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[MrFlibble]

Originally Posted by MrFlibble

HacX
This game started as a commercial add-on/total conversion for Doom II that did not sell well, and eventually the developers have released it as freeware. By version 1.2, HacX no longer requires Doom II to play, and thus has become a stand-alone, freeware game that can be described as a Doom lookalike with a cyberpunk theme.
HacX official site
HacX screenshots
HacX at MobyGames
HacX at Doom Wikia
An interview with Perry "Bow" Bowman at DoomWorld

A little note on this game. It turns out that not only the new v1.2 release can be played without Doom II (via modern source ports like Chocolate Doom or ZDoom), but also the original v1.1 may run under DOS without Doom II installed.

Alongside the standard distribution of registered HacX v1.1, which comes in an installer that will refuse to install it without the DOS version 1.9 of Doom II, there's a plain files package what was originally made for people who have a non-DOS release of Doom II (Win95 or Mac). You can get it here:
http://gamers.org/pub/idgames/themes/hacx/hx11pack.zip

To play this version without the Doom II installation, a configuration file is required, and also the main IWAD file, which by default was supposed to be DOOM2.WAD. HacX v1.1 uses certain files from the IWAD, including the palette. This is in fact a major difference between versions 1.1 and 1.2, with the latter not requiring additional external files to work. Because of this, the HacX v1.2 IWAD can be used in lieu of the original DOOM2.WAD, it only needs to be renamed. Alternately, you can use the IWAD from Freedoom, and I think the Doom shareware episode IWAD will do fine too.*

As for the configuration file, you can use the SETUP.EXE programme from any other Doom engine game (shareware/demo versions work fine), keeping in mind that the resulting CFG file must be renamed into DEFAULT.CFG for it to be recognized by HacX.

* The game will actually accept any IWAD, including those from other shareware/demo versions of Doom engine games (Hexen, Strife etc.), with only a warning that the IWAD had been modified, but other games have different palettes and for that are not usable.