Hello! First post here (or anywhere in the Doom community, actually) and I've been wondering for a while if this was a good idea, given the high quality of the projects that are released for ZDoom. But what the hell, why not...
So, first a small introduction.
From 1994 to 1998, me and my homies loved mapping for Doom and the rest of the Doom engine games. Having no online access, we got several mapping and WAD-tinkering applications from magazine cover CDs (does anyone remember those?) and we would churn out mediocre levels by the dozen, mostly to share with each other and with our high school classmates and friends. We had so many maps that we actually made a megawad called Caronte (Spanish for "Charon"), full with maps of questionable quality that we still loved to death and that few people outside our neighborhood ever played.
Skip to late 2014, twenty years (oh, God, twenty years) later, a couple of weeks ago, when I find an old backup with this megawad and several other maps me and my friends made, and I have the stupid idea of giving the ten best maps a bit of a facelift (nothing too crazy), re-balancing them and, why not, publishing them for the first time ever.
So this is mostly a vanity project for nostalgia's sake and because I wanted people to finally see how we wasted our teenage years instead of going out and getting laid. Don't expect anything ground-breaking, but don't expect square rooms joined by hallways either. Expect old-style gameplay. Whenever I has to choose between completely changing the layout of a map or being faithful to the original, I chose the latter. Whenever I could easily replace some mapping trick with a sleaker and simpler script, I chose not to.
I think these maps are, at the very least, amusing and entertaining in an old school way. I hope you feel the same or at the very least that they make you smile.
So, for the proof that this is a thing...
Spoiler:
The whole thing is playable already, but I'd like to add some more extra detailing without getting too baroque, trying to respect the spirit of the original maps. And of course, and most important, I'd like to fine tune the gameplay as much as possible. Just because this is a self-gratifying project it doesn't mean it has to be half-assed, right?
I shall be posting more pics, betas, updates, and whatever. And taking your constructive criticism and multiple suggestions to go home and find a new hobby, of course!
So, do you think this is enough?
If you ever get a phone call with a Caribbean cruise line win, don't send money.