#609: Havoc in Creation

Hell has rarely looked so good

Initial release: October 1, 2022
Platform: PC (Doom mapset for limit-removing ports)
Developer: Doomer Boards
Mods used: Walpurgis 0.99 (playing as Druid); Merciless Monsters 1.0; Flashlight++ 9.1 (set to lamp preset)

Say what you will about the Doomer Boards, but you can’t deny their wad-making skills. They churn out a new Doom wad on a regular basis, often with pretty unique or underutilized themes. 2022 proved to be another banger year for them; leaving aside DBP48, they gave the community such underrated greats as Mausoleum Nefarium, Emerald City, and Dreamcatcher Apparatus. It’s really a surprise that even the fifty-second DBP, Havoc in Creation, didn’t make it to the Cacowards that year — because honestly, it deserved one.

While the Doomer Boards Projects often relies on well-worn themes, they’ve developed a reputation for giving old themes a fresh spin. Making use of palette hacks for a different atmosphere can go a long way, and Havoc in Creation makes excellent use of one that throws the game into deep reds and cyans. While the textures are yet another GothicDM-derived set, they blend well with the new palette, giving the game a dark, moody, even apocalyptic feel. This jibes perfectly with the wad’s plot, told through runes that you must translate (composed through clever use of texture offsets and the standard Doom font.) The basic idea is that you are in what’s left of a once-verdant kingdom that was overtaken by demons, and the runes are the last messages of the survivors.

(Disclaimer: I played through this using the excellent Walpurgis, playing as the Druid with Dimensional Instability mode turned off and using the Merciless Monsters mod which replaces the vanilla monsters with tougher, more fantasy-themed variants, as well as Flashlight++ 9.1 with the Lamp preset. I can attest that Havoc in Creation thematically fits extremely well with Walpurgis, though I caution that using it in conjunction with Merciless Monsters broke an important effect towards the end of the game. Nothing gamebreaking, but it will definitely alter your experience. I did watch a vanilla playthrough on Youtube to get a better sense of how the wad plays on its own.)

Havoc is a fantastic mapset. DBP regulars Jon “40oz” Vail, BiZ, and matador are the driving forces behind the set’s quality, but we also get some excellent work from Thelokk (credited here as Saltator), CittyKat112, E.M., shibainumaster, and sonny666 (who did my favorite map in Morbid Autumn.) While most DBPs have one or two maps that are below the standard for the rest, Havoc in Creation maintains a solid, consistent quality and aesthetic throughout. MAP10, “Crossing Worlds,” is an especially impressive map that evokes nothing so much as the beautiful voids and aggressive gameplay of Sunlust, and the “Havoc” trilogy that tell the game’s stories, while typically leaning more towards atmospherics, are beautifully-crafted interludes. Even the most straightforward, simple-looking maps, “Assault on Demon Fortress” and “Calefactor,” are still attractive and a solid play.

You should absolutely play Havoc in Creation. It’s one of the best-looking wads from a year full of great-looking wads, plays great, and blends creative ideas with tried-and-true tricks and traps for one of the Doomer Boards’ most solid mapsets.

— june❤

DBP52: Havoc in Creation can be downloaded from /idgames.