Bloodworks (BLUDWRKS.WAD)

BLOODWORKS

by Bob "brad_tilf" Larkin

Bob Larkin is the webmaster of the Doom Wad Station, one of the oldest hubs of Doom diaspora still knocking around the internet. He also has his own bibliography of PWADs! Back before I wrote any reviews I think that I had randomly picked his Endgame project to try out. I was... deeply confused. If you ask him what his best WAD is, though, he'll almost certainly say Bloodworks, and probably give a shoutout to Mitnal. BLUDWRKS is a MAP03 replacement for Doom II. I think that the source port recommendation basically boils down to "limit-removing". The GL ports of the day didn't know what to do with the software renderer tricks, I guess, but times have changed and this looks pretty much as it was originally intended in GZDoom as well as ZDoom.

DoomCenter E1 Mapping Contest (E1CONTEST.WAD)

Doom Center was an important fixture of the community during the post-source port boom. It was something of a media hub in its promotion of PWADs and their authors. It eventually deactivated with the death of its host but some of its staff went on to join Doomworld. Snapshots of the site were thankfully preserved via archive.org but most of its content and enthusiasm have not figured into its legacy. I only know of Doom Center's existence because it hosted a map-making contest during a week that celebrated the shareware episode in 2001. John Romero himself judged the submissions; the winner received an autographed copy of the Ultimate Doom.