Super MAYhem 17 (MAYHEM17.WAD)

MAYhem is a time when Doomworlders can band together and throw their weight behind an arbitrary set of restrictions. The series had a rough start in terms of meeting its megaWAD goal, with 2012 and 2013 fielding 12 and 11 levels respectively, but it hit its stride with MAYhem 2048, with each subsequent iteration meeting the "megawad" definition (in spirit with MAYhem 2024, which produced 35 segments to stitch together). The 2017-released-in-2018 installment goes by Super MAYhem 17 because the texture theme this go-around was Super Mario Bros.-themed, with an aesthetic that appears to be sort of a mix of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World. This is a 28-ish level replacement for Doom II, to be played with Boom-compatible ports, with some fringe MAPINFO perks for ZDoom / Eternity users.

I know it looks like Doomguy but you're first name Mario, second name Mario, and you're pissed. Princess Peach has been kidnapped yet again and this is the tipping point where you shed your good guy persona and turn into a raging asshole who careens about the Mushroom Kingdom, slaughtering everyone and everything in your way. No mention is made of the curious new appearances of Bowser's minions, not that I really need to see graphic depictions of the deaths of Shy Guys and hapless Toads to appreciate these levels. You'll travel all over the Mushroom Kingdom and find several false Princesses before confronting Bowser and peacing out, leaving the denizens to fend for themselves.

When I first heard about Super MAYhem 17, I figured on two possible outcomes. I felt like there would be nice, modern-looking layouts that stayed more or less in Doom's wheelhouse, which I would be perfectly fine with. Secretly, though, I hoped that the authors would use Mario elements to push Doom into slightly (or vastly!) different places. I have played and enjoyed Batandy's Doom: The Golden Souls and look forward to seeing GS2 and GS3, but I'm always stoked to see how different people spin ideas. Not to ignore that there is a huge difference between the massive amount of custom content in GS vs. Doom but with Mario assets and Boom scripting to manufacture certain effects.

I didn't get as much of the latter as I would have liked but I got enough that I hold out hope for some intrepid soul to take the reigns laid down and drive Doom even further down the road of unholy Mario / Doom hodgepodge. Some of my favorite levels in this set doubled down on Mario-accented Doom gameplay with fun bits like question blocks that bestow powerups, Thwomp crushers, and light puzzle touches. Walter's "Groovy Hills" (MAP07) charmed me as a Super Mario Bros. 2 homage complete with yanking supplies out of the ground, a portal to the shadow world, and a boss platform. I also loved the puzzle platformer stylings of "Curse of the Mummy's Sister's etc." (MAP09) by Impie, which has three switches that control which colored doors are open.

The way in which the levels are presented sort of lulled me into thinking that you're getting Mario-influenced elements gradually revealed to you. Dragonfly's "Shroom Stronghold" (MAP01) is a great intro into what you can sort of aesthetically expect from the functional elements of these levels, like what keys and switches look like, and Fletcher`'s "All Along the Bowser Tower" (MAP02) gets to introduce Thwomps as crushing ceilings as well as pipes as teleporters, the latter element proliferating the rest of the set. I was thinking that the munchers as damage floors was going to be a bigger thing after seeing it in Jaxxoon R's "Sillydust Sanctuary" (MAP03), but not so much. The first two maps get most of the shorthand that you need to know out of the way, with the rest of the elements--excepting blocks that you can walk under to get powerups--being isolated experiments.

Maybe my favorite map of the whole set is the furthest that it gets from traditional Doom. It's dobu gabu maru's "Sinkysand Switchland" (MAP31), an adventure that plays, well, like a 3D Mario game where you can't jump. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, perhaps? "Sinkysand" has quite a few puzzles, the main gimmick being manipulating whether blue walls or red walls are up and using this to get around and unlock more of the level. This is superficially similar to Impie's colored doors in "Curse" but the fact that they're walls makes all the difference in the world when it comes to, say, entering the pyramid with its inner gate lowered. The secret level also has three stars that you have to get to if you want to enter it upon exiting the map. I had a blast noodling my way through this map and figuring out oddities like the secret stars or the ultimate purpose of the emerald monuments. I'd play a megaWAD of maps like this, easily.

As for the rest, well, it's never bad to have hard-hitting gameplay across great-looking levels, and Super MAYhem 17 does not disappoint. I was kind of caught off-guard by how rough these maps tended to be on the player. I think that I had made some false assumptions due to the Mario-theming and perhaps had wished a bit hard on a more classic style of PWAD progression when, y'know, it's 2017 and this is a community endeavor. I initially thought that this would be due to a handful of contributors who are probably best known for their high skill-ceiling gameplay. At least, they were back in my opinions of them crystallized. I couldn't place Killer5 until I saw that they were the creator of 2017's beloved Dimensions. "Aztec Ruins" (MAP11) starts out somewhere near there on UV with you bareknuckle boxing a couple of arch-viles in a murderhole but keeps most of the harder stuff in a secret exit leg that's only accessed via a secret quest to gather all of the blue coins. I enjoyed looking for the hidden parts of this map and even had fun with the slaughter-style encounters!

