One Doom fan, 300 hours, and one gargantuan level | Hacker News Reader

One Doom fan, 300 hours, and one gargantuan level

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199 pointsuptown92 comments

Every time I come across one of these AAA+ doom maps, I kinda blanch at the setup involved in running these with no background knowledge. You need an old Doom2.wad, to download an appropriate sourceport from Sourceforge, probably without an installer, maybe some looking up commandline options to run the game with a pwad if it's not immediately apparent.

Sure, none of this is a problem for the HN crowd, but what I'd like is a "Click to run this wad" button on a WAD gallery page that would download and run the WAD either via NaCl or even just javascript, making the experience of playing these fan created levels seamless and opening it to a much wider audience.

edit: yes I realize the IWADs are not freely distributable even though the engine is OSS

I understand the frustration.

I think at one point in time, the Freedoom project was moving in the direction of cloning the Doom assets closely enough that it'd suffice as a replacement for the original iwads, and as such would've made a setup like you described possible (without committing copyright infringement). People argued that the iwads are easy enough to get now, and somewhat recently, the freedoom project seemed to take on a new direction, which is less about making close clones of the original assets and more about being a game on its own right with its own theme and roster of enemies and all that. It's a bit weird, especially considering that they're still maintaining the vanilla gameplay elements unchanged, as if it were still built for the original purpose, yet the assets won't look good with pwads. Needless to say, I'm not super happy about this new direction.

There are launchers that supposedly make it easier to run pwads though. I don't have the background knowledge to recommend one though; source ports are available to me through my package manager.

> "Click to run this wad" button on a WAD gallery page that would download and run the WAD either via NaCl or even just javascript

The Internet Archive's "Internet Arcade" project (https://archive.org/details/internetarcade) is the perfect place to preserve and display these, just as much as it is for old arcade cabinets.

What that implies, though, is that MAME/MESS would need to get over their singular goal of emulating real hardware, and build in support for "abstract" platform-neutral virtual machines that games have been built on: say, ScummVM, or the Z-Machine, or even Shockwave Flash(!).

If they started down that path, they could maybe go further, and also support the execution of low-level game engine "runtimes" like Löve2D.

But go any further than that, and I'd question whether we're really doing "emulation" of a game using an interpreter, rather than shipping a game engine and loading levels in it. With things like the Doom engine—or, say, the RPG Maker 2000 runtime—you get to a the point where, to faithfully run a "game" made with these things, your emulator would have to include the original asset bundle that came with the reference engine. That's not quite an emulator any more.

Maybe what we really need is a Docker-like abstraction for MAME: the ability to have "base images" for game engines, and then "derivative images" that represent projects loaded into those engines—where you only have to load a new "game engine" layer into the emulator when the game you're playing references a version you don't have cached yet.

You could even split things into three layers: a layer for the OS (Windows 95, say); a layer for the game engine; and then a layer for the game project. And the whole thing gets "pulled", revived into a merged container, and then loaded into DOSBox.

Sounds like you want something along the lines of libretro. It's an API and reference implementation (Retroarch) for emulator "cores" to interface with a standard front end which handles inputs, UI, and other things. MAME/MESS and many other popular emulators have been ported to libretro, as has Doom via prboom

I don't see why this needs to be in MAME. The Internet Archive already hosts games for platforms not covered by MAME. For instance, DOS titles are served using EM-DOSBOX.

> You could even split things into three layers: a layer for the OS (Windows 95, say); a layer for the game engine; and then a layer for the game project. And the whole thing gets "pulled", revived into a merged container, and then loaded into DOSBox.

You can do this today with dosbox on archive.org. Here's how:

Upload the game engine (Doom, to keep with the current theme) as an IA item; this may or may not have already been done (I happen to know that Doom is hidden because you can buy it on Steam, but I'm pretty sure the shareware version is there somewhere). For the sake of this example, assume that your item has "foo" as its identifier, and the game is in "foo.zip".

Then upload your game or level (WAD, in this case) as another item. Assume that this one is called "bar", and has a "bar.zip" containing the level and a batch file that I'll describe.

