DOOM 87: The Lost World (Beta)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Story
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"The hellspawn invasions just keep coming.  How many times must Doomguy revisit Hell before the demonic army is defeated?  Perhaps he's been missing something.  Maybe Hell is only a decoy.  What if their real base has yet to be found?  The search begins now..."

The Maps
~~~~~~~~~~
This beta release of DOOM 87 contains 21 maps from the full 32 map megawad.  Maps 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, and 11 are from the first episode on Earth.  Maps 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19 are from the Hell episode.  Maps 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, and 27 are from the final episode which starts with the player trying to escape Hell and find "The Lost World."  Finally, Maps 31 and 32 are secret maps which takes place on Earth.  All other maps are placeholders with an exit switch, so you can use these if you don't want to pistol start each map (pistol starting is pretty epic though :D).

Most of these maps have been optimized for the main three difficulty levels ("Hey, Not Too Rough," "Hurt Me Plenty," and "Ultra-Violence"), although some may be very similar regardless of which one you choose.  The final release will have better and more thoroughly tested lower difficulty optimizations, but for now, Ultra-Violence is the main difficulty that has been optimized and playtested.  I have beaten every map in this WAD on Ultra-Violence from a pistol start without using saves, so I can confirm that these maps are beatable with enough practice.  Some maps are very hard, but they can all be completed on UV without needing to use saves if you're willing to master them :D

Here are some brief descriptions for each map and a basic difficulty rating based on my personal experience with them.  1/5 means that the map is very easy and can be completed with little effort.  2/5 means that the map is a bit challenging, but still fairly easy.  3/5 means that the map is moderately difficult and may take a few tries to beat.  4/5 means that the map is very tough and will likely require some practice before it can be beaten.  5/5 means that the map is absolutely brutal and was likely a map that took me dozens of attempts to start beating consistently.  If you're looking for an epic DOOMER challenge, I think you'll find some maps in this WAD that will really test your skills :D

The difficulty ratings are subjective and are based on getting 100% kills and secrets on Ultra-Violence from a pistol start without using saves.  To see these maps being completed on UV from a pistol start, check out my YouTube Channel (DCG Retrowave).  I'll be uploading a full playthrough of this beta within a few days of the release, so if you need some help with any of the maps, these videos should be very useful :)


MAP01: House of Doom (Difficulty = 2/5)

"The demons invaded your home while you were asleep!  Good thing you always keep your pistol by your bedside just in case.  You left the shotgun in the basement, but perhaps you can steal one from a zombie to make things a little easier."


MAP02: Surf Demons (Difficulty = 1/5)

"The lake seems to be a popular hangout spot for the demons, especially Imps.  Hey, what's this goofy-looking potato demon doing here?"


MAP04: Evil Library (Difficulty = 2/5)

"The monsters seem to enjoy reading books at the local library.  They'd probably prefer not to be disturbed, but demonic book clubs don't deserve peace and quiet."


MAP07: The Ball Game (Difficulty = 2/5)

"The baseball stadium downtown is completely overrun by Hell's vile creatures.  They appear to be playing a demonic baseball game.  These demons really like participating in standard human activities."


MAP08: Marketplace (Difficulty = 3/5)

"The mall downtown was taken over by some hellspawn.  It looks like they've altered some of the stores and restaurants too.  I'm pretty sure I've never seen a Caco Bell at this mall before and those vending machines seem a bit odd to me..."


MAP11: Arch-Ville (Difficulty = 3/5)

"As you step out if the igloo, you spot one of those annoying Arch-Viles.  He immediately teleports away from you, but it's safe to assume that the fortress up ahead contains more..."

Note: This map has multiple death traps that use voodoo dolls.  This shouldn't be a problem for most DOOM source ports, but it might be a problem if you fall for these traps :D


MAP12: The Heck Dimension (Difficulty = 4/5)

"The hellspawn are awaiting your descent into their realm.  Prepare yourself for the toughest battle you've fought so far."

