TIME TO ANNOUNCE THE WINNERS!
A truly amazing turnout for this contest. 43 maps were submitted in the end! I truly didn’t expect so many to create such a quality collection of maps within the week. I only wish that those of you who had to conclude your ideas prematurely due to time constraints could have another crack at it. Of course, anyone who participated is completely free to continue work on their map if they wish, and you’re more than welcome to make a separate release of your own. I will leave everything past this point within your capable hands!
All the submissions have been compiled into one ZIP file for easy download. Text files are included.
15 Years a Doomer Submissions (679 downloads )Many of these maps require “jimmytex.wad” to be loaded alongside them – this texture pack is also included.
The winners I’ve picked are below, but first, let’s visit some Honorable Mentions, and give out some Special Awards to those who I think deserve unique recognition. I have lots to talk about!
@RataUnderground for “Osario”
I don’t think anyone was expecting anything like this. Perhaps the most Spanish thing I’ve ever played. The lighting is a tad flat and the architecture is relatively simple, but the textures are lavish full-color PNGs, creating a lovingly crafted sense of locale. The choice of actual flamenco guitar for the music is the final flourish that makes this map stand out a huge amount from the crowd. The overall product, while a pretty insubstantial level in terms of playspace, is somewhat reminiscent of didy’s Bauhaus, and that’s only a good thing.
The author made mention on Twitter that there is a full texture pack behind this map, which I hope we get to see a formal release of soon, and I sincerely hope more maps like this are to come. I applaud the novelty of “Osario” and would happily play a community project using these resources and an all-flamenco soundtrack.
Forget Trustworthy Software – whoever those losers are – this is the real Doom 2 in Spain Only.
@7Soul for “The Many Rooms of Caco’s Castle”
This map makes no bones about it being inspired by my and Dragonfly‘s Eviternity MAP04 – the influences are crystal clear from the starting room. The shaping and texturing of certain rooms and hallways is uncannily similar, although I have pretty solid faith that no linedefs were outright copied at all, and I’ve played enough of 7Soul’s maps to know a decent amount about where their design strengths lie.
What really sets this map apart is the use of a very bold palette of custom assets, including a bunch of textures from Blood, and a selection of custom weaponry courtesy of Realm667. While the new arsenal took me a little getting used to, they were undoubtedly fun additions, and definitely came in handy throughout the final scramble on the chessboard.
Though the custom resource pool feels slightly haphazard, this was well worth the play.
@notTyrone for “Baphomet’s Lab”
I was very pleasantly surprised by this. This SIGIL-inspired map is a large three-key spoke-hub – nothing hugely out of the ordinary – but the individual areas are lovingly designed and look gorgeous as a result. The bright crimson cracks in the floor, the inky darkness, the cacoflesh pentagrams – this is how you write a love letter to Episode 5, and do it with the added flair of custom resources and astute use of UDMF.
The highlight for me was possibly the blue key trap – a dastardly setup, and very visually striking. Did not see that coming!
@Big Ol Billy for “Last Saucer Off of Mercury”
This Mercury Rain-adjacent city map (curiously, a theme that was explored by more than one individual in this contest!) is awesomely picturesque and full of exciting mechanics. The acid rain here will actually cause you damage, and well-timed use of the explosive, poisonous skull growths allows you to deal extra environmental damage to monsters. The wonderfully Doomcute little flying saucer that marks the end of the map is also a great final touch.
The custom MIDI is also a slapper, having been composed by Billy in the meter of 15/8 – a perfect choice for the celebration of my fifteenth year a Doomer. What a thoughtful touch!
“Last Saucer Off of Mercury” is a fleetingly short map, with the monster count sitting well below 100. As a self-confessed pluviophile, I would happily play through a whole episode with this single theme. A very strong offering, and rest assured, its brevity did not cost it any imaginary jimmypoints. It absolutely deserves special mention.
These awards are largely arbitrary, and if I was to host another contest like this, these categories almost certainly would not be the same. Still, the following five submissions need to be discussed and commended for their unique aspects. We’ll kick off with…
Awarded to @NeilJohnRips for “GET OUT MY WAY”
This is the perfect jokemap. I’m not kidding.
Doomguy needs his cheese, and those goddamn demons are IN HIS WAY. This map has you tearing up a suburban setting in your desperate quest to reach the grocery store, faced with obstructive swathes of demons – and all this action is set to a ridiculously angry-sounding MIDI courtesy of the map author, a composition undoubtedly mirroring Doomguy’s state of mind. The monster placement here is designed to annoy and be inconvenient more than anything else, and the ammo balance is such that you literally need to ignore the majority of them early on, in order to not have problems later (I ran into problems later). However, by the time you reach the end goal, you tragically realise that your brutal rampage was all for nowt.
Painting Doomguy in humdrum everyday scenarios like this is one of my favorite tropes in jokemaps. I haven’t played anything this good since Wills’s “Kwik-E-Mart” map from “It Only Gets Worse”.
It would also be remiss of me to gloss over the lovingly-rendered roadkilled cacodemon made of out sectors. If you didn’t laugh at this, you’re fundamentally dead inside.
Jokemappers everywhere, take note – this is how it’s done.
Awarded to @Crimson Dusk for “Touch of Midas”
This map is an excellent conglomeration of jimmytropes. Liquid gold, as seen in Jenesis‘s “Alchemy”, is the primary hazard here, requiring adroit use of radiation suits to overcome, and gold imps also make an appearance. On top of the cool use of jimmytex to evoke an extraterrestrial planet populated by unique monsters of its own is intriguing use of extra assets. Finding one of two keys grants you access to a powerup sphere that freezes time (and turns your screen gold, to boot), allowing you to thwart an otherwise insurmountable flood of revenants that pop out from a locked cage. The gothictx sword impaling the cacodemon corpse also got a chuckle out of me.
