32in24-14: How the Hamburglar Stole Christmas (32IN2414.WAD)

32in24 is a Doomworld community institution, an event where participants make as many multiplayer levels as possible in a very short timeframe. Recent iterations of the proceedings have given the participants time to polish and punch-up their contributions. 32in24 doesn't really tread on the singleplayer / co-op side of things; Diet 32in24 has gone down as an interesting experiment but I've rarely seen it talked up, and it seemed that it would remain the only foray into demonslaying that we would get. Then, of course, there came 32in24-14: How the Hamburglar Stole Christmas. The rest, as they say, is robble robble. This is a 42 (!) level megaWAD of Boom-compatible levels, but if you want to mess around with the bonus levels, you'll need something that can play beyond the usual limit. MAPINFO is recommended as the other stuff is set up in its own special episode.

32in24-14 has a comedic acid trip for a story, in fitting with 32in24's current fixation on food... and burgers. The absolute masters of foodstuffs, primed by an exhaustive research into Scottish culinary arts and cattle breeding, produced the ultimate burger as an act of redemption for the Thanksgiving tragedy documented in 32in24-13: A Thanksgiving Without Burgers. Of course, there wouldn't be a story without a conflict, and this one comes in the form of the nefarious Hamburglar, who couldn't resist such a lure. Thankfully, the decoy sandwiches filled the rogue's gut before he could eat it all, and the rest were shipped to his hideout for research and, we assume, inevitable consumption.

As a megaWAD, 32in24-14 is in line with most community projects. The things tying it together are 1) the 24-hour period for map creation, which makes most of these entries fall on the shorter side of things; 2) the texture pack, which is some fantastic fusion of multi-colored techbase, Gothic, Egyptian, and winter; and 3) participants could use any portion of a previous level in order to build their level. The third was kind of hard to pick out at first. I had my suspicions, but without actually looking through the history of 32in24, I wouldn't have actually known until encountering enormous 32in24 Frankensteins like nub_hat's MAP38 and Dusk's MAP41.

I was kind of dreading playing this, because my expectation was a selection of 42 unremarkable, undistinguished levels. Thankfully, this was far from being the case. A good number of authors took some big risks with gameplay and they help to break up what is otherwise some perfectly serviceable level design. Obsidian's level has enemies frozen in ice, and every step of progression frees up cacodemons in addition to some minor benefits on the player's side, turning things into a survival nightmare. The Mionic Donut provides the token Tyson level along with some of the more tasteful multiplayer Frankensteins. jmickle's "Chrismrace Challengemas" blows by so fast I was left wanting more. Heck; Dusk's secret level has fluids that switch properties and colors like an LSD trip, going from least to most damaging in a matter of seconds. Kassap's MAP28 is one of craziest "normal" levels, featuring extreme vertical height variation in a small space and invisible wall mazes that will no doubt frustrate many players.

The "normal" levels are still anything but what I'd expect from a selection of maps bearing the 32in24 moniker. Xaser and Mechadon provide the largest and in some ways most complex levels of the set. Tropiano and Jimmy show off with a decidedly Plutonia-esque flair while Tango plays with wide, open spaces bred for casual slaughter. Skillsaw does what he does best in an intense, action-packed level riddled with teleport ambushes; Stewboy's outing has the same sense of action, but with an entirely different setting and pacing that ends in a surreal journey. Esselfortium channels supreme difficulty in a gorgeous map with barely a safehouse to be found.

Some of these authors go for short and violent morsels. Marcaek goes grimy and gloomy with a pretty punchy but ultimately forgiving level. Breezep's map is exceptionally harrowing for its short duration, as is RottKing's with its Cyberdemon overwatch. NoneeLlama, JCD, and Gothic have moments of demanding action surrounded by lighter fare. Tib's obsession is Egyptian, with some nice layouts to match, and Wartorn works in the "surge" style that propels the player forward in search of guns and ammo. FranckFRAG and Walter Confalonieri feel pretty light in comparison. AlexMax stitches a couple of multiplayer maps together for some fun and fast action. Zakurum has the only big, super-cramped base level, which might be a tad bit more fun to clear if it wasn't so mired in the Hell Revealed II style of packing the level with high-HP but fairly ineffective meat. Conversely, Shadow Hog's doesn't do a whole lot with a lot of the space that it has, excepting the finale.

