Cardboard Marty

I would love to see alternate awards write-ups and presentations, especially if they're focused on niches that the Cacowards don't cover in-depth or just stuff that we missed for whatever reason. The main issue (focusing on just the Doom Awards themselves) is that I think people greatly underestimate the amount of work and conversation that goes into making the Cacowards each year. It's a tremendous effort, and there's heavy discussion internally on what gets chosen. On the surface, it might just seem like "hey, play a bunch of Doom wads and write about them", but it's ridiculously thorough. It's the reason why the write-ups for the golden cacos tend to be 500+ words. I just don't think you can outsource that level of compassion the Cacowards usually give off to ChatGPT and expect anything remotely similar in return. A lot of the Doom Awards write-ups (I'm a bit hesitant to call them that) are full of filler words, don't really explain anything unique about what they're awarding, and generally don't sound like the person writing them is knowledgeable about the topic. It comes across as incredibly lazy. Why bother doing it if you're not going to put the effort into it? It's a waste of time for both parties. And that's not even going into obvious pitfalls like community voting (the ZDoom forums vaguely tried to do something similar that never got off the ground if I recall correctly), unclear rules on what is eligible for an award, very messy presentation, the list goes on.

I'm so honored to be a part of this year's panelists! Working with the crew was fantastic, seriously, so much good stuff to play. Great work everybody, hope you guys enjoy!

Super fun fact: That was my original inspiration! I remember seeing a crusty screenshot of Duke Nukem Advance (almost 20 years ago...) and wanted to recreate that shotgun. Always seemed like a neat idea to me even though it's super basic.

This absolutely slaps! I would love to learn about your process someday, you've only gotten better with each release and this is really fantastic. Great work!

This tutorial is super old, but I still think it covers a lot of basics that would be helpful. Certainly did for me!

The images you're posting are extremely big and would (probably) not be usable in-game. I'd suggest hiding them with a spoiler when posting them and working in a smaller resolution.

Probably the least intrusive way to do so would be redefining the main menu in your MENUDEF: ListMenu "MainMenu" { Size Clean Position 97, 72 StaticPatch 82, 57, "MENU_MBX" TextItem "New Game", "s", "PlayerclassMenu" TextItem "Options", "o", "OptionsMenu" TextItem "IE Options", "i", "InsanityOptions" TextItem "Load Game", "l", "LoadGameMenu" TextItem "Save Game", "s", "SaveGameMenu" TextItem "Exit Game", "e", "QuitMenu" //AnimatedTransition } Also caught a minor spelling error in MAPINFO with the word aggressive being spelled as "agressive". skill Kill { damagefactor = 1.0 aggressiveness = 0.5 SpawnFilter = hard textcolor = "Red" Key = "K" name = "" mustconfirm = "Be warned, Jacob. Not only will Demons come in greater swarms, but are also more agressive. Think you can handle the insanity?" } Hope this helps!

Just finished this earlier today, and wow! Definitely tops Winter's Fury in the visuals department (which was no slouch either!), but I think the increased range of colors being used in each map showcased your strength as a designer to a much higher degree. Each map on its own is incredibly impressive, and there were only a few times I got lost despite their size. It was fun trying to overcome what seemed to be highly difficult challenges, a few devious traps that really required me to figure out the best way to handle the situation. My main points of feedback (currently): I do agree about the weapon balance, but to narrow down what felt "off" to me was definitely the damage on the pistol/shotgun/super shotgun. The pistol almost instantly becomes obsolete, whereas the touched-up sprites by Scuba Steve give it a sense that it should be more powerful due to the new recoil animation. The shotgun in particular also felt like it became obsolete the moment you get the super shotgun. Because the weapons don't function that much differently from the stock Doom weapons, mentally they feel like they should fit the same roles (i.e. the shotgun trades power of accuracy thanks to its spread, SSG for up-close encounters). I remember you throwing out some suggestions regarding the pistol that I think may help, but an easier fix in the meantime would be buffing the damage values on those three weapons in particular and perhaps making the pistol more accurate to compensate for the power that the machine gun has. Regarding weapons, ammo balance because of some of the above felt VERY tight. I did run out of ammo a couple of times throughout my playthrough (are there backpacks in any of the levels? I couldn't find any). It's possible tweaking the above would remedy this. There are some portions of the later maps that were a bit TOO dark. The intention definitely seems to make it very hard to see, but I actually had trouble navigating some sections because of it. The logs seem very hard to get this time around! I think I only found about half of the secrets on each map in my first playthrough and am looking forward to trying to find more on my next one. The storytelling is top-notch. It's not immediately clear what the main plot thread is to me, but the way it's told is absolutely solid. Without talking too much about the ending, I absolutely LOVED the final map. It felt a lot better than the equivalent map in Winter's Fury and it's definitely going to stick with me for a while! Speaking of, the final combat encounter felt like it was leading up to something (i.e. a final boss fight) that never came around. It was definitely tough but I feel like it could have a punchier ending. I wouldn't want it to undermine the final map/ending, however! I also need to find that damned red keycard! This is such a fantastic map set and I'm glad to have been a small part of it! I can't wait to play through it again, congratulations on the release!

It used to play fine but recent changes on that end have made it a bit janky. I reuploaded it to Youtube and edited my post!

This looks absolutely fantastic and unique, really dig the aesthetic! Some of the text used in the trailer is a bit hard to read, but the vibe you're going for is sublime. Can' wait to see more!

This is not an attempt at "self-advertising", but I am working on a project with @DrPyspy that is our take on this what-if scenario! I imagine that if they proceeded with a sequel to Wolf3D, we probably would've indeed gotten something like Rise of the Triad. Which, funny enough, was supposed to be Wolfenstein 3D Part II! Probably wouldn't have been as weird as ROTT ended up being, but who knows! I think the change over to the sci-fi setting pushed for a lot of cool ideas such as teleporters, plasma rifles, etc etc. I don't think the game would've had nearly the cultural impact or longevity that Doom had. The setting, hell imagery, colorful cast of monsters, and the WEAPONS all work together to create something highly memorable that I feel the Wolfenstein franchise mostly lacked until Return to Castle Wolfenstein years and years later.

This is exciting news! Congrats on the completion, can't wait to play it!

I really like the idea of an underwater base theme, the screenshots look fantastic! Excited to check this out when it releases!

This was a TON of work, but I'm super happy with how this came out! Got a few more things to do before I consider it finished...!