CROSS.WAD

CROSS.WAD
The opening screen from the southern deathmatch spawn position.
Author	Alistair Brown
Port	Vanilla Doom
IWAD	Doom
Year	1994
Link	Doomworld/idgames

This level occupies the map slot E1M1. For other maps which occupy this slot, see Category:E1M1.

CROSS.WAD is a single-level deathmatch PWAD designed by Alistair Brown. It is notable for being one of the first Doom mods ever created, having been created programmatically with code written in C++; it was originally released March 11, 1994.

This level should not be confused with CROSS.WAD by Kuranes, a much larger deathmatch map from 1997, or Terry Henning's CROSS.WAD (May 1994), a fairly conventional solo map with several hundred monsters. The latter saw a bug fix release, renamed to CROSST.WAD for this reason, and Alistair Brown's level was later distributed as CROSSA.ZIP.

Analysis

Spawn pointsUnmarked

Map of CROSS.WAD

Map of CROSS.WAD

Map layout

Strictly speaking, this level can be completed in solo mode, but since it includes no monsters and only one room with the exit switch clearly visible, there is not a great deal to say about it. Co-op start points are absent.

Player spawns

This level contains four spawn points:

1. facing east. (thing 0)
2. facing south. (thing 1)
3. facing north. (thing 2)
4. facing west. (thing 3)

Statistics

Map data

Things	9
Vertices	20*
Linedefs	24
Sidedefs	28
Sectors	5

* The vertex count without the effect of node building is 20.

Things

Multiplayer
Weapons	1-2	3	4-5
Chainsaw	1
Shotgun	1
Chaingun	1
Plasma gun	1
Miscellaneous	1-2	3	4-5
Deathmatch start	4

Technical information

According to the author, the BSP calculations required to construct this map aided the development of DEU's final node builder.

Inspiration and development

When Origwad was announced on alt.games.doom, Alistair Brown replied that he also had created a PWAD by hand, which consisted of a small square room with a cyberdemon on a central square platform. This level had been used when reverse-engineering the BSP structure but was never released. CROSS.WAD was a slightly more complex level but allowed the theories derived from the simple level to be tested and proved. After CROSS.WAD was released, Alistair followed up with a lengthy technical explanation of the design process, which is included in the idgames package as MAKE-LVL.TXT.

External links

• CROSS.WAD at Doomworld/idgames
• CROSS.WAD (Kuranes) at Doomworld/idgames
• CROSST.WAD (Terry Henning) at Doomworld/idgames
• CROSS.WAD (Terry Henning) & CROSST.WAD (Terry Henning) at the Doom Speed Demo Archive
• "First *TOTALLY* original PWAD on wuarchive", thread at alt.games.doom
• "So you want to make a new level?", thread at alt.games.doom