Points for visual and thematic consistency here, and being a pretty dang fun map to boot!
Awarded to @Cacodemon187 for “Jimmycorp”
This submission starts out as a pretty standard-looking Plutonia 2-styled map with plenty of challenging combat setpieces, but before long you start to realise there’s more here than meets the eye. There are warning signs and corporate-ese bulletins posted on walls here and there, hinting at the nature of some larger corporation pulling the strings.
Eventually you stumble into an unpopulated apartment. I spent a good couple of minutes just looking at the Doom-dorable constructions here. There’s a TV (complete with jimmysofa), a fridge with health supplies, a goddamn dish rack, an excellent welcome mat that I utterly failed to spot in my playthrough, and the crown jewel here is the writing desk complete with stationery and a paper map sketch. Incredible – a drawn map, drawn inside a map – perhaps we’ve reached the apex of Doomcute here.
I also couldn’t be happier with the way this map concludes. All is forgiven, Cacodemon.
Awarded to @joe-ilya for “The Research Labs”
This is a serious map, and actually an incredibly playable and enjoyable experience, with a rather excellent Vanilla feel, good secret-hunting, and straightforward gameplay. However, with joe-ilya being the mind behind the map – he whose mere participation in a Doomworld community project (despite being banned from the board!) is a meme unto itself – this map earns the title of being perhaps the most meta meme map to have ever meta-memed.
Among the secrets to find in this early 90s offering (which foregoes the use of any custom texture resources) is an incredible secret chainsaw which has been edited to remove the saw blade, and its ability to do damage at all. The “sawless” got an honestly good laugh out of me.
Color me pleasantly surprised. Sigh… if only joe could be bothered to learn how music works. The unceasing, zombie-like drone of his custom offering “Primitive” is about as stimulating as watching cold water boil.
Awarded to @Scypek2 for “This Floor Is Also Lava”
This… is an Adventures of Square map. Probably the first piece of user content for the game that I’ve been able to get my hands on! I really appreciate it.
The map is a spin on the formula for my 2014 jokemap “The Floor is Lava“, which was originally made for one of Scypek’s community projects. What sets this map and my original apart is how Square’s improved jump physics make it a far more palatable experience, whereas my own map was designed to be, and I quote myself here, “aggravating as balls”.
There’s all sorts of crazy platforming off of boxes, trees, and even the pushable cows – and while the experience is definitely a very serious challenge, it’s done quite tastefully – Scypek knew very well how to make this kind of gameplay work within Square’s technicalities. The use of large clusters of monsters, many of them fliers who have the ability to suddenly get the drop on you, present an even greater and unpredictable challenge that makes for interesting repeat plays.
This submission deserves very special commendation in spite of it being an outlier to the contest rules. Many thanks, Scypek2!
And now – the moment of truth – the winners. The big three. The mappers listed below get cash money.
Let’s not dilly-dally any further!
Awarded to @RonnieJamesDiner for “Screams from the Slipgate Station”
RJD’s spin on my map for Mapwich 2 that I did in collaboration with DoomTheRobot, entitled “The Collector”, is extremely ambitious and visually impressive for the highly constrictive time allotted. The bold and ominous architecture of the central spire brilliantly shadows the surrounding blood lakes and earthy crevasses. The combat is fast and ferocious too, requiring the player to be nimble on their feet and keenly aware of where the higher-tier monsters might be skulking about in the dark.
A highly enjoyable offering, which I think we’ve all come to expect from RJD. It’s no wonder he’s now working on Age of Hell.
Awarded to @Pierrot for “Joyful Raider”
Pierrot’s “Joyful Raider” hits the nail on the head in so many ways it’s hard for me to name them all, but I’ll try: the map takes place in a sandstone tomb, boasts a hefty monster count, and presents no small challenge with its harsh-but-fair combat and a decently puzzling progression with plenty of tucked-away switches to go hunting for. Its expert use of jimmytex sets a really immersive scene – parts of this map were so visually striking they had me just gawking. This map reminds me just how much I love the whole “desert level” aesthetic. The subtle Jenesis references scattered throughout were almost enough to fly completely over my head, and they’re woven deftly into the map’s flow – I still don’t know if I found them all. The fact that such a unique-looking and intricately designed level came out of a set of building blocks that I laid down back in 2011 is really fantastic to see. Oh, did I mention at all how much I enjoy the Mark Klem midi that was chosen? I kinda feel like I glossed over that. Congrats to second and third place. You both receive fifty dollars! And now, our grand winner…
Awarded to @Pinchy for “Mercurial City”
I have a feeling that everyone’s mind was made up that this was one of the very strongest contenders when I first played this onstream. Hell, mine was, almost straight away. There’s no question that Pinchy is one of a kind when it comes to mapping – his offerings are always impressive in scale, prone to rewarding deep exploration, and bursting with humor and character. How this was all achieved in 15 hours is certainly something, but I think it’s well-known by now that Pinchy is an unstoppable mapping machine. This bustling rain-drenched city combines a lot of his AND my most typical tropes in the most excellent of ways – not only are all the jimmytropes present here, but Pinchy hid an ultra-secret area behind a hidden minigame in which you have to shoot the four red jimmylights. The reward it netted me honestly got me a little bit emotional.
I’m also extremely thankful to have learned that I have given back to Pinchy, in the form of inspiring him to return to Doom mapping with the release of 30in30-5. I can’t ask for anything more. Cheers, Pinch.
That officially wraps up proceedings. Congratulations to all the winners and those who won special recognition!
In closing, may I extend my heartfelt thanks and appreciation to everyone who participated and who watched the streams. The love I’ve received from this community over the last couple of weeks has been pretty astounding.
Keep being awesome, everyone.