The Chemical Base (CHEMICAL.WAD)

THE CHEMICAL BASE

by Pablo Dictter

Pablo was another prolific figure during the source port boom beginning in 1999 but mostly from 2000 and on. He rubbed elbows with the likes of his soul brother Tobias Münch as well as the Abhiram brothers (Karthik and Varun) and even found his way into the Alien Vendetta lineup. Dictter made a lot of levels but something like half of them - all early works - didn't find their way to /idgames. It's no wonder then that his first-archived material shows a lot of craft in, if not making interesting layouts or room shapes, adding a lot of visual panache. The Chemical Base is a MAP01 replacement for Doom II and was released somewhere on the borderline between 2000 and 2001. The WAD itself has an older timestamp while the .TXT leans toward the latter.

Dissolution (DISTION.WAD)

Bryant (aka "Gunrock") and Kevin ("The Solution") Robinson made Project Slipgate some time in 2001. It was a Quake-themed outing that explored the cool but sparingly-used (at least in the original campaign) "Complex" scheme as well as darker, disturbing fortresses. It also had something of a Doom 64 feel due to colored lighting, heavy atmosphere, and other aspects. The brothers decided to revisit the aesthetic with a side-story, released in 2002. Dissolution is yet another episode for ZDoom. It replaces MAP01-MAP07, though it's worth noting that the opener is a cinematic sweep of a fortress and neither requires nor takes any player input.

Blind Alley P., The Boardwalk (BNDALYP.WAD)

BLIND ALLEY P.

THE BOARDWALK

by Gene Bird

The original CCHEST - and, to a lesser extent, its sequel - gets a bad rap nowadays. Part of this is due to Gene's involvement, or rather looking back without its original context and holding the project to an unrealistic standard. Community Chest didn't have a lot of motivation beyond "Did you ever want to see a level of yours as part of a megaWAD?" Some folks made new ones. Others like Bird and Sphagne did not and opted to submit from their own, singles-heavy back catalogue. G.B.'s series was called Blind Alley and eight of its fifteen levels can be found in the first as well as CCHEST2. These maps began as part of a larger, more ambitious megaWAD and were released piecemeal as Gene finalized them. The Boardwalk originally occupied the MAP25 slot is MAP01 here mostly for ease of play, I imagine (the author suggests idmus25 or 22 for music). It ought to work in any port, including vanilla, though Bird recommends the use of something more advanced.

Overheat (OVERHEA1.WAD)

OVERHEAT

by "Memfis"

Memfis has tried on a variety of different WAD themes. Some of them, like ICARUMEM and RELIVEX2, were explicitly based on classic-era releases if not in the absolute content then the texture schemes represented in them. Others e.g. Kurogane are more vanilla but each one tends to have its own little twist. Overheat was originally published to the Doomworld forums in 2012 but, like so many other things by Memfis, only found its way to /idgames in mid-2014. It's a MAP01 replacement for Doom II and is theoretically vanilla-compatible but an engine bug restricts it to limit-removing ports that have squashed the "Medusa" effect.

Project Slipgate (SLIPGATE.WAD)

Bryant and Kevin are the brothers Robinson. You might know them as Team Demise but I wasn't aware that they had a website until I started poking around for this review. They more commonly go by Gunrock and The Solution and they generally make levels for feature-rich source ports. (G)ZDoom, Vavoom, you know the type. Unraveling their development history has been a challenge because they are fond of going back and remastering their old works while eliminating the older versions. Where their debut, quake2doom, tried to bring the magic of Quake II to Doom, Project Slipgate worked with idtech2's flagship title. The most recent version replaces MAP01-MAP11, the same number but not slots as the original 2002 (2001?) release. It's built for ZDoom but the authors are fond enough of GZDoom's special effects that they recommend using it if you can.

Congestion Control 2 (CCT2.WAD)

CONGESTION CONTROL 2

by Karthik Abhiram Krishna

Congestion Control 2 actually started out as Out of Phase 4: Interview With the Cyberdemon. It got a little out of hand for K.A. to file it alongside his light-speed OPHASE stylings, though, and thus became CCT2. There are a few other little details worth mentioning, too, like it being published on Karthik's 21st birthday. More on that later. This 2003 MAP01 replacement is the author's first limit-removing release but it also has bonus features for players using ZDoom. It takes advantage of the MAPINFO lump for a few extra bells and whistles whose absence won't mechanically affect your playthrough.

The River of Fire (RIVERF.WAD)

THE RIVER OF FIRE

by Pablo Dictter

Pablo made a good number of Doom / II levels that are no longer publicly available before he started uploading stuff to /idgames. The confusingly titled They Will Repent (House of Pain Part Two) was his archival debut. The quasi-E4 styled map pointed pretty strongly to the level design that he would be infamous for in Alien Vendetta. As it turns out, though, he also dabbled in making levels for Heretic. The River of Fire is the first of these irregular morsels to find their way to broader publication. It wasn't uploaded until 2001 but it was available elsewhere circa 2000. It was made for a now-defunct source port called wHeretic but as far as I can tell the engine did not have any special features, primarily existing to bring the game from DOS to Windows.

No Quarter (DOME1M3.WAD)

NO QUARTER

by Will "ArchVile46" Hackney

Some Doomers have big dreams. Will, who later went by Kid Airbag, had a grand vision borne out of a failed project that I've heard little of - Doom Revisited. He salvaged his submission and set out on his own epic, Doomed Once More, which would span the Ultimate quadrilogy and - he hoped - the entirety of Doom II as well. DOM barely got off the ground, though, and Hackney eventually released the finished portions of the first episode in 2003. This was after the release of the original Community Chest, in which he was a participant. In 2002, though, came this promising teaser. No Quarter is an E1M3 replacement for limit-removing source ports.