Best of 2020

Vanilla : Three's A Crowd by scypek2
Boom : Running Late 2 by A2Rob
GZDoom : Faithless by Jimmy
Other works : bigolbilly's Tomatoman variants throughout the DBPs.

Vanilla: Akeldama
Boom: NOVA 3
Other (limit rem): 180 Minutes Pour Vivre

Those are the only 3 WADS I've played this year so there you go.

Thanks to everyone for your votes so far; I believe I'm caught up. Let me know if you prefer anything different in your vote. There's a great deal of amazing work here so far. I'm impressed and found several new things to play.

If anyone wants to vote for multiple things in a single category, I've added a "more votes" section where I'll collect those too.

Hi!

I'm aggressively late for Doom's birthday, but I wanted to give a big shoutout to our mappers here who's undying commitment to doomer boards project makes our stupid little anti-doomworld shantytown an actually kinda cool place! Yeah we post useless content you can probably get better elsewhere, and we fight incessantly and some members might even secretly hate each other, but we're a community, goddamn it! And with any good doom community we have to be willing to stroke each other off once in a while so we don't go insane.

With no particular criteria or deliberation with anyone other than myself, I took it upon myself to celebrate by making a sloppily formatted post and quickly pick out my choices for what I consider to be the Top 5 DBP maps of the year _{(not in that order)}

Welcome to...

THIS IS NOT EVEN THE DW CACOWARDS _{(working title, rights pending)}

This Spell Banishes Fascists! - bigolbilly | Occult Secrets of the Third Reich on Mars

The project his map resides in is a proposterously campy concept that is as narratively captivating as it is blooming vividly with psychadelic vigor. There's something to be said about its pictorial anecdote about the space nazis' descent into the transmundane, juxtaposed by it's beaming lego-like wolfy textures. Early in my playthrough of the mapset, I shrieked with infantile delight. A reaction unlike any feeling I had playing Doom in years. When I was welcomed by the odious Cyberhitler, I fought ecstatically to defeat him, and cackled at his bloody hooves when I emerged victorious. This was only a precursor to this final map, that culminates with by far the best and most climactic boss battle I've ever had in a doom wad. But the THIRD biggest boss that Big Ol' Billy slays in a manner better than Hitler here was my lingering doubt that there's no way an astrostein-like wad could be good. I'm so happy to be so wrong.



Norwich Lane - sonny666 | Morbid Autumn

Norwich Lane is sonny666's first debut into the Doomer Boards map collection, (and perhaps his first proper map release), and it's a real testament to Doom's neverending capacity to surprise me with untapped doomy feelings. Inside the unholy fifth mapslot of Morbid Autumn is a fantastic sexy web of linedefs and microsectors that illustrates every important detail of this thronged dilapidated rural town in a windy countryside. It's an unforgettable masterpiece of worldbuilding and the brooding nailbiting atmosphere that many mappers spend years trying to achieve. It's amazing that a map of this capacity started and finished within a month's time. Even limited to Doom's unmodified vanilla resources, this map could belong in its own game.



Take Umbrage - glenzinho | Umbral Platinum

You get to pay attention to the little things, like the cool vanilla synchronized lighting effects on the first chaingun panel, and also the big things like the giant glowing plutonium rods and mountainous landscapes. Most importantly, the map features some fantastic frenetic traps and baller gameplay in big spacious battlegrounds. It captures the thrilling classic doom vibes I yearn for in my own mapping, and it's all rolled up in a neat little single map package. That's a tough nut to crack and this one pulls it off. I wanna deduct points for the pun name, but if I did it would still win. Glenzinho makes great maps. Singling out just one of his among a long record of winners is tough, but this one I remember uniquely lifting me into that iconic doom "flow" where the gameplay is both menacing and lusciously uninhibited by unexpected collisions. That's a signal of expertise.



Misri Halek Pt. II - joeilya | Evil Egypt

What strikes a chord with me is the miraculous comeback story for what started as an unused map originally designed for another project. The name, perhaps shocking, was first chastised for tagging on the legacy of the late Kim Andre Malde's masterpiece, Alien Vendetta MAP20. With the helpful support of a good network of playtesters, and joe ilya's commitment to his work, it evolved to be a beautiful star in the set. With a heavier application of attention to lighting and detail, it aligned fluidly with the merciless traps, an infinity of secret areas, and the originality of AV, in a special non-homagey way. Massive props for the devilishly deceptive "mirage" effect that is lovingly perfect for only this kind of map. And a sincere love letter to a stellar classic megawad.



