I'm sure probably lots of you have played Doom: The Roguelike before, and while it's certainly a very cool (and free!) game, a turn based, overhead view RPG doesn't quite capture the Doom experience.

So you want to play a Roguelike version of Doom? Then try this out:

First, grab a development build of ZDoom from here, since you'll need one to run this mod. The topmost download should be fine.

Then, download the DoomRL Arsenal. This is a very cool ZDoom mod that replaces the gun and armor spawn locations in maps with random guns, armor and boots, inspired by Doom: The Roguelike. There's also mod packs you can collect in the game to add to the weapons you find in order to enhance them, and adding mod packs in a certain order can even let you assemble entirely new weapons.

Okay, so you've got the randomized goodies, but that's only half the Roguelike experience. What about the random levels?

That's where OBLIGE comes in. OBLIGE is an easy to use random level generator for Doom. Just fire it up, set the Length to Full Game for an entire campaign to play, and maybe change the Size to Small (since most Roguelikes have small, brief levels), and then click Build. Name the WAD, and there you go! 32 random maps to play. Start from level 1, and if you die at any time, immediately delete your save file and quit. (Death is permanent in a Roguelike after all!) Then build a new WAD with OBLIGE and start all over. (And disable jumping while you play, since OBLIGE levels aren't designed for it.)

(A word of warning: you might be tempted to just never save your game in order to truly preserve the Roguelike experience, but I wouldn't recommend that. ZDoom has an unfortunate tendency to sometimes freeze up when you exit a level. Save on every level just in case, but only reload a save if the game freezes or if you need to take a break.)

I've had hours of fun playing Doom this way. And hey, it's cheaper than buying Rogue Shooter. XD


- victoriaviper