I can’t quite believe that I’ve been writing about Doom since 2012, and here we find ourselves in the far-flung future of 2022. Turn the clock back another ten years, all the way back to 2002, and you’d find me discovering the vast universe of custom Doom content for the very first time. I could never have suspected then how deeply I’d ultimately venture into that universe… or how I would contribute to it in my own small way. For the last decade I’ve tried to pay tribute to the projects that inspired me to open a map editor all
Tag: Favillesco Alpha Episode: Apostasy on Amalthea
The Montiverse
You knew this was coming. How could I ever, ever end this column without taking a look at what Nicolás Monti has been up to lately? Some time in 2018 was the point where I started paying a lot less attention to Doom WAD releases. That was coincidentally around the same time Monti was taking a break from Doom. Even still, in the time since my review of Mano Laikas: A road to Gamzatti in 2017, our benevolent mapmaker has graced us with no less than ten new WADs. I’ve caught up on most of those and now I have
Arcane Dimensions
Many of my favorite Doom WADs — STRAIN, Scythe, Apostasy on Amalthea — are a bit of a mess. They’re works of undeniable (if undisciplined) genius, yet full of strange creative choices and huge fluctuations in quality. The mod we’re about to talk about may not be a Doom WAD, but it follows in that proud tradition just the same. It’s a profound, landmark achievement for its respective modding scene… but at the same time, the edges could have used a good amount more sanding. I’ve wanted to get into Quake mods for a long, long time… but moving into a new mod
Mano Laikas: A road to Gamzatti
Nicolás Monti is an artist. Maybe the Picasso of Doom mapping. I’ve made a point of playing all his recent releases as they come. That includes my 2014 WAD Of The Year, Apostasy on Amalthea; one of my favorite WADs of 2015, Desecration on Thebe; and his most recent and expansive work, 2016’s Mano Laikas: A road to Gamzatti. Rounding out that roster is Erkattäññe, in my opinion Monti’s weakest WAD and yet the only one to win him a Cacoward. Erkattäññe didn’t work for me in large part because it was a Doom II WAD. Doom II’s textures just didn’t jive
Doom the Way id Did – The Lost Episodes
If you’ve played Doom the Way id Did, its Lost Episodes are essentially more of the that. A little less id-like, maybe, but with a wider quality spectrum. Doom the Way id Did: The Lost Episodes, to put it indelicately, is six episodes of leftovers and cut maps that didn’t make it into the official DTWiD release. What you have to keep in mind when saying these maps were “cut,” though, is why they would have been cut. The strict rules of DTWiD mean that submitted maps could easily be — and often were — rejected not for being of low
A DIGITALEIDOSCOPE Exclusive: 13 Most Memorable Maps
It’s the holidays! Another Doomsday just a few days ago, with Christmas and New Years right on the horizon. There’s another sort of holiday to celebrate today, too: the 25th episode of What’s Awesome, Doom?, and just over three years that I’ve been doing the column! Yeah, I’ve really only done 25 episodes in all that time. What a professional! To celebrate the holiday season and these big landmarks, I’ve put together a special episode: one of those Top Ten lists the internet loves so much. Except this is a Top 13 — my personal most memorable maps: three official
Favillesco Alpha Episode: Apostasy on Amalthea
Enough of a mouthful? Favillesco Alpha Episode: Apostasy on Amalthea, henceforth referred to (for your sanity and mine) as Amalthea, is the third release in the Favillesco series — though, as I understand it, something of a side, spinoff project and not part of the main series. In any case, I haven’t played the other entries in the series, nor any of Nicolás Monti’s previous WADs, unfortunately. That background information is interesting to know, because this… is an odd mapset. It’s obvious, even without playing his other stuff, that Amalthea is something of a departure from Monti’s norm: the weird