Doom Musings: Five great Icon of Sin battles (and five that were terrible)

Hooray, another Doom musings post, and yet another one that is about five things that were good and five that weren't good. So the Icon of Sin, a giant goat face on a wall that shoots spawn cubes that summon enemies non-stop until you shoot its brain out. A fantastic idea, trying to figure out how to get this thing to finally stop shooting and to rid the Earth of the Hell that has taken over. Then with custom WADs which will generally have a final level with dealing with the so-called "boss shooter" new arenas and scenarios were made. This will cover five great Icon of Sin battles and five that were not so great.

Note that this list will cover levels that have Icons of Sin for end bosses. These don't have to be MAP30's, although at the end this list was all MAP30 except for one (oops). This list will not cover any level that doesn't have the Icon of Sin on them.

Great: Icon of Sin (Doom II)

I mean what else should be listed as the first great one? The arena is pretty simple, large, but simple enough to work with what gets thrown at the player. Solving the puzzle to get the platform to rise, then using it and shooting rockets into the brain in order to win, yet you're under constant pressure from monsters as well as the damaging floor below. The famous Romero Head easter egg of course also originated here for those who wish to use no clipping to see it.

Terrible: Last Call (TNT: Evilution)

The torch maze with the voodoo doll instadeath teleporter gimmick is a wonderfully innovative idea. Plus it's the first IWAD map to make use of dummy sectors. It's a shame that much of the level's combat before the boss isn't impressive. It's there in spades, but nothing too amazing. The real kicker is that in most other boss shooters, you aim for the brain. In this one, aiming for the brain won't work, you have to aim below the brain. Although you can do this with any weapon and damage the boss, the counter-intuitive way of actually finishing this level threw off many players, and that's why it is terrible.

Great: The Forgotten God (Revolution!)

Fighting a big goat face has become a staple of Icon of Sin battles. But in Revolution!, we are treated to something that looks much more sinister. It's a big humanoid which functions like a boss shooter, but far cooler. The arena is small and simple, but the ideas present were excellent. A split-second rocket for each round trip in order to damage the thing make this one frantic fight. And the ending afterwards shows what you probably desired.

Terrible: Nucleus (Icarus: Alien Vanguard)

I don't know how three mappers can make an Icon of Sin level seem bad, but here we are. The simple arena has you thinking you must blow some rockets towards the center, but nothing will ever happen. The strategy here was also counter-intuitive, heading into the arena, running along the outside perimeter, then heading back to the south end to find a skull switch and a target to shoot. Even worse, the actual boss is at a far side, requiring the rocket launcher, but the whole thing feels awkward. And the arena looks awkward too!

Great: The Gatewatcher (Plutonia 2)

Thomas Van Der Velden is the mapper to thank for The Forgotten God above, and he is also to thank for this one, The Gatewatcher. Yet another great instance of Icon of Sin art, the goat face this time has more hollow eyes and just feels much more sinister, with the music track Cataclysmic Impact further making the whole thing much more harrowing. Urgency is needed, kill the cyberdemons at the switches, then aim for those hollow eyes. This is truly one of the nastier Icon of Sin fights.

Terrible: Point Dreadful (Alien Vendetta)

For those who play it, you probably only get one shot at defeating the boss shooter, which basically means studying a speedrun tactic used for the original Icon of Sin. Point Dreadful is terrible because the distance between the lowest switch and the lift from which it triggers is too big for the short amount of time to reach it, requiring wall-running, which for those who never got acclimated to it will never be able to reach. And it's not a very impressive Icon of Sin battle visually, just somewhat standard. It's just such a dreadful point to end Alien Vendetta with.

Great: Píča (Kama Sutra)

The fruits of Doomguy's labour in Kama Sutra pay off in this amazingly memorable final map. The beginning has you choosing a path, Kids or Adults? Choosing kids is the lamer option, though it's still difficult as you have to wait for an exit to lower while cyberdemons assault you with rockets. But the Adults route? Yeah, that's the kind of thing every guy's fantasy never would have imagined. Is there really much more to say?

