We are more awash in limitation-based projects than ever, with 10 Sectors capturing the imagination of the community. When 1 Monster was conceived, Dr. Zin had 2 Sectors and Congestion 1024 in mind, though we've since seen 100 Lines and a whole host of resource-economy projects. What you don't see a lot of, though, are restrictions on enemy variety. Enter 1 Monster, a megaWAD where only one monster type is placed on each map. Every member of Doom II's bestiary is represented here, from the lowly zombiman to John Romero himself with his luscious locks of love. The project kicked off at the tail end of 2005 and then changed leads several times before seeing a final release in 2007. In its more or less final form, 1 Monster is a 25 map replacement for Doom II, to be played in Boom-compatible ports.
A lot of people signed up to make maps, with a very early roster boasting 31 proposed levels. Some of them like Jade Earth-Jodwin and Dragonfly-then-Sausage of Eviternity fame ended up crafting selections for different monsters (A LOT of different ones in Dragonfly's case) but the reality is that 20 of the initial 31 pledges didn't materialize for one reason or another. WAD historians take note: 1MONSTER marks some of if not the first recorded levels to be released by Dragonfly as well as Scwiba of the Un- series (Unaligned, Unnecessary, Unbeliever, Unmaking). I'm sure that O'Sullivan would prefer not to draw attention to his fifteen-year-old self, but this is ONEMANDOOM, where the only thing that you can be reasonably assured that I won't look at are deathmatch levels.
The elephant in the room: Doom II has a wonderfully varied bestiary and part of the fun in designing and engaging in combat is what sort of elements are at play and how they interact with the player as well as each other. 1 Monster pushes all of this aside to focus on fighting one type of monster per level. Most of the time it feels like the maps were specifically designed around each given monster. In some cases, the levels are so specifically crafted around a given breed that it's difficult to think of another one slotting into the same spot. In at least one case, though, the original monster was completely replaced with another during post-production.
The entertainment aspect of this megaWAD lives or dies based on whether the authors make the combat fun or create an engaging level to adventure through. A lot of the former is understandably interpreted by the sensibilities of the player. For instance, there are five levels that feature zombie hitscanners. The combat style of each one of these will generally boil down to the player moving tactically and popping around corners/minimizing exposure as much as possible. It isn't tenable to do anything else for an extended period of time and those situations where massive hordes of zombies teleport in are usually augmented with powerups like blur spheres that mitigate some of the danger of being out in the open. If you hate hitscanners in Doom and prefer dodging fireballs, then I doubt whether you are going to endure any of these.
Like, I know that plenty of players have pet-peeves about monsters, especially Doom II ones. Some folks go so far as to use an editor to delete them out of the map entirely! No amount of encounter design will likely make "oops all arch-viles" palatable to them. All that aside, I think that the project authors generally did a good job of making engaging combat designed around their given monsters. I think that it was going to be the most challenging coming up with interesting scenarios for the ball-throwers, by which I mean the imp, Hell knight, and Baron. In these particular cases, I think that impClaw succeeded with "Claws of the Imp" (MAP06) by going for a Berserk gimmick early on and also having just a fun level to pick through, while Psyrus's "Knightmire" (MAP18) stands out for its atmosphere and lush, dark E4 underworld. Plus, Hell knights are like 60% as durable as Barons.
Which isn't to say that Dragonfly didn't try to go hard with his "Baron Citadel" (MAP12). This level has a few psychedelic moments that are fun to see, like the point where the player blasts through dimensions and burns a hole through a door, and I like the arcade element where you get a random-by-player's-choice item/powerup for the final area. A lot of the combat, though, is either slow or awkward or both. This is a common theme with high-HP monsters, like the mancubi in "Mancublood" (MAP16), but "Baron's Citadel" doesn't have quite the amount of quirky window dressing that "Mancublood" has. Like most of the rest of O'Sullivan's work, here, it's more of a gauntlet-style level.
Most of the other Dragonfly levels--"Arachnophobia" (MAP07), "Un-named118" (MAP10), and "Sergeant Center" (MAP03)--all have passable action, with the first two falling into the same sort of teleporter-linked gauntlet style of map. "Sergeant Center" is the standout of these three for its conveyor belt gimmick, which kicks the map off with a nice, comedic visual. The real Dragonfly showcase is "Spook House" (MAP15), a haunted house-style joint with Robert Eckhardt, aka Ichor, who appears to have been carrying more of a torch for Heretic and Hexen than Doom. It's a mansion lovingly rendered with Blood textures and marries the spectre well with the level's theme and action.