Benjogami of 2016's Toilet of the Gods (and Flotsam, and Down the Drain, and Abandon, and...) serves up "Chocolate Starfish Islands" (MAP22). Like Killer5, I'm not sure what I was expecting but I thought that this was a great exercise within the Super Mario sphere of influence with some platforming bits as well as an arcade-style aggressive shooting gallery. I was astounded by the revenant sniper / demon meatshield segment in the frosty underworld, but I also haven't delved deep enough into the HSC spectrum to know whether something I'm looking at is revolutionary. The incredible shrinking rd coauthored "Bowser in the Black Abyss" (MAP26) with Marcaek, which is probably the closest of any of these levels to newschool small-scale slaughter across a full map apart from perhaps Scotty's "Rainbow Road" (MAP21). "Black Abyss" starts with a pretty crazy optional encounter (I mean, as long as you don't mind missing out on the BFG) but the regular encounters ratchet up player pressure in tight confines until you take on Bowser himself in a big, teleport invasion brawl. I don't think that I could have asked for a more fun experience for my first outing with rd.

Alex Scott's colorful "Rainbow Road" has the same sort of combat puzzle style but on a much smaller scale. Each adventure is a little lock-in fight, giving the player an opportunity to BFG bump two Cybers and just cut loose with the BFG and rocket launcher in general. It was interesting seeing this play out successfully as a sort of tactical encounter as was the case with the Spiderdemon fight. I wasn't expecting something like this from NuMetalManiak's "Painfully and Elitely Rustled" (MAP05) but she delivers with the same sort of combat puzzle gameplay on a smaller scale, if maybe a bit rougher around the edges with moments like the commando snipers in its finale.

The other side of Super MAYhem 17's difficulty comes from hot starts. Some of these just get you moving while others slay slow learners dead. I feel like there's a big difference between the way that Fletcher`'s "Bowser Tower" and "Koopa Anomaly" (MAP13) get you started and moving throughout the level versus TheMionicDonut's "Your Princess is in Another Fort, Asshole" (MAP19) and "Down the Wrong Pipe" (MAP23) with the latter being more manageable and the former relentlessly pushing the player into awkward situations. Pinchy's two outings, "Marina Moonlight" (MAP04) and "Skyward Vivarium" (MAP16), have a lot of apparent chaos but they're way more forgiving than they look like at first glance. The learning curve just wasn't as steep for me.

"Shifting Sands" (MAP10) by Crunchynut44 feels like it's cut from a similar cloth as Fletcher`'s contributions as it draws you through a sort of two-tier layout without pushing back every step of the way. The revenants and arch-viles of the level's later portions may come as a shock, but it's only after the player has had a significant span of relief. A.Gamma's "Cool Cool Shotgun" (MAP12), with its wide-open outdoor areas, resembles something more like Pinchy's "Marina Moonlight" until you start checking out the remote regions of the map. Between the slippery ice and gusty winds, the environmental effects transition the level to something more resembling 3D platformer action, particularly the segment near the end where the wind tries to blow the player off between the Thwomps.

Obsidian starts out with a running of the arch-viles in "Absolute Zero" (MAP14) and then settles into a highly claustrophobic dungeon crawl where you have some nominally restrictive ice barriers that you break down to progress. While writing this I recalled that Caldwell had an ice-themed level in 32in24-14, "Belligerent Bauble Bastion" (MAP05). Like "Bastion", there's a moment where you free a bunch of monsters that had previously been sealed away inside the level. Here, though, it's a morass of pain elementals. Xaser's "Ziegenhaus" (MAP15) starts out with one Hell of a hot start crossfire and then pumps the breaks and downshifts into an exercise in pulling teeth. The Final Fantasy VI soundtrack tugs at my heartstrings; the old world town looks excellent, with some M.C. Escher-inspired geometry in its deeper places; and the Cyberdemon arena and the way in which you're dropped into it makes for a wicked cool aesthetic. It's a seemingly endless parade of revenants and arch-viles, though. EDIT 02/26/25:  Said Cyberdemon battle has a trick that breaks the teleport chains; I wish you nerves of steel in dodging on one of the pads long enough to break one of them loose.

A handful of these maps deliver a reliable stream of fun and action.  Gothic's "Airship of Doom" (MAP06) kicks off with an open-air hot shootout and then settles into some lowkey gauntlets, with a sharp shock for the chaser. Angry Saint's "All the Monster's Teeth are Perfect" (MAP17) is another, even with its penchant for teleporting a surprise monster or two directly behind the player. I had a blast with Death Egg's "Return to the Birabuto Kingdom" (MAP32), between its Gameboy aesthetic and punchy but accommodating action. If you're looking for something newschool but more in the vein of  Skillsaw's works then I highly recommend Breezeep's "Bastille Bowser" (MAP25). Like "Ziegenhaus", it's a cool, old world style city (castle), but it looks gorgeous and plays so smoothly that it'd be a shame to pass it up. The only other maps that feel comparable to me in the way that they flow and manage combat are Dragonfly's opener and Fletcher`'s two entries.