As for the bonus maps, it's abundantly why these didn't make it to the main lineup, though they're mostly all playable. Some of these levels are cute, but lack substance, or are pretty rough. A few are, again, stitched together multiplayer maps with little care spent toward making them anything more than glorified corridors haphazardly populated by monsters. And then, there's MAP42, but you don't need to hear about that. I can't say that I find any fault with the choices made by the compilers. It's a festive Christmas megaWAD that would almost be fit to dethrone H2H-Xmas... But I'm still holding out for something with just a little more holiday cheer.

32IN24-14
by assorted authors

HOW THE HAMBURGLAR
STOLE CHRISTMAS

The Krusty Krab Kwanzaa Kaper	MAP01
by "Wartorn"
"Frozen Egypt" is already an odd aesthetic, but it's a refreshing take on the winter texture scheme, which is usually trapped in rock and ice. There isn't enough ammo to sit and take out every enemy in the spiral, so I recommend taking out the hitscanners and then rushing ahead, picking off the zombies, until you make it to the box of shells. Then you can ease up. Once you get past the spiral it's pretty standard ruins clearing with a combat shotgun for your troubles. The final room has the most fun, with several staged revenants, plus the obligatory SS Nazi. Watch out for Pinhead Larry.

MAP02	Santa's Got the Shotgun
by Matt Tropiano
	A perfectly serviceable Plutonic outpost with several yards gated off by wooden palisades. The hills are thick with revenants - and arch-viles - making this a pretty big step up in difficulty. All the ammo and weapons are found in the thick of it, forcing you to wake up the monsters and then deal with your decision if you want make it out alive. They're all pretty big upgrades, but you can kind of cheat the rocket launcher by running back around to the first gate you came across and punching through the arachnotrons so that you're not constantly standing under revenant fire. Not that you'll want to do this if you can find the invul sphere. Most of the level's hatred is focused in the combat shotgun area, which also comes with a wicked cool cascade.

Jewish Space Lizard Counter-Christmas Stronghold	MAP03
by "Tib"
This is a pretty straightforward Egyptian ruins level with a neat layout. The difficulty is a little heavy with the weight toward hitscanners and all the barons and other powerful guys running around when you're barely fielding the shotgun, but once you make it outside you'll get a combat shotgun to ease your woes, and there's a rocket launcher a little later on... but getting in to the setup is kind of nasty, especially when you've got to deal with a few zombies, an arachnotron, and an arch-vile as a sleeper. Love the layout.

MAP04	Krampus Academy
by Norbert "NoneeLlama" David
	Another medium-size ruins map, but there is an injection of Hellish marble and FIREBLU in other parts of the level. Nonee uses a lot of high HP enemies but makes things easy on the player with an early SSG pickup. The rocket launcher cavern is a little treacherous, but the resistance that arrives is only alarming if you've let your precious health dwindle. There's also a plasma rifle and enough ammo to feel comfortable using it. The teleporting arch-vile at the end is a nice scare, even if he's pretty much completely ineffectual.

Belligerent Bauble Bastion	MAP05
by "Obsidian"
This is a wintry techbase in Obsidian's particular "married to the grid" style. The main gimmick is that many of the monsters are trapped in ice and the switches you hit free them from their frozen prison, It's got some pretty tough monster placement; the belligerent baubles are cacodemons, of course, and when you're packing the shotgun they're nasty ammo sinks. Toward the end of the map, you'll have to evade an arch-vile while skidding around on ice, and the smart move is to run back to the rocket launcher that I guessed had been freed up and then using it to off archie before he revived too many gasbags. The Cyberdemon / cacodemon fight is a neat setup but kind of awkward at first, and the regular shotgun is a pretty poor weapon to finish him off with, but ducking aside and watching those rockets just fly into the cloud is pretty satisfying.

