Doom Hell Knight Sprite

This page details one or more prototype versions of Doom II: Hell on Earth (PC).

In the BREW 2.0 and 2.1 versions of Doom RPG, the highest tier of the 'pinky' class of monsters, the belphegor, is rendered as a spectre rather than appearing as a blue-colored demon like it did in the J2ME builds of the game. There are some tricks that can help make spectres more visible: their shimmering outline is much easier to see with the inverted colors of an invulnerability. In vanilla doom for comparison, the weapon could be fired as soon as the walk cycle recommenced. Of course holding down the fire button produces the normal firing rate. Attempting to fire using timed clicks does not. For example, in vanilla doom, the pistol can be spam-clicked, and still produce its maximum fire rate.

While no prototypes of Doom II's WAD file (used for most game data) are known to exist, the Doom betas released by id throughout 1994, along with the earlier bootleg version, all have some support for the game. These give some insight into Doom II's development, and while it's not a complete picture, it's still pretty interesting.

• 1All Versions
  • 1.3Monster Behavior
• 2Bootleg v1.3/1.4
  • 2.3Monster Behavior
• 3Sybex v1.25
  • 3.1Monster Behavior
• 4Beta v1.4
  • 4.1Line Actions
  • 4.2Monster Behavior
• 5Beta v1.5
  • 5.2Monster Behavior
• 6Beta v1.6

All Versions

Loading Doom II

Simply having DOOM2.WAD in the same directory as a beta executable is enough to load it, since like the final version they give it priority over the registered or shareware version of Doom. However, certain required resources are not present in the final WAD. These resources are in the registered DOOM.WAD, however, so the following command line can be used to load the game without modifying anything:

This will load the resources from DOOM.WAD, then reload those from DOOM2.WAD, replacing any shared between games and fixing sprite and flat graphic loading.

General Differences

• The episode selection and 'Read This!' menus are still present.
  • Changing the episode only affects the sky, music, and map names used. The game is already set up to load levels from MAPxx lumps like the final version.
• Doom filenames are used for music and the intermission level names.
• The level names on the automap are still from Doom. MAP10 = E2M1.

Monster Behavior

Arachnotron

• Uses the Spider Mastermind sounds.
• Does not fire plasma, instead it has a chaingun! This chaingun fires with the same sound as the player's, unlike the Heavy Weapon Dude and Spider Mastermind.
• Crashes the game when killed, due to using a sprite frame not present in the final version.

Bootleg v1.3/1.4

A version of Doom leaked on April 8, 1994. It shouldn't be confused with the official v1.4 beta. The internal version is actually 1.3, but the startup text in the most widely available copy has been hacked to read 1.4 instead of printing the version number integers. This is the first version of the engine with support for Doom II, however at this time it doesn't expect DOOM2.WAD, but instead DOOMR.WAD, so you will need to rename your WAD file and adjust the command line appropriately.

General Differences

• Progression between levels still uses Doom behavior:
  • Completing MAP08 will show the episode 1 end text.
  • MAP09's exit leads to MAP04, since E1M9 was a secret level.
  • MAP10 and beyond will crash the game on exit.
• The intermission screens use Doom's backdrops.

Things

Most things aren't present in this version, meaning very few maps can be played. MAP01 and MAP13 work.

Monster Behavior

Arch-Vile, Heavy Weapon Dude, Revenant

• Placeholders:
  • Use Shotgun Guy sprites for their walking animations, but Heavy Weapon Dude sprites for their attacking and dying animations.
  • Use the Heavy Weapon Dude's attack.
  • Use former human sounds.

Hell Knight

• Uses the Baron of Hell sprites and sounds, but already has half its health.

Mancubus

• Uses the former human sight, pain, and death sounds. Has no action sound when firing.
• Fireballs use the same sprites as the Baron of Hell projectiles.
• The final death frame is not used.

Sybex v1.25

This is a shareware version that came with The Official Doom Survivor's Strategies & Secrets guide published by Sybex. Its files are dated April 21, 1994. Strangely, despite the lower version number, this appears to be an intermediate version between v1.3 and v1.4. The engine now expects DOOM2.WAD and the startup text reads 'DOOM System Startup' instead of 'DOOM Operating System'.

Monster Behavior

Heavy Weapon Dude

• Now identical to final.

Mancubus

• Now uses the Baron of Hell's sight sound before firing.

Beta v1.4

id's official v1.4, released on June 28, 1994. Unfortunately, it requires eight textures which are not present in either WAD and will refuse to run levels without them.

Line Actions

Sliding Door

124 can be used to create a horizontally sliding door! Anyone familiar with Doom's renderer knows that a sector can only change vertically, the result of using a static BSP tree defined in the NODES lump for each map. To work around this limitation, a door created with this action isn't a sector at all: the line's front side middle texture animates through GDOORF1-4 when activated, while the back animates GDOORB1-4. When the animation is complete, the blocking flag is unset from the line. Activating the door a second time will play the animation back in reverse and reset the blocking flag. This action's reliance on these animated textures is why a separate WAD must be loaded to play this beta, and is likely why this line action has been restricted to Doom II.