Another sort of sub-genre of levels in this set feel like they drew a bit of inspiration from Mario Kart. I say this mainly because they have broad pathways and, to some extent, wide-open spaces. "Skyward Vivarium", one of Pinchy's maps, falls into this category due to its exterior area basically consisting of a nice, wide track that you can zip around as long as you mind some of the roadblocks... and revenant rockets. "C'mon Peach" (MAP18) is Walter's other outing and manages to cram some classic Super Mario Bros. castle tropes in with the brick castle roads, like a simple silent teleporter maze as well as the ol' axe bridge. "Bowser's Daddy's Dungeon" (MAP24), RottKing's contribution, is another take on the castle course, with an outer loop that takes you through the mansion, an inner almost monolithic tiered track structure, and a finale that evokes those classic Mario Kart battle levels.

Argent Agent's "Transformation Palace" (MAP20) has the raw components of the track-style levels and I love its sort of scaled up architecture for Hell Revealed-style slaughter, but I hit a brick wall after the bunker teleport invasion. There's this great sequence where a megastructure of stairs erupts before your eyes but I found it incredibly awkward to conquer due to the arch-viles as well as the revenants in the fatal funnel. I had way more fun fighting through the slaughter encounter that closes the level out. Also, you might think that "Rainbow Road" might fit into the Mario Kart feel from the title alone, but it's more of a tight combat puzzle level that uses rainbow-colored wire platforms in a similar style to Ancient Aliens's E2.

While I appreciate the gunplay it’s the elements that have been cribbed from Mario that mattered the most to me, stuff like the optional collect-a-thon objectives in "Aztec Temple", "Zeigenhaus", and "Sinkysand Switchland"; the plethora of ways in which designers used blocks for item pickups; pipes as teleporters; the Thwomp-coded crushing ceilings; the whales that pop up in the finale of "Marina Moonlight"; the plethora of specific Mario homages found in Walter's "Groovy Hills" and "C'mon Peach"; and battling King Koopa himself in "Black Abyss". I would have leaned even harder into a mapset that made use of more recognizable locales like "Airship of Doom" but that would have imposed more structure on the contributing authors than I believe is typical of MAYhem forays.

Which, well, MAYhem always has a theme, but the organizers have imposed some sort of design constraint from 2013's 2 monsters and onward. The 2014 instance, MAYhem 2048, used the 2048 x 2048 unit map size restriction. MAYhem 1500 limited authors to 1500 linedefs and MAYhem 2016 had the author’s choice of 160 things OR a monster count that was derived as a multiple of ten based on the chosen map slot. Super MAYhem 2017's limitations aren’t quite as restrictive and seem more designed to reign in the scale of the levels. One of them limits the playable area to a grid of 5120 x 2840 units, which is still 3.5 times the size of any MAYhem 2048 map. Sure, this means that no one was initially authorized to craft their epic Super Mario adventure that folds a dozen themes into a single level, but I somehow doubt that anyone was chomping at the bit to make this for MAYhem.

The other boundary was 256 things, which isn’t just monsters but also all pickups as well as obstacles, decorations, and some under-the-hood stuff. Theoretically this means that the author isn’t just bounded by the number of monsters but also the amount of resources that they make available to defeat them. In practice, while most of the authors adhered to the limits, some of them exceeded the THINGS limitation to varying degrees. "Bowser In the Black Abyss" is the most egregious offender in this category, with more than 300 monsters to start, having already exceeded the budget before laying down a single rocket. Generally speaking, though, if I struggled with combat in a level, it was more of a function of the placement of enemies rather than their raw number.

I wondered whether the Mario theme would inform the gameplay of Super MAYhem 17 but as I think about it, Doom had already had about eight years to be influenced by Mario and platforming in general prior to its 1993 release (see Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement) and 24 more years since then as folks shaped their Doom user experiences into whatever they wanted them to be. Doom didn’t ship with a jump function but that didn’t stop id from including sequences like collapsing platforms or situations where you "leap" across gaps. id was already in the business of "elevating" Doom from the bullshit 2.5D label tht gaming pundits have used to de-legitimize it as a platform. Authors have followed their lead to craft more and more complex three-dimensional paths through their level.

The community has gotten so good at working with the limitation that my default assumption when an individual level requires it (and not, say, mapsets where it’s an explicit part of their experience a la The Golden Souls, Skulldash, or Prime Directive) is that it’s going to be something clunky that slows down the pace at which you move through an area. This isn’t inherently bad; I’m just not used to it and it takes a little bit to get into remembering that it's part of my toolkit. Pauses for jumping can work to serve gameplay needs, too. A slower pace naturally fits adventure levels as long as the amount of jumping doesn’t become tedious or repetitive. It could also be an effective moment in a horror-oriented Doom mod where the goal is to get as far away from the threat and as quickly as possible.

