Super MAYhem 17: Mario Doom Patch Release 2

Yup, it's time to DOOM with Mario and the gang once more. I'm going to keep this one briefer than last time since I already gave you the full run-down back in August last year (and I have a lot of projects/blogposts I need to get back to), but to recap:

This is the Super MAYhem 17 Super Mario Doom patch, a custom build of Valigarmander's Super Mario Doom mod from 2012 designed specifically for use with the the Super MAYhem 17 megawad. Since both mods were Mario themed (one for levels, the other for everything else), the natural instinct was to combine the two together in such a way that it works in various different source ports (for context, the original Super Mario Doom only works in Zandronum and [G]ZDoom). The result is a patch inspired by doomkid's "vanilla conversion" of Super Mario Doom, converting all sprites to use MAYhem 17's a custom palette to give them slightly more color options, removing any assets that would conflict with those of MAYhem 17's, and making small presentation improvements.

When I originally released the patch back in August of last year, it wasn't perfect and I had plans to update it sometime down the line. Later that year and even into this year, I started working on a newer version of the Super MAYhem 17 Mario Doom patch that adds several new changes and fixes. The focus was to polish up the Super Mario Doom content and make it feel better intertwined with Super MAYhem 17. And while there is still plenty left that could be done, including fixing a crash bug when closing out of the game on GZDoom and allowing the game to work in maybe one or two more source ports, this is a good state to call the patch "finished, for now" as I want to shift focus to other, bigger projects. If you’re curious, the attached readme goes into more detail on what has been added and some ideas for what I’m planning for a theoretical Release 3.

You can grab release 2 of the Super MAYhem 17 Mario Doom patch here.

As usual, you'll need a copy of Doom II to serve as the base for this mod/patch. If you don't own Doom II, you can also use Freedoom: Phase 2 as the base.

As with before, the patch is designed to work alongside Super MAYhem 2017 and must be loaded after Mayhem 17's wad file (and its own “update1” patch) to add in the Mario enemies, weapons, and sounds. Super Mayhem 17 is not included with the download and can be found here. If you’re new to playing Doom mods, I recommend the Doom Launcher to make organizing and launching into Doom mods (especially multiple mods at once) easier.

Super MAYhem 17: Super Mario Doom Patch

Heads up, this game is kinda on the violent side, being a mod of Doom and all, so please keep that in mind before you continue reading.

Also I promise Doom will not become a super-recurring topic of this blog, it's just hard to put down for long because of the infinite replay value the dozens and dozens of mods provide.

Anyways, now that I have your attention, what do I have in store for everyone today? Well, if you’ve been following me for quite some time on various sites over the years, you might have clued in that I’ve always been a pretty big Mario fan (especially in the 2000’s and early 2010’s) considering the name of this very blog. However, I cannot say the same for id’s legendary Doom franchise, which I got into somewhat late, in 2015 to be exact, from a combination of a friend in the Mega Man 8-bit Deathmatch gifting me a copy out of the blue and… a custom mod from late 2012 that replaced all the characters and enemies with Mario equivalents, fittingly titled “Super Mario Doom”. Doomguy of course became the famous man in red with an arsenal of Mario and Nintendo-themed weaponry, the Zombiemen became different ranks of Koopa Troops, Demons became Chain Chomps, and the mighty Bowser himself would replace the dreaded Cyberdemon. Five years later, another Mario-themed mod would surface, doing the opposite of Super Mario Doom: place Doomguy and pals (as in, the demons you) into Mario’s world to turn the Mushroom Kingdom into a literal hell-hole. This mod was known as Super MAYhem 2017, and it included 28 new Mario-themed maps to shoot through.

But what if you were to mix the two mods together to make it a complete Mario experience from head to bottom, with some modifications to make it work in older versions and source ports of Doom? Well, in 2020, modder Doomkid would port Super Mario Doom into the Vanilla Doom format with the original Doom color palette, allowing it to be used on a greater range of source ports from old to new. It was from there that I, out of sheer curiosity, decided to test the vanilla edition of Super Mario Doom with Super MAYhem 2017. It worked great, but I did notice that some of the converted assets didn’t look their best when thrown directly into Super MAYhem 2017 since it used a slightly different palette and a custom final boss with its own set of sprites. And thus, during a brief break that I was taking in November/December, I recreated the Vanilla Edition of Super Mario Doom using sprites from the original Super Mario Doom mod but converted to Super MAYhem 2017’s palette and with some small touches and cleanups here and there.

The result is what you see here: a custom version of Vanilla Super Mario Doom made specifically (and only for) Super MAYhem 2017. At the moment, it’s mostly just color changes and restorations while maintaining vanilla Doom compatibility. I do have plans to make further changes, but for now I have my hands full in too many pies to be finding room to slot this project in, especially when I'm still mostly alien to Doom modding.

Anyways, you can grab the download for the initial version here. All relevant information is tucked away in the attached readme file, including the links and associated credits mentioned above. 

SplaDoom

aka what the hell kind of drugs did I take to come up with this.

This'd be a merge of Splatoon's characters, weapons, and ink-based gimmicks and a bit of Doom's own gameplay style and modes. The Doomguys are made into Inklings (of both genders) and the monsters are Octarians.

There'd be lods of Deathmatch, LMS, free-for-all Turf Wars, Turf Wars with no limit to the number of players on a team, and alongside all that, this would be made compatible with numerous third-party mods such as Idiotic LMS, Who Dun It, and Shotgun Frenzy.

A man can dream.