Terrible: Amenthes (Epic 2)

One of the main caveats of the MAP30 slot is that monsters gain the ability to telefrag. Though this doesn't just apply to the player, it applies to other monsters as well, and it works for both spawning enemies and teleporting enemies. So what's the deal with the adventurous Epic 2 and its lame final level? Well it's pretty much segmented setpieces before the boss shooter, and one particular setpiece has you going on rising pillars and shooting a far switch. What happens next is a weird sight, a bunch of enemies teleport onto a teleporter behind you and telefrag each other. And this happens twice. It's so odd that this would happen. And the actual boss shooter itself is honestly underwhelming and easy to beat.

Great: Worlds Collide (Hellbound)

Worlds Collide is a great example of a gauntlet run Icon of Sin, making players go through the first few trials while enemies continue to spawn in the level well before you reach the boss itself. And the settings, like the rest of Hellbound, work wonders for this particular map, with the lava-flooded cities and the dilapidated structures taking huge precedence over the damning landscapes. The swift will be able to win this one, but even the slower players shouldn't have too much trouble as long as they are reasonably quick in figuring out what to do.

Terrible: Release Me (Cleimos 2)

So you run through a bunch of fences while the Icon of Sin spawns stuff, climb some stairs and find the boss sprite to shoot. That's basically it. Not much to say about it. It's too short to be exciting and too lame combat-wise. It's also MAP26, with a few bonus maps appearing in the final slots. Is there really much else to say? Requiem's MAP30 (Nevermore) at least had more meat to deal with before its lame boss.

Honorable mentions:

Hatred (Requiem): The whole level is fantastically tough to this very day for a Requiem map, the Icon of Sin being a somewhat pleasant surprise.
Darkness Without End (Speed of Doom): Speed of Doom was released in 2010, and this final level had 2010 monsters to deal with. It was a survival gauntlet, but an exploit allows you to wait for the pillar to lower without having to worry about fighting a horde of slaughter.
The Verge of Revelation (Whispers of Satan): Whispers of Satan has the settings of Hell done amazingly well, and the buildups to the Icon of Sin are great. The Icon of Sin battle tries to be as innovative as it gets too.
Megiddo (NOVA: The Birth): Five authors create five distinct sections before you get to the final boss. The boss itself isn't as good as it should be though.
In the Eye of the Beholder (Plutonia Revisited: Community Project): As you might expect, Thomas Van Der Velden delivers a unique-looking Icon of Sin in the form of a huge cacodemon. It's just not as memorable as the others.

Dishonorable mentions:
1994 Revisited (Whispers of Satan): Geez, what good does it to wait for the Icon of Sin to get repeatedly crushed by a single switch?
The North Pole (H2H-XMAS): None of the spawned monsters will ever show up in this map.
Nevermore (Requiem): It's a simple yet small arena preceded by a few battles, which actually saves it from being too lame.
Game Over (Going Down): Gotta figure out what to do, then just wait a bit, then let a monster open a door and run for the elevator. Easy.

A look back at: Minelvaton Saga: Ragon no Fukkatsu

RPGs in general follow a basic adventure formula, you start out as a lowly hero, usually eventually having a chosen one vibe, then it goes to finding certain key items and passages to get through the entire game from start to finish. And it's the NES games that fit this to a tee, having players go back to previous locales after getting the means to which others need them, and so forth.

Minelvaton Saga feels like an ultimate fetch quest which frankly creates more boredom than excitement. Vague hints from NPCs are vague, they simply say rumors, but like any other RPG cliches, rumors end up true eventually. The lengths to getting those rumors to be true however was quite nasty when it came to this game. Your first quest is simple enough, prove you're the prince. Then go to the next town. And the next, find clues, go through dungeons, go back, go through the same dungeons again, ah! See the problem? It becomes monotonous really quickly. The big issue that combines itself with this is the encounter rate and battle system. Encounter rate follows simple, potentially annoying formula, and battle system is a weird action RPG style thing reminiscent of Hydlide's system, where you run into enemies and damage is given to whomever. Bad!

