And there it is: Yet another Doomsday for one of the greatest games in history. For the 21st time now, Doom celebrates its birthday and even though id software already knew about the impact they make, I am sure non of the former members actually expected their game to be modded and ported 21 years after its release. Happy Birthday! Next to that, Doomworld just published their article of the Annual Cacowards and there is a lot of interesting stuff to read through for you:

2014 has been a pretty busy year, and while picking the winners has been relatively easy, the honorable mentions have been a knock-down drag-out brawl. From the way things look, 2015 will be a real blood tornado. The same crew is back from last year, with Alfonzo and I tag teaming the main stuff, dew looking at the multiplayer side of things, and Xaser filling in the holes with glorious, glorious towers. We even managed to get write-ups from Scuba Steve and Quasar! I'd also like to give a shout-out to Brandon D. Lade, who's gone almost an entire year without getting outed on the Doomworld forums, which must take considerable willpower on his part. Here's to another exciting year of Ladespotting.

So, congratulations to all of the winners, looking forward to yet another productive and exciting year with all of you together! Let's go for another one!

A big part of Doom's everlasting output of quality WADS comes from the novelty of ideas that have come up in its tenure. Limiting the player to a defined area (Congestion 1024) or discussing philosophy through Doom (The Revenant Problem), the creativity from which these ideas are derived is surprisingly original. In this same category comes The 64 KB Challenge, a MegaWAD led by Walter confetti and a huge team of co-authors.

The rules are simple: All your data (music, sounds, graphics) and the map you make must fit within 64 kilobyte. Doom2 is the preferred IWAD and the Challenge will come in two flavors: A MegaWAD of vanilla maps, and a pack of limit-removing maps, where it is suggested to use Crispy Doom or Boom with complevel 2 if you want to contribute to this pack. To add to the variety whether you want to map for vanilla or in limit-removing flavors a custom texturepack and a series of new monsters (through DeHacked) are provided for you to toy around with. The 64 KB Challenge is still underway, but have a look, take a stroll, and see what can be achieved within just 64 kilobytes of data.

Yes, good news, Realm667's very own project WolfenDoom : Blade of Agony is still going and under heavy progress. In the spirit of Laz Rojas' brilliant work in the late 90's we are currently working on the maps, settings and the main plot. Things are coming along nicely but it's not always easy if you have to handle things you have never touched before (arrays in scripts, SBARINFO, latest DECORATE features). As of now we have a compact team working on everything at the same time via GitHub but we are always looking for some support in the mapping- and spriting department. So if you are interested in joining, give us a shot in the forums, we'd be happy to have you onboard! It's definitely also worth checking for some more information and screenshots on the project - stay tuned!

After an on-and-off development phase of 3 years together with Nash Muhandes, Blue Shadow and Ozymandias81, we are proud to present you the long-awaited remaster of one the most prominent Realm667 classics: The City of the Damned 2 - Apocalypse. This is not just a visual facelift but an extensive overhaul. So what can you expect from this team-effort?

• Improved progression and modern-style game design
• Combat tweaks with punchier weapons
• Bespoke(tm) gore effects by Nash Muhandes, made specifically for TCOTD2
• A journal to keep track of your objectives, as well any letters you've found
• A new, custom font to improve readability
• New areas to discover (city cistern, camping site, swamp)
• Expanded areas (new rooms in buildings, new shortcuts to avoid backtracking)
• New puzzles and quests
• A new item to help you anticipate the impending nightmares
• Unique ammo types for all weapons
• Fully localized text (available in english, german and italian)
• Improved user interface for reading letters
• Improved grammar and language
• High resolution letter images just for the sake of style
• Revamped monster cast (improved enemies, new enemies)
• Final boss variants depending on whether you choose the Path of Doom or the Road of Blood
• New final boss battle music
• New fullscreen HUD and a slightly customized alt HUD
• Improved player/actor scaling for fitting proportions
• Improved exclamation marks for quest objects and letters
• Judicious use of shaders for some sprites, and post processing
• Toggle-able fog and snow effects
• Optional weapon sway and strafe-tilting
• Voxels for some static decorations
• Converted most doors into Polyobjects for increased realism
• Faux volumetric lighting effects
• Displacement maps
• Widescreen support (21:9)
• Animated TITLEMAP instead of a static graphic
• Full color sprites and textures (no longer restricted to the Doom palette)
• Actor optimization and massive scripting cleanup
• Full coop support (GZDoom P2P multiplayer only; NOT Zandronum)
• Special: Finally you can visit the barn from the original TITLEPIC ;)

No matter if you have played the classic back in 2007 or if you are totally new to The City of the Damned 2 - Apocalypse, it's worth playing both ways. Check out the project page for more info and enjoy the remaster as much as we have enjoyed it revisiting it for you.

Just in case you have missed it in the threads all around the community forums and asked yourself: "Why should I participate in such a contest", well, I do have 5 good answers for you. Next to the unique and handmade imp puppet Spikey, we also have some interesting things for maps placed from 2 to 5: High quality canvas prints of the Doom 2 artwork as well as awesome photoprints of the Doom boxart including signatures of all the former id software members from 1994. It's definitely worth taking part in this, so get up your map editor, the contest is still running for more than a month - enough time to cook something out!

Since the release of the new Doom games in the past few years, a lot of newcomer mappers like ixerama also arrived in the classic Doom modding scene, which is definitely a good thing. Spotlighting their projects is a chance to show that we are not dead, but very alive. ixerama's first release can be found on the Doomworld forums and it is called The Deathmatch Project. Check his work, give him some feedback and prepare a warm welcome to him and all the other people that recently joined our forums.