Enjay Doom (NJDOOM1.WAD)

Nigel Rowand has one of if not the longest and continuous careers in the community. His Waterlab GZD was released in 2017 and he had probably the first "complete" megaWAD in 1994. If you want to be an ass then Enjay Doom was technically published as three individual episodes before being collected and put on Compuserve. It's not as though each one was separated by years worth of development. This compilation formed the basis of several of his future megaWADs. It was followed by a Doom II conversion and, later on, a retooling for ZDoom. I half-suspect that it's also part of his private project, the Aspects total conversion.

CRINGE! (CRING666.WAD)

In the Doom community, Mark Klem is known primarily for his musical contributions. He was responsible for the entire score of the original Memento Mori but had a major role in the soundtracks of other classic projects like Requiem, S.T.R.A.I.N., and MM2. He made maps, too, for the same megaWADs as his good friend Eric Sargent. However their partnership began it made its official debut with CRINGE!, an episode two replacement for the original Doom. Released toward the tail end of 1994 (and uploaded specifically to the /idgames archive in 1995), it is a perfect example of the raw weirdness perpetuated during the community's early years. I suspect that the majority of modern players will hate it with a passion. The ones who don't, though, may be drawn into its unearthly delights.

RRWARD02 (RRWARD02.WAD)

RRWARD02

by Richard R. Ward

Rich was a pretty cool dude who published a couple of fantastic 1994 levels. The promise of his early work gave way to the aborted remnants of an episode for the original Doom, published in 1996. I enjoyed RRWARD01 in spite of its sometimes featureless rooms and corridors. It's cool to blast through, features some great larger areas, and has a neat twist partway toward the end where the monsters start to come through the walls. RRWARD02 is a bigger level and while it's no less complex I think that it takes the weakest aspects of his debut and merely reshapes them. It's still a great E1M1 replacement, though.

Fortress of Doom (FORTRESS.WAD)

FORTRESS OF DOOM

(2)

by Rylan Hilman

Many of the mods made during 1994 cannot hold up to the aesthetic standards of a community that has dissected and built upon the vanilla executable but a lot of the early energy seems to have come from the sheer novelty of being able to make a level and then share it. Fortress of Doom exhibits a few of the tropes, firstly because it professes to be compatible in both single player as well as deathmatch. It's also part of the first wave of Doom II levels, standing as a MAP01 replacement. I initially believed it to be a conversion of an earlier level made by the author, hence the parenthetical 2, but in the .TXT for MAZEDOOM he distinguishes between this and I assume FORT.ZIP for the original Doom.

RRWARD01 (RRWARD01.WAD)

RRWARD01

by Richard R. Ward

Rich is one of those guys who gets a lot of word of mouth as an author who made maps that were pretty cool back in '94 and is still recommended today. He released his best-loved efforts in 1994 and while there are four RRWARD0X levels they don't comprise a serial mapset. The later two are actually the remnants of an aborted episode for the original Doom! RRWARD01 is one of the '94 publications, an E1M1 replacement for Knee Deep in the Dead. Not to be confused with RRW_D201, a conversion of this level to Doom II made by the author in 1996. More on that later.

FULL ON (FULLON.WAD)

FULL ON is an eight-level Shores of Hell replacement and was originally released by Tim Ackroyd in late 1994 but did not make it to the /idgames archive until 2005. A lot of the time this was because the early Doom diaspora was spread out across tons of hosting spaces; there are still things that are lost to the sands of time because of draconian distribution clauses or no one backing up the servers before they started falling one by one. There's another angle to FULLON, though. The last three levels - E2M6, E2M7, and E2M8 - are slightly modified copies of the original Doom's E1M7 ("Computer Station"), E1M9 ("Military Base"), and E2M8 ("Tower of Babel"). These had to be excised before the patron saint of oldstuff, FunDuke, could inter it alongside the rest of the community's output.

Nuke Mine (NUKEMINE.WAD)

The first time I heard of Nuke Mine (subtitled "Come Get Some", linking to Nuke before Duke) was, as Never_Again reminds me via an old /idgames comment, through Sverre Kvernmo hawking it in his 1995 release .TXTs. An episode one replacement released in August of 1994, it's a word-of-mouth classic whose only real flaws are just as evident in the Serenity and Eternity episodes, making it an easy recommendation for anyone who digs the more polished works of Doom's early era. It wasn't Jason Hargreaves's first release (PANIC!.WAD, which was heavily revised and released as E1M2 of this publication) but you can still see steps of improvement as you play through as there are a couple of leaps in his proficiency as an author.

