ZPack - Random Maps for ZDoom

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ZPack - Random Maps for ZDoom
Title screen
Authors Various
Port ZDoom
IWAD Doom II
Year 2008
Link Doomworld/idgames

ZPack - Random Maps for ZDoom is a 2008 megawad by members of the ZDoom community which contains 30 levels, divided into three 10 map episodes. It requires ZDoom 2.2.0 or later to play (or alternatively, GZDoom 1.1.0 or later). Although the maps are divided into episodes and use the ExMx lump name scheme, the wad is for the Doom II IWAD.

Development

The project was initially thought up as being a kind of Community Chest for the ZDoom engine. Each contributor would make a map as they so desired and the end results would be strung together. As contributors began to join in and discussion got underway, some actual rules and guidelines formed. In the end, the agreed upon set of rules was still fairly lax (e.g. mappers were basically free to do what they wanted thematically and for gameplay, as well as could submit multiple maps) while having just enough structure to try and maintain a cohesion between the maps (e.g. mappers could not implement their own new weapons, which would clearly break the flow when no other map has the weapon or ammo for it). While ideas such having a central hub and allowing the player to choose maps in any order where tossed around, the correlation between map theme and difficulty was noted by some contributors and eventually a set order divided roughly by theme was settled upon. As the submitted maps began to reach a peak count it was then decided that the sets should be turned into episodes, with the easier and largely techbase-oriented maps going into the first episode and more difficult, hellish maps going into the later ones.

Content