The Lost Episodes of Doom

 

The Lost Episodes of Doom | JPTR_V40.WAD

Chris Klie & Bob Carter

Shovelware was not a new concept in 1994. As early as 1990, the rise of home computer CD-ROM drives allowed for the distribution of bundles of (usually) low-quality computer games, shareware demos, or mediocre business software, usually for a pretty competitive fee. In the post-Doom era, as budding wad authors got their hands on mapping tools and internet connections, the Archive Scrape became a common form of shovelware expansion pack for Doom, Heretic, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, and others. Often boasting hundreds of maps downloaded from the internet, they were effectively quasi-legal file dumps for people who didn't have decent internet. But these weren't the only kind of unauthorized expansion; sometimes you got something more ambitious, something that tried to string together a proper expansion pack, organized into episodes and everything. I actually owned a copy of Q!Zone that purported to be this; Duke Xtreme was another one. But before those there was The Lost Episodes of Doom.

Lost Episodes was the brainchild of Jonathan Mendoza, who would later go on to write strategy guides for several games of the era. The short version is that he was a big fan of Chris Klie, whose CHRISK series of wads were among the more promising of the first year's batch of Doom addons, and offered Klie a publishing deal to sell his maps (bolstered by maps by one Bob Carter to fill out a full three episodes.) For legal reasons, including id Software's Data Utility License (which might have been legally unenforceable, but id Software never tried too hard to find out,) it wasn't really feasible to sell the pack by itself; Mendoza's idea was therefore to write a strategy guide around it and bundle the pack with said book. It was a bold idea, but the end result is a little underwhelming; most of the maps are from early in both men's careers, and while they're generally devoid of serious bugs, mistakes or errors -- thereby putting them miles ahead of a lot of the competition of the era -- they're still nowhere near on the level of, say, Doomsday of UAC, or Return to Phobos. What's more is that all but one of the maps can easily be found on the archives, rendering the whole product a glorified D!Zone. Or perhaps a Doom Xtreme, if you will.

Obviously at this point the book is long out of print; but copies of the wad have existed on the internet for years, and I don't think Klie, Carter, or Mendoza really super care if you grab it from the Internet Archive or the Doomed Speed Demos Archive. There's a curious quirk though, to do with the fact that the pack was developed for the original version of Doom; the name for the third episode is extra long, and as such, in Ultimate Doom, it's partially obscured by the fourth episode nameplate. This, however, can be fixed with a simple patch, which also adds level names and intermission texts.

Mendoza wrote a pretty extensive storyline; sadly, unless you have the book proper, you'll never really see most of it. The summation of it involves a scientist -- themselves a veteran, but importantly not the Doomguy -- on their way from a deep-space expedition when they pick up some concerning radio messages from out Mars and Jupiter's way. Knowing that the Martian lunar installations were built to study space/time anomalies, and that those who objected (including our hero) to the UAC's use of human test subjects for their experiments in teleportation were shuffled off to more remote outposts on the Jovian moons, it becomes clear that something has gone wrong; when deciding which signal to respond to, the logic is that Phobos has a nearby military garrison to respond (hence the story of the base game) but Callisto and Io have no such protection, and therefore our warrior scientist sets a course for Callisto.

The storyline, such as it is, will take us from arriving on Callisto in "UAC Spaceport" all the way to a sinister alternate reality in Jupiter's Great Red Spot, a place otherwise uninhabitable or even visitable. But this requires quite a bit of imagination on the part of the player; given that all but one of these maps were designed before the story was written, there's little to really tie them all together beyond their authors' own intentions to use them as an episode and that all the maps present some form of techbase in varying stages of corruption. There is no new art, no new music, no new sound effects. Not even the level names have been changed. It's as pure an expansion pack as can be.

Nevertheless!

Klie's half of the pack comes from what's ultimately one primary source: the many evolutions of his CHRISK series of wads. Beginning from CHRISK11.WAD, a single map which eventually found purchase as E1M1: "UAC Spaceport," Klie would eventually collect several of his maps (previously released under the CHRISK1# convention) into CHRIS_E1.WAD; he would later update this collection with new maps in the Episode 2 line as CHRISK.WAD, no numbering. He also gathered his Doom II-targeting THUD series into a collection, BF_THUD!.WAD; Klie considers this an evolution of CHRISK, with several maps first appearing in CHRIS_E1, CHRISK, or Lost Episodes before finding their way into BF_THUD! the same month that Lost Episodes was published.

