ENTRYWAY
thirty second par
but how could anybody
want to leave so soon
initially my plan was to write a series of 32 haikus, one for each level, with the intention of succinctly boiling things down into a heartfelt gesture. the problem there's that doom II's anything but succinct; it's a towering, monolithic game that bears down on you at all times. breathless formatting, increased enemy numbers, more byzantine, avant garde mapping, chaotic texturing, new enemies, and a one-of-a-kind fan community that's opened up an endless limitless world of More Doom and turned it into something you could spend a lifetime emerged in without seeing everything worthwhile or learning all its finest details. to try to sum things up poetically is a fool's errand; doom II can't be boiled down into 544 syllables, least of all by me
REFUELING BASE
this from the man who
put 95 spawns into
quake episode 4
a narrative has developed that suggests doom II's second half is something irredeemable — not just underwhelming, but outright bad — and it's a load of shit. if you don't like TENEMENTS or COURTYARD that's an indictment of your taste, not the quality of the mapping present here. the way sandy in particular maps with such expressive, inventive, and experimental brushstrokes is something we should relish and appreciate; doom and quake wouldn't be what they are without his contributions, and he's one of the genre's most important level designers hands down
that the game feels like a fever dream is largely a result of his 17(!!!!) maps and their wild refusal to adhere to conventional logic or standard. people out here begging and crying for euclidian techbases when my man barfed textures in a pile and turned it into something as good as TRICKS AND TRAPS. "SUBURBS ISNT REALISTIC" you scream into your pillow while I smile big with my cute dimples showing cos I'm enjoying a really fun map. "CHASM IS BAD" you shriek so loud you get evicted while I enjoy some first person platforming and reminisce about turok dinosaur hunter being the best game on the N64. no one, and I mean No One advanced the space for creation here more substantially. fuck verisimilitude, let's dance
SUBURBS
welcome all neighbors
to our annual cookout
bring your own bodies
they could've called it perfect doom: an evolutionary step that marked its final form and near-complete status as a standardized toolset. they could've dropped the number and signaled it as just being a big ass messy sloppy cuhrazy megawad and called it a day and 99% of the shit talk would be stopped in its erroneous tracks. really, I don't even think there's a good argument that doom's better unless you're looking at it as some hermetically pure retail project rather than a couplet of frameworks or stepping stones to greater ideas. hindsight is 50/50, but we're graced with enough distance now to know that any assessment of the material should be done while understanding what it wrought; that none of this exists in that Big Box Vacuum and never really did — shareware being the first and last exposure many, many people had in the first place, and doom always being a game that's chopped n screwed in as many ways as possible. doom is ragged and raw; it's tendrils, it's wild kudzu and overgrowth and every idea every middle schooler ever jotted in a notebook. to appraise this in a sanitized quarantine is geek shit I simply can't abide by. this is an immaculate vessel that had the good grace to show up with 32 mostly sick maps
THE FACTORY
fifty indie games
that look exactly like this
steam early access
if any game exists as some kind of broad communal accomplishment, it's probably doom. opening with an open source branch to the community, and closing long after we're buried in our technograves. ads for lotions interrupt our epitaphs while someone named grizzlyguzzler releases the cacoward winning "scronky bonky II" and sets neo doomworld ablaze with passionate discussion. Did You See The Part Where. I Can't Believe That. How Did They Even...
