.) I'd been mucking around in a Doom map editor called Doom Construction Kit in my gradually defrosting room all morning, and decided to make a map to deathmatch in with my friend. It's pretty much just a few square rooms connected together with disjointed narrow dark hallways in a circle, and halls from each room going to a room in the center. Each room has a different weapon in it. The textures are all misaligned. Half an hour worth of two-player deathmatch fun.
Tunnels
Created: June 2001
Made for: Doom 1 or Doom II: any PC version
Download: tunnels.zip
Tunnels is best played at low resolution with vertical view / movement disabled. Not terribly exciting, this is pretty much just a random mix of halls connected to bigger open indoor areas which are supposed to be rooms, with weapons in the centre of each room. All the same texture, same height. There's a BFG9000 out the back if anyone wants one.
WADPipi
Created: July 2001
Made for: Converting Doom WADs
Download: wadpipi10.zip
This little utility flips the marking on WAD files used by Doom-based games. IWADs can be changed to PWADs and vice versa. I wrote this to get around a Doom editor called Wintex that refused to edit Doom IWADs.
Spectre Shell
Created: October 2000
Made for: Any Doom game, using a multiplayer port.
Download: spctshel.zip
This is a weird pixellated player skin for modern Internet-multiplayer Doom sourceports such as Doom Legacy, ZDaemon, and Skulltag. I was trying to replicate the shape of a spectre from an old Macintosh game I used to play at school many years ago called Spectre Challenger. There's one word that sums up this skin fairly accurately: Paintbrush. (Or 'mspaint' for those of you not familiar with the original name.) On the three occasions I played with this skin with a couple of other people that weren't both me, it was agreed that the skin was rather humerous. At least that's the impression I got, they didn't actually speak English that well.
Oda Calone ECT
Created: August 2001
Made for: Doom 1: requires ZDoom or other sourceport.
Download: odacalon.zip
Hooray for nonsensical names. Oda Calone is a set of five single-player maps. It was more of an experiment with architecture than anything, so of course, I tried to use as many different textures as I could. This is the type of WAD that other authors would advise not to release, but I thought it was pretty good for a first-attempt single-player hub, and a 20-minute diversion. The theme was combat training - constructions designed for training marines to kill hellspawn in case they ever invade again (vague explanation for having portals at the start of every map.) Packed with monsters, and misaligned textures. Please be advised that upon downloading this set of levels, any possums in your immediate vicinity will contract HIV.
Skroom
Created: September 2001
Made for: Doom II: any modern sourceport such as ZDoom.
Download: skroom.zip
Skroom is a six-map deathmatch set. The maps are simple but incredibly fun if you have enough players. For these I recommend eight. Features: a Doom version of the Arena Gate map (Q3DM1) from Quake III; a church with oversized seats; a big Towers-Of-Hanoi style hill surrounded by cracked lava and much ammunition; two small parallel camping bases with larger and smaller openings and an open area between them; some crazy map that makes no sense, and a big cake tin with a lava pit. And let's not forget those misaligned textures. Fun for the whole family, without all the stickiness.
Scragadelica
Created: September 2001
Made for: Doom II: any PC version.
Download: scragadelica.zip
A Doom II deathmatch map on Map 07, and loosely based on the original's layout. An open watery area with five stations; four in each corner and one in the middle. There are four ways to the outer perimeter which has more ammo around it. I added a mix of monsters for flavour. Good fun with six or more players.
Enzemica
Created: October 2001
Made for: Doom II: any PC version.
Download: enzemica.zip
Simple, and great fun on ZDaemon deathmatch - four rooms linked together with windows (or holes, if you can jump) and teleporters. Each room has a different theme and different guns, and loads of ammo. The more players the merrier - and you can combine this with the Scragadelica map for a fun map6/7 rotation.
Revalvicate
Created: July 2002
Made for: Doom 1: for ZDoom or any sourceport supporting MOD-tracker music.
Download: revlvic8.zip
Revalvicate is a music replacement WAD for Doom, covering all of episode 1 and including introduction, intermission and ending music. This was an experiment to see how my own music would fit into the game - it's repetitive but there are a few cool themes in it. A sourceport capable of playing MOD tracker music such as ZDoom (1.23+) is required to play this music set.
