#megawad

[1stprototype]

Okay that's actually a really cool level transition.

[valkiriforce]

Anomaly Report, DOOM II

[slipgatetourist]

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/133206-machete-32-map-boom-compatible-megawad-rc1/

[whatever-whatsoever]

Doom sky is the best.

[mileena--kahnumm]

DOOM II - Whispers of Satan - WOS.Wad

Mod I'm using- E.V.P Enhanced Vanilla Project

[thothxv]

myhouse.wad-adjacent facts and blatant shilling for the musicians who soundtracked it

As has been largely disseminated, new mappers making levels based on their own houses are a common trope in the doom community, and they are often referred to generically as "myhouse.wad". The earliest myhouse maps are actually some of the oldest Doom maps in existence, predating Doom 2 (also at least one Doom 2 map was based on Sandy Peterson's house...)

A lot of people are impressed with myhouse.wad's room over room. I'm more impressed that in the first house myhouse used a boom-style silent teleporter to implement room-over-room sloppily so that the illusion very easily breaks (just step back up the stairs while one of the basement doors is open: it will snap shut because you are being teleported back into the version of the house with an upstairs, and thus there can't be an open door there), just like an inexperienced mapper might in 1999, before using modern GZDoom portals to do it more convincingly in the second house.

There's been a lot of theorizing about myhouse's author, probably because veddge is a very very competent mapper and also because everyone who does know who the author is has stonewalled inquiries at the author's request, implying that the author has a meaningful identity in the Doom community. Or maybe they're just shy. However, DavidXNewton noted in his analysis series on myhouse that it does a lot of things in a ways that are unnecessary using modern UDMF and ZScript but would be familiar to someone coming from a less advanced mapping format like Boom or Old ZDoom. This is indicative of Veddge being more along the lines of what he says he is: either someone truly returning after a long absence, or at the very least someone who isn't terribly familiar with modern GZDoom mapping. Either that, or the entire map was mapped in character. I genuinely don't know which I'd find more impressive.

"doomcute" is a term used to refer to maps that recreate real-world items or environments in doom (usually because the immediate reaction from players is "oh that's adorable!"). Myhouse maps are invariably trying for doomcute, but another early doomcute map was Shamus Young's Doom City from 1995 (yes, Shamus Young of DM of the Rings fame. I discovered while researching that he actually died last year. Rest in peace). Doom City recreated a couple of real-world looking buildings, but the thing everyone seems to remember about Doom City is its recreation of... a gas station. Food for thought.

Hilariously, myhouse almost got lost in the shuffle on Doomworld, because most people weren't looking for a myhouse.wad to play. Several of Veddge's collaborators posted in the thread to keep this from happening.

I believe Veddge's confirmed collaborators on myhouse are Kevansevans, esselfortium, and Jimmy. I don't know much about Kevansevans, but I believe he helped with the scripting and some of his scripting work from other sources made it into the wad because he's officially credited (as is everyone whose work was used in the map: it's all inside the PK3). Essel and Jimmy are credited only in anagram form because they are responsible for the music, which is actually wholly original (also Jimmy gave no indication he was involved until it was revealed by players unscrambling the anagram, which was very very funny).

I'm actually going to talk about Essel and Jimmy in detail over the next few bullet points, because I feel like it. And they're both really neat.

Sarah "esselfortium" Mancuso is responsible for memory=entryrrrr/////, the piece the plays in the burned house and various other places throughout the wad. She's composed professionally for video games and has several albums, but in the Doom community she's probably best known for creating and managing the Back to Saturn X project, a trilogy of megawads (only two of which are presently released) being developed by a massive team of modders, with custom assets, a custom palette, a complete original OST, and some very impressive maps... all intended to be playable with a vanilla doom2.exe. Which is insane: Vanilla Doom is brutal to map for, on account of harsh limitations that it's hard to be confident your map or project falls within. Back to Saturn X was so ambitious that it found previously undiscovered ways that Doom can crash. Of course, in addition to running the project, Essel also mapped for it, made textures for it, and composed a significant portion of the soundtrack. And because that was not impressive enough apparently, Essel also (with some help from a few others) created Knee-Deep in Knee-Deep in ZDoom, a joke wad that takes the (in)famous Knee-Deep in ZDoom, a mapset designed to show off the features of ZDoom, and recreates as many of its tricks as it can entirely in vanilla. A feat I can only describe as black magic of the highest order. She also went out of her way to say Trans Rights during her bethesda interview, so that's cool too.

