Ultimate Simpsons Doom

Summary
The Ultimate Simpsons Doom is a graphics and sound mod made by Myk Friedman & Walter Stabosz. In the mod you play as Homer Simpson killing his friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers (they replace the monsters). As it only replaces graphics and sounds it can be used with either Doom or Doom II.

The wad also contains a SNDINFO lump which remaps some sounds for source ports (such as ZDoom) that support this lump type. The original DOS engines and source ports that don't support this lump, will simply ignore it when the WAD is loaded and play the mod without the remapped sounds.

Cast

 * Homer Jay Simpson &mdash; Doomguy
 * Evil Homerbot — Wolfenstein SS
 * Moe Syzlak &mdash; Former Human
 * Chief Clancy Wiggum &mdash; Shotgun Guy
 * Abraham Jay "Grampa" Simpson &mdash; Heavy Weapon Dude
 * Ned Flanders &mdash; Imp
 * Barney Gumble &mdash; Demon/Spectre
 * The head of Herschel "Krusty the Klown" Krustofsky &mdash; Lost Soul
 * Bumblebee Man &mdash; Cacodemon
 * Apu Nahasapeemapetilon &mdash; Hell Knight
 * Robert "Sideshow Bob" Terwilliger &mdash; Baron of Hell
 * Maggie Simpson &mdash; Arachnotron
 * Groundskeeper Willie &mdash; Mancubus
 * Simpsons TV set &mdash; Pain Elemental
 * Bart Simpson &mdash; Revenant
 * Marge Simpson &mdash; Arch-Vile
 * Waylon Smithers &mdash; The Spider Mastermind
 * Mayor Quimby — Commander Keen (voice replacement only)
 * Charles Montgomery Burns &mdash; The Cyberdemon and The Icon of Sin
 * Nelson Muntz — Boss Brain (a hidden Muntz-head-on-a-stick replaces the standard Romero-head-on-a-stick)

Additionally, there exists a version of Simpsons Doom in which the characters that appear only in the secret levels (and were originally taken from other id Software video games) are, more appropriately, replaced with characters from animated TV shows other than The Simpsons.
 * Shaggy from Scooby-Doo — Wolfenstein SS
 * Beavis and Butt-Head from ''Beavis & Butt-Head - Commander Keen

Other
Homer uses the same exact weapons as in the original Doom games. However some of the items (the health restoring items and special items in particular) have changed to fit the atmosphere of the Simpsons.


 * A donut &mdash; Health Bonus
 * A donut with sprinkles &mdash; Armor Bonus
 * A can of Duff Beer &mdash; Stimpack
 * A 6-Pack of Duff Beer &mdash; Medikit or Backpack
 * A Bucket of Chicken &mdash; Soul Sphere
 * A Purple Bowling Ball &mdash; MegaSphere

The ammo and armor items remain mostly the same as in the original Doom games, with some exceptions (for example, a box of shotgun shells is now a pile of donuts, and the rocket box is now labelled "UAC Donuts" instead of "UAC Rockets"). The stages in the game are exactly like those in whatever IWAD is loaded, but having a more colorful appearance. This is because the WADfile has no level data, only sounds and graphics. It is thus possible to use this mod with other Doom-based games, such as Ultimate Doom or Final Doom, and also with any level mod which doesn't depend upon replacing standard Doom flats with custom graphics (mods which define additional graphics which don't replace the standard ones, such as TNT.WAD, should work okay, and once you learn which Simpsonised flats replace which standard/custom ones, all other mods should be playable).

Quotes
This game has a set of (sometimes comedic) quotes straight from the TV show (and sometimes other shows).

Homer Simpson

 * Falling from a high ledge &mdash; "HAAALO!!!"
 * Attacking an enemy with a punch &mdash; "I'm trying to knock you out!!" (Duffless)
 * Pushing on a wall &mdash; "Shut up!"
 * Picking up an item &mdash; "*Munch* *munch*... more." (Treehouse of Horror IV)
 * Picking up a special item &mdash; "Can't murder now. Eating."
 * Picking up a weapon &mdash; "WAAAAAAAAHHHHHH."
 * Gibbing an enemy &mdash; "Heh, heh, heh. Where's the beef?
 * Taking damage &mdash; "D'oh!" (stock clip)
 * Death &mdash; "OW!! Ow, they're defending themselves somehow."

