Megawad

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Revision as of 11:25, 10 November 2021 by 76.240.46.216 (talk) (revise the prose)


A megawad is a fan-made PWAD that, according to the idgames archive definition, contains 15 or more levels.[1]

Megawads can encompass the efforts of a single person, or the joint efforts of a entire team; this is usually done with the help of the community through specialized projects that aim to smoothen the development process, as well as allowing level authors to sign up for the project. Megawads often garner considerable attention and have been a significant portion of Cacowards winners.

Episode replacement

An episode replacement (or simply episode) is a set of fan-made levels containing a similar amount of levels as an episode of the game the episode replacement was made for. Most episode replacements therefore include eight or nine levels, which is comparable to original Doom's episode structure of eight levels and a secret level.

By definition, episodes are smaller than megawads.[2] Thus, in 2018, when John Romero announced SIGIL as a "megawad", the Doom community did not accept it as such; instead, it's considered a new episode.

History

While the ultimate origin of the word will probably never be determined, the term "mega-WAD" was used by Denis Möller of The Innocent Crew in 1995 to describe the Memento Mori project. The following year, Yonatan Donner used the word "megawad" to describe his upcoming project, Hell Revealed. The word soon became commonly used within the Doom community.

Noteworthy megawads and episodes

Doom

Full game replacement

Episode replacement

Doom II

Full game replacement

Episode replacement

See also