Heart of Fire (HOF.WAD)

HEART OF FIRE

by Pablo Dictter

Pablo was one of the more prolific authors to emerge during the source port boom. Much of his output consisted of small, straightforward levels with a hefty amount of detailing. Today Dictter is probably remembered for his sole contribution to Alien Vendetta, "One Flew Over the Caco's Nest" (MAP21). The stringy layout is emblematic of his style back in the early '00s. He also indulged in level design for the Raven branch of the id family. Heart of Fire is an E1M1 replacement for Heretic, originally released for what appears to have been something like a limit-removing port - wHeretic. Published in 2001, it is a sequel to the similarly-titled River of Fire which was stamped back in May of 2000.

Catastrophe (CATA.WAD)

CATASTROPHE

by Kevin "Magikal" Reay

The first Community Chest was something like a Broadway Melody of 2002. A few of the involved authors had been publishing stuff for a few years - as early as 1998 in the case of Rex Claussen. Many of the contributors had not displayed their creative force until '02, though. Kevin Reay's debut was the mastodonic Industrial, an impressive and cryptic array of sector machinery. He followed it up late in the year with Catastrophe, a Boom-compatible MAP01 replacement for Doom II. The author specifically recommended the use of Legacy over other ports due to some effects that fake complex three-dimensional geometry. I didn't notice any shortcomings in ZDoom, though.

3 Heures d' Agonie 3 (3HA3.WAD)

The Doom community has several, thriving international scenes. The French have developed over the last few years, spawning some prolific authors as well as auteurs. The front face of the FDC has been the 3 Heures d'Agonie series, which debuted in 2012 and was founded on the premise that all of the submitted maps be built over the course of three hours - give or take a few. These speedmapping megaWADs were conceived as an attempt to rejuvenate their community, which had become burnt out by the now-Quixotic construction of Necromantic Thirst. 3 Heures d'Agonie 3 is the third and purportedly final installment of the series as far as megaWADs go. It is a full, 32 map replacement for Doom II and ought to play well with any source port.