ZBlood

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ZBlood

Developer: ZBlood Team

Publisher: Doom WAD Station, Filefront, Wad Archive

Designer: J. S. Graham, Joseph Otey

Engine: ZDoom

Version: v41

Released: February 1, 2008

Genre: First Person Shooter

Modes: Single-player, Multiplayer

Platforms: Windows, Linux, Macintosh

UPC/A7: N/A

ISBN-10: N/A

Media: Download


"ZBlood v41 ... (Gameplay) 60fps" (10min Gameplay) - YouTube

"This project began as an experiment for Doom2, and a tribute to the awesome 1997 game, "Blood", by Monolith Productions. ZBlood is a 'Total Conversion' that tries to make Doom2 look, sound, and play somewhat similar to Blood by using the advances made possible with the ZDoom source-port. The Build engine, which Blood is based upon, was quite sophisticated for it's time, and far more complicated than Doom was ever meant to be. Consequentially, there were few people who could make maps for it to begin with, and even fewer who actually cared to do so. I love this old game, but found very few good custom maps to play. In contrast, Doom is so simple to map for that there are 1000s of people able to do so. I can even do so myself, to some extent. I knew also that I could import graphics and sounds from another game, and so decided to see what I could do. It started with 2 maps and a few enemies and weapons, then Joe, (Doorhenge) joined the project and it really took off from there." — J. S. "Psyren" Graham

ZBlood (sometimes spelt Zblood or zblood) is a game that runs on the ZDoom engine as well as its derivatives, which is a modified version of the id Software produced Doom engine. ZBlood itself is a modified version of the Doom II custom WAD, Blood TC. However ZBlood includes many new levels, weapons, and features, and was worked on for longer. It ceased active development in 2008, but has been succeeded by a number of forks over the years, most recently and exhaustively with ZBloody Hell.

While the game can be ran without Doom II through the use of the Freedoom: Phase 2 IWAD, it cannot play the ZBlood levels. The ZDoom engine is released principally under the Doom Source License, while the sounds, graphics, and music used in ZBlood are proprietary and are owned by Monolith Productions, id Software, and others. These are used under the terms of fair use for non-commercial purposes. The modern GZDoom engine has been rewritten so as to fall under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 3.

Loading[edit]

A common mistake is to only load the zBLUDv41.WAD file, when the BludSP1.WAD also needs to be supplied.

Windows Launch Command: zdoom.exe -file zBLUDv41.WAD BludSP1.WAD

Linux Launch Command: zdoom -file zBLUDv41.WAD BludSP1.WAD

Macintosh Launch Command: ./zdoom -file zBLUDv41.WAD BludSP1.WAD

Story[edit]

ZBlood story is set in the year 1929, as was the original Blood TC, a year after the events of Blood.

"After your victory over the dark god Tchernobog, you finally return to your grave for a little R&D - rest and decomposition. It has been nearly a year since your encounter at the Hall of Epiphany, but you seem troubled. Somehow it was too easy to dispose of the dark lord. It's almost as though he wanted you to beat him. Suddenly you stir. In your mind you can hear your once master laughing, his voice taunting you. You can then take it no longer and decide to awaken once again and confront the Cabal." — zBLUDv41.txt

Levels[edit]

"MAP04: Welcome to Your Life"

Text Crawls[edit]

ZBlood features several Doom style text crawls elaborating on its story.

  • ZBlood-Story1.png
  • ZBlood-Story2.png
  • ZBlood-Story3.png
  • ZBlood-Story4.png

Notes[edit]

  • Most of the ZBlood levels are not exact remakes of the originals, partly because the ZDoom engine cannot do true room-over-room or dynamic sectors.
  • Quite a few sounds from Blood II: The Chosen are also included in ZBlood, including several unused Caleb recordings from the Blood II .REZ file.
  • In "MAP11: Dark Carnival" the Duke Nukem secret has been changed to feature the strip club music from the second level of Duke Nukem 3D.
  • The slot machines found on "MAP21: Steamboat Willies" dispense useful items when pressed.
  • Decoy Tchernobogs are found on "MAP08: Camp Crystal Lake", "MAP12: House of Horrors", "MAP14: The Siege", and "MAP18: The Great Temple". Unlike in the original Blood TC the player never gets to face off against the real thing.
  • Cheogh is also encountered at the end of "MAP18: The Great Temple", this time rendered as a red stone gargoyle.
  • Upon completing the final level the player is returned to "MAP01: Cradle to Grave".
  • In "MAP09: Wrong Side of the Tracks" The Jukebox is replaced with a Radio Player. Pressing it plays a soundclip known as "KMZB All Zombie Radio" after that plays a series of moans and groans. This sound clip was from a scene featured in a Simpsons Halloween Episode.

