Game:

Doom (1993)

Duration: 11:13

305 views

9

Hey everyone, welcome back to another round of Doomage. The thing on the menu today is a new Ultimate Doom wad by ivymagnapinna called Forsaken Compound. This wad is an Episode 1 replacement intended for limit-removing ports, and is the author's first significant release. Forsaken Compound features a new palette, the incorporation of PSX/Doom 64 sounds, a pervasive sinister atmosphere, and a very skilful mix of horrorish and slaughter scenarios. As the text file notes, the environment is "a tech complex integrating itself into Hell. There's blood in the pipes, flesh in the machinery, and the walls won't take their eyes off you". Sounds great, so let's continue our exploration!

Basic info
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IWAD: doom.wad
Difficulty: Ultra-Violence (pistol start)
Map author: ivymagnapinna
Music: "Reaching Deeper" by Tristan Clark
Port: DSDA-Doom 0.27.5
Compatibility level: 3 (Ultimate Doom)
QoL mods: Colored Blood, Ultrawide Statusbar, Black Gloves
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Additional notes
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Leaving the surface behind and heading for the bowels of Phobos. At least I assume it's Phobos if there's any canonical consistency. Anyways, the whole premise has some superficial similarities with the last stretch of Doom 3 - it's pretty clear that the UAC, presumably looking for something in particular, screwed up and got much more than what they bargained for. 'Excavating Evil' is, adequately, the most crepuscular level of Forsaken Compound, and the environmental challenge of navigating the depths in partial darkness is pretty refreshing. Ivy adds unnerving details in the form of hell noble, arch-vile, and IoS marble textures with pulsating and glowing eyes, kindly asking us in the accompanying wad text to "take a moment to appreciate the MARBFACES with the funny eyes, I worked hard on those". Balancing these out are DoomCutey and realistic elements like the stacked boxes in the central lift area and even a bulldozer near the red door, leaving little room for interpretation regarding the UAC's ill-fated commitment to digging and inadvertently opening an infernal Pandora's box. The question of what exactly this grand evil consists of is answered in style in what is the combat highlight of the map - the sudden confrontation with the mastermind in a surprisingly well-lit cavern. By the looks of it, Ivy intended this fight to play out in a specific manner, with you running around avoiding the crushers until you can do the telefragging. I prefer holding your ground in the spot where you land, using one of the central pillars to block the mama's shots after you've dealt with the smaller baddies, and pumping her full of plasma. As insurance, it would be great to pick up the secret supercharge right before this battle. All things considered, it's a strong piece of design.

Secret 1: 0:43

Secret 2: 6:18 (switch to lower at 6:04)

Links
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WAD:

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/144468-forsaken-compound-doom-episode-1-replacement/

QoL mods:

Colored Blood:

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/118074-dsda-doom-source-port-v0243/?page=16

Ultrawide Statusbars:

https://github.com/NightFright2k19/doom_widehud

Black Gloves:

https://www.moddb.com/mods/universal-black-gloves-for-doom

Other Statistics