History Videogame / DoomTheRoguelike

* AscendedGlitch: The tactic of corner shooting was initially possible because of a GoodBadBug that made enemies unable to see the player around a corner while they came up to the player against the wall, thus allowing it to be as ridiculously safe a tactic as it is. However it became such an integral part of Doom RL play that the developers kept it in and consider it a mechanic of the game, while new additions and adjustments were made with corner shooting in mind.

* MagikarpPower: The pistol is the earliest and weakest weapon in the game, and better weapons become available very quickly. However, if you take a couple of levels in the "Son of a Gun" trait, you can become a "Dualgunner", which lets you wield and reload ''two'' pistols at the same time. Combined with the pistol prowess you gain from all these traits, the pistol suddenly becomes a surprisingly deadly weapon - and of course, you can still mod those pistols to make them even deadlier...

** The Napalm Launcher. On one hand, you're [[LavaAddsAwesome drowning everything in lava]]. On the other hand, [[DidntThinkThisThrough you're drowning everything, including powerups, items and the path to the exit, in lava]]. Get yourself a pair of boots that makes you immune to lava to go along with it however, and you'll avoid the most impractical part of the weapon while reaping all the benefits of most enemies not being immune to lava will bring with it.
** The Acid Spitter is twice as powerful as the napalm launcher (it does up to 100 damage!), but it can only be reloaded by walking around in acid. Even if you have boots that make you immune to acid, this process takes way too long to be able to reload it with enemies onscreen, and is extremely tedious otherwise.
** The Tristar Blaster lets you blow up absolutely everything in one turn, yes, but it chews up fifteen plasma cells per shot and you just have to guess where two of those explosions will be. Oh and each blast doesn't even do much damage.

* MoreDakka: The usual suspects such as the Chaingun (and its upgrade, the Gatling Gun) and Plasma Rifle are here, but the BFG 10K takes the cake. In addition to the standard weapon, with the Bullet Dance master trait a Marine class character can rapid fire with his pistols and take full advantage of both Son of a Gun and Son of a Bitch damage.

Kornel is working on a SpiritualSuccessor titled ''[[Videogame/JupiterHell Jupiter Hell.]]'' It has a trailer on [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY8hfy0GopQ Youtube]]. It has since been released as Early Access on both Steam and GoG.

Kornel is working on a SpiritualSuccessor titled ''Jupiter Hell''. It has a trailer on [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFXzY0AUsU4 Youtube]]. A Kickstarter campaign to fund development started on November 15th, 2016 and ended with around 70.000 pounds worth of funding.

* DevelopmentHell: Despite Jupiter Hell being touted as a spiritual successor, Version 0.9.9.7 is not intended to be the final version of the game, and the developers stated the next version is in the works, while asking the forums for new things to add to the game. However, with Kornel focusing his efforts on Jupiter Hell, it's been over four years since 0.9.9.7's release, and there's still no sight of the next version's release. The originally planned sequel to DoomRL teased in the game's ending SequelHook also seems like it'll never come to fruition, with it never making it past a conceptual stage, and with the gameplay ideas that Kornel had for it being implemented into Jupiter Hell.

* AwesomeButImpractical: Whenever you find an exotic/unique that's of a weapon type not utilised by the build you're running, as your build will render them less effective than the weapons utilised by your build, if not rendering them completely ineffective.

** Also, the Acid Spitter. Twice as powerful as the napalm launcher (it does up to 100 damage!), but in addition to spreading acid around it can only be fired once between reloads and can only be reloaded by walking around in acid and scooping each square back up ten times, instead of using conventional ammo. Even if you have boots that make you immune to acid, this process takes way too long to be able to reload it with enemies onscreen, and is extremely tedious otherwise.
** The Tristar Blaster. Lets you blow up absolutely everything in one turn, yes, but it chews up fifteen plasma cells per shot and you just have to guess where two of those explosions will be. Oh and each blast doesn't even do much damage.
** The Cybernetic Armor. It's a Unique armor with a 7 protection rating, nearly twice that of Red Armor, but once equipped, you cannot ever unequip it and it cannot be destroyed. Additionally, it does not self-regenerate like other "cursed" armors. So an unwise player equipping it can put themself in what is essentially a death trap, as the armor inevitably gets weared down and loses its protection, while they're unable to remove it for fresher armor. The armor is fully moddable by Technicians however, so a Technician with the right mods and enough investment in their Whiz Kid trait could make it into something extremely powerful (for example, a Nanonskin Armor that regenerates and has an additional 25% resistance to everything, or a Cybernano Armor that has 11 protection and infinite durability).

