Doom (PC, 1993)

Development Info Prototype Info Prerelease Info Bugs Revisional DifferencesThere's a lot of them.

Debug Mode#

Entered by passing the parameter "-devparm" when starting the game, Doom's debug mode is pretty bare-boned. You can take screenshots (in PCX format) by pressing F1 (which replaces its original function of bringing up the help screen), and a series of dots appears in the bottom left that roughly indicate the frame rate. One dot indicates the full 35FPS, while more dots indicate a frame rate of 35/(number of dots). In earlier versions, the -devparm parameter is also required to use several other parameters, but the requirement was dropped in 1.4.

Unused Graphics#

Menu heading and option for a display options menu. These are left over from the 0.5 alpha.

Headings for the load and save game menus. These menus just reuse their option graphics for their headings.

The "ouch" face was meant to occur if the player lost 20 or more health in a single attack. A mistake in the game's coding makes it visible only if you gain 20 or more health while taking damage, rendering the face unseen outside of uncommon situations, like getting hurt while standing on a medikit. Like most of Doom's status bar faces, the ouch face has five different sprites depending on how much health the player has remaining. The Unity port fixes this oversight, allowing it to be seen as it was intended, but was unfortunately undone in Doom + Doom II.

The SW1STARG texture was only used on a single wall of E1M3 in v1.0. When the raising floor it triggered was redesigned in v1.1, the switch texture was removed from the wall, and it goes unused in all future versions.

Unused	In-Game

Two unused frames for the pistol. Why they're not used is unknown. Within the animation, it seems to have a more realistic recoil animation and lasts longer than the frames in-game. Perhaps those frames were removed to have a faster fire rate?

Unused	In-Game

An unused frame for the BFG. Again, why it's unused is a mystery. It has a recoil animation once again, while in the game there is none.

Fixed Animation

It should also be noted that the BFG's muzzle flash within the previous firing animations seems to have a layering oversight, as the blast graphics overlap the muzzle. Interestingly though, out of all games, Doom RPG fixed this oversight.

Used	Unused

A gray variant of the stalagmite decoration, lacking the spikes and smaller stalagmites around the sides. No corresponding "thing" (engine lingo for an object the player and monsters interact with) exists for it.

Unused Chain-gun Function#

In the source code, there exists a function for the chain-gun sound to be higher pitched, But it never got used.

{"chgun", false, 64, &S_sfx[sfx_pistol], 150, 0, 0}

Unused Graphics#

Removed Graphics#

A few unused graphics can be found in earlier versions of Doom, but these graphics were removed from later versions.

Alternate status bar panels left over from the press release pre-beta. The score and weapons panel were used instead of the normal bar on the automap; the large blank divided panel replaced the entire right side of the status bar whenever text was displayed or being typed. These were removed in v1.2.

Red variations on the small gray and yellow numbers used on the status bar. These were also removed in v1.2.

These small weapon icons were used on the weapons panel of the pre-beta automap status bar. And like the panel, they were removed in v1.2.

Bonus and score graphics intended for the intermission screen. Another set that was removed in v1.2.

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These are spent shell and bullet casings that would have come out of a gun. However, the spent casings never pop up since the coding required doesn't appear to be there. They were removed in v1.666.

These are obviously projectiles and their corresponding impact animations, but none of these are used in the final version. The yellow and green sphere projectile was thrown by the Baron of Hell in the press release pre-beta. Likewise, the green ball and explosion are leftovers from the pre-beta plasma gun and BFG. The purple and pink sphere and blue ball were never used in any known version. They were removed in v1.666.

A frame of the yellow and green projectile was used as a part of the Arachnotron plasma's impact animation in Doom II.

Added Graphics#

Following Doom II's release, the first Doom game was also updated to v1.666.

However, some graphics from Doom II were mistakenly added to the Doom IWAD.

Doom v1.666	Doom II

The burning barrel decoration is also present, but with earlier spritework that lacks some refinements on the fire and the shading on the left side of the barrel. The second and third frames also have incorrect offsets that make it shift to the right.

This multiplayer menu option graphic is present in the Doom 3 BFG Edition IWAD. It's used in the console versions, but the PC version doesn't have multiplayer support.

Unused Messages#

Unused Medikit Message#

If the player gets a medikit with less than 25 health, this should be displayed:

Picked up a medikit that you REALLY need!

However, health is added before the check is made, so the player's health is always greater than 26 when it checks which message to use. The 3rd September update for the Unity-wrapped 2019 re-release restores this behavior.

inVuln or Inviso?#

This might be stretching the definition of unused, but when entering the idbehold cheat, the following message is displayed:

inVuln, Str, Inviso, Rad, Allmap, or Lite-amp

The capital letters indicate which key to press for that powerup, but since the final version of the game no longer makes a distinction between capital and lowercase letters in the message font, pressing V to get the invulnerability artifact is completely unintuitive.

Unused Sector Type#

A fully-functioning sector type, 14, is never used in any level in The Ultimate Doom, Doom II, or Final Doom. When used on a sector, it will open like a regular door after five minutes of gameplay have passed, then close a few seconds later. It behaves much like the used sector type 10, which closes the sector like a door after 30 seconds have passed.

Unused Sounds#

There is a single sound included in both Doom and Doom II, called DSSKLDTH, which due to its position within both WAD files, seems to have originally been intended to serve as the Lost Soul's death sound. However, it's simply a duplicate of the DSOOF sound the player makes when bumping into a wall, due to Lost Souls simply reusing the fireball explosion sound (DSFIRXPL). The sound file's name, possibly coming from "Skull Death" was probably a leftover from the Doom Press Release Beta's version of the lost soul, whose death animation consisted in breaking apart and falling into pieces. This file is also present in the Final Doom IWADs.

Oddities#

DSSWTCHX, as the name implies, is supposed to play when turning off a switch. However, due to a coding oversight, it never actually plays in-game and is only used when closing the menu. This is still the case for Final Doom and Doom II.

References#