billionaires in bad suits pump sicko dollars into metaverses and games-within-games-within-games; some eternal platform-slash-cenotaph is conjured by the world's most killable humans; disfigured 3D models waggle and wave in cyberspace trying desperately to create something as remotely meaningful, intravenously sucking on your wallet to please money perverts before being sent to the scrap heap
good luck
DEAD SIMPLE
perfect little map
the homages will go on
past our life and death
thirty second par
but how could anybody
want to leave so soon
initially my plan was to write a series of 32 haikus, one for each level, with the intention of succinctly boiling things down into a heartfelt gesture. the problem there's that doom II's anything but succinct; it's a towering, monolithic game that bears down on you at all times. breathless formatting, increased enemy numbers, more byzantine, avant garde mapping, chaotic texturing, new enemies, and a one-of-a-kind fan community that's opened up an endless limitless world of More Doom and turned it into something you could spend a lifetime emerged in without seeing everything worthwhile or learning all its finest details. to try to sum things up poetically is a fool's errand; doom II can't be boiled down into 544 syllables, least of all by me
REFUELING BASE
this from the man who
put 95 spawns into
quake episode 4
a narrative has developed that suggests doom II's second half is something irredeemable — not just underwhelming, but outright bad — and it's a load of shit. if you don't like TENEMENTS or COURTYARD that's an indictment of your taste, not the quality of the mapping present here. the way sandy in particular maps with such expressive, inventive, and experimental brushstrokes is something we should relish and appreciate; doom and quake wouldn't be what they are without his contributions, and he's one of the genre's most important level designers hands down
that the game feels like a fever dream is largely a result of his 17(!!!!) maps and their wild refusal to adhere to conventional logic or standard. people out here begging and crying for euclidian techbases when my man barfed textures in a pile and turned it into something as good as TRICKS AND TRAPS. "SUBURBS ISNT REALISTIC" you scream into your pillow while I smile big with my cute dimples showing cos I'm enjoying a really fun map. "CHASM IS BAD" you shriek so loud you get evicted while I enjoy some first person platforming and reminisce about turok dinosaur hunter being the best game on the N64. no one, and I mean No One advanced the space for creation here more substantially. fuck verisimilitude, let's dance
SUBURBS
welcome all neighbors
to our annual cookout
bring your own bodies
they could've called it perfect doom: an evolutionary step that marked its final form and near-complete status as a standardized toolset. they could've dropped the number and signaled it as just being a big ass messy sloppy cuhrazy megawad and called it a day and 99% of the shit talk would be stopped in its erroneous tracks. really, I don't even think there's a good argument that doom's better unless you're looking at it as some hermetically pure retail project rather than a couplet of frameworks or stepping stones to greater ideas. hindsight is 50/50, but we're graced with enough distance now to know that any assessment of the material should be done while understanding what it wrought; that none of this exists in that Big Box Vacuum and never really did — shareware being the first and last exposure many, many people had in the first place, and doom always being a game that's chopped n screwed in as many ways as possible. doom is ragged and raw; it's tendrils, it's wild kudzu and overgrowth and every idea every middle schooler ever jotted in a notebook. to appraise this in a sanitized quarantine is geek shit I simply can't abide by. this is an immaculate vessel that had the good grace to show up with 32 mostly sick maps
THE FACTORY
fifty indie games
that look exactly like this
steam early access
if any game exists as some kind of broad communal accomplishment, it's probably doom. opening with an open source branch to the community, and closing long after we're buried in our technograves. ads for lotions interrupt our epitaphs while someone named grizzlyguzzler releases the cacoward winning "scronky bonky II" and sets neo doomworld ablaze with passionate discussion. Did You See The Part Where. I Can't Believe That. How Did They Even...
billionaires in bad suits pump sicko dollars into metaverses and games-within-games-within-games; some eternal platform-slash-cenotaph is conjured by the world's most killable humans; disfigured 3D models waggle and wave in cyberspace trying desperately to create something as remotely meaningful, intravenously sucking on your wallet to please money perverts before being sent to the scrap heap
good luck
DEAD SIMPLE
perfect little map
the homages will go on
past our life and death
15 Comments
it doesn't get better than super shotgunning arachnotrons, pure bliss
@NOWITSREYNTIME17
it really doesn't. the sounds + sprites are unbeatable
it really doesn't. the sounds + sprites are unbeatable
i like your poems so much and ive never been actually heard of this game series before ive only played Checkers. can you write a Checkers poem
@moschidae
I'm sorry the end result didn't match the concept I described initially. I still have 20+ kinda mixed quality poems sitting around tho. I'd like to do some on checkers (and even more on Go if I could've figured it out) but you gotta point me in the direction of a checkers game first
I'm sorry the end result didn't match the concept I described initially. I still have 20+ kinda mixed quality poems sitting around tho. I'd like to do some on checkers (and even more on Go if I could've figured it out) but you gotta point me in the direction of a checkers game first
@moschidae
wrangle the freaks and ghouls at the igdb and we're in business. add "night of bush capturing" while you're at it cos I feel like im hellbanned from contributing to that garbage site at this point
wrangle the freaks and ghouls at the igdb and we're in business. add "night of bush capturing" while you're at it cos I feel like im hellbanned from contributing to that garbage site at this point
he cant even understand Checkers
"really, I don't even think there's a good argument that doom's better unless you're looking at it as some hermetically pure retail project rather than a couplet of frameworks or stepping stones to greater ideas"
This is precisely how most people think of it, to their great loss.
