DBP37: AUGER;ZENITH

AUGER;ZENITH is a Doom II megawad for limit removing ports by various authors from the Doomer Boards Community, led by SuperCupcakeTactics, and is the thirty-seventh installment of the ongoing Doomer Boards Projects series. It contains twenty-two new single player levels, as well as a total texture conversion which replaces most of the in-game textures (and some SFX) with custom ones designed to create a heavy aesthetic. However, the appearance and behavior of monsters is generally identical to vanilla Doom II. Despite being limit removing, the WAD includes several optional features for advanced source ports such as GLDEFS and a MAPINFO lump.

The megawad was released on both the Doomer Boards and the Doomworld forums on July 4th, 2021. The release threads were updated on July 6th with three optional add-ons and subsequent release candidates were released on July 15th and July 18th, with the final one uploaded to idgames archive on July 26th, 2021. It was named as one of the runners up at the 2021 Cacowards and was one of the most highly nominated projects of the year.

On December 11th, SuperCupcakeTactics announced that an AUGER;ZENITH deathmatch WAD would be released in the future.

Plot
--- Neo Shotkon City 2198 A.D. ---

In the recesses of cyberspace, a maelstrom of evil blood infected the pneumatic tubes of global biocomputing. The dark consciousness recruited every semblance of artificial intelligence lost within seas of metadata, each spanning across decades of technological and societal struggle since the 21st century. Each node resonating with ethereal desires, conduits of unknowing interaction between beings of differing worlds. This technology opened the door to monsters familiar only to itself: Demonic natures attracting one another, wishing for a new home, yearning for their own creators. The Motherboard is lonely no more.

Levels

 * by SuperCupcakeTactics
 * by 40oz
 * by Matador
 * by Joe-ilya
 * by SuperCupcakeTactics and Redead-ITA
 * by Lunch Lunch
 * by Fryuko
 * by Valkiriforce
 * by Washing Machine Enthusiasts
 * by Chris Moyer
 * by JadingTsunami
 * by 40oz
 * by Lunch Lunch
 * by JadingTsunami
 * by SuperCupcakeTactics
 * by Peerdolius
 * by SuperCupcakeTactics
 * by Fryuko
 * by 40oz
 * by 40oz
 * by SuperCupcakeTactics
 * by SuperCupcakeTactics and JadingTsunami (epilogue map)

Soundtrack

 * MAP01: "One Night in Neo Kobe City" from  (3:09)
 * MAP02: MIDI rendition of "Resonance" by HOME, sequenced by Astolfo Alter (3:07)
 * MAP03: "Sonic CD Stardust Speedway House Mix" (2:49)
 * MAP04: "Gene Gadget Zone: Act 1" from  (3:19)
 * MAP05:  Stage 1 (4:40)
 * MAP06: "Crystalline" by Psyrus (2:51)
 * MAP07: "Whirlwind" from  (2:15)
 * MAP08: MIDI rendition of "Parking Block" from , sequenced by Robert Hansson (3:19)
 * MAP09: "CORE" from  by Toby Fox (2:45)
 * MAP10:  theme (3:15)
 * MAP11:  Stage 4-1 (2:04)


 * MAP12: "Demons On The Prey" by Bobby Prince (2:30)
 * MAP13: "Floating Museum" from  (4:42)
 * MAP14: "Dreamer" from Streets of Rage 2 Stage 3 (2:15)
 * MAP15: "Rave On" from  (4:26)
 * MAP16: MIDI rendition of "Max Man" from Streets of Rage 2, sequenced by José Felix (3:48)
 * MAP17: "Cybernetic" by Psyrus (3:18)
 * MAP18: MIDI rendition of "Moon Beach" from Streets of Rage Stage 3, sequenced by Darkmind (4:53)
 * MAP19: "Electric Toothbrush" from  (4:13)
 * MAP20: Streets of Rage 2 Stage 1 (3:00)


 * MAP21: "Final Boss" from Ninja Warriors (3:15)
 * MAP22: "Twilight of Neo Kobe City" from Snatcher (4:26)


 * Title screen: "End of the Dark" from  (2:09)
 * Intermission screen: "Image of a Hero" from  (3:04)
 * Text screen: "Innocent Girl" from Snatcher (1:31)
 * "Victory" Music: "No Way!" from  (0:41)

Built-in demos
This WAD features three built-in demos. All require Doom II v1.9 to view them. The demo levels are:

Optional Add-Ons
The following optional add-ons were bundled together and added to the original posts on the Doomer Boards and Doomworld release threads on July 6th, 2021.
 * DBP37_AlternateBlaster adds a new sound effect for the pistol, alters the chaingun muzzle flare, and makes zombiemen's muzzle flashes red. This was created by 40oz and posted in the project's development thread on June 21st.
 * DBP37_DeckardBlaster is the same as the previous add-on, except that it replaces the pistol sound with a high-quality sound bite of Deckard's blaster from .
 * DBP37_EDGEBreakingGlass was created by Lobo and allows the breaking glass effect to work on the EDGE sourceport. It was uploaded to both release threads on July 4th.

Development History
The project's genesis dates back, at latest, to November 2020, when 40oz mentioned in a forum post that he had the groundwork laid out for a potential nighttime city theme. Another forum post in December revealed that 40oz's nighttime city textures were part of a cyberpunk theme being put together with SuperCupcakeTactics. After a brief hiatus from the Doomer Boards, SuperCupcakeTactics would return to the forum during the development of DBP34: Luminous Gloom and the cyberpunk DBP would be scheduled to launch a few months later, with the development thread being created on June 1st, 2021. The resource pack for the project came bundled with a work-in-progress version of the first map, a demo map showcasing the breaking glass effect (created with the help of Joe-ilya) and a GLDEFS lump created by Matador. In a follow up post, SuperCupcakeTactics also uploaded a set of prefabs containing furniture he used in his map and some cityscape prefabs developed by Redead-ITA for mappers to use in their own maps.

Development moved at an unusually quick pace, with three maps (maps 2, 7 and 13) being completed before the end of the first week of development, leading Joe-ilya to opine that the project could, "reach 15 maps by the end of the month if this pace is kept up". The first and most significant of several resource pack updates occurred on June 12th and saw the addition of several new ads designed by SuperCupcakeTactics as well as neon signage designed by 40oz and Princess Prozac. On June 29th, SuperCupcakeTactics announced that he would be extending the deadline for the project by two days, with the project's final release being scheduled for July 3rd. On July 1st, development for the next DBP began and remaining development on DBP37 was moved to a separate thread, work being done concurrently on both projects. Due to time constraints, a full-fledged end credits map was not present in the initial release, with Map 22 being released in the second release candidate.

Trivia

 * As a heavily cyberpunk-themed wad, AUGER;ZENITH makes multiple heavy references to cyberpunk and sci-fi cultural works including, , , , , and many others.
 * The WAD has a unique "Victory" music track. The only way to encounter it is to complete MAP22 (the epilogue map), at which point it will play while an intermission cheekily telling the player "Thank you for playing! Again!", and then the player will be warped back to MAP01.
 * The WAD's title refers to mankind's unchecked social, technological and cultural progression and subsequent stagnation, with the caution strip in the logo representing the last technological barrier reached by mankind.
 * All of the foreign text textures translate to "Love and Peace" in their respective languages.
 * Changes to the monster sprites were proposed twice during development, with Joe-ilya suggesting the use of sprites from Kick Attack! and 40oz suggesting a recolor of the Chaingunner's shirt, though neither idea would wind up being used.