Bob Carter's addition to the project was at the behest of Klie; his resume is considerably smaller than Klie (who would not only go on to become minor Doom royalty with the inclusion of several maps in Master Levels, but also work for LucasArts on games like Outlaws) and Lost Episodes to my knowledge remains Carter's final contribution to the community. His half of the pack is mostly derived from BOBKD.WAD, though the version you can find on archives is named BOBKDV2. The final three maps are oddities in this regard; E3M6: "Somber Io Promenade," is available in the archives as B21.WAD. E3M7, "Jovian Killjoy," seems to have been created bespoke for the project, as no version of it exists anywhere that has been found and indeed the map is slightly more advanced than its fellows. And the final map, E3M8: "Jovian Déjà Vu Again," is a modified version of the very first map, intended as a sinister bookend to the whole set.

For the sake of differentiating Lost Episodes from the adventures of Doomguy, and also just for my own sense of fun, I used a few cosmetic mods for my playthrough. In addition to the patch I mentioned earlier, I also created a small minimod for new skies (taken from Mek's collection) to better suit a Jovian atmosphere. And lastly, I used Skelegant's Doomgirl mod (specifically the Vanilla one) because why not. This is on top of my usual vanilla autoload stuff: PalPlus, Brightmaps+, a blood color fixer, the Ultimate MIDI Pack, and something to make ZDoom's secret sound not head-exploding.

The two designers have very different philosophies, to the point that the problems of one are inverted by the other. Klie's maps are cramped, small, lightly populated, and generally pretty simple, with a predilection for hub-and-spoke designs, as befitting a designer whose computer could barely handle the game. In sharp contrast, Carter's maps are entirely too large, cyclopean even, monolithic architecture dwarfing even the increasingly larger monster counts, with lots of mandatory secrets (bad!) and a very open design aimed towards Carter's idea of deathmatch. Regarding the size issues, my theory is that it's a similar problem to a recurring issue in more amateurish Duke Nukem 3D maps, where the author doesn't really understand the game's scale and so you get things like vending machines that tower over Duke, or Doom maps that feel like they were twice as big as they needed to be.

If I'm being genuinely honest, I don't really care for Lost Episodes. There's a solid historical value to the product, both as a reflection of the weird state of the expansion pack and strategy guide industries of the era, and as a look at the early work of a one-time important figure in the community (plus Bob Carter.) But actually playing it? You'd have to really, really like the 1994 era of map making. But if that's something you're into, there are certainly far worse choices.

Get it on Doomed Speed Demos Archive

 

E1M1: UAC Spaceport (CHRISK11)

Chris Klie

Everybody has to start somewhere, and Chris Klie is no exception. This weird little techbase kind of deal is defined by squat hallways, thematic inconsistency, more enemies than your typical E1M1, and mandatory secrets. Chris Klie states in the book that despite its original label as CHRISK11.WAD, this was actually his second map; if that's the case, I wonder how bad the first one was. We'll never know, however -- it's apparently lost to time.

E1M2: Fusion Power Plant (CHRISK12)

Chris Klie

Now this is a little more like it. Still a lot of boxy rooms and sharp angles, but the action is more interesting, the lighting is better, and there's some interesting set pieces like the hallway ambush (designed by Chris' wife apparently) and the way the bridge to the platform over a pit lowers, forcing you to jump down and fight the enemies below. The switch puzzle at the start is stupid as hell, though.

E1M3: Jovian Deuterium Plant (CHRISK13)

Chris Klie

Little by little, something magical is starting to form. Something beautiful. Some might call it... architecture. Chris is slowly developing his skills, and while "Jovian Deuterium Plant" isn't the prettiest map in the world or even thematically coherent, it's a couple steps above what came before it; on some level, I'd say we're approaching Sandy Petersen in terms of how the map looks and plays, a little. You still have to fuss about with the computer terminals in a control room, but there's some good fights in here (the blue key room ambush is most memorable to me.) Pity you have to backtrack to the start room to actually access said blue key.

E1M4: Jupiter Planetary Control Center (CHRISK14)

Chris Klie

Another thematically inconsistent techbase. Generally pretty basic, but there's a couple of death pits here that you can easily fall in, and at least one of which deliberately baits you by being a large chamber across from which is the yellow key, but unless you know to turn around and press the switch on the door you just came through to raise the bridge, you'll just jump into a death trap where the floor is damaging and six(!) cyberdemons come along to stomp you flat the second your invuln runs out.

E1M5: Weapons Research Center (CHRISK15)

Chris Klie

Oh god, welcome to teleporter hell. It's not as bad as, say, "Unholy Cathedral" from the base game, but it's annoying, and progression isn't always clear until you can figure out the teleporter puzzle. Lots of damaging blood floors here.

E1M6: Halls of Injustice (CHRISK16)

Chris Klie

The book explains that this level was originally a top-secret UAC prison; that being said, it doesn't seem terribly prison-like, except maybe the large outdoor yard? Like every other level, Mendoza makes a game attempt at writing out a story to justify the abstract design; nevertheless, this is one of Klie's more open levels, surprisingly enough, in part due to the broad courtyard to the east. It's a decent enough play by Lost Episodes standards. I keep coming back to the courtyard because it is by far the most entertaining section of the map... which isn't saying much.