Doom has arguably been a collect-a-thon game since its release. 100% items, anyone? The relative usefulness of pickups is arguable when it comes to how each one contributes toward that 100% but the scattered health and armor bonuses are a holdover from a time when Doom had a score system like Wolfenstein 3D, except it they were demonic daggers and skull chests (as seen in _Mud's Beta Labs). Except, well, in collect-a-thon platformers, you use the collectibles for unlocks like new powers or worlds. In Doom, the bonuses just add to your health and armor. It has more utilitarian value than Mario's coins once lives are removed from the occasion (so it's amusing that the bonuses have been transmogrified into blue and green coins).

There are powerups, too! And one of them is even an invincibility! (But not one that also annihilates every enemy you touch; if that would have happened at the beginning of MAP18 then I would have been beside myself with glee.) Doomguy pre- and post-soul sphere with max health roughly correlates to classic small and large Mario. The armor effects sort of mimic damage reductions from, and I'm sure that there are plenty of other and older examples in games, Metroid's suits and The Legend of Zelda's tunics, minus the durability system. I wouldn't be surprised if some powerups, like the partial invisibility and light amp goggles, have analogues in classic games (like the candle in Zelda 2: The Adventures of Link) but for some reason I'm more reminded of spells that you might cast in dungeon crawlers, another genre that Doom has its roots in.

The game was made before FPS as a genre was really established so it folded in some of the elements of the games that id had been working on and no doubt played. Super MAYhem 17 wasn't really poised to bring anything revolutionary to the Doom experience given that its target was Boom-compatible ports. Mostly, it highlights what gameplay elements were already present in Doom, like obstacle courses, lethal or otherwise; the cocktail of verticality, sawtooth-style platforming, and darting across gaps; collecting items; or extra-wide pathways that encourage you to coast at top speed. 

If you have ever had fun playing one of the Mario games then you absolutely need to give Super MAYhem 17 a playthrough, though maybe at a lower difficulty setting. I personally enjoyed the Mario embellishments that littered these levels and could hardly turn my nose up at more authors' takes on the MAYrio concept. Maybe someday someone'll grab those Lost Levels resources so that we can all take another hit from the Ancient Nintendo Warp Pipe. For now, I'll have to be content with this slice of pizza pie from the MushDooM Kingdom.

SUPER MAYHEM 17

by various authors

Shroom Stronghold	MAP01
by Joshua O'Sullivan aka "Dragonfly"
Dragonfly starts out fairly easygoing but this level quickly escalates to Doom II trash monster invasion crossfires and includes a few choice encounters with beefier foes. There are several arch-viles in prime resurrection position as well as an agitation of revenants waiting at the finish line. I like this level as a crash-course on how elements of the following maps like doors, key borders, and switches will be depicted, as well as what to expect out of some of the powerups. The Mario textures really pop with the chunky architecture. I like the slightly raised pillar area that sort of resembles the face of a clock with one long hand on the automap.

MAP02	All Along the Bowser Tower
by "Fletcher`"
	Fletcher delivers a fabulous platforming course of a level. There's tons of verticality and moving between various tiers of action. Excepting the imps in the northwestern section, there isn't a plane that you don't eventually step on. It's also designed to reroute you through previously explored portions of the map to access new ones, with beefier opponents like Hell knights standing watch so that that you're still under some amount of pressure as you move through them. The way in which the Thwomps and the pipe appear really gives the impression that we are still introducing core concepts of how typical Doom features are signified in the set. This helps this feel less scatterbrained as a community project and more purposeful in its presentation. No real standout encounters for me, here, just a lot of judicious revenant usage.

Sillydust Sanctuary	MAP03
by Jack Stewart aka "Jaxxoon"
This is a cool oasis in the middle of a barren desert complete with distant pyramids. it isn't as much of an oasis at first but once you flip a switch you'll see where all the greenery is coming from. The pipe / water gimmick was fun if really confusing if you drop down into the pit before the liquid starts to flowing. Continuing with the theme of introducing gameplay concepts, there's a little teleport area that introduces the munchers as a damage floor, which was cute. I like that there's an extensive side-path from the red key that goes through the red key locked area and then even further to the megasphere. It even comes with a harrowing revenant fight! Overall, this one felt really tight on ammo, especially considering that there's an arch-vile assault near the end.

MAP04	Marina Moonlight
by "Pinchy"
	Hey, it's my second Pinchy level with a shipyard! This has a HOT HOT start with tons of entrenched enemies. If you go too far in checking out the boat in the sheltered cove, you're going to bring a bunch of revenants down on your head. It's understandable that you're looking for cover, however, looking at the fearsome flotilla and the cadre of zombimen on the docks. The arch-vile in the guard tower is maybe the tightest encounter of the whole thing, especially since you're likely to have blown rockets on the invading forces that show up upon grabbing the key. Coming out of the cove and seeing the whales was a really cool level transformation moment. Their little wiggling tails are adorable.

Painfully and Elitely Rustled	MAP05
by Olivia Riley aka "Getsu Fune"
This is a short and VERY punchy level with a handful of challenge-type encounters. The start is one of those wake-up-and-run bits, right into the arms of a relatively sedate rocket launcher / demon brawl. I struggled with trying too hard to blaze problem elements like the arch-viles and the Cyberdemon ASAP when survival is just as key a component of these fights as slaying things dead. I really liked the teleporting key room, not that I could tell it was a key until the end, and the lightning flashing in the sky of the outdoor areas is very cool.

