I Just Want to be Alone Right Now...

Or: Sure is Quiet 'Round Here...

         Killing and/or dodging monsters isn't going to be everyone's jam. With lesser games, this would mean you would either have to suck it up and punch a skeleton in his skeleton dick or go play a different game. Doom is not a lesser game. Doom is in fact the greatest game ever created. If you don't want monsters, you don't have to have monsters. You can launch Doom with a batch file and specify '-nomonsters'. This will load the game with, you guessed it, no monsters. 

        Naturally, there is a speed run category for nomonsters. It is commonly called just 'nomo' and it is ostensibly the polar opposite of UV-Max. There are no monsters to kill, so you don't have to worry about killing anything. Getting the secrets would probably just slow you down, so you only get them if it's fast. Nomo is all about beating the map as fast as humanly possible. It's a very popular category because it is the purest test of skill available in Doom speed running. It all comes down to movement. 

        Let's talk about movement in Doom. You got your run forward, your run backward, and your run side-to-side. What Doom also has is basically a glitch. There are two forms of strafe running that let you run faster than the normal forward movement. SR40 and SR50. I'll keep this simple. SR40 is done by holding forward and either right or left. This will move you at 128% the normal running speed. SR50 is done by holding strafe, forward, right or left, and turn left or turn right, depending on which way you want to move. SR50 is harder to do and will cost you your ability to turn, but will move you at a whopping 141% the normal running speed. Outside of certain cases, this is the fastest you can go in Doom. Period. Someone call the cops, cause we got a speed demon here. If you want to know more about the technical details of SR40 and SR50, click here.

        Plenty of map makers, including the guys at id Software, did not know about SR40 or 50 while designing levels. This means that there are tons of maps that can be completed much faster than intended, simply by running a little faster. Both strafe run variants can allow you to cross gaps that you would normally fall down if you were running slower. SR50 lets you go so fast you can sometimes extend your hitbox through walls, allowing you to pick up keys or weapons on the other side of doors or walls. Yet another implication of SR50 is 'skipping' over triggers. Sometimes certain doors or elevators will be activated by lines on the floor, when you walk over them (in Doom, not real life, as far as I know). SR50 will sometimes move you so fast over the trigger that the door won't open or the elevator won't lower. Sometimes this does more harm than good...

        In any case, SR40 and SR50 are the very basic tools of Doom movement. They're involved in lots of other speed run tricks, but most important is just how fast you go when you use them. Generally, to get the BEST possible time, you must be SR50ing as much as possible. According to some math that I'm totally not making up, someone who SR50s will be 41% faster than someone who doesn't. The numbers don't lie. 

        I spent some time trying to find good examples of speed runners using SR40 and SR50, but it's a hard trick to really show off. Just be aware that any time someone is just running in Doom, they're probably using at least SR40. Conversely, rocket jumps are really easy to show off. 

        The rocket jump happens at about 23 seconds if you're that impatient. By firing a rocket at that wall and moving backwards, I was able to get enough speed and distance to hit the pillar in the center of that room and grab the yellow skull key. Normally I would have to hit the switch instead of shooting a rocket at it and then go hit yet another switch to lower the pillar with the key. Before I discovered that rocket jump, my best time with the slower route was 0:44 seconds. Rocket jumps like this are some of the coolest tricks in Doom speed running. Not all maps have rocket jumps however, and that's a damn shame. 

        Doing nomonster runs requires a specific mind set. Learning optimal movement through a map, discovering rocket jumps or strafe run jumps, etc. takes a certain diligence. Opening doors in nomo becomes a do or die situation that could cost you precious milliseconds. To me, this means that nomo is a fun way to wind down from tough UV-Max maps. I'm not going to fool myself into thinking I can beat notable Doom speed runners Looper or 4shockblast. But sometimes I just like to cruise through a map, free of demons. I'm sure this is a sentiment anyone can appreciate. 

Why Go Around the Monsters When You Can Go Through Them?

Alternatively: I Just Like to Kill The Monsters

        I mentioned already that Doom speed running has numerous categories. Most interesting to me is the UV-Max category. Think of this category as the "100%" category. UV is short for Ultra-Violence, the 4th difficulty of Doom and Doom 2 and the one that is the "pure" or "intended" difficulty. In a UV-Max speed run, the goal is to exit the map as fast as possible while also getting all the secrets and killing all the monsters, excluding lost souls and monsters resurrected by Arch-Viles (thank god). This is my favorite category because I just like to kill the monsters. Also, skills such as good movement and speed run tricks aren't as important. That being said, UV-Max is in no way an easy category. I've spent most of the year trying to get better and am still just a fledgling Maxer.

        UV-Max really boils down to one thing: the route. When first looking at a map for maxing, there are a ton of things you have to consider. It's daunting. Generally, there's a lot that needs to be done in a Max, the number one problem being the monsters. Sometimes this is easier said than done:

        Some of the hardest maps to Max are deemed "slaughter" maps. They usually feature a monster count in the high hundreds and sometimes even thousands. Finding the best route to take through the map is hard. Usually it involves rushing to the most powerful weapons and then cleaning up all the monsters. Easier said than done, really. Needless to say, maxing a slaughter map will take time and skill. Only the most practiced doomers attempt maxes of intense slaughter maps.

