Extragalaxial is a limit-removing (complevel 3) Ultimate Doom megawad with 16 maps. It was a collaboration between me and Melodic Spaceship, mostly created during NaNoWADMo 2023 and belatedly released in January 2025 (and even more belatedly uploaded to idgames in June 2026). I made 8 maps, MS made 6 maps and we collaborated on 2. We initially had ambitions to make a full 36 maps for this, but a couple weeks into NNWM we got burnt out on this and eventually moved onto other things.

The maps here are very 90s, specifically very TNT-esque. This was partially intentional, but also partially due to our relative inexperience with mapping at the time. In addition, several maps were never fully "finished" exactly. All of them are fully playable, but there's a lot of large, empty rooms with nonsensical texture usage all over the wad. However I think this just adds to the charm.

I can only speak for myself, but I've improved a LOT at mapping since we made this. I don't think any of this is bad, it's full of charm, but keep in mind that it's not really representative of my mapping nowadays.

===Notes===

- IWAD is DOOM.WAD, complevel 3 and limit removing.
- This was tested in DSDA-Doom and (iirc) Crispy Doom. E1M8 makes use of Mikostaggers, but there's an alternate version of that map which loads instead on Z-ports and Eternity and recreates the effect with ACS, and as such, the wad should work on those ports too.
- There's 2 episodes, each set on a different planet. E1 is on a desert planet and has 9 maps. E2 is on a jungle planet and has 7 maps. The latter uses a secret exit trick to shorten the episode, and there's a bit of a discrepancy between the internal slots and what you see on the automap for much of E2. The map labels are PxMy on the automap (P standing for planet). E2 lacks a proper secret map.
- Both pistol-start and continuous play should be fine.
- Difficulty settings are supported in some maps, but not all. The entire wad is on the easier side, even on UV, so you probably won't run into too much trouble anyways.
- Hell Knights are added to the wad from Doom 2.
- Co-op and deathmatch are only supported in some maps. The final release might add co-op starts to all the maps that don't have them. (as of RC2, co-op starts are in all maps, not DM starts though)
- Most of what you see here was made during the first 2 or 3 weeks of October 2023. At the very start of July 2024, I briefly picked this back up to add Equinox textures to the mix, and I incorporated them into E1M1 and E1M5. I was planning to touch up on all the other maps for this, and possibly finish the remaining 2 unfinished maps of E2, but I started Plerbtonia the next day and let this project collect dust again until now. The aformentioned unfinished E2 maps were simply removed from the wad (hence why E2 only has 7 maps) and will probably be retooled and finished for other projects. A third episode was also started during October 2023, but none of the maps in that were finished and that episode was just scrapped outright. Various bits of polish like the fullscreen graphics, WILV lumps, minor bugfixes etc were done in the past few days.
- Melodic Spaceship might end up reworking some of his maps in this for his newer projects. As for me, I might remake some of my own maps from this in the future, but who knows.
- If you've played Plerbtonia, a few of the midis in this wad will probably sound familiar :P

===The Story===

Progress on colonizing planets several galaxies away was halted as the use of teleportation technology was unanimously banned in every human territory across the Milky Way. Anyone caught experimenting with it would get to suffocate to death in the vacuum of space. Space travel still relies on spaceships, which may be incredibly fast compared to archaic forms of travel such as cars and trains, but still take thousands of years to access places that teleportation could take you to in a matter of seconds.

You find yourself in your friend's lab on Earth. Under heavy secrecy, he has developed a spaceship that will revolutionize space travel. He claims to have made some discoveries about space, time, all that stuff. You haven't slept in a few days, so you kinda zone out when he's explaining it to you. You get the understanding that this spaceship can go anywhere in the furthest depths of the universe, in only a few minutes less time than instantaneous teleportation would take. And you're the first person to test it. You don't have to worry about piloting it, he'll do the work for you.

You were really tired when you signed up for this, and didn't think of the consequences. You aren't too keen on the idea of UAC exploiting not just the Milky Way, but the entire universe, and they've only been prevented from doing so as public approval towards teleportation went into the negative percentages. The only words that entered your head at that moment was "Cool thing". But it's too late now. You're secured into the cockpit. The ship rises on a platform as the ceiling of the lab opens up, revealing the night sky. You reach the top, and before you have the time to take in your surroundings, you find yourself thrust into space at thousands of miles per hour.

