::|CONTENTS
- Doom on BotB
- How to Play
- Tools and resources
Doom is a popular FPS (first person shooter) video game, released in late 1993 for DOS PC's. Its tech quickly gained popularity, and as such it has become one of the most ported games of its era (or, to quote John Linneman, "the violent equivalent of 'Hello World'").
The source code for this game's engine was publicly released in 1997, and with it spawned several different projects (Source ports) that have attempted to make the game run on modern (or old) operating systems. With it came attempts to enhance or add more features to the base engine (an example of this would be
BOOM, another popular example would be GZDoom).
The PC versions have all game data contained in a single file, the WAD file. There are two types of WADs: PWADs and IWADs. IWADs are WAD of the original commercial games released for the Doom engine, such as Doom, Doom II, Hexen, and Heretic. PWADs are WADs made by hobbyists (and BotBrs here) that use graphics and sounds from an IWAD.
The only IWAD you should use (unless stated otherwise in a bitpack) is DOOM II's - it's perhaps the most utilized format even outsdie of BotB, and as such has a lot of readily available support. It's also pretty backwards compatible with Doom 1 (missing episode structure, some textures, probably other things I haven't checked at the moment).
Doom on BotB
Doom entries on BotB are generally single-player maps for either Doom or Doom II. WADs may also include (unless stated otherwise in a bitpack)
custom music or custom graphics to be used in the map(s).
Submitted levels under this format should be playable with the latest version of the vanilla implementation, meaning it should run with the original executables, or a source port that's highly compatible (such as
Chocolate Doom, a source port that seeks to replicate everything about the original executable).
Other sourceports can be used at your own discretion, although you should not rely on them too much given that a lot of them are limit-removing (Doom 2 has a limit of 256 walls and 128 floors (vissplanes) visible at all times, and going above would crash the engine - source ports either increase these limits, or outright remove them to make room for more complex maps), or have features that break vanilla compatibility in some ways (this is why compatibility settings exist, and depending on your source port it may never be 100% vanilla compatible).
How to Play
You should find your own way to source the IWADs stated in the bitpack (usually this is DOOM2.WAD). You can (legally) get this by buying Doom II (or any of the other relevant DOOMs) on one of the many online gaming storefronts today. You probably should not use the source port the purchased game uses nowadays, unless it's the DOSBox version (in which case it's probably one of the most accurate way to play WADs submitted to this format).
If you don't have access to the DOSBox versions of the game, you can still take the IWAD from one of the source ports and use that with Chocolate Doom - while not 100% accurate, it's a very good modern way to work with vanilla Doom.
Once you have this figured out, it should be simple to get it running with the PWAD of your choice (to do: actually instruct how to do this because atm i forgot how WHOOPS).
Tools and resources
Chocolate Doom, a vanilla-accurate source port of Doom
Eureka, a cross-platform Doom map editor
Doom Builder, a Doom map editor for Windows
Ultimate Doom Builder, a fork of Doom Builder that adds a LOT of things (but also requires more horsepower - if this can't run on your computer, try Doom Builder!)
Doom Wiki, a wiki for Doom-related information
Doom
Ultimate Doom
Doom II