Compatibility Note: There is a chance that a visplane overflow could occur in Vanilla DOOM on this map (I'm currently trying to fix this for the next release without altering the map significantly).  As far as I know, the only way this could possibly be triggered is with an Arch-vile jump while standing near the blood-fountain thing (the thing with the yellow skull key :D).  If this happens or you just want to be safe, you can use DOOM2P.EXE which is the Vanilla executable, but with modified static limits so more detailed maps (including many limit-removing maps) are less likely to crash in Vanilla.  The gameplay is unaltered so this is still a pure vanilla experience.  Don't forget to patch DOOM2P.EXE with the DeHackEd patch!

Download DOOM2P.EXE here https://sourceforge.net/projects/prboom-plus/files/doom2-plus/1.92.6/doom2-plus-1.92.6.zip/download


MAP15: Hall of Memes (Difficulty = 2.5/5)

"Why are all these Hell Knights standing next to explosive barrels?  Is this some kind of joke?  Do the demons not take you seriously at all?"

Tip: Arch-vile jumps are epic and you might wanna try one if the secret exit sounds cool to you :D


MAP16: Demon Jail (Difficulty = 3/5)

"Teleporting Cacodemons in cages, Revenants ambushing you in cramped spaces, and plenty of Imps trying to slowly drain your health.  Oh no...teleporting Pain Elementals too?  What is this madness?!?


MAP17: Disaster Area (Difficulty = 3/5)

"The first half of this map is already quite challenging.  Just how bad could the 'Disaster Area' be?  Oh.....that's a lot of funnies :O"


MAP18: Sadistic (Difficulty = 4/5)

"This map starts off with a Cyberdemon launching rockets right at your face.  If you want any chance of surviving this brutal map, infighting is your best friend."


MAP19: Surrounded (Difficulty = 3.5/5)

"You teleported into a large room full of unsuspecting monsters.  Hopefully those Cyberdemons won't hear your rocket launcher..."

Note: This map requires a stealthy playstyle.  If you fire a shot on the ledge, a Cyberdemon will wake up and start wandering around on the ledge.  It's only safe to attack monsters on the ledge once you pass the red line on the floor.  That Cyberdemon can be telefragged at the end if you can pull this off successfully.  There are other traps in this map that will try to trick you into shooting at the wrong time, so if something goes terribly wrong and you die, use this trial and error experience to your advantage for the next attempt.  I'll be uploading a full playthrough of this beta release on my YouTube Channel (DCG Retrowave) within a few days of this release, so feel free to reference this for some ideas on how to beat this map.


MAP21: Anguish (Difficulty = 3.5/5)

"You must find a way to escape Hell and reach the secret hellspawn base on Earth, 'The Lost World.'  Thankfully, these funny Pain Elementals seem to be harmless!  You wonder how long they'll stay this way..."

Note: This map intentionally kills the player at the end to enforce pistol starting  on MAP22 :D

Compatibility Notes: The Lost Soul limit is REQUIRED for this map.  If you're playing with a source port that allows you to disable this, make sure it's enabled when playing DOOM 87, especially for this map.  Also, this map has an intentional ghost monster trap, but ZDoom-based ports don't allow ghost monsters unless a map is part of the "Automatic Compatibility" list.  If you want to experience this map with the intended ghost monster trap, I recommend using a source port like PrBoom+ which does allow this as a compatibility option.  If your source port disables ghost monsters, you can still complete the map, but this can't be considered a proper run due to how significantly this change affects MAP21 and MAP26.  Don't worry about this if you're just playing casually :D


MAP22: Eternal Suffering (Difficulty = 3.5/5)

"Not even death can't stop you from escaping Hell!  Of course, that won't stop these four Cyberdemons from trying..."