MAP06	Airship of Doom
by Robert Lopez aka "Gothic"
	This is a really cool flying airship map. It nails exactly what I want out of a SMB3 homage to the flying levels. You have to visit two sub-dungeons before accessing the exit and if anything I think that this is where the level falters a bit. The composition of the below decks, apart from maybe the pain elemental, doesn't do a lot to distinguish the blue wing from the red one. The third and final arena is a big step up in difficulty. You don't need the secret rocket launcher in order to power through it but it would probably help. As it is, you can kind of make do with running circuits past the arch-vile and doing drive-bys until you take it out first.

Groovy Hills	MAP07
by Walter Confalonieri
This map slaps pretty hard. It's a loveletter to Super Mario Bros. 2 and it has tons of cute elements like pulling powerups and items out of the ground, doors that take you all over the level, and--it took me a second try to figure this one out--a simulation of that shadow-world potion bit where you got the HP upgrades. You can even jump into the pot! The boss platform with the Cyberdemon showdown is a little awkward, but I could play a dozen levels like this.

MAP08	The Oasis
by Tristan Clark
	Some very lovely music to go with this desert romp. Well, most of it's underground. You have to go check out some ruins to get a key and then deal with a pipe platforming segment that absolutely kicked my ass. I'm embarrassed to admit how many times I fell off on my way across the pipe line. Yeah, there's a key right in the middle, but beware! You'll likely be unprepared for what follows. That arch-vile ambush with the revenant crowd is pretty dangerous, and that's not even counting the pain elemental chaser. Pull a Hercules and "Go the Distance"; you'll have a combat shotgun to show for it. There are lots of pretty highlights in this level like the indoor waterfalls and the pyramid that is ultimately your goal.

Curse of the Mummy's Sister's etc.	MAP09
by Mike MacDee aka "Impie"
This is a basic-looking ruins map with a great gameplay hook. While exploring the level you're going to run into something that looks like a shooting gallery with three colored switches. Each one opens mutually exclusive coded doors. It might strike players as a bit of a chore to go back to the range to swap them, but "Curse" isn't really long enough for the gimmick to wear on me. I was way more concerned about ammo. This map feels VERY tightly balanced on UV up until you get the rocket launcher. It also has quite a disorienting finale that features an arch-vile.

MAP10	Shifting Sands
by Glen Christie aka "Crunchynut44"
	Christie kicks things into high gear with another sort of desert oasis level. There are monsters down low and up high and not quite enough ammo to go around, pushing you deeper into the level to look for bigger guns and more ammunition. This eventually prods you into a short but fun lock-in fight where you acquire the rocket launcher. The following surprises are a bit sharper and more weighted toward revenants. I appreciated the cacodemon / pain elemental ambush at the yellow key, though. As a map I appreciate the sort of two-tier progression where you fight your way through the bottom in order to be able to move around the top where important powerups can be had.

Aztec Ruins	MAP11
by "Killer5"
This is a tale of two maps. The first of these is a knuckle-biting crawl through the ruins. The tone is sort of set by the blue key fight, where you have to punch two arch-viles to death in a basement where they can resurrect imps. You better knock one of those fuckers out quick. If for some reason you were hedging your bets on just avoiding them entirely, then switch puzzle results in all five cover pillars disappearing one by one. There's another semi-secret required fight for the yellow key. It's a pretty congested SSG waltz with revenants in a cool cascading cavern. After this, the normal exit fight with the Cyberdemon and easily-tethered arch-vile seems kind of mellow. There's a secret side quest for the blue coins, though. I had a lot of fun picking through the ruins and finding all of the secrets, but I didn't really know what I was getting myself in for. I kind of suspected, though, once I saw that the first room's waterfall had turned into a hole. The two following fights are VERY tricky but I enjoyed both of them. I enjoyed the revenant lava platform in the darkness. It isn't actually a damage floor, which threw me off at first. Just don't get caught by the arch-vile. The final area is a slaughter BFG frenzy death arena with a great many Cyberdemons, revenants, and some pillar-humping spoiler arch-viles. If you can figure out a route to clear some breathing room and snag the megaspheres, then you're only, like, a bunch of Cyberdemon bumps away from declaring yourself the ultimate victor.

MAP12	Cool Cool Shotgun
by "A.Gamma"
	It's an ice level! We are a bit deeper into the difficulty, here, as this level continues the "go find a gun :)" trend, but mixes it with environmental movement effects. The most obvious bit consists of the ice, making things difficult as you slip slide around while trying to avoid arch-vile attacks, break into the southeastern bunker, or just try to survive in general. There are a three areas where the music cuts out to highlight the sound of wind. Here, you're liable to be blown off the mountain to swift, instant death. The happy-go-lucky 1st level music from Super Mario World feels deeply ironic as hairy as this level gets, especially after triggering the Cyberdemon brawl.

