#555: DJANGO5.WAD
People keep trying to make classic Doom into a cowboy game, let’s see if it works
Release period: 1995–2023
Platforms: PC (mods for classic Doom)
Developers: Various
Recently I’ve been talking a lot about the modding history of Half-Life; the modding community for that game has been something of a wellspring of professional talent. But the modding community for classic Doom (the umbrella term for a group of games that include the original Doom, its sequel Doom II: Hell on Earth, both parts of Final Doom and Doom 64) is considerably larger, more diverse, more long-lived, and more creative. This isn’t to put down Half-Life modders, it’s just stating a fact. Doom will be thirty years old this year and modders have long since pulled the game apart and created entirely new things with it. There are things being done in GZDoom that you wouldn’t even recognize as Doom anymore. I use these examples to emphasize a point, but most Doom creations aren’t nearly so fancy, nor do they have to be.
Going back as far as 1994 with the release of the Doom Editing Utilities, people have been modding Doom in various ways, some of them quite extensive (and intrusive, such as directly replacing existing assets in the game’s data files.) Sometimes new weapons and enemies are just reskins, sometimes — thanks to the use of DEHACKED then, DECORATE and similar scripting languages now — entirely new behavior is coded in. And almost since the beginning, there have been a few recurring themes. 1994's Aliens TC, the first “total conversion” (a complete overhaul of the game’s assets and behavior to create a whole new game) would set the standard for the future, and modders have been going back to that well for years. (It’s only logical, given how much Doom draws from the Alien franchise.) Another, less common theme that still sees the occasional revival, however, is the western.
Western-themed video games are nothing new, of course. The genre has seen a few light gun games over the years, but the first commercial first person shooter game is probably LucasArts’ iconic Outlaws from 1997. (Still no support for that in The Force Engine, dammit!) But as far as cowboy shooters go, Outlaws was beaten to the punch in 1995 by a pair of mods.
Boot Hill
Released: June 9th, 1995
Developers: Tim “Timinator” Ash, Jason Kirby, Dave King
As far as cowboy Doom mods go, Boot Hill came first. It’s as straightforward as can be: a pure deathmatch experience spread across four separate maps. The first map is lifted from another wad, The Last Resort; the rest are developed from scratch. All present more or less the same thing: a little western town consisting of a small collection of buildings in an otherwise open arena. The first one, oddly enough, has two monsters — a Cyberdemon lurking in the corner; there’s also a hanging Commander Keen at the gallows. All four maps present a pretty fast-paced deathmatch experience, but you won’t find a whole lot of variety as they’re all more or less permutations of each other, design-wise. What sets it apart from more mundane map sets is the use of textures and sounds to give it a western theme, though you will quickly get sick of that yowling from Ennio Morricone’s famous tune every time you pick up a weapon.
A Fistful of Doom
Released: January 3rd, 1996
Developers: Bob “Soutec” Soutar and “A-Ware”
While this is technically a 1996 mod, development of A Fistful of Doom began in 1995 and Doomworld’s list of 100 Best Wads of 1994–2003 lists it as a 1995 entry alongside Boot Hill. Developed explicitly as a British response to the US-made Boot Hill, it lifts, wholesale, some of Boot Hill’s assets, while adding several of its own, including a new HUD that changes armor to “luck” and cell ammo to otherwise useless “gold.” The only oddity here is that the readme names “Gali” as the author, but evidence suggests that there were two authors, Bob “Soutec” Soutar and an entity previously known as “A-Ware,” now going by the name Azeraaron. If some reader would be so kind as to straighten out this naming discrepancy for me I would appreciate it.
In any case, it’s a more complete conversion than Boot Hill in that it features a new title screen, but it’s still a very small piece of work with a mere two maps. There’s no real story involved, but we can make inferences based on the enemies we fight that some kind of violent possession has taken over the town and it’s up to the Doomguy With No Name to do something about it.
The first map, “El Passo” by A-Ware, is pretty indistinguishable from Boot Hill’s collection of frontier towns. A collection of buildings in the center of an open area is the entirety of the level, though you’ll be poking through all of them at one point or another. The main goal is to find the key that will let you into the bank vault, but you’ll be visiting the sheriff’s office, a saloon, and even Sweeney’s Barbershop, which has a sinister surprise in the basement.
Up next we have “A Faceful of Tacos,” set in a dusty little Mexican town. The action is considerably more hectic here. While you won’t be immediately under fire like you were in “El Passo,” from the first shot you can expect some serious mayhem. The most logical route is to start by clearing out the old fort to get yourself some cover; from there you can use it as a base to go house-to-house on your way to the church.
A Fistful of Doom is only somewhat more impressive than Boot Hill, but like its predecessor it might be better if you turned off the default music so it doesn’t clash with the sampled Morricone score or other sounds. There’s some clever work here such as replacing the revenant’s roar with a bell sound, thus giving the church bell some sense of reality.
