#615: Lilywhite Lilith

Seeking answers in Genesis

june gloom
4 min readOct 1, 2024

Initial release: May 1, 2019
Platform: PC (Doom mapset for limit-removing ports)
Developer: Doomer Boards
Mods used: Shades of Doom 4.1; Alice: Toys of Madness 1.0.1

At this point I don’t think anyone is under any illusion about the Doomer Boards or their reputation. But in spite of their status as the Doom community’s grease trap, they’re a creative bunch over there — where else would you find an entire episode’s worth of Doom maps inspired by Genesis and Phil Collins? That’s right, DBP11: Lilywhite Lilith is a tribute to the 70s prog rock gods.

It’s real weird. Let’s get into it.

First, the obvious disclaimer: I played this using Shades of Doom, which allows you to select your own monster reskins (I used it for Final Doom as well, if you recall) as well as the excellent Alice: Toys of Madness gameplay mod that effectively turns the game (sans monsters) into American McGee’s Alice game. I was perhaps a little harsher on that game than it really deserves, but I appreciated its commitment to a vibe. Pretty much the entirety of the mod’s assets — including the Cheshire Cat — are lifted directly from that game, and to be quite honest, it works very well with DBP11’s aesthetic, if not quite its gameplay.

Lilywhite Lilith is defined by lots of marble architecture and hanging gardens; it’s one of the prettiest wads I ever played, actually, taking on a sort of pastoral aesthetic with lots of green grass and wooden trellises and stained glass. According to a Discord post by project leader Jack “Jaxxoon R” Stewart, the texture set draws from a number of sources including Witchaven, Undying, Counter-Strike, Amulets & Armor, and elsewhere. The end result is a starkly neo-classical look that’s almost in antithesis to the more traditional gothic aesthetic so popularized by Gothic Deathmatch.

Storyline-wise it seems to be mostly abstract, or even a dream, the text file hinting at something awful amidst the pastoral gardens of crumbling limestone. The intermission texts aren’t any more illuminating, something about a mad queen — Lilith? — who may exist outside of the bounds of time or even, perhaps, be borne from human hatred. I don’t know, someone get Peter Gabriel in here to look at it.

The enemies are mostly untouched, save for two. The hanging Commander Keens have been replaced with dolls, seeing use in a single map (the first one, as part of a secrets chain.) The Wolfenstein guy — always a popular choice for DEHACKED shenanigans — has been replaced with a “plasma zombie,” a slow-moving former human with a two-shot plasma gun. Not as dangerous as the arachnotron, but definitely should be considered a threat especially in groups.

The music is about half MIDI renditions of Genesis or Phil Collins, half tracks from other games such as the Saturn version of Sonic 3D Blast. Oh, and a random Pearl Jam MIDI. It’s all a rather fitting selection throughout.

In terms of mapping credits, Jaxxoon R is the MVP here, with a full four maps constructed by him in addition to leading the project. Right behind him is Glen “glenzhino” McColl and Big Ol’ Billy, both of whom contributed two maps each. SuperCupcakeTactics — always a delight — has one map, but it’s the most mechanically interesting one of the bunch. And Ilya “joe-ilya” Lazarev is behind what I think is the low point of the mapset — sorry, but it must be said. I suspect part of it may be because of the Alice gameplay mod, but I found “Five Minute Afloat” rather unfair — you’re trapped on a small boat with basically zero cover and wave after wave of enemies teleport in from all sides. It’s timed so that they don’t all come in at once, but with such little cover dealing with all the fliers and especially the plasma zombies becomes very difficult.

Most of the maps swing between about 50 to 200 monsters each; some are quite large by DBP standards, with Jaxxoon’s “Cascade” being especially notable for its sprawling adventure format and Big Ol’ Billy managing to turn an entire Genesis song concept into a cohesive map with “Cynthia and Henry.” The DBPs are supposed to be kind of popcorn maps, but as DBP11 proves, the Doomer Boards can and will surprise you.

The Doomer Boards Projects regularly turns out unique or interesting themes, but I have to give credit, DBP11: Lilywhite Lilith is a true stand-out even by DBP standards. If you like Genesis or Phil Collins, you’ll love this. If you hate Genesis or Phil Collins (I’ll understand if that’s the case) you’ll still love this.

DBP11: Lilywhite Lilith can be downloaded from /idgames.

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june gloom

Media critic, retired streamer, furry. I love you. [she/her]