Japanese Community Project (JPCP_V1*.WAD)

The Doom community has a distinctly international flair. It isn't immediately obvious since many of them are pretty good English typists but a considerable number have their own personal forums like the massive Russian website and the smaller but no less treasured French message board. Enter the Japanese Doom community, a group of individuals who I assume must be tightly knit. I'm no games historian but I understand that PC gaming is a relatively niche activity in Japan. While Doom has been ported to what seems like anything and everything the tools used for content creation - specifically, levels - are an entirely different matter. The JDC is no less passionate for it, though, and from them comes one of 2016's biggest surprises: the Japanese Community Project, a full-fledged megaWAD for limit-removing ports.

Kurashiki's Kuso Map (KUSOK.WAD)

Kurashiki is almost certainly better known for her excellent fan art of Doom, offering takes on the franchise and the PWADs it has spawned that are both fun and fantastic. In this, she's become something of a Doom icon; I'd never have guessed that we'd get such high caliber art of memorable PWAD moments. She's made a couple of Doom II maps, though, released (more or less) in 2013. Kusok (Kurashiki's Kuso Map) is a two-level minisode made for Boom-compatible source ports. There isn't any kind of accompanying story, but the second level has something of an implied narrative, a techbase that's slowly giving way to infernal influence.