A Tribute To Myk Friedman and Ultimate Simpsons Doom
NOTE: THIS WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED OCTOBER 2nd, 2019 before the WordPress Migration
One thing I didn’t mention in the post mortem was how one Doom WAD really pushed me to try to make my own. Sure, might not be “the best” example of the engine’s capabilities – but that doesn’t matter to me.
Ultimate Simpsons Doom, by Myk Friedman, was one of the first patch WADs that I played that was designed for the ZDoom engine (mainly the SNDINFO lump being used to define additional sounds).
One thing I really like about the Doom WAD was the high-res graphics (for DOOM standards) used for the sprites. I think at the time DECORATE wasn’t a thing, so he couldn’t scale the sprites. It’s easy to fix now though. This stood out to me in a sea of WADs that just edit or base art on Doom, Duke 3D and other contemporary games, rather than go for a cartoony feel.
I really like this project. Sure, the WAD has some interesting to say the least texture choices, and doesn’t replace any of the levels. Icarus covers the WAD very nicely, and I share his views on the project.
I can safely say, if it weren’t for Ultimate Simpsons Doom – I’d probably have never been motivated to look into Doom modding using ZDoom and it’s family of engines.
Unfortunately, I found out recently that Myk Friedman died in 2014 of diabetes, and I had no idea he had a series of videos involing crossovers and such called Ultimate Cartoon Fight.
The channel seems to be still somewhat maintained by his friends and family, but seems to be rarely updated without his visions and guidance – with the last update to the series proper being 5 years ago.
So I take my hat off to Myk Friedman. Rest in peace dude, and thanks for influencing my direction in using this engine.