Overview
After months of working with UDB (Ultimate Doom Builder) and creating smaller mods, I decided to challenge myself and aim higher. I wanted to build something unique. Α fusion of Resident Evil's iconic survival horror atmosphere with Doom's fast-paced gameplay. The result is a mod that gives the classic 1993 Doom a fresh and modern twist. Players once again explore the Raccoon City Police Station, searching for keys, solving environmental puzzles, fighting enemies, and slowly uncovering the mystery.
After release, the mod reached over 250 players, a number I'm genuinely proud of and honestly never expected. Seeing something I built get this attention has been one of the most rewarding parts of the project.
• Playtime: 25–30 minutes
• Development Time: 8 weeks
Workflow
- I started by collecting references from the original Raccoon City Police Station to capture its authentic layout and atmosphere.
- Once I had a solid visual foundation, I moved to GZDoom and began blocking out the main areas of the map.
- After establishing the complete structure, I started placing gameplay elements specifically the key items required for the player to progress through the map.
- Next, I placed enemies in strategic positions to create challenging and varied combat encounters.
- Finally, after several playtesting sessions I carefully adjusted and placed ammo, health packs, and other resources to balance the overall experience and pacing.
Problems encountered and how i solved them
- One of the primary challenges I faced was GZDoom's 2.5D architecture, which prevents direct stacking of sectors for multi-story floors due to rendering glitches. My solution was to create a separate sector for the upper floor and use a teleporter to seamlessly transport the player there, effectively resolving multi-level navigation. That solved the problem of having floors and created a sense of verticality that proved vital for the player experience. This taught me a lot about engine limitations and how to think creatively to overcome them.
Reflection and Challenges
- This project was an extremely valuable experience for me. I set a clear deadline of 8 weeks and committed to it, which forced me to plan carefully and stay highly motivated throughout the entire development process.
- The strict timeline kept me constantly engaged and pushed me to improve the project every day. During development I was continuously researching new techniques, iterating on my designs, and learning game design and level design practices along the way.
- The greatest design challenge was maintaining consistent flow and pacing. I wanted to keep surprising the player with new elements, mechanics, and moments of tension throughout the entire experience. Playtesting and external feedback would have been extremely helpful, but since I was working solo, I had to rely entirely on self experimentation to refine the balance and feel.
Screenshots