You're contractually obligated to analyze your surroundings and report them to your friend over the radio. 30 seconds in, your surroundings turn green for around five seconds. You note this to your friend, and he says something, but you can't hear it over several loud noises in the spaceship. Another three minutes pass and you start slowing down. You start to be able to actually see what's going on around you, rather than a blur of bright lines. In front of you is a brownish planet.

You may have started slowing down, but you're still going so fast it'll kill you if you crash. You search around for any controls that you can use, but you can't find any. You start panicking and hitting anything that looks like a button. You accidentally open a compartment. Your friend thought ahead and put an invulnerability sphere in the ship in the case of an otherwise fatal crash. Seconds before you hit the ground, you touch the green, grinning orb.

The ship is obliterated the instant it touches the ground, and you have no way to contact your friend, but you survive completely intact. In front of you is a techbase. You hear the sounds of demons inside. You inexplicably have a pistol and 50 bullets like you always do. The only way out is forward.

===Maps + Commentary===

P1M1: Crash Landing

Author: Melodic Spaceship & Plerb
Music: Cool Thing by Plerb
Commentary:
This was a full collab map between me and Plerb, where we each took turns adding stuff to the map. I think I created both the start and the end, as well as some bits in the middle.
--MS
Pretty nice opening to the wad, I don't have much else to add other than that this was 1 of 2 maps I later added Equinox textures to in july 2024.
--P

P1M2: Heck's Check-In

Author: Plerb
Music: Landing by Andrew Benon, from Chex Quest
Commentary:
This is the oldest map in the wad, and as of writing, likely the oldest map I've released so far. It was one of 3 maps originally started by me for other projects and then ended up in exgalax. It was originally started in June 2023 for a project titled "Chex Hell", which the final map name is a somewhat obtuse reference to. Basically that project would have normal doom 1 maps but you're SUPPOSED to play it with chex quest loaded instead so everything looks all fucked up with chex quest textures, inspired by the leftover doom levels in chex quest 1. The exgalax version was expanded upon heavily.
--P

P1M3: Desert Ruins

Author: Melodic Spaceship (with minor edits by Plerb)
Music: NWarkanoid#11.mid by Vakhtang Adamiya, from Warkanoid 2
Commentary:
This was one of the first maps I did. The first few maps I did were speedmapped in a similar manner to my Doom 2 speedmaps (the ones that would later be recycled for Modulation), though this one was later polished up after the initial 1 hour 30 minute speedmapping session, hence why it's not as obvious. In fact, the first two maps I did for Extragalaxial were made concurrently with the last two maps I made for my Doom 2 speedmaps, though I don't remember which ones.
--MS

P1M9: Howdy Hoedown

Author: Melodic Spaceship
Music: Warkanoid#09.mid by Vakhtang Adamiya, from Warkanoid
Commentary:
A more obviously speedmapped level with a fun gimmick of being a western town! I still really like the overall idea behind this level and would like to revisit it for a properly completed WAD sometime. Come on down to the Howdy Hoedown!
--MS

P1M4: Nuclear Research Project

Author: Plerb
Music: Music4.mid by Vakhtang Adamiya, from Astrobatics
Commentary:
I like the atmosphere of this one. There's a section where a dead pinky is lowered into an inaccessible nukage pool, and later rises back up as a cyberdemon. This was supposed to imply that the pinky mutated into a cyberdemon, but the effect isn't super convincing, which makes it even more funny.
--P

P1M5: Desert Bunker

Author: Melodic Spaceship & Plerb
Music: Sawtooth Crazy by Plerb
Commentary:
This was the last speedmap I did for this project, and I was so burnt out from speedmapping at that point that Plerb had to do a remake of it.
--MS
Yeah this was my remake of an MS map. I later added equinox textures to it in july 2024.
--P

P1M6: Filtration Station

Author: Plerb
Music: Warkanoid#03.mid by Vakhtang Adamiya, from Warkanoid
Commentary:
This was the first map I started specifically for this project. Definitely very unfinished in parts. In this map you'll learn the awful truth about where the water is being filtered from...
--P

P1M7: You Go To Hell Before You Die

Author: Melodic Spaceship (with minor edits by Plerb)
Music: Blip on the Radar by Bobby Prince, from Demonstar
Commentary:
I believe this one was made after I got burnt out from doing speedmapped levels, so I took my time with this one. One idea me and Plerb had for this WAD was "hell pockets", where each episode would have one level that took place in Hell instead of the normal location. This is the only completed level that implemented that idea, though. I might rework this level in a heavily revised form for Modulation. Also, you go all the way to Hell just for a keycard you could get by climbing the cliff instead?
--MS