Edit the metadata for your item named "bar" so that it includes this information:

  emulator=dosbox
  dosbox_drive_c=foo/foo.zip
  dosbox_drive_d=bar/bar.zip
  emulator_start=d:\bar.bat

The batch file "bar.bat" is responsible for starting the game, which might include copying files, changing config files, specifying command-line arguments, etc.

If you want to use windows you can use the same system to load it as well. Of course this really only works with the earlier versions of windows which ran in dos, and thus can run in dosbox. Check out https://archive.org/details/win3_SKIFREE for an example.

You can also host everything on your own webpage; I recommend my own project, the Emularity, which simplifies a lot of it (http://emularity.com/).

Doom 2 is on sale on steam form less than $5. So it's easy to get legal Wads these days. It wasn't so easy in the early 2000s.

If you download zdoom you just unzip, run an executable (no install required) and it will find the required files from steam. Zdoom has lots of niceties like the ability to aim up and down with the mouse and support for modern hardware.

>> Zdoom has lots of niceties like the ability to aim up and down with the mouse and support for modern hardware.

I'll be honest, I don't think I've ever seen a source port that can't do that.

You can install gzdoom and freedoom off the AUR and run several mods and third party wads with it (most aren't compatible with freedoom, but some are), in like three commands, and it adds the file association for wads to gzdoom so if you open any wad in a file manager it runs in gzdoom.

That setup works out of the box without any copy / paste of files anywhere.

> to download an appropriate sourceport from Sourceforge

No, most of these source ports are available in repositories on Linux.

Visit doomsdayhq, pick a modern engine, proper 3d models, and high-resolution textures.

The spirit stays preserved, though.

>3d models

blasphemy

These are optional.

Also, we're going to visit Hell; blasphemy is quite appropriate there.

> 3d models

F that, son.

Yes, it is a PITA the first time around. But if you love these games then its worth banging your head on the keyboard for about an hour until you have the setup to play.

It is totally worth it to play and experience a masterpiece like Doom 2.

Start here https://www.chocolate-doom.org/

Wow, that level is _massive_. I wonder what the system requirements are on that. Doom played perfectly on a 486/66 with 4MB. Like how many linedefs are in that thing...

Interesting question. I guess with today's processing power you could have a much more expensive offline preprocessing step and create a much better BSP tree, reducing the impact in runtime?

I don't think linedefs take that much memory, but you could hit the limitation of number of textures in the same level, since I doubt 90's Doom did streaming from disk. So you probably can get massive geometry but a relatively homogeneous-looking level.

The one thing I didn't like about Doom is the surreal look both of the artistic and map layout. e.g. no space ship or space station would ever be designed like that (it is the same with Star Wars Death stars... did no one think of putting up a guard rail?).

It is one of the reasons I liked Duke Nukem 3D a lot more as a teenager.

The map does look cool but it doesn't have that real space station feel.

I guess you could argue hell alters the layout.

> I guess you could argue hell alters the layout.

I like that. Hell is Earth with less OSHA regulations. ;)

One thing I'd really love game designers to do when designing levels - focus first on what it is, and then only on how it plays. E.g. if designing a space station, first consider how a space station would look like, what facilities it needs, what would be the optimal placement, etc. Only after that add the puzzles, enemies and stuff.

In other words, I'd like game designers to pay more attention to details in world building.

The problem with that is that space stations and whatnot aren't designed to be fun as you go through them. Games are supposed to be fun. It would be incredibly misguided for a game designer to design the level around a real-world location first and then add the puzzles and enemies. Do you have "fun" walking through the halls of your doctor's office or through your local water treatment plant? There's a reason why they don't do exactly what you're suggesting.

Different people have different tastes. Yes, I do find it interesting to walk through unfamiliar buildings in real life, and I'd find it more fun to go through a realistically designed level even if that meant e.g. the pacing was a bit uneven.

I think there's a flaw in this want, which is that you don't know what "realistically designed" means. I've never been on a large space station, and aside from academic or artistic ventures, one has never been built.

The same is with wastewater treatment plants, etc. And, if you're targeting realism, size might be an issue.

That said, there are games that are thoughtful about this, such as doorkickers or heist.

I think some open-world RPGs have been laid out in exactly that manner. MMORPGs especially, but MMOs aren't always played for fun.

