Cold Front is a short Doom wad, which consists of 4 playable maps and the outro map with no possible progression.
It can be downloaded from idgames or dsdarchive. Also, feel free to read the official release thread on DoomWorld.
The released archive contains CREDITS.txt with all authors mentioned.
It can be downloaded from idgames or dsdarchive. Also, feel free to read the official release thread on DoomWorld.
The released archive contains CREDITS.txt with all authors mentioned.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: XDRE 2.22 (based on PrBoom+ 2.5.1.5)
- Doom goal: UV-Speed (complete each map as fast as possible on Ultra-Violence difficulty)
- Contains speed/entertainment tradeoffs
- Takes damage to save time
- Aims on in-game time instead of real time
- Heavy luck manipulation
Comments
Demo playback
- Make a shortcut of dsda-doom.exe or prboom-plus.exe
- Open the Properties of the shortcut
- Insert commands at the end of its Target field, so it would look similar to that:
D:\dsda-doom-0.25.3\dsda-doom.exe -iwad doom2.wad -file CLDFRNT.wad -playdemo cfallx339.lmp
General comments
I didn't do Doom TASing in 2023, but one week before Christmas I decided to do something delightful for the community, like I did in 2022. While surfing through EggBoy's contributions, I came across Cold Front and found it a good choice for me to beat it by 25th of December.
It took ~12 hours to make this TAS (evenings on 20-23 of December and a half of 24th of December).
Map completion timings
- Map 1 - 0:33.71
- Map 2 - 0:34.66
- Map 3 - 1:07.51
- Map 4 - 1:25.54
Tricks and glitches
Check the game resources of Doom for more info. This TAS uses linedef skipping, wallrunning and Arch-vile jumping.
Stage by stage comments
Map 1: Cold Open
Not much to say about this one, since there are no shortcuts.
I did a routing mistake though. I didn't grab the secret super shotgun which would save some time on Map 2.
Map 2: Glacier Caper
The pace is a little slow at the beginning. A strong monster (a mancubus in this case) in a tight entrance with no possibility to kill it quickly is something I call a speedrunner's nightmare. No wonder why this map had no UV Pacifist/Speed records. This mancubus at no chance can walk to the side once it wakes up. He does at least one step forward which makes it impossible to get out of your way, so the only way to get past it is block its way and make it go back.
The map appeared to be too crowed to pass it with a shotgun. There are 2 places where SSG would be useful: after I take the yellow skullkey and during my breakthrough through imps on the way to the switch, which lifts dows the red skullkey.
The first shortcut was the linedef skip just before the yellow skullkey, which lets you run back the same way you came in.
Another shortcut was the skip of linedef 724, which lets you take the blue skullkey and run through the same passage you used to grab the yellow key.
Unfortunately, I didn't manage to skip the eastern linedef 1236, which reveals a big crowd of imps, although I was told that it's possible to skip north/east linedefs, if you bump into a wall 1 tic before crossing it.
Map 3: Stank Dick Island
The only shortcut here is the skip of linedef 919, which lets you skip the yellow key section.
At first, I expected to do that with the help of a monster, which would prevent the gates from closing when I cross that linedef. As turned out, despite having no monster-blocking linedefs on the way and appropriate heights, monsters couldn't bypass the gates because they have to be lifted up and there were invisible tiny pits and monsters couldn't pass through because of the big height differences.
Fortunately, I used fence wallrunning on my way back and it worked.
The blue key section involves another fighting scene for you to wait for the gates to move up. After I killed everything, I shot a rocket into the wall to wake up the mancubus which guarded a switch.
Arch-Vile jump on my way back saves a small portion of time.
Map 4: Hell Freezes Over
No shortcuts here. I took the BFG to kill the Baron of Hell in the teleport booth on my way out of the cyberdemon's arena.
Other comments
Ironically, this is my final Doom TAS at the moment of submission.
feos: Claiming for judging.
feos: Accepting.
r3gamerz: Processing...