GF_SHIP Doom Map

DOOM

I played Doom and Doom 2 like many kids back in the 90s. I played through the campaigns (with cheats on) and then spent hours digging through a CD with hundreds of custom maps. I've been aware of custom Doom mapping, megawads, and total conversions from my earliest time with the game. However, I never took the time to learn how to make a WAD (custom map) myself.

MyHouse.wad

In March of 2023 an unassuming WAD was posted to the DoomWorld forums and in a short period of time became a sensation outside of the Doom mapping community. As part of my exploration of the phenomenon of this WAD I found David Newton's playthrough as well as his technical breakdown of the map.

From there I continued to watch David's videos, including his tutorial series on Doom mapping which fit in nicely with his project: RAMP (Rabbit's All-comers Mapping Project). RAMP is all about getting loads of people, beginners and pros alike, together to make a huge collaborative megawad.

I decided it was time to give it a try.

My House is a Ship

Over several weeks (~50 hours or so) I worked on the layout above called "GF_SHIP". The concept is: a mining ship is struck by an asteroid which happens to be filled with demons. Doom-type-things then follow.

I built the map using Ultimate Doom Builder. GF_SHIP uses the Boom format which is very close to original Doom but adds a few features. GF_SHIP uses the generic linedefs and passthrough actions from the Boom format. It also uses extra textures which weren't included in the original Doom or Doom 2 and a custom audio track written by Neil Forshaw.

I posted the map to the RAMP Discord and got some excellent feedback about texturing issues, enemy and item placement, elevators and switches, and even some nice compliments. That combined with a whole load of playtesting on my own resulted in several releases to fix these issues.

The end result is a map that is exactly the kind I like to play: visually interesting, challenging, and fair.

GF_SHIP also offers a few cool surprises which you'll have to play to see.

How to play

You'll need a Doom sourceport. GZDoom is very common and well supported (follow the instructions on that page for initial setup).

You can download the full RAMP map from the official RAMP 2023 project website. My map is MAP80 and can be located with the helpful computer system at the center of the map.

You can also download my map by itself: GF_SHIP.pk3