The Plutonia Experiment

From DoomWiki.org

Final Doom- The Plutonia Experiment title screen

The Plutonia Experiment is one of the two official 32-level Doom II IWADs which make up Final Doom. It was created by brothers Dario and Milo Casali under contract with id Software, and was released alongside its counterpart TNT: Evilution on June 17, 1996.

Development[edit]

Milo and Dario Casali, who had contributed one and three levels respectively to the Evilution project, accepted the task of creating what became Plutonia after having sent an eight-level WAD of their designs to American McGee, managing to impress him along with the rest of id Software. They created 32 levels for Plutonia in four months' time, and submitted them in January 1996. Unlike their contributions to TNT: Evilution, which were substantially edited after submission (four being rejected altogether due to being too large), these turned out to be the final revisions of the levels. Dario later commented, relieved that no further changes were required, "thank God because I was ready to throw my computer out the window at the time."[1]

According to an interview with Dario Casali from 1998, he and his brother created 16 levels each.[1] However, in May 2012, Dario shared accurate author information, which revealed that Milo actually designed 18 maps while he created 14 himself.[2]

Dario used DETH for his levels.[1]

Compared to TNT: Evilution, Plutonia is considered much more difficult due to the influx of strong opposition in the earlier levels and massive amounts of enemies in the later stages, especially on the Ultra-Violence difficulty. Level designs and effects that were against the regular IWAD norms were utilized, such as invisible bridges. According to sources, the Casali brothers intended to make Plutonia harder than the usual Doom fare in order to challenge already battle-hardened players.[1]

Six levels from the IWAD are also included in the Sony PlayStation version of Final Doom.

Story[edit]

After Hell's invasion of Earth, the United States took steps to prevent another such invasion. The old UAC was refounded under completely new management (the previous owners being deceased) and given a new mission: to research tools and technologies that could prevent Hell's resurgence.

UAC's scientists began work on quantum accelerator devices, machines intended to close interdimensional gates from a distance. The experiments are carried out in a secret research complex, with a stationed detachment of marines. The work seems to be going well, but...

The creatures from Outside have their dire attention drawn towards the new research. A gate opens in the heart of the complex and unnatural horrors pour out. The quantum accelerator performs superbly — the gate is quickly closed and the invasion stopped. Research continues more boldly.

On the next day, a ring of seven gates opens and an even greater invasion begins. For one hour the quantum accelerators manage to close six of the gates... but the hellish army has become too numerous and too strong. The complex is overrun. Everyone is slain, or zombified. The last gate of Hell remains open, manned and guarded by a demon Gatekeeper.

The government, frantic that the quantum accelerator will be destroyed or used in some evil alien fashion against humanity, orders all marines to the site at once. The Doomguy is close to the site and gets there first. There he concludes that by the time reinforcements arrive that the demons will be too numerous and powerful.

The marine decides to enter the complex and stop the Gatekeeper alone.

Levels[edit]

As in Doom II, the levels can be divided up into four sets. There are three episodes each defined by a different sky texture (1-11, 12-20 and 21-30) and two secret levels (31-32). The player is presented with a text screen in between the episodes (before levels 12 and 21). Additional textual interludes appear before level 7, before each secret level, and at the conclusion of the game.

Earth levels[edit]

Hell levels[edit]

Devil Hive levels[edit]

Secret levels[edit]

Music[edit]

The soundtrack is completely derived from Doom and Doom II.

Sony PlayStation[edit]

Six levels from The Plutonia Experiment were included as part of the Williams Entertainment port of Final Doom to the Sony PlayStation game console. They were converted by the Williams team to adapt to the limitations of and utilize features developed for the earlier port of Doom to the console, including colored lighting, nightmare spectres, translucency, and various minor changes to architecture and texturing. It forms the third and final episode of the port, offering the most challenging gameplay but also suffering from the worst frame rate problems. Aubrey Hodges provided custom dark ambient music for the maps.

The following levels were adapted from Plutonia:

Speedrunning[edit]

IWADs
PWADs

Current Compet-n records[edit]

The Compet-n episode records for The Plutonia Experiment are:

Run Time Player Date File Notes
UV speed episode, MAP01-MAP10 08:50 kunkun 2013-06-16 0850pl01.zip
UV speed episode, MAP11-MAP20 10:17 kunkun 2013-07-19 1017pl11.zip
UV speed episode, MAP21-MAP30 12:31 kunkun 2013-08-10 1231pl21.zip
UV speed run 29:30 kunkun 2014-02-17 30pl2930.zip
NM speed episode, MAP01-MAP10 1
NM speed episode, MAP11-MAP20 1
NM speed episode, MAP21-MAP30 1
NM speed run 1
UV max episode, MAP01-MAP10 38:49 Vincent Catalaá (Peroxyd) 2005-02-25 3849pl01.zip
UV max episode, MAP11-MAP20 1:00:27 Revved 2011-10-04 6027pl11.zip
UV max episode, MAP21-MAP30 1:11:03 Revved 2012-10-06 7103pl21.zip
UV max run 2:54:33 Vincent Catalaá (Peroxyd) 2005-02-25 30plmax.zip
NM100S episode, MAP01-MAP10 1
NM100S episode, MAP11-MAP20 1
NM100S episode, MAP21-MAP30 1
NM100S run 1
UV -fast episode, MAP01-MAP10 1
UV -fast episode, MAP11-MAP20 1
UV -fast episode, MAP21-MAP30 1
UV -fast run 1
UV -respawn episode, MAP01-MAP10 1
UV -respawn episode, MAP11-MAP20 1
UV -respawn episode, MAP21-MAP30 1
UV -respawn run 1
UV Tyson episode, MAP01-MAP10 1
UV Tyson episode, MAP11-MAP20 1
UV Tyson episode, MAP21-MAP30 1
UV Tyson run 1
UV pacifist episode, MAP01-MAP10 1
UV pacifist episode, MAP11-MAP20 1
UV pacifist episode, MAP21-MAP30 1
UV pacifist run 1

The data was last verified in its entirety on November 22, 2020.

  1. No qualifying run verified and published, as of the most recent Compet-n database update.

Current DSDA records[edit]

The DSDA episode records for The Plutonia Experiment are:

Run Time Player Date File Notes
UV speed episode, MAP01-MAP10 06:25 Zero-Master 2017-06-27 ple1-625.zip
UV speed episode, MAP11-MAP20 08:26 kunkun 2014-02-22 ple2-826.zip
UV speed episode, MAP21-MAP30 11:00 kunkun 2014-02-24 ple3-1100.zip
UV speed run 19:08 Zero-Master 2021-03-22 30pl1908.zip
NM speed episode, MAP01-MAP10 12:27 S6kana 2020-02-18 ple1n1227.zip
NM speed episode, MAP11-MAP20 12:40 aconfusedhuman 2021-11-19 plep2n1240.zip
NM speed episode, MAP21-MAP30 15:46 Zero-Master 2015-03-28 ple3n1546.zip
NM speed run 34:28 Zero-Master 2020-10-29 30pn3428.zip
UV max episode, MAP01-MAP10 25:04 Drew DeVore (stx-Vile) 2021-01-09 ple1-2504.zip
UV max episode, MAP11-MAP20 1:00:27 Revved 2011-10-04 6027pl11.zip
UV max episode, MAP21-MAP30 1:11:03 Revved 2012-10-06 7103pl21.zip
UV max run 1:38:21 Drew DeVore (stx-Vile) 2021-01-29 plall-13821.zip
NM 100S episode, MAP01-MAP10 13:56 Zero-Master 2023-05-12 plep1ns1356.zip
NM 100S episode, MAP11-MAP20 27:34 Jean-Charles Dorne (JCD) 2021-08-26 ple2s2734.zip
NM 100S episode, MAP21-MAP30 17:12 aconfusedhuman 2022-02-23 plep3ns1712.zip
NM 100S run 1:03:31 Zero-Master 2023-05-06 30ps10331.zip
UV -fast episode, MAP01-MAP10 43:14 Tatsuya Ito (Tatsurd-cacocaco) 2022-10-26 pfe1-4314.zip
UV -fast episode, MAP11-MAP20 55:57 Tatsuya Ito (Tatsurd-cacocaco) 2022-10-30 pfe2-5557.zip
UV -fast episode, MAP21-MAP30 1:00:24 Tatsuya Ito (Tatsurd-cacocaco) 2022-11-01 pfe3-6024.zip
UV -fast run 2:44:29 Tatsuya Ito (Tatsurd-cacocaco) 2022-11-05 pfall-24429.zip
UV Tyson episode, MAP01-MAP10 3:36:16 j4rio 2019-12-15 ple1t21616.zip
NoMo episode, MAP11-MAP20 04:19 kvothesixstring 2022-12-07 ple2o419.zip
NoMo episode, MAP21-MAP30 08:29 kvothesixstring 2023-03-14 ple3o829.zip

The data was last verified in its entirety on May 27, 2023.

File specifications[edit]

The Plutonia Experiment is contained in an IWAD file called PLUTONIA.WAD. The most common version is 17,420,824 bytes in size and contains 2,984 entries. It has the following hashes:

Hash type Hash code
MD5 75c8cf89566741fa9d22447604053bd7
SHA-1 90361e2a538d2388506657252ae41aceeb1ba360
CRC-32 48d1453c

See also[edit]

Sources[edit]

This article incorporates text from the open-content Wikipedia online encyclopedia article Final Doom.

External links[edit]

References[edit]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Andrew Stine (11 December 1998). "Interview with Dario Casali." Doomworld: 5 Years of Doom.
  2. Doomworld forums post