* BonusBoss: Any boss other than the Cyberdemon, the Bruiser Brothers, or the Spider Mastermind is one, since every other level with a boss is optional to complete.

** For those running Pistol builds, the City of Skulls, due to the insane amount of Lost Souls with their 50% bullet resistance, and Pistols generally being poor at fighting multiple enemies in the open (where City of Skulls has no cover).
** Entering Hell's Arena may or may not result in this; the entrance to Hell's Arena is on level 2, which means after the introductory level 1, the player will only have one level to get experience and equipment before entering it. Bad luck with that single level can leave the player woefully unprepared to take on Hell's Arena, especially for Pistol and Melee builds that really need levels in Son of a Gun/Brute asap and any equipment/items they can find this early in the game. The spawning locations of enemies during each wave is additionally random, so an unlucky player may end up surrounded right away by enemies faster and tankier than them, and the pillars in the arena can randomly be either squares or crosses, which the latter makes corner shooting and running around the pillars to evade enemies a lot less effective. The luck-based difficulty is so bad, that it's a common complaint among players that Hell's Arena shows up on level 2 instead of 3; players would rather it spawn on level 3 like it had a chance of doing so in prior versions, as that extra level of preparation made it a lot more consistently manageable.

* DoNotSpoilThisEnding: Anyone reading spoilers knows about the TrueFinalBoss, and the official wiki provides the full details on how to get a [[GoldenEnding full win]] instead of a standard win. However, a couple of the secret items, the Dragonslayer and the Berserker Armor, require the player to [[GuideDangIt meet specific conditions]] to pick up and use, and the few people in the community who have figured it out have all agreed not to reveal the secret in accordance to Kornel's wishes. In earlier versions how to pick up the Dragonslayer (which then [[spoiler:just required the player to be berserked]]) was spoiled outside the Chaosforge forums, so in response Kornel changed the conditions in recent versions to keep the condition hidden. Recently however Kornel gave his blessing to finally revealing the secret, which is [[spoiler:the player must be berserk, and they must not have anything equipped in any of the four slots]].

* MultiMookMelee: A recent update introduced "Single Monster" levels that can result in one of these. The level will be populated entirely with a certain monster type, which is indicated by the 'Feeling' the player's character has when entering.
** If the game is feeling extremely cruel, there's 10% a chance that the level will be filled entirely with [[DualBoss Bruiser Brothers]], [[spoiler: [[VideoGame/{{Quake}} Shamblers]]]], or even '''[[OhCrap Cyberdemons]]'''. Hope you got one of those Homing Phase Devices with you.

* NonIndicativeDifficulty: While the various challenges are meant to be harder than the standard game, the Angel of Max Carnage challenge is infamously easier, and some players will recommend newer players to try harder difficulties on this challenge first before playing them normally. To explain, in this challenge, all attacks will have maximum accuracy and will always deal their maximum possible damage, from both the player and all enemies. The player however can use the guaranteed dealt damage to plan their tactics accordingly, and can exploit the maximum accuracy with maximum damage on all their attacks to utterly break the game.
** A couple of the special levels are more difficult on lower difficulties. During the beginning ambush on Phobos Hellgate, on HNTR difficulty, it consists of a bunch of Lost Souls, which will near-instantly surround the player and deal heavy damage, leaving the player severely weakened for the Bruiser Brothers fight if they survive it, while harder difficulties replaces them with the much-easier-to-escape Demons and Imps. This was especially bad in pre-0.9.9.7 versions, where Lost Souls functioned as ridiculously fast melee enemies. Another example is The Vaults; difficulty here doesn't change the amount of enemies, just the type of enemies that appear. And on HNTR, it's Arachnotrons and Barons of Hell, while the harder difficulties have some combination of Mancubi, Revenants, and Archviles. First thing, when you're just fighting VMR, you can just don a fireproof red armor and have little worry. Second, the level structure provides little cover against the Arachnotrons' attacks. Third, each of the vaults have armor inside them, that the Barons will inevitably pick up and wear before you can get to them, depriving you of your reward and making the Barons a lot harder to kill, especially if an exotic or unique armor spawned (which has a five times increased probability of happening here).
* OhCrap: If you see the message "Suddenly you have a great urge to turn back! You scream in TERROR!", it means that [[spoiler:every single enemy in the level has been replaced by a Cyberdemon, which most likely means unless you are very, very lucky, good or both, you can kiss your run goodbye]].

