Cavemen (#CAVEMEN.WAD)

CAVEMEN

by "Sphagne"

Some folks wish that the first two Community Chests had been more exclusionary. Its original call to arms did not specifically ask for maps that had not previously been released, which is why Sphagne, Gene Bird, and Daniel Trim ended up submitting some of their previously-released maps to CCHEST, with Gene Bird sneaking a few (as well as one original!) into CCHEST2. The vast majority of Sphagne's material was concocted prior to him approaching the Doom community, during a period spanning 1995-1999, and then bulk-uploaded in August of 2002. The author claims that Cavemen, a MAP07 replacement for Doom II, is his ninth map, though it's the seventh in the running that was made available on /idgames. For those keeping score at home, the 1st and 3rd levels have never been (publicly) seen.

The Real Crusher (CRUSHER.WAD)

THE REAL CRUSHER

by "Black Void"

The original Community Chest was an interesting hodgepodge of folks who had already had long and storied careers, like Rex Claussen, Stephen Clark, and Samuel Villarreal, as well as authors like Sphagne, Gene Bird, and Daniel Trim, who had released a bunch of solo levels over the previous year or two, some of which found their way into the collection. Black Void doesn't really fall into either of these categories, instead standing alongside Simon Broadhead and Will Hackney as one of the less-defined contributors. Black Void is sometimes remembered for Captain Mancubus, a Doom II episode that they created alongside another author named Epyo. This, however, is The Real Crusher, a MAP06 replacement for Doom II released mid-2002.

Something Wicked This Way Comes (WICKED_1.WAD)

SOMETHING WICKED

THIS WAY COMES

by "Rex Claussen"

Rex kicked off 2002 with an idiosyncrasy from the year before, officially releasing Invictus to /idgames. This was a vanilla level for the original Doom where most of Rex's works since his debut had been for ZDoom and, for a long stride, leveraged assets from post-Doom FPS games like Hexen II, Half-Life, the Quake series, and Dark Forces. The Invictus upload was paired with a vanilla Doom II level that kicked off a new Rex trend: Something Wicked This Way Comes. This is a MAP10 replacement, also released in early 2002, and while it didn't profess to be the beginning of something broader, he would go on to author a grand total of nine individual Wicked levels, sort of capping things off with the pseudo-prequel, By the Pricking of My Thumbs....

One Bloody Night (BLDNIGHT.WAD)

Erik Alm is largely regarded as the WADfather of the Doom community's direction in combat due to his double-shot of the much loved Scythe and then, later, Scythe II. The third episode of Scythe generally comes as a thunderclap to folks who love its shorter, "cute" levels, but anyone familiar with Alm's work could see it coming from a mile away. Alm's fondness for both short, warm-up type levels as well as bone-crushing challenge encounters is evident in his contributions to Sam Woodman's ONEWEEK and it's similarly mirrored here, in One Bloody Night. This is a nine-level episode for vanilla Doom II that replaces MAP01-MAP09, released in the middle of 2002.

Blood Runners (#BLOODR.WAD)

BLOOD RUNNERS

by "Sphagne"

Sphagne sits alongside Gene Bird and Daniel Trim as an author who published levels prior to Community Chest and who submitted them back when the original CCHEST pitch was something more along the lines of, "Have you ever wanted to see one of your works ensconced within a megaWAD?" Thus far, the five Sphagne levels that I've covered--Simphony of Death, Secret Lab, Death Cycle, Hell Harbour, and The Living End--were not among the three maps that made it into the 2003 Community Chest. Blood Runners, which the author claims was his eighth produced level, became CCHEST's MAP23. It was originally released as part of a batch upload in 2002, a MAP01 replacement for Doom II. The author claims that he did not know that there was an online Doom community back when he authored these levels from 1995-1999, so one may assume that it will function in any source port.

Invictus (INVICTUS.WAD)

INVICTUS

by Rex Claussen

Wow, it's been a long time since I've played me some Claussen maps. Pre-Invictus, Rex made a ton of levels including a series of partial and total conversions (A Hex On You, Phoenix Rising, Paranoia, Temple of the Ancients, The Darkest Hour). Along the way, while I imagine The Darkest Hour was about a month away from being released, Claussen participated in DoomCenter's E1 Mapping Contest in 2001. His entry, "Invictus" (E1M6), was a break from form in a variety of ways. It included no copy and pasted geometry from his previous levels and tended toward more abstract level geometry based in OG Doom's aesthetic compared to, say, the more Quake II- or Half-Life-esque base and office designs.

Ruma (RUMA.WAD)

RUMA

by Esa Repo aka "Espi"

It's taken about three years to get here since I first played Espi's Barons o' Fun, but I finally made it. Ruma made Doomworld's Top 100 WADs list as one of the entries from 2002. It's a single map for Doom II, to be played in what appears to be any limit-removing port. Historians take note: Repo intimates in the .TXT that this was going to be MAP03 of his mini-episode, with the author keeping the start and exit, intending to build an otherwise entirely new level. I know that Espi had two minisodes in the works, One Hell of a Day (which became Suspended in Dusk) and Rust (which became part of Back to Basics). After a brief scan--and a second scan--I confirmed that the starting area of Ruma has the same geometry as Suspended in Dusk's MAP03 starting area. I guess that this makes Ruma something of a lost level or a Deleted Scene, to crib from Russell Pearson's cut content showcases.