MAP06	Christmas on Deimos
by Walter "Daimon" Confalonieri
	This is a short, little slice of Deimos from Walter. It's mostly Doom monsters but there are a couple of revenants and chaingunners in there to mix things up. The beginning puts some nice pressure on the player, pinning them between a wall of shotgunners and demons, after which it turns into slow shotgunning some meaty monsters (cacodemons) to death. The imps / zombies aren't as bad and you get a rocket launcher for the inevitable showdown with a baron.

Cold Coffee	MAP07
by James "Jimmy" Paddock
A very cool base level with filthy, coffee-stained water. Outside of the exit room, it's pretty straightforward, with a lack of nasty ambushes. The finale more than makes up for it, though, since there's not nearly enough rockets to shell the horde into oblivion. You're better off luring the arch-viles outside, where they will expose themselves on the high ground, and then blasting them from the safety of the java. There are a lot of directions to go at first, which adds some mystery as you poke around at the resistance and look for some weapons.

MAP08	Your Subscription to Egyptian Addiction, CE
by "Tib"
	Another Egyptian level from Tib. This one is a bit shorter / compact, but it's got a neat hook that raises a bridge from a vantage point you might have explored earlier to the red key, after which is a short trip to the exit. All of the hitscanners make things pretty deadly but there's a bunch of health around. You will have to shotgun down two Hell knights and a baron, which is slow going, but at 45 monsters it blows by pretty quickly.

I'm Dreaming of an Orange Christmas (In Space)	MAP09
by "Breezeep"
A fast and furious space level with orange fringe. The opening is pretty nasty, throwing three unassuming zombimen as a roadblock when the lion's den lies right beyond. You'll want to dart in and grab the combat shotgun, with which you'll do all of your work, but that involves fighting off revenants, arachnotrons, and pain elementals once you've got your prize, with a handicap of whatever the shotgun guys managed to chip off. The blue key area is a little simpler, even more so depending on which route you take. The exit room is just chock full of revenants, which is - all told - a pretty classic encounter compared to what you've just been through. Fun stuff.

MAP10	Hey Guys Romero Actually Showed Up This Time
by Michael "Marcaek" Fraize
	A short, grimy map from Marcaek. This level isn't quite as brutal as what I've come to expect, but the author is still one to make you run for some actual decent weaponry rather than give you something usable off the bat. It isn't that tough to grab the combat shotgun, since you'll have all the arch-vile cover you need, but once you have it, you'll have to tango with a number of beasties and even more archies. The plasma gun comes with a pretty cool shootout. And, hey, you even get Romero's head without the boss shooter!

Chapel of Christmas	MAP11
by Alican John "Tango" Oksasoglu
A cool, engaging level from Tango. It's got the feel of his silky smooth layouts but a sense of scale that feels more appropriate for Hell Revealed. The outdoor areas are full of snipers, be they arachnotrons or mancubuses, and Tango is pretty good at putting pressure on the player in strange scenarios. I really like the fight with the gaps to the west, which sections off the platforms preventing the monsters from just swarming you but eliminating some of their predictability since they're playing zone defense. The northeastern section's layout, which includes heavies on the ground and two arch-viles in the air, is another fantastic moment of testing player maneuverability and spatial awareness. Very nice!

MAP12	A Very Tyson Christmas
by "The Mionic Donut"
	This is a relatively humble little base level with a strong bent toward Tyson-style gameplay. The vast majority of the work will be done with the chainsaw, so I hope you're up for jousting. Three of the level's switches lower the chaingun pedestal until you can grab it while the other one grants access to the blue key. The chaingun is essential to slay the mancubuses; I mean, you could use your pistol for the job, but the former will be so much faster. There's some wiggle room in the bullet department, but I think that you'll have to chainsaw at least one of those cacodemons, or at the very least engineer some infighting.

