NOVA: THE BIRTH - DEAN OF DOOM - S3E5

Welcome to Dean of Doom, the show where we give grades to classic and contemporary Doom wads. Why? Because ranking things is fun. Today’s episode will be dedicated to NOVA: The Birth, a 2014 megawad sprung from the mind of Michael ‘Kildeth’ Kilderry. The project took flight in late 2011, and landed with the help of co-pilot Darryl ‘dobu gabu maru’ Steffen roughly three years later. As a newcomer to the Doom community, Kildeth began the project with the intention of uniting other new mappers under a single banner, hence “Nova” and its subtitle “The Birth.” You’d think a megawad made by novices and restricted to stock Doom II textures would end in disaster, or mediocrity at best, but mappers in their formative stages are often at their least inhibited, and that’s the genius of Kildeth’s idea. Their lack of adherence to conventionality is a big part of what makes Nova and its sequels so interesting. Several of its alumni have made notable careers in mapping, including but not limited to: cannonball, Phobus, Jaws in Space, and a guy named Cyriak Harris. Doom scholars should delight in witnessing all of these origin stories. The first Nova is undoubtedly the roughest in the series, but it blazed a trail for Nova’s II and III, and has some genuine diamonds that I’m excited to unearth for you. Link to the megawad: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/lev... Special thanks to @DCG Retrowave for providing the MIDIs! (Channel link:    / @dcgretrowave  ) Patreon:   / mtpain27