KGZDOOM1 (KGZDOOM1.PK3)

Kesler's Still Kickin', released in 2004, seemed to be the last that we'd hear from him in terms of new material. Then, in 2018, he reconnected with Doom and started showing off screenshots of him horsing around in an editor. KMETL 2018 didn't ultimately pan out--Kesler had to back away for awhile and lost what he had been working on--but when he eventually returned he plinked away until we got KGZDOOM1! This is a two-map minisode replacing MAP01 and MAP02 in, you guessed it, GZDoom, released in 2023. We haven't seen another KGZDOOM yet, but we've gotten KMETL14, KMETL15, and KMETL16 so far, so who knows what's in the pipeline?

The story so far: you're, I dunno, Doomguy in a relentless campaign of scouring the earth or some other planet, looking for demonic activity. And you find it in the form of a suspiciously rustic outpost made of brick and wood. That's not the way the UAC makes 'em. A sort of cult has located another source of evil and they're using newfangled science to augment it, bringing it back to life. As the stalwart defender of a doomed world, it's your duty to destroy the facility and lay the evil to rest... permanently. It's debatable whether the climax of "The Demons Lair" (MAP02) portrays the player accomplishing this, but there's a suggestion that the production and storage of vast quantities of nukage is significant to the demons' purpose. Which, you know, makes sense given how much of it was gooped all over Phobos.

KGZDOOM1 has by and large classic Kesler vibes. There may be a bit of a lead time before you have the combat shotgun in hand, but most of these maps are weighted toward SSG grunt work and, later on, rockets. LOTS of rockets. Other features include large wildernesses with mostly (but not always) imps on ledges in the periphery; big outdoor cacodemon brawls; bunches of hitscanners; broad pathways that enable player movement; and oodles of sector machinery. Like, pistons and spinning gears-type machinery, not switch and sector-fu. I also hit on a couple of other broad Kesler trends that surprised me when comparing this map to Still Kickin'. The author appears to have some less-favored enemies; lost souls, pain elementals, and arachnotrons are some of his least-used monsters, and none of them appear in KGZDOOM1. Demons were similarly used sparingly in his earlier work, given that the wide areas of his maps kind of make them ineffectual, with him apparently acquiring a fondness for pink roughly around the time he started mapping in ZDoom.

I mention this part regarding monsters because Kesler maps have one of the more distinct flavors of any author that I've played. I knew that part of it was due to his relatively two-tone gunplay but it wasn't until now that I realized how his apparent disuse of certain monsters also shaped this feeling. I'm not sure where his antipathy toward arachnotrons, pain elementals, and lost souls stems from. You would think that his wide-open floor plans would lend themselves to arachs, but he appears to be far more fond of their "Dead Simple" cousins. The resulting economy of monsters means that you don't have to deal with the arachnotrons' particular brand of area denial, nor the escalating, panicked congestion of pain elementals.

I was a bit fretful over what kind of hitscanner Hell I might have to face in KGZDOOM1, but what I should have worried about were Cyberdemons. Twice, once in each level, Kesler has you confront two Cybies at the same time. With a rocket launcher. There are enough explosives to finish the job, but the positioning of the monsters in MAP01--with one Cyberdemon on a ledge while the other patrols the machine platform--makes it one of the more awkward fights of the map. I'm far more partial to the second fight given that both Cybs are on the ground floor. Not that I enjoyed the fact that all of the rockets are in the ambush room, mind you, which basically means that safe play involves leaping down, letting the second Cyberdemon teleport once the first gets off the destination, and then lead them so that you can take the elevator back up and raid their closet.

Aesthetically, these maps are cool. I REALLY like the sort of faded Ancient Aliens color scheme of MAP02 and the end of MAP01. I also enjoyed all of the crazy, useless sci-fi machinery that Kesler has built into the levels. It doesn't really crop up in the wood and brick outpost where the level starts, apart from the goofy inferno ring around the red key, but I also appreciate the more subdued trip through the outpost for what it is. With regard to the outdoor areas, the trees in these maps are among Kurt's best-looking props. As for the geography of the landscapes, well, the author has used slopes to make them more naturalistic, a bit more so than perhaps KZDoom7.