* TimedMission: Invoked with the aforementioned Angel of Red Alert challenge that places a 5 minute Thermonuclear Bomb (about 240 ingame seconds) on each level. With a recent update, the same can now occur randomly in a standard game, but with an 8 minute nuke.

* TrueFinalBoss: If the player [[spoiler:nukes the Spider Mastermind and survives it by possessing invulnerability, they'll gain access to one more level called the Hell Fortress, where they'll fight the true final boss, John Carmack. Defeating him is required to achieve a "full win".]] Pre-0.9.9.2 this was a LuckBasedMission that required the player [[spoiler:to find a randomly-generated nuke in their playthrough and find a randomly-generated invulnerability sphere close enough to the last level]], but in recent updates, guaranteed items obtained through the bonus levels can allow the player to achieve it every playthrough.

* UnwinnableByMistake: On the Angel of Overconfidence challenge, it's possible to spawn in an Arachnotron cave on the first level while surrounded by Arachnotrons, where due to lack of traits and items, and insufficient weaponry/armor, will get the player killed before they can even fight back, as can be seen in this [[http://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,5367.0.html mortem]].

** Also, the Acid Spitter. Twice as powerful as the napalm launcher (it does up to 100 damage!), but in addition to spreading acid around it can only be reloaded by walking around in acid and scooping each square back up ten times, instead of using conventional ammo. Even if you have boots that make you immune to acid, this process takes way too long to be able to reload it with enemies onscreen, and is extremely tedious otherwise.

** The Cybernetic Armor. It's a Unique armor with a 7 protection rating, nearly twice that of Red Armor, but once equipped, you cannot ever unequip it and it cannot be destroyed. Additionally, it does not self-regenerate like other "cursed" armors. So an unwise player equipping it can put themself in what is essentially a death trap, as the armor inevitably gets weared down and loses most of its protection, while they're unable to remove it for fresher armor. The armor is fully moddable by Technicians however, so a Technician with the right mods and enough investment in their Whiz Kid trait could make it into something extremely powerful (for example, a nanotech kit or two to finally make it regenerate and some Bulk Packs for an indestructable, un-lose-able , regenerating suit of +10 armor).

** In the Angel of Pacifism challenge, where the player has to make it to the end to nuke the Spider Mastermind while being unable to attack at all, they can skip the Cyberdemon, as a portal on the other side of the arena is there during this mode.

** The Cybernetic Armor. It's a Unique armor with a 7 protection rating, nearly twice that of Red Armor, but once equipped, you cannot ever unequip it and it cannot be destroyed. Additionally, it does not self-regenerate like other "cursed" armors. So an unwise player equipping it can put themself in what is essentially a death trap, as the armor inevitably gets weared down and loses most of its protection, while they're unable to remove it for fresher armor. The armor is fully moddable by Technicians however, so a Technician with the right mods and enough investment in their Whiz Kid trait could make it into something extremely powerful (for example, a nanotech kit that lets it regenerate).

** The Cybernetic Armor. It's a Unique armor with a 7 protection rating, nearly twice that of Red Armor, but once equipped, you cannot ever unequip it and it cannot be destroyed. Additionally, it does not self-regenerate like other "cursed" armors. So an unwise player equipping it can put themself in what is essentially a death trap, as the armor inevitably gets weared down and loses most of its protection, while they're unable to remove it for fresher armor. The armor is fully moddable by Technicians however, so a Technician with the right mods and enough investment in their Whiz Kid trait could make it into something extremely powerful.

