Abyssal Speedmapping Session 6 (ABYSPED6.WAD)

The Abyssal Speedmapping Sessions have been going relatively strong since 2013. These events get a group of community members together to create maps based around a choice of themes with two hours for the raw sector work and fifteen each for texturing and polishing. Unless you go by Alfonzo, in which case you use a third hour so often that it gets named after you. The sixth occurrence happened in May of 2014 and resulted in eleven Doom II levels for play in a Boom-compatible source port. Two other maps were made during the allotted time - one by scifista42 and another by Doomkid - but the organizer did not include them in the final package.

Abyssal Speedmapping Session 5 (ABYSPED5.WAD)

The Abyssal Speedmapping sessions changed hands a couple of times but it's still going strong. At this point I'd go so far as to call it a Doomworld institution. The general idea is that a bunch of authors get together on a group Skype session and then kick off a two-hour limit for making a map. Once the initial period is up they get 15 minutes to change textures and pick music and then 15 more for bugfixing. Excepting chaps like Gus, who was notorious enough for taking an extra hour that doing so was dubbed "The Alfonzo Treatment". Session 5 was released in May of 2014, replaces MAP01-MAP12 of Doom II, and is meant to be played in Boom-compatible ports.

Dimensions of Time (DOT.WAD)

Matt Tropiano is making Hell of cool maps for major projects like The Adventures of Square and Back to Saturn X. Back in 1998, though, he was a thirteen-year-old who loved Doom so much that he made his own megaWAD. Dimensions of Time is a full replacement for Doom II that's a little challenging to bite into as an experienced player; more on that, later. It's oft-cited as one of the unsung heroes of 1998. I disagree, but I can see where a lot of the appeal comes from. More than anything, I'm impressed that the author is still trucking along and doing stuff like Coffee Break Part 1 and Forsaken Overlook.

The Adventures of Square (SQUARE1.PK3)

Every now and then, someone uses the Doom engine to craft what is for all intents and purposes a brand new game. Heretic was the original, but then you got your Chex Quest, your Harmony, your Action Doom II... and now, The Adventures of Square. Jimmy had a vision, a vision of a plucky cigar-chewing square that fought the evil circles of Shapeland with gratuitous paint guns. Today, with a little help from his friends, that dream is now a reality. Right now, there's only one episode to Square's adventures, but two more episodes are promised in the selection screen - Cheddar Apocalypse and In the O-Void. If they're anything like this first release, well, I'm waiting, fellas.

Back to Saturn X E2: Tower in the Fountain of Sparks (BTSX_E2X.WAD)

It's been a little more than a year and a half, so it's about time that we saw the Back to Saturn X Episode II beta. BTSX started out as a single megaWAD, but an abundance of contributors caused an internal split into what eventually became three "episode" megaWADs. Get Out of My Stations, the "shareware" episode, made its public debut at the tail end of 2012. It got a lot of flak for its techbase stylings, but it's one of my favorite releases of the 2013 season for its impeccable visuals and light speed gameplay. Tower in the Fountain of Sparks looks to be one of the top releases of 2014, and for good reason.

Forsaken Overlook (FSKNOVLK.WAD)

FORSAKEN OVERLOOK
by Matt Tropiano

Forsaken Overlook, published in 2013, is part of the Doomworld "Secret Santa" project, arranged by one Brian "Snakes" Knox. The idea was to randomly pair off participating authors in a gift-maker to gift-receiver relationship, where the gift-maker created a single level in the target author's style. The results are then posted anonymously in the project thread, with players able to guess the target author before Snakes pulls the veil back and exposes the charade. In this particular case, the role of "Santa" was played by Doom veteran Matt Tropiano, and his recipient was "LupinX-Kassman" of Community Chest 4 fame. Tropiano did a job of studying his quarry, also producing a document that documents his entire creative process, which you can find and read in the .ZIP. A fascinating read, especially for other authors, I'm sure. The result, intended for Boom-compatible ports, plays in the MAP01 slot.

Coffee Break Episode 1 (CAFEBRK1.WAD)

Matt Tropiano has been making Doom levels since 1998 and as late as 2012 he decided to grace us with a megaWAD in progress which he'd called quits on, subtitled Episode 1 so that he could pick it up again if he got up the gumption. Coffee Break's first episode consists of eleven Doom II levels, to be played in Boom / MBF compatible ports. It's got some extra care when played in ZDoom-derived stuff but nothing important, just ending the game at MAP11 to cap things off. There's no real story, just intermission texts that hint at the usual demon-blasting goodness.

Plutonia Revisited Community Project (PRCP.WAD)

The Plutonia Experiment was a megaWAD created by the Casali brothers for id Software as part of the Final Doom package. In the years since, it's enjoyed a more favorable legacy than its sibling, TNT Evilution, so much so that it's had two unofficial sequels, Plutonia 2 and the WAD which this review covers, Plutonia Revisited. Plutonia Revisited's scope is a bit narrower than Plutonia 2, however, as the PRCP focused on vanilla compatibility (the trend of 2011). The only flaws you'll encounter when playing the original .EXE are a few maps that invoke the savegame buffer overflow (hooray for source ports!). In fact, this project has a few instances of mapping tricks that require vanilla emulation in source ports (notably some linedef hoodoo in MAP31). Redacted 05/01/12.