Reindeer Processor	MAP13
by James "Jimmy" Paddock
Jimmy belts out a solid Plutonia map that has plenty of places to go at the onset, even if every square inch is controlled by snipers of all kinds. The first order of business will be to grab the combat shotgun, which is available pretty quickly and will make most of the level go smoothly supposing you don't squander every health pickup by catching bullets, fireballs, and rockets in the back of the head like I did. The rocket launcher is also available early, but there are some encounters that it's better saved for. There's even an optional leg requiring a yellow key that grants a blue armor and a soul sphere. The exit area has some neat encounter dynamics going on; I knew it was trapped, but the actual reveal is pretty cool. A fun, frantic level.

MAP14	Grilled Mormons
by "Gothic"
	Gothic takes things in a bit of a different direction. That is, an undeniably gothic direction. This is a charming little section of snowbound fortress, opening with an encounter that's basically just a giant horde of demons and imps. After that, three Hell knights in front of the red key door. About partway through I guessed that there was probably something better than the regular shotgun lying around and after surging forward grabbed the combat shotgun and went to work. The action picks up, then, attempting to sandwich you between a pack of demons and a handful of revenants, and getting even trickier when you put your newfound blue key to use in an arch-vile / skeleton / pillar scenario. The rest of the level is more slow meat, so enjoy the panic while it lasts. Cool castle.

Buntaluffigus Mountain and Generic Caps (also, Baby Jesus)	MAP15
by "The Mionic Donut"
This is a pretty hard-hitting colorful base level with an obligatory crate storage area and a Hellish outdoor leg. The layout gives you plenty of move to room in, which you'll need, considering all the heavies that TMD has used to populate the level. Most of the action is pretty straightforward but it feels like revenants are trick shooters, here. Once you grab the blue key, you usher in a new wave of Hellspawn that's just dying to get at you. The mixed packs are vulnerable to rocket suppression and infighting, but it helps that they come from two different directions. The outdoor area would normally be a nightmare to navigate, but the BFG makes things pretty simple provided you have an assault path in mind. The secret exit is opened via a series of timed triggers you'll have to activate in quick succession. The automap is the key.

MAP31	How Santa Claus Screwed Up Keycard Valley's Water Supply
by "Dusk"
	A pretty harsh secret level from Dusk with a very memorable gimmick. Keycard Valley's water supply switches between blue, green, red, and lava, most of which will damage you. Your end goal is to un-fuck the water supply by acquiring a yellow key, but doing so involves running several gauntlets worth of total chaos enemy placement, like balancing your attention between the pain elemental / cacodemon crowds or the big show when the Egyptian ruins spring up and the arch-viles burst forth. There's an alternate path to the exit that lets you skip some of that stuff, but you'll be depending on your rad suit holding out against a bunch of demon road blocks and a final assault of pain elementals and arch-viles. The secret exit is a setup I've never seen before, and I think it's pretty clever, if a bastard to figure out.

Jingle Hell	MAP32
by Alican John "Tango" Oksasoglu
A very cool green and red slaughtermap from Tango. Most of the action is based around a courtyard with Cyberdemon overseers, but you get some cool clusterfuck fights like the teleportation chamber to the north and the very cool arch-vile / demon pincer attack in the northwestern chamber, which has triggered columns that will mess most players up the first time they hit it. The finale is just a big ol' brawl that's best handled with some infighting orchestrated from a safe vantage point.

MAP16	Chrismrace Challengemas
by "jmickle"
	A very cool switch-up from jmickle. This level uses scrolling floors to "race" you through three different tracks, each one with their own particular obstacles. The first one is easy to just blow through, though if you miss the jump, you'll end up battling an arch-vile. The second punishes you with a couple of revenants if you fail at a bamboo pole turn. The third is the main event, an infinite loop bordered by pockets of revenants and imps and some even on the track with you. The goal is to shoot out the skull switch targets, which opens up the exit. A great concept; I'd play more of these.