>Do you have "fun" walking through the halls of your doctor's office or through your local water treatment plant?

Yes! More fun than playing modern basically-on-rails shooters.

Doom originally tried that, with Tom Hall doing a lot of design. Then they figured out that it sucked, and decided to go with more abstract playspaces instead.

Even in Half-Life 2 and things the current industry practice is to "box in" the playspaces to get the flow correct and then skin them to look like actual locations.

If you want a game with some actual attempts at realistic spaceships look at System Shock 1/2 or Dead Space. Even in those cases it's pretty clear that they have taken great liberties with what would make sense.

> focus first on what it is, and then only on how it plays

This is a great way to make a game that is pretty but boring.

Pretty-but-boring is already how they make games.

Which is why the advice is terrible. Games need to be fun first which is why Doom uses abstract levels instead of realistic levels.

I agree that too often, the layout of levels does not look real, as the space they represent (living quarters, warehouse, reactor, office, prison...) don't look like they could fulfill their function. Sometime they just feel like "game space".

And it impacts negatively any kind of immersion.

So I think it would be beneficial for level to be a little more believable in that regard, as it would improve the games.

Of course it only apply for games where such things are important and for players who dislike this break of immersion.

> no space ship or space station would ever be designed like that

Doom isn't set on a space craft or (orbiting) space station. It's set on Phobos, one of Mars' moons. Given the likely terrain and challenges of building a base there, it's entirely conceivable the layout could be like that. As to the surreal look, well it felt good enough and immersive enough for me when I first played it back in 1994; especially late at night where it'd give me the willys.

Carmack later stated that it was "silly" to set the game on Phobos given the moon's size and gravity. I believe he said that around the time of the Doom 3 release - which is set on Mars, not Phobos.

I'd guess the reason the level layouts are not "realistic" is simply to offer better gameplay. Level layouts in modern games (even bland ones like CoD) don't make much sense either, but they're better at hiding it.

> Level layouts in modern games (even bland ones like CoD) don't make much sense either, but they're better at hiding it.

Modern games usually feel waaaaaaay less realistic to me because they fall right into the uncanny valley.

You'll have some photorealistic landscape, or some crazy fantasy landscape that looks real enough to touch.

And then the realism falls away because half of the simple doors in the village can't be operated by your character (even though he's strong enough to fight a 50-foot dragon with his bare hands) and there's a 2 foot high fence you can't jump over even though your character is a literal superhuman. And all the characters look "real" but move like slightly creepy photorealistic mannequins.

That always feels a lot less "real" to me than something like Doom that's just the right level of abstract.

The levels in Doom don't feel realistic (compared to any place that exists in reality) but they feel real in the sense that they are tangible, understandable, consistent environments.

I feel stronger levels of immersion where I can do anything I can think up with the environment rather that it just looking really good.

If that means having less objects to interact with but I can interact with them all, then it feels like I have real control and consequence in the world.

Moving my laser gattling gun in Fallout 4 up onto a table feels immersive. Not being able to navigate a small rock barrier breaks that.

I imagine for me that it is easier to suspend my disbelief when the world feels real rather than when it looks real.

I'd rather play Doom I on Phobos than Doom III anywhere...

In all seriousness, though, complaining about gravity not being right when you're fighting demons and your health is a percentage number? Gravity is the least of the 'real-world' concerns. It's just a gameplay device like any other.

Has there ever been a hospital drama where the doctors are frantically running around saying things like "Quick! This man is down to 12% health and falling rapidly!"?

Yeah, I mean the space marine runs at something like 80mph, gravity is the least of the realism problems.

I feel the same way about Halo. I love the games, but all the buildings and spaceships are just huge hallways and useless empty rooms with nothing in them.

Space stuff is designed the opposite way to that.

It's already scared the jeepers out of me several times. I've also now managed to telefrag a Pain Elemental for the first time ever. Seems a bit late to only achieve this in 2016!

It's amazing how there is such a huge fan base for old games and technologies. Not to take this too off topic but this may be why fears of technological unemployment may be overblown, because there will always be uses for old technology or integrating new technology with old technology.

It's not like he's getting paid for making Doom levels, though, so I'm not sure how this addresses technological unemployment.