Yet interestingly enough, you'll likely run into a dungeon you're not supposed to reach yet early on, likely getting your butt kicked in short order. Or you can prevail and get a lot of levels from it. In fact, leveling up in this game becomes an afterthought as you gain levels quickly. Too bad stat gains and armor that you get don't really equal a whole lot of invulnerability though. The game includes separate characters to substitute for a party, which I guess works in a pinch? Plus two extra party members are nice, although they have AI that tries to get away as much as possible for their long range abilities. By the time someone is ready for endgame they have 99 antidotes (for nothing but poison status anyways in this game) 99 medicines, 99 keys (yes, you NEED keys and there are too many locked doors here), and likely 99 of most attack items. And why do you need all this? Cause the game is gonna be an outright marathon during the endgame parts. The entirety of Rabant Castle is a huge maze, then ANOTHER maze with the aptly-named Gorgon's Maze after it, then FOUR tower tours each with a boss and fixed encounters and lots of key doors and dead ends before the naturally confusing final dungeon of the game.

Do yourself a favor and if you wish to play this game by any means use the guides, or you're not gonna even come close. Or just flat out don't play it at all.

A look back at: La Pucelle Tactics

Well well well, another Nippon Ichi game. One of the oldest, predating mostly everything else (including Disgaea), but not the Marl Kingdom games. Though interestingly enough the game takes place in the same setting as the Marl Kingdom, but some offshoot called Paprica. The game's gameplay is honestly okay, I know Nippon Ichi's other games have far superior tactical combat systems and they are worth the grinds for, but this one is fairly standard. Almost Shining Force-esque, except 3D, special abilities other than magic, and the ideas of portals to purify. I never bothered with Dark Energy Indexes, they are going up if you leave portals alone or kill your own characters, and while the idea of entering the Dark World is decent enough, you can still replay maps anytime, which sort of mitigates things. Maybe I just didn't want to have as much randomization as Soul Nomad's inspections or Phantom Brave's dungeons. And purifying monsters into recruits is...okay at best? Not entirely all that useful when you get quite a few storyline characters that are always better. Those Chocolat characters for instance, the small cats that are happy-go-lucky and all, make great support characters if properly leveled, as does Monyamonya who has a distinct advantage to only needing two uses of a skill to learn it. Papillon despite being level 1 and a squishy character also has some routinely nice stuff. Then the physical powerhouses of Prier, Homard, Croix, etc. all work out too. The shop mechanic and the survey help the balance of customization just a tad.

The plot is again a strong point, but I personally get tired of the whole romances involved. Prier falls for Croix and Croix ignores her most of the time, echoing the sentiment Squall gave to Rinoa. It's a little better here because Croix doesn't all of a sudden fall for Prier right off the bat. The Eclair/Homard relationship was just sort of there as a beta couple, but doesn't really hit any strides at all other than maybe a snark from Papillon or so. Culotte crushing on Alouette was even worse, especially when we find out who she really was and that Culotte wouldn't even have a chance. As for the main villain, Noir, he's alright. Another one of those "destroy all life" villains, because he is heavily conflicted, having lost his mother, creating a church with lots of publicity, and making sacrifices in humans and demons. Sometimes he's a Sephiroth kinda guy. Sometimes he isn't. And Prier, the main heroine, becomes a demon overlord some time in between this game and Disgaea where she makes multiple appearances in later titles. I'd love to know how (yes I know the re-release tells you all about it, but most people who like the game's company would likely have been confused on the whole thing).

I would say this is one of Nippon Ichi's weaker titles, along with Rhapsody. But then again, these games aren't necessarily weak compared to most others, they're just weak in the Nippon Ichi catalog. Rhapsody placed rather weakly in my overall rankings, and La Pucelle isn't as hot as others, but it's certainly not a terrible game. I'd say ever-so-slightly above average, really.

Doom Musings: 5 custom monsters that helped their megawads (and 5 that hurt)

So back to the Doom musings. A lot of custom WADs I play do the simple thing, make new maps and just give a different Doom experience. Some offer weird sound effects, new music, or new textures, and some offer some sprite replacements. There is one thing I notice about some high-profile megawads, however, and that is the ones that contain custom monsters. These are more than sprite replacements of course, they have DeHacked scripting that changes the monster behavior so it is different from sprite replacements, and as such they completely change the gameplay dynamic. With all the custom WADs I have played over the years, I have found monsters I thought did a good job of making new balances, and others that have completely overblown them or just made them worse in some way.