Let it Snow	MAP17
by JC Dorne
JCD offers up a solid little outing to a bittersweet melody. It's got kind of a Gothic fortress look and has a few nasty fights. Most of the action is in the southwest chamber, which has a bunch of hitscanners to start with and is then invaded by a bunch of imps, a few revenants, and a mixed pack of cacodemons plus one pain elemental. The outdoors has some spread out mancubuses on ice, which is kind of annoying to navigate, and ends in a battle against two Cyberdemons. Things are slippery, and there isn't enough cell ammo to really finish the job, so you'll have to make a run for the Christmas presents in the back which will give you what you need.

MAP18	Assault on Mount Crumpet
by "The Mionic Donut"
	Another base level from TMD, but it's got a neat little outdoor area that adjoins the indoor sections. The northwestern section is a cool track of staircases and floors that surrounds a Cyberdemon that is a source of pressure while you clear the outer ring. If you kill him, you get a soul sphere! The eastern area has a decent damage floor gimmick and an arch-vile balcony that serves as its main agitator. The finale room has another Cyberdemon and a Spiderdemon, though not necessarily in that order. It's the least interesting of the areas since it's just big mixed teleporter hordes, but diligent players will find an atomic rooster tucked away in the periphery.

Violent Night, Holy Shite	MAP19
by Paul "Skillsaw" DeBruyne
A very cool level from Skillsaw. The emphasis on the bright white of the snowy landscape contrasted against the ruins you fight through brings to mind his Lunatic. The outdoors areas are locked down by arachnotron and mancubus snipers and the interiors subject you to tiered teleport ambushes that excel at putting pressure on the player. The plasma rifle lake, for instance, conjures forth an army of revenants that blocks off the now rising staircase, and the rocket launcher fight soon after dumps demon and Hell knight meat that you'll really just want to punch through and jump back into the lake. The elevator stuff in the northeastern section has a fun and frantic melee with two arch-viles and teleporting lost souls to dissuade you from just spamming rockets. The red key fight isn't as interesting from a numbers point of view, but the terraced landscape plus spread out skeletons makes for a tricky dance.

MAP20	Air Jordan
by Sarah "Esselfortium" Mancuso
	Essel provides is with this very gorgeous and crushingly oppressive level. Snipers oversee just about every aspect of the experience and many of the outdoor guys will be sticking around for a long time. The arch-vile nest will be one of the worst thorns, but an early rocket launcher will give you what you need to root them out. Just don't squander them all. The northwestern area with the tower is one of my favorite bits, though the Hell knight passage is almost beyond the pale. The upper tier that immediately follows is a bit of a nightmare. Killing the arch-vile as soon as possible is an absolute must or you'll have to cede ground and figure out a less annoying way of dealing with all the fliers that want to drop down the elevator shaft. I think the imp / vile room is pretty clever, too.

One Flew Over the Reindeer's Nest	MAP21
by Stuart "Stewboy" Rynn
Stewboy takes things in a surreal direction with this multi-colored, static-painted nightmare. Rynn submits you to a variety of encounters that twist you into uncomfortable positions. Many of them are weighted toward revenants and arch-viles, which will polarize players, but Rynn is pretty inventive in the battle layouts. The nastiest of them grants you an invul sphere, but you'll have to lure them away without succumbing to rockets on the ground or fire from above and then sprint past. You'll still get knocked around like a ragdoll, but if you position yourself right, you can get blown into a computer panel that greatly simplifies things. One of the encounters even has a safe house that you can hide in, though you'll probably have to sneak out if you want to kill the archies in any reasonable timeframe. The outro is fantastic.

MAP22	Rockets on the Fir Tree
by Franck "franckFRAG" Livolant
	A minor echo of franckFRAG's Swift Death style. It's lacking most of the punch since it's weighted toward Doom II trash enemies but there are a few surprises to contend with, the main one being the cycling lift that reveals a considerable number of skeletons. The rest of the stuff you should be more than prepared for, though the arrangement of the red key battle might catch you off-guard.