Enemies, Items, and Weapons[edit]

ZBlood logo with gargoyle

Enemies[edit]

  • Ackolyte (Clothed in Green, armed with dynamite only)
  • Priest (Clothed in Red, armed with a revolver. They do not transform into the Beast as found in Plasma Pak)
  • Cultist (Clothed in Brown, armed with Sawed Off Shotguns)
  • Fanatic (Clothed in Grey, armed with Tommy Sub-Machine Guns)
  • Axe Zombie (Act like Doom's Pinky demons, close combat only)
  • Bloated Butcher (Hurl a ridiculous amount of butcher knives)
  • Bat (Act like Doom's Lost Souls, spawned by Phantasms or encountered on their own)
  • Gargoyle (Act like Doom's Cacodemons, slow and hurl bones)
  • Gill Beasts (Also act like Doom's Cacodemons, though close combat only, encountered underwater)
  • Hell Hound (Act like Doom's Arachnotrons, slow and fire flame projectiles)
  • Phantasms (Act like Doom's Pain Elementals, slow and summon bats)
  • Beast (Act like Doom's Arch-Viles; fast, can set the player on fire from afar, and can resurrect dead enemies)
  • Tchernobog (The Dark God, The Dreaming One, The One that Binds. Acts like Doom's Cyberdemon; slow-moving but high health, launches three high-damage projectiles per attack)

Note: All Cultists can and frequently do lob sticks of TNT as an alternate attack.

Items[edit]

  • Body Armour (Gives you 100 points of Armour)
  • Super Armour (Gives you 200 points of Armour)
  • Guns Akimbo (When picked up, you carry two weapons at once. Currently, this only works for the flare pistol, sawed-off, tommy gun and napalm launcher)
  • Life Seed (Acts as the Soul Sphere from Doom, giving you 100 health, up to 200 total)
  • Reflective Shots (Actually acts as the Megasphere from Doom giving you 200 health and armour)
  • Medicine Pouch (Actually acts as an Ammo Pack from Doom, increasing your maximum amount of ammo you can carry for most weapons.)
  • Cloak of Invisibility (Makes you partially invisible meaning enemies find it harder to target you)

Weapons[edit]

Note: Some Weapons have both a primary and secondary attack just like in Blood.

  • 1 - Pitchfork
  • 2 - Revolver (Not a Blood weapon)
    • Flare Gun (Primary - a single flare which lodges into enemies flesh. Secondary - a burst of flares but is not arranged in a star pattern as in Blood.
  • 3 - Sawed-Off Shotgun (Primary - fires one barrel. Secondary - fires both barrels at once)
  • 4 - Tommy Gun (Primary - rapid fire of bullets. Secondary - sprays bullets across a room)
  • 5 - Napalm Launcher (Primary - Hurls a flaming ball of napalm which explodes on impact and deals after burn damage. Secondary - Releases a ball of flame which explodes on ground.)
    • Dynamite or TNT (Primary - Explodes on impact but lacks the ability to charge shots as in Blood to increase throwing distance. Secondary - Let's the whole fuse burn allowing it to be tossed around corners.)
  • 6 - Aerosol Can (Primary - Unleashes flame projectiles which act like Doom's Plasma Gun. Secondary - Light one up like a Molotov cocktail to toss into crowds.)
  • 7 - Life Leech (Unleashes a series of searing orbs at a high rate)
  • 0 - Voodoo Doll (Primary - Caleb stabs the doll in different areas to remove opponent's life force. Secondary - Fires a blue voodoo spirit that acts like a BFG blast.