What this Doom Musings post is for is to create a ScreenRant-style list showcasing the five best custom monsters that had helped their respective megawads, as well as five worst ones that hurt their respective megawads. Note that I do not add any sort of actual gameplay mod that changes monsters, nor do I have total conversions, since those usually change every single monster aspect along with levels, weapons, etc. These are megawads with levels that are partial conversions, meaning they will have some core Doom aspects still intact, but they have changes to the monsters.

Helped: Arachnorb (Valiant)

Valiant had plenty of custom stuff to distinguish itself as a completely dynamic partial conversion, including changes to the bullet weapon and several new enemies. The one enemy that proved the most diabolical just so happened to be the small bugger known as the Arachnorb. This puppy can be imagined as a mini-plasma-cacodemon of sorts, shooting small streams of plasma at the player while being a floating enemy. What really sells this enemy however is the potential chance it will spawn from a dying arachnotron. This, combined with the abundance of arachnotrons in Valiant as a whole, make this a fun monster at many moments and a frustrating monster at many more.

Hurt: Afrit (Various megawads)

Alright, real talk. The Afrit is overused and much less fun the more we see it. It's a floating fire baron, and assuming we're not counting the numerous ZDoom wads that use it (this includes ZPack), their method of attack will leave players hiding most of the time they're encountered. Basically, in the non-ZDoom wads it is so overly used in (Scythe 2, Resurgence, Deus Vult II, Bloodstain, Survive in Hell) its method of attack is to launch a huge flurry of mancubus fireballs along with revenant fireballs, making this attack lethal even with the highest of health and armor. Deus Vult II's textfile says it best, two of these can take out a cyberdemon without impunity. Scythe 2 popularized the heck out of it, but may have the worst iteration because its health was on par with a spider mastermind, meaning just one of these is trouble alone.

Helped: Alien Guardian (Ancient Aliens)

Alien Drone, whatever you call them, this floating cubic thingie is a great floating monster, being menacing, non-bleeding, and spitting revenant rockets to make it a viable threat. This is offset by its complete glass cannon status; it has low health. With this in mind, the fast-paced combat in Ancient Aliens is a great way to see these things fall quickly. And even better, they have a blast radius upon death, meaning they can work as mobile barrels if you're so strategic in sending them straight to alien hell.

Hurt: Holo-bot (STRAIN)

STRAIN had a very peculiar set of custom enemies to make it one of the weird classics of the 90's Doom era. These enemies may or may not hit their stride at parts, but the Holo-bot is a disappointment. These weird bots look zany as hell and could give the feel of fighting a really nasty sentry. Except they fire with revenant rockets. Revenant rockets that are insanely slow. I can't imagine anyone actually getting hit by these super slow rockets, even the guided ones. This enemy definitely had a lot of potential, even having a spectre variant, but falls short because of its pathetic attack.

Helped: Rocket trooper (Obituary)

Otherwise known as Bazooka Man, or Rocket Zombie, Obituary's rocket trooper is the original glass cannon. It's a simple case of outfitting a zombie with a rocket launcher, and the results end up outright hilarious at the right hands. Sure, they can kill an unsuspecting player easily, especially given Obituary's cramped level layouts which give the rocket trooper a lot of benefit. But that can easily be turned against his poor self if you get him to fire close to a wall, or other enemies. Old, feeble, but still loads of fun, this little guy packed the most dangerous heat any regular zombie could pack, for all around him.

Hurt: Evil Marine (Scythe 2)

Much like the Afrit, the evil marine has seen plenty of uses since its most famous iteration in Scythe 2, being used in Jenesis, Lunatic (sort of), Bloodstain, Resurgence, Mayhem 2018 Purple Edition, and several other less-known sets. But Scythe 2's version is the worst of all of them, because in this megawad the evil marine is about as fast as the players themselves, firing plasma and immediately moving, making him one hell of a howler monkey in combat. Trying to hit this guy without the BFG is one thing altogether, just try dealing with MAP31's secret exit. Bad enough just getting three keys and unlocking three bars, the marines will play the death dance to a tee to interrupt the attempts.

Helped: Annihilator (Eviternity)
With Eviternity being a uniquely-detailed gameplay experience, there were bound to be new changes to the enemy roster. All of the monsters have their respective uses, the nightmare demon being a twice-as-strong and serviceable demon, the astral cacodemon working well as a surprise attacker with mancubus fireballs, and the former captain being essentially the same as its Struggle counterpart more or less. But the crown achievement goes to the Annihilator, bringing a welcome change to the whole "rocket-shooting baron" routine by adding a hitscan attack right after the rocket. This makes it the most formidable of the Eviternity demons, keeping players consistently on their toes as they are to keep this true nasty from blowing them out of the lands and waters.