Walken in a Winter Wonderland	MAP23
by "Shadow Hog"
It's a long way to go for a Christopher Walken pun. The level is kind of annoying in its huge scale opening with little to show for it except for a lot of imps and other Doom II trash monsters to shotgun / chaingun down. It's great to get the combat shotgun in hand once you hit the sewers, and the action kind of picks up, but then it's on to a big hedge maze where the biggest thrill is picking out the lost souls as they flagrantly disregard the labyrinth to see to you post haste. The circular arena that makes up the penultimate battle is one of the most dangerous, mostly because there are commandos lurking around pillars, revenants at the far end, and tons of enemies shuffling around in an unpredictable fashion, waiting to take a bite out of your butt.

MAP24	All I Want For Christmas is a Masterbowl
by "AlexMax"
	A short blastathon in two parts from AlexMax. I recognize the outdoor area you start in as the final segment of MAP15. It's still a clusterfuck, but the enemy placement is quite forgiving. It can get a little grindy due to the sheer amount of meat that arrives when you're pinned down in the SSG bunker, but it's pretty easy to weather. The second area is more claustrophobic since you have to thin some of the beasties out in order to keep a move on, with a handful of mancubuses spread around as area hogs. It's a very fast play, though, and pretty fun.

Winterfresh Gum Dictatorship	MAP25
by Matt "RottKing" Cibulas
RottKing gives us a level that's pretty rough on the player. It's kind of a fortress layout that starts in the very center before the walls come down, revealing among other things a pair of Cyberdemons that will hound you through most of the level. There is no easy out when killing these guys; you'll have to slowly chip them down through a combination of rockets, shells, bullets, and what little infighting you can scrounge up. They add a lot of pressure on the player, though, which you get a mild relief from when you go up topside. I'm not entirely fond of taking down two Cyberdemons the slow way, but it serves as a pretty strong gimmick.

MAP26	A Very Patrick Swayze Christmas
by "Zakurum"
	A long, dense, winter-bound base map that's gloaming with high-HP monsters.The author is fond of placing arch-viles in corridors of slaughter, or at least, it seems that way. Cramped rooms give way to revenant invasions that will have you backpedaling for some space. Thankfully, Zakurum isn't big on completely flooding entire areas. I like the presentation; it's got more of a Doom-realism thing going on which distances it from some of the more abstract levels. It also ends in a four Cyberdemon showdown that's mostly spamming plasma ammo. Watch out for some silly secrets.

No Festivus For the Living	MAP27
by Xaser Acheron
Well, uh, I knew that this level had a good chance of bearing Xaser's iconic, circular architecture, but I had no idea it would be this big. "Festivus" has the grand scale of an enormous slaughtermap, but tends toward something more slaughter-lite. It's not big on teleport ambushes, just tons of enemies installed on ledges in the various caverns that you fight through. Both of the big teleport fights are almost exclusively demons, augmented with pre-existing beasties. I like the second, located in the half-circle staircase to the northeast, but the real action is in the first cavern you explore, which has the sky for a floor and a giant yin-yang that floats below. The various homogeneous monster packs (well, they start out homogeneous) force you to make your own real estate and there's a Cyberdemon overseer you'll have to watch out for. It also has a great, frantic finale with Spiderdemons and caverns filled with cacodemons and revenants, a true blue BFG frenzy. Exploring is fun and most of the fighting you'll do is done with the rocket launcher, an interesting twist. Fantastic map, featuring an enormous Festivus pole.

MAP28	Christmas Eve in the Pie in the Sky Diner
by Chris "lupinx-Kassman" Kassap
	Christmas desserts floating in the infinite. This is a tough, bite-sized level that would feel right at home in Kassap's Nebula series. The height variation and exposure combine to make a challenging layout where you must consider every sniper / turret, dispatching each systematically so as to risk as little exposure to yourself as possible. You're just about done once you make it to the outer ring, but you have one big pitfall ahead of you, a showdown with a Cyberdemon in a cramped, invisible maze. Making it to the BFG and then surviving long enough to spam and weave it to death is going to be tricky. Cute and cruel.