The Living End (#LIVEND.WAD)

THE LIVING END

by "Sphagne"

No--it's not THAT "Living End". This is a level by Sphagne that happens to go by the same name. Sphagne's main claim to fame is having submitted three of his previously-released levels to the first Community Chest: Avenger, Blood Runners, and Afterlife. Pretty much all of his single player maps were crafted somewhere between 1995 and 1999 and then uploaded in bulk in August of 2002. The Living End is purportedly the seventh of these, with four of the author's mentioned 19 levels never seeing publication. Like the rest of Sphagne's released solo works, it's a MAP01 replacement for Doom II.

Laitos (LAITOS.WAD)

LAITOS

by Esa Repo aka "Espi"

Espi was one of fifteen different people who submitted levels to DoomCenter's E1 Contest for the chance to get a sweet, signed copy of The Ultimate Doom from the man himself, John Romero. Some of them went on to have rather illustrious careers in the community. Amusingly enough, the contest winner did not! Some of the contestants released their levels individually once it was over. Laitos--which was originally E1M8, not that this technically meant anything--has virtually doubled in size, if not more so. My understanding is that Espi revised this level several times. The final version (v1.4), published in early 2002, is an E1M1 replacement for the original Doom.

Hell Harbour (#HHARBR.WAD)

HELL HARBOUR

by "Sphagne"

Sphagne's main claim to fame is submitting of his previously-released levels to the original Community Chest. Like his contemporary Gene Bird, Sphagne had been crafting maps since the mid-90s only to start publishing them later in the early '00s. Hell Harbour is Sphagne's sixth level but a portion of his maps were apparently not deemed fit for release. Of the seventeen or so works whose existence is confirmed, #HHARBR is actually the sixth. Like the rest of these single map publications (Gene Bird's and Alex Parsons's), it's a MAP01 replacement for Doom II. It was published in 2002 but the story of its creation suggests that it ought to work in vanilla given that Sphagne "did not know about Doom communities accessible via internet", which sort of precludes source ports.

Death Cycle (#DCYCLE.WAD)

DEATH CYCLE

by "Sphagne"

One of my main goals has been to play through the collective works of the contributors to the first Community Chest as a sort of vertical slice of a subset of the Doom community at the time. I'd also like to do the same thing for Community Chest 2. The original CCHEST is somewhat maligned as the original goal was sort of something like, "hey, who wants to see their levels in a megaWAD?" with authors Gene Bird and Sphagne submitting levels that they had previously published on /idgames. Three of Sphagne's published fourteen maps ended up in the first Community Chest. Death Cycle, a MAP01 replacement for Doom II that was uploaded to /idgames in 2002, was not one of them. From what I can tell, it ought to be vanilla compatible, as the author had previously developed these maps between 1995 and 1999 before realizing that there was a broader Doom Community on the internet. This sort of precludes the existence of Boom as a target port.

007: License to Spell DooM (007LTSD.WAD)

Stephen Clark was something of a self-appointed vanilla advocate, a dude believed that OG Doom and Doom II were capable of great things that could close some of the gap between them and Quake and subsequent FPS games. He made Operation: Lightning, a Doom II episode that deliberately evoked Quake II with its dropships and had carefully arranged vanilla sector machinery to create effects like exploding reactors, flooding vessels, and collapsing bases. Then he took his lessons learned and authored Fragport, a 2001 "21st Century Doom 2 Episode" that was actually a megaWAD and which toned down some of OP-LITE2's worst excesses. Then he pushed Heretic into uncomfortably ingenious places with the Shadowcaster episode in 2002. This is also the year where he learned to stop worrying and love the ZDoom. Enter 007: License to Spell DooM, an E4 replacement for The Ultimate Doom.

Secret Lab (#SLAB.WAD)

SECRET LAB

by "Sphagne"

Community Chest contributor Sphagne uploaded the majority of his works to /idgames in mid-2002 but the levels themselves were purportedly crafted from 1995-1999. There are quite a few holes in the collection. For instance, Simphony of Death is the first of his creations that is available and he notes that it is actually his second. This one, Secret Lab, is the second upload from the collection but it's his fourth creation. Like the rest of his works, it is a Doom II MAP01 replacement. Given when it was created and his admission that he was unaware of online communities, it would appear that #SLAB ought to be vanilla-compatible. It appears, however, to have been tested in Boom and ZDoom prior to upload.

Shadowcaster (SHADOW.WAD)

From 2000 to 2002, Stephen Clark (aka The Ultimate DooMer) had created an episode for the original Doom and then converted it to Doom II (Operation: Lightning) and crafted his epic, 21st-century Doom II megaWAD (Fragport). His next target for his own brand of experimentation and modernization was everyone's favorite Doom clone, Heretic. Shadowcaster is an episode 5 replacement for Shadows of the Serpent Riders, released in September of 2002. I'm not up on my Raven Software lore but I don't think that there were any major engine changes between the original release and the free expansion that would have necessitated using the E5 slot. Presumably, this was more of an aesthetic decision where the author could avoid having to contend with a clashing intermission screen.

