Friday, August 25, 2017

PhobosDeimos Anomaly (PD1-ANOM.WAD)


When Hellbent more or less started Doom the Way id Did, I doubt that he considered its potential to become a movement. It's daunting to think of all the levels associated with the project, from the 27 in the official release to the 55 of the Lost Episodes, the insanity of No End In Sight's 38, and isolated releases like ProcessingControl's Castle of Fear. Callum Guy Oliver, aka phobosdeimos1, had no less than twelve submissions (thirteen if you count "Dark Passage"). Unfortunately, like his contributions to Interception, Oliver passed away before his DTWiD levels were published on the archives. PhobosDeimos Anomaly, released in the latter half of 2015, is the final element of his legacy supposing that no one has the unfinished third chapter in his Raw Action series.

Saturday, August 19, 2017

TV1998 (TV1998.WAD)


Thomas van der Velden has enjoyed a pretty prestigious authorial career, releasing Revolution! and its sequel, Harmony, all on his lonesome. He also made contributions to the much-lauded Plutonia 2 (among other things). TV1998, a collection of twenty-two (22) levels for Doom II, was released in 2004 but all of Velden's heavy lifting was performed before Revolution! in 1998 with a little bit in 1999, hence the title. Its release appears to be one of those happy accidents where someone finds a forgotten backup of materials long thought lost. TV picked it up, dusted it off, wired it some new skies and a TITLEPIC, and sent it back into battle.

Friday, August 11, 2017

SlayeR (SLAYER.WAD)


Richard Wiles started mapping during the advent of source ports in 1998 but remained part of the vanilla vanguard. His output remains highly lauded; for example, his considerably-varied DICKIE series (well, technically DICKIE10) was named one of Doomworld's top 10 WADs of 1998 and he also clinched nods in 1999 for the brutal but acclaimed Crusades as well as his contributions to The Darkening E2 in 2000. SlayeR, a ten-map plus one secret mapset released in 2001, appeared to be his Doom swan song but Wiles would come back five years later to author the Monolith series. Dare he return a decade after in 2017? Probably not, but stranger things have happened!