Post (POST.WAD)

I may not know Tony Sideris but I'm sure that he loves three things: shotguns, staircases, and Bjork. His buckshot love affair began with Genesis, a pleasantly bland two-level minisode released in 1996. It continued on to Debut, published later the same year, but with an added abundance of interesting stair work and lighting, hinted at in his first offering. Debut borrowed its title and many of its level names from Bjork's similarly-titled solo album. Post, released toward the end of 1996, is an eleven-level Doom II episode continuing the tradition and deepening the connection in ways no other Doomer has dreamt of.

Debut (DEBUT.WAD)

The works of Tony Sideris crop up on a lot of underrated PWAD lists. While his first release, Genesis, faded into relative obscurity, the follow-up episodes Debut and Post still get word of mouth accolades from classically-oriented players. What amazes me is that the author published all of these levels - a total of twenty-two - in 1996. It's too bad Tony didn't keep mapping into 1997; given where his skills were heading, he would have been a force to be reckoned with. Debut is a bit of a change-up, swapping from Doom II to make an episode for the original trilogy that takes the place of Knee Deep in the Dead.

Genesis (GENESIS.WAD)

Tony Sideris has left a legacy as one of the community's underrated early authors, churning out all three of his releases in 1996 and then disappearing, no doubt into a career in IT. Most of Tony's accolades in "underrated" WAD recommendation threads are for the curiously-titled Debut for the original Doom and the follow-up episode, Post, published for the 1994 sequel. Before either, however, came a two-level minisode for Doom II by the name of Genesis. There is no indication as to the reasoning behind the title of this PWAD beyond the fact that it marks the beginning of his career; Sideris included no story in the text and implies nothing through his level design. All that's there is a pair of mild-mannered maps.

Forest Valley (FOREST.WAD)

Forest Valley definitely doesn't resemble a forest, nor does it really approach a valley. The sky, though, is unmistakable. If you've played the Heroes collection you may recognize it as the backdrop of the second episode. Jean Serge-Gagnon is a quintessentially 1994 author, delivering some of the era's least endearing aspects in a relatively playable format. The final version was released in 1995 and includes a preview of his subsequent project, OTTAWAU.WAD. It's a partial episode two replacement covering E2M1 through E2M4 as well as E2M9 with a few crude graphical accents and some new music.

Nuke Mine (NUKEMINE.WAD)

The first time I heard of Nuke Mine (subtitled "Come Get Some", linking to Nuke before Duke) was, as Never_Again reminds me via an old /idgames comment, through Sverre Kvernmo hawking it in his 1995 release .TXTs. An episode one replacement released in August of 1994, it's a word-of-mouth classic whose only real flaws are just as evident in the Serenity and Eternity episodes, making it an easy recommendation for anyone who digs the more polished works of Doom's early era. It wasn't Jason Hargreaves's first release (PANIC!.WAD, which was heavily revised and released as E1M2 of this publication) but you can still see steps of improvement as you play through as there are a couple of leaps in his proficiency as an author.

PhobosDeimos Anomaly (PD1-ANOM.WAD)

When Hellbent more or less started Doom the Way id Did, I doubt that he considered its potential to become a movement. It's daunting to think of all the levels associated with the project, from the 27 in the official release to the 55 of the Lost Episodes, the insanity of No End In Sight's 38, and isolated releases like ProcessingControl's Castle of Fear. Callum Guy Oliver, aka phobosdeimos1, had no less than twelve submissions (thirteen if you count "Dark Passage"). Unfortunately, like his contributions to Interception, Oliver passed away before his DTWiD levels were published on the archives. PhobosDeimos Anomaly, released in the latter half of 2015, is the final element of his legacy supposing that no one has the unfinished third chapter in his Raw Action series.

TV1998 (TV1998.WAD)

Thomas van der Velden has enjoyed a pretty prestigious authorial career, releasing Revolution! and its sequel, Harmony, all on his lonesome. He also made contributions to the much-lauded Plutonia 2 (among other things). TV1998, a collection of twenty-two (22) levels for Doom II, was released in 2004 but all of Velden's heavy lifting was performed before Revolution! in 1998 with a little bit in 1999, hence the title. Its release appears to be one of those happy accidents where someone finds a forgotten backup of materials long thought lost. TV picked it up, dusted it off, wired it some new skies and a TITLEPIC, and sent it back into battle.

SlayeR (SLAYER.WAD)

Richard Wiles started mapping during the advent of source ports in 1998 but remained part of the vanilla vanguard. His output remains highly lauded; for example, his considerably-varied DICKIE series (well, technically DICKIE10) was named one of Doomworld's top 10 WADs of 1998 and he also clinched nods in 1999 for the brutal but acclaimed Crusades as well as his contributions to The Darkening E2 in 2000. SlayeR, a ten-map plus one secret mapset released in 2001, appeared to be his Doom swan song but Wiles would come back five years later to author the Monolith series. Dare he return a decade after in 2017? Probably not, but stranger things have happened!