James "Jimmy" Paddock is responsible for the increasingly glitchy and messed-up version of D_RUNNIN that plays in the second house. Which figures, because Jimmy's music is everywhere. He takes commissions for music, he's contributed free music to the community, and his music is very very popular. Notable wads he's contributed tracks to include Plutonia 2, Speed of Doom, Reverie, Back to Saturn X Episodes 1 and 2, Eviternity, and Doom 2 In Spain Only, and the MIDI soundtrack to John Romero's SIGIL, which some consider to be even better than the Buckethead soundtrack. He also is the project lead and mind behind The Adventures of Square, a standalone, free game made in GZDoom, he's done texture work, he's made several award-winning doom mods (cacowards, that is), mapped for numerous other projects, and had just done a whole ton of stuff. The doom community gave him an award for lifetime achievement. Oh, and he did an alternative MIDI OST for Prodeus? Genuinely didn't know about that.

While researching this I learned that Jimmy is going to be evicted in a month, so now's a great time to check out his music online and see if you're into it. I'm not a super fan of his vocal delivery, but I really like some of his instrumentals and MP3 versions of his MIDIs.

[wadbot]

biowar.wad: Operation BIOWAR MAP01 (488, 628, 0) Author: Chris Harbin, Paul Corfiatis, John Bishop Date: 1999-11-21 Description: Biowar is a doom2 megawad in the spirit of ICARUS and others. It consists of 18 regular levels and 1 secret level. The levels range from moderate to hard and are all very well done. Enjoy!

[doom-nerdo-666]

"Born from the idea to dedicate a map to one of your favorite characters, this wad contains 23 maps referencing a fictional character (also called waifu) be it with their layout, textures, or overall theme."

[kracovx]

Doomguy goes to hell

commissioned work for a megawad

[lilafeuer]

Doomed Worlds - Interval 35f

IWAD: Alien Vendetta (2001) a 32-level megawad for Doom II Compatibility: Vanilla Screenshots: Used Nugget Doom source port

[pitoframbling]

An SC-55 render of CoTeCiO's "Extradimensional Beings", from the megawad DOOM 64 for DOOM II

[jayextee]

Not content with naming every single map in this megaWAD after a Nine Inch Nails song, I've now done so with the difficulty settings too...

[captainkupo]

jpcp is the only non-commercial megawad ive ever beaten and ive gone back to it in my search for wads to play now that ive done everything commercial

forgot how creative and detailed of the maps are, alot of talent on display, it was a great choice and while its been hard on UV, it feels like the next healthy difficulty increase from plutonia HMP.

would recommend it to anyone looking for more doom, its a really really fun time and very much managable on HMP.

not to "thing, japan" but its really interesting to me seeing any kind of first person shooter work from japan given that theyre pretty rare

bittersweet seeing kurashikis art since shes not really been active in the doom community for a bit (shes around but shes pretty much posting about for honor all the time lol) and most of the map authors havent really done anything big like this since, just occasional megawad contribution.

i just looked and apparently tatsurd-cacocaco said back in 2022 that theyre working on a follow up to jpcp!

[whatever-whatsoever]

Even though I like the concept, Uprising megawad provides such a ridiculous amount of monsters to be slaughtered that it started to grind my nerves. One episode had near 1400 monsters, majority of which were probably those skeletons.

[m39]

Doom WADs’ Roulette (2009): Whispers of Satan

G8: Whispers of Satan

Main author(s): Paul Corfiatis and Kristian Aro

Release date: September 15th, 2009

Version(s) played: Final version (I guess)

Required port compatibility: Boom

Levels: 36 (standard 30 + 2, plus (on ZDoom) two super secret maps, a credits map, and a warp map)

Paul Corfiatis and Kristian Aro, the dynamic duo behind 2002 A Doom Odyssey (well, mostly done by the former) come back to deliver another WAD – Whispers of Satan.

Its story begins in around August 2005, when Kris meets with his buddy in crime, to talk about making a Doom II megaWAD with a couple of super secret, ZDoom-exclusive maps after finishing one of his WADs (Death Tormention 3). The work on this WAD started in October 2006, and it took almost three years to finish.

The WAD’s plot is not really worth talking about since it’s another one of Doom II’s unofficial sequels but not really WADs. On the bright side, at least I can say that it is not as cringy (when it comes to intermission screens at least) as the Doom Odyssey.

Now, when I played the Doom Odyssey, I felt like I played the more polarizing Ultimate Doom with a plot that wasn’t self-aware at all. However, I feel rather optimistic that Whispers of Satan will be better than that over two decades old WAD. So let’s not waste any time, and take a look at it.

I’m surprised how this WAD looks great. Usually, the levels have at least one, great-looking landmark. Not to mention the changing sky and 5 themes across the WAD (not counting the secret levels) that make it not boring for the eye. These themes are:

Techbase,

Techbase with some brick walls,

Plutonia-like,

Plutonia-like with some Hexen elements,

and, of course, hell itself.

Liked the music as well. I’m struggling to find which tracks were the best ones; Base Stalker is definitely at the top, but I am not sure about the rest; maybe Nebula's Keep and Orgolia as well?