Hurt: Cybruiser (Valiant and Mayhem 2018 Orange edition)

Rather ironic to reach a custom monster that shares the same sprite as the one above it, but the Cybruiser is here for a different reason than you'd think. It's not because it lacks the hitscan attack the Annihilator had (remember Valiant came before Eviternity), nor is it the fact that it's a rocket-shooting baron. It essentially replaces the spider mastermind, and the only reason is to make it immune to splash damage. While it's okay on the onset, think of what this does to the generally underused spider mastermind. With it replacing the light visor in Valiant, it has become much easier to defeat. So the Cybruiser hurt Valiant by actually hurting another monster's niche.

Helped: Suicide Bomber (Valiant and Mayhem 2018 Purple edition)

Serious Sam is credited for completely overhauling the way an action bomb worked in video games, giving us a man who is half-naked, had bombs attached to his hands, but most hilariously, having no head but still screaming. And of course, appearing in droves every single time. While other action bombs existed in first-person shooters well before the beheaded kamikaze, it was that scream that basically sold the series. That same scream is used in Valiant's suicide bombers. They don't lack heads now, but they still are a major threat, always coming in large groups, and they are admirably volatile. The pacing of Valiant is insane and these boys make it much more insane.

Hurt: Immolator (Mayhem 2018 Purple edition)

One of my biggest issues with custom monsters is just how much it takes to bring them down. Some do well as glass cannons, but they you get this thing and Scythe 2's Afrit with their health matching or nearly matching the spiderdemon. In fact, the immolator is essentially the same thing as an afrit in practice with a spread of mancubus fireballs as its main attack along with the ability to fly. Another way to annoy savvy players is to have a monster shoot during its pain state, completely catching people off guard. Which is what this thing does with revenant rockets should you piss it off. It's one thing to make it a lethal attacker. It's another to make it have boss-like health. And as another icing, it is also immune to splash damage as it replaces the spiderdemon as well.

A look back at: Dragon Quest VI

Hooray! First RPG done of 2020. And it's a Dragon Quest game that is generally enjoyable in spades and somewhat annoying in other spades. And wouldn't you believe it, I played a DS remake of the original game, perhaps because the SNES fan translation had poor dialogue transitions that were glitched. Opting for the remake was my option, and my experience with it went generally well. But I gotta say, this took longer than I expected. I am well aware of how long Dragon Quest VII is, according to a lot of people even if you don't do the sidequests you'll be spending about 80 or so in-game hours. This game I played on and off for approximately a month (about thirty days), and there's quite a lot to it.

So the first game was super simple, second upped the party size, enemy numbers, and difficulty. Third went with the class approach, fourth went with the multi-branched story and gave us the wagon, fifth made a good effort with the story. So for the sixth one, I believe it did offer what it could well, giving interchangeable classes (called vocations) allowing them to level up and gain newer abilities, and gave interesting subquests and minigames to handle. Dragon Quest is ready for the big leagues! The game's storyline can easily be forgotten while doing sidequests or grinding for experience/money/tokens. The new stuff blends in with the old to make things neat.

What can I really say, the series is making improvements that make them much more fun. Of course, the pains of grinding get in the way, and while the new skills make things easier (new skills for taking out pesky metal slimes and such) the level thresholds are high in many cases. I relied a lot on both old and new equipment to get through many areas. Plenty to do, plenty to experience. I guess it did what it did well.

Doom Musings: The legacy of Congestion 1024

The early days of Doomworld were rife with inspiration, something that surprisingly holds up to this day. One of the more notable pieces of inspiration was the Exquisite Corpse project. The idea behind it was that one author created a 1024x1024 pixel-sized area, gave it a design and monsters, then the others who wanted to participate had to create their own 1024x1024 pixel-sized area, give it design and monsters, and have a small amount of space as well as have an assumption of just how the previous region looked and played like. It was only one map, but the idea of creating something within a box of 1024x1024 pixels then moved on.