Evil Homerbot

 * Intro &mdash; "Ahahahahahahaha."
 * Active — "Shut up!"
 * Damage / Dies — "D'oh!" (stock clip)

Moe Syzlak

 * Intro &mdash; "What are you looking at?" or "I'm gonna shove a sausage down your throat and put starving dogs up your butt."(New Kid on the Block)
 * Pain — "AAUUGH"
 * Death &mdash;  "AAUUGH, GGGAAAHHH. I'm choking on my own rage, here" or "I don't deserve this kind of shabby treatment." (Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part Two))

Chief Wiggum

 * Intro &mdash; "Send it this way, boy."(I Love Lisa) or "What's that? You want me to shoot everyone?".
 * Pain — "Ow!" (or could be "D'oh!", please listen to the sound clip on the blog)
 * Death &mdash; "You'll burn for this." or "That's nice work, boys."

Grampa Simpson

 * Intro &mdash; "We have to kill the boy!" (Treehouse of Horror IV) or "(gasps) You're making my (indistinguishable)!" or "What are you cackling at, fatty? Too much pie, that's your problem!" (Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in "The Curse of the Flying Hellfish")
 * Damage — "Argh!"
 * Death &mdash; "Must you—! What the—! Don't sneak up on us!" or "Gah, darnit." (Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy) or "About time, nuthead!" (Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in "The Curse of the Flying Hellfish")

Ned Flanders

 * Intro &mdash; "I'M A MUR-DIDDLY-URDLER!!!" or "Hi-de-ho-a-roonie, neighbor!"
 * Active — "Diddly-ho!"
 * Damage &mdash; "WOAH, Nelly."
 * Punch — (light fist sound)
 * Death &mdash; "Murdered? MUOAOAOAOAOAO." or "WOOHOO! In your face, Flanders!" (the latter of course spoken by Homer)

Barney

 * Intro &mdash; "LALALALA PADOO!"
 * Active — "Ohhh"
 * Attacking &mdash;  (stock clip)
 * Damage &mdash; "OW!" (Duffless)
 * Death &mdash; "OW! Cut it out!" (Duffless)

Krusty the Klown

 * Attacking &mdash; "MUAWHAHAHAHA!"
 * Damage &mdash; "GAH!"

Bumblebee Man

 * Intro &mdash; " “¡Ay, ay, ay, no me gusta!” (stock clip — “I don’t like it!”)
 * Damage &mdash; "Ay."
 * Death &mdash; "¡Ay, no es bueno!" (stock clip — “that's not good!”)

Apu

 * Intro &mdash; "Silly customer, you can not hurt a Twinkie."
 * Death &mdash; 'I'll see you in hell."

Sideshow Bob

 * Intro &mdash; "Prepare to be murdered."
 * Death &mdash; "I'll be back. MWAHAHAHA!"

Maggie Simpson

 * Intro &mdash; (Sucking on her Pacifier) (stock clip)
 * Attacking — (rising note)
 * Death &mdash; "Daddy." (Lisa's First Word)

Groundskeeper Willie

 * Intro &mdash; "You Croquet-playing, mint muncher."
 * Death &mdash; "You blouse-wearing, poodle walker!" (Treehouse of Horror IV)

Simpsons' TV

 * Intro &mdash; "They fight, and fight and fight and fight and fight." (stock clip)
 * Damage — "Yow, ii—"
 * Death &mdash; "The Itchy & Scratchy Show!" (stock clip)

Bart Simpson

 * Intro &mdash; "MWAHAHAHAHA!!"
 * Damage &mdash; "Ow, quit it." (Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire)
 * Death &mdash; "NNNNNNOOOOOOOO!!!"

Marge Simpson

 * Intro &mdash; "Watch out for the Shaq Attack!"
 * Hunting &mdash; (plaintively) "Homer!"
 * Death &mdash; "I told you to watch out."

Mr. Burns (Cyberdemon)

 * Intro &mdash; "Ah, fresh victims for my ever growing army of the undead." (Treehouse of Horror IV)
 * Damage &mdash; "Damnit!."
 * Death &mdash; "All bones...shattered. All organs...leaking...vital fluids. Slight headache...loss of appetite. Smithers, I'm going to die."

