Been playing Doom and playing around with Doom mapping again lately.

Every time I play I'm always taking screenshots. I have a dedicated button on my mouse for it so I will take hundreds over a megawad. I always tell myself I wanna post about em because they're cool and then never do. I've got an ancient way too much actual work post on one I really enjoyed called Moonblood. But I never posted it! So now I'm trying a less effort post.

The WAD I played is called Sinergy, a full 36 map megawad for Doom 1 that I believe is entirely vanilla format. It was a lot of fun! Not a new favorite or anything, I had a number of maps where I'd get lost trying to find what a switch did, and one where a path forward was so well hidden that I had to check a video on youtube to see where I needed to go. It left a good impression by the end though. Episodes 3 and 4 had some really impressive stuff, especially their secret levels. e3m8 was a bit of a dud but e4m8 was a great finale.

The first thing you see upon starting the WAD. It's an unabashed "here are my takes on id's maps" which I usually don't get too excited for these days. The fact that I didn't immediately start in a room like e1m1's was a good way to boost my confidence.

(You entered a building and then were in a very e1m1 opening room room.)

There was plenty of cool architecture though. I really appreciate wads of this level of detail and aesthetics these days and they feel like something I can aspire to in my own maps compared to super intricate stuff.

Like this structure! I often leave ttv/DoomSpeedDemos on in the background and have been finding WADs to play by just writing down the names when the maps seem cool. When I go looking for a new one I check the list, which is how I found this wad and why I opted for a "the way id did" style wad.

And just rooms like this. I look at this and think, damn that's a good room.

Good room.

A nice simple encounter design. Force player into corner to grab key, open up the opposite walls.

e1m8 was one! The entire map was this slightly cramped area with a few one room buildings to grab stuff from at the start before starting the encounter and having enemies teleport in from the center. It felt like a lot without being a slog, especially since no plasma.

This sick castle that also has a dreary looking UAC corporate hQ sign. Skybox doing some work too.

Good room.

This one had me taking a dozen screenshots. The chunky pillars with just as chunky "vents" created such a neat to be in space. These are the things I look at and want to be able to come up with on my own.

A nice looking starting spot.

I was really impressed with the wad's lighting! Tons of screenshots of great work with shadows and contrast. Lots of straightforward hallways that had so much depth to them and really broke up Doom's conservative number of default textures.

Also sometimes wads just get a little silly :)

I try to look for purpose and intent of rooms. Why did the author include a room, and what did I find it engaging? I liked this one which also has great lighting but it was just a side door that only had a box of cells to collect, with a baron hiding behind the pillar that would see you when you grabbed the cells.

This is a neat looking courtyard, but I took it (after dying later in this room) to memoralize the world's unluckiest specter. That imp just whipped three fireballs and it immediately got in the way. When it won its infight. Just as it did, and turned back towards me another imp had arrived and pelted it with one last fireball, killing the beast. rip.

A nice room.

YMCA energy.

e2m8 was a few cyberdemons and a hundred-ish cacos, demons, and imps. Infighting and being able to do laps meant I didn't feel very involved. e3m8 was rougher. Three masterminds and a ton of fodder but the spiders infought while I hid behind a pillar picking off stragglers and I had to basically shoot a handful of rockets to beat the last one.

But e4m8 was a lot cooler. It opened with this ring here. The spine-pillar in the background was one of three with a cybedemon in it. I had to do laps around the thing, swoocing at the right time to grab keys while in direct line of fire, and then open some doors in the same way. This got the mastermind to spawn in the center here. Then when they were gone, the whole ring lowered to the ground with the outside of it being damaging floor. Several hundred more monsters got to teleport in. Since it was vanilla, you only had to find the alcove with the exit to get through it and not actually defeat everything, but the first attempt I did try to do that and it was great fight having to manage a small number of radsuits and like 2 invulns.

I'm bad at finding the secret levels so if I don't come across them I just warp to them afterwards since I'm pistol starting anyway. I forgot to do so for e3 so after beating e4m8 I did e3m9 which was one of the best in the wad despite not making it to the screenshots here. e4m9 was easily just as good and did though. It was like an alternate route through an episode 1 map where everything familiar was damaged and broken to pieces with the corposes everywhere from the last run through the place. Zero monsters showed up while you did so.

It also had its share of weird texture work like this cool thing! Behind it was a giant pit from techbase to hell where the hundreds of enemies could be found.

There was this amazing setpiece of a skyscraper in the background down there. It was a big beacon in a huge cavernous space.

I really had a lot of fun with it. There were a few questionable moments, but a lot of really impressive parts that made me glad I stuck with it.