Cavemen (#CAVEMEN.WAD)

CAVEMEN

by "Sphagne"

Some folks wish that the first two Community Chests had been more exclusionary. Its original call to arms did not specifically ask for maps that had not previously been released, which is why Sphagne, Gene Bird, and Daniel Trim ended up submitting some of their previously-released maps to CCHEST, with Gene Bird sneaking a few (as well as one original!) into CCHEST2. The vast majority of Sphagne's material was concocted prior to him approaching the Doom community, during a period spanning 1995-1999, and then bulk-uploaded in August of 2002. The author claims that Cavemen, a MAP07 replacement for Doom II, is his ninth map, though it's the seventh in the running that was made available on /idgames. For those keeping score at home, the 1st and 3rd levels have never been (publicly) seen.

Blood Runners (#BLOODR.WAD)

BLOOD RUNNERS

by "Sphagne"

Sphagne sits alongside Gene Bird and Daniel Trim as an author who published levels prior to Community Chest and who submitted them back when the original CCHEST pitch was something more along the lines of, "Have you ever wanted to see one of your works ensconced within a megaWAD?" Thus far, the five Sphagne levels that I've covered--Simphony of Death, Secret Lab, Death Cycle, Hell Harbour, and The Living End--were not among the three maps that made it into the 2003 Community Chest. Blood Runners, which the author claims was his eighth produced level, became CCHEST's MAP23. It was originally released as part of a batch upload in 2002, a MAP01 replacement for Doom II. The author claims that he did not know that there was an online Doom community back when he authored these levels from 1995-1999, so one may assume that it will function in any source port.

The Living End (#LIVEND.WAD)

THE LIVING END

by "Sphagne"

No--it's not THAT "Living End". This is a level by Sphagne that happens to go by the same name. Sphagne's main claim to fame is having submitted three of his previously-released levels to the first Community Chest: Avenger, Blood Runners, and Afterlife. Pretty much all of his single player maps were crafted somewhere between 1995 and 1999 and then uploaded in bulk in August of 2002. The Living End is purportedly the seventh of these, with four of the author's mentioned 19 levels never seeing publication. Like the rest of Sphagne's released solo works, it's a MAP01 replacement for Doom II.

Hell Harbour (#HHARBR.WAD)

HELL HARBOUR

by "Sphagne"

Sphagne's main claim to fame is submitting of his previously-released levels to the original Community Chest. Like his contemporary Gene Bird, Sphagne had been crafting maps since the mid-90s only to start publishing them later in the early '00s. Hell Harbour is Sphagne's sixth level but a portion of his maps were apparently not deemed fit for release. Of the seventeen or so works whose existence is confirmed, #HHARBR is actually the sixth. Like the rest of these single map publications (Gene Bird's and Alex Parsons's), it's a MAP01 replacement for Doom II. It was published in 2002 but the story of its creation suggests that it ought to work in vanilla given that Sphagne "did not know about Doom communities accessible via internet", which sort of precludes source ports.

Death Cycle (#DCYCLE.WAD)

DEATH CYCLE

by "Sphagne"

One of my main goals has been to play through the collective works of the contributors to the first Community Chest as a sort of vertical slice of a subset of the Doom community at the time. I'd also like to do the same thing for Community Chest 2. The original CCHEST is somewhat maligned as the original goal was sort of something like, "hey, who wants to see their levels in a megaWAD?" with authors Gene Bird and Sphagne submitting levels that they had previously published on /idgames. Three of Sphagne's published fourteen maps ended up in the first Community Chest. Death Cycle, a MAP01 replacement for Doom II that was uploaded to /idgames in 2002, was not one of them. From what I can tell, it ought to be vanilla compatible, as the author had previously developed these maps between 1995 and 1999 before realizing that there was a broader Doom Community on the internet. This sort of precludes the existence of Boom as a target port.

Secret Lab (#SLAB.WAD)

SECRET LAB

by "Sphagne"

Community Chest contributor Sphagne uploaded the majority of his works to /idgames in mid-2002 but the levels themselves were purportedly crafted from 1995-1999. There are quite a few holes in the collection. For instance, Simphony of Death is the first of his creations that is available and he notes that it is actually his second. This one, Secret Lab, is the second upload from the collection but it's his fourth creation. Like the rest of his works, it is a Doom II MAP01 replacement. Given when it was created and his admission that he was unaware of online communities, it would appear that #SLAB ought to be vanilla-compatible. It appears, however, to have been tested in Boom and ZDoom prior to upload.

Simphony of Death (#SYMPHOD.WAD)

SIMPHONY OF DEATH

by "Sphagne"

Some corrections are in order. A handful of authors for the original Community Chest submitted previously published works: Daniel Trim (Redux), Gene Bird (Blind Alley), and Sphagne. Back when I started really digging into the CCHEST contributors I was pretty sure that Sphagne's offerings were part of a broader, unfinished series, much like Blind Alley or Alex Parsons's World's End. As I read through these .TXTs, however, I realized that the sequence numbers given to the maps are only presented to establish the order in which they were created in 1995-1999. Presumably a significant portion of these levels remain unreleased. Mothership was the author's 19th chronological creation and with fourteen available on the archives (one of which is Deathmatch only) that leaves five unaccounted for. This review is for the first of Sphagne's published levels but the second overall: Simphony of Death. Created at an undisclosed time in the mid-to-late '90s (presumably 1995), it was uploaded to /idgames alongside the rest of his levels in August of 2002 and is a MAP01 replacement for Doom II.