Ichor was one of the firm hands that helped to steer the project to completion. Looking at the DoomWiki, he worked together with scwiba and Mark Pedersen (Macro11_1) to gently caress most of the submitted levels to a more or less polished state. His first solo offering in this mapset is the impressive "Cacophony" (MAP19), a massive adventure level that serves up a parade of Hellish imagery while constantly assaulting the player with--you guessed it--cacodemons. Ichor toes a fine line considering that cacodemons are space hogs that spit ball lightning and can travel nearly everywhere but he manages to keep the flow of big red balloons just high enough to put pressure on the player without feeling absolutely mobbed.
scwiba would crank out a whole bunch of themed levels on the heels of the Cacoward-winning Absolutely Killed. It's interesting to see that he kicked off his career with "gimmick" levels, so to speak, and his imagination already feels fully realized with "The Triad of the Minds" (MAP22). The player has to deal with a variety of abstract obstacle courses and a memorable chase sequence before laying waste to all three of the level's Spiderdemons. "Buckshot Waltz" (MAP08) and "Chamber of Souls" (MAP09) feel like more traditionally structured 1 Monster levels, at least the ones that terminate in the slaughter spectrum. You can see glimpses at the author's creative and player-poking genius, though, in moments like the vanishing safe spaces of the shotgun guy climax of "Buckshot Waltz". In these more "typical" levels, scwiba still demonstrates an awareness of the mechanical qualities of his chosen creatures that keeps the player immersed and just on the cusp of being overwhelmed... in a good way.
1 Monster is also another chapter in the epic story of soul brothers Paul Corfiatis and Kristian Aro. The latter offers a great revenant-fueled action romp with "Bony Encounter" (MAP20). I love slow-waltzing with revenants so I'm kind of biased but I also feel like the revenant is the most versatile creature in the Doom series. It's understandable that, given this as well as Aro's skill as an author, that it's a delightful "Bony Encounter". Corfiatis gets to follow this up tag-team style with "Cyberswat" (MAP21), a gauntlet of Cyberdemon encounters. I will dispute whether some of these fights, namely the library stacks, are fun to clear, but the Cybarchives are to their credit designed for you to more or less be able to bypass them if desired.
Jodwin and daimon both take on the arch-vile theme with "Musical Bar-B-Que" (MAP23) and "The Crucified Factory" (MAP14) respectively. The arch-vile is another monster that I find incredibly fun and unique with, as mentioned earlier, a lot of YMMV. I didn't really approach Äijälä's offering with the right mindset at first but once I got into it I thought that it was a fun quasi-adventure level with a sort of '95 Master Levels aesthetic. It doesn't lean on anything crazy like arch-vile jumps but it isn't exactly something that you're going to be able to casually clear 100% on your first try. Especially if you take the presentation of a chainsaw at face value.
Walter "daimon" Confalonieri is one of my favorite wildcard authors because his levels tend to feel highly personalized and "quirky" while still feeling like classic Doom. Like, of all the people whose maps I've played, if I had to elect a torchbearer for the sensibilities of the '94-'95 era of the community, then Confalonieri would be a frontrunner. "The Crucified Factory" is more or less normal but it has a goofy how-can-you-not-possibly-tell-that-it's-trapped BFG and concludes with a 1 Monster team shrine. "Mancublood" has a super-slow opener but once you get access to the roof the level explodes with a tram-ish conveyor belt loop, tons of fun goofy details in the office building, and several bits of sector art.
"Mausoleum" (MAP11) has virtually none of these things going for it beyond some exhumed coffins. Like, I think that you can make the Heretic textures work, have it graveyard and crypt themed, still be in Walter's wheelhouse, and have it all still work with spectres, but this isn't it. This level suffers for being on the same card as "Spook House"; the Dragonfly/Ichor joint is just so freakin' awesome on every level. This is just huge, empty spaces and tons o' spectres. It's a neat visual when they emerge from the graveyard, but they're also everywhere else, and the northern graveyard is a holding pen for spectres that are AWAKE, which is on the bemusing side of DoomCute.