        This is not my idea of a good time. Slaughter maps are fun, but only if you're super good. I'm not. I probably won't ever be attempting maxes of maps like the above. Mainly because if you die you have to start all over, and, well, no thanks. Here's the kind of map I enjoy maxing:

        This is footage I recorded of myself. This kind of map is smaller, with a lower monster count. When looking at maxing a map like this, the first step is learning the progression of the map. Usually, the fastest Max method is to progress through the map (i.e. getting keys, opening doors, etc.) and then wiping up the rest of the monsters after that, and getting the secrets when its most convenient. In this case, the most important secret was the one containing the Big Fucking Gun. There's plenty of ammo once I picked it up to go and wipe up the rest of the monsters. Doing the map in this fashion will give the monsters a chance to fight among themselves, making my work easier. Yep, the demons of hell hate everyone, including their fellow demons. In some maps, getting infighting is key to a good time. This can be sort of random though, unfortunately.

        Because of all the random elements present in Doom, UV-Max is one of the most hotly contested categories. This can be both good and bad. If you aren't a fan of RNG in speed games, you may want to stick to a different category. UV-Max you have to contend with weapon damage, monster damage, infighting, and monster movement. Nothing is worse than getting to the end of the level and realizing a monster evaded the hot death you were spewing everywhere. 

        This leads me to another point of contention: the advanced HUD. PrBoom+ is a port of the Doom sourcecode, allowing the game to be played outside of DOS. PrBoom+ also has an advanced HUD that shows, among other things, how many monsters you've killed compared to how many monsters are on the map total. For a category like UV-Max, this is incredibly useful and maybe slightly cheaty. Honestly, though, I need all the help I can get, so you can bet I turn that HUD on. It's a little different for other speed run categories, but that's a story for another day.

        It might be obvious, but UV-Max is my preferred speed run category. The one thing id Software got perfectly right with Doom is the oomph of its guns and the satisfaction of slaying demons. It is fantastic that there is a speed run that caters to people who just enjoy putting bullets in ugly monsters. It's more happy coincidence that its one of the more popular speed run categories, meaning there's always going to be someone willing to come in and steal a record out from under your nose. 

Why Doom is the Perfect Game to Play Fast

Alternative title: Just SR50 Through That Linedef

        Doom and Doom 2 are nearly flawless games. Setting aside the triumphs of the game engine itself, the graphics, gameplay, level design, music, etc. are all top-notch. The success of Doom would be reason enough to become interested in speed running it. Lucky for anyone who did, Doom is a highly rewarding game to speed run for an assortment of reasons.

Reason One: History

        Doom has been out for 21 years. Doom 2 has been out for 20 years. People have been speed running Doom for 21 years. This makes Doom one of the earliest speed games, and that is pretty cool. Unlike more modern games, there's actually a rich history in Doom speed running. Certain elements and quirks of the game engine were not discovered until long after its release. There's a whole story to tell about Compet-N, the official speed run segment of the Doom community. It's all fascinating stuff and just one aspect of what makes Doom a good speed game. By taking on the mantle of becoming a Doom speed runner, you're joining a pantheon encompassing literal decades. There are speed run records set in 1996 that have never been beaten. Now, don't look at this as evidence that Doom is an old-folk's game. The Doom community has grown and changed over the years. Fans of the game have made their own sets of maps.  

Reason Two: Variety

         Doom has had a long time to stretch its legs. This has led to two important factors for speed runners: amount of content to speed run and amount of ways to speed run said content. 20 years, two decades worth of fan made maps sit on the idgames archive. There's not a reasonable estimate for how many maps exist, but suffice it to say that you could probably play Doom and Doom 2 maps for the rest of your life. This is great for speed runners. The Doom engine is an amazing engine for speed running in, and if it was just limited to Doom, Doom 2, and Final Doom, well, it would get tedious. Just like people get tired of speed running Super Mario 64, once you've played something enough you'll look for something new. Or perhaps you'll look for a new way to do it. Doom has 14 (probably more) ways to speed run a level. That means if you were just looking at the original games, you're looking at 32 maps time 4 games = 128 maps. 128 maps times 14 ways to speed run them = 512 individual speed runs. And that's just for the official content. Remember how much user created content there is? Yeah. You could be occupied for a long time. I'll go into more detail about the various speed run categories in a future article. They're their own topic, really.

 Reason Three: Tricks

        Here's a sampling of tricks possible in the Doom engine. All of these are relevant mainly to speed runners. You got your wallruns, you got your strafejumps, key bumps, rocket jumps, death exits, Arch-Vile jumps, glides, void glides, linedef skips, thingrunning... All sounds pretty cool right? These tricks are what gives Doom speed running its depth. Most, if not all, of these tricks were unintended by the developers, leading to many maps having ways to skip large sections of gameplay. The cool thing about this, is once these tricks were discovered, speedrunners began making maps that had intentional speed run routes, making use of the various tricks. Many of these tricks are easy in theory, yet difficult to properly execute in a given run. 

Conclusion

        That's all I really wanted to discuss in this installment. Next time I'll go into more detail about a specific speed running category. I'll leave you with a few gifs of some of the tricks I mentioned.  

Strafejump

Glide

Arch-Vile Jump AND Rocket Jump