Wonderful Doom (WD14.WAD)

Doom is wonderful. Wraith knew this and believed in it so much that he wanted to give players an excuse "to play First Doom one more time". To this end, he crafted Wonderful Doom. This megaWAD was apparently released in several iterations before being released in time to feature as a runner-up in the 2007 Cacowards, with several updates since then. It replaces every level in The Ultimate Doom with, for lack of a better term, remixed versions of the original levels. I've seen a broad variety of opinions on this project, the extremes of which boil down to dismissing it for being too derivative of the IWAD versus loving it for how close the maps are in spirit to the originals.

The Dying End (TDE.WAD)

THE DYING END

by Chris Lutz

Phobos: Anomaly Reborn gave way to Deimos: Anomaly Unleashed. Lutz lost his muse, though, and didn't produce anything for about four years. The Dying End was released in 2007. It's a Boom-compatible offering that replaces Doom II's MAP29 and came as an oasis in a drought of chaos. It would be another four years before Icebound and his participation in DTWiD. This gave way to working with Xaser for No End In Sight. Thus energized, he would make a strong case for 2017's Mapper of the Year as a triple threat with Hellscape and Dark Tide. At least, it looks that way when I held the door open for NEIS to grace the 2017 season.