Koopa Anomaly	MAP13
by "Fletcher`"
This is a wicked fun level with wide, open spaces, verticality, and tons of ground to cover. I had a blast with the way Fletcher` routes you through the level, linking you back to the playing spaces you came from and breaking down the walls between level segments, transforming it in the process. The start feels a little hot but less panicked than some of the previous levels. The conclusion, however, ends on dual Cyberdemons guarding the final pipe. "Anomaly" contains a lot of elegantly pretty architecture to admire. There's also a Triforce pad in the northeast corner of the level, which made me start hankering for a LttP-themed adventure like this one.

MAP14	Absolute Zero
by James Caldwell aka "Obsidian"
	Somehow, I don't think that I was intended to force the first two arch-viles back to the little waterfall and slowly punch them to death. But I did, because why not? The frenzied running of the obstacle courses might hit a bit different with two of Hell's sorcerers at my back. As it stands, this is a fun level with a small, dense layout. The main gimmick is that there are walls of fragile ice that you have to break but there are also some fun Mario bits like running under blocks in order to grab powerups. The crossbones transformation that leads into the end, though, where it feels like you're supposed to be Berserk fisting the pain elementals on the way to the final arena, is a bit of a slog. Not any worse than using the basic fist against the two viles at the beginning, though. As I found out way too late, the pain elemental alcoves in the last arena are stocked with what appears to be boxes of shotgun shells. Oh well!

Ziegenhaus	MAP15
by Xaser Acheron
This level feels like it was designed to agitate the most players possible. The bestiary consists almost entirely of revenants and arch-viles with a small number of mancubi and arachnotrons in the more wide-open spaces. Oh, and two Cyberdemons in what has been possibly the most annoying encounter of the set thus far. I mean, the Zozo theme started me off with some positive vibes (it's weird without the rain), but you've got to really love scrapping with skeletons and arch-viles in awkward places in order to get the most out of this level. It's really fun to explore, though, and has a couple of areas that appear to be homages to M.C. Escher, like sideways staircases, as well as whatever the heck is going on with the construct surrounding the secret exit. I'm not entirely sure what's going on with that, but I am pretty sure that you have to collect the red coins in order to open it up. I've always loved Xaser's sector machinery and you get quite a few good instances of it, like the alternating staircases in the cathedral / void chamber, or the collapsing pathway that sets you up for Cybergeddon. As annoying as the Cyberdemon fight is--the two bastards teleport between like fourteen different destinations at different heights--the author at least has engineered a way for you to "nope" out of it as long as you know how. If you run to the water shrine, you can make it to the switch that lowers the wall blocking the exit before the Cyberdemons are fully revealed. It's still handy to flip it this way in case you run out of ammo which, uh, I managed to. EDIT 02/26/25: From Xaser himself, each Cyberdemon is chained to a given teleport pad color. One belongs to red and the other goes to black. The pads literally tell you cheekily not to obstruct them, and while I sort of grasped this, the few times I tried to see what the deal was I wasn't dedicated enough to see what really camping on a pad would end up doing. In my defense, there are a lot of rockets flying around. Anyway, if you step on one of the destination pads that's within your reach, it'll break the Cyberdemon's chain and it'll wander free. This CAN result in one of them breaking free on one of the upper tiers, so beware and good luck.

MAP31	Sinkysand Switchland
by Darrel Steffen aka "dobu gabu maru"
	I knew that dgm had MAP31, but I thought that it was going to be more like his previous MAYhem levels. Thankfully, the text transition screen clued me in that this was a puzzle map. There are some imps here and there that you shouldn't just ignore, and the author gives you plenty of ammo to slay them dead, but the main focus in this level is brilliant, absolutely fabulous sector machinery. The primary gimmick of this map is made apparent from the onset. There are a number of color switch boxes. Pressing one flops each one's colors between blue and red. They're linked to a vast series of walls throughout the map, blue or red, and whichever color the box currently exhibits is the color of wall that's been disabled, pushed back down into the ground. They who controls the block controls the universe. Of course, it isn't as simple as this. "Sinkysand" must be navigated and pored over, opening up alternative routes so that you can bypass certain color walls and access further portions of the level. The pyramid-shaded blocks that bar your path are the most prevalent form of this mechanic. When you finally manage to step on top of them, they descend into the ground, never to stymie your progress again. There are other puzzle elements, too, like the blue-green-red staircase segments, but most of the level's difficulty comes from figuring out how you're meant to make your way around and through the red and blue walls. The two most confusing individual parts of this level's normal action are the emerald platform monument, seen early on, and the pot gauntlet. The emerald platform is more of a "distracted by shiny object" thing. It seems cryptic as you arrange it, but there's no secret configuration that makes something happen. This is part of a platforming segment that you don't need until you're nearly done with the level. The pot gauntlet is just disorienting as it leaps between a bunch of different micro-areas, but it's pretty merciful in restricting itself to two potential branching paths at any given leg of the journey. As a fun aside, there are three secret stars that you have to snag in order to get access to the super-secret level (it turns the color of the regular exit start green to signify that you've done it). The first and simples of these to get is just some good ol' platforming, mountain goat style. The other two are accessed via secret walls but still require a bit of lateral thinking in order to solve. I don't think any of the stars are nearly as time-consuming as figuring out how to eventually get inside the pyramid. YMMV, though.

