Corruption Cards

Corruption Cards is inspired by card game mechanics and passive mutators. The mod's main goal is to bring an element of unpredictability and chaos to your playthrough of Doom (as well as Heretic and Hexen). It offers exclusively complications: you'll have to weigh risks and constantly pick the "lesser evil."

How the cards work

At the start of each map you're offered a choice. Effects are divided by rank and type:

• Enemy mutations: speeding up opponents, turning them into mini-copies, giving them wings or jetpacks, poisonous or exploding blood on death.

• Events and environment: acid rain, earthquakes, spawning explosive barrels, appearances of poison gas or cursed totems that buff everything nearby.

• Nuisances and mechanics: shuffled spawns, resources stolen from your inventory, or "fleeing" health packs and ammo.

• Secrets and easter eggs: for example, the Rescue Mission card, where you need to find Daisy the rabbit (otherwise enemies on the next level get a buff), or the Cacodemon plush toy that clogs a weapon slot.

All mutations accumulated during a run can be tracked through the built-in reference — the Card Compendium.

Game modes and card sets

The mod offers a flexible system of difficulties and customizable presets:

• Standard: a balanced option. On every level you take a temporary mutator, but every three cards you choose a permanent effect that lasts until the end of the game.

• Hardcore: all chosen cards become permanent from the very first level, and the difficulty snowballs.

• Chaos: a random number generator picks a card for you on every level with no choice involved.

• Collector, Custom and Master: a collector mode, fully customizable rules (up to 8 cards to choose from), or the secret "Master" mode (where cards are picked blind).

• Daily Challenge: a daily-updated seed with a fixed card set for competing with friends.

You can also restrict the deck's theme: pick only monster cards (Science Project), environmental hazards (Treacherous World), a mode that adds new enemies (New Friends), or a soft balance (Balanced).

Compatibility and recommended mods

Because it's written in ZScript, Corruption Cards doesn't replace the game's original files or monster code. The mod can read third-party enemies on the fly and automatically generates unique cards for newly added opponents!

Map recommendation: the mod is ideally suited for small and medium-sized maps. On giant Slaughter maps, a combination of a dozen mutations can make the game nearly unplayable.

Corruption Cards is guaranteed to be compatible with and pairs great with large-scale gameplay mods that expand the bestiary or inventory, such as:

• Weapons and gameplay: Trailblazer, Supercharge, Brutal Doom, Doom XP, Doom Roguelike Arsenal (DRLA), Doom CE.

• Bestiary: Colorful Hell, Champions, Legendoom Lite / Legiondoom, Eons of Death, H2.

Note: despite a high level of optimization, overly heavy complex builds or monster packs with complex scripted logic may occasionally cause conflicts, but with the vast majority of popular mods Corruption Cards runs stably.