P1M8: Staggered Showdown

Author: Plerb
Music: Seasons of Insanity by Jimmy, from PlutMidi
Commentary:
This map makes use of Mikostaggers, which were discovered just a month or two prior to when I made this. It may very well have been one of the first maps ever made to use that trick. Originally each "wave" started every minute, but shortly before releasing this I lowered it to 30 seconds, which made the map way better imo.
--P

P2M1: Cyberdemon Checkpoint

Author: Plerb
Music: Phaser by Bobby Prince, from Demonstar
Commentary:
This map started life in July 2023 as a random Cyberdreams inspired map for Doom 1, before being repurposed for exgalax. I later recycled the blue key puzzle from this for MAP31 of Plerbtonia, where it was executed much better.
--P

P2M2: Jungle Hangout

Author: Melodic Spaceship
Music: NWarkanoid#28.mid by Vakhtang Adamiya, from Warkanoid 2
Commentary:
Another speedmap that was a bit polished after the initial completion. It's a jungle place that's visually inspired by Plutonia. Not much else to say about this one.
--MS

P2M3: Jungle Ruins

Author: Plerb
Music: Observing by Plerb
Commentary:
The original music track for this was NWarkanoid#03.mid. I later changed it to Observing since that track was originally composed for this wad, but I never ended up making the map I originally planned to go with Observing. Incidentally, both midis were later used in Plerbtonia.
--P

P2M4: Going Lower

Author: Plerb
Music: Going Lower by Plerb
Commentary:
Another case where the music track was reassigned so the bespoke tracks for this could make it into the final. The original track was NWarkanoid#24.mid, which was later used in Plerbtonia, and Going Lower was also used in my NaNoWADMo 2024 project. Also fun fact, the original name for Going Lower (the midi) was "glerb". I like the layout and progression in this one.
--P

P2M5: Fortress of Cacophony

Author: Plerb
Music: NWarkanoid#16.mid by Vakhtang Adamiya, from Warkanoid 2
Commentary:
This started life as one of my 2023 Doom 2 speedmaps which occasionally find their way in my releases, usually remade from scratch. But this one was directly taken from that, just modified instead of remade. It had a gimmick of only using cacodemons, so i didn't need to replace/remove any enemies for doom 1.
This was originally supposed to be E2's secret map (hence the even more silly nature of it compared to other maps), but the map that was supposed to have the secret exit was never finished and was scrapped. So this was just put into the mainline progression instead.
It also has some (unintentional) similarities with MAP25: Fortress from Plerbtonia. They both use the same midi, they're both derived from maps from the same speedmap wad, they both have a lot of cacodemons, etc. This was partially why I named this map Fortress of Cacophony when preparing exgalax for release, as a retroactive reference of sorts to the Plerbtonia map, as well as being a reference to Doom 1's E2M9.
--P

P2M6: Demonic Resort

Author: Melodic Spaceship
Music: NWarkanoid#12.mid by Vakhtang Adamiya, from Warkanoid 2
Commentary:
A tropical resort themed level. I don't really have anything else to say about this one.
--MS

P2M7: Rocket Launcher

Author: Melodic Spaceship
Music: Plunge Saw by Bucket, from PlutMidi
Commentary:
This is the boss level I created for episode 2. As an attempt to do something more interesting with the hardcoded E2M8 action, this attempts to create a boss fight out of not one, but up to 9 cyberdemons at once! Also has a lot of Doomcute rocket ships in it, because it takes place at a rocket ship launch pad.
--MS

===Credits===

-Mappers: me, Melodic Spaceship
-Graphics: me, Melodic Spaceship, id Software (all 4 Doom IWADs + some graphics inspired by/derived from the Commander Keen games), lostres, Equinox, 32in24-15_tex (for the mostly unused SKY3), Skulltag (for the space background in various fullscreen graphics)
-Additional music credits not listed above:
  -Title music: "Extragalaxial Intro" by me
  -Intermission: "8 Gallons of Fuel" by Bobby Prince, from Demonstar
  -Text screen: Multiplayer lobby music by Bobby Prince, from Demonstar
-Playtesting: 97th Century Fox, paymentplan, Mustangel, Valhen_Saipiam
-Additional thanks: scwiba for hosting NaNoWADMo