(edited by Jen Beauchamp)

Doom is a big deal among gamers old and new; it wasn’t the first of its kind, but it’s definitely one of the most iconic first person shooters and has one of the largest fan bases of any game in this genre. Many people and online communities are still making crazy mods (like Brutal Doom) for a game that is over 20 years old.

 

https://www.twitter.com/romero/status/688054778790834176/

John Romero helped shape the Doom series, and he recently created a level of the game for the first time in 21 years. A recent tweet contains a link that allows users to download a remake of the E1M8 map, and works with Doom (or Ultimate Doom).

romerodoome1m8

I had a quick play of the level and I personally dig it! There are plenty of outdoor and indoor areas, good layout of enemies and a modern feel. To play the WAD file you will need a full version of the first Doom game, as well as a frontend that lets you play the game on your modern OS and the ability to play custom WADs (such as GZDoom).

My favourite Zelda game is Link to the Past, but I did play Ocarina of Time (on Nintendo 64) late last year. I enjoyed the adventure and have to give props to Nintendo for making the move from 2D to 3D and executing it nicely. I recently came across this video from Zelda Informer about a fan-made demake of Ocarina of Time recreated in the same graphic style as Link to the Past.

The fan-made game has reportedly been in development for quite some time, and an imminent release of a demo (version 0.20) is predicted by the end of this year. Until the release you can check out the above trailer to see what will be in store. For more information visit the offcial Ocarina of Time 2D page at oot-2d.com.

If it’s not enough to play Ocarina of Time as a demake in 2D, you can also play the original game with an actual Ocarina, as demonstrated by MonotoneTim via a live stream on Twitch. In the broadcast Tim shows that not only can you play the Ocarina tunes in-game, but also that different notes control Link.

Tim also highlights the Ocarina controller with Majora’s Mask.  He found that the game would be unplayable – especially when having to use the masks as you have hold down a button to keep using the ability. Although Tim didn’t finish the game, this is still a hilarious and very cool concept!

source: pixeldynamo

Finally for this week, we bring you news about Dragon Quest, yet another classic adventure game. Although not as popular as some other series (serieses? series’s’s’s?)  in the west, it was and still is extremely popular in Japan. Yuji Horii (Creator, Designer and Scenario Writer of the Dragon Quest games as well as the ever popular Chrono Trigger) has posted a range of intriguing photos on Twitter from a sketchbook showing how the first games were created.

These photos include maps of the game (originally paper based sketches) with legends for each drawing as well as scripts of dialogue written by hand. We should be truly thankful for those people who have helped make games over the years and are willing to share the archival documentation with the world today.

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