A new map-making tool Is reopening the world of Gloom, the Amiga’s Doom-era shooter

For most players, Gloom is a memory: a jagged, blood-soaked answer to the question of whether the Amiga could have its own Doom. For a smaller group of enthusiasts, it is still a living engine, a piece of 1990s technology that can be studied, modified and pushed around. Gloom Level Editor, a work-in-progress project from GitHub user Andiweli, sits firmly in that second tradition. It is not a remake, not a remaster, and not a flashy fan tribute. It is something more practical: a tool for making new spaces inside an old nightmare. The editor is described by its creator as a Windows-based prototype for creating and editing maps compatible with Gloom and ZGloom. Its purpose is straightforward: give modern users a desktop environment for inspecting, changing and exporting map data while keeping close to the structure of the original Gloom and ZGloom workflow. That may sound modest, but in retro game circles, tools often matter as much as the games themselves. A level editor is an invitation. It turns a preserved title into a playable construction site. In this case, the software offers a top-down 2D map view, selection tools, an inspector panel, texture previews, CrM2 texture loading, drawing modes for walls, monster zones and event triggers, plus zone and event editing features. It can also save maps and export layouts as SVG files. Gloom, developed by Black Magic Software and published by Guildhall Leisure Services, was released in 1995 for Amiga and Amiga CD32.

The original game’s reputation has always been tied to comparison. It arrived in the long shadow of Doom, but on hardware with its own culture, limitations and loyal audience. Where some Amiga shooters strained for atmosphere or technical credibility, Gloom built its appeal around immediacy: corridors, creatures, gunfire and gore. Archive.org’s listing calls the CD32 release a “Doom-inspired first-person shooter,” a phrase that captures both the game’s debt and its historical position. What makes Andiweli’s editor notable is its lack of grandstanding. The repository makes no exaggerated claim of being a complete modding suite. Instead, it presents itself as an active prototype. Mouse drawing currently supports walls, monster zones and event triggers; standalone map-object placement is listed as a possible next step once the object layer is exposed in the editor’s data model. The project also warns that features, file formats and editing behaviour may change as the editor develops. For outsiders, this might look niche to the point of invisibility. For retro FPS fans, though, it is exactly the kind of niche that keeps a scene alive. Old games survive through ports, archives and nostalgia, but they grow through tools. A map editor gives players a reason to stop simply remembering a game and start doing something with it again. Gloom Level Editor is not yet the definitive creative suite for Amiga FPS modders. It is too early, too unfinished, too openly experimental for that. But it is already something valuable: a bridge between a cult 1995 shooter and the modern hobbyist desktop. In the long afterlife of Gloom, the monsters may not be the only things waiting to be placed back into the map.

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