* BottomlessMagazines: The "Nuclear" mod for energy weapons makes them recharge ammo, at the cost of not being able to reload normally, kind of like the Recharger series from ''Fallout: New Vegas.''

* AnimateDead: Arch-Viles, as always. [[spoiler:The Apostle that you fight at the end of an Angel of 100 run can also do this]].

* DoNotSpoilThisEnding: Anyone reading spoilers knows about the TrueFinalBoss, and the official wiki provides the full details on how to get a [[GoldenEnding full win]] instead of a standard win. However, a couple of the secret items, the Dragonslayer and the Berserker Armor, require the player to [[GuideDangIt meet specific conditions]] to pick up and use, and the few people in the community who have figured it out have all agreed not to reveal the secret in accordance to Kornel's wishes. In earlier versions how to pick up the Dragonslayer (which then [[spoiler:just required the player to be berserked]]) was spoiled outside the Chaosforge forums, so in response Kornel changed the conditions in recent versions to keep the condition hidden. Recently however Kornel gave his blessing to finally revealing the secret, which is [[spoiler:the player must be berserked, in addition to having nothing equipped in any of the four slots]].

* The Dragonslayer and Berserker armor from ''{{Manga/Berserk}}''.

* DoNotSpoilThisEnding: Anyone reading spoilers knows about the TrueFinalBoss, and the official wiki provides the full details on how to get a [[GoldenEnding full win]] instead of a standard win. However, a couple of the secret items, the Dragonslayer and the Berserker Armor, require the player to [[GuideDangIt meet specific conditions]] to pick up and use, and the few people in the community who have figured it out have all agreed not to reveal the secret in accordance to Kornel's wishes. In earlier versions how to pick up the Dragonslayer (which then [[spoiler:just required the player to be berserked]]) was spoiled outside the Chaosforge forums, so in response Kornel changed the conditions in recent versions to keep the condition hidden. Recently however Kornel gave his blessing to finally revealing the secret, which is [[spoiler:the player must be berserked, in addition to wearing no equipment whatsoever]].

** The game has another secret final boss: [[spoiler:If the player makes it to the Hell Fortress with the Dragonslayer and Berserker Armor equipped, John Carmack will be replaced by the Apostle, a ridiculously overpowered Archvile that can teleport. The Apostle will also appear on the last floor during the Angel of 100 and Archangel of 666 challenges if the player has the aforementioned equipment.]]

* ChainsawGOOD: Not only does it deal incredible damage, you get a free berserk pack effect the first time you pick it up. It gets even more powerful with a piercing assembly and a good melee build.

* ClassAndLevelSystem: As of version 0.9.9.4, you can choose among 3 different classes for your player character: The tanky Marine, the agile Scout, and the resourceful Technician. Each with his own starting abilities and choices of master traits, as well as the ability to get a particular Advanced Trait (Which varies for each class) from the start without having to get other perks first.

* CharacterClassSystem: Version 0.9.9.4 introduces three character classes: the Marine, the Scout, and the Technician, each with their own starting perks and access to different traits/certain traits earlier than others.

** Entering Hell's Arena may or may not result in this; the entrance to Hell's Arena will either spawn on level 2 or 3, and it spawning on 2 means you'll go into it with one less trait level and less supplies, which this early in the game will make it a lot harder, especially for pistol and melee builds that really need that extra level in Son of a Gun/Brute. The spawning locations of enemies during each wave is additionally random, so an unlucky player may end up surrounded right away by enemies faster and tankier than them.

** Angel of 100/Archangel of 666 is at its hardest in the first 10-15 levels, especially on the harder difficulties. With no bonus levels, the player will be lacking the nice guaranteed loot they would have in the normal game such as the Chainsaw and Missile Launcher unless they get lucky with exotic/unique drops early, and will be a few levels weaker when stronger enemies like the Barons and VRM start showing up; melee builds will again have it especially rough when with no guaranteed Chainsaw, they will have to rely on Combat Knives and its assemblies for weaponry unless they get lucky, while lacking those very needed levels. The deeper levels will have nightmare enemies and most of the bosses as regular encounters, and the RNG is gonna hand you some really unfair levels at some point, but by then you'll be overflowing with traits as your level will go far beyond normal game standards, while you'll be loaded with modded out equipment, exotics, and uniques. So the majority of failed Ao100/666 runs end in the early levels.

