Year 21 - The Vanishing Point (YEAR_21.WAD)

YEAR 21
THE VANISHING POINT
by Eric "The Green Herring" Baker

Back in 2008, Eric Baker started what he hoped would be a yearly tradition, celebrating his birthday by making a speedmap and then sharing it with the Doom community. Years 22 and 23 did not enjoy the same speedy timetable, with 22 suffering from a series of unfortunate events and 23 turning into an epic, and there have been no followups since. Maybe Baker will see fit to give us a little minisode to update things to a more current timetable. Anyway, this is Year 21, the first level in the series, a MAP01 replacement for Doom II to be played in Boom-compatible ports. The story is simple. As a marine, you locate an abandoned warp gate facility in your free time only to find out that it isn't exactly devoid of inhabitants, and must thus get to killin'.

Rage Doom (RAGE20.WAD)

Dan Krempel published Rage Doom in a final but unfinished state back in '94, an OG Doom megaWAD that replaces 19 out of the 27 original levels. Krempel did not replace the levels in any fixed order. Slots E1M5-7, E2M3, 4, E3M3, 4, and 6 are not filled because the author eventually found himself too occupied in other affairs to finish it out. I'm guessing that since he was 14 at the time, the transition from grade school to high school was a major factor, but I'm pretty presumptuous. Rage Doom has no given story, but given that Krempel's levels appear to take their cues from the names of the maps originally in the slots, I'm assuming it's pretty much the same thing as Doom, except instead of starting at a "Hangar" you begin at an "Air Base".

The Castle of Blood (BLOOD.WAD)

THE CASTLE OF BLOOD
by Jim McColm

The Castle of Blood is a single map released for OG Doom back in '95 by one Jim McColm, one of the authors whose output went down with Compuserve and has since been archived on /idgames. It's a pretty cool green marble and blood structure, reminding me of Thy Flesh Consumed in its overall aesthetics, though not in its execution. The brief story is typical of PWADs; the eponymous castle is a hotspot of demonic activity and has served as a death trap for marines battling Hell. This time, you drew the lot (literally the short straw) and have to excise the Hellspawn.

ASDOOM][: The Final Countdown (ASD2.WAD)

Andy Sheppard released his ASDOOM back in '94, an episode 1 replacement for the original Doom. The following year, he published ASDOOM][: The Final Countdown, an eight-map episode for Doom II. The basic idea is the same, a series of levels with little consideration for 100% completion for pistol start. It's not a true sequel, though. When Sheppard put out ASDOOM, he must not have known Doom II's story, because the plot involved the marine returning from Hell only to be immediately thrust into a mission to a UAC base on Jupiter's moon, Io. ASD2 drops that concept entirely, as though it never happened. It's actually a followup to Doom II, starting immediately after your battle with the Icon of Sin. You return to Earth to find that the evacuation fleet is locked in some kind of stasis and needs your help in slaying the demonic remnants holding them back. One Colonel Diaz is your liaison, and she has several tidbits of wisdom to offer between MAP03 / 04 and MAP06 / 07, which you can read in Sheppard's voluminous .TXT.

Mayan Temple (MAYAN667.WAD)

MAYAN TEMPLE
by Paul Turnbull

Paul Turnbull's major claim to fame is the authorship of TNT Evilution's MAP23, "Lunar Mining Project", a level noted for feeling out of place in the scheme of the megaWAD being as it's a pretty concrete man-made level in the ostensibly Hellish third episode. It's also noted for having a few of those odd custom textures that some people find questionable. His other contribution to the Doom community is Mayan Temple, an E1M1 replacement released back in '94, which being a standalone work doesn't fall prey to the first complaint. The second, though, is fair game as Turnbull has included a host of brand new textures to help establish his theme. It's some kind of Mayan temple, of course, or more accurately a block of Mayan architecture with conflicting inclusions of Egyptian iconography.

ASDOOM (ASDOOM.WAD)

Andy Sheppard crafted two episodes, one for Doom and the other for Doom II, back in 1994 and '95, respectively. This is ASDOOM, an E1 replacement, consisting of nine levels. Sheppard places the level's story immediately following the original Doom, before the plot of Doom II was known. You emerge from the teleporter at the end of Inferno and arrive on Earth, with your superiors debriefing you for all the information you have on your encounters, because while the demons never made it to Earth, the UAC did lose contact with their Io base, which was executing the same kind of gateway experiments. As was the case with Ripley, you're sent as an adviser as you're the only human to have encountered the forces of Hell and survive. Of course, when you arrive, the forces of Hell wreck your dropship and you're forced to fend for yourself, fighting your way from the deepest level of the base to the top.

Mountain Base (KHILLS_2.WAD)

MOUNTAIN BASE
by Kurt Kesler

Mountain Base, aka KHILLS_2, is Kurt Kesler's second and final limit-removing PWAD from his classic period (K_KICKIN was published in 2005, seven years later, and KBASE_4 is a conversion of a previously released Boom map). Like KHILLS, it's a MAP01 replacement for Doom II. It also shares some common features, in that it's a techbase set within some mountains, the main difference being that in KHILLS, you started inside the base and worked your way out. In part deux, you start on the outskirts and must find your way in. As per usual, Kesler includes no story, just a two-word HINT in the .TXT - "Kill them.".

KMEGA1 (KMEGA1.WAD)

Kurt Kesler made a tonne of levels, starting back in '97 with K_BASE1 and ending his major career around '01 with a last gasp in '05. KMEGA1, released in 2004, is a construction of convenience, a collection of all of Kurt's vanilla compatible releases into one megaWAD. Specifically, it includes his KMETL, KBASE, and KBRICK works, totaling 18 levels, all of which were released in '97 and '98. KBASE_4 is not included, I believe because it was a limit-removing PWAD and a de-Boomification of his KBOOM_7. Apparently some of these first works were originally made for OG Doom, as Kurt indicated in his KMETL_1 .TXT that his other files consisted of "K_Base1,Thebase1, I have lots,but am converting them from old version(Doom1)." They were never made available in that form, though, as far as I can tell.