Castle Phobos (CPHOBOS5.WAD)

If you're a Doom curmudgeon, you may recognize David Shrock as the author of Terror Mall. If not, well, prepare to be introduced! Castle Phobos underwent several iterations during 1994, eventually ending in its final release, converted from the original Doom to Doom II and adding a level to finish with a ten-map episode. It isn't the prettiest, or most straightforward, or well-balanced, but it gets the job done and offers some survival-style challenges for more experienced players. What few custom resources the author added manage to nail in that '94 vintage.

Maximum Doom, Part 1

Carballo's Pick Me! utility throws me a softball for my first foray. Three of these levels are deathmatch, and three of them I've already played before in one form or another, so I decided to be generous and include my flamingo-up, since I misread SQUID22 as SQUID2 and played the original SQUID. My first /random test spawned TRENCH, so that's also thrown in at the end. All in all, a few hilarious levels mixed in with a playable retread of E1M1 and the pretty cool XENO11.

Xenomorph: The Complex (XENO11.WAD)

XENOMORPH
THE COMPLEX
by Daniel Griffiths

Daniel Griffiths was one of Doom's early custom contributors, though looking in the past it seems as though he tended more toward the side of deathmatch in his level design. Xenomorph is no exception, but the level's size gives it a bit more character on top of the fact that co-op play was factored in. That's not to say that the author gave single player a pass. In fact, you're encouraged to load it up and run around outside with God mode on to watch the light show. Why ruin a perfectly good game of dodgeball with cheat codes, though?

Squid 2 (SQUID2.WAD)

SQUID 2
author unknown

I am pretty darn sure that the same person who made Squid also made Squid 2. Both levels are E1M1 replacements that have the same bizarre 1980 time stamp, crude workarounds to deal with design staples that apparently hadn't been quite figured out, and optional areas locked behind yellow key doors that were presumably meant to power you up for the final conflict. Both showed up as Doom II conversions in Maximum Doom, but I would rather play the original, which I've done.

Squid (SQUID.WAD)

SQUID
author unknown

SQUID is an E1M1 replacement with an absurd timestamp dating to 1980, but its presence on Maximum Doom nails down its origin to 1995, at the very latest. I think that the author went on to make a sequel, SQUID2, which is about as hilariously dated as this old thing. Whoever made it, it's clear that some of the fundamental design elements we take for granted had not yet taken root, not that that's a bad thing. It just makes SQUID a perfect snapshot of the wild west days of PWADcraft.

Trench (TRENCH.WAD)

TRENCH
by Joshua Lehrer and Fabian Tillier

Lehrer and Tillier published Trench, a concept deathmatch level of sorts, very early on in Doom's history in May of 1994. It's an E1M1 replacement that's from a time when people still fancied populating deathmatch levels with monsters. The actual level is pretty small and has some twenty or so enemies as sergeants and imps, which are a mild annoyance in single player. I mean, you might get gunned down by shotgun snipers, but there isn't a whole lot of threat involved and all of the gameplay is concentrated in the two main tiers of play.

Maximum Doom

Doomed indeed. When id published the Master Levels for Doom II (release them as freeware already, you dicks!), they decided to do their own shovelware compilation, the now infamous Maximum Doom. The execution seems just as sloppy as any of the non-id PWAD scrapes, with missing .TXT files, Doom originals that were "converted" to Doom II via a cold, unfeeling utility, and amusing oversights like the inclusion of Heretic maps. I will say that it's a pretty good snapshot of what the user community was like at the time, a hot mess of sector savants and simpletons coming together in a blood tornado.

Since enough people have asked, I've decided to dip my toes in and see how the other half lives. I grabbed a copy of Maximum Doom and a utility by Matias Nahuel Carballo, called "Pick Me!". This won't be a regular thing, but I'm going to spin the wheel and write up the nine PWADs that come up. I won't be giving deathmatch levels proper reviews, and there's actually some overlap between the PWADs that I've already played and the stuff that's on Maximum Doom, so I'll give some brief summaries and link their reviews. Of invaluable worth is Funduke's Maximum Doom Reference guide. I'll be consulting it against every entry; some may consider the author to be the patron saint of /idgames dogshit, but I can't help but appreciate his stalwart chronicling of Doom's early days.

Also, while I'm sure it's an essential part of the Maximum Doom experience, I'm not going to play the shitty conversions unless I absolutely have to. Using Funduke's guide I've tracked down the originals, and that's what the reviews will be written on.

Anyway, on with the show!


