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.

MAYhem 2016 (MAYHEM16.WAD)

The MAYhem series has built a PWAD for every May since 2012 and, starting with 2014, they've all been megaWADs. The project organizers have changed but the general procedure is the same. 1) Pick a texture pack in order to give the set a distinct identity. 2) Decide on some sort of limitation as a gimmick. 3) Kick the event off in May, where the bulk of the level design is (hopefully) performed. In this particular case the merry month was used for planning and logistics while the actual work was done in June. 2016 was really a tale of two gimmicks but you probably wouldn't realize either due to the necessities of the final product's presentation. It's a 21-level mapset for Boom-compatible source ports and, in spite of some promising progress, still drug ass until it was uploaded in early 2017.

Mayhem 1500 (MAYHEM15.WAD)

Every May since 2012 Doomworld community members have gotten together in an attempt to make a megaWAD in a month. It isn't polished and finalized by June, though, and it might not even be finished during the same year. The 2015 session followed in the grand tradition of MAYHEM13 insofar as it wasn't released until 2016. It is also the second of the projects to reach the symbolic status of a full game replacement, occupying MAP01-MAP32 with additional bonus levels in the MAP33 and MAP34 slots. MAYhem 1500, like its forebears, is meant to be played in a Boom-compatible source port. If you play it in something that supports a brand of MAPINFO, though, then the secret levels will transition smoothly into the extra stuff.

Mayhem 2013 (MAYHEM13.WAD)

The MAYhem series is sort of like a speedmapping session but the target for making maps is the very merry May. Sometimes the polishing phase wraps up a few months later. At other times it doesn't finish until, say, March of the following year. The first session - MAYHEM12 - wasn't really centered around a gimmick unless you counted its three suggested themes but it did have a much-maligned texture set. MAYhem 2013 elected to use the Community Chest 4 pack but actually ended up with one less level. Maybe that's because of the 2MONSTER gimmick. Released in 2014, the final product is an eleven-level mapset for Doom II that's meant for Boom-compatible ports.

MAYhem 2012 (MAYHEM12.WAD)

The good news is that TheMionicDonut's MAYhem became an annual institution where mapsets - sometimes a megaWAD's worth - are created. The unfortunate news is that its completion / polishing phase inevitably runs over the monthly time frame. MAYHEM12, for instance, saw its final release in November of the same year while MAYhem 2013 hung around until March of 2014. It isn't much bad news at all, though, especially considering how long projects usually languish on hard drives. The community still gets a brand new collection of levels to play and the contributing authors get to flex their muscles in a theme that they might not have otherwise experimented with. In this case it's twelve Boom-compatible levels for Doom II.