Smithers

 * Intro &mdash; "Kill my boss? Do I dare to live out the American dream?" (Treehouse of Horror IV, although this line is actually said by Homer)
 * Damage &mdash; "Nice job."
 * Death &mdash; "SMITHEEEEERS!!!" (said by Burns?)

Mayor Quimby

 * Damage / Death — "I'm being attacked by a... (pause) ...thing!"

Nelson Muntz (Boss Brain)

 * Intro &mdash;  "Welcome to the Nether Regions of the soul." (does evil laugh)
 * Damage — "HA-HA!"
 * Death — "Hey, look: Sergeant Dork! Ha-ha!" (Boy-Scoutz 'n the Hood)

Actions

 * Pressing a button / selecting a menu item &mdash; "Don't touch it! It's the history eraser button, you fool!" (From the Ren &amp; Stimpy episode Space Madness)

Textures

 * The "D'oh" graffito on some textures is Homer's famous annoyed grunt.
 * "No TV and no beer make Homer go something something" refers to Treehouse of Horror V.
 * Various of the impaled or hanging corpses are replaced by Simpsons characters, such as Lisa or Santa's Little Helper. One of them is the ham from Moe Baby Blues.

ULSIMPDM lump (contains list of music replaced)
The WAD contains an ULSIMPDM lump which is only accessible by using a level editor. It is reproduced below; it has been reformatted for wiki presentation, American dates have been changed to International, and email addresses (which after all this time probably no longer work) have been removed, but this is otherwise substantially unchanged. (Any and all spelling errors, such as "Quickie-Mart" for the Kwik-E-Mart, are in the original.) Start ULSIMPDM

presenting...          the ULTIMATE SIMPSONS-DooM2: Hell in Springfield!!!

NOTICE

This wad takes advantage of special features only found in the ZDoom source port. ZDoom is available for download at http://zdoom.notgod.com. (As of 2014 this link no longer works; go via the ZDoom article link instead.) The wad is fully compatible with other versions of Doom, including the original Id doom2.exe. I am unsure about Mac Doom compatibility. The ZDoom features used keep the characters from saying each others lines. In other word for best game play results use ZDoom. Make sure you have doom2.wad in the same folder as the simpdoom.wad and zdoom.exe.

INSTALLATION

Ideally you will want to download ZDoom to play this wad, but if you are using the old doom2.exe from Id you will want to run the install.bat file. It will make the wad playable by adding all the Doom2 graphics to it.

To run Ultimate Simpsons Doom type one of the following:
 * zdoom -file simpdoom.wad
 * doom2 -file simpdoom.wad

For portfolio evaluation purposes, I have included several save-game files of locations that highlight the modifications made to the sprites and textures. You may want to turn on god-mode before proceeding in order to get a good look at the bosses.

WHY?

After playing this wad, I would imagine you'd be asking yourself one quesion... "Why?" Why the hell did I spend 2 weeks creating this elaborate modification of DooM2? Well, as a professional, award-winning commercial animator at a small but reputable studio in Dallas, I found myself with a lot of free time on my hands during a slow project season with very few clients. I was poking around AOL for some game demos I could download when I found the original SIMPSONS DooM patch created by "Spooky" Steve Blauwkamp and "Decapitated" Chuck Fuoco. The .wav files they chose for the sounds were hilarious, except they ran so long that they'd all run together during game play, making them difficult to listen to. The artwork on the sprites was very creative, although somewhat primitive-looking with a limited number of animated frames per character. It was still pretty fun, but being such a discernable animator, I felt compelled to improve it for my own satisfaction. Besides, I did have a LOT of free time, as I said.

So, if the old DooM2 has become tiresome and dull, these wads will add a whole new look to those drab textures. The original design is almost unrecognizable in some places! Now if I can just figure out the level editor...

WHAT'S NEW?