Mark Pedersen aka "Macro11_1" has credits on three levels: the opening "Trooper Trauma" (MAP01) with Mike Wiesenauer aka "deldelda", "Infested" (MAP05) with Philip "Liberation" Brown, and the epic "Zumma" (MAP17). "Infested" has a few REALLY cool visuals, like demons jumping out of windows, and presages Mayhem 2013's "The Demon Rush" (MAP08) in submitting the player to a sort of running of the bulls that has a mechanic intended to wipe the invaders out. "Zumma" is, well, a sprawling temple of chaingunners that starts out as the world's slowest canyon crawl. Once you get out of the outdoor segment the combat settles into a less oppressive groove with some fantastic visuals. I even enjoyed the crazy flood of commandos on the hallway leading to the Satanic cathedral... before the piston pillar chamber.
That's sort of the meta 1MONSTER format. Everything about level design is by its very nature artificially imposed but there is a sort of familiar sequence that we are used to with weapon progression that these levels mimic. You know, something like pistol to shotgun / chaingun to combat shotgun to rocket launcher / plasma gun. I believe that this is largely based on a shared experience with Doom and Doom II weapon progression that similarly escalates through trash enemies to bigger beasties. I think that, in general, 1MONSTER suffers from adhering to this ingrained design principle. The heavier monsters aren't much fun to take on with the basic shotgun and the resulting, opening action of the levels tends to be perfunctorily familiar.
Some authors get around this by steering things in a bit of a different direction, whether it's hustling you toward a SSG like Aro, encouraging Berserk-punching like impClaw, or having you dodge attacks for the majority of the level like scwiba's "Triad of the Minds". And then, there's "The One God" (MAP24). Ichor's finale is a race against time through an ultra-lethal obstacle course that includes telefrags, crushers, and false-step mazes. This is all because the final boss is Romero's Head, not the skull-spitter component, so there's almost nothing to fight. I appreciate the arcade-style action and most of the courses were fun to play through. It's and interesting subversion of IoS maps since many of them end up as races against time, just with the monsters that spawn being the confounding factor.
The other unfortunate part of the 1MONSTER meta: as much as super shotgun slow-waltzing is a comfort food to me, monster fatigue in this set is unavoidable. Nine of these levels feature--on UV--counts at or in excess of 200 enemies. That's a TON of monsters, and situations where you're meant to kill them with gimmicks are the exception rather than the norm. Even the levels that feature 50 or less monsters feel like they take a long time to complete. "Zumma" and "Cacophony" offer great architecture and visuals to try to draw you through their adventures and less than / more than 400 enemies. One may wonder whether a remix of these maps that highlights the featured monsters without choking the player with them might garner more acclaim. Map length no doubt exacerbates the boredom caused by using a single type of monster for the average player.
If it hasn't already been done, then I would guess that a "modern" remake (1MONSTER had only been released for less than three years when I joined the community, so it's awkward to think of it as NOT modern) would be less burdened with classic level pacing and progression conventions and focus on small-size, small-count combat puzzles or leverage more situations like scwiba's "Triad of the Minds", the latter of which I've already kind of seen in Kieran Miller's "The Demon Rush", which I've already mentioned. And, hey, I'm down to see both varieties as well as more attempts at what 1 Monster tried to accomplish. I think that "Spook House", "Knightmire", and "Bony Encounter" are great examples of "regular" level design accomplished within the project's scope.
1MONSTER is probably not the megaWAD for you and PWADs featured around limited monster variety are few and far between. The only one that I can name off the top of my head is Mayhem 2013, which opted to go for two monster types. I don't think that it's a failed experiment, though, and had fun playing most of these maps. There are so many clever or charming things, though, that I'd actually recommend a ITYTD/HNTR playthrough if you're thinking about playing it. This will probably result in some of the levels feeling empty but it might stave off a DNF. In any case, I thank the authors for offering up the fruits of this experience.