MAP23: Lost and Found (Difficulty = 3.5/5)

"The teleporter that the Cyberdemon was guarding brought you to the secret earth base that the demons call 'The Lost World'.  You arrived at an abandoned UAC Earth facility, but how?  Isn't this some hidden land inaccessible by land, air, or sea?  Why is an old UAC base here?  Perhaps this is how they've been building their own base.  It looks like the demons have been stealing buildings from Earth and relocating them to the Lost World!  Who knows how long they've been here?"


MAP24: Losing Control (Difficulty = 4.5/5)

"This UAC base seems strangely familiar, although this funny Pain Elemental staring at you is new.  This definitely won't be the MAP01 experience it used to be."

Note: This map is a remix of TNT: Evilution's MAP01: System Control (and a few other Final DOOM maps........maybe :D).  Instead of modifying the original, I chose to completely remake the entire map and implement several visual enhancements and minor layout tweaks.  The monster count is very high for such a small map and the gameplay was inspired by Plutonia's MAP32: Go 2 It.


MAP25: Hellspawn Fortress (Difficulty = 3/5)

"The fortress is guarded by the strongest of Hell's demonic army.  The monster count may be low, but don't let your guard down.  There's still some hellspawn closely watching your every move as you approach the exit."


MAP26: Heck on Earth (Difficulty = 5/5)

"EXACTLY 486 MONSTERS IN AN EPIC VANILLA DOOM SLAUGHTERMAP AND 13 OF THEM ARE GHOST PAIN ELEMENTALS.  GO NUTS AND TRY NOT TO DIE."

Note: This map is HARD :O

Compatibility Note: This map has an intentional ghost monster trap, but ZDoom-based ports don't allow ghost monsters unless a map is part of the "Automatic Compatibility" list.  If you want to experience this map with the intended ghost monster trap, I recommend using a source port like PrBoom+ which does allow this as a compatibility option.  If your source port disables ghost monsters, you can still complete the map, but this can't be considered a proper run due to how significantly this change affects MAP21 and MAP26.  Don't worry about this if you're just playing casually :D


MAP27: The Guillotines (Difficulty = 3.5/5)

"These demons clearly wanted more than just a few generic buildings for their secret base on Earth.  Ahead of you is a stolen Japanese Temple, but the approaching army of hellspawn will never let you step inside..."


MAP30: EPIC DOOMER ENDING (Difficulty = :D)

"You won!  That is epic!"

Note: This is a placeholder for the final map.  It is very funny so please hit that exit switch and enjoy :D


MAP31: MIDI Music Festival (Difficulty = 3/5)

"The hidden teleporter brings you to a music festival back on Earth.  You land right in the center of the stage and the audience is furious that you aren't their idol..."

Note: This secret map is a reference to my musician self :D

Tip: Wait in the exit for a bit and see what happens :D


MAP32: Software Update (Difficulty = 3/5)

"You really should get some rest.  Kill more demons in the morning and head home for the night..."


Compatibility
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

DOOM 87: The Lost World is designed to be fully compatible with Vanilla DOOM, so anything that is Vanilla compatible should obviously work fine.  I have tested all of these maps, including maps reserved for the full release, on my favorite DOS PC and they haven't crashed once in their current state (with one exception being MAP12).  I've used tools like chocorenderlimits and Visplane Explorer to ensure compatibility as well.  If you want to use DOSBox or a real DOS PC like I do for these maps, you can do that! :D
To see the correct map names when viewing the automap as well as a few other text changes (and a replacement for the SS Nazi on the secret maps and placeholder maps), you'll need to use a source port that supports DeHackEd patches or a copy of DeHackEd to patch the DOS executable.  Use the DEHACKED.INI file I've included to save yourself a few steps, but make sure your DOOM II directory is C:\DOOM2 so this will work.  DeHackEd can be downloaded at the link below if you need it.
https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/utils/exe_edit/dhe31

If you're using an enhanced source port like GZDoom, I strongly recommend using Vanilla DOOM 1.9 compatibility settings (especially for the Lost Soul limit) to ensure that your experience is Vanilla where it matters most.  The MAPINFO lump should enable the most important compatibility settings for ZDoom-based ports, but you'll need to manually set the compatibility options in others.  Please do not use jumping, crouching, or freelook (looking up and down with the mouse) if your source port allows these.  These maps are not designed with these features in mind and should be considered cheating for DOOM 87.

