Tower of WAR is not a good WAD; let’s get that out of the way right up front. It’s the only WAD I’ve discussed on this column that isn’t exactly awesome — and you can decide for yourself whether that means this whole thing has jumped the shark. I don’t enjoy playing Tower of WAR for the most part, if I’m completely honest, but I do actually think it’s worth checking out.
But what is Tower of WAR? Why haven’t you ever heard of it? Well, it was a 32-map megaWAD designed by a little-known mapper named Net Nomad. It was primarily created over a few months, more or less finished in 2003, and then promptly… never released publicly. Net Nomad left the Doom scene a few years later, and he disappeared from the internet entirely a few more after that.
The only reason I know anything about Tower of WAR is because I helped playtest it back in 2003. 15 long years ago, when Net Nomad was a clanmate of mine — and a friend.
I would never have been able to talk about this WAD if not for a user on Doomworld publishing it just last month. You can certainly question whether it’s okay to release a WAD when its author didn’t seem to want it released, but there’s a preservation angle that has some validity as well. In this case, I’m definitely biased, because this is about preserving something important to me.
See, Tower of WAR was the first WAD I ever playtested — a project I was deeply involved with and played each map as it was finished, all while watching Net Nomad grow as a mapper. I learned a lot from all that. Everything in Tower of WAR is 1000% beyond the caliber of maps I was creating at the time. It left such an impression that I still think about the WAD… probably more often than I should. I’ve emulated the silhouetted sunset showdown in Map03 in my own maps. I was thinking about its multi-floor tower maps when I made Tower of Lies. Everything I learned about crate mazes, for better or worse, I learned from Net Nomad.
Tower of WAR is a time capsule from 2003 — both the 2003 of my own development as a mapper and of the Doom mapping scene as a whole. It’s from a time before we were all pampered by the elegant simplicity of Doom Builder. Every map in the WAD was made in an old program called WAD Author, which I can personally attest to being slow and clunky on the best of days.
It’s also a window into the learning process every mapper goes through. The entire WAD was created sequentially, meaning Map01 was the first one Net Nomad made and 30 was the last. You can literally see him evolving and learning new tricks along the way. The moment he figured out 3D bridges, when he first heard about “deep” water, or when he discovered the bug that can create instantly-rising sectors to make enemies appear out of nowhere — it’s all right here.
There’s an abundance of ideas but not necessarily the skill to implement them well. Some design is really clever and fun, but it’s all dragged down by incredibly simplistic, amateurish mapping. So many 64- and 128-wide corridors and orthogonal angles. Switches with impossibly unclear functions. And my dude Net Nomad LOVED crate mazes and office cubicle levels too much for his own good.
Still, I kind of love it, at least for its first 15 maps or so — before things get too complicated and obtuse. It’s just so sincere and dumb and weird. More concept-y than you usually see in Doom (and heck, maybe my path to becoming a Gimmick Mapper started here too). Map08 has a genuinely solid tricks-and-traps kind of vibe. 12 is all about color, from color-coded laser barriers to completely monochrome key areas. 13 involves some prankster repeatedly flipping the lights off, so you’ve got to keep trekking back to the light switch to turn them back on. 17 has a great central lift that actually works like a semi-real elevator, something I’d never seen before that point.
I hadn’t played Tower of WAR since 2003. Having played it now for the first time in 15 years, it absolutely does not hold up in 2018. I honestly don’t recommend playing the whole WAD under any circumstances, but I do think it’s worthwhile to bounce between a few maps and just mess around with it for fifteen minutes. You’ll have to forgive a lot, not least of which is that it’s clearly not quite finished (including lots of misaligned textures and at least two maps I don’t think can be exited), but there is something special here. That something is pure, early-2000s creativity: ideas, ideas, ideas… even at the expense of playability.
If Net Nomad ever comes back to our little community, he could easily release a genuinely great version of Tower of WAR, provided he was willing to whittle it down to between 10 and 15 maps. There’s a gem in here somewhere; it’s just dang hard to see.
Tower of WAR requires DOOM2.WAD and runs in limit-removing ports. If you’re not sure how to get it running, this may help. And for more awesome WADs, be sure to check these out!