MDL

Some people like the smell of old books, they comment on them by saying that it smells of mustard. If you've ever been to an old book shop, or opened up an old book, and put your nose between the pages, you will know this smell very well. A lot of things have a nice, old smell to them like record cases, lawn mowers, charity shops, etc. If this Doom mod, MDL, had a smell it would probably be that of slightly dodgy shareware CD-ROMs from the late 90s.

As the maker of this WAD, Tom Robinson (mystican), writes in the README file, this is a "VERY old doom1 episode". It is unclear exactly how old this WAD is, the README says it was made in 1995, however, on the /idgames/ mirror on Doomworld, it says it was made in 1998 - however, this was more likely when it was published, rather than when it was made.

It's quite easy from playing this WAD that is is old, a big give away is not only the music (MIDI - of cause!), but the sound effects; whenever you kill a monster, pick up any ammo, or open a door, some cheesy sound clip plays for the players enjoyment (or horror). The sound clips can be quite out of place at times, and even annoying (especially with the "got it!" sound effect).

The WAD is very old, and if you're more used to new mods for Doom, made in say the past few years, then you won't like this mod at all, but if you're a fan of older mods (and can stand cheesy sound effects), than check this one out - or not. It's up to you.

MDL running on Crispy Doom version 5.1, with Freedoom version 0.11.3

You should also check out mystican's old website from back in the day, it's been offline since around 1999, but it pure 90's gold. You can find the site on the archive.org mirror, but make sure you're using Netscape or IE4, as his site was "designed with netscape in mind"!

References I. MDL WAD - Doomworld/idgames https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom/m-o/mdl II. MDL on WAD Archive https://www.wad-archive.com/wad/MDL-WAD III. MDL on archive.org https://archive.org/details/mdl_doom_wad Written by Clive "James" Python, 15/09/18 ★