Cacowards

A checked version of this page, approved on 25 December 2012, was based on this revision.

The Cacowards are a yearly feature in Doomworld, released on Doom's birthday. The series started in 2004 with the so-called 11th installment, which was an attempt to replicate the success of the previous year's 10 Years of Doom celebration, more precisely the Top 100 WADs of All Time and Top 10 Infamous WADs articles.

Apart from the regular Cacowards, there are additional Cacowards granted each year:

Runners Up are given to mods which would have been good enough for inclusion if there hadn't been even better mods filling all the slots. There are usually two runners up, though the number has varied between zero (2011) and five (2012).
Best Multiplayer (Best DM Level until 2007 and Best Multiplayer Level until 2011,) honoring the best multiplayer WAD of the year.
Best Gameplay Mod, presented to the best gameplay modification of the year. The first such award was given in 2011, however they were preceded by a non-repeated, ad-hoc award ("This Is My Boomstick") in the 15th Cacowards in 2008.
The Mordeth Award, recognizing whichever WAD of the year has taken the longest time to develop and release, in honor of Mordeth's notoriously protracted development schedule.
The Worst Wad, dishonoring the worst WAD of the year, a category that was officially retired in 2011 because it was considered "sort of dumb" to reward people for uploading low-quality work.
The Mockaward, given to the best joke WAD of the year, in honor of Mockery, were suspended in 2011 because of the apparent dearth of joke WADs worth considering for an award, but came back in 2012.
The Mapper of the Year, awarded to the best level designer of the year.
The Sky May Be pays homage to departed members of the community.
Since 2011, Honoring a Newcomer spotlights promising new blood.
Non-recurring categories are sometimes created for given mods that could not fit anywhere else but deserved a mention nonetheless. This has included "Honorable Mention" (2004), "What the Hell!?" (2005), "Escher Award" (2006), "This is my Boomstick" (2008), "Consolation Prize" (2011), and "What the Pope?" (2012).

As of December 25, 2012, the series has had its 19th (actually 9th) installment released.

Mike Lightner (Mancubus II) produced the logos for the feature, and Stephen Browning (Scuba Steve) was responsible for the content, although Dean Joseph (deathz0r) joined him for the 14th installment. Patrick Pineda and Darknation assisted with the 15th installment. The 16th installment saw writing contributions from Pineda, hobbs, and esselfortium. After the 17th installment, Browning stepped down as the host of the Cacowards, and was succeeded by hobbs beginning and ending with the 18th. Hobbs' disappearance in early 2012, and lack of surprise reappearance in time for the Cacowards, led the community to select a team made of Xaser, St. Alfonzo, and kmxexii to take the hold.

Contents
11th Annual Cacowards (2004) 12th Annual Cacowards (2005) 13th Annual Cacowards (2006) 14th Annual Cacowards (2007) 15th Annual Cacowards (2008) 16th Annual Cacowards (2009) 17th Annual Cacowards (2010) 18th Annual Cacowards (2011) 19th Annual Cacowards (2012)