Birdemic 3 - 40oz, Supercupcaketactics, Chaingunner | Ten Day Vacation

First, don't yell at me, I'm not picking myself. I'm credited here for knitting the already existing setpieces that make up the bulk of this map and give it it's identity. My work here is devoid of concept, and imagination and merely serves as an adhesive to service these once disconnected map pieces into a completed and functionally playable adventure. What towers above my credit here is the brilliance this map glows by the pairings of the best and unique strengths in Supercupcaketactics and Chaingunner's mapping. Weaved together is a delightful cocktail party of comedy and a displaced UAC base in a beautiful tropical paradise. With less than a full day to make this functional, the combined teamwork of us three drew up some insane sectorwork to get a crazy map done and remarkably well designed in a feat of unfathomable procrastinatical proportions. The icing on the cake is the ending that brilliantly turns the mod's wretched cawking winged parasite of fun into a catastrophic and hilarious confetti explosion of feathers. Bird up!



I also want to give a special shoutout to this non-mapping achievement in the Doomer Boards community.

vigilantdoomer

Shortly after he arrived in our humble community, vigilantdoomer has been tirelessly offering is simply awesome playtesting support to just about every project, and each month we truly owe a debt of gratitude for his commitment to helping make our projects so awesome. Mappers are nothing without our players, and incomplete maps are a hard sell. But his demo recordings and short anecdotes pointing out the glaring issues and his diaristic journaling of his thoughts while playing the maps multiple times in our project development threads are a paramount piece of the puzzle that supports our mappers and makes the Doomer Boards Project so good. Cheers, my dude!



Lastly, I just want to say that winning top 5 doesn't make anyone else a loser. Every DBP is a slammer and it's because of you guys. Honestly, all the fucking maps in Doomer Boards Projects are especially awesome. They're more exciting to play than most new wads I come across and everyone who has participated has done a incredible job of upholding the golden rule of fun. Every mapper deserves credit for participating in Doomer Boards Project and so I am tagging them all here. That's right, you're checking your notifications just for this!

a2rob an0n bigolbilly Chainie dmdr @doomro @gaspe @glenzinho hardcoregamer jawsinspace joe-ilya lunchlunch @mantistoboggan morpheuskitami naza peerdolius @phobus sonny666 SOSU MegaPancakeStrategist thegrb thundercunt valkiriforce @vigilantdoomer walterc xvertigox @xyzzy01 zedonk Zillah

All Cacowards and runners up. They all merited a mention in some way, even if they might not be de facto the best 22 wads of 2020, or the most possible variety in a list. 

NOT Akeldama. Too sloggy. Even though perhaps a dozen or so authors did make quite good maps as well. Interception II even ended up with more interesting maps.

DBP's. Lots of very good ones in 2020. I'd hardly say there is even a true weak map in DBP18 (released in the 2020 awards year) or DBP26. DBP19 is the best Xmas themed wad. Shout to all others where bigolbilly did the boss map as well as those are almost always a super-delicious cherry on top of an already good cake - and his maps in them in general.

1000 Lines 2, Mayhem 2020, and NOVA3 - the best megawads to not earn a Caco or runner up. Probably the only ones I could argue deserved at least a runner despite not getting one.

Pathogen - A great Ultimate DooM episode created as a result of a far-from-great situation.

Alpha Centauri - Very good use of Alpha resources by a nicolas monti unsung in the last five years since Erketanne (IMO that being one of his WORST wads!)

Soulless as a newcomer that I don't recall seeing mentioned.

I take umbrage that you take umbrage at the name Take Umbrage 40. Seriously tho thanks for the trophy, the scotch will taste good from this, although it’s a little small so I’ll have to be refilling it every few minutes

The more I read opinions like this the more I wish I'd taken the time to overhaul the UV difficulty. Even I have felt that I preferred playing on HNTR because the maps flow much more quickly as I had hoped they would. These days honestly have left me feeling more jaded about higher difficulties and not wanting to handle the chore work of dozens of enemies that do nothing but lengthen the map time.