1 MONSTER
by various authors
| Trooper Trauma | MAP01 |
|---|---|
| by Mike Wiesenauer (deldelda) and Mark Pedersen (Macro11_1) | |
| A cramped techbase with some battle damage. It's pretty and cleanly textured and loaded with zombies. I like the arcade feel, even if the pistol feels a bit slow-going against 91 lowly riflemen. You're still making progress with each corpse laid to rest yet again; it's just that the 1 Monster format makes them feel more like one big, multicellular organism at times. This level is a stern reminder for any player who finds zombimen to be beneath their notice. If you don't minimize how exposed you are while you pick them off, you're going to have a bad day. |  |
| MAP02 | Hangar of Evil |
|---|---|
| by Kim Bach aka "Torn" | |
 | Umm. This is a relatively flat blastathon through 200 imps in a brightly-lit techbase. It has nice, wide hallways for dodging and maneuverability while you slowly shotgun the hordes down. You pick up the shotgun early, get a chaingun that you won't use for long, and then acquire a combat shotgun for the big stretch in the MAP01-ish outdoor area. I found a secret rocket launcher which should help clear the huge string of imps outside as quickly as possible. The little "Command Control" homage in the chaingun room was cute. |
| Sergeant Center | MAP03 |
|---|---|
| by Joshua O'Sullivan aka "Dragonfly" | |
| Idk what I was expecting from Dragonfly circa 2007 but the not-vanilla textures help draw attention away from the doors that are flush with the walls. It's shotgun guys, so having played through "Trooper Trauma", you know that it's basically the same combat situation, but with bigger stakes. The setting is a sort of rusty factory, where they're manufacturing... SERGEANTS! I wasn't really prepared for the opening visual, but I appreciated the bit of levity. Not so much the six shotgun guy ambush in the conveyor chute. If, like me, you end up going backward through it, you're likely to get pumped full of lead. There are a TON of sergeants in the final two ambushes but, like most of this map, this is all about using your cover wisely. |  |
| MAP04 | Imptech Rampage |
|---|---|
| by Przemek Zimny aka "alterworldruler" | |
 | I was kind of digging the cramped bedroom space at the beginning but each chamber proved more identical than the last. It's sort of a bizarre fever dream level with the scrolling UAC crate wall textures; these areas remind me of Beyond Reality's crate dimension. I like the lightcasting off of the pillars once you head west off the main hub. The imp action here is thematically opposite "Hangar of Evil" as it's either rooms cramped with the light columns or very narrow hallways. They're more like service tunnels. Zimny gives you a chainsaw that you can use if you let the imps come at you single-file. |
| Infested | MAP05 |
|---|---|
| by Philip Brown aka "Liberation" and Mark Pedersen aka "Macro11_1" | |
| This is a bit of a war-torn techbase with a lot of explosive nukage and a fissure to Hell that the demons probably poured out of. Like, was the UAC dumping barrels of toxic waste into Hell and it pissed off all the demons? That's an amusing bit of implied storytelling. Just looking at it, 300 demons is a lot. Liberation and Macro11_1 do a pretty good job of coming up with novel ways to fight them, though. One of my favorite visuals is the clusterfuck ambush in the outdoor yard where they start jumping out of the windows of the building. That's awesome! A good portion of the smaller encounters will involve Berserking demons, so beware if you're more than a little clumsy at evading bites. The rad suit / cave section feels like one of the most conventionally dangerous segments but the green sludge is interestingly enough the SAFE place to stand once the rad suit stands out. You'll still have to do some damage floor dashes in order to make it to the switch that raises the staircase outside and then back again, so good luck. The end is a huge running of the bulls. I'm not exactly sure how this encounter was intended to play out because waking up the ambush FLOODS the playing area with pinkies. I think that, whether you goose it by not shooting anything at first or not, you're supposed to dash to the control room so that you can activate crushers and make an explosive barrel shot that ought to wipe out almost everything in the cattle chute. I don't know how you're supposed to make the shot once the demons clog up the crusher conga line, though. Whether the barrel works out for you or not, the crushers and a bit of patience are all you need to clear the infestation. |   |
| MAP06 | Claws of the Imp |
|---|---|
| by "impClaw" | |
| Okay, this one is pretty cute. This is a gothic brick castle / manor / outpost that is infested with imps. You're given the Berserk to start out with, and while you won't have to play through the entire level with it, the first leg MUST be completed by punching. Hence, "Claws of the Imp". The author gives you your choice of two directions to play through. Each one has a weapon as a reward which you can then take into the opposite leg. I think that, apart from the imp mosh pit (which I guess you should really just whittle down with the pistol), the shotgun leg felt like it was simpler than the chaingun leg would have been. Once you have both weapons in hand it turns into a pretty normal blastathon. Fun architectural elements: The shotgun has a cool, moody jaunt through dark book stacks and I'm a sucker for the chaingun wing's dense switch-fu. The back and forth seems engineered to show off how interconnected impClaw made the spaces. I was pleasantly surprised by the overgrown-ish greenery of the outdoor area beyond the yellow / red key door. |
