Community Chest 4

From DoomWiki.org

Community Chest 4
Title screen
Authors Various
Port Boom-compatible
IWAD Doom II
Year 2012
Link Doomworld/idgames
Cacoward.png This mod received one of the 2012 Cacowards on Doomworld!

Community Chest 4 (cchest4.wad) is a 2012 megawad that contains 32 new levels, made by members of the Doomworld community. It requires a Boom-compatible source port with increased SEGS limits to play. It is the third sequel to Community Chest, preceded by Community Chest 3. It was released on August 17, 2012. It received both a normal award and the Mordeth Award during the 2012 Cacowards.

The megawad's texture pack, cc4-tex, would later see prominent use from many authors throughout the 2010s.

Development history[edit]

Planning for Community Chest 4 began on November 25, 2007, four days after the release of Community Chest 3. Among the planned elements were a texture resource pack to be used as a base for level design; this pack is included with the final release. As in previous Community Chests, designers reserved slots and designed their levels to fill that slot; for this project, the full set of completed levels would then be rearranged based on difficulty and size.

Development began on June 5, 2008, around half a year earlier than intended, and it was originally lead by Eric Baker (The Green Herring) and Death-Destiny, the latter of whom pushed for the June starting date. Due to controversy surrounding his behavior while leading Claustrophobia 1024, Death-Destiny left the community on October 19, 2008, less than half a year later. This was followed by a three-year period in which progress was slow, due to designers failing to complete their levels within a reasonable time period even after two submission deadlines were enforced. Many of them signed up for the project and started their levels with enthusiasm, only to resign or disappear after a few months at most. This continued even after Baker changed the submission rules on February 8, 2010, so that designers only had to fill "episodes" with the appropriate number of levels rather than specific slots. It was only after a level design drive was started by James Cresswell (Phobus) on September 8, 2011, and a deadline was set for November 16, 2011, that the level roster was finally completed.

In the six months that followed, Baker tested each level in the WAD and fixed whichever bugs they and the internal playtesting team encountered, releasing four beta versions in all. On July 27, 2012, a public beta version of the WAD was released, making it the first Community Chest to be tested this way. New public beta versions of the WAD were subsequently released every Monday during the next three weeks, the first two of which were playtested by ZDaemon users during the source port's "Thursday Night Survival" sessions. Finally, on August 17, 2012, the WAD was released.

On September 9, 2012, a second release was made which fixed bugs discovered after the WAD was released. This was followed on September 12, 2012 by a hotfix which corrected a bug on MAP29: Spiritual Holocaust that could prevent 100% Kills. On October 19, 2012, another hotfix was released to fix a similar bug on MAP17: Metastasize, which was followed by an update the next day to correct a bug on MAP18: Suburbia that allowed players to trap themselves outside of the level.

Levels[edit]

Easter egg level[edit]

There is an additional level included in this WAD which cannot be accessed normally. To reach it, you must use a command line argument, a cheat code, or a console command depending on your source port of choice.

Soundtrack[edit]

Secret levels:

Title/intermission screens:

  • Title screen music: Eric Baker (The Green Herring) - "At Last, It has Arrived"
  • Intermission screen music: Eric Baker (The Green Herring) - "The Destiny of Death"
  • Text screen music: Stuart Rynn (Forty-Two) - "Victory"

Built-in demos[edit]

As with the previous entry, Community Chest 4 features a full set of built-in demos. They were again recorded by Eric Baker (The Green Herring), this time using PrBoom+ 2.5.1.3 with the -complevel 9 parameter for Boom compatibility. The demos levels for the megawad are:

Demo Level Skill Tics Length
DEMO1 MAP06: Survival Instincts 4 3361 1:36.03
DEMO2 MAP12: Nectar of the Gods 4 3722 1:46.34
DEMO3 MAP28: Crucifix Held Close 4 2536 1:12.46

External links[edit]