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.

Industrial (INDUSTRL.WAD)

INDUSTRIAL

by Kevin "Magikal" Reay

When I decided to do a deep dive into the depths of the original Community Chest there were three things that I was dreading. The first was the sheer magnitude of single level releases from authors like Alex Parsons and Gene Bird. Second and opposite, I knew that Kaiser's back catalogue would involve most of the megaWADs of the DSV series. Last but by far not the least was Kevin "Magikal" Reay's levels. His entries have been the most consistently derided element of CCHEST but it's not hard to see why having finally played this level. Every author has their own design language and Kev's is somewhere in the realm of mid-'90s cryptographers like Jim Flynn and Bob Evans. His 2002 solo debut was Industrial, a very large and long MAP01 replacement. It was originally tested in Legacy but will probably work in any Boom-compatible port that has complex Z-collision, e.g. Eternity or (G)ZDoom. This is almost entirely due to a couple of instances toward the level's end, most notably a torch that you will have to ledge-crawl over. The author's only real caveat is for you to not jump.