And as such, Congestion 1024 was born, drawing heavy influence on Exquisite Corpse but instead, every map will be playable in the boundaries of 1024x1024 squares*. Now note I said playable, as the player mustn't ever be outside the boundaries, but there can be design, as well as monsters coming in, outside the boundaries (so in theory you can make a city map but confine the player into a square, for example). The designs of Congestion 1024 were done fairly well, but not over the top. But it's because of the limitations of the community project that it showed up on the Roots of Doom Mapping.

And it's entirely because of Congestion 1024 that the idea of making a megawad with limitations took off. Congestion 1024's gets a complete spiritual successor in the Claustrophobia 1024 megawads (yes, there's two of them), a jokewad in Congestion: 64, and the number of 2048 megawads out there (MAYhem 2048 and 2048 Unleashed, both of which I participated in). And the limitation gimmick never really ended there. There were such megawads such as 1 Monster (limiting to only 1 monster type), 100 lines and its many derivatives (these projects deal with making serviceable maps within the limit of certain lines, naturally), ones that involved using only a specific grid size to map, and pretty much any sort of speedmapping competition that uses these gimmicks and/or makes new ones. That's what the Doom community does these days for community projects, as it is far too simple to just have a community megawad without much in terms of limitations or restrictions (the Doomworld Mega Projects for example have no themes at all to speak of).

All this means that each and every community project is tied together in some way other than just being projects done by the community. Yeah, that sounded quite redundant didn't it? Anyways, despite its age (yes, 2005 is that old, people), Congestion 1024 still remains a blast to play, despite the authors of those maps mostly moving on. Nowadays, you probably will remember the names Ian "The Flange Peddler" Cummings and Ray "shitbag" Schmitz just by playing the maps in this megawad, yet the mappers themselves are pretty much moved on from the community.

In my last Doom Musings post I explained how much H2H-XMAS basically had a little of everything, from the imperfections of the level design to the generally guttural gameplay that it gave players. In a way, Congestion 1024 is just like it, heavily imperfect but gives serviceable gameplay usually speaking. Of course, there was some quality control, and the actual difficulty scales up quite nicely. Example below:

Pictured is Lutrov71's Caco District. This is MAP11, and actually it comes right after a death exit (for those unfamiliar, you exit a level by teleporting onto a Romero Head, as well as barrels so you basically die) after MAP10, forcing a pistol start. But it also places players into a quite a bind as the level itself is quite uncomfortable from the get-go. The rocket launcher is behind some barrels, and you don't get the viable super shotgun until you at least make your way to the southwest portion, which will take a while. The hitscanners are in daftly annoying locations and you get a baron of Hell nearby to deal with too, not to mention the cacos who are bound to show up. One of the nastier moments happens when mancubi make their way into the level as well. Furthermore, a lot of people probably don't pay attention to what happens as you go in this level. You see those squares on the outer boundaries of the map layout? These are buildings. Blink and you can easily miss it, but as you go through the map these buildings crumble. This is honestly an extremely cute touch, something that makes the map a lot more interesting.

Caco District, in my opinion, is perhaps an inspiration PWAD level, as it is a really difficult level coming from a forced death exit, and it is quite the challenge. Other types of forced pistol start levels, such as the ones in Unholy Realms, most likely followed this example, giving players quite a challenge from the get-go of a death exit, meaning players will more than likely have to try it multiple times in order to even survive. Of course, not all is set in stone to make actually interesting maps like this one though. As the next examples show...

Pictured are the layouts for MAP07, MAP27, and MAP16. When you play them, they are completely made as arenas, which I'm generally not a fan of. MAP07 even pulls the player directly into a Dead Simple clone that no one really likes all that much in the community these days. MAP16 tries to segment each particular setpiece, offering the four central columns as triggers while the cages to the outside sometimes having monsters. MAP27 is my favorite of these, a dangerous arena where falling means instant death plus four spider masterminds in the four outer towers, which yes you can crush with the outer switches, and it's done well enough. Of course, these are arenas, so there's waiting. Maybe there's some things for the next Doom musings, who knows.