With only two levels it feels truncated, which is kind of a shame. But fear not, pardners, because up next we have…
The Magnificent Five
Released: 12/07/2020
Developers: The Doomer Boards
Say what you will about the Doomer Boards and its culture vis-a-vis that of Doomworld or the ZDoom forums, they know how to make maps, and the popular Doomer Boards Projects have been a showcase of some real talent, like 40oz and joe-ilya. DBP30: The Magnificent Five, as its name suggests, is the 30th such project, and it’s got a simple premise: Five levels*, five weapons, five mappers, all with a western theme.
* There’s technically six, the last one being a credits map, but who’s counting?
In terms of overall aesthetic, this proves itself to be another iterative take on the assets made for Boot Hill and A Fistful of Doom; however, whereas Fistful mostly relied on hitscanners (which made for rather more dangerous play,) Magnificent Five brings out the rest of the monster roster (with some notable abscences,) with a few changed significantly to fit the theme (for example, demons and spectres remain as possessed guys who run up on you and throw a punch, and Hell Knights are now monstrous demon cows.) Even the ones that haven’t been changed significantly now all sport various period-appropriate hats. Even the power-ups have hats. It’s gleefully silly and makes me smile.
(For a level-by-level breakdown of this set, please look at my new tumblr.)
As a map set this is generally not a difficult ride. The maps are generally quite short, and even the finale, as hectic as it is, feels less epic than you’d expect. So The Magnificent Five is rather like its predecessors in that it’s high on aesthetic but relatively low on content; it can be frustrating in that a cowboy Doom is a solid idea — after all, like Doom, the western is a very influential gun-themed genre, with intense violence and a sense of the supernatural being frequent features — but the community simply hasn’t done much with it. I would certainly like to see more western-themed content, but I suppose we’ll have to content ourselves, for now, with this family of wads…
Or maybe not.
High Noon Drifter
Developer: TerminusEst13
The Western Patch
Developer: ToonNutters
Weird West
Developer: Federico Milesi
One of the nice things about Doom modding is how versatile it is. It’s not just new textures and sprites; there are weapon mods galore, and if you’re looking for mods that change the monsters to something else, the community has you covered. And, in the right circumstances, you can mix, match and combine mods to achieve a wholly different experience.
Which brings us to Weird West, a single map for GZDoom (though it claims to have software rendering support i.e. ZDoom, but I didn’t test that.) Initially created as a bonus level for Blood: Dead on Arrival, a Blood-themed total conversion for GZdoom, it actually recreates much of the first Wild West level from Duke Nukem: Time to Kill, a spinoff Duke Nukem game for PlayStation. Your mission is pretty straightforward: kill all the demons and find the exit. Released as-is, it uses the standard Doom bestiary and armory. The map itself is pretty decent, being based on one of the better levels from Time to Kill, but it’s still functionally a Doom level.
That’s where mods come in.
Up first is The Western Patch, a monster pack that changes some of the bestiary to something a little more Western-themed. The zombies have been replaced with their cowboy counterparts from A Fistful of Doom; a few of the other monsters have had some grotesque makeovers more fitting to a 19th century horror theme. About half of the bestiary however remain untouched, suggesting this pack is unfinished. Regardless, the monsters all behave as their vanilla counterparts, so regardless of how freaky that Arachnotron looks you still know just what to do.
The more substantial change comes from High Noon Drifter, an impressively fleshed-out weapon mod. Every weapon, every pickup, has been changed to suit an occult gunslinger motif. The fists are outright unselectable; in their place is a whip, bound to your alt-fire button on every weapon, that does considerable damage compared to the classic left hook. The pistol is now an eight-chambered revolver (with optional infinite ammo) that must be fired manually (and displays a fanning animation if you pull the trigger repeatedly.) It too is pretty high powered, killing zombiemen in one shot (they normally require two) and being able to drop a pinky in a single burst. The super shotgun is now a four-barreled monstrosity that can be reloaded by twos, so you can treat it as the standard double-barrel unless you need just that much more firepower, in which case pressing the reload key will add the extra rounds. The rocket launcher has been replaced by curiously modern-looking grenades, but the plasma rifle and BFG are outright magical weapons with devastating flame powers. In place of a chainsaw you get a boomerang that can fetch items for you.
Combining these three mods will make for a short, but memorable trip. It’s not a terribly complex level, nor is it exactly overpopulated with monsters, but it’s got a few interesting encounters, with what’s probably the standout fight being a game of cat and mouse with the Cyberdemon in the finale.
Cowboy shit in Doom has a history nearly as long as Doom itself; it’s more sporadic, and certainly more janky, but it’s full of promise, and with the arrival of mods like High Noon Drifter you can make just about any mapset into a cowboy game, though some mods might be better suited for the concept than others.
Ultimately, while I do wish there was more dedicated cowboy content, what we’ve got isn’t bad, and it’ll have to tide us over until Outlaws gets that source port it so deserves.
Boot Hill idgames
A Fistful of Doom idgames kmxexii review
The Magnificent Five idgames
Weird West idgames
The Western Patch 2.0 ModDB
High Noon Drifter 1.2 ZDF thread