These doors are far from perfect, since the blocking flag doesn't block hitscans or projectiles, meaning they pass through the doors like they're not even there. The animations are also very choppy and unconvincing, a result of only using four frames. The code for these doors is actually still present in the released source code, but the action to activate them has been commented out.

Monster Behavior

Pain Elemental

• Uses final sprites, but behavior is identical to a Cacodemon.

Beta v1.5

id's second shareware beta, released on July 8, 1994. As the code for sliding doors is still present, you'll still need GDOOR.WADMicrosoft windows xp iso. linked above to run levels.

General Differences

• The intermission screen now uses the TITLEPIC as the backdrop, but darkens it. The final version has its own INTERPIC graphic for intermissions.

Monster Behavior

Arch-Vile

• Uses former human sounds.
• Attack is identical to the final version, but it uses the teleport fog sprites as a placeholder for the fire, and plays BFG firing sounds.

Pain Elemental

• Now has final behavior.

Revenant

• Jumps before firing a rocket!
• Always fires homing rockets.
• Rockets use the same sprites as the Cyberdemon and player's do, but with a smoke trail like the final rocket.

Beta v1.6

The last shareware beta, released on August 3, 1994, predating the release of Doom II by a little under two months.

General Differences

• The GDOORx# textures are no longer referenced.
• Level progression is now similar to the final version, but without the text screens.

From DoomWiki.org

Spectres are partially invisible, ethereal beings which, except for their fuzzy, blurred appearance, are exactly the same as the demon in behavior and attributes. They often hide in darkened areas, waiting to startle players. Spectres do not have states or sprites of their own, but instead share them entirely with the demon.

Spectres appear as shimmering beings, acting like a lens which distorts and reflects the light passing around and through their translucent bodies, making them hard to spot in dark areas or against certain textures, such as grey speckled walls. However, in bright areas, they are noticeably visible and spotty. The original README.TXT included with the shareware version of Doom described spectres as 'vague, half-formed shapes'.

The spectre's official description follows:

Variations[edit]

In many OpenGL source ports, as well as in Doom 64 and the Sony PlayStation version of Doom, spectres do not 'shimmer', but are instead rendered using translucency. This is because the partial invisibility effect is very difficult to reproduce using such a renderer. EDGE, however, emulates the effect using a shader, and GZDoom allows users to select one of several 'simulated' effect presets to suit their tastes.

For similar reasons, the Atari Jaguar code base omits support for the partial invisibility effect entirely. This port, along with most others based on it, therefore do not truly contain a spectre monster - though spectres still occur in some of the maps, they are rendered identically to demons and are thus completely indistinguishable from them. Others were selectively removed or replaced with normal demons, without any consistency or discernible pattern.

The PlayStation version, aside from featuring ordinary spectres at both 25% and 100% additive translucency levels, introduced a stronger version of the spectre called the nightmare spectre which uses subtractive blending, giving it a dark green, ectoplasmic appearance. These spectre variants are retained in the Sega Saturn port, though they are indistinguishable from regular spectres in that port as all of the varieties use the same stippled pseudo-translucency effect. This effect depended on a combination of analog signal processing and CRT pixel bleed to look smooth, and does not appear correct on modern hardware.

In Doom 64 specifically, inactive spectres are initially rendered as opaque demons with a green tint (a nod back to the nightmare spectre), becoming translucent upon detecting the player. Upon death, they revert to an opaque state again. Spectres also appear in the Doom 64 Cast of Characters sequence at the end of the game, unlike the spectre in the Doom II cast sequence.

In Doom II for Game Boy Advance, the spectre is notably present despite its absence in its predecessor, due to using an off-the-shelf game engine purpose-built to run on the platform. It is rendered with a bright silhouette and refractive lens-like effect which distorts the background behind it, though it lacks the static noise of the original. However, this effect does not typically make the monster harder to see, but in fact makes it stand out.

In the BREW 2.0 and 2.1 versions of Doom RPG, the highest tier of the 'pinky' class of monsters, the belphegor, is rendered as a spectre rather than appearing as a blue-colored demon like it did in the J2ME builds of the game.

Notes[edit]

• There are some tricks that can help make spectres more visible: their shimmering outline is much easier to see with the inverted colors of an invulnerability sphere, for example, and they feature a fully visible blood-splatter effect when hit.
• The spectre does not appear in the Doom II cast sequence at the end of the game.
• If a spectre's corpse is crushed, the pool of gibs left behind continues to display the partial invisibility effect. In most hardware accelerated ports, the gibs will be translucent.

Data[edit]

1. This table assumes that all calls to P_Random for damage, pain chance, and blood splats are consecutive. In real play, this is never the case: counterattacks and AI pathfinding must be handled, and of course the map may contain additional moving monsters and other randomized phenomena (such as flickering lights). Any resulting errors are probably toward the single-shot average, as they introduce noise into the correlation between the indices of 'consecutive' calls.
2. Assumes that direct hits are possible, which does not occur in any stock map.

Appearance statistics[edit]

In the IWADs the spectre is first encountered on these maps per skill level:

The IWADs contain the following numbers of spectres per skill level:

Of the maps covered on the Doom Wiki, the following have the highest numbers of Spectres in single-player on skills 4-5:

This data was last verified on August 2, 2019.

See also[edit]