These two maps are Zyklon B (MAP24) and Nullspace Junior (MAP32) both of which are easily the most challenging levels. Zyklon B has a rough opening with an arch-vile in the middle room, where you start, but it's even nastier outside, even culminating in a cyberdemon somewhere in the north end in one of Congestion 1024's nastier levels. You can barely see much in the screenshot above, but Nullspace Junior is done fantastically with teleport ambushes and the sense of danger pervades damn near everything.

Of course, there are others too, especially given what you might experience in the latter half of the maps. One other thing I'm pretty sure Congestion 1024 innovated is a way to make the death exit foolproof. You see, I often play quite a few WADs on the lowest difficulty setting, not because I suck at Doom but rather because I want to see how well things were made difficulty-wise, which includes missing things or what not. An example of what I'm talking about is Scythe 2's first episode. The last level has a strange death exit, but if you were presumably at 200/200 health and armor, and you're on the lowest skill setting, you can survive it. The death exits that are present on MAP20 and MAP29 of this WAD though decide to pull away from the classic "Romero head in a black room with barrels" by adding a voodoo doll. This ensures the player will die, even with God mode on, and this is the most foolproof way to utilize a death exit.

Community projects owe quite a lot to Congestion 1024, but I often think that they owe quite a lot more than they realize. The creative prowess of some of Doomworld's oldest community members still prevails despite the age of these maps.

*There were a few exceptions, which may or may not have been accidental, but those maps with the exceptions were still kept anyways.

Doom Musings: The legacy of H2H-XMAS

Happy 2020 guys. This year I promised to do something different this year in my very last blog post of the year 2019, and sure enough, I will expand this blog to include anything that belongs to Doom under a new tag. That would be known as Doom Musings. I muse over things such as notable PWADs, as well as wad concepts, ideals, mapmaking things, new features, all because I have been a member of the community for quite some time that I got to talk about all this at some point in an expanded blog post. The fact that my VERY FIRST POST said I would talk about Doom yet it's been two whole years and I talked about everything that isn't Doom tells me I gotta start doing that. So this will certainly be a new year resolution for this blog.

The 26th annual Cacowards showed a nice, long essay regarding The Roots of Doom Mapping, highlighting certain projects that have changed and evolved the way Doom modders modded their maps. There's sure to be some legacy in many of the projects listed there, but I feel a disturbance in the Force! What other notable Doom WADs were made in the years that have been sidelined, and what exactly was important for them?

So I will look at a gem I have always looked back on, known only as H2H-XMAS, perhaps the most well-known Christmas WAD out there.

Why is it the most well-known Christmas WAD? Well, how many other Christmas WADs do you really know of that the Doom Community snorted out? The only one I can think of is 32in24-14, a project I created a crummy map for, it was one of the very few 32in24s that bothered with single player Doom, giving us Christmas-themed map names and a few actual Christmas themed maps.

H2H-XMAS on the other hand is an old WAD from way back in 1995, which is 25 years ago right now. It is certainly a legacy WAD, containing 32 Christmas themed levels, and while the overall pacing of the WAD is completely uneven, it gave us Christmas music to listen to, Christmas-themed graphics, the prospect of actually playing as Santa Claus, as well as a few sprite replacements that are meant for the usual Christmas festivities. The WAD is one of the early examples of a team effort (for those in the community, most multi-level WADs are usually in three categories: One-man megawad, community project, or team WADs), with a team known as the Head 2 Head (H2H) getting together and compiling this 32-level megawad for those who wish to play it.

That's basically all there is to H2H-XMAS in terms of actually new stuff, sans the levels. The levels will feature traditional Doom 2 gameplay, with no new monster behavior to speak of. The levels themselves are horribly aged at this point. There are no moments of level design that stick out, not even when you decorate it all with cute Christmas decorations does it hit its stride. The majority of the maps are carryovers from H2H's previous workings, then littered with Doom monsters to give them some singleplayer playability. To point out a few blatant offenders:

The two maps above are MAP26 and MAP27, respectively. The first is an arena map, and when you play it, it's completely wooden. Not much to go for is it? It is notoriously small in size. And so is MAP27, which looks less deathmatch-friendly because as you can see, it's just several square rooms.

Here is MAP13 and MAP28, respectively. Again, they are symmetrical arenas mostly made for deathmatch, but given monsters just to allow for the singleplayer feeling to come in. There is a lot of openness the these particular levels which makes them frantic. Plus they are a little better in the design department.