The big technological leap here is more complex, multi-layered three-dimensional spaces, what used to be called "true room-over-room" but is generally shorthanded as "3D floors". If you've followed Kesler's entire Doom career then this won't really come as a shock. His "Phobos - The Underground Sewer Facility" in Ni'mRoD: IXNAY on the HOMBRE (MAP05) made its own extensive use of Legacy's 3D floors function. GZDoom didn't exist during Kesler's first run at Doom mapping, though, and Legacy didn't do slopes. Welcome to the best of both worlds! Kesler's use of 3D floors is largely similar to their execution in NIMROD, but I feel like KGZDOOM1's spaces are a bit easier to navigate through, the main exception being the awesome superstructure at the end of MAP01.

KGZDOOM1 isn't the most technologically intricate GZDoom level that I've ever played but it's recognizably and indelibly in Kurt's style, gently extended into the spaces that the source port makes possible. You've got to love spending a lot of time with the combat shotgun in order to get the most out of these maps, but this is pretty much a universal truth of Kesler's work as a whole. Visit it for the unique aesthetic of the tech facility, if nothing else!

KGZDOOM1

by Kurt Kesler

The Hidden Outpost

MAP01

This is a large level that consists of two major structural areas. The first part of it is a pretty sharp-looking brick fortress / ruin / what have you with rounded edges. It's connected via a jaunt through woody and infernal wilderness to a tech facility. I really love the color scheme for the base. The multi-floor aspect of it is pretty cool, too, if kind of nightmarish in how it gets staffed with zombies. I'm with Kesler on the rainbow-colored tech panels in most places but they look really arbitrary on the admittedly equally arbitrary spinning machine on the top floor of the final area. The combat is a healthy mix of projectile monsters and zombies as spoilers. The gunplay feels less oppressive than Still Kickin', I think because you aren't quite buried under the sheer weight of zombies. They are pretty good at sniping you in the larger areas, though. It's GZDoom so, uh, snipe back! I really enjoyed the teleporter invasions in both parts of the base. A ton of trash monsters makes for something that's threatening but fun to exercise your combat shotgun against. The dual Cyberdemon blue key guardians, well, they're not so compelling. There quite a few cool setpieces in this level. The outdoor area with the ring around the red key is a great one and it comes with a fun fight given the mobility of the cacodemons. It's dangerous without being overbearing. The facade of the facility is equally neat with all of its machinery; I'm just not as jazzed to tackle two Cybies with the rocket launcher.

MAP02

The Demons Lair

I thought that this was going to be some heretofore largely unexplored Kesler take on Hell. Nope! Just nightmarish industrial machinery on a massive scale. The crazy barrel manufacturing / detonating chamber MUST be seen but there are plenty of other articles of window dressing that give me the impression that Kurt was loving the shit out of polyobjects and other scripting bits. Aesthetically, it keeps up the dingy Ancient Aliens-ish color scheme of the base seen at the end of MAP01. The look of the first area with the toxic trench and multi-level rooms gives me Doom 64 vibes for some reason. I think it's all the crazy colors and maybe I am resonating with one of the levels from Beta 64... "Irradiated", perhaps (MAP31). I like the big multi-tier staircase structure leading through the obligatory outdoor section. It reminds me of the big one in the northern area of KZDoom 7, just really pretty. The combat is pretty much the same Kesler comfort food as MAP01, maybe a bit slower to start as you won't have the SSG until after you grab the yellow key. Zombies, teleport hordes of imps, you know the drill. You even get another shot at facing down two Cyberdemons with a bunch of rockets. Well, I'm much more comfortable facing them in the drained cistern than where they appeared in the previous map.