Return to the Birabuto Kingdom	MAP32
by Mars Jurich aka "Death Egg"
Oh, hey! Spending a little time in Princess Daisy's kingdom! A jaunt in Sarasaland is a really cute way of doing the super secret level. It's delightfully chunky and lo-res as befits the Gameboy and has fun stuff like the Sphinxes. It's also kind of a pain to start, with a dangerous Baron / mancubi crossfire to start and chainsawing pain elementals early on to save on ammo. The map becomes a bit more fun as you acquire the plasma gun, chaingun, and SSG, as it starts to loosen up and you can start throwing rockets (and other things!) around with impunity. I appreciated actually travelling through the pipes instead of using them as coded teleporters.

MAP16	Skyward Vivarium
by "Pinchy"
	This is a pleasant garden in the sky that has one of those "find a gun :)" starts complete with an outdoor race track that's littered with zombies and overseen by revenants. Whether you go outside or find the side-passages leading downstairs, you can snag a SSG next. The weapons in the starting area aren't available until you trigger the arch-vile trap in the upper vivarium... but you might want to have the Hell knights and revenants cleared out so that you can be assured of a speedy egress. I liked it! I dunno about the OG Princess Toadstool shrine, though.

All the Monster's Teeth are Perfect	MAP17
by "Angry Saint"
A wildly colorful and abstract blastathon. Idk, I guess I'm kind of let down. I think that most of the Angry Saint-persona levels that I've played were more adventure-like. This one decided to embrace the Mario aesthetic by going full arcade. It's an action-packed shoot-em-up, though, well worth the time. It still has a bit of that hot start about it, with a cavalcade of monsters appearing behind you right out of the gate. Enemies teleporting behind you is one of AS's pet gags in this map, with one of the ambushes feeling a bit cruel. One of the standout fights sets you up with an invul so that you can do some hardcore rocket punching, always a fun time.

MAP18	C'mon, Peach, You've Got What You Want! Now Give This Plumber Cake!
by Walter Confalonieri
	This feels more like a Mario Kart track that's been broken up for Doomguy to blast through it... with a couple of cute references to the original castle levels. One of these is the ending, where a Cyberdemon guards the final bridge's axe. The other is a silent teleport maze that you need to take the correct route through in order to reach the switch on the other side. The action is fairly easygoing blasting, one of my favorite bits being the opening where you can get an invincibility star and then clear out all of the hitscanners at the onset. After that, the only real pressure you'll have to stand down comes from a lone arachnotron. Fun stuff; I really liked the Hell knight / revenant pillar fight.

Your Princess is in Another Fort, Asshole	MAP19
by "TheMionicDonut"
So, I didn't like this level at first. As a hot start it's a pain with the chaingunner snipers, the arachnotrons at the upper level's sawtooth, and other stuff like the pain elementals that you rush around and through. It feels like I spent a LOT of time under some pretty gnarly duress. I felt more or less okay once I got a SSG in-hand, if still VERY punchy. The Cyberdemon on the red platform is another one of those awkward shootouts.  It's a very clean and modern-looking castle map, based around a sort of tight, coiling layout. The infinite staircase is a pretty fun exit gag.

MAP20	Transformation Palace
by "Argentum"
	I like the big, open spaces and the wide, race-track like staircases. The topography of this map is pretty fun; it's easily my favorite part of its design. I loathed the stair climb in the southernmost area, though, as you're typically vulnerable to arch-vile attacks that you can't even see, and some of the ambushes--like the pincer attack of arch-viles that reveals itself when you try to step up to the first Cyberdemon--feel especially dickish. The carpet of revenants / aerial invasion that spawns in when you enter the bunker right before Cybie feels a little more manageable. I had way more fun with the cramped multi-Cyberdemon, multi-arch-vile slaughter that marks the end of this gauntlet.

Rainbow Road	MAP21
by Alex Scott aka "Scotty"
Okay! This is a gorgeous rainbow floating platform level in space. You're given max health, max armor, a BFG with full cells, and a rocket launcher with all the explosives you can cram into pockets. All this to sort out five difficult encounters. The two that gave me the most trouble were the Spiderdemon death arena (the red key zone), since it took me awhile to figure out a tactical approach to clearing that worked, and the pair of Cyberdemons, because I kept bumping into the sides of the platform while I was trying to weave into BFG bumps. Great stuff!