E1M7: Core of Evil (bespoke for CHRIS_E1.WAD)

Chris Klie

Aesthetically interesting despite its abstract nature, but otherwise prepare to be disappointed. Klie throws a spiderdemon right in your face alongside a bunch of bad guys, but if you've got the BFG -- and by now you should -- you'll make short work of all of it, after which you'll have to deal with a switch puzzle across a dark, four-way symmetrical level where every pair of chambers is exactly like the others. According to Klie's notes, this one was created bespoke for CHRIS_E1.WAD rather than released separately like the ones prior.

E1M8: Callisto Consecration (bespoke for CHRIS_E1.WAD)

Chris Klie

This could easily have been blended with "Core of Evil," alongside which it was created for CHRIS_E1.WAD, but I suspect Klie didn't want to tax his computer too much. Essentially it plays out like the ending of "Knee Deep in the Dead;" past a fakeout of lots of health and some rocket ammo beneath a massive floating pentagram, you're dropped into a large, dark chamber where a group of cyberdemons and spiderdemons rain down shit upon you as you take environmental damage. Die and you're taken to the ending screen. Meh.

E2M1: Io Anomaly (CHRISK21)

Chris Klie

Episode two gives you a bit of a hot start, but this is not a difficult map. Even the lone baron can be easily dispatched by your shotgun. It's mostly a cramped, dingy maze, with some techbase trappings but ultimately a fairly abstract space. Klie reuses the walkover lifts thing that made parts of episode one such a hassle, but beyond that, it's... fine? Just mind you don't get trapped in the BFG and battery chambers before you properly open them.

E2M2: Io Munitions Works (CHRISK22)

Chris Klie

Klie's map design is starting to look like something. There's boxes and crates laying around this kinda techbase level with some annoying teleporter puzzles, lots of hitscanners and imps, and that's really about it. Fun level all in all.

E2M3: Io Toxic Disposal Plant (CHRISK23)

Chris Klie

I can definitely tell that we're nearing the end of Klie's contribution to Lost Episodes, as it's just now starting to get pretty decent. This one is a brown industrial zone with lots of nukage, with a nice-looking central hub surrounded by four doors, most of which go somewhere or are on the way back from somewhere. There's a couple of nasty blind jumps, including dropping you down into a small maze where it's not 100% clear where to go next unless you happen to have a good eye for switches.

E2M4: Weapons Testing Facility (bespoke for CHRIS_E1.WAD as E1M9)

Chris Klie

Another hub-and-spoke map, this one is pretty straightforward -- each door holds some sort of minor ambush, usually lots of zombies, plus the rare tougher enemy such as a baron or a caco. Other than that, not much to speak of, except for the stepping-stone bridge to the blue door, beyond which appears to be a crew quarters of sorts with a very early example of DoomCute: bed, bathroom, closet, some computers -- pretty swanky!

E2M5: Io Training Camp (bespoke for CHRISK.WAD)

Chris Klie

We close out Chris Klie's half of the set with "Io Training Camp," originally created bespoke for CHRISK.WAD and later reappearing in BF_THUD!.WAD. It's the one that feels the most like a Sandy Petersen level and therefore is probably the best; it's got some interesting lighting going on as well as some cool firefights. In the book, Klie spends some time crowing about how he managed to create the illusion of a building that was taller than the walls surrounding it; while it's a tried-and-true trick today, for 1994 it was admittedly fairly innovative. One oddity however I haven't seen anyone mention in playthroughs of Lost Episodes is the invisible zombie in the outbuilding where the blue key is stored; I wound up having to rocket him to death. I don't know if this is particularly an issue endemic to GZDoom (I was using 4.12.2 for this) or even just the compatibility preset I was using (Boom, not strict.) Just an odd thing that happened.

E2M6: Io Military Garrison (BOBKD.WAD)

Bob Carter

We kick off the Bob Carter half of Lost Episodes with "Io Military Garrison;" for what Carter describes as his "first attempt at an actual level." Lots of imps and zombies here, plus some pinkies and even a cacodemon or two. It's a single large building in the middle of a fairly open area, with a smaller outbuilding to the south and a nukage area to the southeast. The main building it split into a couple of sections, which you'll need to go outside to move from the western half to the eastern half, the latter of which consists of a maze with some locked doors, one of which leads eventually to the exit room. It's not bad, if a bit amateurish with way too much health and ammo and mandatory secrets -- but everyone has to start somewhere, right?