Maximum Doom, Part 1: LEDGES2, SHADOWS2, BLT2, INFINITY, SQUID22, SPUNK, DEJAVU, ZEUS2, XENO112 (plus SQUID and TRENCH)

Berserk (BERSERK.WAD)

BERSERK
by Jon Landis

Jon Landis had a pretty full career in the early days of Doom history. He authored an episode for Doom (Eye of the Beholder), a tricksy minisode of Doom II levels (Eye of the Beholder II), and contributed a few levels to STRAIN. This little level (well, maybe not little) is BERSERK, his first offering, not to be found included in Eye of the Beholder along with his other E2 levels. And, well, for reasons you might find evident on a cursory viewing. Berserk has some of Landis's quirks that he would carry on to his later outings, but it's a very rough construction, released in 1994 for the E2M1 slot.

RCK2 (RCK2.WAD)

RCK2
by Rich "CROW" Kyanka

Reviewer's prelude in 2022: Lowtax committed suicide after his abused wife was granted a dissolution of marriage judgement. Here is a GoFundMe that establishes a trust to provide for both of his daughters.

Almost anyone who could get their hands on an editor made a map for Doom back in '94. Some of the outpouring vanished into the ether, never to be archived, while other works are being diligently reuploaded as the opportunity comes. This is RCK2, a level for the original Doom made by none other than Rich Kyanka, aka Something Awful's Lowtax. It's not his first level - that honor belonging to RCK.WAD - but it's a pretty early Doom level. MISSION1 is the only Kyanka level not available in any capacity I'm aware of. If you have it, it'd be interesting to check it out. In spite of being the second level he made, it occupies the E1M1 slot.

RCK (RCK.WAD)

RCK
by Rich "CROW" Kyanka

Reviewer's prelude in 2022: Rich Kyanka committed suicide after his abused wife was granted a dissolution of marriage judgement. Here is a GoFundMe that establishes a trust to provide for both of his daughters.

1994 marked the beginning of Doom's stone age, an era where pretty much everyone was just stoked that they could make a Doom level and upload it for the rest of the world to enjoy. Standards eventually improved and tools became more sophisticated so that it's pretty rare, now, to see something like a '94 level appear on the /idgames archive without the author asserting zero effort or deliberately trolling people. RCK, though, is sheer '94 enthusiasm, and from Rich Kyanka, to boot. You might now him better as Lowtax, the Something Awful guru. Back in '94, he went by CROW, a paean to what was undoubtedly one of his favorite programs, Mystery Science Theater 3000. In spite of being his first level, it's set in the E1M4 slot. I think this usually meant that the author preferred its music?

The UCA series

as featured in Super Serials

UCA	TALPOIDA
DIOPATRA	SAPIDUSB

To some people, 1994 will always be the worst year of Doom PWADs. To others, be they antiquarians, historians, or just Doom lovers in general, there's a lot of joy to be had in these Promethean works. To be fair, there were still a lot of maps that sucked, but paving over '94 entirely does a grave disservice to the authors that stood above the rest. Eddie Nguyen seemed to have a pretty good grasp on level design, and while his maps have foibles intolerable to modern players (not truly balanced for pistol start, mazes, cramped, repetition, mandatory "secrets"), they are pretty evocative and come with some fairly dense .TXT descriptions that eventually taper off to author commentaries. Nguyen wanted to make a whole episode, too, and you see how that panned out. At least he managed to cap it off, unlike the sorely unresolved INVADE...

SAPIDUSB (SAPIDUSB.WAD)

SAPIDUSB
by Eddie Nguyen

Eddie Nguyen started the UCA series conceived as an episode replacement for The Shores of Hell, released on a level-by-level basis. I think he ran out of steam, though - SAPIDUSB is the finale, the last level published. It's a single map for the original Doom, occupying the E2M4 slot. If you haven't been keeping up, the demons built a base in the Uca Crater on Deimos from stuff they scavenged from Phobos. The UAC sent two waves of marines to inspect the goings-on. You were part of the squad sent to rescue them, but it turns out the demons have a "pulse cannon" capable of taking down starships and after the rest of your team dies, it's up to you to infiltrate the base and shut down the cannon for good so that your ship, the Gateway, can rescue your ass. This time, you have some objectives - disable the four power generators in the corners of the base and then eliminate the massive computer brain in the center so that the pulse cannon is gone for good.

DIOPATRA (DIOPATRA.WAD)

DIOPATRA
by Eddie Nguyen

DIOPATRA is the third map in Eddie Nguyen's UCA series, which started with UCA and moved on to TALPOIDA before moving on to this. They're all single maps released for Doom in 1994; this one occupies the E2M3 slot as they're meant to be played consecutively with carryovers. The previous two levels had voluminous .TXT backstories. Here, Nguyen is savvy enough to realize that, since the story hasn't changed much (you're still trying to blow up a "pulse cannon" that is capable of destroying the ship you hope will rescue you and any other UAC fleet vessel), he should skip the setup. Instead, he talks about his choice of monsters, what the map's design is, and how much harder it is than the previous levels for a pistol start.