Evil's Playground (Diabolique part two) (EVPL.WAD)

Time for another curveball in Pablo Dictter's portfolio. This publication primarily exists for Evil's Playground, released - I believe - in 2001. The subtitle is Diabolique part two, a reference to a previously-created level called - you guessed it - Diabolique. I'm not sure when the latter was created but it was included in the release of EVPL as something of a bonus, isn't available otherwise, and both were purportedly part of the Diabolique project. Pablo had his hand in like three or four different Doom avenues alongside his River of Fire series, Good V/S Evil (where An Infernal Place came from), and a couple of others that released later. Even if he was compelled to carve up The Gates as a failure. This dead-end PWAD couplet replaces E3M1 and E3M2 of the original Doom.

Blind Alley S., "Spirit World - Headquarters" (BNDALYS.WAD)

BLIND ALLEY S.

SPIRIT WORLD - HEADQUARTERS

by Gene Bird

Spirit World - Headquarters marks a bit of a turning point in Bird's published level design. I would characterize all of Gene's maps released thus far as stringy and linear with occasional hubs and spokes. BLNDALYS is not overwhelmingly different in its execution but there is one big change in how he executes this trope, somewhat heralded by his previous release, Monster Mansion. The "S" designator denotes the level's position in the overall running of what could have been a late-occupying episode for Doom II. BNDALYR would have been MAP27 and this would have been MAP28. Things change, though, as the letter "Y" was ascribed to MAP15. Spirit World - HQ is a MAP01 replacement for Doom II and was released in early 2003.

Trousled (TROUSLED_RC3.WAD)

TROUSLED

by A.o.D.

I was strolling through the Doomworld Forums in TYOOL 2021 as is my wont and saw a WAD name that caught my eye - TROUSLED. Someone tried to be helpful to the author and linked them to the mod posting FAQ without any context so I foolishly decided to be a bit of a wise-ass. In the process of doing so I dug a little deeper than I probably should have and raised some questions that I decided to answer for myself. In the process I saw the INTERPIC at which point I realized that the mood of the PWAD was probably Undertale-related. I'm tangentially aware of UT but not familiar enough for this mod's title to have clued me in. Trousled is a MAP01 replacement for Doom II meant for play in GZDoom.

Titan 1024 (TITA1024.WAD)

It feels like a long time ago but, back in 2014, the author of the Titan series pointed me toward his then recent entry: Titan 1024, a sort of re-imagining of the then ten-year old levels within the 1024 limit. I said that I would do one better and play both the original as well as Titan 2 before checking out TITA1024. Well, after six and a half years, here we are! Sorry for the wait, Ixnatifual. Titan 1024 is a ten-level episode for Doom II to be played in GZDoom. It was originally released in 2012, some three and a half years after his last publication. The author notes that jumping is acceptable, but crouching is forbidden. The number of situations where the former comes up is... not big, but try not to forget that it's an option.

ea Speedmap 3 (EASPD3.WAD)

EA SPEEDMAP 3

by Erik Alm

There's a sidestory to a lot of these authorial careers who had their heyday in the early '00s that I've been glazing over. 2001 was the birth of the community speedmapping event, I mean insofar as it was officially documented on /idgames. Whether it was Doomworld, NiGHTMARE, or SargeBaldy, people came and did the best that they could within 100 minutes. Erik Alm apparently never applied to any of the DWSPD festivities but he was a fixture of both NTSPD and SBSPD. ea Speedmap 3 was actually created for NiGHTMARE's #3 session in December of 2001. Alm's connection died while he was submitting it, though, so rather than let it go to waste, he uploaded it to /idgames in early 2002. EASPD3 is a MAP01 replacement for Boom-compatible ports.

Metamorphism (META.WAD)

METAMORPHISM

by Brad Spencer and Karthik Abhiram Krishna

Mapping has generally been a highly personal endeavor, the exercise of an author's absolute authority over a microcosm. Shared credits for single levels are the exception rather than the norm and even some of these instances are less collaborative and more finishing or altering a map after the original creator has moved on. Sometimes, though, a few people just really hit it off and pass a level back and forth a la Double Impact. Metamorphism is such a product, the work of two then-acclaimed authors: Brad Spencer and Karthik Abhiram Krishna. META is a circa 2003 MAP01 replacement for Doom II and is vanilla compatible thanks to some hard-workin' folks.

Love You With Poison (LUWP.WAD)

LOVE YOU WITH POISON

by "Memfis"

Memfis made quite a few maps that leveraged resources from classic PWADs like Requiem and Memento Mori II as well as more obscure releases, e.g. Phobos - Relive the Nightmare. Love You With Poison, a MAP12 replacement for Boom-compatible ports released in 2013, is a bit different. The author decided to make use of the monsters and resources of JCD's Survive In Hell, a 2012 megaWAD that drew from - among other things - slaughter standards. LUWP is not a slaughtermap but it is a pretty tough play for a healthy variety of reasons. Note that you WILL need to load the SIHR2FIX PWAD in the correct order with LUWP in order to play the level.

An Infernal Place v1.1 (INFERNAL.WAD)

AN INFERNAL PLACE v1.1

by Pablo Dictter

An Infernal Place v1.1 is a Doom II conversion of an E1M1 replacement that Dictter had made a few months prior in 2001. The original iteration was published on I assume his hosted website as well as Doom WAD Station, where you can find a few of his maps that never found their way to the archives. It was apparently meant for a larger-scale project called Good V/S Evil that never really took off in his esteem. In any event, v1.1 changed the format to Doom II and made some changes to sectors and thing placement that make for a somewhat different play. Worthy enough of being considered for a separate review? By my reckoning, yes. After all, I did decide to cover RRW_D201. This revision of INFERNAL is a MAP01 replacement that purportedly plays back in any port. The original might, too, for all it matters.