I'm thinking of taking a year or two to make my own FPS with an aesthetic & gameplay similar to the 90s classics. But I'm concerned that even though there's a huge number of people who played and liked these games, they would also consider these games a product of their time and that it would be quite difficult to sell such a game.

Making a reasonable wage with a game is a lot of stress and luck. What if you approached it differently? A reasonable engineer could take a 50% pay cut and still have a living wage. Why not take a personal year now and then?

It's tough, I'm not an engineer.

To be fair, I suspect you would get at least a few people willing to pay for such a game, especially if it looked at least decent on Steam or in a Kickstarter campaign.

People wanted a new Banjo-Kazooie, we're getting A Hat in Time and Yooka-Laylee (among about 20 others). People wanted a new Mega Man, so there are games like Mighty No 9, Recore and Azure Striker Gunvolt. If there's a style of play that's died down a bit in recent years, it's pretty likely there's an audience.

So yeah, it's probably not hopeless. There likely is at least some semblance of an audience for an old school style FPS game with less cutscenes, maze like levels and a more arcade like feel to it all.

Devil Daggers came out this year. People seem to really love that game. I think you'll find more of a crowd than you think with most aesthetics. I would try to keep up with the gameplay trends though. Did anybody ever like using PgUp/PgDn to move their camera?

If anything, I'd see this as an example of why basic income is a good idea and people won't be spending their time just drinking their asses off.

Is this really any better?

Yes

An artist on basic income spends 300 hours working on his latest painting, is his time just as worthless as the man sat at home drinking?

two things I will never forget:

iddqd idkfa and the compaq presario I wasn't supposed to use for that.

This is totally nuts. I haven't gotten around to playing it yet, but I feel like I totally should.

If Doomworld knows about this (they probably do: they maintain /idgames), it's definitely going to win the Mordeth this year.

After watching like 3 minutes of it, I'm suddenly reminded of the suspense and sense of mystery that Doom had. I don't think I've ever experienced that in any video game since then.

I think the clones (Heretic and heXen) did a pretty good job with it. I prefer heXen and Quake to Doom at the end of the day. There was a whole slew of FPS games in that style around that time, many of which were great (Dark Forces, Witchaven, Shadow Warrior, Duke Nukem 3D, etc.).

You don't see that as much in modern games, though, because they seem to be targeting a very different audience. Neither Doom nor heXen style games are being made at all right now as far as I can see.

Demon's Souls is also excellent suspense wise, even though it's a different genre. The author mentions it as inspiration.

I found Hexen and Heretic a collection of boring slogs. Neither are particularly enjoyable, IMHO.

Now Strife, OTOH...

Quake was actually quite a lot of fun, especially in MP. Singleplayer was quite good as well, but it's not as good as Doom's: Technical limitations mean that you don't get the massive waves of enemies of varying power, instead getting maybe a strong enemy or two, and a weak enemy or two, as there can only be ~7 enemies on screen at once (at least, on the hardware of the time).

Yeah but Quake was the first Doom clone where you could actually aim in two dimensions, X and Y! Doom's only letting you aim in X felt a bit cheesy and limited after playing Quake. Especially Quake 2 with mods, those were extremely fun times.

Yeah, but it was fun cheesy.

Quake really came into its own in MP, where it and its descendants are unparalleled to this day. Quake 3, and QuakeWorld probably being the best.

Another good MP shooter is Xonotic: it run on a heavily extended Quake engine, and it's pretty cool.

Unless I'm remembering out of order, heXen/heretic had two axis aiming before quake. Doom being locked on one axis was a tad cheesy. Also which one of those had the Chicken Gun ;-)

Another fun MP game was Rise of the Triad.

They had "freelook" but it was horrible: http://zdoom.org/wiki/Y-shearing

I thought the weirdness of it added to the atmosphere.

The controls were clunky, though.

> The controls were clunky, though.

Especially with the flying item IIRC, that was impossible!

My point is that it's subjective, and Doom simply happens to be the first monumental game of that sort so it is also the most popular one.

Blood, anyone? I think Blood is the single scariest game I played as a teenager.