** Also, the Acid Spitter. Twice as powerful as the napalm launcher (it does up to 100 damage!), but in addition to spreading acid around it can only be reloaded by walking around in acid for ten turns to scoop it back up, instead of using conventional ammo. The Lava Armor can only be repaired by walking around in lava and unlike the acid spitter it doesn't even reduce the damage to compensate, but offers insane protection against explosives.

** Dual pistol builds. Pistols are, generally speaking, the weakest weapon in the game, but by the time you get to the point where you can fire two at once, you're also practically certain that every bullet will hit and deal a fair chunk of damage, and pistol ammo is everywhere, so you never have to worry about running out.
** The most consistently useful assembly in the game? Plain old Tactical Boots. They provide absolutely no protection to acid and lava whatsoever nor have any special effects. But all that is required to make them is a pair of Agility mods on a pair of common Steel Boots, which can easily obtain by the first few levels, while they provide a very valuable 15% boost to your movement speed. Since you can usually just avoid walking in harmful fluids, there's little downside to wearing them, leaving no reason to not wear them nearly all the time unless you're lucky enough to get boots with an even greater movespeed bonus. Pre-0.9.9.7 versions of the game even had them grant you a 10% bonus to your dodging rate, but Tactical Boots were deemed so ridiculously low cost and effective that the dodge bonus was removed.

** Entering Hell's Arena while still low-level may or may not result in this -- it depends on luck.
* ClassAndLevelSystem: As of version 0.9.9.4, you can choose among 3 different classes for your player character: The tanky Marine, the dodgy Scout and the resourceful Technician. Each with his own starting abilities and choices of master traits, as well as the ability to get a particular Advanced Trait (Which varies for each class) from the start without having to get other perks first.

* DevelopmentHell: Despite Jupiter Hell being touted as a spiritual successor, Version 0.9.9.7 is not intended to be the final version of the game, and the developers stated the next version is in the works, while asking the forums for new things to add to the game. However, with Kornel focusing his efforts on Jupiter Hell, it's been over three years since 0.9.9.7's release, and there's still no sight of the next version's release. The originally planned sequel to DoomRL teased in the game's ending SequelHook also seems like it'll never come to fruition, with it never making it past a conceptual stage, and with the gameplay ideas that Kornel had for it being implemented into Jupiter Hell.

* DoNotSpoilThisEnding: Anyone reading spoilers knows about the TrueFinalBoss, and the official wiki provides the full details on how to get a [[GoldenEnding full win]] instead of a standard win. However, a couple of the secret items, the Dragonslayer and the Berserker Armor, require the player to [[GuideDangIt meet specific conditions]] to pick up and use, and the few people in the community who have figured it out have all agreed not to reveal the secret. The same goes for the highest player rank, Apostle.

* EarlyBirdBoss: The Arena Master is pretty much an ordinary Arch-Vile. Who happens to be faced in a sidebranch from level 5. For reference, on normal mode Arch-Viles don't start showing up until level 16.

* ExplodingBarrels: It wouldn't be Doom without 'em. Most of them are just Fuel Barrels that simply explode and could take out doors or a wall if pushed near them. A later update introduced 2 more types of barrels, Acid and Napalm, that could leave Acid or Lava tiles after they explode. The latter must be that ''[[{{VideoGame/Contra}} Contra 3]]'' napalm.
** Some levels have levers that could have a number of effects when pulled; one of these is detonating all barrels present in a level at the same time. Which can be great if the resulting explosions damage or kill enemies...not so much if rare weapons/items get destroyed.

