Super MAYhem 17 (MAYHEM17.WAD)

MAYhem is a time when Doomworlders can band together and throw their weight behind an arbitrary set of restrictions. The series had a rough start in terms of meeting its megaWAD goal, with 2012 and 2013 fielding 12 and 11 levels respectively, but it hit its stride with MAYhem 2048, with each subsequent iteration meeting the "megawad" definition (in spirit with MAYhem 2024, which produced 35 segments to stitch together). The 2017-released-in-2018 installment goes by Super MAYhem 17 because the texture theme this go-around was Super Mario Bros.-themed, with an aesthetic that appears to be sort of a mix of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World. This is a 28-ish level replacement for Doom II, to be played with Boom-compatible ports, with some fringe MAPINFO perks for ZDoom / Eternity users.

Tangerine Nightmare (TN.WAD)

The French Doom Community celebrated in 2024 with a huge win, finally pushing out a release candidate of their Necromantic Thirst megaWAD after years of development. They didn't get there by just chipping away at their mega-project, though. franckFRAG and WH-Wilou84 fostered a creative community through their 3 Heures d'Agonie speedmapping project, which got sequels in 3HA2 and 3HA3. This seemed to activate authors like Datacore, who has since become one of the most productive authors of their subset of the Doom diaspora. Tangerine Nightmare started as a Datacore-led project with an emphasis on an orange color scheme. At some point, and I can't exactly tell by reading the development thread, franckFRAG sort of organically became the lead. What started as a vanilla adventure became a (mostly) limit-removing episode for Doom II, finalized in early 2018, replacing MAP01-MAP10.

Beta 64 (BETA64.WAD)

For many years, authors were mostly content with attempting to bring the magic of Doom 64 to the PC. Sure, some folks made episode-like mods for The Absolution TC (like The Outcast Levels, Redemption Denied, and The Reckoning), but there just wasn't the same level of love as with Doom I & II. Maybe it's a "mod of a mod" thing. The disparity persists after the release of Doom64 EX, but someone - Doomworld Forum superstar Antnee - stuck it out for the long haul and fabricated the first ever user-created megaWAD for Doom 64. Beta 64 is a thirty-one level mapset for Doom64 EX, soft-released in late 2018. It isn't officially "done" or uploaded but if the author comes back to fashion MAP29 then I'll update this review.

Fruit Salad (FRUIT SALAD.WAD)

Grain of Salt is someone who I was peripherally aware of as a member of Doomworld's slaughter fan brigade, a contributor to community projects like Slaughterfest 2011. I actually did play one of GoS's levels back in 2013, a bonus map from Hadephobia ("Scotch Bonnet"). I also downloaded a solo release, Green Goddess, though I have failed to actually do anything with it. Fruit Salad is her second personal publication that I'm aware of, a six-map episode for Doom II for play in Boom-compatible ports. It was released in late 2018 and might generously be called a holiday-themed set since its themes are split into ice, mountain, and Christmas. The last one isn't entirely festive but the colors are there.

Assault On Chextropolis (CQAOC.WAD)

ASSAULT ON CHEXTROPOLIS

by "Stormwalker" aka "Vordakk"

As of this writing I haven't reviewed the original Chex Quest trilogy but I did play some of it quite a bit and still have the CD that I got out of the box. I even went so far as to download CQ2 and distinctly recall something claiming to be CQ3 where the first level resembled an archaeological dig site. If you're a diligent fan and remember what I'm talking about (because it doesn't look at all like the actually released third episode) then please tell me! Chex Quest still has a fan community though as far as popularity goes it looks like it's probably somewhere between Hexen and Strife when it comes to modding. Vordakk is one of those who still remembers which is why in 2018 I can play Assault On Chextropolis. It's an E1M1 replacement for the CQ3 IWAD and requires (G)ZDoom.