MAP22	Chocolate Starfish Islands
by "Benjogami"
	When I saw Benjogami's name in the running, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. This is a pleasant but challenging series of encounters, the first two of which best exhibit Doom-style "platforming". It's easy to literally bounce off the first one, a long and winding ice staircase climb, part of which you're vulnerable to revenant rockets. The same skeleton appears for the second brawl, one of the more clever encounters that I've seen in Doom in awhile. You're given a Berserk powerup to punch the demons on the ground floor to death and there are two platforms full of imps, but that same revenant from the first fight has gone underground to harry you down here as well. Keeping a healthy number of demons alive allows you to use them as cover to eat those long-distance homing revenant rockets. Then, with the rocket launcher in hand, you can send him a not-so-instant karma to keep him from giving you the long distance runaround at the next station. The third encounter feels like a more typical fight. You have sort of limited real estate but the main concern is the arch-vile on the platform peg. After that, if you really want to, then you can practice bare-knuckle boxing the Hell knights on the island. Or don't; the author has afforded you plenty of rockets, I think. The last fight is a crazy shooting gallery with a plasma gun (and any leftover rockets you have) where a bunch of monsters are dropped down a river wholesale. Some of them teleport back to the start, but some of them won't, so that the whole thing isn't just a turkey shoot.

Down the Wrong Pipe	MAP23
by "TheMionicDonut"
A challenging level with two halves, both trading on player exposure. The first part leverages claustrophobia as you battle your way through underground chaos with a combat shotgun. The second is a crazy sort of platforming / challenge gauntlet. You'll want as much health as possible going into it as the teleporter dumps you into what is basically another hot start, this one leaving you at the instant mercy of a pair of shotgun guys, a commando, and a lost soul. I had some fun in the second area, but it feels like its opening moves carve your health down pretty sharply. I'm just glad that you can snipe the megasphere block from across the rocket platforms. The previous TMD map had a fake staircase to nowhere to lovingly troll the player. I knew that the doorway I got dumped at was suspect, especially since I hadn't done anything with the yellow key door, but I had to check it out. I can't say that I was surprised when I encountered a death trap. It's not like it isn't in keeping with the dickish encounter design.

MAP24	Bowser's Daddy's Dungeon
by Matt Cibulas aka "RottKing"
	This is another levels whose primary portions, the "outdoor" segments, remind me of Mario Kart tracks. It's got a lot of lowkey awkward combat situations, one of the first in my mind being the pain elemental who spawns alongside the thwomp platforming gauntlet. It didn't really kick into gear for me until I reached the inner sanctum with its tiered playing areas, rocket launcher in hand. I liked the mindfuck linked hallways in the northeast portion of the castle. I also enjoyed the bit with the shootable switch that opens up the path by which you can access the pipe to the inner area. The exit line was a cute touch.

Bastille Bowser	MAP25
by Justin Kelly aka "Breezeep"
Okay, this is just a plain fun shoot-'em-up level. Gorgeous old world style city layout, tons of verticality for inquisitive platformers, and lots of rocket launcher action. Oh, not that you want to miss out on the semi-secret SSG. The final big brawl even has plenty of opportunity to set up a massive infighting situation which might conclude with a "Gotcha!" encounter. One of my favorite details is a view into a bedroom; such a cute bit of worldbuilding. I liked the finale, but there are a couple of other good standout teleport invasions. The second offers a lot of room for you to bat around the cacodemons and one pain elemental, so I think that I had the most fun with it.

MAP26	Bowser in the Black Abyss
by Michael Fraize aka "Marcaek" and "rd"
	As is often the case when engaging with authors known for high skill ceiling style difficulty, I was at a loss in imagining exactly where this level was headed. This is a challenging and fun battle through Bowser's castle, concluding with the terrible turtle himself. One of the first things that you can do is challenge a Cyberdemon and his arch-vile not-best-friends for a BFG and a cadre of ammo in a secret. You can grab the shotgun and SSG right in front of you before you visit the BFG, by the way. Don't do what I did and assume that you're in some sort of Hellish challenge encounter where you want to manipulating Cybie into aggroing and then pasting the first two arch-viles. There is very little incidental combat, with most of the fights being locked-in brawls. I had fun figuring out the positioning and maneuvering strats for most of them. It's a very rocket-centric level, so there's always some danger in splatting yourself. I really enjoyed the player pressure in the east wing, the one in the figure 8 shape, and the northern, penultimate battle with the monster boxes. That one, though, you'll want the BFG for, so that you can zerg the two viles down ASAP. The battle with Big Bowser is another fun rocket arena. I was anxiously awaiting an arch-vile wave during the fight, but it's pretty merciful. Instead, the authors conspired to inject a lot of urgency into the latter stages of the encounter by injecting zombie hordes of shotgun guys and chaingunners into the proceedings. It's kind of a dick move as you're liable to miss a commando or two in all the chaos and then watch your health quickly fade. I appreciate the corner platforms, allowing you to sacrifice a little health and armor for a momentary maneuverability route. Bowser himself is... Well, he looks great, and he basically spams mancubus fireballs. He is largely a nonentity during the slaughter as he is too busy torching the critters that have the misfortune of infighting with him. When they're all dead, he's not all that fun to fight on his own, but doing anything more complex would likely involve linedef and sector trickery and defeat the concept of going toe to toe with the big guy in Doom. It's great to have him for what he is.

Congratulations!	MAP27
by "leodoom85"
If you're not in a port that supports ZMAPINFO or EMAPINFO then you'll get to see the BOSSBACK graphic from the first person. Thanks, leodoom85! And thank you, Super MAYhem 17 team!

MARIO!

PREPARE YOURSELF FOR THE GREAT BEYOND!