Romero's Doom 1 style is good but perhaps more of an evolutionary dead-end. In terms of pure execution Sandy is inconsistent IMO, but as creative inspiration he is fantastic. Hard not to be charmed by Tricks and Traps!
This is precisely how most people think of it, to their great loss.
Romero's Doom 1 style is good but perhaps more of an evolutionary dead-end. In terms of pure execution Sandy is inconsistent IMO, but as creative inspiration he is fantastic. Hard not to be charmed by Tricks and Traps!
@hotpockethpe
it's a bummer! hard not to think it's completely backwards, even if I know the average player can't be expected to play past doom E3 or ever dabble in fanworks
and I agree; I think there's a reason that even romero's maps have changed significantly in both style and substance over the years. he's made beautiful stuff, and tenements might be my favourite map in D2 from a holistic perspective, butwhile sandy's definitely inconsistent his experiments really get imagination going and feel radical even when they don't quite hit their mark. I'm not even sure I like something like Barrels of Fun, but I LOVE that he made it and it made it into the game. Tricks and Traps is delightful and encapsulates everything nice I have to say about his maps perfectly though, and something about Suburbs occupies the same space as like the Soundgarden Black Hole Sun video in my brain (deeply complimentary)
@moschidae
if you think that's bad you should see me "play" shogi
it's a bummer! hard not to think it's completely backwards, even if I know the average player can't be expected to play past doom E3 or ever dabble in fanworks
and I agree; I think there's a reason that even romero's maps have changed significantly in both style and substance over the years. he's made beautiful stuff, and tenements might be my favourite map in D2 from a holistic perspective, butwhile sandy's definitely inconsistent his experiments really get imagination going and feel radical even when they don't quite hit their mark. I'm not even sure I like something like Barrels of Fun, but I LOVE that he made it and it made it into the game. Tricks and Traps is delightful and encapsulates everything nice I have to say about his maps perfectly though, and something about Suburbs occupies the same space as like the Soundgarden Black Hole Sun video in my brain (deeply complimentary)
@moschidae
if you think that's bad you should see me "play" shogi
Ngl I think I might prefer sandy's more experimental levels even if they're more hit or miss compared to Romero, I just prefer more memorable weird levels compared to more sterile well designed levels but that may just be me. I think that's why doom 2 really won me over in the end, besides the super shotgun and the added demons ofc
@NOWITSREYNTIME17
totally, with sandy you never know what you're gonna get and that's awesome. there are so many maps in doom 2 in particular that feel like nothing you've ever seen before the first time you're going through them. the man brought weird tabletop dungeon crawling and high concept gimmicks to the game in a way that felt electric. even something like The Pit which I'm kinda iffy on (cos I didn't have the lost soul limit on probably) is full of a million little cool ideas. sandy rules
totally, with sandy you never know what you're gonna get and that's awesome. there are so many maps in doom 2 in particular that feel like nothing you've ever seen before the first time you're going through them. the man brought weird tabletop dungeon crawling and high concept gimmicks to the game in a way that felt electric. even something like The Pit which I'm kinda iffy on (cos I didn't have the lost soul limit on probably) is full of a million little cool ideas. sandy rules
Imma be real, I think I'm like one of a few pit fans. I liked it my first go around and thought it was just a fluke but I liked it again on my replay. It probably was because of the lost souls limit, cuz without it..itd probably be unbearable at the end lol
@NOWITSREYNTIME17
haha yeah, that's putting it lightly. once I got to that final stretch I was on some Tired Sitcom Dad shit. I had no idea about the limit so I was just like "damn, sandy made the most evil shit of all time I guess!". I'm 99% sure I'd enjoy it way more if I played it as intended. next run I'll join you as Most Valuable Pitfan and spread the good word I'm sure
haha yeah, that's putting it lightly. once I got to that final stretch I was on some Tired Sitcom Dad shit. I had no idea about the limit so I was just like "damn, sandy made the most evil shit of all time I guess!". I'm 99% sure I'd enjoy it way more if I played it as intended. next run I'll join you as Most Valuable Pitfan and spread the good word I'm sure
Looking forward to that for sure
curse
3 months ago
didn't wanna close on RAGE of all things or a limp review of returnal so I'm glad I could wrap this thing up in time for the year's end. sending lots of love to everyone on here + can't wait to see what everyone writes and thinks and feels in the coming year. big dumb thank you to anyone who reads my goofy stuff!!!
🥳🥳🥳🥳