| Arachnophobia | MAP07 |
|---|---|
| by Joshua O'Sullivan aka "Dragonfly" | |
| Arachnotrons! This level isn't as tight on ammo as you think it is when you get hit by the blockmap bug and half, like, half your SSG blast go through the Arachnotrons in the hallways. This is a silver and grey techbase that consists of awkward fights with your favorite plasma-shooting mini-brain thingies. It's interesting seeing them in this sort of environment because they're great at crowding the player and very insistent. I think that the only one of these fights that strikes me as unfair is the pair of arachnotrons that come out of the monster closets with the flip of the final switch. The penned-in arena is kind of a pain but the staircase's outer wall at least offers some cover. With the exit, I feel like you're in for a bad time if you don't immediately rush to the door you came in from. |  |
| MAP08 | Buckshot Waltz |
|---|---|
| by "scwiba" | |
 | I was looking forward to scwibamaps. Here's the first one! There are a little more than 200 shotgun guys to deal with in this techbase plus obligatory brick sewer section. The first act of this level plays out pretty much like "Trooper Trauma" and "Sergeant Center". Maximize cover, duck around corners, be careful, etc. and you will thrive. There's one potentially nasty ambush that reminds me of the shogun guy swiss cheese center of MAP03 but there are baffles that keep all of the zombies from crowding you at once. scwiba works to makes sure that you're visually rewarded as you pick your way through the first sections of the map. There are some fun greebling details like leaking green slime and collapsed walls. The second act starts with a long hallway with a rocket launcher at the end. You've reached shotgun guy slaughter, but don't be fooled into thinking that the turkey shoot that kicks it off is any indication of what will follow. The large shotgun swarm that finishes the level off makes for great, madcap action. I feel like there are little pokes at the player as you persevere through the storm. If you go to snag the blur sphere in the middle, the corner pockets open up, escalating the number of shotgun guys that you're exposed to. Even better, if you try to hide out in one of the corner closets, the middle wall opens up! This reminds me of the "keep away" segment of Absolutely Killed's "Boxed In" (E1M2). |
| Chamber of Souls | MAP09 |
|---|---|
| by "scwiba" | |
| Fun time with lost souls! This is a metal level that slowly falls apart as Hell's influence slowly asserts itself. By the end, you're somewhere in a void marked by Hellish runes. The lost soul is not a clever foe but it's very assertive. Maybe not as excitable as its Doom 64 counterpart, but I was forced to re-recognize just how dangerous these flaming skulls are. This is not, say, a difficult level to play safely, especially once the chainsaw is acquired, but it safe play is not necessarily exciting play, and as a living projectile, the lost soul is more forgiving than, say, shotgun guys when it comes to player exposure. Very little of this level is spent against individual lost souls, though. In fact, part of the gimmick is that they (audibly) teleport into other portions of the level, so chances are that you're going to get your ass bit unexpectedly. You don't spend a lot of time with the pistol and won't be hurting for ammo for the shotgun, SSG, chaingun, or plasma gun (or the secret BFG, which is almost purely a replay weapon given where it's found). There is a definite double-edged sword in using the SSG, here, as the reload window is far more punishing in the massed battles. The finale is pure fun, kitting you out with a plasma gun and full ammo against a massive influx of lost souls on part with the previous level's shotgun guy invasion. Just never stop firing, never stop moving, and always be mindful. |  |
| MAP10 | Un-named118 |
|---|---|
| by Joshua O'Sullivan aka "Dragonfly" | |
 | This is a beige brick fortress with a lot of dingy green grass. Once you fight into the stronghold it turns into a teleport hub. "Arachnophobia" wasn't a hub per se but the "Nirvana"-ish teleport links deepen the connection of O'Sullivan's design. It's the pain elemental level, so it having an initial monster count of 31 doesn't really mean anything. For instance, I finished with a grand total of 230 total dead by the end. Imagine the sort of fights that you might have with two pain elementals at the same time and you have the bulk of this level's action, perhaps with a bit more hunkering down around corners. The end is a nice, open yard, perfect for spawning in tons of lost souls if you don't put the meatballs down fast. You'll almost certainly have the plasma gun in hand for the final battle. For some reason there's a perfect confluence of elements that suggests the ghost of Hell Revealed's "Everything Dies" (MAP19). It isn't much, just a pain elemental gimmick, beige brick and green grass, and a music track whose tones at points flirt with RotT's "Adagio in G Minor". |
