I’ve never had the pleasure of watching the ’90s cult flick The City of Lost Children, but having played the Doom WAD inspired by it, I really feel like I should.
The City of Damned Children is a 2020 community project, part of the long-running Doomer Board Project series, in which Auger;Zenith was a later installment. I’m hard-pressed to think of two mapsets more thematically at odds. Zenith was all bright colors and wicked fights, lots of in-jokes and silly references, while Damned Children is more sedate and moody; not easy on the combat but certainly more concerned about establishing an atmosphere than anything else.
Going by my limited knowledge of the film, I believe here is where the inspiration part comes in. The City is a strange, dreamlike place. More nightmarish than dreamy, I suppose, like a carnival of misery and mad science, resistance and revolution. Undeniably… well, French. It’s a work of remarkable beauty through a lens of ugliness. Not just by way of the tone but also the muted palette, intentionally bad sprite replacements, and themes of child slavery.
Don’t worry, though. I’m not recommending some sort of misery porn adventure, and it’s not all gloom and doom either. There’s a fair bit of whimsy and lighthearted fun built in via the graphical additions and the level design — and (spoilers), the children do rise up and overthrow their oppressors in the end. I even laughed out loud the first time I saw the baron of hell replacement.
There’s a few new enemies as well — something I sorely wished for with Zenith. My favorite change is the splitting of arch-vile duties between two different critters. One now has the line-of-sight explosive attack and another functions solely as a resurrector, something I’ve long thought would make for freer encounter design. This way you can place resurrectors on the battlefield without having to factor in cover for the arch-vile’s hitscan fire… and you can inject a major line-of-sight hazard without mucking up your finely-tuned fight by reviving half the monsters involved.
Damned Children does get into the usual highly choreographed Doom fights with relative frequency. A few maps are even dedicated primarily to arena fights, with a couple of “boss” encounters marking approximately the halfway point and the finale of the mapset. Our mappers also like to give a bit of an introduction to said bosses’ mechanics before throwing you into the main arena with them, which is both appreciated and quite a smart design choice. Then there’s just map10’s wild, monsterpocalyptic main setpiece. So the WAD will not disappoint on the combat front.
The City of Damned Children is such a strong vision because it manages to do two separate things extremely well. It would be worth playing for its style and storytelling alone, but it also has the kind of fights I know you animals crave. The experience is exceptionally varied, even for a community project, and everything Damned Children attempts to do it does with gusto. Now I can only wonder… have I done this in the wrong order? When I go back and watch it, will The City of Lost Children film pale in comparison?
The City of Damned Children requires DOOM2.WAD and runs on limit-removing sourceports. If you’re not sure how to get it running, this may help. And for more awesome WADs, be sure to check these out!