You may notice that the text screens after certain maps (like MAP06) won't display in ZDoom.  I couldn't figure out how to get the text screens working and I've already spent several hours on this, delaying the beta's release.  I've personally found MAPINFO extremely frustrating to work with and the only reason I'm leaving that lump in this WAD is to prevent players who don't read these README files from experiencing a broken map and assuming it's the map's fault.  Shortly after the first demo of DOOM 87 was released, a player reported that the Arch-viles at the start of MAP19: Surrounded could be pushed off the platforms and into the blood pit below.  This is due to ZDoom altering how monsters behave with dropoffs, so for reasons like this, I've enforced as many vanilla settings as possible in the MAPINFO.  For the next release, I'll try to get these working, but I really wish there was an easier way to enforce compatibility without having to manually specify every single map and the music/sky they'll use (unless I'm doing something wrong, but this stuff still seems overly complicated just to get my vanilla megawad working properly for all ZDoom users).


The Music
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"Continue?" by DCG Retrowave (Title Screen MIDI)
"Into Sandy's City" from DOOM II: Hell on Earth (Used on MAP01)
"Between Levels" from DOOM II: Hell on Earth (Used on MAP02)
"Black Planet" by The Sisters of Mercy - MIDI Cover from SCYTHE2.WAD (Used on all placeholder maps except MAP30)
"The Demon's Dead" from DOOM II: Hell on Earth (Used on MAP04)
"Raging Storm" by DCG Retrowave (Used on MAP07)
"I Sawed the Demons" from DOOM (Used on MAP08)
"Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin - MIDI Cover from NUTS.WAD (Used on MAP11)
"Carrington Institute: Defense" and "Pelagic II: Exploration" from Perfect Dark - MIDI Remix from SCYTHE.WAD (Used on MAP12)
"Ievan Polkka" by Otomania - MIDI Cover by DCG Retrowave (Used on MAP15)
"Deep Into the Code" from DOOM (Used on MAP16)
"Into the Beast's Belly" from TNT: Evilution (Used on MAP17)
"Smells Like Burning Corpse" from TNT: Evilution (Used on MAP18)
"Victorious" from OutRun 2019 - MIDI Cover by DCG Retrowave (Used on MAP19)
"Untitled" from DOOM (Used on MAP21)
"Nobody Told Me About Id" from DOOM (Used on MAP22)
"Awake and Alive" by Skillet - MIDI Cover by DCG Retrowave (Used on MAP23)
"TZ_THEME.MID" from DWANGO5.WAD (Used on MAP24)
"Into Retrowave City" by DCG Retrowave - MIDI Remix of "Into Sandy's City" from DOOM II: Hell on Earth (Used on MAP25)
"What I'm Made Of" by Crush 40 from Sonic Heroes - MIDI Cover by Sean Bee (Used on MAP26)
"Senbonzakura" by Kurousa-P - MIDI Cover by DCG Retrowave (Used on MAP27)
"Nächstes Mal am Ende der Welt" by Valerie's Garten - MIDI Cover from DWANGO5.WAD (Used on the placeholder MAP30)
"New Start" by DCG Retrowave (Used on MAP31)
"PASSPORT.MID" from Windows 3.0 with Multimedia Extensions (Used on MAP32)
"Sunset Drive" by DCG Retrowave (Intermission Screen MIDI)
"The End of DOOM" from DOOM (Text Screen MIDI)
"HITFLOOR.MID V2" from DWANGO5.WAD (Easter egg MIDI that can only be accessed by typing "IDMUS00")


The End
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Thank you for reading this README.TXT!  I hope you enjoy playing this beta release of DOOM 87: The Lost World!

Dallas Cox
DCG Retrowave



Emojis :D :D :D :O :D