Credits[edit]

"I posted [the original Blood TC] at NewDoom forums and it seemed it would generate interest that would help me make more of it. No one who responded about how it was a "great idea!" ever helped out any. I thought it was a dead project. Along comes this unknown guy, 'Doorhenge' who wants to help. He likes my idea and wants to work on it. Of course, I can't say no. He reworked the Blood wad and the Duke Nukem wad I made, then sent them back to me. The kid certainly knows what he's doing, so I turn the project over to him. No, I wasn't really keen about taking it to ZDoom, but he was right. The Doom engine cannot do what the Build engine can, but it CAN come awful dang close with ZDoom. So 'Doorhenge' and I worked fairly close together making new maps, enemies, and weapons for nearly a year. The result is the closest thing to actually playing 'Blood' that I think anyone will ever find." — J. S. "Psyren" Graham

See Also: List of Bloodites

  • Joseph Otey (Doorhenge)
  • J. S. Graham (Psyren) - Map01,02,06,07,09,13,14,16,18
  • Maxim Genis (DoomJedi) - Face Sprites
  • Chaoscorps: Tommy Gun sprites.
  • DeusExMachina: Wizard sprites.
  • Ajapted and Graf_Zahl: WhackEd2 tutoring.
  • Don Tello: Dynamite coding work.

Critical Reception[edit]

"Mod Corner - ZBlood (v41)" (Gggmanlives) - YouTube

"So, is “ZBlood” a good adaptation of “Blood”? My answer would probably have to be “sort of”. This WAD contains a mixture of random levels from the original “Blood” and most of these levels are re-created fairly accurately. Seriously, I cannot fault the levels in this WAD. But, although it gets this right – there are several things that it doesn’t quite get right. Some of these things might be due to the limitations of the “Doom” engine, but they are worth mentioning nonetheless... because “ZBlood” is based on the “Doom” engine, there have had to be some changes. In other words, many of the enemies behave differently to how you would expect... If you’ve been playing a lot of “Blood” recently, these changes can be quite disconcerting. But, even so, you’ll probably get used to them fairly quickly... Another dramatic change in “ZBlood” is with the weapons. Although the game features some of the “Blood” weapons (the napalm launcher, voodoo doll and tesla cannon are missing though), they behave in subtly different ways than you would expect... On the plus side, because “ZBlood” can be played using modern source ports for “Doom”, it means that you can use far more responsive modern controls that you can in the original “Blood”. Because it uses modern source ports, “ZBlood” also has slightly better graphics (eg: ambient lighting etc…) than the original “Blood” does. Seriously why hasn’t Monolith released the source code for “Blood”? All in all, this is a rather fun attempt at re-creating “Blood” using an older game engine. Yes, it’s an imperfect adaptation in many ways, but it’s something that both “Doom” fans and “Blood” fans will probably enjoy nonetheless. It certainly isn’t as good as the real thing, but it’s still fun nonetheless." — PekoeBlaze

ZBlood has proven popular for mutliplayer matches using Skulltag or Zandronum, and as a horror styled single player arcade shooter. It does however vary in numerous ways to the original Blood and lacks many features, being a less accurate conversion than single player BloodCM or arguably the multiplayer only Transfusion, which has generated controversy in some quarters. Among those more willing to view it as its own thing, as opposed to a drop-in replacement of the original, it has been appreciated better; particularly with the emergence of more accessible options such as BloodGDX and NBlood and now the official Fresh Supply (which has since faced similar criticisms). The Raze project forked NBlood with the support of underlying GZDoom backends, while the Re-Blood project pushed the mod's foundation into more original areas.

Project Forks[edit]

Ever since ZBlood was originally discontinued, project fans have created several modifications for the game adding, removing, or even altering its existing content. Each fork had a different goal, with some aiming to complete the original project while others attempted to fix the game in other ways.

Caleb Versus Nazis also uses Blood assets on the ZDoom engine, as have several other efforts such as Ultra Crispy, Blood: Dead on Arrival, Re-Blood and the ZBloodX derived Bloom.

"Doom: Blood Mods" (MARVELLER) - YouTube

Blood-Doom-Chart.png

Active[edit]

ZBloody Hell[edit]

"Zbloody hell Doom Mod" (Retro Doomer) - YouTube

"ZBloody Hell is a Doom 2 mod that runs on the GZDoom engine, aiming to recreate the elements of the game Blood (1997) on the engine, from levels and monsters, to weapons and atmosphere while also providing a Gameplay addon and / or a levelpack that is compatible with the other Doom 2 mods out there, allowing you to mix different mods with the fantastic Blood levels or the unique arsenal of weapons and new enemies of Blood, Get to ZBloody Hell and Start kicking some Zombies heads today." — ModDB

ZBloody Hell is a fork of ZBloodX made by LordOZ_98 and Luigis, aiming to bring the project even closer to the original Blood. It features several fixes that attempt to improve the overall experience. These include updated and reorganized levels and new level ports, Unlike ZBloodX the game is fully standalone and does not require Doom 2 to work. Unlike the original ZBlood, it has all of the original levels organized into their proper episode structures, with the new levels in an episode called Custom Levels.