* GameBreakingBug: In version 0.9.9.6, a bug nullifies the effect of the Fireangel master trait. Normally this trait would make you completely immune to explosions, but in this version this trait is rendered completely useless (woe behold any player unaware of this glitch accidentally blowing themselves up after getting this trait). This bug was fixed in 0.9.9.7

** In version 0.9.9.7, there are now Archangel challenges, which take existing challenges and make them even harder. Enjoy such conditions such as having only two inventory spaces, having absolutely no source of healing outside the Vampyre mastery skill, and only having 10 HP while getting no benefits from levelling up.

** InfinityPlusOneSword: Azrael's Scythe, as mentioned above, is the most powerful melee weapon in the game. The catch to get it? Like above, you must defeat the Angel of Death in single combat, and you can only use melee weapons. Unlike above, you must do it in, at least, Hurt Me Plenty difficulty. And you must have killed ''all'' enemies in your way to the Unholy Cathedral. [[EvilLaugh Hahahahaha]]! Good luck, '''sucker'''!
*** There's also the Dragonslayer, a weapon as strong as Azrael's Scythe, and when equipped, grants you permanent [[SuperMode berserk]]. However, it has secret conditions to finding it and being able to wield it.

* MookMaker: Pain Elementals, which as per the original Doom spawn Lost Souls. New to this game are the Agony Elemental, which can spit out both Lost Souls as well as Pain Elementals, and the TrueFinalBoss [[spoiler:John Carmack]], who in addition to being as robust a tank as the Spider Mastermind, also has the nasty ability to summon eight mooks around itself at the same time. Depending on how hurt it is, they can range from measly Lost Souls all the way to [[EliteMook Barons of Hell, Mancubi and Arachnotrons]].

* MultipleEndings: There are three ways to win DoomRL. [[spoiler:The first is by killing the Spider Mastermind, which requires either killing her normally or using a Thermonuclear Bomb on her. If you do the latter without some means of surviving the blast, you're said to have sacrificed yourself. If you have a means of surviving the blast, you get to go fight the TrueFinalBoss. Losing to him is considered roughly the same as sacrificing yourself, but if you defeat him, you will get a full win.]]

* SecretLevel: There are "special levels", signified by their entrances having red stairs, that are completely optional for entering and completing for a standard win. These levels are non random (or have a few spots of specific randomness) with a gimmick that the player must overcome (such as Hell's Arena having three different waves of enemies the player must defeat), often having a boss at the end, and great rewards for the player should they complete the stage. In difficulty, they run the gamut from BreatherLevel (Halls of Carnage), to BrutalBonusLevel (The Mortuary and Limbo), to being [[UnwinnableByDesign unwinnable]] if the player did not come into the level with the required items (The Wall), though in this case, unwinnable just means the player can't get 100% kills and the level's max reward. The difficulty of a special level can also greatly depend on the build a player is running (City of Skulls is a BreatherLevel for Shotgun and Berserker builds, while being a BrutalBonusLevel for Pistol builds).

* ShortRangeShotgun: The Combat Shotgun is reasonable, but the Double Shotgun is obscenely short-ranged.

* SoundCodedForYourConvenience: Very important, since there's many things which have audio cues but no visual ones (most importantly hitting an enemy who is out of sight without killing them, enemies using healing items or teleporting, enemies reloading their guns and sounds which indicate that each type of demon is nearby). Playing without the sound on would be difficult indeed.

* SuperMode: Berserking. Doubled melee damage, 60% reduction in damage taken (''before'' applying armour!), and all your actions are faster (in an unintuitive, historically quite buggy, and still slightly glitchy way).

** This is amp up farther in the Archangel of Red Alert challenge, where each level has a 2 and a half minute Thermonuclear Bomb set.

* UnwinnableByMistake: On the Angel of Overconfidence challenge, it's possible to spawn in an Arachnotron cave on the first level while surrounded by Arachnotrons, where due to lack of traits and items, as well as sufficient weaponry/armor, will get the player killed before they can even fight back, as can be seen in this [[http://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,5367.0.html mortem]].

** The Storm Bolter and Burst Cannon from TableTop/Warhammer40000 make an appearance.

** One of the several special levels is called TheWall, which naturally ends with this upon exiting after clearing the area of all enemies: "[[Music/PinkFloyd All in all, we're just another brick in the wall.]]"