| Mausoleum | MAP11 |
|---|---|
| by Walter Confalonieri aka "daimon" | |
| I don't have as firm a grasp on Walter's community output that he's up to nowadays but the wide-open spaces and DoomCute bits like the coffins remind me of his work in Doom 2 Unleashed. This level uses Heretic's textures to give it an otherworldly feel. For some reason I was really enjoying the sort of green leafy foliage panels. There are several stone structures as well as graveyards settled in a world of ice. And, well, a ton of spectres, who represent vengeful spirits. When you're in the outdoors this is zen combat shotgun action. Indoors, well, you'll probably think about how you can take the fight back outdoors. daimon only has one section where you have to venture into absolute darkness and it's thankfully pretty lenient. I had more difficulty with the northern "guard tower" fight but it looks like it was more a matter of positioning. The sneakiest threat this level has is going back into the main compound and running face-first into a pack of spectres. This almost got me near the end! |  |
| MAP12 | Baron Citadel |
|---|---|
| by Joshua O'Sullivan aka "Dragonfly" | |
 | This is a sort of E4-esque fortress where you'll be grinding your way through 39 Barons. Dragonfly tries really hard to make things interesting with silent teleporter effects that offer some trippy visuals, like when you warp through the prison door and then blast a hole through the next one. It's still 39 Barons, though, most of which will be diligently conquered with the combat shotgun, maybe finished off with some chaingun or pistol bullets. The sections where you have to ride up an elevator to do battle with the Barons have this map at its most awkward, but they are more poison for impatient players. I smiled at the CYOA section with the arrow cross. You have a blind sawtooth into a teleport chamber with an item. You can start the final area off with a medikit (yawn), a blue armor (sweet!), or an invul sphere. Definitely hold out for the invul sphere. Neither of the level's two secrets are absolutely necessary to finish the map. You'll definitely appreciate the wiggle room the second one can give you, though, and the invul will give you some breathing time to find it. When you jump down into the last yard, you're not jumping back up. |
| Workin' on the Chain Gang | MAP13 |
|---|---|
| by Ronal Lubbelinkhof aka "Dutch Devil" | |
| This is a handsome, dingy service tunnel/sewer area that has been liberally spritzed with chaingunners. The custom textures make the visuals of this level pop (though I'm not a fan of DOORTRAK computer panel borders). Everything I said about the previous three zombie maps ("Trooper Trauma", "Sergeant Factory", and "Buckshot Waltz" applies here, excepting that commandos are more durable and even more dangerous if you leave them an opening. There are a couple of window sections that the bastards can snipe you through, but I think that this is a pretty fair map as far as chaingunner usage goes. I only located one of this level's secrets--the outdoor area and soul sphere escaped me--but the blur sphere as an obvious powerup before the dense teleport ambush battle is much appreciated. |  |
| MAP14 | The Crucified Factory |
|---|---|
| by Walter Confalonieri aka "daimon" | |
 | Oh, hey! It's a "Hunted"-style arch-vile level. Well, minus the maze. Confalonieri's music choice sets the tone; this is all in good fun. Hence the obviously lethally trapped BFG. You didn't think it would be that easy, did you? The arch-viles are sometimes found but more often than not they teleport into the playing area, ready to rumble. They were generally pretty simple to handle, but the two at the bottom of the elevator to the red key are potentially highly awkward. I think that the lion's share of the difficulty is found in the northern yard, particularly the three arch-viles guarding the teleporter. Like so much of the maps up to this point, tactical movement is so much more rewarding than getting into the thick of things and getting messed up. daimon has the second 1 Monster tribute area that I've seen--this one in the exit--and also has a fun little shrine to the project members. |
| Spook House | MAP15 |
|---|---|
| by Joshua O'Sullivan aka "Dragonfly" and Robert Eckhardt aka "Ichor" | |
| On paper, this is edging in about the worst possible direction for a spectre-focused level. It's gloomy, dark, and some areas are about pitch black. BUT! This is a haunted house that is rendered with Blood textures. Like, if the idea of creeping through a big spooky mansion and carefully taking down spectres doesn't appeal to you, then I don't think that the atmosphere of this map will change your mind. If I'm going to have to crawl through a level, though, then you'd do well to make sure it's as visually interesting as possible, and the team of Dragonfly and Ichor delivered in spades. The most fun this level has action wise is a little "The Descent"/Haunted Mansion-style descending room battle. |  |