Latest version has been updated to include the Maps from v5.1 of ZBlood after it was found.

Discontinued[edit]

ZBloodBath[edit]

"Here comes the ZBloodBath thread at last. But before I'll start telling about it, I should tell something about myself, I guess. Well, my name is Sami Mäläskä and I live in Finland. I've been making maps and mods for Z/GZDoom engine for few years now. My friend introduced me to the world of Blood games last summer and I completely fell in love with it. So, after completing the first Blood few times and Blood 2 once, I got interested into modding for this engine. My dreams were crushed after realizing that Blood's source code was/will never be released. But I didn't give up on my dreams. I felt sorry for people who wasn't able to play the game on XP, so then I got an idea of turning Blood on Doom engine. Don't get me wrong on this. ZBlood was horrible. It really was. After about four months of coding, my GZBlood was almost done and ready for mapping. I don't know why, but I got bored on the idea of whole Blood for few months after all the work. Now, after two months of pause on the project, I decided to make GZDoom on ZDoom engine and only BloodBath, because I've never played it. My friend asked if I needed help on mapping and of course. I couldn't make everything by myself, so his help was really needed and appereciated (is that a real word?). So, well, here it is. ZBloodBath. It's not yet released because there's really many bugs here and there. And my english sucks. Whatever, just watch these videos and then scroll down for information what's done and what's not, what's possible and so on." — Hasuak

An unreleased multiplayer focused project circa 2008; unclear if it used ZBlood as a base or not.

ZBlood v51[edit]

"Doom Mods: Blood" (MegaZombieman115) - YouTube

ZBlood v51 was continued by the original project co-creator Joseph "Doorhenge" Otey. It was placed as a backup on a server and later emerged on several Doom WAD sharing websites. This version features most of the levels from Cryptic Passage being added minus the maps "CP04: Lost Monastery" and "CP08: Abysmal Mine". It also has "E2M3: Rest for the Wicked" and "E2M4: The Overlooked Hotel" being split apart again like in the original game. Levels like "E3M1: Ghost Town", "E4M5: Fire and Brimstone", "E2M9: Thin Ice" and "E6M3: Public Storage" have also been adapted. Details like the jukebox from "E1M2: Wrong Side of the Tracks" were also incorporated into the game, and level such as "E6M1: Welcome To Your Life" were tweaked for greater accuracy, as was the Remote Dynamite. More of Caleb's catchphrases are included, and adjustments to the gibs and powerups were made. ZBlood v4.4 was said to be adding all of the features ZBlood v51 once had, with assets ported over in its successor ZBloody Hell.

ZBlood+[edit]

"Blood is an old game by Monolith Productions that is... really great. (I don't have other appropriate words here.) ZBlood is, basically, a Blood remake on (G)ZDoom engine. ZBlood+ is an unofficial fork of ZBlood. It has been holding "In Development" status for a bit really too much more time than it should have. It's high time at least something was shown to all interested parties (if any exist). And now, ZBlood+ finally has something to show. So, in ZBlood+ you're again playing as Caleb, kicking heads and empty buckets, boasting great firepower and firing the robed madmen from life (if they ever had any). The unsatisfactory "story" of ZBlood is still there unchanged, because writing stories is not my cup of tea, but having at least this story is better than just "hit the switch to end the level". If you haven't played ZBlood, or just Blood, you can still enjoy it if you're interested in: infiltrating sinister cults, ludicrous gibs, red rains, horror movies, playing zombie head soccer, Doom not looking like Doom, more or less scary more or less atmosphere, and at the same time great fun blasting things. Demo Version contains first nine levels of ZBlood, modified so that they run better with truer balance of ZBlood+. They're also a little bit changed here and there. I tested balance by playing it on the highest difficulty, and, trust me, it's possible. And really challenging. Advanced Engine Needed: although it is totally compatible with ZDoom, it is recommended to play it with GZDoom. (It may even be too dark if you don't, as some maps rely on placed lights.) Absolutely obviously, you'll need the latest SVN version of either one." — Мichаеlis

ZBlood+ was a fork of the original ZBlood project started by Michaelis because of the inactivity of the original project, joined and left by Callum Sanderson and FuzzyBlaze. The projects goal was stated as to continue where the original left off, by adding better graphics, lighting effects, more levels, better monster code, and other overall changes to make it a more Bloody experience and "really push the Doom engine to it's limits". ZBlood+ runs with GZDoom port's SVN version.