Short 'n Quick (SNQ.WAD)

SHORT 'N QUICK

by Varun Abhiram Krishna

Varun had a Doom career that ran roughly concurrent with his brother, Karthik, and each brother was ultimately enshrined in the annals of Doom history. Varun wasn't quite as prolific an author as his brother, starting out in 2001 with The Anomaly: Part II. Part of this appears to have been his participation in the ill-fated The Ninth Gate project from which his Cacoward-winning The Outer Darkness originates. His follow-up to ANOMALY2 came roughly a year later in April of 2002, the aptly-titled Short 'n Quick (not to be confused with Malcolm Sailor's similarly-named Quick is Good). This MAP01 replacement appears to have been intended as part of a series if the TITLEPIC is any indication. I suppose that UAC: Missions is as good a name for a no-nonsense series of levels as any.

Simphony of Death (#SYMPHOD.WAD)

SIMPHONY OF DEATH

by "Sphagne"

Some corrections are in order. A handful of authors for the original Community Chest submitted previously published works: Daniel Trim (Redux), Gene Bird (Blind Alley), and Sphagne. Back when I started really digging into the CCHEST contributors I was pretty sure that Sphagne's offerings were part of a broader, unfinished series, much like Blind Alley or Alex Parsons's World's End. As I read through these .TXTs, however, I realized that the sequence numbers given to the maps are only presented to establish the order in which they were created in 1995-1999. Presumably a significant portion of these levels remain unreleased. Mothership was the author's 19th chronological creation and with fourteen available on the archives (one of which is Deathmatch only) that leaves five unaccounted for. This review is for the first of Sphagne's published levels but the second overall: Simphony of Death. Created at an undisclosed time in the mid-to-late '90s (presumably 1995), it was uploaded to /idgames alongside the rest of his levels in August of 2002 and is a MAP01 replacement for Doom II.

The Abandoned Mines II (AMINESII.WAD)

THE ABANDONED MINES II

by Kim Bach aka "Torn"

Kim Bach is another one of those ancillary Doom community figures who made a lot of contributions to group projects without ever really enjoying a substantial single release. His submissions include multiple iterations of the 32in24 series as well as 1 Monster and Mock 2. Torn's most high-profile contributions are probably Scythe's MAP31 ("I Dunno Torn") and, most recently, Back to Saturn X Episode One's MAP02 ("Postal Blowfish", alongside Sarah Mancuso / Esselfortium). His passion project appeared to be the prospective Flashback megaWAD, which had him rubbing elbows with Erik Alm, Esa Repo, and - again - Esselfortium. His 2002 /idgames debut, however, is The Abandoned Mines II, a MAP26 replacement for Doom II that was a submission to the then burgeoning Freedoom project. This level was still present all the way up until Freedoom's v0.12.0 release in 2019 (!!!).

Operation: Lightning (OP-LITE2.WAD)

Stephen Clark, aka The Ultimate Doomer, made his debut splash in 2001 with his solo megaWAD, Fragport, but he had previously made an eight-map Doom episode called Operation: Lightning. Somewhere down the line he converted it to Doom II and added three more levels. While it was finished mid-2000, Clark didn't publish it until early 2002, once he saw some positive feedback for Fragport. OP-LITE2 replaces MAP01-MAP12 with the final map merely being an episode bumper to keep you from coasting into the regular Doom II campaign. It is as far as I know vanilla-compatible and should function correctly in the source port of your choice.

Find It (EAFINDIT.WAD)

FIND IT

by Erik Alm

Released after Europa 3: The Dark Side of Vrack, this is an EA level that you won't find much discussion of. Comments on /idgames are mixed, the highest-rating given by someone who assumed that this is merely a troll level with the author maliciously using Alm's name. The two 0-star comments consist of a simple "barf" and someone appalled at the idea that Erik could even conceive of making a jokewad. I wonder whether it even received any attention prior to the author establishing his reputation through Scythe and, later, Scythe II. Find It is a MAP01 replacement for Doom II, published in April of 2002. It requires a source port that supports Fragglescript, originally crafted for Simon Howard's SMMU. For a long time this basically meant that it could only be played back in (G)ZDoom and Legacy but it seems like more folks are doing retro-revival ports for modern architectures.

Indifference (INDIFFERENCE.WAD)

INDIFFERENCE

by Andy Leaver

If Andy has a major claim to fame in the community then it's his consistent participation in the CCHEST series. Those being for Doom II, it's interesting to see that the vast majority of his other output occurred from 2000-2003 and consists of levels created for the original Doom. bitebwad was a three-map minisode and he led the No Hope For Life team, crafting an entire E1 replacement between himself, Pablo Dictter, and Jay Trent. Indifference was uploaded to /idgames in 2003 but the timestamp appears to indicate - along with the glut of May uploads - that it was published elsewhere, perhaps as early as 2002. It is an E1M2 replacement and appears to be vanilla-viable.