Misseltow	MAP29
by Brett "Mechadon" Harrell
A harsh, winter wonderland. This is a complex base level that starts out pretty constrained, but as you move around and flip switches, it rapidly opens up until you have just as much mobility as your loathsome foes. Since Mechadon starts you off with the TOW missile, you also get your fill of Doom II's toughs throughout the entire level, whether it's ledges of revenants, packs of mancubuses, or the occasional arch-vile. The finale lowers the obvious final battle area (the western tier) into the ground and exposes a bunch of Cyberdemons, with all the apertures serving as monster invasion points that will quickly overwhelm you if you don't grab that BFG and get to blastin'. Fun stuff.

MAP30	Christmas Dinner Pizza
by "nub_hat" and Sarah "Esselfortium" Mancuso
	Well, it starts out like a slow-paced puzzle map - dig that bit with the voodoo doll and the soul sphere - but once the boss shooter area opens up it's time for total chaos. There are a ton of monsters stomping around the grounds and you don't really have the time or ammo to systematically deal with them all. The only real solace is that you're offered the BFG and the fact that Romero's head doesn't require you to figure out any sort of vertical timing, just that you open up the hatch with a shot and get some breathing room in the attack booth. Busting up that welcoming posse is a real pain.

A COCKMAS CAROL WITH
EWEINEZER SPLOOGE

Raging Red Yuletide	MAP33
by "Baratus"
Baratus kicks off the bonus episode with a simple level with one centerpiece, a step pyramid staffed by tiers of imps and revenants with an arch-vile at the center. The steps are just high enough that hugging the "wall" will protect you from arch-vile fire, so it's mostly about balancing mobility against most of the other monsters against imminent fiery death. It's... cute.

MAP34	Milk and Sugar
by "Cacowad"
	The layout is really basic but better rugged naturalism than a literal box canyon. This level has a nice, rarely-seen gimmick used where you have to take the keys back to the beginning, depositing them on pedestals. Once you have all three, the wall will open to the final battle between a Cyberdemon and a loose assortment of his teleporting fellows. The action is a little dull, though. The west and north paths are mostly imps and revenants with the occasional arch-vile for a panic spoiler. The eastern area has the best fight, because it throws two arch-viles at you and you're forced to using the pillars at cover while avoiding death from the other enemies that have just teleported in.

Egyptian XMas Party (That You're Not Invited To)	MAP35
by "Blackfish"
A short map built out of caverns with some Egyptian ruins and an inexplicable techbase section. The rocket launcher is available pretty early, but you won't have the ammo to cut loose with it until the final fight. Most of this map will be spent using the shotgun and the combat shotgun, once you get around to finding the latter. Pretty standard room clearing, though the rocket launcher ambush is a little tricky since the pain elemental is in a pretty awkward spot compared to the pack of cacos that surround it. The final battle is pretty decent; I tethered the boss to some of the roaming enemies, and after killing the pain elementals, went back and fried it with the plasma rifle.

MAP36	Fuck Christmas, I Just Want to Read!
by "Philnemba"
	A super short level from Phil. You start off in a library that has some hitscanners on the upper deck and get your choice of two dark portals to walk through. The west leads to a brightly lit ice cavern fielding arachnotrons and mancubuses in fairly wide passages while the east has a circular chamber filled with cacodemons, imps, and one skeleton that you can let infight to death. Grabbing both keys accesses the library's north half, which pits you against two Cyberdemons with a BFG and plenty of plasma ammo in hand. Well, enough to BFG bump them to death, I think.

It Came Upon a Midnight Blackout	MAP37
by Olivia "NuMetalManiak" Riley
NuMetalManiak (formerly Getsu) tries to get color and shadow to work in a level that reminds me of Welcome to Hell's MAP06. This is mostly narrow corridors, though, with the occasional window. The gameplay is resultingly claustrophobic and pretty pedestrian. My favorite section is the toxic pit, which has some semi-hidden lost souls and a two-sided ambush thing going on once you grab the red key.