The playable demo featuring 9 levels was released on March 24, 2012.

ZBloodX[edit]

"ZBloodX - The Lair of Shial" (TendoOfDoom) - YouTube

"'Alrighty folks heres a project that I have been working on for about a week and a half now I been posting in the other "ZBlood" posts with no answer till Crudux Cruo told me to post a new topic page on this seeing as how I have taking "Zblood" and "Zblood+" and put the two together now my coding ain't 100% great so there are some things from both games that still stand. like when loaded up into Zdoom the name of the WAD changes to "ZBLOODX" but the title screen still says "ZBLOOD+" another thing too is that when you go to pic what level of difficulty you want there still is the Doom settings but also the Blood ones are there just underneath it so I mean there is some polish work that will need to be done but thats all being saved for last seening as how you only see that screen once. What I'm after right now is setting the game up so that it looks and feels like the original Blood game. now the work done on the two games have been great just there's one thing I didn't like which was how this WAD felt more like it was worked on hard level design wise but then just slapped together when actually putting in the rest of the game. I mean thanks to who ever made the first Zblood (V4.1 with BludSP1 patch) I was able to beat the game on hard in only 2 days all due to the fact that they just put the hard hitting weapons right on the first level so for right now I'm just weeding through all of this to put the original pick ups in their places also I will be re-doing where all the enemies are because again someone decided it would be smart to put a ton of monsters in levels that don't need to be there." — Thai-Low

ZBloodX is a fork of the original ZBlood that aimed to bring the project even closer to the original Blood, and also merge in features from ZBlood+; multiplayer focused. On June 15, 2016 author stated in Zandronum forum thread that he had not done anything Doom for ages, confirming that this mod is discontinued. It has since been forked itself, most notably into ZBloody Hell and Bloom.

BetterBlood[edit]

BetterBlood was a modified version of the ZBloodX fork that aimed to fix multiple issues and improve the balance of the game. Due to lack of interest this project was discontinued, but was later continued in its successor ZBloody Hell.

The Ultimate ZBlood[edit]

"The Ultimate zBlood Demo (WIP)" (GamingMarine) - YouTube

"The Ultimate zBlood is a fork of zBloody Hell that attempts to make the port of the 1997 game Blood a little bit more accurate. While not much had been done as of the time this was recorded, it makes up for what's coming up in the future. Before you congratulate me for doing this, you need to realize that this was done with little to no experience of the original Blood. NOTE: This is not a true emulation. That cannot be done in the Doom engine and it never will be." — GamingMarine

A fork from ZBloody Hell announced via a YouTube video on January 19, 2018 and produced not much after (so far).

Finished[edit]

ZBlood v4.4[edit]

"ZBlood v4.4 (With Voxels and Improved Pitchwork Animations)" (KooshMaster) - YouTube

"ZBlooD v4.4 is my upcoming project based off of Doorhenge and Pysren's mod known as ZBlood. Lots of people know it has that rushed mod with no purpose but however ever since viewing bubba sawyer's video explaining how it was inaccurate to the original I decided to fix some of the stuff with ZBloodX. My project is aimed to make ZBlood as possible to the original minus level design (though a few levels will be fixed) I'm reading enemies such as the bat which had been removed from ZBloodX. Enemies will have all of their original functions and animations readded as well such as the jumping and shocking sprites/ Weapons are also going to be vastly improved to make them like the original weapons from blood. Weapons such as the pitchfork will have their original animations and attacks added." — Luigi2600

ZBlood v4.4 was another project fork created by "Luigis". It was being made to recreate Blood as much as possible using Zandronum and GZDoom. The mod allows both singleplayer and deathmatch modes added in. Unlike the original ZBlood, this version contains 34 main story maps along with 15 extra maps being used for "Cryptic Passage" and "Bloodbath"; not to mention "E6M8: Beauty and the Beast" being featured as a secret map. The project was amid to redesign the levels to make them closer to the originals, while also managing to keep all the additions in. Higher quality textures and sound effects replace the old Doom palette and sound renditions from the original. Luigis later teamed up with LordOZ_98 to work on ZBloody Hell. As of January 2019, the mod's development is considered to have been completed, making it one of few project forks that did not get cancelled abruptly.

See Also[edit]

External Links[edit]

ZBlood-Icon.png
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