Every sprite (except the player) was completely reanimated, including a lot of the still-object sprites. They have the same number of frames as the original DooM2, each with it's own original death sequence which I think you'll find amusing. Heh heh heh... the cast You: Homer

Player: no modifications

Zombieman: Moe the bartender

Shotgun guy: Police Chief Wiggum

Heavy weapon dude: Grampa Abraham Simpson

Imp: Ned Flanders

Demon: Barney (the drunk guy)

Lost soul: Krusty the Clown flying head

Pain Elemental: TV showing the Krusty the Clown Show, with Itchy & Scratchy

Cacodemon: the guy in the Bee-suit on the Spanish television channel

Hell Knight: Apu, the Quickie-Mart manager

Baron of Hell: Sideshow Bob

Arachnotron: Maggie Simpson

Revenant: Bart Simpson

Mancubus: Willie the Scotsman-groundskeeper at Springfield Elementary

Arch-Vile: Marge Simpson

Spider Mastermind: Cyber-Smithers Tank (Wayland Smithers, Mr. Burns' flunky)

CyberDemon: Robo-Burns Mecha-Suit (Montgomery Burns, Homer's boss)

the Secret Level Nazi-guy: Evil Homer-bot

A lot of the patches and flats have been modified with wacky patterns and colorful psychadelic sequences, as well as some entirely original Simpson art here and there. Although it's somewhat cartoony-looking, I managed to keep the gore motif. Oh, and I got a little lazy after a couple of weeks of alterations, so I threw in a couple of "cheesecake" pics of hot babes on the walls (and one object-sprite). Nothing notty, just a couple of shots of Christina Applegate, the YUMMIEST woman on TV and film in my opinion, and one other woman who I can't identify but she's striking an interesting pose (the sprite is hard to find in the DooM2 levels, but it's all over the master levels). I should warn you that some of the patterns were duplicated over certain types of walls, so those hidden doors may be harder to find!

The essential graphics have been altered including the backgrounds between levels and the roll-call at the end of the game, plus a WICKED title screen!!! The status bar is different, complete with lil' Homer heads in the center box. I was afraid to mess with the text. I tried it with the original DooM once, and it messed everything up.

Most of the sounds were extracted from the original SimpsonsDooM patch, with the length edited for better game play. The original had such perfectly chosen sound bytes from the show, that I didn't dare modify them, even though one of them doesn't fit the character it's assigned to. More on that later.

I managed to swap out most of the music files with some amusing midi files I got off AOL. Naturally, I HAD to get the Simpson's theme song in there! HOW?

I think the reason this took the better part of a month, is that I have absolutely NO programming skills, and had a difficult time getting Wintex to work for me. I finally realized that as I kept adding sprites to my main wad for testing, I was building up the wadinfo file with each batch of changes. After a while, the program simply crashed every time I tried to do anything with an error message I didn't understand. Once I figured this out, it went pretty smoothly, but each new test wad took about an hour to build (it took 2 hours to create the final versions!).

All the files were extracted with Wintex 3.0. All the sprites were imported into Autodesk Animator Pro (the best damn 2-D animation software in existence!), then split up into individual flics of each character, and faded out to use as a trace reference for the sprites' moves. Then came the tricky part. I had to convert the new frames to .bmp files that would replace the DooM files. I couldn't figure out how to batch-save them over the DooM art, since the frames aren't sequentially numbered, so I had to save them ONE... BY... ONE. Almost 1000 images. Just when I thought that would be the worst part, I found that the wad-building process had thrown all the char- acter's positions all out of whack, so they bounced all over the screen when played. I couldn't find a way to batch it in Wintex, so using Wintex 4.0, I had to re-align each individual frame. It wasn't as tedious as the saving process, but it was still a pain towards the end, when I had replaced all the art.

The patches, flats and graphics were considerably easier. I just painted over the original files in Fractal Painter.

The Cyber-Smithers and Homer-Bot were built using 3-D Studio. It started off as just an experimental thing, but the Smithers came out so nice that I kept it. The Homer isn't as cool, but that sprite doesn't appear in the game much anyway.

ANY BUGS?

I haven't found any problems with the final yet, other than the asthetic discrepancies in the wall images not always blending together properly, and the one mismatched voice. When Marge/ArchVile is walking around, a wav file of Mayor Quimby is assigned to her. It was just so funny, I had to stick it in the game somewhere! By the way, I changed that demon's "flame attack" to something a bit different. I just hated the way the fire-effect completely abscured your vision.

Also, the Homer head in the status bar doesn't always properly match the amount of damage he's taken. I might've fixed it before I upload this, though.