I wasn't there at the time, and it's really hard to actually run Build games nowadays. You have to run DOS, an emulator, or one of several not-entirely-functional sourceports. None of those options are really appealing.

It might not be really appealign, but once you take the plunge, is there an actual problem?

Getting it running on my computer is hard: that's a pretty big problem.

The GOG version is great and runs great on modern hardware. Blood was my favorite FPS as a kid.

Really? I'll have to check that out when I find the time.

If it is like many of their old games, it's just packaging a dos emulator with the game, giving you a single click experience.

Oh. Well then, I may as well buy the disks and edit the dosbox confs myself.

gog is pretty awesome and it'll be a drm-free game download anyway. I've always felt pretty good about paying them for games.

Did I mention it comes with all the goodies [0] and "DLCs"? but even without that memorabilia (original manuals) the simple fact the the game just runs great is worth the admission price.

[0] - https://www.gog.com/game/one_unit_whole_blood

Well...yes, but in your other comment, you said that it would be difficult to run on your computer. You seemed happy when Dakull mentioned that the GOG version would be trouble-free, and then you seemed disappointed when you heard how it would be done. That confuses me a little.

With the current Dosbox defaults, the game installs nicely, is easy to configure, and runs well. Based on getting the demo running just now:

Extract the files somewhere. Mount the directory in Dosbox. Mount another directory as an install location. Run the install (the demo's is just install.exe). The installer drops you into the game directory when it exits. Run setup.exe. Select Sound Blaster for the SFX, and either Sound Blaster or General MIDI for music (personal choice). Save the configuration and exit. Run the game (blood.exe). Oh, I also set it to 800x600 resolution, when given the option to set a display mode (it's available under the VESA setting).

I see Blood available on Steam for $4.99, on GOG for $5.99...or on Ebay for various higher prices, if you really want the hard copy and the classic-ish setup experience.

Maybe it's just me; but games played in dosbox never feel... right? That's my biggest gripe with it, at least.

For me the most suspenseful game would have to be Dead Space.

The start of that game actually scared the crap out of me.

I cannot understand the phenomenon of this game. For me it was just an another over-the-shoulder shooter with plenty of boring sections (especially near the end) and a story that didn't make much sense.

To each and their own. I will say comparatively for video games Dead Space story is actually fairly good albeit much more complicated than other games (ie all other shooters). They even made a animated movie for Dead Space which is sort of cool if you like Japanese animation.

You can read up on the plot via wikipedia. Other than the very beginning Doom is devoid of plot (and even then I didn't even know it took place on a moon of mars).

Dead Space reminds of the movie "Event Horizon" which I guess is now a very dated movie (damn I'm old).

I also liked the mechanic of requiring dismembering of the aliens. I guess for the ADHD Crossfire of shoot em in the head it is tedious but I think it brilliantly slows the pace of the game which is sort of needed for horror games.

>Other than the very beginning Doom is devoid of plot (and even then I didn't even know it took place on a moon of mars).

Doom didn't need a story. It wasn't that sort of game.

Doom is a game cut from the the gemstone of cutting edge technology perfect mechanics, sharpened against the edge of brilliant level design, polished to a mirror shine, and embellished by perfect sound and graphical design to match. It was an idea whose time had come, and I say that without irony. It's not about killing demons on Mars, it's about that feeling as you pick up a shotgun for the first time, and stare in awe as you reduce an imp to gibblets for the first time. The philosophy of Doom is summed up best by John Carmack:

"Story in a game is like story in a porn movie: It's expected to be there, but it's not that important."

You can love story-based games, but to judge Doom by those criterion is comically missing the point, as Edge found out to their eternal shame: "If only we could talk to the monsters" indeed.

I didn't say I think Doom needed a plot (and most shooters don't) but rather just explaining to the original poster who said (ManleyBread):

> For me it was just an another over-the-shoulder shooter with plenty of boring sections (especially near the end) and a story that didn't make much sense.

Dead Space may suck for its tedious game play but it is known for its plot.

Frankly I think Doom is overrated. Sure it was revolutionary and it was first but so was half a dozen social networks (ie friendster and myspace).

As I said much earlier I still think "Duke Nukem 3D" was way more fun and more sophisticated than Doom (there is an interesting story about the developer who wrote the Build Engine... Carmack respected him greatly).