| MAP31 | Castle Dorkenstein |
|---|---|
| by Ronald Lubbelinkhof aka "Dutch Devil" | |
 | Well, it's 1 Monster, and how could you say no to blowing away Nazis? This is a swanky-looking Wolf3D level in the style of Dutch Devil's sort of abstract hyper-detailing. It offers more variety than your typical Doom II Wolf3D stuff because Esselfortium was kind enough to supply textures from the Mac port, so some of the visuals ought to cause some surprise. This plays like all of the previous zombie levels but with its own caveats as the Trooper is somewhere between the sergeant and chaingunner in durability. |
| Mancublood | MAP16 |
|---|---|
| by Walter Confalonieri aka "daimon" | |
| This map is a stern reminder of just how tanky mancubi actually are. It's not very fun slowly shotgunning fatsos; you would do well to figure out how to open the door in the busted-out room that you access the blue key from. It has a very early chaingun. Once you get up to the roof of the warehouse, which seems to take forever, you get a plasma gun and a ton of ammo. The map becomes a quirky adventure level from here on out with tons of trademark Confalonieri silliness. Pay attention to the colored arrows; they identify where the keys are. The office complete with chalk outline of a chainsaw murder is fun to explore and there are a few fun details in the relatively empty barracks. Heck; I even enjoyed the final shootout around the enormous FIREBLU gate. Also, shoutout to the conveyor belt chain. This was a neat way of shortcutting through various level areas. |  |
| MAP17 | Zumma |
|---|---|
| by Mark Pedersen aka "Macro11_1" | |
 | This is a HUGE adventure level that starts out in a sort of tan rock canyon before delving into a green marble, red rock, and blood-soaked ruin. It's also pure, chaingunner poison. Pedersen is pretty loose with the health and that definitely helps, but the canyon is one Hell of a way to introduce the player to the level. There are commando ambushes every few inches. It's kind of a struggle to make it to the temple, but when you do, the combat takes on a different, more knockabout tone. My favorite encounter of this level is the big chaingunner teleportathon in the megasphere elbow. My least favorite bit is the lava pillar elevator room. The Satanic chapel at the end is a really cool swath of architecture. Check it out! |
| Knightmire | MAP18 |
|---|---|
| by Chris Leeson aka "Psyrus" | |
| After "Zumma", it's nice to get a short breather level. Well, relatively speaking. This is a dark and moody piece with tons of fun detail embellishments against the Baron's less durable cousin. The shotgun action is pleasant enough and you acquire the SSG partway through, just in time for a trip through some E4-ish granite caverns. There are three memorably awkward moments. The first is the walkway battle against the three Hell knights in the alcove. The second is a direct contributor to the third. There's a secret rocket launcher in the big brown cavern with the Hell knight peanut gallery but you're likely to miss it in all the excitement. You'll want it to save on SSG ammo for a full clear because the chances of you toting rockets only into the exit room and wiping out both Hell knights is... slim. |  |
| MAP19 | Cacaphony |
|---|---|
| by Robert Eckhardt aka "Ichor" | |
  | "Knightmire" was the buffer for THIS. Here is an enormous, beautiful level through wooden outposts, red rock Hell, and marble fortresses, and it's all about the cacodemon. It's a great level and tries to figure out as many different ways of handling tomatoes as are possible. But, like, it's 439 cacodemons, and so much of the connective tissue comes down to killing them one by one as you travel between the wicked cool battlegrounds. Which, like I mentioned with "Spook House" and which quite a few of these levels execute, the journey is just as important. Some favorites... There's a marble pillars forest with tons of tortured souls at the level's easternmost point with a cheeky Baron of Hell graphic. What's he doing there? Wouldn't you like to know. The jaunts through red rock Hell are pretty good, too. The caverns of the damned are looking sharp. The first one offers a great hellscape complete with lightcasting while the latter glimpses are more about the damned in cages. There is one awesome custom graphic in a sort of chapel near the middle of the map in one of my more favored battlegrounds. I didn't like the moments where I was shooting at cacodemons in the dark. My caco comfort zone is found at multiple points in "Cacophony" and it's something like the cacodemons entering into a defended location from multiple points, paced for whatever weapon you have available at the time. For some of these encounters you have the BFG, and seeing tons of deflated gasbags drop to the floor is always a great visual. Thankfully, with as awkward a fight as the caged caco round, Ichor saw fit to offer a lampshaded secret invul sphere so that you can use it to knock out / soften up about half the cages before it wears off. |
