Joke WAD



A joke WAD is a WAD file which is made as a joke. In some cases, a level may be so bad that it is hard to tell whether it is merely badly designed or a joke WAD of some sort, such is the case for wow.wad.

Varieties of joke WADs
Joke WADs may take one of several forms:


 * Parodies of badly made WAD files: these may include deliberate bugs, look generally sloppy, or use ridiculous graphics. Note that this does not always preclude good game-play.
 * Some joke WADs may take the engine to ridiculous extremes, such as by including an unreasonable number of monsters in a single room or creating levels which break Doom's limitations on purpose.
 * Some joke wads are created as a parody or homage to a community event. Most famous of these is perhaps the dwforums.wad series.
 * Some others use funny sounds or funny sprites.

Note that what the above all have in common is humorous intent — a WAD which is merely badly made, without any intention of being a deliberate parody of WAD design, is just a bad WAD, not a joke WAD as such.

Example joke WADs

 * For a more comprehensive list, see Category:Joke WADs.

Mockery and derivatives
The Mockery TC was started in 1998 to parody other WADs that were full of poor design and bad attention to detail. Screenshots that were released demonstrate techniques such as huge rooms with long-distance projectile throwing monsters and mix-and-match slime and blood walls and floors.

The mockery TC was never finished and is considered long-abandoned. This may be due to a lack of interest in the project (the joke having been delivered without having to complete the WAD), or perhaps it was deliberately abandoned, as a reference to the long tradition of unfinished TCs.

Mock 2: The Speed of Stupid is an unofficial sequel to Mockery which was released and was designed to not look like a serious wad (but remains fun to play). Techniques employed include using levels randomly generated by Slige. This megawad contains 41 levels (31 thru 40 are a connected chain of secret levels; 41 is the "ending" level).

The New Adventure is a megawad inspired by Mock 2 designed to be even funnier, though not as successful. All levels in it were designed completely by Paul Corfiatis.


 * Mockery TC

nuts.wad and derivatives
Nuts by B.P.R.D is one of the most famous joke wads. The entire wad is simply two massive courtyards containing 10617 monsters and is almost unplayable on Vanilla Doom. Most computers, even in recent years, have trouble processing all of the monsters after the player has woken them up, causing the game's framerate to drop into single digits. It is featured in Doomworld's Top 10 Infamous WADs. Several sequels and homages have also been created.

NOTE: Nuts has been proven possible to play, and easily beat by the utilization of source ports and monster infighting. If the player is not concerned about 100% kills and is using a port that disables infinitely tall monsters, the level is relatively easy; all the player has to do is straferun over the heads of the first wave of monsters until reaching the exit arena, and then surf on arch-vile blasts to the exit switch.


 * , by the author of Nuts
 * , by the author of Nuts
 * , by Biohazard
 * , requiring Boom and created by Bejiitas_Wrath
 * , requiring Boom and created by Bejiitas_Wrath

dwforums.wad and sequels
The original dwforums joke WAD was created to parody the community which centered around the Doomworld forums. It was popular enough to warrant two sequels. The first lampooned the #zdoom IRC channel and was released on Doom's 10th birthday. The second was designed as a re-enactment of events that took place on the Newdoom forums.

The author of all three WADs has opted to remain anonymous, however it is believed that it is the same author for all three.



Beavis and Butthead, Simpsons
Some joke WADs use funny sounds, funny sprites or funny environments, for example the first versions of Kansam's Trial heavily uses funny sounds in normal Doom levels.

Other

 * Community is Falling series by Samuel "Kaiser" Villarreal
 * : a WAD which played on the Impse meme