E2M7: The Draining Pit (BOBKD.WAD)

Bob Carter

If you've been sick of Chris Klie's cramped confines (say that three times fast!) you may find that Bob Carter's mapping sensibilities tend to swing too far in the opposite direction. His maps are large and empty; so large, in fact, that the relatively high monster count of somewhere in the 80s "The Draining Pit" feels too depopulated. (If his designer notes in the book are any indication, this is largely to facilitate his idea of good deathmatch.) Nevertheless, the complex is mildly interesting aesthetically, reminiscent perhaps of Tom Hall's stuff (I'm thinking particularly of "Refueling Base" from Doom II.) Carter continues to use mandatory secrets, in this case you'll need to take a swim through the nukage river (which you can access fairly quickly, but you may want to wait until you find the radsuit) to reach the exit room at the far end.

E2M8: Late For Supper (BOBKD.WAD)

Bob Carter

This one almost feels like two map ideas welded together. The northwest area is a techbase kind of deal with a kind of dining room; the southeast is dominated by a large, mostly silver grid of tunnels, in which lurks a bunch of enemies and ultimately the cyberdemon you're hunting. Defeating him is nearly as trivial as the spiderdemon of E1M7 -- just grab one of the invulns and go to town.

E3M1: Jovian Stonehenge (BOBKD.WAD)

Bob Carter

I feel like this anticipated the creepy ruins tilesets from Jupiter Hell. While it's still using the stock textures in a way that isn't super convincing, the theme is pretty distinct, with a ring of concrete arches around a central building. Not a lot of enemies or stuff to do or see, but Carter does surprise you with an actual teleport trap.

E3M2: Pillar of Peril (BOBKD.WAD)

Bob Carter

This one is mostly a series of chambers and mazes on a north/south axis; I was a little lost as to what to do until I found a switch in the maze. The opening room is suitably sinister, but honestly despite getting lost I liked the maze section better. Some fun episode 2-style aesthetics in the outdoor area.

E3M3: Subterranean Stoneworks (BOBKD.WAD)

Bob Carter

It seems to want to take after "Containment Area" from the stock mapset, but despite a large monster count of a whopping 112 on Ultraviolence it's got a lot of the same problems as any Bob Carter level: there's just too much space for them all. At least the crate mazes sometimes make for interesting random encounters.

E3M4: Pools of Despair (BOBKD.WAD)

Bob Carter

This one is kind of alright, kind of not. There's a weird liminal quality to the twin pool areas, but most of the map will revolve around you wandering around, trying to find the keys (which are behind locked doors), shooting the occasional random encounter or ambush, and ultimately looking up a walkthrough to find that an otherwise empty ambush closet is a mandatory secret that requires you step inside to open a nearby door. Bad!

E3M5: The Cat-Skinner Box (BOBKD.WAD)

Bob Carter

Supposedly this one was built with deathmatch in mind; personally, I don't see it, but whatever. The big thing is that the finale is made up of an encounter with both a spiderdemon and a cyberdemon. While the spider is easy to dispatch, you'll want to save your invuln for the cyberdemon as he's down in a small chamber that, once you've committed, you can't leave, and there's almost no cover whatsoever. Bad!

E3M6: Somber Io Promenade (B21.WAD)

Bob Carter

There is a lot of stock episode 2 in this -- I see references to "Deimos Anomaly," "Refinery," "Deimos Lab," and who knows what else. The big problem is, of course, that it's too big; even for the 200+ monsters, they're dwarfed by the cyclopean size of the map. It's not the worst map in the world, or even in this map set, but like so much of Lost Episodes, it's underwhelming. It has some nice-looking spots though.

E3M7: Jovian Killjoy (bespoke for Lost Episodes?)

Bob Carter

I'm not really sure of the provenance of this map. As best as I can figure, this was probably made specifically for Lost Episodes, which would make it the sole original work for the entire product. Nevertheless, Carter's design sensibilities have improved somewhat for this map; it's a rollicking shootout with a lot of low-level enemies (not quite slaughter, but certainly quite crowded for 1994 -- is this where all the previous levels' monsters went??) Nice and non-linear adventure level. Probably my favorite of Carter's maps.

E3M8: Jovian Déjà Vu Again (modified CHRISK11)

Chris Klie and Bob Carter

Going by Carter's dev notes in the book, he and Gary Masters (an editor from Sybex Publishing who helped put the book together) were very proud of themselves for coming up with the idea for this level, which is basically just a rehash of "UAC Spaceport" with some items changed around. If you're coming into this from pistol start, you might be forced to work your way around the spiderdemon lurking in the pit at the start, but if you're coming in fully armed, you can finish this map basically right away. Bit of an underwhelming finisher to be honest.

 

-june<3

Wrote it down in the winter of 1610
Just a secret under lock and key until then
While collecting the stars, I connected the dots
I don't know who I am, but now I know who I'm not