Anyway, changing the subject, I don’t really think Satanic Whispering is complicated. Like most of the other WADs with complexity like this one, it has a couple of getting-stuck moments, but besides these, you can go through these levels rather fast without enemies.

There are, however, some questionable decisions. Like, for some reason many of the maps use the rule of two switches AKA there are at least two switches near each other in the copy-pasted areas with (almost always) copy-pasted groups of enemies. These moments feel like a filler, and I think these are mostly related to Paul’s maps. Kristian’s maps do have moments like these as well, but at least he tried to make each of the switches’ routes different from what I can remember.

There are other annoying moments as well; some of them feeling like a fossil of an abomination that refuses to die. Shitty backtracking (like with the case of the red key in Basement Jazz), too dark moments on a map and not being able to return in some cases is one thing, but also bringing back secrets that you have only one chance to reach? Didn’t this shit die years ago?

Also, another icon of shit on MAP30, because why the hell not? Let’s inflate Romero's head’s health as well! What could go wrong?!

sigh

Let’s talk about secret maps for exchange. The first regular one is a homage to Star Wars (the good times when the only thing in this franchise that was mocked and screamed to the heavens by rapid fanboys were prequels), while the second one is a more classic Wolfenstein reference (I don’t have pictures of that map because I don’t want to be marked as a bloody nahtzee dick rider).

There are also three, ZDoom-exclusive maps (technically four but you can only get to the last one by console commands). The first one is Ein Lustiger Ort (a funny place), of which one half is pushing voodoo dummies into teleporters with weapons and running like hell to exit from siege cows, and the other… the other half is… Okay, fellas, remember that... seedy secret in Ultimative Geheimnis? Yeah? Well, the second half (if you want to get to the second, ZDoom secret map) is basically that… sprinkled with impse-

projectile vomiting

Technical problems

Okay, I’m done.

Now, the second ZDoom map is 1994 Revisited, and it’s basically what the title says; it feels like it makes fun of the maps that are stuck in 1994 while also celebrating them. It even ends on another icon of shit… which makes me hate the Verge of Revelation’s icon of shit even more since MAP34 (kind of) makes fun of how the megaWADs end with this crap and yet they still shove one in MAP30! What is this?! Chuck and Doyle: Rabies Ravagers: The Movie?! Did the 2020s use time travel and brainwash the authors that one time?!

Okay, let’s calm down and change the subject because the third ZDoom map is interesting. You have to reach the end of Sintlabs but instead of pressing the exit switch, go back to the starting area and you will find the secret exit that will lead you to Hidden Warp Zone. It all boils down to choosing to end up either in Playgrounds of Caesar or Halls of Cocytus, and that’s it.

Whispers of Satan isn’t really hard. It tends to get tougher in the final third, and it has cheap, if not outdated, moments (pop-up monsters, traps with hitscanners, moments with demons teleporting behind you after being in front of you), but if you are experienced with WADs, you won’t have a bigger problem with this one; there is no slaughter map around there.

There is, however, an interesting part of Undervilla, with Mancubi behind walls, and while it is yet another bullshit difficulty bump that I’m surprised is still used, I can’t get myself to hate it because it references to Hexen, where the trap walls with the same texture started firing projectiles. It’s kind of funny, not gonna lie.

There is also… uhm… a new enemy if you can call it that… It’s called Cybie… has a higher pain chance than cyberdemon… and has different sound effects… And I refuse to talk about it more because I feel dirty even thinking about it.

I don’t know if this is a bug or something, but in the icon of shit area in 1994 Revisited, half of a time, the crushers that were supposed to destroy Romero's head didn’t work. Maybe it’s related to the red area near the teleporter that takes you to the icon of shit area, but I’m not entirely sure.

Overall, Whispers of Satan is a pretty good WAD. It does feel archaic in places, copy-pasted switch areas feel like a joke, and there are still fragments of problems that plagued Doom Odyssey, but still, it is a better WAD than the authors’ 2002 project.

The next WAD on the list is Demons of Problematique 2. Let’s hope we won’t end up with another Cheogsh 2 fiasco.

[wjbs-mods]

Making cute little pre-level intermission screens for my in-development mapset, Doom Translated: The Heist (which is a concept-MegaWAD where I put every Doom 2 map title through this program, with the number of languages set to 15, and now I'm trying to come up with a coherent theme, which in this case is stealing stuff, and also it has an ultra-hard "Apocalypse!!!" difficulty because I'm also using it as a testbed for Zscript and Mapinfo stuff)

Each map will have its own unique screen, setting up the protagonist's next heist. In this case, it's map 2, where the protagonist breaks into a UAC storage facility to steal a magical artefact which is totally not just the yellow skull-key.

(Bonus wallpaper version below!)