Other than the chain saw Doom essentially had the same weapon and really it was mainly the shotgun.

And Doom's level and art are just not relatable to a 16 year old. I wanted to blow shit up in suburbia not battle in some surreal artistic hell pit that doesn't even look like a space station or hell but rather a slightly superior ROT [1]. Wolfenstein was better in this regard.

Compare this to Duke Nukem 3D with shrink rays, pipe bomb, laser trip mines, mini grenade gatling guns, etc... Even kicking was cool. With that level of cool weaponry multiplayer was hilarious and super fun.... Oh and Duke Nukem 3D had replay and mirrors as well. As well as various insta deaths besides tele frag. The interactivity with the environment was pretty cool as well (ie toilet flushing, earthquakes). In some ways Duke Nukem 3D was a precursor to GTA 3.

The maps in Duke Nukem were pretty darn awesome. I kept hearing in this thread that a realistic space station or space ship would not be a cool map but in Duke they did by creating a scene via a crashed space ship that included more than just the space ship.

I will say most of Dooms demons were very cool and the game play by frame rate is very smooth. Duke sort of had crappy monsters. They were funny but sort of crapp.

Yeah you might have game snobs who will say Quake, and Doom are better designed for competitive play but I take Duke Nukem 3D for fun factor any day.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_of_the_Triad

Yeah, to me it was just an inferior RE4 set in space with an inconvenient-to-frustrating limb-removal gimmick.

For me that memory was Diablo 1 and finally getting to "The Butcher" - the way they got the environment to match the music was incredible.

Fantastic work, this reminds me of playing Doom after school on the LAN. Good video walk-through but a shame you know where are all the monsters are ;-)

I don't know how to feel about this article. Four decent sized Doom maps (I'm assuming they're referring to the official iwad maps) doesn't sound like an unusually large map for a community creation. The 2-3 hour time requirement is rather vague (how experienced a player are we talking about? does the time include deaths and re-attempts?) too, but I've certainly played maps that took me as long, and I've watched others play such maps.

I guess there's nothing wrong with TFA per se, but I don't know if there's anything particularly newsworthy in it either. It sounds like the author just isn't aware of what's been going on in the Doom community for the past two decades.

Perhaps they're unaware, or perhaps they just chose a case study they considered interesting as an article subject. "Look at the time and care devoted to this hobby" is a classic article pattern.

> perhaps they just chose a case study they considered interesting as an article subject

That is possible. But the article gives me no reason why this particular map would stand out as interesting apart from all the others. At the very least, if "look at the time and care devoted to this hobby" were the goal, you'd be able to make a much juicier article by considering other cases, more impressive projects, such as one-man megawads that took more than 300 hours to make.. full of maps that are on average larger and harder (and longer in the time required to play sens) and prettier than the original iwad maps.

There's a video embedded in the article of someone playing through the whole map. The video is an hour long. And I just realized has full mouselook.

-----

Unrelatedly, and perhaps it's just nostalgia, but I find myself wishing some of the more modern Doom variants had more of the aesthetic of the original games. Colors, sizes of the rooms and such.

Well there is nothing worng with playing the original games (perhaps with a beefed up engine if the original is too clunky for your taste). There's plenty of maps too so you'll never get bored. I think I've played around a hundred pwads now and it feels like I've only scratched the surface.

The embedded video is by the creator, so 1h if you know the level perfectly.

Given the references to Dark Souls, I kinda hope it's a map approximately the size of Lordran.

Way to compliment someone on their fantastic 300-hour project that they finished and present to the internet. Typical HN commentary. What this guy has done is a labour of love. I love it. Other people have done great WADs too... so what? Everyone deserves credit for good work.

At first glance, I thought 300 hours was the time it takes to complete the level in the game! :)

The WAD itself is pretty newsworthy. For someone that's never made a DooM level before, the author definitely read up on a few of the tricks that the engine could use because they did some neat things in the maps. If you watch the video, the switch tower (with all the Lost Souls) was especially cool as it uses a special trigger type to create the effect you see. As someone who is a huge DooM fan, this level wasn't the greatest, but it was pretty cool and noteworthy.

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