Stumbling through Crystal Maze GZDoom Edition

[davidn]

Watch on YouTube

It's been a long, long time since I just showed a game off - but I want to give some attention to a ZDoom game that's been criminally overlooked!

This is an amazing conversion of The Crystal Maze into first-person form by Stephen Clark, "The Ultimate DooMer". It's incredible to see the set transformed into Doom geometry, and there are 32 games of varying scope and complexity - some of which seem to also have taken inspiration from Knightmare. This is my chance to prove that I can do better than the protozoa we watched being led around by Richard O'Brien weekly.

If you want to try it yourself, get:
- A copy of Doom II from GoG or Steam or something
- GZDoom from here: http://zdoom.org
- The mod from here: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/a-c/cr-maze

Then look up a guide on how to set it up, I'm not explaining everything!

Comments

[chalcedony_starlings]

I'm pretty tempted to try this now (probably picking as many you didn't go through as possible to minimize accidental cheating) and see whether I can do any better! My schedule's jammed though. Also I don't think any of us have played Doom… >..<

32 games—does that mean it's larger than the maze of the show? We haven't watched that either, but we've picked up bits and pieces from the Internet.

(Videography comment: I think the title is stronger without the extra ZZT zoom sequence; the zoom feels disorienting and the explanation feels unnecessary.)

[davidn]

Ah, don't get me started on the logistics of the show - I'll reveal just how deep my obsession goes :) Each zone in the physical set consists of six or so rooms, each of which can house one of several games - maybe two or three rotated per series, with each series having completely unique games. So the GZDoom maze is physically larger, but the games behind each door remain the same - so there are 32 compared to the show's 45 or so per series.

I can't believe you've never played Doom! Even if you want to go through without monsters, I think it's the kind of thing that you'd appreciate immensely on a technical level - I can get lost in the wiki for days, reading about the workarounds that they came up with to simulate a full 3D world on the computers of 1993.

[chalcedony_starlings]

Also, you'd think there'd be a ZZT version of this, wouldn't you? Or do the traditional-world-style puzzles in that sort of count as close enough that it'd be redundant?

[davidn]

I double-checked and I'm honestly surprised that a ZZT edition does not exist :) Part of it might have been that it was a team-based game, but this GZDoom remake reworked it very nicely. Thinking about the mechanics if a ZZT version were to follow that same kind of pattern, the near-useless "Re-enter when zapped" board flag could be used to enforce the time limit, transporting the player out of the game behind a locked door near the entrance and forcing them to exit the board via a passage leading to the prison area instead. With that done, the challenges really could be anything already achievable in ZZT.