The only other problem is the actual SIZE of the sprites. I drew them a bit larger than the originals so that the detail and facial expressions were clearly visible. This causes the player's perspective to appear slightly shorter, as if Homer had shrunk in the wash! It's a minor annoyance, but this also causes the Robo-Burns' missles to shoot out of his groin, rather than his chest. Oops! Well, I guess it's funnier that way.

DOMO ARIGATO...

Many thanks to ID software, of course. Maybe I can get a graphic production job using this as part of my portfolio? We shall see...

Thanks to GT Interactive for the Maximum Doom CD (which has a newer version of the original Simpsons DooM on it). I wish I had discovered this patch file before the CD was produced.

Thankyou, Matt Groening and FOX Television (and Klasky Csupo Studios), for creating the most hilarious (and longest running) animated series ever! I hope and pray that it will continue for another decade, if not longer.

Unfortunately, I didn't think to document the credits for the midi files I downloaded, but I should at least acknowledge the songs used: The Simpsons theme, The theme from The Munsters, "Miserlou" (from Pulp Fiction), The theme from "StarBlazers" (Space Cruiser Yamato), the Hogan's Heroes theme song, the Pink Panther theme, the theme from Chef!, the Urusei Yatsura (Lum) theme, "Linus" from the Peanuts TV episodes, the theme from I Dream of Jeannie, the Dating Game theme, and the theme from Monty Python's Flying Circus are all copyrighted and owned by their respective companies and creators. There.

Lastly, but certainly not leastly, thanks to Steve Blauwkamp and Chuck Fuoco for the original Simpsons DooM, and for giving me something to do while in between projects.

WALTER SAYS... (2002-03-09)

Hi, I'm Walter Stabosz. I'm gonna tell a little story about this wad. I helped Myk make this wad distributable. What's that mean? Well a long time ago (1998) when Myk wanted to upload his wad to the cdrom.com archive they rejected it because it contained images and sounds that were copyrighted by Id Software. So for years this awesome wad went unplayed by the majority of the Doom loving population. I was one of the lucky few who had downloaded a copy of this wad when it was still up on a website Myk had made. I would have never heard about this wad if I hadn't emailed Myk in 1998 about a Southpark wad he was working on.

A couple of years when by and a couple of hard drives got erased, and when I wanted to play this wad again I could not find it! I couldn't even find Myk's email address. After a few weeks of searching, with the help of I found an old newsgroup post he had done.

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=19980313073401.CAA11240%40ladder01.news.aol.com&output=gplain

Once again I contacted Myk and told him I wanted the wad and furthermore wanted to make it distributable. He promptly mailed me a zip disk and I got to work. It actually only took me a few hours to remove the copyrighted Id material. However since I had this wad in my hands I thought, why not improve it. I checked around and found that with the sndinfo.lmp file in ZDoom, I could fix the annoying monsters saying each others lines bug.

The rest of the time spend on the wad I was searching the Internet for Simpsons sound clips. It is hard to find good quality sound clips! Eventually I recorded some sounds from The Simpsons Wrestling game for Playstation and The Simpsons Road Rage for PS2. I also added another song, Inagodadavida by Iron Butterfly. The zip file also includes test.wad which is just a map with all the monster in individual rooms. I used it for wad testing purposes.

Finally it is done. Enjoy.

If you want, you can reach me at (redacted)

MORE?

Who knows? First I intend to send this to ID with my resume and portfolio before I do anything else, but I have been considering creating other patch-wads based on various cartoon shows. I may do a Looney-DooM with all the classic Warner Brothers charcters. I would rather do one based on my favorite WB show, "Steven Spoelberg presents: FREAKAZOID!", but there are hardly any good wav files available on-line, and I don't have the resources to record my own just yet. If you have any comments or suggestions, my e-mail address is: (redacted)

Thanks for reading all this, and ENJOY!!! End ULSIMPDM

Trivia

 * Apart from visual appropriateness, the likely reason Maggie was chosen to be the Arachnotron is because the Arachnotron's thing type is MT_BABY.
 * According to WAD author Myk Friedman, Maggie and MT_BABY is just a coincidence.
 * Another pun involves casting Marge as the Arch-Vile &mdash; thus making her a Marge-Vile.