| Bony Encounter | MAP20 |
|---|---|
| by Kristian Aro | |
| Kristian Aro arrives to give us a... really great map featuring the spookiest skeleton of all. Picking the revenant almost feels like cheating as it's one of Doom's most versatile monsters, but I don't see any other revenant maps in this pack! It's our loss. Anyway, this is a fun breather of a sort of city-in-Hell level-ish map complete with a sewers / catacombs section. Kristian never really mobs you but it has a bit of a hot start with the revenants on the marble pillars. It's the first in quite a bit of series of scares that pushes you along until you reach the southwest annex, after which you can finally take a breath. There's one really gnarly-looking encounter, the one for the red skull key. If you don't know about the secret invul sphere or the soul sphere / rocket box platform then you might have a bit of a rough time trying to clear them out. Like, I checked behind the pillar when I saw it (it's second nature at this point) but to my embarrassment I could not figure out how to get around to the west side and the teleporter until the sphere had worn off. Sploops! That and getting up to the backside of the starting area, where you acquire the chaingun, were my two most awkward moments. |  |
| MAP21 | Cyberswat |
|---|---|
| by Paul Corfiatis | |
 | Yeah! So, this is a Cyberdemon level in brick and metal. There are ten of them and there's only a trick to slaying the red key guardian. If you've woken up the red skull key Cybie, then it's virtually too late. The rest must be slayed by good ol' fashion weapons fire, which will likely include copious amounts of combat shotgun drive-bys. My least favorite of the encounters is the one in the library stacks. Two Cyberdemons in a shooting gallery that fires back is not my ideal time and it only takes a slight amount of impatience to turn into a grease stain. As for the rest, well, I like the outdoor fight with the platform Cyberdemons, and the rocket launcher showdown in the end feels like PWAD-classic. |
| Triad of the Minds | MAP22 |
|---|---|
| by "scwiba" | |
| Okay, this is a fun Spider Mastermind level. It starts out in an abstract wood-paneled Hell and then spirals out into abstract, nightmarish worlds. You are harried by super-chainguns as you make your way through scwiba's obstacle courses and must use cover and in at least one creative situation the tendency of Masterminds to be stunned by hitscan attacks. The southwest leg is crusher Hell but leads into a really cool area with high, vaulted ceilings where the arachnomomma is coming for you. The northwest has a vanishing cover gimmick, making it increasingly dangerous to hunt for the remaining switches. The last Mastermind will be destroyed by more...traditional means. |  |
| MAP23 | Musical Bar-B-Que |
|---|---|
| by Joonas Äijälä aka Jodwin | |
 | This is a highly-tuned adventure against arch-viles in a sort of '95-ish (and I mean that with all the love in the world!) beige rock and metal fortress. I wouldn't take the chainsaw offered early on as a serious gesture; it might give you the wrong idea. About the nastiest piece of level design here is a trap that unleashes, like, four arch-viles into the square-celled hallway leading to the library. It's hinted at as "gates of death", though it may be hard for the markers to stand out in the low light level. I believe that you're intended to be able to kill just about every other arch-vile, with varying degrees of twitch reaction time vs. tactical movement. I'd try to save as many rockets as I could for the final group if you want to get as close to 100% as possible. If you do that, though, then I guess that you'd have to also deliberately trigger the arch-vile puzzle. Looking at a playthrough, using the chainsaw isn't required, but you'll want to beeline toward the combat shotgun and be precise with your shots. |
| The One God | MAP24 |
|---|---|
| by Robert Eckhardt aka "Ichor" | |
| It's time for the two minutes hate! Or, well, about two minutes. It depends on the difficulty that you're in. It's not a lot of time, but it's more than you might think. With saves, I made it to the boss room with about 45-50 seconds left on the time limit. This is a race against time a la Scythe's "Run From It" (MAP28). Ichor has quite the obstacle course lined up. One of my favorite bits is a hexagonal topography that's built like a "Simon Says"-type puzzle. When you step on a tile, the next safe one briefly pulses with light! This was a very cool visual. The obstacle course that hurt me the most while I was rushing was the death tile telefrag hallway. There are also a crusher hallway and a single-roof crusher course, the latter of which you have to trip off and then rush while it's opening. Fair warning: After the first, more traditional obstacle course, you wind up in a hub with seven different hallways off of it, six of which are lethal. Ichor has included a hint, but given the nature of what you're up against it's likely to be overlooked. |  |
TWO CAN BE AS BAD AS ONE,
IT'S THE LONELIEST MONSTER SINCE THE NUMBER ONE
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