Finally we have MAP17 and MAP12, respectively. Both of these maps seem reasonably designed from a birds-eye view, but if you look at MAP17, it's got bits of radial symmetry and loads of interconnecting paths that scream reskinned deathmatch map. And it is, along with the ones before it. And MAP12 is here, because, well...

Those who have played H2H-XMAS will definitely understand the true crux of the megawad, its gameplay. The community has lavished the megawad known as Hell Revealed for its idea of making "hard" gameplay but neglecting to bother with the aspect of designing it well. However, H2H-XMAS not only was released before the legendary Hell Revealed, but did much of the same thing, only in even uglier locales. You will quickly notice that the most common enemies met in H2H-XMAS are the revenants and shotgun guys. These two enemies are prevalant in just about every map especially in the middle maps and especially MAP17 and others around it (MAP15 is another blatant revenant-filled map with entire courtyards dedicated to them). The arena maps shown in the pictures above may look like garbage to the modern Doomer's eye, but they are a load of fun to prance around in as you deal with enemies that are scattered throughout the grounds. Because of that I outright adore this WAD, it is a very nice WAD to unwind some time in by playing some pretty tough outings despite any and all design choices being uneven and the WAD in general being uneven.

So let's talk about the rather infamous MAP12. Just looking at the layout is one thing, you have these terraced areas at the southeast, an open yard to the northwest, and some weird steps to the northeast. In that area, the starting points are these weird octagons, and they overlook that yard there. You can expect it alright, but the northwest courtyard will have plenty of enemies in it, with the hitscanner enemies being the biggest concern. That's not to leave out everything else. The majority of this level's architecture is orthogonal and quite banal, but in MAP12 you won't notice it as you combat the numerous imps, revenants, hitscanners. It's so easy to die here, but on the other hand it is not as easy to die. One thing H2H-XMAS does is give you more than enough supplies, so even if you must backtrack to keep alive, you'll stay healthy unless you're exceptionally bad at supply management.

Remember when I said H2H-XMAS was a team effort? Let's look at the authors and their styles here. The most notable author here is Dave Swift, a mapper who has made some levels in Maximum Doom I have played. His style is "throw shotgun guys in most places, keep many areas populated". He's not the best when it comes to level design, but if you look at the level layouts above, guess what, the latter four were all by him. So he can definitely create arena setups and make them memorable in gameplay but not graphics. None of his maps are posted in pictures here, but Eric "Geezus" Spry created the first few levels. His levels are short, basic in architecture, and basically they lack the tact that makes the other ones shine. Then there's Pavel Hodek, who created the best two maps in MAP06 and MAP07. Why these two maps are the best is that they look better than many others but also feel like they work excellently for both singleplayer and deathmatch. They are both not symmetrical and have many areas that don't look interesting, but seem unique when put up against Swift's symmetrical designs and the others as well. Another mapper was Zach "Zeek" Lawson, who designed MAP31 (a rather lame level that definitely wasn't tested), MAP18 (the hockey rink) and MAP20. None of these levels are as fun as the others. Finally, you have all the other levels not designed by Lawson, Swift, Hodek, or Spry, with one author contributing only one map each.

It's all varying in quality and makes the whole megawad obviously uneven, but it still manages to be playable to all. The more I look at H2H-XMAS and its obvious imperfections, the more I think about the imperfections in the level designs of other FPSs, including Doom itself, and whether or not the authors decided to screw it and just make something weird. It was quite simple to see. Some authors are simply better at making memorable levels than others. Some have created more intricate level layouts. And some offered layouts that just seem like they could be silly easter egg levels. And H2H-XMAS has a lot of those. I mean, Doom has E2M9, the crummy level of only three rooms and a weird gimmick. Duke Nukem 3D had the Lunatic Fringe, Spin Cycle, and Tier Drop levels, all radially symmetrical gimmick levels. Heck, even Wolfenstein 3D had its silly gimmick level in the Pacman secret level and that wonderful absurd death diamond of a secret level for Episode 4.

So really the legacy of H2H-XMAS stands two-fold, it's a wonderful example of 90s imperfection, and it is a holiday-themed levelset. The stuff from the 90s is wonderfully outdated and the imperfections just hold a weird charm to them. And theming something for the holidays was quite the thing back then.