ZDOOM is the DOOM we’ve all been playing for a really long time now.
Few even remember that the original release of DOOM was not full 3D. It was 2.5 dimensions. You couldn’t look up and down or jump. In fact, that’s where rocket-jumping came from, as it was the only way to go vertical.
ZDOOM was a backport of the z-axis code from Quake back into the DOOM engine. It enabled full 3D and dramatically enhanced the game. Carmack open-sourced DOOM code first, and then a couple years later Quake was open-sourced. The community did the rest.
I’m an old DOOMer. I’m gonna download this UZDOOM and give it a whirl.
It was probably the “gold standard” modern port of the OG DooM/DooM II/Hexen etc games. There are some other source ports made for multiplayer, some made for cranking the graphics up to 11, some made to ensure exact match to original engine behavior for speed running purposes, but GZDoom was kind of the standard the community had settled on that did enough of all of that to be good.
There are full “boomer shooter” style indie games built off of it and the expanded features it offers, like 3D model support and greatly improved lighting. Then the lead dev went a little bonkers (I don’t know the specifics) and people forked it into this and have kept improving it.
If I remember right, they got kicked for using AI to code and being an absolute shit about it when they got caught. This is on top of past issues with their behaviour as well.
I’m not a member of the Doom community at all, so this is just what I remember from when it happened.
And what’s gzdoom?
Gzdoom is an advanced modder friendly continuation of zdoom.
I feel obligated to continue the chain…
what is zdoom?
ZDOOM is the DOOM we’ve all been playing for a really long time now.
Few even remember that the original release of DOOM was not full 3D. It was 2.5 dimensions. You couldn’t look up and down or jump. In fact, that’s where rocket-jumping came from, as it was the only way to go vertical.
ZDOOM was a backport of the z-axis code from Quake back into the DOOM engine. It enabled full 3D and dramatically enhanced the game. Carmack open-sourced DOOM code first, and then a couple years later Quake was open-sourced. The community did the rest.
I’m an old DOOMer. I’m gonna download this UZDOOM and give it a whirl.
I never knew the etymology of zdoom until now. That’s really cool
It was probably the “gold standard” modern port of the OG DooM/DooM II/Hexen etc games. There are some other source ports made for multiplayer, some made for cranking the graphics up to 11, some made to ensure exact match to original engine behavior for speed running purposes, but GZDoom was kind of the standard the community had settled on that did enough of all of that to be good.
There are full “boomer shooter” style indie games built off of it and the expanded features it offers, like 3D model support and greatly improved lighting. Then the lead dev went a little bonkers (I don’t know the specifics) and people forked it into this and have kept improving it.
If I remember right, they got kicked for using AI to code and being an absolute shit about it when they got caught. This is on top of past issues with their behaviour as well.
I’m not a member of the Doom community at all, so this is just what I remember from when it happened.