Reanimated (REANMTD.WAD)

Karthik Abhiram officially kicked off his authorial career when he was 19 years old with Ick. His brother, Varun, kicked off his own career the same year with The Anomaly: Part II, when he was around 13 years of age. The siblings had some sort of dialogue with each other when it came to mapping for Doom, but they didn't really collaborate in level design until 2004's Reanimated. This PWAD, whose name and level titles are inspired by the Linkin Park remix album, Reanimation, is a two-level minisode for limit-removing ports. Apparently the genesis of their inspiration came when they downloaded some Linkin Park MIDIs off the internet. If that doesn't sound like a time-capsule of the early 2000s then I don't know what else would.

Deep Core 1 (DEEPCORE.WAD)

DEEP CORE 1

by Mike Alfredson aka "Use3D"

I have long-assumed that Nilla Doom was Mike's in-progress megaWAD and that most of his solo-outtakes are rejects from the running order as development progressed. I was incorrect, to say the least. Beyond Doom was - and remains - Use3D's rainy-day megaWAD. It initially began life as a more difficult replacement for Doom II's Hell episode (MAP21-MAP30) before Mike rebooted the whole thing. Deep Core 1 is the original iteration of this level as it appeared in what I assume the first reboot of Beyond Doom; Use3D subsequently remade the level in 2005, hence the numeric designator on this release. DEEPCORE was originally crafted in 1997 and is a MAP02 replacement for Doom II in keeping with its original slot in the Beyond Doom project.

Hell Pit (HELL_PIT.WAD)

HELL PIT

by Mike Alfredson aka "Use3D"

Mike's most recent release was as part of Ultimate Doom the Way id Did but he's been a low key contributor to big names like the Community Chest series and Back to Saturn X. Not to forget the original DtWiD, of course. All of his solo single-level publications are effectively archival releases and generally old ones at that, either from the category of "Nilla Doom reject" or "old level that predates Nilla Doom". I assume, anyway, as the former levels go out of their way to say that they were made for and then cut from the running order of his in-development megaWAD. Like Soulcage, Hell Pit is a map from the latter category, a Doom II MAP26 replacement that was handcrafted back in 1996 only to be uploaded much later in early 2004.

Blind Alley Y., "Dissolution" (BNDALYY.WAD)

BLIND ALLEY Y.

DISSOLUTION

by Gene Bird

BNDALYY is the fifteenth and currently final release of Gene Bird's Blind Alley series, published in early April of 2004. One could argue that Community Chest 2's "Desecration" is an honorary member, but from what I can glean it was built expressly for CCHEST2. The author has a few more BNDALY entries knocking around on his hard drive, perhaps not to see the light of day. So, for now, there is this MAP01 replacement for Doom II. Earlier entries in the series had a fixed space in the running of a grander mapset but Gene does not appear to have had a particular place for this or the previous release, Forlorn (BNDALYX). If it had followed the same scheme, then this would have been MAP34.

Deus Vult (DV.WAD)

I would like to think that 2004's Deus Vult (as well as its development Hell sequel, Deus Vult II) has left a profound influence in its wake. I remember when I was first getting back into Doom and I was held enraptured by gameplay videos, watching the player's never-ending confrontation against overwhelming odds in wondrously imaginative environments tempered with shades of author amusement. I wanted to play Doom until I could at least get by these levels on Ultra-Violence and experience them on their own terms. I'd prefer to think I've gotten my stripes after playing through the works of authors like dannebubinga and Ribbiks; in fact, I suspect that I may have overshot my goal by several leaps and bounds.

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.

The City of the Damned (TCOTD.ZIP)

Doomworld Forum superstar Daniel Gimmer, aka Tormentor667, is one of the biggest reasons that the ZDoom engine - and its family - is as popular as it is today. The man has an undeniable passion for the Doom community, especially on the GZDoom side of things, and Realm667 - in spite of what feels like a constant barrage of hacker attacks - remains the most organized collection of custom resources available to authors that want to play around in the Doom engine. Most of his work is highly regarded by a subset of the community that treasures each and every GZDoom level that emerges, confused and alone, into the /idgames wild. The City of the Damned is one of his earliest releases, a single level that was originally meant to showcase his Blood Resource Pack, which has an amusingly draconian permission requirement considering that all of this stuff was made by the hard workin' folks at Monolith.

Titan (TITAN.WAD)

You don't see a whole lot of "normal maps but with ZDoom features" nowadays. It looks like most of the people are making mods instead of maps. If you're looking for Doom+ gameplay, though, this one's for you. Titan is a nine-map episode for Doom II, released in 2004 by one Jesper Krag Rasmussen, aka Ixnatifual. This one WAS made for ZDoom, but a now ancient release, and ZDoom's continued development created a game-breaking bug at the end of MAP02 stemming from a malfunction in the execution of a handful of Rasmusen's major teleport traps. This led to an update back in 2014, which I nonetheless missed out on due to my insistence on using a copy I had downloaded back in 2010. Sorry about that!

Phocas Island (PHOCAS.WAD)

PHOCAS ISLAND
by Chris "Chopkinsca" Hopkins

Chris Hopkins was something of a Doom community fixture in the mid-2000s, though he's still around. While he's most famous for Phocas Island 2, his crown jewel had to come from somewhere. To wit, Phocas Island. Released in 2004, it's a very large single level for ZDoom, occupying the MAP01 slot. The plot is pretty simple, considering that it's a location-driven story. And, well, it's not much of a story! You're shipwrecked on an island, which you quickly find out is populated by demons and their ilk. Are you prepared to clean the island out in your attempt to find a possible means of escape?

Exquisite Corpse (EXCORPSE.WAD)

EXQUISITE CORPSE
by Andrew "Linguica" Stine, Rachel "Shtbag667" Schmitz,
Jacob "Darksoul" Kastner, "Volteface", "Fiend", Mike "Cyb" Watson,
Simon "_5hifty" Rance, Chris "Chopkinsca" Hopkins, Boris "boris" Iwanski,
Maximillian Augustus "Blackfish" Daley, "Scrum", and Josh "Earthquake" Simpson

The 1024 fad hit Doomworld pretty hard. In some ways, it still hasn't recovered, though 2048 may yet take its place. 1024 levels limit the playable space to 1024 x 1024 units; the challenge to the author is to create a level that avoids feeling as restrictive as it truly is. Before the Cacoward winning Congestion / Claustrophobia 1024, though, there was 2004's Exquisite Corpse, from where 1024 ultimately originated. The project got its cues from a surrealist parlour game where authors join together to create sentences and images, the caveat being that each player can only see the very edges of what the previous author did.

Nilla Doom (NILLA.WAD)

Nilla Doom is a seven-map episode for vanilla Doom II (duh), courtesy of Doomworld forum superstar Use3D (Mike Alfredson). The plot is simple and winking, following the adventure of a post-retirement marine as he attempts to warn his neighbors of another incursion of Hellspawn. It's a mixture of outdoor / indoor techbases and underground maps before finally settling into Hell itself, mostly to the familiar soundtrack of Rise of the Triad. This of course invites comparison to Hell Revealed, which isn't far off the mark. Nilla Doom is challenging, as though the first episode of HR got together with The Plutonia Experiment and had a baby. Those who fear Doom II's bestiary should avoid; Use3D puts the expanded roster to good work.