MAP38	Christmas the Flag
by "nub_hat"
	The thought hadn't really occurred to me that someone might take a whole bunch of capture the flag maps and stitch them together. Well, uh, here is the proof that it could be done! Due to the nature of the CTF layouts there isn't a lot of nuance when it comes to clearing these maps, just lots of monsters in corridors that are slowly ground down with the combat shotgun. Once you get the BFG - and some ammo for it - you can speed along the process. I kind of blitzed through the final area and killed the boss brain, thankful to be done.

Candy Base	MAP39
by Ilya "joe-ilya" Lazarev
Kind of a hot mess of a techbase, but the low lighting does a lot to obscure the rough edges and there are actually a few really cool fights. My favorite is the finale, which pits you against arachnotrons in an awkward, "L"-shaped outdoor area where your only cover is behind switches on either end, but the big staircase of imps is pretty decent, and the opposing mobs at the rocket launcher are a nice surprise. The opening is kind of rough, or I'm just good at squandering all the health that Ilya put on the map. It seems like the arch-vile is a real pain, but joe has given you all the cover you'll need.

MAP40	Chocolate Swamp
by Ilya "joe-ilya" Lazarev
	Now, I'm pretty sure that this level could use a bit more health. It's kind of an outdoors area with a lot of brown (harmless) puddles of... chocolate, I guess. This map is also pretty dark and that makes it likely that you'll get surprised by at least a few of the monsters roaming around, like the commandos holding out in the eastern bunker or any of the monsters that wander into the structure that separates the two parts of the crate yard. I do like the double staircases that lead to the exit cavern, but doing all this work with the combat shotgun - especially the mancubus-filled outdoor area to the north - is kind of grueling.

The Day When Santa Captured the Flags	MAP41
by "Dusk"
Dusk does pretty much the same thing as MAP38, but the monster placement is pretty much imps, plus the occasional cacodemon and zombie. Oh, and there's a Spiderdemon, but I didn't even have to shoot to kill it. The initial panic is the hardest part of the map, since the combat shotgun is a pretty punctuated method of thinning out the hordes, but grabbing a rocket launcher does wonders for the pace of the level since the imps are all told pretty sparse considering the map's size, leading to a pretty empty feeling.

MAP42	Plumbing Work on Christmas Eve
by "nub_hat"
	A level you really don't need to play. The first area is a copy-pasted labyrinth flooded with berserk packs with the occasional combat shotgun countered with SS Nazis and the occasional Hell knight. Your health is basically unlimited as long as you don't get trapped. It's a decent concept, just done to death. Hitting any one of those tantalizing switches turns out the lights, which Gets Worse. Somewhere in there is a BFG and a yellow key, both of which you'll want for the sewer section, which is loaded with spectres and blinking lights and interstitial arch-viles. I was kind of hoping that the toilet bowls would all have goodies in them, but most do not, and doing any actual fighting in the drink is suicide since the combat shotgun / green armor combos are just about useless and you can't hardly see all the other pickups. If you can somehow manage to make it to the yellow key door, there are a bunch of cacodemons behind it, plus Romero's head, which is a nice change. However, I caution against playing this level for any reason other than to laugh with it, at it, or at yourself.

This post is part of a series on
Doomworld's 2015 Cacowards

The Top Ten	Best Multiplayer	Runners Up
Sunlust	Don't Be a Bitch Remastered	Doomed Space Wars
Erkattäññe	ChaosCore CTF	Crumpets
Skulldash	Best Gameplay Mod	Prime Directive
Swift Death	DoomRL Arsenal	Pinnacle of Darkness
Breach	Mordeth Award	Ol' No Name
Valiant	ChaosCore CTF	32in24-14
50 Shades of Graytall	Mockaward
Sheer Poison	InstaDoom
dead.wire	Mapper of the Year
Return to Hadron	dannebubinga